The futility of Intelligent Desgin
TomS
in Intelligent Design theory. After listening to Michael Behe debate
with Michael Reiss for Premier Radio on Monday afternoon I think I
have found two more.
"The first is particular to Behe. At one point, he said that all of
the things that seem to him evidence of ID could have been produced
by the operation of natural laws, however improbably."
Andrew Brown's Blog
"The futility of Intelligent Design"
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/nov/23/religion-christianity>
--
---Tom S.
Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold,
with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead
The Crime of Galileo (1976) by Giorgio De Santillana, p. 167
Robert Camp
> "Other people have pointed out the theological and scientific flaws
> in Intelligent Design theory. After listening to Michael Behe debate
> with Michael Reiss for Premier Radio on Monday afternoon I think I
> have found two more.
> "The first is particular to Behe. At one point, he said that all of
> the things that seem to him evidence of ID could have been produced
> by the operation of natural laws, however improbably."
I like the part directly following,
"But in that case, what is all the fuss about? Why would acceptance of
his theory then constitute the greatest scientific revolution in
history, as both he and Michael Reiss later agreed it would? What
right do we have to demand that Science should reveal a universe that
seems to us probable?"
I would add "...especially when one considers that our current
perception of "probable" (per above) is more a reflection of parochial
intuition than anything resembling computation."
RLC
jillery
Probability is the smoke in Behe's smoke and mirrors routine. His
probabilities presume a series of events happening simultaneously,
which is not how evolution works. His mirrors are where Behe presumes
ID in order to demonstrate ID. People saw through Behe's magic act
from the beginning. I don't know what kind of biochemist Behe is, but
I prefer Penn and Teller for the magic.
TomS
<b9511300-281b-4925...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
stated..."
What interested me is that he said that all the things could have been
produced by natural law. I don't know whether that "improbably" is the
usual thing about the tornado in a junkyard improbable.
I didn't care for the fact that this commentator referred to Behe's
*theory*, as if Behe had any theory.
"Maybe something's wrong with evolutionary biology" is not a theory.
jillery
> "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
Not having heard the debate, I don't know if Behe offered any new
evidence for ID. Its timing is such that he might have mentioned some
things from his new book. In the past, he has relied on IC, and his
own perception of purposeful design in biochemical systems. Too bad
for him, every single one of his examples for IC fails that standard,
including his new ones like Sickle-cell Anemia.
Behe says he accepts Descent with Modification, and Natural
Selection. His argument for ID rests on his discomfort with random
mutation. Since he admits that randomness exists, he is obliged to
come up with a different and objective test to separate those systems
which result from accumulated random change, and those systems which
result from purposeful design. Until then, ID has nothing but "it
looks purposefully designed to me!"
> I didn't care for the fact that this commentator referred to Behe's
> *theory*, as if Behe had any theory.
>
> "Maybe something's wrong with evolutionary biology" is not a theory.
"Maybe something's wrong with Behe" is just as meaningful.
> --
> ---Tom S.
> Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold,
> with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead
> The Crime of Galileo (1976) by Giorgio De Santillana, p. 167- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Frank J
But these scam artists know that most people - including many who
claim to accept evolution - can and do fall for that fallacy.
Sadly, critics too fall for IDers' games. While many of them have been
having a field day with Dembski's recent YEC-friendly comments, what
is going almost completely unnoticed is how he and Behe are
leapfrogging over each other toward an almost complete concession of
evolution:
1. Behe admits old life and common descent and proposes an " designed
ancestral cell."
2. Dembski admits that ID can accommodate all the "results" of
"Darwinism" and suggests that the design could have been inserted at
the Big Bang, rendering even a "designed" ancestral cell" unnecessary.
3. Behe (in "Edge of Evolution") indirectly admits that our species
did not necessarily require its own "design event."
And now this.
The most amazing part is that those most likely to rave about ID are
Biblical literalists who would find Behe's and Dembski's suggested
"what and when" scenarios completely unacceptable. Their abilities to
filter that out are more powerful than the explanatory filter of
Dembski's wildest dreams.
>
> --
> ---Tom S.
> Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold,
> with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead
Bob Casanova
appeared in talk.origins, posted by jillery
<69jp...@gmail.com>:
....and, for that matter, for the science.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
pnyikos
> On Nov 24, 7:40 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > stated..."
>
> > >On Nov 23, 3:25 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >> On Nov 23, 10:39 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > >> > "Other people have pointed out the theological and scientific flaws
> > >> > in Intelligent Design theory. After listening to Michael Behe debate
> > >> > with Michael Reiss for Premier Radio on Monday afternoon I think I
> > >> > have found two more.
> > >> > "The first is particular to Behe. At one point, he said that all of
> > >> > the things that seem to him evidence of ID could have been produced
> > >> > by the operation of natural laws, however improbably."
>
> > >> I like the part directly following,
>
> > >> "But in that case, what is all the fuss about? Why would acceptance of
> > >> his theory then constitute the greatest scientific revolution in
> > >> history, as both he and Michael Reiss later agreed it would?
A real hyperbole, that one. The Copernican revolution and the
Darwinian revolution [convenient names for the acceptance of the
earth's place in the universe and the evolution of life from very
modest beginnings, respectively] are greater than anything that can be
expected from the acceptance of ID.
> > >>What
> > >> right do we have to demand that Science should reveal a universe that
> > >> seems to us probable?"
I'm not sure what the questioner had in mind here.
> > >> I would add "...especially when one considers that our current
> > >> perception of "probable" (per above) is more a reflection of parochial
> > >> intuition than anything resembling computation."
Sorry, talk of probability is indispensible in science, and is quite
appropriate where ID is concerned.
> > >> RLC
>
> > >Probability is the smoke in Behe's smoke and mirrors routine. His
> > >probabilities presume a series of events happening simultaneously,
False.
> > >which is not how evolution works. His mirrors are where Behe presumes
> > >ID in order to demonstrate ID. People saw through Behe's magic act
> > >from the beginning.
And got shot down in turn. A classic case was the double gene
knockout misreading of an article by the world's greatest authority on
the evolution of hemoglobin, in which he thought it said that mice
that had two genes knocked out of the pathway were doing just fine.
He trumpeted his idiocy publicly, and only apologized for it privately
when last I heard.
> > What interested me is that he said that all the things could have been
> > produced by natural law. I don't know whether that "improbably" is the
> > usual thing about the tornado in a junkyard improbable.
It isn't. Someone named Julie posted some highly sophisticated stuff
here in talk.origins in the late 90's making that much clear. Julie's
expositions made Behe look like an amateur, but basically she was on
his side, and no one could refute her here.
> > I didn't care for the fact that this commentator referred to Behe's
> > *theory*, as if Behe had any theory.
He does. But it's not the most economical theory to fit the facts.
> > "Maybe something's wrong with evolutionary biology" is not a theory.
Of course not. It's a strawman.
> But these scam artists know that most people - including many who
> claim to accept evolution - can and do fall for that fallacy.
Strawman garbage out to go with the previous strawman garbage in.
> Sadly, critics too fall for IDers' games.
More strawmen ("games")?
> While many of them have been
> having a field day with Dembski's recent YEC-friendly comments,
What were they?
>what
> is going almost completely unnoticed is how he and Behe are
> leapfrogging over each other toward an almost complete concession of
> evolution:
Of course. Evolution is not where the main game is played. It is
primarily played in the origins of life on earth, seconarily in
abiogenesis, and only tertiarily in evolution once life is
established.
> 1. Behe admits old life and common descent and proposes an " designed
> ancestral cell."
That's a very good start. The main question is, who designed the
cell[s]. Back in the late 90's and 2000, I kept championing the
theory that the designers were an intelligent species that arose
naturally in another solar system billions of years ago. I still
endorse it.
> 2. Dembski admits that ID can accommodate all the "results" of
> "Darwinism" and suggests that the design could have been inserted at
> the Big Bang, rendering even a "designed" ancestral cell" unnecessary.
That's a new one on me. I'd like to see a reference.
> 3. Behe (in "Edge of Evolution") indirectly admits that our species
> did not necessarily require its own "design event."
Nor did any after the first eukaryote, possibly the first prokaryote.
> And now this.
>
> The most amazing part is that those most likely to rave about ID are
> Biblical literalists who would find Behe's and Dembski's suggested
> "what and when" scenarios completely unacceptable. Their abilities to
> filter that out are more powerful than the explanatory filter of
> Dembski's wildest dreams.
On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.
Ron O
> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
SNIP the junk that doesn't matter in the face of current reallity:
>
> On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.-
Is this really Nyikos? The only guys that still support the ID scam
are the ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest. You could prove me
wrong by explaining why it has been the guys that perpetrated the ID
scam that have been running the bait and switch on their own
creationist support base. Why would the ID perps run in a stupid
obfuscation switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
years before they lost in court if they had any type of valid argument
concerning ID?
Do you deny that the bait and switch has been going down since Ohio in
2003? Heck, the Dover creationist rubes claim that the ID perps tried
to run the bait and switch on them, but they wouldn't take the switch
scam and ID had its tragic day in court. If you do deny that the bait
and switch has been going down, how do you explain what happened in
Ohio and to every single school board and legislator that claimed to
want to teach the science of intelligent design since? The bait and
switch wasn't run on all these rubes by the science side of the
issue. Why hasn't any creationist rube ever gotten any ID science to
teach in all the years that the ID perps have been selling intelligent
design?
Try to find the intelligent desgin in the switch scam. The initial
drafts did mention the ID perps, and had creationist web links for the
students to use, but those all got dropped out of the final version.
They have two versions up on this site.
http://www.ohioscience.org/lesson-plans.shtml
What is the current creationist scam being perpetrated by the ID
perps? Why isn't intelligent design mentioned as part of any
scientific controversy that they claim to want to teach? These are
the same guys that sold intelligent design, right? It turns out that
the ID perps had been working up the switch scam since around 1999, so
they may have already decided to pull the bait and switch on their
supporters while you were still posting. How does that make you
feel? By 1999 they already had a pretty good idea that they had
nothing worth teaching. You mentioned Julie. Some people claim that
she became Mike Gene and Mike claims that he bailed out of the teach
ID scam in 1999. This just happens to be when the other ID perps
started to work up the teach the controversy switch scam. You may
recall that some of us couldn't figure out why the ID perps were
starting to concentrate on the obfuscation ploy and were coming out
with books like Icons of Evolution that didn't seem to have much to do
with intelligent design. Do you have enough 20:20 hindsight to figure
it out for yourself?
Ron Okimoto
John Harshman
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
!
Robert Camp
> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Nov 24, 7:40 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > stated..."
>
> > > >On Nov 23, 3:25 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> On Nov 23, 10:39 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > > >> > "Other people have pointed out the theological and scientific flaws
> > > >> > in Intelligent Design theory. After listening to Michael Behe debate
> > > >> > with Michael Reiss for Premier Radio on Monday afternoon I think I
> > > >> > have found two more.
> > > >> > "The first is particular to Behe. At one point, he said that all of
> > > >> > the things that seem to him evidence of ID could have been produced
> > > >> > by the operation of natural laws, however improbably."
>
> > > >> I like the part directly following,
>
> > > >> "But in that case, what is all the fuss about? Why would acceptance of
> > > >> his theory then constitute the greatest scientific revolution in
> > > >> history, as both he and Michael Reiss later agreed it would?
(I'll just respond to those comments left in reply to my post.)
> A real hyperbole, that one. The Copernican revolution and the
> Darwinian revolution [convenient names for the acceptance of the
> earth's place in the universe and the evolution of life from very
> modest beginnings, respectively] are greater than anything that can be
> expected from the acceptance of ID.
Do you realize with whom you're agreeing here? The point was that it
was Behe who claimed eternal glory for himself.
> > > >> I would add "...especially when one considers that our current
> > > >> perception of "probable" (per above) is more a reflection of parochial
> > > >> intuition than anything resembling computation."
> Sorry, talk of probability is indispensible in science, and is quite
> appropriate where ID is concerned.
I'm sorry you're sorry, but talk of "probability" where it is not
applicable is entirely dispensible in science. Again, you seem to be
missing the point. No one disputes the appropriateness of true
measures of probability where relevant, but what Behe et al are
talking about when they muse upon how "improbable" this (universe/
solar system/planet/common descent etc.) is not data, it's inklings
and intuitions and gut feelings.
Of course this kind of misdirection is a huge part of the ID p.r.
machine, where fallacious "probability" arguments appeal to those
seeking to apply a patina of legitimacy to a baseless "theory."
RLC
hersheyh
> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Nov 24, 7:40 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > stated..."
>
>
> It isn't. Someone named Julie posted some highly sophisticated stuff
> here in talk.origins in the late 90's making that much clear. Julie's
> expositions made Behe look like an amateur, but basically she was on
> his side, and no one could refute her here.
Her posts were simply more sophisticated "I can't explain it.
Therefore god did it." arguments. More God of the Gaps.
> > > I didn't care for the fact that this commentator referred to Behe's
> > > *theory*, as if Behe had any theory.
>
> He does. But it's not the most economical theory to fit the facts.
What would this theory be? The idea that somehow all the future of
organisms was written in their code from the start of life and
retained magically since then? Or the idea that God magically and
only occasionally pops in to add something new into DNA?
[snip]
>
> Of course. Evolution is not where the main game is played. It is
> primarily played in the origins of life on earth, seconarily in
> abiogenesis, and only tertiarily in evolution once life is
> established.
What is the distinction between "the origins of life on earth" and
"abiogenesis"?
> > 1. Behe admits old life and common descent and proposes an " designed
> > ancestral cell."
>
> That's a very good start. The main question is, who designed the
> cell[s]. Back in the late 90's and 2000, I kept championing the
> theory that the designers were an intelligent species that arose
> naturally in another solar system billions of years ago. I still
> endorse it.
Which, of course, merely generates a "Who designed the designers?"
infinite recursiveness. Except we do not have a universe of infinite
age and it is difficult to imagine how the "designers" survived the
initial conditions of the forming universe.
> > 2. Dembski admits that ID can accommodate all the "results" of
> > "Darwinism" and suggests that the design could have been inserted at
> > the Big Bang, rendering even a "designed" ancestral cell" unnecessary.
>
> That's a new one on me. I'd like to see a reference.
>
> > 3. Behe (in "Edge of Evolution") indirectly admits that our species
> > did not necessarily require its own "design event."
>
> Nor did any after the first eukaryote, possibly the first prokaryote.
>
> > And now this.
>
> > The most amazing part is that those most likely to rave about ID are
> > Biblical literalists who would find Behe's and Dembski's suggested
> > "what and when" scenarios completely unacceptable. Their abilities to
> > filter that out are more powerful than the explanatory filter of
> > Dembski's wildest dreams.
>
> On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
I have not seen such "plausible scenarios" that amount to anything but
a shrug and the statement "...and here a miracle occurs." And, of
course, Julie and your fallback to God of the Gaps and merely putting
the initiation of life to "somewhere else".
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
John Harshman
No it doesn't. Peter is claiming that the designers arose naturally. The
advantage of this theory over the idea of life arising naturally on
earth is that he's free to posit (vaguely) a planet on which life
arising naturally would be more likely than on earth. Why this is
necessary was never explained.
> Except we do not have a universe of infinite
> age and it is difficult to imagine how the "designers" survived the
> initial conditions of the forming universe.
Not relevant, since he claims they arose in this universe. If I recall,
the Golgafringans, or Vogons, or whatever he called them, were RNA-based
organisms. Evidence? Shirley you're joking.
Paul J Gans
>!
Yup. That he is and that is he.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Paul J Gans
Xordaxians, IIRC. And don't call me Shirley, may he rest in peace.
el cid
For this foray into talk.origins, might I suggest you avoid such
assertions. Your prior suggestions have included various
absurdities like "lipid trilayers" and the like that did not engender
great confidence in your ability to craft, or even judge, what is
or isn't a plausible scenario.
Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
as you see it but more competent judges have been known
to disagree. Being so fulsome in your praise amounts to little
more than a distraction from any tangible issue. Others
will surely fill in space with ample editorializing but do you
see any benefit to your doing so? Or will it just produce more
heat than light?
John Harshman
Who can forget his discussion of the amino acid sequence of heme?
deadrat
You're asking for it now. You'll probably get that ignoramus RichD to weigh in
on how "fulsome" should always carry a negative connotation.
<snip/>
el cid
At least to the extent that it also showed how such mistakes
produce nothing but extended flamage and further that they
prevent any sort of useful discussions. The key point being to
restrict ones opinion to topics where one has an reasonably
informed opinion. This would seem to be especially important
when a reputation is there that will generate flames to the
opinion that the sky is blue.
John S. Wilkins
A List! A List! We're gonna have a List!
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, Bond University
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
John Stockwell
> > The most amazing part is that those most likely to rave about ID are
> > Biblical literalists who would find Behe's and Dembski's suggested
> > "what and when" scenarios completely unacceptable. Their abilities to
> > filter that out are more powerful than the explanatory filter of
> > Dembski's wildest dreams.
>
> On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
Hi Peter, How are you?
So what scenarios have you got? Maybe you could post a few for the
gang here.
I assume Julie = Mike Gene?
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.
-John
Paul J Gans
>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> >pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> >> Peter Nyikos
>> >> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>> >> University of South Carolina
>> >> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>
>> >!
>>
>> Yup. That he is and that is he.
>A List! A List! We're gonna have a List!
To port or burgundy?
John Harshman
and also, oddly enough, about mammal paleontology.
pnyikos
> hersheyh wrote:
> > On Dec 2, 7:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >>> On Nov 24, 7:40 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> >>>> "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> >>>> <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> >>>> stated..."
> > [snip]
> >> It isn't. Someone named Julie posted some highly sophisticated stuff
> >> here in talk.origins in the late 90's making that much clear. Julie's
> >> expositions made Behe look like an amateur, but basically she was on
> >> his side, and no one could refute her here.
> >> Of course. Evolution is not where the main game is played. It is
> >> primarily played in the origins of life on earth, seconarily in
> >> abiogenesis, and only tertiarily in evolution once life is
> >> established.
>
> > What is the distinction between "the origins of life on earth" and
> > "abiogenesis"?
>
> >>> 1. Behe admits old life and common descent and proposes an " designed
> >>> ancestral cell."
> >> That's a very good start. The main question is, who designed the
> >> cell[s]. Back in the late 90's and 2000, I kept championing the
> >> theory that the designers were an intelligent species that arose
> >> naturally in another solar system billions of years ago. I still
> >> endorse it.
>
> > Which, of course, merely generates a "Who designed the designers?"
> > infinite recursiveness.
>
> No it doesn't.
Of course it doesn't. And Hershey knows that, and knows the
distinction between abiogenesis and the origins of life on earth, but
he is what I call a Usenet Treadmill Salesman and tries to make me go
back over ground that he pretends never existed.
> Peter is claiming that the designers arose naturally. The
> advantage of this theory over the idea of life arising naturally on
> earth is that he's free to posit (vaguely) a planet on which life
> arising naturally would be more likely than on earth. Why this is
> necessary was never explained.
"never"? Try going back to my posts of 1996-2000. If you lack the
stamina, I can start rehashing my old arguments and maybe adding a
few.
But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
likely origin of life ON EARTH?
1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
species that ever arose in the galaxy.
2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
3. Seeding of the earth by a technologically advanced (though not
necessarily any more advanced than ourselves) species.
A few months ago, I read of a planet somewhat like our earth orbiting
a red dwarf. It orbits with one side facing its sun all the time, so
life is unlikely to arise there:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths
But we could terraform the "twilight zone" by sending prokaryotes
there. If our sun expands to make life miserable on earth, and then
contracts to a white dwarf, this might be one place where our species,
if it is still around, can go on to exist for a 100 billion or more
years -- red dwarfs have a very long life span.
Some other species, ca. 4.5 billion years ago, might have had similar
designs on the earth, but has since then either gone extinct or found
an even more suitable place for themselves.
> > Except we do not have a universe of infinite
> > age and it is difficult to imagine how the "designers" survived the
> > initial conditions of the forming universe.
> Not relevant, since he claims they arose in this universe.
9 billion years is a long time. It was one of the reasons Francis
Crick found scenario 3 appealing. It was his book, _Life Itself_,
that first made me think seriously of directed panspermy. [I prefer
that spelling to "panspermia" since I don't want it confused with Brig
Kllyce's pet theory.] I've added a few arguments to the ones he and
Orgel gave for it.
> If I recall,
> the Golgafringans, or Vogons, or whatever he called them, were RNA-based
> organisms.
I called them Throomians, but that was just one possibility; the other
was a species like ourselves, with the same basic biochemistry [which
they passed on to us, so to speak].
> Evidence? Shirley you're joking.
Reasoning as above is my forte. And where is the evidence for 1. or
2.?
Can anyone do better than, "Mother Earth did it, this I know, for
Ockham's Razor tells me so."?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
It was a question, not a suggestion. Later it was quoted out of
context to create the impression that I thought OUR cells had them.
It was a question in response to Wolfgang Dachs asking me just how
lipid bilayers were supposed to arise in an RNA based life form.
As to the actual answer, what have protein enzymes got in the way of
lipid bilayer forming ability that ribozymes cannot have?
> Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
> as you see it but more competent judges have been known
> to disagree.
Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
competent than he?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
I once put forth a plausible scenario how bats could have arisen.
People nitpicked at such things as me putting in the detail (just to
give the scenario a little color, for goodness sake!) of them arising
on an island about the size of Borneo.
No one ever tried to come up with an alternative scenario. The
creationists who write ABEKA biology books must be very secure in the
knowledge that even people of talk.origins aren't the least bit
interested in trying to figure out how the intermediate steps between
dermopteran-analogue and bat could have had an advantage over their
immediate ancestors.
[...]
> Who can forget his discussion of the amino acid sequence of heme?
Come off it, John. There was no discussion of that. It was another
one of my many questions, and I quickly realized that a little
reflection could have kept me from ever asking it.
We should all be judged by the assertions we make, not the questions
we ask. [Rhetorical and loaded ones excepted, of course.] Perhaps
Usenet wouldn't be in such a sad shape if people adhered more to a
vision of what good it could do, rather than what clever and not-so-
clever put-downs people can do of each other.
What has happened to sci.bio.paleontology, for instance, is
heartbreaking.
I used to post fairly regularly to sci.bio.paleontology in 1995-2000
and it was a totally different newsgroup. We actually had professional
paleontologists posting from time to time, including one who rubbed
elbows with John Ostrom regularly. We also had a few kooky True
Believers in cladistics who had no respect for the insights of old-
time taxonomists who tried to be faithful to Linnean classification.
I don't miss them but I miss a lot of others.
Now it is almost exclusively the doman of spammers.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On Dec 2, 5:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > The most amazing part is that those most likely to rave about ID are
> > > Biblical literalists who would find Behe's and Dembski's suggested
> > > "what and when" scenarios completely unacceptable. Their abilities to
> > > filter that out are more powerful than the explanatory filter of
> > > Dembski's wildest dreams.
>
> > On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> > rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> Hi Peter, How are you?
>
> So what scenarios have you got? Maybe you could post a few for the
> gang here.
I'd like to test the waters here before really going into detail. I
have had my hands full for two years refuting trumped-up charges in
the abortion newsgroups. I have no desire to fight a war on two
fronts.
> I assume Julie = Mike Gene?
Julie left without ever telling us who [s]he was, long before I quit
Usenet posting cold turkey in 2001. [ I only resumed in November
2008.] Did [s]he ever surface again?
John Harshman
Your paranoia is one of your least endearing qualities. Word to the wise.
>> Peter is claiming that the designers arose naturally. The
>> advantage of this theory over the idea of life arising naturally on
>> earth is that he's free to posit (vaguely) a planet on which life
>> arising naturally would be more likely than on earth. Why this is
>> necessary was never explained.
>
> "never"? Try going back to my posts of 1996-2000. If you lack the
> stamina, I can start rehashing my old arguments and maybe adding a
> few.
I do indeed lack the stamina. Perhaps a short summary?
> But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
> likely origin of life ON EARTH?
>
> 1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
> species that ever arose in the galaxy.
>
> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
>
> 3. Seeding of the earth by a technologically advanced (though not
> necessarily any more advanced than ourselves) species.
>
> A few months ago, I read of a planet somewhat like our earth orbiting
> a red dwarf. It orbits with one side facing its sun all the time, so
> life is unlikely to arise there:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths
> But we could terraform the "twilight zone" by sending prokaryotes
> there. If our sun expands to make life miserable on earth, and then
> contracts to a white dwarf, this might be one place where our species,
> if it is still around, can go on to exist for a 100 billion or more
> years -- red dwarfs have a very long life span.
>
> Some other species, ca. 4.5 billion years ago, might have had similar
> designs on the earth, but has since then either gone extinct or found
> an even more suitable place for themselves.
Certainly possible, and there have been many SF stories to that effect.
But I don't recall your arguments for why option 3 would be probable
compared to any homegrown abiogenesis.
> Reasoning as above is my forte. And where is the evidence for 1. or
> 2.?
Wrong question. Where is the evidence that makes 3 preferable to 1 or 2?
> Can anyone do better than, "Mother Earth did it, this I know, for
> Ockham's Razor tells me so."?
Perhaps. If earth was seeded, why no other planet of the solar system?
Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect? Why seed only
with prokaryotes and leave the system alone for the next 4 billion
years? And if there were enough aliens to seed the galaxy 4 billion
years ago, why aren't there any showing themselves now? Negative
evidence suggests that seeding-capable (or seeding-interested, if you
like) life must be quite rare.
Another reason to prefer the homegrown theory is that panspermy doesn't
lead to any interesting research, but origin-of-life research has been
fruitful.
John Harshman
> We also had a few kooky True
> Believers in cladistics who had no respect for the insights of old-
> time taxonomists who tried to be faithful to Linnean classification.
> I don't miss them but I miss a lot of others.
You may recall that I was one of the kooky True Believers in cladistics.
pnyikos
> On Dec 2, 6:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> SNIP the junk that doesn't matter in the face of current reallity:
> > On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> > rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> > The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> > representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.-
>
> Is this really Nyikos?
Yes.
[Snip of allegeations of scams of which I know nothing.]
Any Discovery Institute bigwigs implicated? Who, and in what way?
A few links to websites about THEIR activities might be a start. Your
ramblings are a non-starter, your link gives no hint of their
involvement.
> http://www.ohioscience.org/lesson-plans.shtml
[No, I did not click on the voluminous links in the website. If
Discovery Institute was not involved, I'm not interested.]
[Snip vague rumor about Julie, who left with the message that she was
losing her IP, long before I stopped posting to talk.origins in 2000.]
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
Listen, John. I'm willing and eager to let bygones be bygones with
everyone on Usenet who hasn't crossed me in over 7 years, EXCEPT for
Howard Hershey. He posted the most dangerous libels and half-truths
about me of anyone, ever, BY FAR, right before I was scheduled to go
Down Under for a vacation.
Paranoia is not a word to use in reference to a mild put-down of
someone who could have permanently destroyed my reputation, in Usenet
and out of it, had his libels not been exposed and countered.
I lack the stamina to do a rehash this week. And I've made a practice
of not posting to Usenet on weekends except in the most extraordinary
circumstances. Maybe a short one next week.
> > Can anyone do better than, "Mother Earth did it, this I know, for
> > Ockham's Razor tells me so."?
>
> Perhaps. If earth was seeded, why no other planet of the solar system?
How do you know it didn't happen?
> Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect?
Try asking that question in 2100; then we may have a usable
sample. :-)
>Why seed only
> with prokaryotes
Francis Crick: "Prokaryotes go farther". Reference: _Life Itself_.
[...]
> Another reason to prefer the homegrown theory is that panspermy doesn't
> lead to any interesting research,
Wrong. I see I DO need to rehash some old arguments, and present a
new one. But not today.
> but origin-of-life research has been
> fruitful.
Apply it to the great extrasolar universe, then. Why stick to Mother
Earth?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
Not one of the kooky ones, IIRC.
Peter Nyikos
John S. Wilkins
> Listen, John. I'm willing and eager to let bygones be bygones with
> everyone on Usenet who hasn't crossed me in over 7 years, EXCEPT for
> Howard Hershey. He posted the most dangerous libels and half-truths
> about me of anyone, ever, BY FAR, right before I was scheduled to go
> Down Under for a vacation.
And you never got in touch for that coffee we were going to have!
John Harshman
Oh, sorry, I thought it was a unitary phrase. I don't have any respect
for the insights of old-time taxonomists who tried to be faithful to
Linnean classification, you know. At least not for that reason. Take
Leigh Van Valen, for example: great scientist, hopeless on classification.
John Harshman
Obsessive inability to forget a slight is another of your least
endearing qualities. As I recall, you accused a great many posters of
being Howard's sock puppets. (To the extent that it's still, 10 years
later, a running gag on TO.)
Obsessive defensiveness is another. It were better you hadn't started,
but take this as well-meant advice: give it up now before you impress
the new generation in ways you don't want.
There are a couple possibilities, i.e Titan and Europa. But I think the
rest can be fairly ruled out at this point.
>> Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect?
>
> Try asking that question in 2100; then we may have a usable
> sample. :-)
No free oxygen anywhere so far. Why?
>> Why seed only
>> with prokaryotes
>
> Francis Crick: "Prokaryotes go farther". Reference: _Life Itself_.
> [...]
But what's the point?
>> Another reason to prefer the homegrown theory is that panspermy doesn't
>> lead to any interesting research,
>
> Wrong. I see I DO need to rehash some old arguments, and present a
> new one. But not today.
>
>> but origin-of-life research has been
>> fruitful.
>
> Apply it to the great extrasolar universe, then. Why stick to Mother
> Earth?
Because we have no data for anywhere else, perhaps.
Steven L.
"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:7dd5cb89-4578-4f05...@35g2000prb.googlegroups.com:
> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Nov 24, 7:40 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > stated..."
> >
> It isn't. Someone named Julie posted some highly sophisticated stuff
> here in talk.origins in the late 90's making that much clear. Julie's
> expositions made Behe look like an amateur, but basically she was on
> his side, and no one could refute her here.
>
> > > I didn't care for the fact that this commentator referred to Behe's
> > > *theory*, as if Behe had any theory.
>
> He does. But it's not the most economical theory to fit the facts.
>
> > > "Maybe something's wrong with evolutionary biology" is not a theory.
>
> Of course not. It's a strawman.
>
> > But these scam artists know that most people - including many who
> > claim to accept evolution - can and do fall for that fallacy.
>
> Strawman garbage out to go with the previous strawman garbage in.
>
>
>
> > Sadly, critics too fall for IDers' games.
>
> More strawmen ("games")?
>
> > While many of them have been
> > having a field day with Dembski's recent YEC-friendly comments,
>
> What were they?
>
>
> >what
> > is going almost completely unnoticed is how he and Behe are
> > leapfrogging over each other toward an almost complete concession of
> > evolution:
>
> Of course. Evolution is not where the main game is played. It is
> primarily played in the origins of life on earth, seconarily in
> abiogenesis, and only tertiarily in evolution once life is
> established.
No, not to the Christians--and Dembski is certainly a Christian.
Christians care even more about preserving the nature of Man as distinct
from animals--that Man was made "in the image of God," with "an immortal
soul."
So it's not just abiogenesis that the ID proponents are hinting they
don't like. It's also the idea that Man is just a highly evolved ape.
-- Steven L.
Stuart
When I first read that, I thought you wrote "vaccination".
But for me, I'd rather be slandered while I'm on vacation then
when I'm not on vacation.
Stuart
Ron O
> On Dec 2, 7:59 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 2, 6:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > SNIP the junk that doesn't matter in the face of current reallity:
> > > On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> > > rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> > > The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> > > representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.-
>
> > Is this really Nyikos?
>
> Yes.
>
> [Snip of allegeations of scams of which I know nothing.]
>
> Any Discovery Institute bigwigs implicated? Who, and in what way?
>
> A few links to websites about THEIR activities might be a start. Your
> ramblings are a non-starter, your link gives no hint of their
> involvement.
I didn't expect anything except abject denial. Pleading ignorance is
probably the best start that you could make.
>
> >http://www.ohioscience.org/lesson-plans.shtml
>
> [No, I did not click on the voluminous links in the website. If
> Discovery Institute was not involved, I'm not interested.]
Willful ignorance is incompetence, so you've hit two, plus the links
were not volumimous, they were links to the actual lesson plans. So
you seem to be all three of the qualifications to be an IDiot
(ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest).
>
> [Snip vague rumor about Julie, who left with the message that she was
> losing her IP, long before I stopped posting to talk.origins in 2000.]
>
> Peter Nyikos-
It was an informative rumor that you should take to heart about the
type of people that supported the ID scam, and how far out of it you
are.
How can there possibly be a serious ID supporter that doesn't know
what has happened to every single rube that bought into the scam and
claimed to have wanted to teach the science of intelligent design?
The bait and switch has been going down since 2003. Have you been
living under a rock? Try and find any school board or legislator that
has claimed to want to teach ID that ever got any ID science to teach.
You have the link to the switch scam so you can see for yourself that
it doesn't even mention that ID ever existed. There was a rube
legislator in Carolina that wanted to teach ID years ago (sometime
after 2003 and the start of the bait and switch), was he in your
State? Did you ever hear of him getting any ID science to teach? It
has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself. Just
Google and try to find a single instance where anyone ever got the
claimed ID science to teach. 100% is just that 100% bait and switch.
Really check out the switch scam. That is what the ID perps are
currently hawking. You are over half a decade out of the current
creationist scam.
Ron Okimoto
el cid
You're doing it again. Lipid bilayers form as a consequence of the
biophysical properties of some lipids in water. It is such basic
biochemistry that students loften earn this in high school or earlier.
There is every appearance that you don't understand such very
basic things and yet pontificate about likely scenarios for
abiogenesis. A man ought to understand his limits.
> > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
> > as you see it but more competent judges have been known
> > to disagree.
> Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
> competent than he?
First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired
of her game. And second, there were many others who
showed better understanding than Julie. She would dig
into a few systems and recite the names of various enzymes
or proteins but it was clear she was looking this stuff up
as she went along and pressing her own preconceptions
on them. She admitted as much.
The exasperating thing was she would find she was on
the wrong track and then invent a modified form with special
pleading. Dealing with authentic ignorance is one thing
but dealing with willful pigheadedness in someone of one
otherwise prepared to understand is another.
Her "thematic IC" was one example of such pigheadedness.
Her analysis of Krebs cycle was another. In that, she
reinvented IC to require physical interrelatedness of
interacting metabolic pathways as a new requirement
of IC just to avoid Krebs cycle qualifying as IC.
Of course blood clotting doesn't meet that but she
was more interested in rescuing a failed line of
argumentation than in an honest analysis.
When such special pleading became so obvious, the
novelty of someone who wasn't grossly ignorant wore off.
Mark Isaak
> On Dec 3, 6:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> On Dec 2, 4:23 pm, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
>> > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world as
>> > you see it but more competent judges have been known to disagree.
>
>> Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
>> competent than he?
>
> First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired of her
> game.
I think leaving the game might reasonably be regarded as conceding. What
Nyikos does not get is that the field he conceded was a share of a USENET
thread, no more. Not a terribly noteworthy or valuable field.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume
alextangent
>
> Obsessive defensiveness is another. It were better you hadn't started,
> but take this as well-meant advice: give it up now before you impress
> the new generation in ways you don't want.
>
I'm impressed already. This could turn into something quite special,
I'm sure.
[snipped]
Ron O
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 2, 6:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > SNIP the junk that doesn't matter in the face of current reallity:
> > > On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> > > rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> > > The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> > > representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.-
>
> > Is this really Nyikos?
>
> Yes.
>
> [Snip of allegeations of scams of which I know nothing.]
>
> Any Discovery Institute bigwigs implicated? Who, and in what way?
>
I forgot to address this question. The fact that anyone would try to
defend the intelligent design scam and not know what the major
perpetrators have been up to for the past 8 years should tell anyone
just what kind of people that the ID perps rely on for support.
Nykos missed the Ohio fiasco, so I will try to recollect the salient
facts.
Creationists gained control of the Ohio State board of education. At
the end of 2002 they made a big deal about teaching intelligent design
science to Ohio school kids. In early 2003 they invited the Discovery
Institute's top ID perp (director of the Discovery Institute's ID scam
outfit) Meyer and senior fellow Wells to tell them about the science
of ID. They also screwed up and invited a couple of real scientists
(Miller was one). The newspaper accounts claimed that the ID perps at
first tried to lie and claimed that ID was science but after the real
scientists had their say they had to admit that ID was only science in
their own minds and that nearly all scientists disagreed with them.
Meyer then ran the bait and switch ont the Ohio rubes. To my
knowledge this was the first public outright scam that the Discovery
Institute ran. Things had usually blown over before the switch scam
had to be run in, but it was too late for Ohio and the bait and switch
had to go down. Instead of any ID science to teach Meyer gave the
Ohio creationist rubes the "teach the controversy" scam. The real
problem with the switch scam was that it was being perpetrated by the
ID scam artists, but it didn't mention intelligent design as being any
part of any controversy that was teachable.
Both major ID perp scam outfits were involved up to their necks in
Ohio. The ID network and the Discovery Institute. When the board
found out that there was not ID science to teach, some members of the
board tried to get Ohio to change the definition of science. Sad, but
true. This motion was never acted on by the Ohio State board of
education and was quitely dropped off the agenda. Not willing to give
up the Ohio board bent over and took the switch scam from the guys
that had just lied to their faces about intelligent design. The ID
Network became heavily involved in writing up the switch scam lesson
plan, so both ID organizations knew that the bait and switch was going
down and both participated in the scam.
As sad as it may sound, the ID perps had been claiming to be able to
teach the science of intelligent design since the mid 1990's , but
they never bothered to write up a lesson plan to demonstrate that they
had anything worth teaching. It turned out that they had been working
on the switch scam since 1999, but to be consistent, they had never
bothered to write up a switch scam lesson plan either. So one had to
be made up on the fly. The first draft of the Ohio lesson plan was a
major embarassment. It was obvioius that a lot of it came out of
Wells' book Icons of Evolution and Wells was cited in the references.
They also screwed up and had creationist web links as additional
teaching materials and most bogus of all they had the misfortune of
taking one of the lies straight out of Wells' book about no mothes on
tree trunks. The second draft fixed all that and removed any mention
of the Discovery Institute or its fellows.
They have both versions of the lesson plan here: Nykos might want to
read them this time just to determine how much intelligent design
science the ID perps are willing to teach (what should zero tell any
thinking human being?). The final draft drops all mention that the ID
perps even exist, and the Intelligent Design Network assisted in
writing it.
http://www.ohioscience.org/lesson-plans.shtml
So by 2003 both of the major creationist ID scam outfits had given up
on teaching the nonexistent science of intelligent design. Wisconsin
and Minnesota school boards soon followed Ohio in announcing that they
were going to teach the science of intelligent design too, and the
Discovery Institute had some write up where they claimed that one of
their lawyers had persuaded them to think twice about that. Over the
years it has always been the same. Whenever a legislator or school
board ignorant enough to not know ID is a scam, comes forward to teach
the junk the Discovery Institute are the guys that run the bait and
switch on them. The last major bait and switch happened in Florida
possibly two years ago where half a dozen county school boards came
out and claimed that they were going to teach the science of
intelligent design and several Florida legislators claimed that they
were going to write up the laws that would let them do that. I seem
to recall that the Discovery Institute sent Luskin to Florida to run
the bait and switch efforts since it was such a monumental fiasco in
the making. The bottom line is that no creationist rube has ever
gotten any ID science to teach. The Discovery Institute even tried to
run the bait and switch on the Dover rubes in 2005, but the Dover
school board wouldn't take the switch scam and the rest is history.
Ron Okimoto
hersheyh
So, let's consider what would be required for a one-back civilization
that could seed the earth with RNA-based microorganisms and why they
would even consider doing so.
The sun is an intermediate population I star. Population I stars in
our galaxy are relatively young stars (a few billion years) and are
differentiated from the older Population II stars, which only produce
the elements up to iron. Population I stars are produced from the
supernova remnants of the older metal-poor (population II) stars. The
young stars near the center of the Milky Way galaxy are more metal
rich than the stars (like our sun) toward the periphery. Further out
form the sun in the Milky Way are the 'disc population' stars which
are both younger and have less metal than the sun followed, in order,
by intermediate population II and halo population II stars that are
quite metal poor. Planets, especially terrestrial rather than gas
giant planets, are thought to require metal-rich stars in order to
form. That is a problem for any one-back civilization that you
hypothesize would have to form, unless you are positing that the
Xordaxians are from a different galaxy (which raises travel time
problems that dwarf those of travel within the Milky Way galaxy unless
you posit travel at near the speed of light. A metal poor "planet"
around a metal poor older Milky Way star would have a significant
problem in developing a interstellar technology with only the elements
at or below iron being commonly available. A gas planet does not seem
like a good site for Xordax, the Eden of abiogenesis.
Moreover, since it took about 3.8 billion to generate our present
level of technological civilization, that does represent a significant
fraction of the time that the universe and Milky Way existed. If it
does take about 4 billion years to 'evolve' a space-capable Xordaxian
from its "primal ooze" on its older planet, then that means Xordax's
sun must have formed about 10 billion years ago (our sun is about 5
billion years old). This in a universe that is only 14 billion years
old. It is likely that the Xordaxian sun, whichever galaxy it is in,
would be metal poor compared to our sun.
Assuming that Xordax can actually exist and actually did produce a
space civilization, we have the problem of how it could find and seed
the earth with its magic microbes at a time when the earth was not too
long ago solidified. Moreover, the atmosphere of the earth, the
geophysical nature of the planet, and the biota that could exist on
that earth was, to say the least, quite a bit different than the
current state of things. Assuming that the fastest the Xordaxians
could travel is about 1/10th the speed of light, it would take a
million years to cross the Milky Way and 28 million years to
Andromeda.
Which leads to ask why the Xordaxians would want to seed the very
young earth, which they either 'found' in time to seed or had
autonomous distributed robots that searched for such planets forming,
with anaerobic organisms without the hint of photosynthesis but only
chemosynthesis. Life that did not find some mechanism for generating
an energy which involved extracting the energy of the sun would not
exist for 4 billion years because they would run out of 'fuel'. Did
they somehow hope that the anaerobes would evolve into the present
planet? If I were to seed planets, I would seed them with tough
photosynthesizers right from the git go if that was the type of planet
I hoped to form.
> > Peter is claiming that the designers arose naturally. The
> > advantage of this theory over the idea of life arising naturally on
> > earth is that he's free to posit (vaguely) a planet on which life
> > arising naturally would be more likely than on earth. Why this is
> > necessary was never explained.
>
> "never"? Try going back to my posts of 1996-2000. If you lack the
> stamina, I can start rehashing my old arguments and maybe adding a
> few.
>
> But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
> likely origin of life ON EARTH?
>
> 1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
> species that ever arose in the galaxy.
Homegrown abiogenesis is the simplest hypothesis and has not been
refuted by any evidence I know of. Whether we are or aren't the only
technological species in our galaxy is pure speculation. There is no
evidence for nor any that clearly rules it out.
>
> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
Again, given that older stars, at least in our galaxy, tend to be even
more metal-poor, it is unlikely that stars 9 billion years older would
have the right composition to form a space-faring civilization, if not
life itself. Even stars formed 10 billion years ago (that is, twice
as long as the time since the formation of our sun) are likely to be
heavy metal poor. Especially in our galaxy. Might have better luck
with positing a sun not much older than ours, but, due to fortuitous
circumstances, had reduced the long lag time between formation of
primitive life and multicellular complex life (which took about 2.5
billion years on this planet).
> 3. Seeding of the earth by a technologically advanced (though not
> necessarily any more advanced than ourselves) species.
This would be quite a civilization... one that is willing to wait 5
billion years for a result. Our own sun will engulf the earth in
about 5 billion more years.
John Harshman
Hey, you should at least begin by admitting your initial mistake about
infinite regression. It would give you more credibility.
Anyway, Peter is conflating multiple questions here. Homegrown
abiogenesis is irrelevant to any question about the number of
civilizations in the galaxy.
>> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
>> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
>> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
>> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
Again, conflation of questions.
Ray Martinez
> On Dec 2, 6:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> > On the other hand, there are those like Julie and myself, who do not
> > rave but calmly put forth plausible scenarios.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
> > The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
> > representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.-
>
> are the ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest. You could prove me
> wrong by explaining why it has been the guys that perpetrated the ID
> scam that have been running the bait and switch on their own
> creationist support base. Why would the ID perps run in a stupid
> obfuscation switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
> years before they lost in court if they had any type of valid argument
> concerning ID?
>
> Do you deny that the bait and switch has been going down since Ohio in
> 2003? Heck, the Dover creationist rubes claim that the ID perps tried
> to run the bait and switch on them, but they wouldn't take the switch
> scam and ID had its tragic day in court. If you do deny that the bait
> and switch has been going down, how do you explain what happened in
> Ohio and to every single school board and legislator that claimed to
> want to teach the science of intelligent design since? The bait and
> switch wasn't run on all these rubes by the science side of the
> issue. Why hasn't any creationist rube ever gotten any ID science to
> teach in all the years that the ID perps have been selling intelligent
> design?
>
> Try to find the intelligent desgin in the switch scam. The initial
> drafts did mention the ID perps, and had creationist web links for the
> students to use, but those all got dropped out of the final version.
> They have two versions up on this site.http://www.ohioscience.org/lesson-plans.shtml
>
> What is the current creationist scam being perpetrated by the ID
> perps? Why isn't intelligent design mentioned as part of any
> scientific controversy that they claim to want to teach? These are
> the same guys that sold intelligent design, right? It turns out that
> the ID perps had been working up the switch scam since around 1999, so
> they may have already decided to pull the bait and switch on their
> supporters while you were still posting. How does that make you
> feel? By 1999 they already had a pretty good idea that they had
> nothing worth teaching. You mentioned Julie. Some people claim that
> she became Mike Gene and Mike claims that he bailed out of the teach
> ID scam in 1999. This just happens to be when the other ID perps
> started to work up the teach the controversy switch scam. You may
> recall that some of us couldn't figure out why the ID perps were
> starting to concentrate on the obfuscation ploy and were coming out
> with books like Icons of Evolution that didn't seem to have much to do
> with intelligent design. Do you have enough 20:20 hindsight to figure
> it out for yourself?
>
> Ron Okimoto
Key words: scam, perps, bait, switch, rubes.
Ray
Ron O
This must not be the guy that claimed that he was mentally competent
and did not have to respond to any of my posts. I hope the other Ray
doesn't know that you are using his name.
Is anyone trying to help you? Why not accept their help?
Ron Okimoto
el cid
I'm going to have to concur that Ron's post fairly well matches
my notion of propaganda. Not that it's a gross mis-characterization
but it lays it on heavy and seldom misses an opportunity to use
a term with a negative connotation. There's a rubric used to
cure some writers of overly flowery prose: the adjective is
the enemy of the noun (Voltaire). As a concept, it's worth
considering in the broader sense of poisoning a description
with too much personal perspective.
Ron O
The saddest thing of all is that it is all true. What would be
something is if anyone ever tried to defend the actions of the ID
perps instead of just saying that it isn't a nice thing to say. What
would be even better is if any of the ID perps bothered to try to
explain why they started running the bait and switch scam years before
they lost in court.
In my opinion something is wrong with the people that pretend that
their intellectual opponents are not beneath contempt when they are
beneath contempt and have been, not for weeks or months, but years. I
realize that in a political forum you have to pretend to be nice to
the scam artists, but this isn't a political forum and the truth is
simply the truth.
One of the saddest things about this whole mess is that the guys that
support the ID perps just go into denial and will not even try to
defend the actions of the ID perps. No explanations are attempted.
They don't even try to deny the reallity of the situation. They just
make comments about "perps" and "scam artists," but never deny it.
How sad is that?
I didn't start calling these guys ID perps and scam artists untill
they had been running the bait and switch scam for more than a year.
By Dover there was no doubt, after Dover, even less than none. The
Dover rubes no longer respect the ID perps at the Discovery Institute,
my guess is that if the Ohio rubes weren't so embarassed about what
happened to them that they would admit that they were ticked too.
Just think what Santorum thinks about the ID perps? Santorum had to
back off his support for the ID scam and then sound like he was flip
flopping in an election year because his consituents didn't know that
the bait and switch had already been going down for a couple of
years. The ID perps aren't running the bait and switch on the science
side of the issue, they are running the scam on their own creationist
support base.
I'd quit in a heartbeat when the ID perps stop running the bait and
switch. When do you think that will be? There was just another round
of it in Louisiana last month. Where is that intelligent design
science that the Louisiana creationist rubes thought existed that they
could teach?
Ron Okimoto
deadrat
While that's true, I think the real problem is that we've all gotten used to
"fair and balanced" journalism. Reporters don't report the facts if that
requires a judgment as to who's right and who's wrong. A typical story would
end, "Ron says ID is a scam, and the people we talked to at the Discovery
Institute says it's not. So there you have it."
> There's a rubric used to
> cure some writers of overly flowery prose: the adjective is
> the enemy of the noun (Voltaire).
You've got the wrong word here. A rubric is literally a heading, and by
extension a label for a category. What you've got is a rule of thumb or an
adage. And it's not a bad one; I just don't see its application to Ron's prose.
He doesn't use many descriptive adjectives at all: most of his adjectives are
definitional -- *intelligent* design, *obfuscation* ploy, *switch* scam,
*creationist* web links. I can only find two intensifiers -- *pretty* good idea
and *every* single school board. On the other hand, I think "*tragic* day in
court" is an admirable usage. Clearly Ron doesn't think it's tragic, just the
opposite, but he knows Dover was a disaster for the ID side.
> As a concept, it's worth
> considering in the broader sense of poisoning a description
> with too much personal perspective.
I don't think your adage "broadens" to fit your concept. But I take your point,
that his post might have wider appeal if it didn't have too much partisan (I
wouldn't say personal) perspective. But this is mostly a matter of epithets,
and perhaps Ron wasn't writing for a wider audience.
pnyikos
> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
You need to read the talk.origins FAQ, especially:
Question Don't you have to be an atheist to accept evolution?
Answer No. Many people of Christian and other faiths accept evolution
as the scientific explanation f\
or biodiversity. See the God and Evolution FAQ and the Interpretations
of Genesis FAQ.
The FAQ:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
>--and Dembski is certainly a Christian.
>
> Christians care even more about preserving the nature of Man as distinct
> from animals--that Man was made "in the image of God," with "an immortal
> soul."
The existence of a soul is a separate issue, not relevant to ID for
the forseeable future.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> John S. Wilkins <j...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>
> >Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >> >pnyikos wrote:
>
> >> >> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >> >> University of South Carolina
> >> >>http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>
>
> >> Yup. That he is and that is he.
> >A List! A List! We're gonna have a List!
>
> To port or burgundy?
You always did list heavily to port, Paul. That's one of the things
D. Spencer Hines disliked about you.
Do you think he listed too heavily to starboard?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> It
> has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself.
If you retract the false and baseless claim that I am a creationist,
I'll start taking the things you say about other people seriously.
Peter Nyikos
Ron O
I am not writing to a wider audience. If I were I would spend the
time to outline what the current scams are and call them dishonest
political ploys (exactly what they are). Here I just write to get the
clueless like Nykos to at least get mad enough to look into the issue
himself and determine that that everything I write is true. As it is
they all just go into denial like Kalk, Sean, Ray, Pags etc. and lie
to themselves about it, so I keep reminding them that they are lying
to themselves and that they can't deny it. Everytime I get a response
like Ray's I know that the poor guy had to face reality for just a
second and had to flinch enough to go into denial. If they could
counter, someone would have by now. That no one has even attempted to
explain the ID Perp bait and switch scam is telling.
I have been calling it the bait and switch scam and the ID perps scam
artists since 2004, but not a single IDiot has even tried to deny that
the bait and switch has been going down or that the ID perps are scam
artists. More than anything else that tells you what kind of people
the dishonest ID perps rely on for support.
Ron Okimoto
el cid
I'm sorry. I should know better than to make gentle with
self-righteous indignation. Your style is not only justified,
it is a moral imperative, right? The fact that it is self defeating
is really the fault of anyone who doesn't adopt your way
of thinking.
Nevertheless, constantly repeating "perps" pounds out
your opinion with a sledge hammer. You sound like
a zealous cop bragging about how he busted an old
woman stealing cat food for her dinner. I'm not saying
there's a moral equivalence, I'm saying your style
evokes one. If I were to cast you in "The Life of Brian"
you would be as part of The Judean People's Front
in the crack suicide squad.
Ron O
Nykos, I am a creationist. I'm just not a creationist rube the fell
for the ID scam. If you are a Christian (as I suspect) or some other
religion like Kalk's hinduism, so are you. If not I will retract.
You do babble on about space aliens, so you may just be a plain old
rube that fell for a scam, but the ID perps babble on about space
aliens too. They only do it to sound sciency and fool a few people.
There is no doubt that a non creationist IDiot could exist, they just
don't usually post to TO.
Isn't it sad that you have to obfuscate the issue instead of address
it? You might want to read my response to deadrat below (it hasn't
shown up yet). I was probably working on it as you posted this basic
indirect denial post. I'm not clairvoiant, you are just following the
pattern of all the other IDiots before you. So just tell me that you
don't believe in some type of supernatural creator and I will
retract. I'd really like someone to try to explain the bait and
switch scam from an IDiots perspective. Any type of IDiot rube will
do.
Ron Okimoto
Ron O
You should read my response to deadrat. It hasn't been self
defeating. What has been a losing proposition seems to have been the
alternative. The IDiots know exactly where I stand and not a single
one will challenge the issue head on. It should be easy to counter
vicious untrue propaganda, but they can't do it for the simple reason
that what I claim is true. Even if they don't believe the persistent
occurance of the bait and switch over the years, they have the option
of getting their local school board to teach the science of
intelligent design, and they can experience the bait and switch first
hand.
I don't have to guess that the IDiots realize on some level that they
have been had. Just look at Kalk. Others claim that he is half way
intelligent, and what has he been reduced to doing to respond to
reallity? Just the fact that he has to respond in that fashion can
tell most people with a modicum of mental ability that the guy is
lying to himself. The only ones that would disagree are the ones that
are lying to themselves about reality too. Any sane and competent
honest person would try to counter. They would have some claim that
the bait and switch hasn't been going down. Since it has been going
down and there is no denying that, they would have some explanation
for why the bait and switch has been going down that makes it platable
to them, so that they can still believe that the ID science that
doesn't exist really does exist. They have to have some excuse, but
all they can do is go into denial and lie to themselves.
The ID perps at the Discovery Institute are still claiming to have a
scientific theory of Intelligent design. They may have taken it off
their main page, but Glenn found it on another web site that they link
to, and likely belongs to them. They are still using intelligent
design as the bait to run the switch. As Nykos will find out if he
looks into the issue, the switch scam doesn't even mention that
intelligent design ever existed. How could an honest person accept
that reality and still believe that intelligent design is a legitimate
endeavor? Nykos has just claimed that he will address the issue. We
might get some idea of what these guys think is going on.
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
Why would the guys responsible for writing this have to run the bait
and switch on every rube that has ever believed them and claimed to
want to teach the science of intelligent design?
Ron Okimoto
el cid
Who ever said your propaganda was untrue?
I'm just saying it has a stink to it that turns me off, and
I suspect turns off others, even when we are
initially sympathetic. If it turns off someone who is
sympathetic, what do you think it does to someone
who is not? You are going to "force" someone to see
reality? Really? And you think that's working?
Do conjure up that cop arresting a woman for
shoplifting her catfood dinner. He is oh so proud
and expecting people to pat him on the back for
his defense of Truth, Justice and The American
Way. How do you get through to that guy to let
him know that despite the fact that shoplifting is
a crime, tazing her, handcuffing her, and hauling
her down to the station won't earn him a medal?
How do I break through his obsession that he
is righteously fighting the good fight and therefore
is right in all he does?
I agree that ID "leaders" play a bait and switch
scam, are manipulative, and less than honest.
I expect they self-justify because they think
they are fighting for a greater good and that
blinds them to the effect of their actions. See
any parallel? Get past your intent and listen
to your effect.
Steven L.
"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:8bb2c3fa-ec26-4af9...@y19g2000prb.googlegroups.com:
I read it,
And you missed my point.
The notion of Man as made in the image of God isn't just something that
creationists or Christian ID proponents believe. It's basic to Judaism
and Christianity.
And the concept of Man as somehow unique and apart from the rest of the
animals on Earth is less compatible with modern evolutionary biology
than the notion that God "did something" to cause some molecules on the
primordial Earth to come together and start replicating.
Because while this abiogenesis event may have been a one-time
non-repeatable event, we have plenty of evidence of many different
hominids in the last 5 million years. Homo Sapiens almost didn't make
it; for a time there we were down to a few thousand individuals like any
endangered species.
-- Steven L.
pnyikos
> On Dec 6, 5:53 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 3, 9:28 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > It
> > > has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself.
>
> > If you retract the false and baseless claim that I am a creationist,
> > I'll start taking the things you say about other people seriously.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Nykos, I am a creationist.
What is your definition of a creationist? Mine is someone who
disbelieves in common descent of all organisms from a few simple ones
(unicellular or at best colonies of cells with little organization),
and posits a supernatural being creating new orders of organisms.
> I'm just not a creationist rube the fell
> for the ID scam.
So what is your position? Are you a creationist according to my
definition? I am not one.
Even if you have a wholly different definition for "creationist", I do
not fit the description of "creationist rube" by any stretch of the
words. I first became interested in the concept of ID as it is
currently understood about fourteen years ago, from reading two books:
Christian deDuve's _Vital Dust_ and Nobel Laureate Francis Crick's
_Life Itself_. I only heard about Behe and the ID movement about a
year afterwards.
The following words by Crick sold me on my brand of ID, which I've
consistently championed throughout my posting to talk.origins:
The senders could well have developed wholly new strains of
microorganisms, specially designed to cope with prebiotic
conditions, though whether it would have been better to try to
combine all the desirable properties within one single type
of organism or to send many different organisms is not
completely clear.
--Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, _Life Itself_
Simon and Schuster, 1981
The "senders" to which Crick refers are hypothetical directed
panspermists: intelligent creatures of almost 4 billion years
ago who sent microorganisms to earth, which according to the
hypothesis had an ocean rich in amino acids and various
other organic materials but no living things as yet. He developed
this
hypothesis together with Leslie Orgel. He doesn't claim
this is more likely or less likely than life arising here
spontaneously,
precisely because he doesn't know what the odds are.
But I have developed a few ideas for supporting the theory of directed
panspermy besides those developed by Crick and Orgel, and IMHO it is
the best explanation for the way "life as we know it" is organized.
It was only well after reading these two books [the first of which had
the exact opposite of its intended effect on me] that I heard of
Michael Behe, Irreducible Complexity, and the Discovery Institute. I
think Behe is missing out on a good thing by not focusing on the
protein translation mechanism as something which perhaps WAS
irreducibly complex (with a one-to-one correspondence between codons
and synthetases) at some early point in time, but evolved to the
somewhat sloppy condition we see now.
Note, I do not claim it was that way; it may have already been sloppy
(by our perhaps ignorant standards) when the panspermists seeded our
planet.P
> If you are a Christian (as I suspect) or some other
> religion like Kalk's hinduism, so are you.
I am a Christian out of commitment and hope, rather than out of
conviction that Christianity MUST be true, which I've lacked since
the age of 23. And, like St. Augustine, I do not take the opening
chapters of Genesis to be more than a myth.
Does your mysterious personal definition of "creationist" stretch to
cover that?
> If not I will retract.
I await your reply.
I've deleted the rest of your post, which only piles on the things you
need to retract before I start to take seriously the things you say
about others.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
So you think. My way of wording questions is heavily influenced by my
thirtysomething years as a researcher in set-theoretic topology. We
regularly take the empty set into account.
> Lipid bilayers form as a consequence of the
> biophysical properties of some lipids in water.
And so, the answer to my question is, "None, because protein enzymes
don't play a role in their formation." Thank you. That's the most
favorable answer from my POV. It clears the air for a final,
definitive answer to the old question of "Tungsten Badger" [literal
English translation of the moniker "Wolfram Dachs"].
And that is this: his reason for asking the question is that while
protein-surrounded pores have a natural affinity for lipid bilayers,
ribozymes would have the wrong pH for that--at least, that's the way I
remember it. But in an RNA world with advanced RNA-based organisms,
such as the intelligent creatures postulated in one of my scenarios,
those proteins could still be there, because they are structural
proteins built to much less exacting standards than enzymes.
And the "protein takeover" that every non-creationist posting to t.o.,
except for me, seems to take as an article of faith of the "Mother
Earth did it EASILY" sort, requires an extremely precise fit between
synthetases and tRNA. No one has ever addressed how that precise fit
could reasonably have come about in a mere 500 million or fewer years
without intelligent design.
> > > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
> > > as you see it but more competent judges have been known
> > > to disagree.
> > Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
> > competent than he?
>
> First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired
> of her game.
What game? It seems that you have bought into a lot of Ron O's babble
about bait and switch, perps, etc. while disapproving of the way he
expresses himself. Have you also bought into the scuttlebutt that
Julie was playing some sort of creationist game?
Have you also bought into the scuttlebutt that I am a creationist?
Moran did aggressively accuse Julie of playing a game -- at first.
But as time went on and she fielded every objection of his, he backed
away slowly.
>And second, there were many others who
> showed better understanding than Julie.
I followed the debate quite closely, and I was totally oblivious to
anyone fitting that description.
Who did you have in mind? Were you even around at the time (well
before 2000)?
If you name PZ Myers, Hershey, and Silberstein, the kindest thing I
could say about you is that you don't know what the hell you are
talking about.
> She would dig
> into a few systems and recite the names of various enzymes
> or proteins but it was clear she was looking this stuff up
> as she went along and pressing her own preconceptions
> on them. She admitted as much.
I'd love to see you try to document this. It should be good for a few
laughs.
[...]
> Her analysis of Krebs cycle was another. In that, she
> reinvented IC to require physical interrelatedness of
> interacting metabolic pathways as a new requirement
> of IC just to avoid Krebs cycle qualifying as IC.
I've got news for you: the Krebs cycle doesn't fit Behe's definition,
which predates Julie Thomas's.
And more news: the Krebs cycle was a strawman proposed by anti-ID
propagandists for the express purpose of immediately knocking it
down. I believe Keith Robison started that ball rolling.
I have a great deal of respect for Robison -- he was perhaps the most
levelheaded and certainly the most competent critic of ID I've ever
heard of, in t.o. or out of it -- but he couldn't even get the
definition of irreducible complexity right for the longest time.
> When such special pleading became so obvious, the
> novelty of someone who wasn't grossly ignorant wore off.-
You seem to be relying exclusively on scuttlebutt for this last bit.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:34:18 -0800, el cid wrote:
> > On Dec 3, 6:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> On Dec 2, 4:23 pm, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [...]
> >> > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world as
> >> > you see it but more competent judges have been known to disagree.
>
> >> Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
> >> competent than he?
>
> > First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired of her
> > game.
>
> I think leaving the game might reasonably be regarded as conceding. What
> Nyikos does not get is that the field he conceded was a share of a USENET
> thread, no more.
And did he argue with her after that on other threads? I'd like to
see some documentation if he did.
IIRC, he seemed to just have a friendly discussion going with her when
she announced that she was losing her IP. And she disappeared, never
to return AFAIK.
> Not a terribly noteworthy or valuable field.
What would you know about that?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
So what?
> And the concept of Man as somehow unique and apart from the rest of the
> animals on Earth is less compatible with modern evolutionary biology
Biology has nothing to say about the soul one way or another. It
deals with entities that can be empirically observed with tools at our
disposal. If you don't see that, you have missed the point of the FAQ
entry.
And you have also missed the point of the website Ron O. provided for
us this morning -- or did you ever see it?
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
Peter Nyikos
David Iain Greig
Welcome back Dr. N.
People be polite to Peter please?
--D. 'someone did this, who...'
pnyikos
> >> pnyikos wrote:
> >>> But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
> >>> likely origin of life ON EARTH?
> >>> 1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
> >>> species that ever arose in the galaxy.
> >>> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
> >>> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
> >>> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
> >>> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
> >>> 3. Seeding of the earth by a technologically advanced (though not
> >>> necessarily any more advanced than ourselves) species.
> >>> A few months ago, I read of a planet somewhat like our earth orbiting
> >>> a red dwarf. It orbits with one side facing its sun all the time, so
> >>> life is unlikely to arise there:
> >>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths
> >>> But we could terraform the "twilight zone" by sending prokaryotes
> >>> there. If our sun expands to make life miserable on earth, and then
> >>> contracts to a white dwarf, this might be one place where our species,
> >>> if it is still around, can go on to exist for a 100 billion or more
> >>> years -- red dwarfs have a very long life span.
> >>> Some other species, ca. 4.5 billion years ago, might have had similar
> >>> designs on the earth, but has since then either gone extinct or found
> >>> an even more suitable place for themselves.
> >> Certainly possible, and there have been many SF stories to that effect.
> >> But I don't recall your arguments for why option 3 would be probable
> >> compared to any homegrown abiogenesis.
>
> >>> Reasoning as above is my forte. And where is the evidence for 1. or
> >>> 2.?
> >> Wrong question. Where is the evidence that makes 3 preferable to 1 or 2?
>
> > I lack the stamina to do a rehash this week. And I've made a practice
> > of not posting to Usenet on weekends except in the most extraordinary
> > circumstances. Maybe a short one next week.
>
> >>> Can anyone do better than, "Mother Earth did it, this I know, for
> >>> Ockham's Razor tells me so."?
> >> Perhaps. If earth was seeded, why no other planet of the solar system?
>
> > How do you know it didn't happen?
>
> There are a couple possibilities, i.e Titan and Europa. But I think the
> rest can be fairly ruled out at this point.
Funny that you name the two extraterrestrials that scientists think
are most likely to harbor multicellular life right *now*. But that
says nothing about what they might have tried to seed. Perhaps there
are microbes well below the surface of Mars, like on earth, and
possibly those were sent by them.
Back in those days, when the sun was less hot, they might have even
seeded Venus successfully; if so, all trace has long since been
obliterated.
Alternatively, they could have focused all their efforts for this
solar system on the most promising place of all: earth.
> >> Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect?
>
> > Try asking that question in 2100; then we may have a usable
> > sample. :-)
>
> No free oxygen anywhere so far. Why?
As little as two years ago, the reason was that almost the only
extrasolar planets we could detect were Jovians and Superjovians
[categories proposed by Poul Anderson in his science -- not science
fiction -- book, _Is There Life on Other Worlds?_ way back in 1963] in
orbits that were punishingly close to their primaries. No hope of
life as we know it taking hold there.
Has the picture changed radically in the past two years?
> >> Why seed only
> >> with prokaryotes
By the way, I never said *only* prokaryotes.
> > Francis Crick: "Prokaryotes go farther". Reference: _Life Itself_.
> > [...]
>
> But what's the point?
Do the math. Let's say the panspermists had a million-year project in
which they sent prokaryotes up to 10,000 light years away and
primitivve eukaryotes up to 1,000 light years away. [I can't recall
whether Crick gave any figures as to relative distances, but let's
just adopt these and see later whether they are realistic.] That
would mean a volume of space up to 1,000 times greater for the
prokaryotes, nad not a whole lot less, because it is only about 10,000
light years (IIRC) that we get above and below the plane of the
galaxy.
And if they were interested in later colonization, rather than just
altruistically trying to spread what would ultimately be intelligent
life far and wide, cyanobacteria would do very nicely, with a bunch of
other prokaryotes thrown in for good measure.
Of course, you have to weigh that against the likelihood of us
evolving if there were no eukaryotes in the mix. So I'm not laying
any bets as to which is the better of the two routes for explaining
our presence here.
> >> Another reason to prefer the homegrown theory is that panspermy doesn't
> >> lead to any interesting research,
>
> > Wrong. I see I DO need to rehash some old arguments, and present a
> > new one. But not today.
>
> >> but origin-of-life research has been
> >> fruitful.
>
> > Apply it to the great extrasolar universe, then. Why stick to Mother
> > Earth?
>
> Because we have no data for anywhere else, perhaps
We didn't seem to be hampered in the days of Miller, who used a
reducing atmosphere simply because that turned out to give the
greatest variety of amino acids, and not out of hard data that this
was the way the early earth looked. The current belief is that it was
not.
We have precious little natural data for RNA World--or have people
come up with a better scenario for bridging the vast gulf between
amino/nucleic acids and the mechanisms of transcription and
translation?
What kind of fruitfulness CAN you point to, anyway?
Peter Nyikos
el cid
> On Dec 6, 7:37 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
...
The most absurd aspect of asserting that peptide synthesis
was designed rather than evolved is the legacy of rRNA.
The ribosome is so unlike nearly every other bit of Earthly
biochemistry that it bears strong consideration.
If considered in the light of the possibility of an RNA-world
precursor to the current biochemistries, one compelling
explanation is that the ribosome is an a legacy locked in
place. Why use RNA when every expectation is that
a polypeptide would work better to cradle peptide synthesis?
With a ribosome extant, how could you evolve out of
it into a purely peptide based translation engine?
If the ribosome was designed, it was by a mad genius
or by a splinter group with either a perverse fixation
on RNA or else those that failed the engineering course
in polypeptide structural design.
pnyikos
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Dec 3, 9:28 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> >> It
> >> has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself.
>
> > If you retract the false and baseless claim that I am a creationist,
> > I'll start taking the things you say about other people seriously.
>
> Welcome back Dr. N.
Thanks -- I think.
> People be polite to Peter please?
Hey, that's way down on my wish list. Tops is "people who slander me
are not actively aided by others," then comes "people who slander me
are not given the `see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' treatment
by everyone but me."
I believe you can insert several dozen clearly distinct transitionals
between those two and being polite to me.
Peter Nyikos
el cid
It takes some effort to consider that you take this seriously.
Your assertion about the structural requirements for necessarily
highly regulated membrane pores is poorly taken. It is hard to
know if it is because you don't understand how critical regulation
of membrane pores is to well regulated cellular function or if
you over-estimate the requirements for enzymes. To head you
off, RNA-world scenarios for Earthly abiogenesis have not
reach consensus that well regulated cells were part of the scheme.
Or even consistent cellular compartmentalization. But your
posited advanced RNA world civilization would require well
regulated membrane pores. I could posit a few ways to do so
without proteins but dislike such unbridled flights of fancy.
On that front, it remains opaque what you use to decide what
is probable or improbable. It doesn't appear to be a familiarity
with cellular biochemistry. It does look like the guesses are
retrofitted to what you want them to be.
> > > > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
> > > > as you see it but more competent judges have been known
> > > > to disagree.
> > > Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
> > > competent than he?
>
> > First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired
> > of her game.
> What game? It seems that you have bought into a lot of Ron O's babble
> about bait and switch, perps, etc. while disapproving of the way he
> expresses himself. Have you also bought into the scuttlebutt that
> Julie was playing some sort of creationist game?
>
> Have you also bought into the scuttlebutt that I am a creationist?
No and no.
Her game was to torture established biochemistry to make it look
more complex where it suited her with shifting standards. She
could recapitulate review of various "parts" sufficient to fool
those to whom such knowledge was new. It didn't look as good
to people who had already read and taught from a modern
biochemistry text.
> Moran did aggressively accuse Julie of playing a game -- at first.
> But as time went on and she fielded every objection of his, he backed
> away slowly.
I dispute your notion that she fielded his every objection.
> >And second, there were many others who
> > showed better understanding than Julie.
> I followed the debate quite closely, and I was totally oblivious to
> anyone fitting that description.
> Who did you have in mind? Were you even around at the time (well
> before 2000)?
>
> If you name PZ Myers, Hershey, and Silberstein, the kindest thing I
> could say about you is that you don't know what the hell you are
> talking about.
Silberstein no.
Your perception is noted but not particularly valued on this. The
kindest I could say about you is that your judgment is fatally
biased.
> > She would dig
> > into a few systems and recite the names of various enzymes
> > or proteins but it was clear she was looking this stuff up
> > as she went along and pressing her own preconceptions
> > on them. She admitted as much.
>
> I'd love to see you try to document this. It should be good for a few
> laughs.
I'm not into long winded regurgitations of the past.
> > Her analysis of Krebs cycle was another. In that, she
> > reinvented IC to require physical interrelatedness of
> > interacting metabolic pathways as a new requirement
> > of IC just to avoid Krebs cycle qualifying as IC.
> I've got news for you: the Krebs cycle doesn't fit Behe's definition,
> which predates Julie Thomas's.
> And more news: the Krebs cycle was a strawman proposed by anti-ID
> propagandists for the express purpose of immediately knocking it
> down. I believe Keith Robison started that ball rolling.
Krebs has a function. It has parts. You remove just one of the parts
of the core system and it ceases to function. It meets the definition
of IC. Julie claimed it failed because the parts weren't interlocking
parts such as those of a mousetrap. This was a new requirement
that is notably not fulfilled by blood coagulation.
> I have a great deal of respect for Robison -- he was perhaps the most
> levelheaded and certainly the most competent critic of ID I've ever
> heard of, in t.o. or out of it -- but he couldn't even get the
> definition of irreducible complexity right for the longest time.
It is a moving target, isn't it?
However the salient concept is clear in as it poses the question
of how one gets all these parts to evolve prior to their function
being realized. That is the first order argument it poses against
evolutionary origins of IC systems. So it formally defines a
function to a collection of parts. It removes parts to see if the
function remains. When you arrive at a minimal collection of
parts required to perform the function, you have an IC core.
If you find flaw in that, please provide a nice crisp alternative,
and, if you would be so kind, explain where I went wrong.
> > When such special pleading became so obvious, the
> > novelty of someone who wasn't grossly ignorant wore off.-
> You seem to be relying exclusively on scuttlebutt for this last bit.
No. Your perception is failing you. I was there. I engaged Julie
often. And I didn't have to go spend a few weeks reading
textbooks and reviews to know about the things she posted
on. It isn't that I think her going to that effort was in some way
bad, it is that it became clear to me that she did it to mine
out bits she could use to force her perspective rather than
to really examine the systems. That's a perspective available
to people who already knew those systems and not to
someone seeing them for the first time. Sophistry is hard
to detect by the ignorant.
> Peter Nyikos
Mark Isaak
> On Dec 4, 1:16 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:34:18 -0800, el cid wrote:
>> > On Dec 3, 6:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >> On Dec 2, 4:23 pm, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > [...]
>> >> > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
>> >> > as you see it but more competent judges have been known to
>> >> > disagree.
>>
>> >> Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
>> >> competent than he?
>>
>> > First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired of her
>> > game.
>>
>> I think leaving the game might reasonably be regarded as conceding.
>> What Nyikos does not get is that the field he conceded was a share of a
>> USENET thread, no more.
>
> And did he argue with her after that on other threads? I'd like to see
> some documentation if he did.
He stayed active in the field of biology. That has the same effect.
Whether he argued with Julie one-on-one is impossible to say, since
nobody knows who she is.
>> Not a terribly noteworthy or valuable field.
>
> What would you know about that?
How often have you seen a USENET thread cited in news stories or in
professional publications?
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume
deadrat
Who's using loaded terms now? Why self-righteous? Is Ron touting his own
virtues? Why not simply righteous? You're not claiming that anything Ron is
saying is actually wrong, are you? Just that his manner of speaking is counter-
productive.
And doesn't that sound like a familiar claim.
> Your style is not only justified,
> it is a moral imperative, right? The fact that it is self defeating
> is really the fault of anyone who doesn't adopt your way
> of thinking.
I can find nothing in Ron's posts that claim his approach is morally justified.
Where do you find that? The "fact" that it is self-defeating is a claim you
make without evidence. Ron claims otherwise, and gives the example of
embarrassing Rick Santorum during an election year.
You are a proponent of gentle rational argument, which stands you in good stead
on this newsgroup. In the current political climate or in dealing with scam
artists, maybe not so much.
>
> Nevertheless, constantly repeating "perps" pounds out
> your opinion with a sledge hammer. You sound like
> a zealous cop bragging about how he busted an old
> woman stealing cat food for her dinner.
Why doesn't he sound like a zealous cop bragging about how he busted a ring of
scammers preying on old people?
> I'm not saying
> there's a moral equivalence, I'm saying your style
> evokes one.
Well played!
> If I were to cast you in "The Life of Brian"
> you would be as part of The Judean People's Front
> in the crack suicide squad.
Are you aware that "The Life of Brian" is fictional?
Just thought I'd check.
deadrat
So this is about you? Well, then, no arguments here.
> and
> I suspect turns off others, even when we are
> initially sympathetic.
I could do with some evidence to back up your suspicions.
> If it turns off someone who is
> sympathetic, what do you think it does to someone
> who is not? You are going to "force" someone to see
> reality? Really? And you think that's working?
If you're talking about religious convictions, the answer is probably no, but
Ron isn't trying to convince people that IDiocy is false. His trying to
convince them that they've been had by scam artists. That's much easier.
Is is working? I don't know. Do you?
> Do conjure up that cop arresting a woman for
> shoplifting her catfood dinner. He is oh so proud
> and expecting people to pat him on the back for
> his defense of Truth, Justice and The American
> Way. How do you get through to that guy to let
> him know that despite the fact that shoplifting is
> a crime, tazing her, handcuffing her, and hauling
> her down to the station won't earn him a medal?
> How do I break through his obsession that he
> is righteously fighting the good fight and therefore
> is right in all he does?
How do I convince you that your fevered analogy is of limited value in your
argument?
> I agree that ID "leaders" play a bait and switch
> scam, are manipulative, and less than honest.
> I expect they self-justify because they think
> they are fighting for a greater good and that
> blinds them to the effect of their actions. See
> any parallel?
You had me up to "that blinds them to the effect of their actions." There's
evidence (at least from Dover) that IDiots, like many perps, are worried only
about being caught.
> Get past your intent and listen to your effect.
You can "listen" to the intent of someone's writing, although you have to be
careful of your inferences. But you can't listen to its effect on others. That
you have to actually observe. It's fair to challenge Ron to show that his
approach is effective. It's even better to demonstrate that the evidence shows
that he's not.
But your claim that you don't like his approach is worth nothing but to show
that you don't like his approach. That's fine, but that's as far as it goes.
jillery
> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
From your comments above, ISTM you have some interest in ID. I have
read your posts since this one. I'm glad I avoided swapping war
stories and catching up on gossip, because I wasn't involved in any of
that. WRT DIG's letter of recommendation and your reply, if I
overstep your standards, please assume it was accidental and
incidental to my making a point of substance.
I am quite willing to stipulate the possibility of panspermy. The
origin of life on Earth is a single event, and matters to evolutionary
theory and ID about as much as the name of your Creator, by which I
mean it matters not at all. Both propose processes on how life
>changes<. The modern evolutionary synthesis proposes that such
changes happen by natural selection of random mutations of genetic
DNA. Behe's ID proposes that at least some of those mutations happen
by purposeful design. I understand there are other versions of ID.
What I don't understand is if you believe your panspermy presupposes
your ID. Care to elaborate on this point for those who missed round
one?
<snip remaining to avoid googlegroup overflow>
deadrat
jillery
>
> - Show quoted text -
Please change the above to read "What I don't understand is if you
believe your panspermy presupposes Behe's ID."
Sigh.
pnyikos
Repeated often, for effect.
> > Ray-
>
> This must not be the guy that claimed that he was mentally competent
> and did not have to respond to any of my posts. I hope the other Ray
> doesn't know that you are using his name.
There is no inconsistency between what you report him as saying
earlier and what he wrote in the post to which you are responding.
If you don't see this, you've got a long row to hoe before I start
taking seriously what you say about others.
> Is anyone trying to help you? Why not accept their help?
And the point of this put-down is....?
Peter Nyikos
John Harshman
Or everyone will think you're an asshole. If that doesn't matter to you,
there is no real sanction. But in that case you really are an asshole.
Not that it matters to you.
John Harshman
Why is that funny?
> But that
> says nothing about what they might have tried to seed.
It does unless they're incompetents.
> Perhaps there
> are microbes well below the surface of Mars, like on earth, and
> possibly those were sent by them.
I think that comes close to "possibly there is a bowl of petunias in the
leading Trojan position of Jupiter".
> Back in those days, when the sun was less hot, they might have even
> seeded Venus successfully; if so, all trace has long since been
> obliterated.
Again, if so they are inept, since life could have made and kept Venus
habitable given initial conditions that weren't hopeless.
> Alternatively, they could have focused all their efforts for this
> solar system on the most promising place of all: earth.
They could have done anything they liked. I merely point out that the
lack of any other life is evidence against panspermy. You can invent
reasons against it if you like.
>>>> Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect?
>>> Try asking that question in 2100; then we may have a usable
>>> sample. :-)
>> No free oxygen anywhere so far. Why?
>
> As little as two years ago, the reason was that almost the only
> extrasolar planets we could detect were Jovians and Superjovians
> [categories proposed by Poul Anderson in his science -- not science
> fiction -- book, _Is There Life on Other Worlds?_ way back in 1963] in
> orbits that were punishingly close to their primaries. No hope of
> life as we know it taking hold there.
>
> Has the picture changed radically in the past two years?
Yes, in fact it has. We are now detecting much smaller planets much
farther out.
>>>> Why seed only
>>>> with prokaryotes
>
> By the way, I never said *only* prokaryotes.
You never said much. But are you proposing that these aliens had a
multi-billion-year project to terraform earth, and that all the major
milestones in evolution were seeded? One weakness of your ideas, from a
scientific perspective, is their ability to accommodate anything at all.
>>> Francis Crick: "Prokaryotes go farther". Reference: _Life Itself_.
>>> [...]
>> But what's the point?
>
> Do the math. Let's say the panspermists had a million-year project in
> which they sent prokaryotes up to 10,000 light years away and
> primitivve eukaryotes up to 1,000 light years away.
Why would we say that?
> [I can't recall
> whether Crick gave any figures as to relative distances, but let's
> just adopt these and see later whether they are realistic.] That
> would mean a volume of space up to 1,000 times greater for the
> prokaryotes, nad not a whole lot less, because it is only about 10,000
> light years (IIRC) that we get above and below the plane of the
> galaxy.
So?
> And if they were interested in later colonization, rather than just
> altruistically trying to spread what would ultimately be intelligent
> life far and wide, cyanobacteria would do very nicely, with a bunch of
> other prokaryotes thrown in for good measure.
On what time scale do you imagine these beings would operate? What
happened to their plans, such that they didn't manage to colonize?
> Of course, you have to weigh that against the likelihood of us
> evolving if there were no eukaryotes in the mix. So I'm not laying
> any bets as to which is the better of the two routes for explaining
> our presence here.
You are not being clear, or at least I don't get what your point is
supposed to be. By all appearances, eukaryotes evolved here on earth,
through processes that don't seem all that obscure. What does your
scenario gain by the seeding of eukaryotes? And if eukaryotes, why not
just mammals or even humans?
>>>> Another reason to prefer the homegrown theory is that panspermy doesn't
>>>> lead to any interesting research,
>>> Wrong. I see I DO need to rehash some old arguments, and present a
>>> new one. But not today.
>>>> but origin-of-life research has been
>>>> fruitful.
>>> Apply it to the great extrasolar universe, then. Why stick to Mother
>>> Earth?
>> Because we have no data for anywhere else, perhaps
>
> We didn't seem to be hampered in the days of Miller, who used a
> reducing atmosphere simply because that turned out to give the
> greatest variety of amino acids, and not out of hard data that this
> was the way the early earth looked. The current belief is that it was
> not.
It was a best guess at the time, and it wasn't as far off from current
ideas as you seem to be claiming.
> We have precious little natural data for RNA World--or have people
> come up with a better scenario for bridging the vast gulf between
> amino/nucleic acids and the mechanisms of transcription and
> translation?
>
> What kind of fruitfulness CAN you point to, anyway?
I don't know all that much about origin of life research. But there at
least is some, and we can indeed investigate chemical processes. What
sort of research would a panspermy hypothesis stimulate?
deadrat
> deadrat wrote:
>> David Iain Greig <dgr...@ediacara.org> wrote:
>>
>>> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>> On Dec 3, 9:28 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>>>>> It
>>>>> has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself.
>>>> If you retract the false and baseless claim that I am a creationist,
>>>> I'll start taking the things you say about other people seriously.
>>> Welcome back Dr. N.
>>>
>>> People be polite to Peter please?
>>
>> Or what?
>
> Or everyone will think you're an asshole.
Everyone? Let's ask Ganesh, shall we?
Oh, wait. We can't.
But he was an ignorant, lying asshole, and what's the loss of his presence
compared to all that free moderatin' we get?
> If that doesn't matter to you,
> there is no real sanction. But in that case you really are an asshole.
I wouldn't have thought that you held the opinion of others as such a
useful tool in these judgments. Goes to show how careful one must be in
making inferences, eh?
> Not that it matters to you.
If there's any one person on this newsgroup who I thought would refrain
from reading my mind, you would have been my candidate.
pnyikos
It does indeed, but what's the relevance? Even the magnificent
ribosomes are unable to tell in a lot of cases whether the correct
amino acid has been attached to the tRNA they have glommed onto on
account of its codon [or is it anticodon? It's been years since I
last checked this particular detail]. This has been experimentally
established.
> If considered in the light of the possibility of an RNA-world
> precursor to the current biochemistries, one compelling
> explanation is that the ribosome is an a legacy locked in
> place. Why use RNA when every expectation is that
> a polypeptide would work better to cradle peptide synthesis?
On what grounds -- just the experience with protein enzymes and the
pitifully few ribozymes researchers have come up with so far?
And even if there is a polypeptide that could substitute for rRNA,
just how are researchers supposed to be able to design it? Our
knowledge of protein folding is still in its infancy.
> With a ribosome extant, how could you evolve out of
> it into a purely peptide based translation engine?
I don't get the point of your question. Are you simply assuming that
designers of human level or slightly above human level intelligence
somehow were supposed to answer the two huge questions I've asked just
now?
> If the ribosome was designed, it was by a mad genius
> or by a splinter group with either a perverse fixation
> on RNA or else those that failed the engineering course
> in polypeptide structural design.
A purely imaginary engineering course.
Let me know when you've come up with a design for a polypeptide that
folds into an enzyme that does everything a ribosome does. :-)
More seriously, let me know how many millennia you estimate it will
take for us humans to design such a polypeptide.
And, even assuming it CAN be done, do you REALLY think the knowledge
of how to synthesize it will work its way down into the university
level? The chances of that seem more remote to me than the chances
of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem being taught in a one-semester
university course.
Bob Casanova
appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:
>On Dec 2, 8:05 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>> John S. Wilkins <j...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>>
>> >Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>> >> John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> >> >pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> >> >> Peter Nyikos
>> >> >> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>> >> >> University of South Carolina
>> >> >>http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>
>> >> >!
>>
>> >> Yup. That he is and that is he.
>> >A List! A List! We're gonna have a List!
>>
>> To port or burgundy?
>
>You always did list heavily to port, Paul. That's one of the things
>D. Spencer Hines disliked about you.
What is a "D. Spencer Hines"? An alternative condiment
manufacturer?
Oh, wait; here's some background:
http://www.historykb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/general-history/39/D-Spencer-HInes-FAQ
>Do you think he listed too heavily to starboard?
Is Luna to starboard?
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
pnyikos
> On Dec 6, 1:42 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 2, 7:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > > ><b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > > >stated..."
>
> > > > > >ID in order to demonstrate ID. People saw through Behe's magic act
> > > > > >from the beginning.
>
> > > And got shot down in turn. A classic case was the double gene
> > > knockout misreading of an article by the world's greatest authority on
> > > the evolution of hemoglobin, in which he thought it said that mice
> > > that had two genes knocked out of the pathway were doing just fine.
>
> > > He trumpeted his idiocy publicly, and only apologized for it privately
> > > when last I heard.
IIRC his name was Doolittle. I can check if people are interested.
So far people seem to want to let that sleeping dog lie.
> > From your comments above, ISTM you have some interest in ID. I have
> > read your posts since this one. I'm glad I avoided swapping war
> > stories and catching up on gossip, because I wasn't involved in any of
> > that. WRT DIG's letter of recommendation and your reply, if I
> > overstep your standards, please assume it was accidental and
> > incidental to my making a point of substance.
>
> > I am quite willing to stipulate the possibility of panspermy. The
> > origin of life on Earth is a single event,
Actually, if it arose via abiogenesis of the "Mother Earth did it"
kind, it's the endpoint of an astronomical number of individual
events.
> > and matters to evolutionary
> > theory and ID about as much as the name of your Creator, by which I
> > mean it matters not at all.
False.
> Both propose processes on how life>changes<.
And ID researchers are involved in a lot of other things as well, even
the question of whether the universe as a whole was designed in the
form of the primordial entity which underwent the Big Bang.
Ron O. has helpfully provided us with a website which makes this more
or less clear ("the life-sustaining physical architecture of the
universe"):
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
[...]
> > What I don't understand is if you believe your panspermy presupposes
> > your ID. Care to elaborate on this point for those who missed round
> > one?
>
> > <snip remaining to avoid googlegroup overflow>-
I snipped a lot of the earlier stuff to achieve the same end.
> Please change the above to read "What I don't understand is if you
> believe your panspermy presupposes Behe's ID."
>
> Sigh.
It doesn't, and never did. Read my reply to Ron O. in which I quote
from _Life Itself_. To clarify one point: I accepted directed
panspermy as my favorite hypothesis irrespective of whether the
panspermists actually did major modifications of the organisms which
they sent.
Peter Nyikos
John Harshman
I make no attempt to read your mind. I only read your behavior. My value
judgments regarding that behavior are my own.
pnyikos
> On Mon, 06 Dec 2010 07:34:10 -0800, pnyikos wrote:
> > On Dec 4, 1:16 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:34:18 -0800, el cid wrote:
> >> > On Dec 3, 6:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> >> On Dec 2, 4:23 pm, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > [...]
> >> >> > Additionally, your assertions about JT are very likely the world
> >> >> > as you see it but more competent judges have been known to
> >> >> > disagree.
These assertions had purely and exclusively to do with things that
transpired here in talk.origins.
> >> >> Moran gave up, conceding the field to her. Was any judge more
> >> >> competent than he?
>
> >> > First, he didn't _concede_ to her, though he did grow tired of her
> >> > game.
I've challenger "el cid" on the use of the word "game" here.
> >> I think leaving the game might reasonably be regarded as conceding.
> >> What Nyikos does not get is that the field he conceded was a share of a
> >> USENET thread, no more.
>
> > And did he argue with her after that on other threads? I'd like to see
> > some documentation if he did.
>
> He stayed active in the field of biology. That has the same effect.
In other words, he conceded not only a share of that one thread, but
the whole newsgroup.
That's not the impression you were trying to create with your earlier
words, is it now?
It certainly wasn't the impression "el cid" was trying to create.
> Whether he argued with Julie one-on-one is impossible to say, since
> nobody knows who she is.
>
> >> Not a terribly noteworthy or valuable field.
>
> > What would you know about that?
>
> How often have you seen a USENET thread cited in news stories or in
> professional publications?
Quite the mover of goalposts, aren't you? Take a look at what "el
cid" said earlier to see how far you've moved them.
Peter Nyikos
deadrat
"Not that it matters to you." How do you know what matters to me?
> I only read your behavior.
Almost, but you couldn't quite keep to that "only," misplaced as it is, could
you? Welcome to the club, not one I thought you'd have any interest in
joining, but it just goes to show you the pitfalls of mind reading.
> My value judgments regarding that behavior are my own.
And whose do you think I'm claiming they are? Whose else could they be?
Have I anywhere disputed your ability and freedom to make whatever "value
judgments" you want?
Have I even disputed the accuracy of your judgments?
If we're not in violent agreement on these points, let's have a third party act
as arbiter. I suggest Ganesh.
Oh, wait.
Stuart
> el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 5, 10:07 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> >> On Dec 5, 7:23 pm, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > On Dec 5, 7:40 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > On Dec 2, 4:59 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> >> > > > On Dec 2, 6:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >> > > > > On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
< snip>
You know, a sure sign we don't have enough creationists to deal with
in this forum is when we start beating each other up.
Just sayin.
Stuart
hersheyh
> hersheyh wrote:
> > On Dec 3, 6:52 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> On Dec 2, 1:34 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >>> hersheyh wrote:
> >>>> On Dec 2, 7:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >>>>> On Nov 24, 2:24 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>>>>>> <b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> >>>>>>> stated..."
> >>>>> It isn't. Someone named Julie posted some highly sophisticated stuff
> >>>>> here in talk.origins in the late 90's making that much clear. Julie's
> >>>>> expositions made Behe look like an amateur, but basically she was on
> >>>>> his side, and no one could refute her here.
> >>>>> Of course. Evolution is not where the main game is played. It is
> >>>>> primarily played in the origins of life on earth, seconarily in
> >>>>> abiogenesis, and only tertiarily in evolution once life is
> >>>>> established.
> >>>> "abiogenesis"?
> >>>>>> 1. Behe admits old life and common descent and proposes an " designed
> >>>>>> ancestral cell."
> >>>>> That's a very good start. The main question is, who designed the
> >>>>> cell[s]. Back in the late 90's and 2000, I kept championing the
> >>>>> theory that the designers were an intelligent species that arose
> >>>>> naturally in another solar system billions of years ago. I still
> >>>>> endorse it.
> >>>> infinite recursiveness.
> >>> No it doesn't.
> >> Of course it doesn't. And Hershey knows that, and knows the
> >> distinction between abiogenesis and the origins of life on earth, but
> >> he is what I call a Usenet Treadmill Salesman and tries to make me go
> >> back over ground that he pretends never existed.
>
> > So, let's consider what would be required for a one-back civilization
> > that could seed the earth with RNA-based microorganisms and why they
> > would even consider doing so.
>
> Hey, you should at least begin by admitting your initial mistake about
> infinite regression. It would give you more credibility.
If it makes a difference, sure, I misremembered Peter's claim.
Obviously, if one accepts ours as a non-eternal universe (as most
scientists do), infinite regression won't work. However, I vaguely
remember some argument about that time about life being transferred
from other universes to ours to get around the problems, which does
introduce the problem of how many recursions one is permitting, but it
was a long time ago. However, Peter definitely has to do better at
explaining why he feels that panspermia is a better explanation than
indigenous abiogenesis even as a one-back explanation. Although most
of the elements required for life do occur by nucleosynthesis (up to
Fe) in population II stars, there are a few that are omitted that are
needed for at least some life forms, like Zn, Cu, Se, and Mo. But
the real problem are the rarer metals, some of which are needed for
semiconductors, hardened steels, superconducting, and nuclear energy
-- the technology that would be needed.
> > The sun is an intermediate population I star. Population I stars in
> > our galaxy are relatively young stars (a few billion years) and are
> > differentiated from the older Population II stars, which only produce
> > the elements up to iron. Population I stars are produced from the
> > supernova remnants of the older metal-poor (population II) stars. The
> > young stars near the center of the Milky Way galaxy are more metal
> > rich than the stars (like our sun) toward the periphery. Further out
> > form the sun in the Milky Way are the 'disc population' stars which
> > are both younger and have less metal than the sun followed, in order,
> > by intermediate population II and halo population II stars that are
> > quite metal poor. Planets, especially terrestrial rather than gas
> > giant planets, are thought to require metal-rich stars in order to
> > form. That is a problem for any one-back civilization that you
> > hypothesize would have to form, unless you are positing that the
> > Xordaxians are from a different galaxy (which raises travel time
> > problems that dwarf those of travel within the Milky Way galaxy unless
> > you posit travel at near the speed of light. A metal poor "planet"
> > around a metal poor older Milky Way star would have a significant
> > problem in developing a interstellar technology with only the elements
> > at or below iron being commonly available. A gas planet does not seem
> > like a good site for Xordax, the Eden of abiogenesis.
>
> > Moreover, since it took about 3.8 billion to generate our present
> > level of technological civilization, that does represent a significant
> > fraction of the time that the universe and Milky Way existed. If it
> > does take about 4 billion years to 'evolve' a space-capable Xordaxian
> > from its "primal ooze" on its older planet, then that means Xordax's
> > sun must have formed about 10 billion years ago (our sun is about 5
> > billion years old). This in a universe that is only 14 billion years
> > old. It is likely that the Xordaxian sun, whichever galaxy it is in,
> > would be metal poor compared to our sun.
>
> > Assuming that Xordax can actually exist and actually did produce a
> > space civilization, we have the problem of how it could find and seed
> > the earth with its magic microbes at a time when the earth was not too
> > long ago solidified. Moreover, the atmosphere of the earth, the
> > geophysical nature of the planet, and the biota that could exist on
> > that earth was, to say the least, quite a bit different than the
> > current state of things. Assuming that the fastest the Xordaxians
> > could travel is about 1/10th the speed of light, it would take a
> > million years to cross the Milky Way and 28 million years to
> > Andromeda.
>
> > Which leads to ask why the Xordaxians would want to seed the very
> > young earth, which they either 'found' in time to seed or had
> > autonomous distributed robots that searched for such planets forming,
> > with anaerobic organisms without the hint of photosynthesis but only
> > chemosynthesis. Life that did not find some mechanism for generating
> > an energy which involved extracting the energy of the sun would not
> > exist for 4 billion years because they would run out of 'fuel'. Did
> > they somehow hope that the anaerobes would evolve into the present
> > planet? If I were to seed planets, I would seed them with tough
> > photosynthesizers right from the git go if that was the type of planet
> > I hoped to form.
>
> >>> Peter is claiming that the designers arose naturally. The
> >>> advantage of this theory over the idea of life arising naturally on
> >>> earth is that he's free to posit (vaguely) a planet on which life
> >>> arising naturally would be more likely than on earth. Why this is
> >>> necessary was never explained.
> >> "never"? Try going back to my posts of 1996-2000. If you lack the
> >> stamina, I can start rehashing my old arguments and maybe adding a
> >> few.
>
> >> But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
> >> likely origin of life ON EARTH?
>
> >> 1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
> >> species that ever arose in the galaxy.
>
> > Homegrown abiogenesis is the simplest hypothesis and has not been
> > refuted by any evidence I know of. Whether we are or aren't the only
> > technological species in our galaxy is pure speculation. There is no
> > evidence for nor any that clearly rules it out.
>
> Anyway, Peter is conflating multiple questions here. Homegrown
> abiogenesis is irrelevant to any question about the number of
> civilizations in the galaxy.
>
> >> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
> >> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
> >> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
> >> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
>
> Again, conflation of questions.
pnyikos
Because it seems so irrelevant to the issue of "Mother Earth did
it..."
> > But that
> > says nothing about what they might have tried to seed.
>
> It does unless they're incompetents.
"incompetents"? Are you postulating a superhuman intelligence? I'm
not. See my reply to "el cid" on ribosomes, etc.
> > Perhaps there
> > are microbes well below the surface of Mars, like on earth, and
> > possibly those were sent by them.
>
> I think that comes close to "possibly there is a bowl of petunias in the
> leading Trojan position of Jupiter".
Why? Exobiologists haven't given up on the possibility that there was
once life on the surface of Mars, but the surface conditions became
too inhospitable for it, driving life underground. [Primitive life is
being found in deep mines and borings right here, isolated from the
surface for what may be eons.]
For that matter, some might not have given up altogether on finding
primitive life forms on the surface of Mars.
> > Back in those days, when the sun was less hot, they might have even
> > seeded Venus successfully; if so, all trace has long since been
> > obliterated.
>
> Again, if so they are inept, since life could have made and kept Venus
> habitable given initial conditions that weren't hopeless.
Can you point to some peer-reviewed papers supporting this claim of
yours?
Anyway, "incompetent" and "inept" don't seem to be taking into account
that this was probably action at a (huge) distance. The panspermists
would have had perhaps a million promising planets to try and get
things started on. They could only devote so many resources to any
one planet or suitably large satellite of a planet.
> > Alternatively, they could have focused all their efforts for this
> > solar system on the most promising place of all: earth.
>
> They could have done anything they liked. I merely point out that the
> lack of any other life is evidence against panspermy.
The jury is still hearing opening statements on this, so to speak.
Isaac Asimov and Poul Anderson [see reference below] didn't even rule
out life on Jupiter. Not intelligent life as we know it, of course,
but perhaps life using hydrogen instead of oxygen as the gaseous
component of respiration. We have such organisms (methanogens) right
here on earth.
> >>>> Why no other extrasolar planet we've been able to detect?
> >>> Try asking that question in 2100; then we may have a usable
> >>> sample. :-)
> >> No free oxygen anywhere so far. Why?
>
> > As little as two years ago, the reason was that almost the only
> > extrasolar planets we could detect were Jovians and Superjovians
> > [categories proposed by Poul Anderson in his science -- not science
> > fiction -- book, _Is There Life on Other Worlds?_ way back in 1963] in
> > orbits that were punishingly close to their primaries. No hope of
> > life as we know it taking hold there.
>
> > Has the picture changed radically in the past two years?
>
> Yes, in fact it has. We are now detecting much smaller planets much
> farther out.
But how many of the right size, in what people call "The Goldilocks
Zone"? The only one of which I am aware is the one I already posted
on, with the information still above, uncommented on by you or anyone
else:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths
It's a Superterrestrial in Anderson's classification. But since it
turns the same side to its primary all the time, it's not a promising
place for life as we know it arising.
If you are aware of others, I'd love to hear about them. Next to
mammalian paleontology, planetary science is the scientific topic
about whose developments I am most keenly interested. [Other
branches of vertebrate paleontology are right up there too.]
> >>>> Why seed only
> >>>> with prokaryotes
>
> > By the way, I never said *only* prokaryotes.
>
> You never said much.
Not since I started posting again; but I did say a good bit in
1996-2001.
> But are you proposing that these aliens had a
> multi-billion-year project to terraform earth,
In the beginning, I envision a multi-million year project to begin the
process of terraforming (or forming to their own specifications, which
is quite another issue) thousands if not millions of worlds.
> and that all the major
> milestones in evolution were seeded?
Heavens, no! They might as well have visited the planet themselves
and started a colony there, while waiting for the slow process of
terraforming to advance to the point where they would no longer need a
breathing apparatus.
But that sort of thing is only good to a distance where you can
actually go. I don't postulate lifetimes far in excess of our own,
which is unsuitable for travel over more than 10 light years. Even
for that distance, you need a space ark with several generations being
born and dying, and the use of propulsion that is still in the
speculative stage, except for Project Orion and possibly Project
Daedalus.
References: Project Orion:
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.252.12.169
http://www.damninteresting.com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-atomic-spaceship
Project Daedalus:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-daedalus-starship
On the other hand, the first method is perfectly adequate for one-way
sending of instrumental probes, followed in a couple of centuries with
seeding other worlds with prokaryotes out to at least 50 light years
with technology that should be in place by then.
Once it's refined, and the second method perfected, humans of the not
too distant future might hazard an instrumental probe out to 1000
light years, to be followed by probes carrying unicellular life.
Remainder deleted, to be replied to later.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On Dec 6, 10:29 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
[enormous snip, to cut to the chase:]
> > > When such special pleading became so obvious, the
> > > novelty of someone who wasn't grossly ignorant wore off.-
> > You seem to be relying exclusively on scuttlebutt for this last bit.
>
> No. Your perception is failing you. I was there. I engaged Julie
> often.
Under what name? I googled "el cid" in Google Groups Advanced Search,
with no restrictions as to date, and the oldest post I could find
under that name was on Jan 22, 2008.
Switching from lower case to "El Cid" gave the same result.
Using your posting e-mail address also brought up a smattering of
earlier posts, but only as far back as Jun 19, 2006.
The last posts Google shows from Julie Thomas are in August 1999, and
that is in harmony with what I can recall from those days.
[remainder deleted, to be replied to later, perhaps; ditto for most of
what I deleted above]
Peter Nyikos
jillery
> On Dec 6, 1:54 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 6, 1:42 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 2, 7:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > > > > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > > > ><b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > > > >stated..."
>
> > > > > > >which is not how evolution works. His mirrors are where Behe presumes
> > > > > > >ID in order to demonstrate ID. People saw through Behe's magic act
> > > > > > >from the beginning.
>
> > > > And got shot down in turn. A classic case was the double gene
> > > > knockout misreading of an article by the world's greatest authority on
> > > > the evolution of hemoglobin, in which he thought it said that mice
> > > > that had two genes knocked out of the pathway were doing just fine.
>
> > > > He trumpeted his idiocy publicly, and only apologized for it privately
> > > > when last I heard.
>
> IIRC his name was Doolittle. I can check if people are interested.
> So far people seem to want to let that sleeping dog lie.
Others demonstrated the evolutionary plausibility of the blood-
clotting cascade and refuted ID, so it doesn't matter to me.
> > > From your comments above, ISTM you have some interest in ID. I have
> > > read your posts since this one. I'm glad I avoided swapping war
> > > stories and catching up on gossip, because I wasn't involved in any of
> > > that. WRT DIG's letter of recommendation and your reply, if I
> > > overstep your standards, please assume it was accidental and
> > > incidental to my making a point of substance.
>
> > > I am quite willing to stipulate the possibility of panspermy. The
> > > origin of life on Earth is a single event,
>
> Actually, if it arose via abiogenesis of the "Mother Earth did it"
> kind, it's the endpoint of an astronomical number of individual
> events.
Functionally equivalent descriptions. Can you get past arguing about
what we call our axioms?
> > > and matters to evolutionary
> > > theory and ID about as much as the name of your Creator, by which I
> > > mean it matters not at all.
>
> False.
What is false? Why do you think so? Please elaborate.
> > Both propose processes on how life>changes<.
>
> And ID researchers are involved in a lot of other things as well, even
> the question of whether the universe as a whole was designed in the
> form of the primordial entity which underwent the Big Bang.
>
> Ron O. has helpfully provided us with a website which makes this more
> or less clear ("the life-sustaining physical architecture of the
> universe"):http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
> [...]
No evidence there. More to the point, I would like you to focus back
on your comments regarding Behe's ID, which deals with the biochemical
nature of life on Earth. Behe proposes that an Intelligent Creator
causes at least some genes to change in a specific and highly
improbable way, as a continuous process. Sometimes you say you agree
with Behe, and sometime you say you disagree, but you don't specify
when or how. Please elaborate.
> > > What I don't understand is if you believe your panspermy presupposes
> > > your ID. Care to elaborate on this point for those who missed round
> > > one?
>
> > > <snip remaining to avoid googlegroup overflow>-
>
> I snipped a lot of the earlier stuff to achieve the same end.
So we have that as a common purpose.
> > Please change the above to read "What I don't understand is if you
> > believe your panspermy presupposes Behe's ID."
>
> > Sigh.
>
> It doesn't, and never did. Read my reply to Ron O. in which I quote
> from _Life Itself_. To clarify one point: I accepted directed
> panspermy as my favorite hypothesis irrespective of whether the
> panspermists actually did major modifications of the organisms which
> they sent.
I read your replies to Ron O. You talk about creationism and
panspermy, but make no mention of ID. AFAICS none of your comments
specify what you actually mean by ID, and on what evidence you base
your support of it. ID doesn't care about whether or not panspermy
seed was modified. ID says a designer causes changes throughout
natural history, and continues to do so today. Behe proposes his IC
tests for these changes. What parts of ID do you actually agree
with? Why?
pnyikos
> On Dec 6, 2:56 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Dec 6, 1:54 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 6, 1:42 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On Dec 2, 7:16 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > [...]
> > > > > > > "On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:46:54 -0800 (PST), in article
> > > > > > ><b9511300-281b-4925-b53f-afa1b5095...@q14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, jillery
> > > > > > >stated..."
>
> > > > > > > >which is not how evolution works. His mirrors are where Behe presumes
> > > > > > > >ID in order to demonstrate ID. People saw through Behe's magic act
> > > > > > > >from the beginning.
>
> > > > > And got shot down in turn. A classic case was the double gene
> > > > > knockout misreading of an article by the world's greatest authority on
> > > > > the evolution of hemoglobin, in which he thought it said that mice
> > > > > that had two genes knocked out of the pathway were doing just fine.
>
> > > > > He trumpeted his idiocy publicly, and only apologized for it privately
> > > > > when last I heard.
>
> > IIRC his name was Doolittle. I can check if people are interested.
> > So far people seem to want to let that sleeping dog lie.
>
> Others demonstrated the evolutionary plausibility of the blood-
> clotting cascade and refuted ID, so it doesn't matter to me.
Not completely, although I agree it is no longer a promising example
for ID theorists.
Theory is one thing, actual events are another. Has anyone found
primitive organisms with a greatly reduced number of precursors of the
chemicals involved in the cascade (like, four instead of thirteen)?
Don't forget, we deal not only in what is theoretically possible, but
in what actually happened.
> > > > From your comments above, ISTM you have some interest in ID. I have
> > > > read your posts since this one. I'm glad I avoided swapping war
> > > > stories and catching up on gossip, because I wasn't involved in any of
> > > > that. WRT DIG's letter of recommendation and your reply, if I
> > > > overstep your standards, please assume it was accidental and
> > > > incidental to my making a point of substance.
>
> > > > I am quite willing to stipulate the possibility of panspermy. The
> > > > origin of life on Earth is a single event,
>
> > Actually, if it arose via abiogenesis of the "Mother Earth did it"
> > kind, it's the endpoint of an astronomical number of individual
> > events.
>
> Functionally equivalent descriptions. Can you get past arguing about
> what we call our axioms?
Not if the miscommunication between us is as enormous as it seems to
be below:
> > > > and matters to evolutionary
> > > > theory and ID about as much as the name of your Creator, by which I
> > > > mean it matters not at all.
>
> > False.
>
> What is false? Why do you think so? Please elaborate.
"it matters not at all." As to why it is false, see below.
> > > Both propose processes on how life>changes<.
>
> > And ID researchers are involved in a lot of other things as well, even
> > the question of whether the universe as a whole was designed in the
> > form of the primordial entity which underwent the Big Bang.
>
> > Ron O. has helpfully provided us with a website which makes this more
> > or less clear ("the life-sustaining physical architecture of the
> > universe"):http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
> > [...]
>
> No evidence there.
Information refuting "it matters not at all." is there, in spades.
That was my point.
> More to the point, I would like you to focus back
> on your comments regarding Behe's ID, which deals with the biochemical
> nature of life on Earth.
What comments of mine did you have in mind here?
>Behe proposes that an Intelligent Creator
> causes at least some genes to change in a specific and highly
> improbable way, as a continuous process.
That's one of several possibilities he explores, and not one I brought
up in the past nine years in t.o.
> Sometimes you say you agree
> with Behe, and sometime you say you disagree, but you don't specify
> when or how. Please elaborate.
That will come out in the wash in the next year or so. Right now, I
am focused on MY version of ID.
[...]
> > > Please change the above to read "What I don't understand is if you
> > > believe your panspermy presupposes Behe's ID."
>
> > > Sigh.
>
> > It doesn't, and never did. Read my reply to Ron O. in which I quote
> > from _Life Itself_. To clarify one point: I accepted directed
> > panspermy as my favorite hypothesis irrespective of whether the
> > panspermists actually did major modifications of the organisms which
> > they sent.
>
> I read your replies to Ron O. You talk about creationism and
> panspermy, but make no mention of ID.
Isn't it obvious that Crick was talking about Intelligent Design?
Here's what I quoted to Ron O.:
The senders could well have developed wholly new strains of
microorganisms, specially designed to cope with prebiotic
conditions, though whether it would have been better to try to
combine all the desirable properties within one single type
of organism or to send many different organisms is not
completely clear.
--Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, _Life Itself_
Simon and Schuster, 1981
> ID says a designer causes changes throughout
> natural history, and continues to do so today.
Wrong, see what preceded your irrelevant comment "No evidence there."
Peter Nyikos
el cid
> On Dec 6, 11:22 am, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The most absurd aspect of asserting that peptide synthesis
> > was designed rather than evolved is the legacy of rRNA.
> > The ribosome is so unlike nearly every other bit of Earthly
> > biochemistry that it bears strong consideration.
> It does indeed, but what's the relevance? Even the magnificent
> ribosomes are unable to tell in a lot of cases whether the correct
> amino acid has been attached to the tRNA they have glommed onto on
> account of its codon [or is it anticodon? It's been years since I
> last checked this particular detail]. This has been experimentally
> established.
In no cases does the ribosome check the identify of the amino
acid attached to the tRNA. No "in a lot of the cases", none.
All assertions about styles of prose for mathematicians aside,
simplicity and precision is called for. None.
The check on the anticodon is subject to misunderstanding
of flowery prose. The right binding to the A site favors the
correct anticodon properly aligned to the peptidyl-tRNA
in the P-site. Friendly human language with verbs like "tell"
promote poor understanding. The right anticodon has favorable
binding kinetics compared to the incorrect anticodons.
This fluidly maps into favored reaction transition states which
have better reaction kinetics than with mismatched anticodons.
Errors, meaning less favored reactions, occur on the order
of 10,000 to 100,000 fold less often than correct reactions.
Further refining the discriminatory power of the ribosme
would require larger differential binding energies which would
necessarily result in slower ribosomes.
But that's review and beside the point. Why ribosomal RNA?
There is nothing intrinsic to to peptide bond formation
that would require more than protein based enzymes
routinely deliver. Non-ribosomal peptide synthesis works
very nicely for many interesting little peptides. So it clearly
isn't anything fundamental about the peptide bond.
Amino-acyl-tRNA synthetases work very well at recognition
of tRNAs and perform a nice reaction so it isn't that
proteins can't work well to bind RNA.
DNA repair and methylation complexes perform many
reactions involving complex structural intermediates so
it doesn't look like, from a conceptual standpoint, that
binding mRNA and tRNA would be categorically different.
Why ribosomal RNA?
> > If considered in the light of the possibility of an RNA-world
> > precursor to the current biochemistries, one compelling
> > explanation is that the ribosome is an a legacy locked in
> > place. Why use RNA when every expectation is that
> > a polypeptide would work better to cradle peptide synthesis?
>
> On what grounds -- just the experience with protein enzymes and the
> pitifully few ribozymes researchers have come up with so far?
Presumably you haven't check the field recently.
Rather than go snipe hunting, consider this older review
and see if you would still use "pitifully few".
http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/395J/395J_2009/Readings/Lecture%2019/Ellington%20RNA%20evolution.pdf
[the cognoscenti will recognize deaddog, not to be confused with
any similarly named rats]
> And even if there is a polypeptide that could substitute for rRNA,
> just how are researchers supposed to be able to design it? Our
> knowledge of protein folding is still in its infancy.
Well apparently they designed all sorts of other similar enzymes
when the purely RNA based panspermists of your scenario
did their genetic engineering. Why did they succeed in using
proteins in so many other places but not in the ribosome?
They would have had to succeed with myriad other reactions
that represent more demanding chemistry. It doesn't make
any sense to leave the ribosome as RNA based if you go
and make the various DNA polymerases as proteins when
they are more sophisticated.
> > With a ribosome extant, how could you evolve out of
> > it into a purely peptide based translation engine?
> I don't get the point of your question. Are you simply assuming that
> designers of human level or slightly above human level intelligence
> somehow were supposed to answer the two huge questions I've asked just
> now?
I am assuming that the implied ability of your hypothetical
RNA based lifeform to build something resembling a prokaryote
with its many protein based enzymatic processes would
easily be able to build a ribosome that didn't use RNA like
rRNA is used in extant ribosomes. It isn't a naked
assumption. It is based on examination of the myriad
reactions that proteins perform in extant lifeforms,
the nature of reactions they perform, the types of
complex intermediates that are formed and what the
ribosome does.
Perhaps I've overlooked a unique feature of
ribosomes and you could enlighten me.
Doesn't a unique solution suggest a unique problem?
And for what little it's worth, my sense of the current
knowledge of protein folding is less pessimistic than
yours. Fund me with 30 million and in 5 years I'll
have a protein holoenzyme that replaces the ribosome.
It's not a very interesting problem from a commercial
or utilitarian perspective so I wouldn't really spend
any money to do it, there being far better ways to
spend the money but that's what I think it would take.
That's about 15-20 good scientists for that 5 years with
an aggressive supply budget and minimal build out
costs as lab space is relatively cheap right now.
It might take me an additional 5 years and 5 million
to make it work as fast with the same fidelity. That's
not much in the context of your million year panspermia
program the Xordaxians funded.
> > If the ribosome was designed, it was by a mad genius
> > or by a splinter group with either a perverse fixation
> > on RNA or else those that failed the engineering course
> > in polypeptide structural design.
> A purely imaginary engineering course.
>
> Let me know when you've come up with a design for a polypeptide that
> folds into an enzyme that does everything a ribosome does. :-)
> More seriously, let me know how many millennia you estimate it will
> take for us humans to design such a polypeptide.
>
> And, even assuming it CAN be done, do you REALLY think the knowledge
> of how to synthesize it will work its way down into the university
> level? The chances of that seem more remote to me than the chances
> of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem being taught in a one-semester
> university course.
I utterly fail to understand how you gage your probabilities.
I grant you your assertion about Fermat's Last Theorem
as I have no reference from which to disagree and grant
your expertise in the matter. But it makes zero sense to
consider the ribosome as a uniquely challenging design
project in context of all the other design problems YOUR
scenario presumes were solved. Can't you recognize the
inconsistency? Doesn't it trouble you?
el cid
I'm disinclined to publicly divulge my real name.
Moreover, I'm disinclined to continue a back and forth on the
merits of Julie Thomas. You made a claim about how she
bested all comers. I have registered my disagreement and
with more specific than I should have for someone not here
to defend themselves.
I don't want to press it much further because, a.) Julie
is not around to defend herself, b) there's no hope of
a clear resolution, c) discussing the merits of individuals
is much less interesting than discussing the merits of
ideas, and d) because discussing the merits of individuals
at length brings out the worst in many of us.
If telling you who am I is essential to getting you to
drop extensive debate on a person who is no longer
here I would consider letting you know privately. I
rather hope you can simply let it go instead.
pnyikos
One difference between us: I was there posting under the same name
(though not with the same IP) as I am now. I stand by what I wrote,
and could document at length how Hershey and Myers repeatedly
misrepresented what Julie wrote when debating her.
You could support your implication that they legitimately bested her,
at times, in the same way. But since you are evidently reluctant to
do so, I am sticking to the belief that you were BSing.
With that said, we can agree to disagree about her and about the
debates people had with her.
Peter Nyikos
John Harshman
It doesn't seem so to me.
>>> But that
>>> says nothing about what they might have tried to seed.
>> It does unless they're incompetents.
>
> "incompetents"? Are you postulating a superhuman intelligence? I'm
> not. See my reply to "el cid" on ribosomes, etc.
Perhaps you could set out an actual scenario here, so I don't have to
guess. My claim would be that only incompetents would try to seed
inhospitable planets.
>>> Perhaps there
>>> are microbes well below the surface of Mars, like on earth, and
>>> possibly those were sent by them.
>> I think that comes close to "possibly there is a bowl of petunias in the
>> leading Trojan position of Jupiter".
>
> Why? Exobiologists haven't given up on the possibility that there was
> once life on the surface of Mars, but the surface conditions became
> too inhospitable for it, driving life underground. [Primitive life is
> being found in deep mines and borings right here, isolated from the
> surface for what may be eons.]
>
> For that matter, some might not have given up altogether on finding
> primitive life forms on the surface of Mars.
I suppose that depends on the goals of these hypothetical panspermists.
What are those hypothetical goals?
>>> Back in those days, when the sun was less hot, they might have even
>>> seeded Venus successfully; if so, all trace has long since been
>>> obliterated.
>> Again, if so they are inept, since life could have made and kept Venus
>> habitable given initial conditions that weren't hopeless.
>
> Can you point to some peer-reviewed papers supporting this claim of
> yours?
No. But since life keeps earth habitable, and since Venus is within the
so-called habitable zone, why is there a problem? Venus suffers from a
runaway greenhouse effect, which life would prevent.
> Anyway, "incompetent" and "inept" don't seem to be taking into account
> that this was probably action at a (huge) distance. The panspermists
> would have had perhaps a million promising planets to try and get
> things started on. They could only devote so many resources to any
> one planet or suitably large satellite of a planet.
Where did the figure of a million come from? Why do you get to make up
the initial conditions to suit your momentary fancy?
>>> Alternatively, they could have focused all their efforts for this
>>> solar system on the most promising place of all: earth.
>> They could have done anything they liked. I merely point out that the
>> lack of any other life is evidence against panspermy.
>
> The jury is still hearing opening statements on this, so to speak.
> Isaac Asimov and Poul Anderson [see reference below] didn't even rule
> out life on Jupiter. Not intelligent life as we know it, of course,
> but perhaps life using hydrogen instead of oxygen as the gaseous
> component of respiration. We have such organisms (methanogens) right
> here on earth.
The lack of any detectable life is the evidence we have, and will have
to serve until more evidence comes along. You can't use the absence of
evidence for your position as evidence in favor of your position.
I don't follow this closely. But I would call that one planet a radical
change. I do seem to recall there are others that aren't hot Jupiters.
>>>>>> Why seed only
>>>>>> with prokaryotes
>>> By the way, I never said *only* prokaryotes.
>> You never said much.
>
> Not since I started posting again; but I did say a good bit in
> 1996-2001.
You keep threatening to refresh my memory, but so far you haven't.
>> But are you proposing that these aliens had a
>> multi-billion-year project to terraform earth,
>
> In the beginning, I envision a multi-million year project to begin the
> process of terraforming (or forming to their own specifications, which
> is quite another issue) thousands if not millions of worlds.
Why do you envision that? And if you're talking about eukaryotes, don't
you need a multi-billion year project?
Perhaps you could explain your scenario and the reasons for choosing it
in preference to other scenarios.
And another thing. Why are you proposing this theory? Is it merely for
your amusement or do you think it's the likeliest explanation for life?
If the latter, why?
John Harshman
It does make a difference, and you didn't just misremember, since he
clearly stated it in that very post. You didn't read. One should avoid
that sort of thing.
> Obviously, if one accepts ours as a non-eternal universe (as most
> scientists do), infinite regression won't work. However, I vaguely
> remember some argument about that time about life being transferred
> from other universes to ours to get around the problems, which does
> introduce the problem of how many recursions one is permitting, but it
> was a long time ago.
Exactly. This time out, he's proposing only one step back to a natural
origin of life. All that other stuff is irrelevant.
> However, Peter definitely has to do better at
> explaining why he feels that panspermia is a better explanation than
> indigenous abiogenesis even as a one-back explanation.
I would certainly be interested in such an explanation from him. But if
you want one, as I do, you should ask for one rather than attacking
things he isn't saying.
> Although most
> of the elements required for life do occur by nucleosynthesis (up to
> Fe) in population II stars, there are a few that are omitted that are
> needed for at least some life forms, like Zn, Cu, Se, and Mo. But
> the real problem are the rarer metals, some of which are needed for
> semiconductors, hardened steels, superconducting, and nuclear energy
> -- the technology that would be needed.
Perhaps he'll address that at some point. I can think of a couple
potential ways out. See what he comes up with.
Matthew Bladen
<eci...@earthlink.net> says...
[snip]
> How often have you seen a USENET thread cited in news stories or in
> professional publications?
Usenet sometimes provides the earliest evidence for OED entries - often
acronyms, but also other things. In fact, on the redesigned website it's
now possible to search by source, and 151 entries or senses are first
attested on Usenet (including 'troll', but surprisingly not 'spam').
This relates to individual posts rather than threads, of course.
--
Matthew
jillery
For the purposes of refuting a claim of IC, it's enough to demonstrate
functionality with the lack of just one precursor. You might have
heard or read Ken Miller's comments on this topic. A lobster is a
sufficient example for this situation.
> Don't forget, we deal not only in what is theoretically possible, but
> in what actually happened.
Do you apply that standard to your panspermy as well as evolution? If
so, will you provide evidence of how panspermy actually happened?
> > > > > From your comments above, ISTM you have some interest in ID. I have
> > > > > read your posts since this one. I'm glad I avoided swapping war
> > > > > stories and catching up on gossip, because I wasn't involved in any of
> > > > > that. WRT DIG's letter of recommendation and your reply, if I
> > > > > overstep your standards, please assume it was accidental and
> > > > > incidental to my making a point of substance.
>
> > > > > I am quite willing to stipulate the possibility of panspermy. The
> > > > > origin of life on Earth is a single event,
>
> > > Actually, if it arose via abiogenesis of the "Mother Earth did it"
> > > kind, it's the endpoint of an astronomical number of individual
> > > events.
>
> > Functionally equivalent descriptions. Can you get past arguing about
> > what we call our axioms?
>
> Not if the miscommunication between us is as enormous as it seems to
> be below:
ISTM that problem starts right here.
> > > > > and matters to evolutionary
> > > > > theory and ID about as much as the name of your Creator, by which I
> > > > > mean it matters not at all.
>
> > > False.
>
> > What is false? Why do you think so? Please elaborate.
>
> "it matters not at all." As to why it is false, see below.
Ok
> > > > Both propose processes on how life>changes<.
>
> > > And ID researchers are involved in a lot of other things as well, even
> > > the question of whether the universe as a whole was designed in the
> > > form of the primordial entity which underwent the Big Bang.
>
> > > Ron O. has helpfully provided us with a website which makes this more
> > > or less clear ("the life-sustaining physical architecture of the
> > > universe"):http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
> > > [...]
>
> > No evidence there.
>
> Information refuting "it matters not at all." is there, in spades.
> That was my point.
Is this the "below" you referred to above? If so, you misrepresent
what my "it" refers to. Even the cosmic ID described in Ron O's cite
presumes a starting point, and it's certainly not committed to
panspermy. In counterpoint, I could discuss cosmic evolution as
described by Guth, Hoyle and others. My experience is dragging in
cosmology obfuscates most discussions about how life changes on
Earth. YMMV.
As I said, I took your replies to mean you had an interest in
discussing the relative merits of ID and the modern evolutionary
synthesis. IIUC I was wrong.
> > More to the point, I would like you to focus back
> > on your comments regarding Behe's ID, which deals with the biochemical
> > nature of life on Earth.
>
> What comments of mine did you have in mind here?
The ones you wrote in your original reply to my previous comments
about Behe's ID.
> >Behe proposes that an Intelligent Creator
> > causes at least some genes to change in a specific and highly
> > improbable way, as a continuous process.
>
> That's one of several possibilities he explores, and not one I brought
> up in the past nine years in t.o.
Do you limit me to only those points you raise? That really puts a
crimp in any dialog.
> > Sometimes you say you agree
> > with Behe, and sometime you say you disagree, but you don't specify
> > when or how. Please elaborate.
>
> That will come out in the wash in the next year or so. Right now, I
> am focused on MY version of ID.
If only I knew what YOUR version of ID is. If I promise not to
comment on your version of ID, will you promise not to comment on
anybody else's version of ID?
> > > > Please change the above to read "What I don't understand is if you
> > > > believe your panspermy presupposes Behe's ID."
>
> > > > Sigh.
>
> > > It doesn't, and never did. Read my reply to Ron O. in which I quote
> > > from _Life Itself_. To clarify one point: I accepted directed
> > > panspermy as my favorite hypothesis irrespective of whether the
> > > panspermists actually did major modifications of the organisms which
> > > they sent.
>
> > I read your replies to Ron O. You talk about creationism and
> > panspermy, but make no mention of ID.
>
> Isn't it obvious that Crick was talking about Intelligent Design?
> Here's what I quoted to Ron O.:
>
> The senders could well have developed wholly new strains of
> microorganisms, specially designed to cope with prebiotic
> conditions, though whether it would have been better to try to
> combine all the desirable properties within one single type
> of organism or to send many different organisms is not
> completely clear.
> --Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, _Life Itself_
> Simon and Schuster, 1981
No he was not. Crick was talking about organisms similar to GMOs.
Crick's idea here says nothing about how his senders came to be, or
how his prebiotic organisms develop once they arrive. Crick's
explained his intent was to get around the problems he saw with
abiogenesis on Earth. More tellingly, Crick explicitly denied
connection between these words and ID.
Ron O
> On Dec 6, 7:37 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 6, 5:53 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 3, 9:28 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > It
> > > > has been the same with every creationist rube like yourself.
>
> > > If you retract the false and baseless claim that I am a creationist,
> > > I'll start taking the things you say about other people seriously.
>
>
> > Nykos, I am a creationist.
>
> What is your definition of a creationist? Mine is someone who
> disbelieves in common descent of all organisms from a few simple ones
> (unicellular or at best colonies of cells with little organization),
> and posits a supernatural being creating new orders of organisms.
As I wrote, that is a narrow definition of creationist, and the fact
that you invoke it likely means that you are a creationist and that
you are just obfuscating the issue.
The ID perps are a broad range of creationists from those that accept
common descent like Behe to young earth creationists. What part of
how I described creationist did you not get? What did including an
IDiot like Kalkidas that is a hindu creationist not tell you?
There are the Raelians that believe in intelligent design by space
aliens and I don't know their theology well enough to say if they
believe in some ultimate creator or not.
>
> > I'm just not a creationist rube the fell
> > for the ID scam.
>
> So what is your position? Are you a creationist according to my
> definition? I am not one.
It is in the part of the post that you snipped out. If you believe in
some supernatural creator you are a creationist. This post tells me
that you really can't face reality. Snipping what you can't deal with
is stupid. Anyone can go up one post and figure out that my
description of creationist is missing from this post.
In the end it doesn't even matter. You are or you are not, what were
you trying to claim in your original response about the ID scam?
Just cut the baloney and defend the bait and swtich scam. You now
know that the Discovery Institute was involved, so that is one of your
questions answered, so what is your claim going to be now? It is just
a fact that the ID perps have been running the bait and switch scam
for nearly 8 years. If you have bothered to look it up there hasn't
been a single creationist rube school board or legislator that fell
for the ID scam that ever got any ID science to teach. Not only that,
but they were running the bait and switch on every such rube two years
before Dover. So what is your beef going to be. Just more
obfuscation and misdirection. Remember my claim. The only guys that
still support the ID scam are the ignorant, the incompetent and or
dishonest, and what does obfuscating the issue, and not knowing what
the ID perps at the Discovery Institute have been doing for years tell
you about yourself?
One of the consistent traits of a willful IDiot is their unbound
capacity to lie to themselves. So what is your next obfuscation ploy
going to be? Misdirecting the issue into this baloney about
"creationist" when you likely are a creationist of some sort is just
stupid. I will even concede to move on. I do not know if you are a
creationist. So what were you going to do after that?
Ron Okimoto
>
> Even if you have a wholly different definition for "creationist", I do
> not fit the description of "creationist rube" by any stretch of the
> words. I first became interested in the concept of ID as it is
> currently understood about fourteen years ago, from reading two books:
> Christian deDuve's _Vital Dust_ and Nobel Laureate Francis Crick's
> _Life Itself_. I only heard about Behe and the ID movement about a
> year afterwards.
>
> The following words by Crick sold me on my brand of ID, which I've
> consistently championed throughout my posting to talk.origins:
>
> The senders could well have developed wholly new strains of
> microorganisms, specially designed to cope with prebiotic
> conditions, though whether it would have been better to try to
> combine all the desirable properties within one single type
> of organism or to send many different organisms is not
> completely clear.
> --Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, _Life Itself_
> Simon and Schuster, 1981
>
> The "senders" to which Crick refers are hypothetical directed
> panspermists: intelligent creatures of almost 4 billion years
> ago who sent microorganisms to earth, which according to the
> hypothesis had an ocean rich in amino acids and various
> other organic materials but no living things as yet. He developed
> this
> hypothesis together with Leslie Orgel. He doesn't claim
> this is more likely or less likely than life arising here
> spontaneously,
> precisely because he doesn't know what the odds are.
>
> But I have developed a few ideas for supporting the theory of directed
> panspermy besides those developed by Crick and Orgel, and IMHO it is
> the best explanation for the way "life as we know it" is organized.
>
> It was only well after reading these two books [the first of which had
> the exact opposite of its intended effect on me] that I heard of
> Michael Behe, Irreducible Complexity, and the Discovery Institute. I
> think Behe is missing out on a good thing by not focusing on the
> protein translation mechanism as something which perhaps WAS
> irreducibly complex (with a one-to-one correspondence between codons
> and synthetases) at some early point in time, but evolved to the
> somewhat sloppy condition we see now.
>
> Note, I do not claim it was that way; it may have already been sloppy
> (by our perhaps ignorant standards) when the panspermists seeded our
> planet.P
>
> > If you are a Christian (as I suspect) or some other
> > religion like Kalk's hinduism, so are you.
>
> I am a Christian out of commitment and hope, rather than out of
> conviction that Christianity MUST be true, which I've lacked since
> the age of 23. And, like St. Augustine, I do not take the opening
> chapters of Genesis to be more than a myth.
>
> Does your mysterious personal definition of "creationist" stretch to
> cover that?
>
> > If not I will retract.
>
> I await your reply.
>
> I've deleted the rest of your post, which only piles on the things you
> need to retract before I start to take seriously the things you say
> about others.
>
> Peter Nyikos
Ron O
> On Dec 6, 8:12 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
SNIP:
>
> > You should read my response to deadrat. It hasn't been self
> > defeating. What has been a losing proposition seems to have been the
> > alternative. The IDiots know exactly where I stand and not a single
> > one will challenge the issue head on. It should be easy to counter
> > vicious untrue propaganda, but they can't do it for the simple reason
> > that what I claim is true.
>
> Who ever said your propaganda was untrue?
> I'm just saying it has a stink to it that turns me off, and
> I suspect turns off others, even when we are
> initially sympathetic. If it turns off someone who is
> sympathetic, what do you think it does to someone
> who is not? You are going to "force" someone to see
> reality? Really? And you think that's working?
> Do conjure up that cop arresting a woman for
> shoplifting her catfood dinner. He is oh so proud
> and expecting people to pat him on the back for
> his defense of Truth, Justice and The American
> Way. How do you get through to that guy to let
> him know that despite the fact that shoplifting is
> a crime, tazing her, handcuffing her, and hauling
> her down to the station won't earn him a medal?
> How do I break through his obsession that he
> is righteously fighting the good fight and therefore
> is right in all he does?
Are you a creationist of some type? Disclosure should be appropriate
at this point. If you are a creationists of some sort you just have
to face the reality of the situation. Getting me to stop telling it
like it is, isn't going to change reality.
"Righteiously fighting the good fight" would seem to be projection on
your part with a nim like el cid. I don't write about the ID scam to
impress guys like you are claiming to be.
The main reason that I do it is that one day someone like Kalk or
Nykos might just produce some kind of explanation for why they are
still IDiots in the face of reality. It has never worked, but Nykos
seems to have been in la la land for a decade and was stupid enough to
mention the Discovery Institute as if it were a legitimate
organization. Right now he is just misdirecting the argument and
obfuscating the issue, but he may get around to trying to explain the
bait and switch. From the responses that I do get the IDiots have to
at least face that they are lying to themselves with each denial. If
they could counter one of them would have by now. They all know it.
It just makes anything else that they write about the subject as bogus
as they understand it to be. Kalk and Pitman probably have enough on
the ball to understand what the bait and switch means. How does
someone keep plowing ahead in the face of a reality that they know
that they have to lie to themselves about. It doesn't take a genius
to understand that someone like Kalk should be able to counter
"propaganda" at will, but he can't do it.
I'm sorry if you are a creationist of some type. So am I, but the
reality is that there are scam artists that are taking advantage of
people for political purposes. Some of them are making their living
doing it. You aren't going to change reality by hiding the trash
under a basket.
By some definition my posts may be propaganda, but it isn't the bogus
dishonest propaganda that is coming out of the Discovery Institute.
It isn't even hyperbole to call what the ID perps have been doing the
bait and switch scam. That is exactly what they are doing.
Advertising one thing and giving the rubes something else. If they
were selling TV sets or cars they would probably be in jail or fined
by now. No objection of yours is going to change that reality, so you
will just have to live with it. They are simply ID perps and scam
artists that are running the bait and switch scam. The guys that
swallow the junk are rubes. I didn't make up the definitions of those
words.
Ron Okimoto
>
> I agree that ID "leaders" play a bait and switch
> scam, are manipulative, and less than honest.
> I expect they self-justify because they think
> they are fighting for a greater good and that
> blinds them to the effect of their actions. See
> any parallel? Get past your intent and listen
> to your effect.- Hide quoted text -
el cid
> On Dec 6, 7:48 am, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you a creationist of some type? Disclosure should be appropriate
> at this point. If you are a creationists of some sort you just have
> to face the reality of the situation.
Why I'm a faithful follower of brother John Birch
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church
And ain't even got a garage,
you can call home and ask my wife.
> Getting me to stop telling it
> like it is, isn't going to change reality.
Ron my darling, I haven't and wouldn't have said
much of anything if your screed was a general
summary intended for broad readership. For
that letting your freak flag fly is cool with me.
But you were focused on an individual who you
would never convince with such heavy handed
prose. Likewise, my attempts to influence you
were equally inefficacious so I guess I'm no
better.
> "Righteiously fighting the good fight" would seem to be projection on
> your part with a nim like el cid. I don't write about the ID scam to
> impress guys like you are claiming to be.
Not sure what you think I'm claiming to be. If you think I'm
claiming to be the historical El Cid, then it is a good thing
you aren't writing for dead guys. Your posts would be hard
to chisel into the granite.
Then again, another has decried El Cid for switching
side and on that front maybe I picked the name better
than I thought. I don't have a side I support here. I
just react to each situation according to my own code.
> The main reason that I do it is that one day someone like Kalk or
> Nykos might just produce some kind of explanation for why they are
> still IDiots in the face of reality. It has never worked,
I wonder why?
pnyikos
> pnyikos wrote:
> > On Dec 3, 8:30 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >> pnyikos wrote:
> >>> On Dec 3, 7:29 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >>>> pnyikos wrote:
Let me be a little more precise about the various alternatives, to
make them more comprehensive and more revealing of the various
scenarios I propose:
> >>>>> But "necessary" is not where it's at. The key here is, what is most
> >>>>> likely origin of life ON EARTH?
[replace earlier alternative with:]
1, Homegrown abiogenesis, because we are the only technological
species that was in our neighborhood of the galaxy in the years ca.
4.4 bya - 3.9bya
> >>>>> 2. Homegrown abiogenesis, because other technological species (which
> >>>>> had 9 billion years to evolve before earth ever came to be) kept away
> >>>>> from it and never tried to seed it, at least not in the ca. 500
> >>>>> million years before the first prokaryotes arose.
> >>>>> 3. Seeding of the earth by a technologically advanced (though not
> >>>>> necessarily any more advanced than ourselves) species.
To elaborate on that last one:
3A The panspermists were a species with essentially the same
biochemistry as our own. ID component need not be there at all, or
may range from genetic modification of the sort we do, to building of
production of whole organelles, such as flagellae, where none of the
indigenous species had them.
3B The panspermists had a protein translation mechanism, but a much
simpler one than ours and designed a much more elaborate and precise
one for the organisms they sent.
3C The organisms had a radically different biochemistry, probably
with ribozymes as their enzymes, but also with structural proteins not
made to the same exacting specifications as synthetases necessarily
have to have. They developed a lot of proteins using nanotechnology,
partly to enhance their own makeup but more radically to create
completely new life forms with the translation mechanism we now enjoy.
I called the organisms of 3C "Throomians" in 1996-2001, in conscious
modification of the word "Thrymans" used by Poul Anderson in his early
sf novel, _We Claim These Stars_.
I didn't talk about 3B at all in those days, but I talked plenty
about 3A. Someone else coined a word starting with "X" for them back
then, but I think I'll refer to them as "Golians" this time around.
.
.
.
[big snip of things covered in first follow-up]
.
.
> >>>> Why seed only
> >>>> with prokaryotes
>
> > By the way, I never said *only* prokaryotes.
>
> You never said much. But are you proposing that these aliens had a
> multi-billion-year project to terraform earth, and that all the major
> milestones in evolution were seeded? One weakness of your ideas, from a
> scientific perspective, is their ability to accommodate anything at all.
Not the ideas I promoted in 1996-2000, and I'm sticking to them for
the foreseeable future.
> >>> Francis Crick: "Prokaryotes go farther". Reference: _Life Itself_.
> >>> [...]
> >> But what's the point?
>
> > Do the math. Let's say the panspermists had a million-year project in
> > which they sent prokaryotes up to 10,000 light years away and
> > primitivve eukaryotes up to 1,000 light years away.
>
> Why would we say that?
Just to start the ball rolling. Actually the distances aren't so
important as the ratios: we could talk about 1000 vs 100 light years
or even 200 vs 20 light years, for instance. It depends on the
motivation:
3A and 3B, eventual colonization of some of the seeded planets being a
big probable motivation. Smaller distances would probably be the
norm. The wait time is so big that the larger effort would result in
habitable planets being smeared all over the part of the galaxy
outside the big central bulge. However, chance close (i.e., 100 light
years or less) encounters with planets seeded at a much greater
distance might occur within ca. two billion years.
3C, altruism seems to be more likely (although I would not rule out
changes in their own biochemistry to make the organisms that develop
edible) and so the only limit to how far they send them is their own
technology. Here the effort could span hundreds of millions of
years, at a reduced rate, governed by changes in the stars that come
within their "sending radius".
> > [I can't recall
> > whether Crick gave any figures as to relative distances, but let's
> > just adopt these and see later whether they are realistic.] That
> > would mean a volume of space up to 1,000 times greater for the
> > prokaryotes, nad not a whole lot less, because it is only about 10,000
> > light years (IIRC) that we get above and below the plane of the
> > galaxy.
>
> So?
Law of diminishing returns sets in as you go further.
> > And if they were interested in later colonization, rather than just
> > altruistically trying to spread what would ultimately be intelligent
> > life far and wide, cyanobacteria would do very nicely, with a bunch of
> > other prokaryotes thrown in for good measure.
>
> On what time scale do you imagine these beings would operate? What
> happened to their plans, such that they didn't manage to colonize?
They may have colonized lots of places, but ours may have drifted to
too great a distance. See above.
> > Of course, you have to weigh that against the likelihood of us
> > evolving if there were no eukaryotes in the mix. So I'm not laying
> > any bets as to which is the better of the two routes for explaining
> > our presence here.
>
> You are not being clear, or at least I don't get what your point is
> supposed to be. By all appearances, eukaryotes evolved here on earth,
Because the ones of which we have fossils appeared so much later?
That could be due to a number of factors, one of which was that they
couldn't really become a big part of the biota until conditions (e.g.
enough free oxygen) became favorable.
> through processes that don't seem all that obscure.
3A says they evolved on the home planet of the panspermists.
>What does your
> scenario gain by the seeding of eukaryotes?
Even unicellular eukaryotes would be a giant step towards intelligent
life; the Drake equation should really have included this gigantic
evolutionary step where "life as we know it" is concerned.
>And if eukaryotes, why not
> just mammals or even humans?
Because the panspermists that seeded earth weren't either of those
things, nor were any of the other organisms on their planet. Not
even in 3A. They probably weren't even homologous to chordates.
I've got enough to talk about for a LONG time without bringing
colonization OR personal visits to the planets into any of my
scenarios. Maybe two or three years from now.
[to be concluded in next follow-up]
Peter Nyikos