steady state theory of biological origin

[Burkhard]

SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2

[erik simpson]

On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
> SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
> https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2

If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.

[Burkhard]

not exactly fine tuning, but a stab at related concepts
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-dimension-store

and they may not be THAT fine tuned either
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

[erik simpson]

Outstanding! That's one of the reasons I stick to pancakes for Saturday morning breakfast.

[Ernest Major]

On 21/03/2023 11:58, Burkhard wrote:
> SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
> https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
>

Combine spontaneous generation (of the simplest organisms) with
Lamarck's "great chain of being", and you have a steady state model of
biology.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Much older than Lamarck, I think.


--
athel cb : Biochemical Evolution, Garland Science, 2016

[jillery]

On Tue, 21 Mar 2023 10:08:57 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 3:10:37?PM UTC, erik simpson wrote:

>> On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34?AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
>> > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
>> > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
>> If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.
>
>not exactly fine tuning, but a stab at related concepts
>https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-dimension-store
>
>and they may not be THAT fine tuned either
>https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

Hmm... "rules" in "sodomy rules" could be a verb or a noun.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 11:10:37 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
> > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction

Has talk.origins come to this, that pure farce, instantly recognized as such by anyone here
who takes the bother to click on the link [1] can see, is the topic of an OP by such a
well-entrenched regular as Burkhard??

> > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
> If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.

Fine-tuning HAS been covered here MANY times. [2] You should remember:
you entered a long running thread on it starring Steve Carlip after he
did his swan song. [3]

[1] Over a decade of exposure to links by Ron O that almost never live up to what is
claimed for them, and of nasty joke links like that of Hemidactylus
to exploding heads, many regulars here seem to have an aversion to clicking on urls.

[2] Did you mean to write "steady state theory" instead? That DOES make sense.
For one thing, it is used in the Subject of this thread; for another, it is explicitly
used in the caption of the comic.

[3] I say "swan song" because Carlip has not returned to talk.origins since shortly
before you did that post.


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 2:35:34 PM UTC-4, Ernest Major wrote:

> Combine spontaneous generation (of the simplest organisms) with
> Lamarck's "great chain of being", and you have a steady state model of
> biology.

Lamarck actually believed that the universe never had a beginning, but has always existed??!??
That WOULD be a steady state model of biology. Instead...

I tried googling "lamarck" AND "great chain of being" and what I saw had nothing like this
attributed to Lamarck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being
Excerpt:
Radical thinkers like Jean-Baptiste Lamarck saw a progression of life forms from the simplest creatures striving towards complexity and perfection, a schema accepted by zoologists like Henri de Blainville.[10]

Of course, the steady state theory of Hoyle, once thought to be a serious competitor
of the big bang theory, took this progression back a lot further, back through stellar evolution,
all the way to spontaneous appearance of hydrogen. However, that was almost secondary
to the way it made the hypothesis of the eternity of our universe into a scientific theory.


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

[erik simpson]

You're missing the point. Burkhard provided the on topic response:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 24 Mar 2023 11:07:49 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com>:

>On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7:00:37?AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 11:10:37?AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:

>> > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34?AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
>> > > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
>> Has talk.origins come to this, that pure farce, instantly recognized as such by anyone here
>> who takes the bother to click on the link [1] can see, is the topic of an OP by such a
>> well-entrenched regular as Burkhard??
>> > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
>> > If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.
>> Fine-tuning HAS been covered here MANY times. [2] You should remember:
>> you entered a long running thread on it starring Steve Carlip after he
>> did his swan song. [3]
>>
>> [1] Over a decade of exposure to links by Ron O that almost never live up to what is
>> claimed for them, and of nasty joke links like that of Hemidactylus
>> to exploding heads, many regulars here seem to have an aversion to clicking on urls.
>>
>> [2] Did you mean to write "steady state theory" instead? That DOES make sense.
>> For one thing, it is used in the Subject of this thread; for another, it is explicitly
>> used in the caption of the comic.
>>
>> [3] I say "swan song" because Carlip has not returned to talk.origins since shortly
>> before you did that post.
>

>You're missing the point.
>

Quelle surprise...

>
> Burkhard provided the on topic response:
>https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

--

Bob C.

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

- Isaac Asimov

[Don Cates]

I hope you were familiar enough with SMBC to click on the red button.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)


--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com

[erik simpson]

I hate Mouuntain Dew! Tastes like antifreeze.

[Burkhard]

I had it once in the US, having been utterly mislead by the name and expecting a dram of Poitin, or something similar. Urrrrgh. Still traumatised afteer all these years and wanting to sue someone for false advertising/bringing foodstuff into circulation unfit for human consumption.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

The point being, I suppose, that "here" was a typo for "there."
Or is it that I should have read your mind and known that "here" really meant "there"?

>Burkhard provided the on topic response:
> https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

Only superficially on topic: the author of the strip got it wrong:
gravity is NOT one of the fundamental constants.
It depends on the units one uses for mass and acceleration.

The fundamental constants are pure numbers, because they are ratios.
Gravity is involved in the number N which compares the gravitational
attraction between two protons and the electrical force of repulsion between them.
The latter is about 10^36 times greater than the other.


The author of the comic was nothing like the influential atheists
who speculate that the fundamental constants HAD to be what they
are and could not have been anything else. In this he had more common
sense than they, but on the other hand, he depicted God as a bumbler
who obviously did NOT design the universe.

But that only added to the appeal of the strip for you, didn't it?.
You are like your faithful decade-long buddy Harshman, who thinks the idea of an intelligent creator
of our universe is a fairy tale adults need to grow out of.

CORRECT?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Why? When regulars use the word "here," in a context like the one where Erik used it,
isn't the default assumption that they mean either "this thread" or "talk.origins"?


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Mon, 27 Mar 2023 09:38:31 -0700 (PDT), erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I hate Mouuntain Dew! Tastes like antifreeze.

My understanding is many people and other animals like the taste of
anti-freeze. This is a problem, as anti-freeze is poisonous to most
animals.

[Burkhard]

Leaving aside the issue that discussing the scientific accuracy of a cartoon that makes a humorous point about the human (or divine) condition is about as meaningful as criticising AIDA for misrepresenting the power structures between Ethiopia and Egypt in the
Old Kingdom, I'd say you are also parsing the strip wrong. It starts with an informal notion of "Fundamental things in nature" and when asked to be more precise, gives a list of things roughly in the ballpark ("like"), the fundamental constants just one among them. So from the POV of the speaker, adding gravity is perfectly correct, after all, "sexual attraction:" turns out to be another and nobody is claiming that that's a fundamental constant either. So if you have to be inappropriately pedantic, you should at least get it right.

>
> The fundamental constants are pure numbers, because they are ratios.
> Gravity is involved in the number N which compares the gravitational
> attraction between two protons and the electrical force of repulsion between them.
> The latter is about 10^36 times greater than the other.
>
>
> The author of the comic was nothing like the influential atheists
> who speculate that the fundamental constants HAD to be what they
> are and could not have been anything else. In this he had more common
> sense than they, but on the other hand, he depicted God as a bumbler
> who obviously did NOT design the universe.

Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.

And here is another one by him , this one especially for you
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dunno

[erik simpson]

Oh man, that could provoke something! And don't nobody overlook the red button. We musn't
overlook any possibilities.

[erik simpson]

No. It's hard to tell; are you being serious here?

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2023 02:04:30 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>On Mon, 27 Mar 2023 09:38:31 -0700 (PDT), erik simpson
><eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I hate Mouuntain Dew! Tastes like antifreeze.
>
>
>My understanding is many people and other animals like the taste of
>anti-freeze. This is a problem, as anti-freeze is poisonous to most
>animals.
>

Yes, a sweet taste. That's why propylene glycol antifreeze
was adopted as an alternative to ethylene glycol; it also
has a sweet taste but it's far less poisonous.

[israel socratus]

the theory of biological origin has a quantum physical source

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Yes, and *that* shouldn't be hard to tell. Harshman explicitly said it about belief in God and about a life
after death, in sci.bio.paleontology, some time before I went on my posting break in December.


By the way, you are now batting about 0.005 on on-topic/scientific comments on the threads
where I have participated, with ZERO contribution on the one where you have posted
most, "Frozen Planet II". In fact, the ONLY contribution to that 0.005 are your mock-serious one-liner,
[repeated from above]

> > > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
> > > > > If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.

...and the feeble one-liner, also repeated from above:

> Burkhard provided the on topic response:
> > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

Have you completely lost interest in serious science?


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Sorry to be a week late with this reply, Burk. I've been very busy with various things;
the one pertaining to my posting had to do with responding to on-topic issues raised by someone who seems
new to talk.origins, and another who posts rarely to sci.bio.paleontology and never (AFAIK) to talk.origins.

Before getting into details about what goes on below, I want to congratulate you on your
choice for the title [Subject: line for purists] of this thread. It enabled Ernest Major to come
up with an on-topic scientific theme, thanks to its perfect match with the wording of the title.

On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 4:30:40 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 12:25:40 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 2:10:37 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7:00:37 AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 11:10:37 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > > > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
> > > > Has talk.origins come to this, that pure farce, instantly recognized as such by anyone here
> > > > who takes the bother to click on the link [1] can see, is the topic of an OP by such a
> > > > well-entrenched regular as Burkhard??
> > > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2

Unlike your wording of the thread title, the caption to the linked cartoon was a scientific dead end:

"...the Steady State Model of Where Do Babies Come From."

> > > > > If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.
> > > > Fine-tuning HAS been covered here MANY times. [2] You should remember:
> > > > you entered a long running thread on it starring Steve Carlip after he
> > > > did his swan song. [3]
> > > >
> > > > [1] Over a decade of exposure to links by Ron O that almost never live up to what is
> > > > claimed for them, and of nasty joke links like that of Hemidactylus
> > > > to exploding heads, many regulars here seem to have an aversion to clicking on urls.
> > > >
> > > > [2] Did you mean to write "steady state theory" instead? That DOES make sense.
> > > > For one thing, it is used in the Subject of this thread; for another, it is explicitly
> > > > used in the caption of the comic.
> > > >
> > > > [3] I say "swan song" because Carlip has not returned to talk.origins since shortly
> > > > before you did that post.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Peter Nyikos
> > > You're missing the point.
> > The point being, I suppose, that "here" was a typo for "there."
> > Or is it that I should have read your mind and known that "here" really meant "there"?

> > >Burkhard provided the on topic response:
> > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental
> > Only superficially on topic: the author of the strip got it wrong:
> > gravity is NOT one of the fundamental constants.
> > It depends on the units one uses for mass and acceleration.

> Leaving aside the issue that discussing the scientific accuracy of a cartoon that makes a humorous point about the human (or divine) condition is about as meaningful as criticising AIDA for misrepresenting the power structures between Ethiopia and Egypt in the
> Old Kingdom,

It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"
had some great examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick figure characters that is at least as good as these.
The one in the OP is not in the same league, nor is the one you linked later and Erik inaccurately identified.

>I'd say you are also parsing the strip wrong. It starts with an informal notion of "Fundamental things in nature"

That's the first panel, but then the visible character explicitly says "fundamental constants" in the second.
And to be relevant to fine tuning as it is discussed in the authoritative books, "constants" have to be what scientists
call "dimensionless numbers." These are ratios that are pure numbers, not dependent on which units
we use for time or force.

> and when asked to be more precise, gives a list of things roughly in the ballpark ("like"),

Wrong interpretation of "like". And it is just ONE thing, not broken down into a list. Take another
look at the second panel. That ONE thing is exactly what physicists associate with "fine tuning."

That in turn is what Erik explicitly talked about, but it seems that he didn't want a serious discussion of fine tuning.

> the fundamental constants just one among them. So from the POV of the speaker, adding gravity is perfectly correct,

The speaker didn't even use the word "gravity". The bumbling fumbling entity called "God" was the one who used it.

Did you try to refresh your memory by looking at the strip? It doesn't look that way.

> after all, "sexual attraction:" turns out to be another

The strip only hints at it with the word "sodomy."

But enough about the comic strip. Sexual attraction is only relevant to those organisms that reproduce sexually,
and it is the reproduction, not the attraction, that is primarily relevant biologically to talk.origins.
If we were like plants, mindlessly releasing pollen or spores into the air, or sperm onto wet ground or into water,
sexual attraction wouldn't even come into play.

> and nobody is claiming that that's a fundamental constant either. So if you have to be inappropriately pedantic, you should at least get it right.

Sorry, I was responding to Erik in the post to which you are replying, and your last comment is irrelevant to fine tuning.

> >
> > The fundamental constants are pure numbers, because they are ratios.
> > Gravity is involved in the number N which compares the gravitational
> > attraction between two protons and the electrical force of repulsion between them.
> > The latter is about 10^36 times greater than the other.

Here the theme of what I wrote changed radically, and your response to it will be
dealt with in a separate post.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/4/23 1:07 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
[...]

> It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"
> had some great examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick figure characters that is at least as good as these.
> The one in the OP is not in the same league, nor is the one you linked later and Erik inaccurately identified.

Hold it! Without getting into the relative merits of SMBC vs xkcd, I
must note that any list purporting to include the best cartoons is
woefully incomplete--no, just plain wrong--if it does not include Calvin
& Hobbes.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2023-04-05 15:26:33 +0000, Mark Isaak said:

> On 4/4/23 1:07 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]
>
>> It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary
>> Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"
>> had some great examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick
>> figure characters that is at least as good as these.
>> The one in the OP is not in the same league, nor is the one you linked
>> later and Erik inaccurately identified.
>
> Hold it! Without getting into the relative merits of SMBC vs xkcd, I
> must note that any list purporting to include the best cartoons is
> woefully incomplete--no, just plain wrong--if it does not include
> Calvin & Hobbes.

Maybe, but you have to be American to think Calvin & Hobbes is good.

[Burkhard]

to raise the quality of the discussion, I'd suggest existentialcomics https://existentialcomics.com/

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Thank you. I hadn't seen these before. They beat Calvin & Hobbes into a
cocked hat.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 5 Apr 2023 18:47:25 +0200, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Athel Cornish-Bowden
<athe...@gmail.com>:

>On 2023-04-05 16:35:47 +0000, Burkhard said:
>

>> On Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 4:30:11?PM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> On 4/4/23 1:07 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:> [...]
>>>> It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary
>>>> Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"> > had some great
>>>> examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick figure
>>>> characters that is at least as good as these.> > The one in the OP is
>>>> not in the same league, nor is the one you linked later and Erik
>>>> inaccurately identified.
>>> Hold it! Without getting into the relative merits of SMBC vs xkcd, I>
>>> must note that any list purporting to include the best cartoons is>
>>> woefully incomplete--no, just plain wrong--if it does not include
>>> Calvin> & Hobbes.>> --> Mark Isaak> "Wisdom begins when you discover
>>> the difference between 'That> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't
>>> understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell
>>
>> to raise the quality of the discussion, I'd suggest existentialcomics
>> https://existentialcomics.com/
>
>Thank you. I hadn't seen these before. They beat Calvin & Hobbes into a
>cocked hat.
>

...in your opinion. Which is of course valid. For you.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2023-04-05 21:54:29 +0000, Bob Casanova said:

> On Wed, 5 Apr 2023 18:47:25 +0200, the following appeared in
> talk.origins, posted by Athel Cornish-Bowden
> <athe...@gmail.com>:
>
>> On 2023-04-05 16:35:47 +0000, Burkhard said:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 4:30:11?PM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> On 4/4/23 1:07 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:> [...]
>>>>> It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary
>>>>> Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"> > had some great
>>>>> examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick figure
>>>>> characters that is at least as good as these.> > The one in the OP is
>>>>> not in the same league, nor is the one you linked later and Erik
>>>>> inaccurately identified.
>>>> Hold it! Without getting into the relative merits of SMBC vs xkcd, I>
>>>> must note that any list purporting to include the best cartoons is>
>>>> woefully incomplete--no, just plain wrong--if it does not include
>>>> Calvin> & Hobbes.>> --> Mark Isaak> "Wisdom begins when you discover
>>>> the difference between 'That> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't
>>>> understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell
>>>
>>> to raise the quality of the discussion, I'd suggest existentialcomics
>>> https://existentialcomics.com/
>>
>> Thank you. I hadn't seen these before. They beat Calvin & Hobbes into a
>> cocked hat.
>>
> ...in your opinion. Which is of course valid. For you.

Well of course. The opinions I express here are my opinions. I don't
speak for Jillery or JTEM or Nando etc.

[jillery]

... or Casanova or Burkhard or Isaak etc.

[Burkhard]

I quite liked Calvin and Hobbes, and they are for sure very popular in both my country of birth and my country of residence, so definitely not just a US thing. Having said that, of the list so far C&H is probably the most "local" in character (followed arguably by the Far side gallery) that is it will speak most to those readers whose childhood memories are most similar to it. And that means a suburban/exurban professional-managerial class upbringing in the US and its school system.

The further you get away from this, culturally, the more allusions, inside jokes and "sentimental recognition" you'll loose, would be at least my hypothesis. My Japanese colleague e.g. find it extremely funny, but in an orientalist sort of way ("look at these foreigners and their weird and incomprehensible ways that us cosmopolitan sophisticates can still appreciate" - same way as we read Mangas") and for us growing up, it definitely had an aspect of "news from a strange and foreign country" too (first exposure would have been through the officers and their children from USAREUR, who had build a "little America" right next to our village.

By contrast I'd say, XKCD and SMBC are very clearly located "in time" (and may not appeal to the next generation as much as ours) but less "in space"

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 7 Apr 2023 03:03:17 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>:

Good analysis; thanks for taking the time. :-)

[jillery]

On Fri, 7 Apr 2023 03:03:17 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>I quite liked Calvin and Hobbes,

As do I. So our mutual appreciation of Calvin and Hobbes doesn't
support Athel's mindless and petty association of my nic with those of
JTEM and Nando.

>and they are for sure very popular in both my country of birth and my country of residence, so definitely not just a US thing. Having said that, of the list so far C&H is probably the most "local" in character (followed arguably by the Far side gallery) that is it will speak most to those readers whose childhood memories are most similar to it. And that means a suburban/exurban professional-managerial class upbringing in the US and its school system.
>
>The further you get away from this, culturally, the more allusions, inside jokes and "sentimental recognition" you'll loose, would be at least my hypothesis. My Japanese colleague e.g. find it extremely funny, but in an orientalist sort of way ("look at these foreigners and their weird and incomprehensible ways that us cosmopolitan sophisticates can still appreciate" - same way as we read Mangas") and for us growing up, it definitely had an aspect of "news from a strange and foreign country" too (first exposure would have been through the officers and their children from USAREUR, who had build a "little America" right next to our village.
>
>By contrast I'd say, XKCD and SMBC are very clearly located "in time" (and may not appeal to the next generation as much as ours) but less "in space"

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Again delayed by various forms of controversy in other threads (mostly in sci.bio.paleontology),
I am returning to do my second reply to you, Burkhard.

On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 4:30:40 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

I was a bit too stuck on what Erik had written that I didn't do justice to what
you had written about gravity, Burk.

> > gravity is NOT one of the fundamental constants.
> > It depends on the units one uses for mass and acceleration.

> ... I'd say you are also parsing the strip wrong. It starts with an informal notion of "Fundamental things in nature" ...

>So from the POV of the speaker, adding gravity is perfectly correct,

Yes, gravity is one of the most fundamental things in nature. Come Monday, I hope to have
time to go to detail about this.

> >
> > The fundamental constants are pure numbers, because they are ratios.
> > Gravity is involved in the number N which compares the gravitational
> > attraction between two protons and the electrical force of repulsion between them.
> > The latter is about 10^36 times greater than the other.

I first learned about this from a book, _Just_Six_Numbers_, by the renowned
British astronomer Martin Rees. It is a great, highly readable book about the fine tuning of the fundamental physical constants.
But now I am reading parts of it for the first time, and am learning things
about gravity and its influence on everyday things that I never suspected before.

> >
> > The author of the comic was nothing like the influential atheists
> > who speculate that the fundamental constants HAD to be what they
> > are and could not have been anything else. In this he had more common
> > sense than they, but on the other hand, he depicted God as a bumbler
> > who obviously did NOT design the universe.

> Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.

Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.

> And here is another one by him , this one especially for you
> https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dunno

Now THAT is a great one, utterly unlike the one you linked in your OP and
much better than the "fine tuning" one. I was so taken by it that
I made the first comment ever on it. Here is what I wrote:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Excellent! What immediately came to mind when I read it was the argument for the existence of a designer of the universe due to the "fine tuning" of the physical constants. By this is meant the incredibly low tolerance for varying these constants in a way compatible with the existence of life anywhere in the universe.

Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.

There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.

I lean towards (2) as does the great astronomer and physicist Martin Rees, who wrote a wonderful book on this subject, Just Six Numbers. But I would be very happy if (1) turned out to be true, if the designer's goodness matched its superhuman intelligence.
======================================================================================================

Actually, (2) is compatible with (1) if one abandons the idea of God being omnipotent, etc. and its nature followed
the pattern of my last sentence in what I've quoted. But I'll leave the explanation for Monday.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 11:30:11 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/4/23 1:07 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]
> > It is possible to make such humorous points in a much better way. Gary Larson's "The Far Side" and Bill Amend's "Foxtrot"
> > had some great examples. There is also a long-running strip with stick figure characters that is at least as good as these.
> > The one in the OP is not in the same league, nor is the one you linked later and Erik inaccurately identified.

I should add that the "dunno" skit that Burk dug up for me gave me a whole new perspective
on the strip, and IS in a league with some of the great examples from the three to which I referred.

> Hold it! Without getting into the relative merits of SMBC vs xkcd, I
> must note that any list purporting to include the best cartoons is
> woefully incomplete--no, just plain wrong--if it does not include Calvin
> & Hobbes.

It's a great strip, granted, as are a number of others; Pogo and For Better or For Worse,
to name just two; also the sparsely syndicated old strip Gordo. But none of them does the
kind of science/math/theology comedy that I had in mind.

Thanks for recalling the name xkcd; I couldn't recall it myself.
One of my favorites was a Sunday strip in which a young woman
college student sang her study woes to the pattern of a song in "Les Miserables."
I lost the link to that one and would love to see it again.


Peter Nyikos

[Burkhard]

I'd say you are still genre confused. It's a funny comic, not an illustration for a science book, the punchline is not about the nature of the basic constants, but about inadequate conceptions of the godhead that come from misapplied engineering metaphors to religion, i.e. creationism and ID

> > >
> > > The fundamental constants are pure numbers, because they are ratios.
> > > Gravity is involved in the number N which compares the gravitational
> > > attraction between two protons and the electrical force of repulsion between them.
> > > The latter is about 10^36 times greater than the other.
> I first learned about this from a book, _Just_Six_Numbers_, by the renowned
> British astronomer Martin Rees. It is a great, highly readable book about the fine tuning of the fundamental physical constants.
> But now I am reading parts of it for the first time, and am learning things
> about gravity and its influence on everyday things that I never suspected before.
> > >
> > > The author of the comic was nothing like the influential atheists
> > > who speculate that the fundamental constants HAD to be what they
> > > are and could not have been anything else. In this he had more common
> > > sense than they, but on the other hand, he depicted God as a bumbler
> > > who obviously did NOT design the universe.
>
> > Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.
> Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
> and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.

Even if one were to accept that there is a secular ID theory, which I don't do for a second, the statement would still be true as written. As far as I can see, all of these ID advocates also believe in a creator deity - they just argue that this belief should be separated from their scientific day job, But even if one were to grant this, not a single one of them categorically claims that the designer from their day job is definitely not also the deity from their private religious beliefs - and that means their religious-belief-deity inherits the properties of the "day-job-designer" (just not the other way round) . So you get a god with a dashboard and big nobs. ID either leads to a real odd conception of god, or to an affirmative claim that god is not the designer, but responsible for other things,

(as an aside, nothing in the comic mentions a young universe, so I don't see where the "YEC" in your reply comes from)

> > And here is another one by him , this one especially for you
> > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dunno
> Now THAT is a great one, utterly unlike the one you linked in your OP and
> much better than the "fine tuning" one. I was so taken by it that
> I made the first comment ever on it. Here is what I wrote:
>
> _____________________________________________________________________________________________
> Excellent! What immediately came to mind when I read it was the argument for the existence of a designer of the universe due to the "fine tuning" of the physical constants.

I honestly don't know at this point if you are taking the piss in an extremely elaborate and consistent way, in which case, well done - or that you massively misread the comic in which case, OMG (or if you insist even OMD)

>By this is meant the incredibly low tolerance for varying these constants in a way compatible with the existence of life anywhere in the universe.
>
> Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.
>
> There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.

I can't see why these should be the only alternatives

[jillery]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:46:02 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

<snip for focus>

>> There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.
>
>I can't see why these should be the only alternatives

Neither can I. This false dichotomy is a common PRATT among cdesign
proponentsists.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 3:50:17 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 3:05:14 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Again delayed by various forms of controversy in other threads (mostly in sci.bio.paleontology),
> > I am returning to do my second reply to you, Burkhard.
> > On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 4:30:40 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 12:25:40 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 2:10:37 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7:00:37 AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 11:10:37 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > > > > > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction

[...]

> > > > > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2

> > > > > > > If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.

[...]
> > ES> > >Burkhard provided the on topic response:
> > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental

> > PN > > Only superficially on topic: the author of the strip got it wrong:

>PN > I was a bit too stuck on what Erik had written that I didn't do justice to what you had written about gravity, Burk.

> >PN > > gravity is NOT one of the fundamental constants. It depends on the units one uses for mass and acceleration.

> > > ... I'd say you are also parsing the strip wrong. It starts with an informal notion of "Fundamental things in nature" ...
> > >So from the POV of the speaker, adding gravity is perfectly correct,
> > Yes, gravity is one of the most fundamental things in nature. Come Monday, I hope to have
> > time to go to detail about this.

> I'd say you are still genre confused. It's a funny comic, not an illustration for a science book, the punchline is not about the nature of the basic constants, but about inadequate conceptions of the godhead that come from misapplied engineering metaphors to religion, i.e. creationism and ID.

You should have deleted "and ID" after seeing what I wrote later, Burk, but I
see you are having trouble believing what I wrote, so I'm addressing your objections below.

[...]

> > > >he depicted God as a bumbler who obviously did NOT design the universe.
> >
> > > Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.

> > Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
> > and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.

> Even if one were to accept that there is a secular ID theory, which I don't do for a second,

...because of a massive disinformation campaign against it by scientists, ACLU, Sandwalk, etc.
who sense that, unlike YEC creationism, science-based ID [especially fine-tuning arguments]
cannot be refuted in a way convincing to university-educated people. They can go on believing
that there is no multiverse and no designer [1] but the arguments of NAS, ACLU sharpies, Moran fans, etc.
give them no ammunition against the combination of these alternatives.

[1] see far below about what I wrote in response to the "dunno" comic, and our subsequent discussion.

> the statement would still be true as written. As far as I can see, all of these ID advocates also believe in a creator deity

That's like saying, "As far as I can see, all who argue against ID are atheists." Even if the claim holds, it is
a pure ad hominem fallacy.

- they just argue that this belief should be separated from their scientific day job,

AND, RELEVANTLY, from what they actually write about ID. Behe goes out of his way in _The_Edge_of_Evolution_
and _Darwin_Devolves_ to argue FOR common descent, thereby risking a big drop in sales by
creationists while the general public, including yourself, keeps having the wool pulled over their eyes.
It's a win-win situation for anti-Behe zealots.

> But even if one were to grant this, not a single one of them categorically claims that the designer from their day job is definitely not also the deity from their private religious beliefs

Because they do not know that, and neither do you. But also, they do not know that it IS that deity, and Behe explicitly
makes that clear.

> - and that means their religious-belief-deity inherits the properties of the "day-job-designer" (just not the other way round)

Wrong. The two could actually be separate beings, with the designer given free play by their God to
design our universe, just as Adam was given the job in the Garden of Eden to till its soil, according to Genesis 2:15,
and humans in general were told, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over
the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.."

> So you get a god with a dashboard and big nobs.

Misleading metaphor for the ability to design a universe out of primordial raw material
which is very different from the stuff of our universe which the designer produces from the raw material.
The knobs and dashboard can only mean the internal substance of the designer, like our nervous
system producing our thoughts and actions.

> ID either leads to a real odd conception of god, or to an affirmative claim that god is not the designer, but responsible for other things,

I think you would have a more difficult time defending this dichotomy
than I would have defending the one I talk about below, and which you "can't see".

> (as an aside, nothing in the comic mentions a young universe, so I don't see where the "YEC" in your reply comes from)

YECs have a bigger illusion of what God did than OECs. Both deny evolution on a sizable scale,
but YECs are skirting close to omphalism, while OECs believe in a God who poofs new species
into existence that are only a little different from "last day's model"--
"day" being a figure of speech for thousands of years, usually hundreds of thousands.
It's a more organized system than random playing around with knobs that
the "god" of the comic was oblivious of a short while before.

> > > And here is another one by him , this one especially for you
> > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dunno
> > Now THAT is a great one, utterly unlike the one you linked in your OP and
> > much better than the "fine tuning" one. I was so taken by it that
> > I made the first comment ever on it. Here is what I wrote:
> >
> > _____________________________________________________________________________________________
> > Excellent! What immediately came to mind when I read it was the argument for the existence of a designer of the universe due to the "fine tuning" of the physical constants.

> I honestly don't know at this point if you are taking the piss in an extremely elaborate and consistent way, in which case, well done - or that you massively misread the comic in which case, OMG (or if you insist even OMD)

I was thinking about the middle panel, but you seem to be more in tune here with the last panel.

> >By this is meant the incredibly low tolerance for varying these constants in a way compatible with the existence of life anywhere in the universe.
> >
> > Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.
> >
> > There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.

> I can't see why these should be the only alternatives

Unless you can come up with a fourth alternative that is significantly different from these three,
you are just confessing to ignorance here.

And I don't mean scientifically absurd "alternatives" like YEC Biblical literalism or Last Tuesdayism.

> > I lean towards (2) as does the great astronomer and physicist Martin Rees, who wrote a wonderful book on this subject, Just Six Numbers. But I would be very happy if (1) turned out to be true, if the designer's goodness matched its superhuman intelligence.
> > ======================================================================================================
> >
> > Actually, (2) is compatible with (1) if one abandons the idea of God being omnipotent, etc. and its nature followed
> > the pattern of my last sentence in what I've quoted. But I'll leave the explanation for Monday.

Well, it will have to wait until tomorrow, because I see that you need time to absorb what I've written here;
and I need time to see how to take your misconceptions, and those of Bill Rogers on the "Darwin...Jesus..." thread, into account.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 10:20:17 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:46:02 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip for focus>

The snip included the attribution line to me.

More importantly, the snip included a theory I consider to be untenable:
[restoration]

>>>Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable
>>>if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.

[end of restoration]

> >> There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.
> >
> >I can't see why these should be the only alternatives

> Neither can I.

And so, what I told jillery's fan Burkhard yesterday also applies to jillery:

"Unless you can come up with a fourth alternative that is significantly different from these three,
you are just confessing to ignorance here."

-- https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/iMh6j_zDAQAJ
Apr 11, 2023, 10:10:18 PM

These are alternative explanations for the exquisite sensitivity of the fundamental constants
of our universe to tiny perturbations of their values that would make intelligent life impossible.
This is commonly referred to as the "fine tuning" of the constants.


The aforementioned snip enabled jillery to use the term "false dichotomy"
without causing cognitive dissonance in those reading jillery's post:

> This false dichotomy is a common PRATT among cdesign
> proponentsists.

In this case, PRATT means "a theory that jillery fervently hopes to have been refuted by someone, somewhere."
And to give voice to that hope, jillery uses the anachronism "cdesign proponentsists." This was a typo that
slipped into a draft of a book [1] that had nothing to do with the fine tuning problem. [2]

In fact, I think the Discovery Institute only started talking about fine tuning after the book was published.

[1] _Pandas and People_, not to be confused with the book _The Panda's Thumb_,
by the atheist Stephen Jay Gould. I've read Gould's book several times, making lots of marginal notes.
I have several other books by Gould; he is a great expositor on a wide range of biology and geology.

[2] It was a book about the unfolding of life on earth. AFAIK there wasn't even any mention of exoplanets.
I get the impression there was none from the things I've read about the book. I've never looked
at a copy myself.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Burkhard]

Why yes indeed Petey, I did indeed not act on your bare assertion, and nothing you write below makes much of a difference as you'll see

>
> [...]
> > > > >he depicted God as a bumbler who obviously did NOT design the universe.
> > >
> > > > Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.
>
> > > Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
> > > and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.
>
> > Even if one were to accept that there is a secular ID theory, which I don't do for a second,
> ...because of a massive disinformation campaign against it by scientists, ACLU, Sandwalk, etc.
> who sense that, unlike YEC creationism, science-based ID [especially fine-tuning arguments]

Nope, simply based on their own written output, nothing else is needed. We've been over this before. There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory". To the extent that they do naturalistic research, they are firmly stuck, in terms of the comic, on panel 1, coming up with new reasons why they doubt that a non-design solution is possible, but they never even attempt to move to panel 2 and a competing theory.

And as they don't have "any" ID theory, they also don't have a secular ID theory, by the simple application of logic.

Again we went over this before. We have pretty good ideas how what a design theory looks like, anthropologists, forensic scientists and historians produce them all the time. And these in turn are mere instantiations of the general nomologic-deductive way of theory formation that all sciences are using - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it. ID, by contrast, is never going beyond word magic, in ways that the proponents of Moliere's "virtus dormitiva" would have found so embarrassing that they'd have insisted to not getting lumped in with them.

> cannot be refuted in a way convincing to university-educated people. They can go on believing
> that there is no multiverse and no designer [1] but the arguments of NAS, ACLU sharpies, Moran fans, etc.
> give them no ammunition against the combination of these alternatives.
>
> [1] see far below about what I wrote in response to the "dunno" comic, and our subsequent discussion.
> > the statement would still be true as written. As far as I can see, all of these ID advocates also believe in a creator deity
> That's like saying, "As far as I can see, all who argue against ID are atheists." Even if the claim holds, it is
> a pure ad hominem fallacy.

No it isn't, and you once again misread a simple argument. The claim is not that because they have religious commitments, there is something dubious about their work as scientists. I'm solely commenting on the consistency of their religious beliefs. As you seem to agree that they all "have" these beliefs, that's perfectly fair game.

> - they just argue that this belief should be separated from their scientific day job,
> AND, RELEVANTLY, from what they actually write about ID. Behe goes out of his way in _The_Edge_of_Evolution_
> and _Darwin_Devolves_ to argue FOR common descent, thereby risking a big drop in sales by
> creationists while the general public, including yourself, keeps having the wool pulled over their eyes.
> It's a win-win situation for anti-Behe zealots.

I thought we were talking about the physical constants here, and universes, whether or not they contain life. So what does Behe have to do with that?

> > But even if one were to grant this, not a single one of them categorically claims that the designer from their day job is definitely not also the deity from their private religious beliefs
> Because they do not know that, and neither do you. But also, they do not know that it IS that deity, and Behe explicitly
> makes that clear.

> > - and that means their religious-belief-deity inherits the properties of the "day-job-designer" (just not the other way round)
> Wrong. The two could actually be separate beings, with the designer given free play by their God to
> design our universe, just as Adam was given the job in the Garden of Eden to till its soil, according to Genesis 2:15,
> and humans in general were told, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over
> the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.."

That is all covered in the second horn of the dilemma below - either it is a creator deity, and then it has to do the creating, or they are separate, and then the deity is not a creator deity.

> > So you get a god with a dashboard and big nobs.
> Misleading metaphor for the ability to design a universe out of primordial raw material
> which is very different from the stuff of our universe which the designer produces from the raw material.
> The knobs and dashboard can only mean the internal substance of the designer, like our nervous
> system producing our thoughts and actions.

You mean like in the way in which Mbombo incubated the world in his stomach? Not that long ago you ridiculed that religion,.. Or panentheism? I seem to remember you were not fond of that either.

And "can only"? So you now have a positive theory how the designer designed? Do tell us more!

And you are again missing the point the comic makes. We do understand what design is and how it works. We also understand how tuning works, everyone who was in a band post 1970 or so will immediatly get the imagery of the comic, but tuning an guitar or piano the old fashioned way works as well. But now these words are used out of their context of origin, and not only that, without any explicit theory that says how it should be understood now. With other words, the explanatory value of "fine tuning arguments" relies entirely on illegitmate transfer of excess meaning of terms like "tuning" that made sense in their original environment, but not in their usage under disucssion.

It would be more honest, and less confusing, if new terms had been used. You don;t want to cmiit to the identity of the tuner/designer, and the method of tuning? Fine. Call the agent " Gobbly" and what it does "flippering" The you get (combining the two comics):
Science does not tell us why some things are the way they are, so here's our alternative: "Gobbly flippered things so that they are just the eway they are". And when you trhen ask: who or what is Gobbly, the answer is : we don't know, and don't care, and have no way (or inetrest) of finding out more about him/her/them/it , the only thing we know about Gobbly is that things are the way they are because of him/her/them/it. And when the question is :and how does that agent "flipper" things?, ands answer is again :we dn;t know or care, the only thing about flippering we do know and need to know is that when an agent flippers something, it gets just the way it is.

The comic plays on this problem by turning it on its head, and refusing to "not ask these questions" - instead it makes visible the access semantics of the word "fine tuning", by if you like playing dumb and saying : ahh, you say its "tuning", now that I understand perfectly, it;s just turning some knobs on a synthesier". Because that's the only meaning, absent a theory of physical constant tuning, that it has.

> > ID either leads to a real odd conception of god, or to an affirmative claim that god is not the designer, but responsible for other things,
> I think you would have a more difficult time defending this dichotomy
> than I would have defending the one I talk about below, and which you "can't see".

The dichotomy is a simple application of classical logic. Two entities either are or are not identical, in my world at least. so either the designer and the creator deity are the same, or they are not, in either case, the implication for the deity side of the equation are such that no serious theist should contemplate them .

> > (as an aside, nothing in the comic mentions a young universe, so I don't see where the "YEC" in your reply comes from)
> YECs have a bigger illusion of what God did than OECs. Both deny evolution on a sizable scale,
> but YECs are skirting close to omphalism, while OECs believe in a God who poofs new species
> into existence that are only a little different from "last day's model"--
> "day" being a figure of speech for thousands of years, usually hundreds of thousands.

and nothing of this is referenced in the comic which was about the universe. And for this it matters not at all if the universe was designed a long time ago or a short time ago.

> It's a more organized system than random playing around with knobs that
> the "god" of the comic was oblivious of a short while before.
> > > > And here is another one by him , this one especially for you
> > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dunno
> > > Now THAT is a great one, utterly unlike the one you linked in your OP and
> > > much better than the "fine tuning" one. I was so taken by it that
> > > I made the first comment ever on it. Here is what I wrote:
> > >
> > > _____________________________________________________________________________________________
> > > Excellent! What immediately came to mind when I read it was the argument for the existence of a designer of the universe due to the "fine tuning" of the physical constants.
>
> > I honestly don't know at this point if you are taking the piss in an extremely elaborate and consistent way, in which case, well done - or that you massively misread the comic in which case, OMG (or if you insist even OMD)
> I was thinking about the middle panel, but you seem to be more in tune here with the last panel.
> > >By this is meant the incredibly low tolerance for varying these constants in a way compatible with the existence of life anywhere in the universe.
> > >
> > > Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.
> > >
> > > There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.
>
> > I can't see why these should be the only alternatives
> Unless you can come up with a fourth alternative that is significantly different from these three,
> you are just confessing to ignorance here.

When reading this, I got a bit confused - the sentence to which I replied had two alternatives only, but then you asked me for a fourth option. So that threw me a bit. On re-reading in context, you include Sagan into the options mix, AND take it as a placeholder for a whole range of widely diverse theories that only share that there is just one universe, it becomes slightly less implausible.

So my first set of answers would indeed have been Sagan -type in that sense. You mention Rees. I'd have answered with Stenger,'s The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us, the professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.He shows a couple of strategies - from "it's simply wrong that they are fine-tuned, if changed together they allow for greater flexibility to "they are simply the necessary consequence of more fundamental laws and therefore could not have but the values they have. True, he also throws in multi-worlds as an answer, but as we are talking here about theory types, including possible future theories, that is not a necessary component. Any future discovery of the derived nature of the constants would do.

And that is of course also a possible answer, after all we are dealing here with empirical theories which are subject in principle to revision, so the theory that they the values we think they have could be wrong. And it's not as if we had tried out to build lots of universes with different values and saw them failing - indeed Steiger shows through a computer simulation that they well might not.

From that we move into slightly more philosophical territory, denying that the question is intelligible to start with. It illegitimately smuggles in lots of unevidenced assumptions, from the validity of our use of mathematics to describe the physical world in border cases (with other words, the map is not the territory, and the appearance of fine-tuning could simply be an artefact of our use of mathematics, and indicate the limiting conditions where an approach that works well for ordinary physical questions reaches the limits of its utility.

In a similar vein, the argument might be based on unfounded intuitions about what it would mean for these variables to be "variable" in principle, and might come down to questions of the form "could the number 2 have different properties from the one it has". That's ultimately the type of answer that Klaas Landsman gave in The Fine-Tuning Argument: Exploring the Improbability of Our Existence - the answer to give to fine tuning advocates is not in terms of physical theories, but as he expresses it " the fine-tuning problem should be resolved by some appropriate therapy."

[peter2...@gmail.com]

> Why yes indeed Petey, I did indeed not act on your bare assertion, and nothing you write below makes much of a difference as you'll see.

Not to you, Burkie. But a disinterested reader would take into account the fact that the truth of
something in a contentious dispute in talk.origins may take many iterations of back-and-forth before
the arguments of one of the disputants begins to devolve into broken record routines,
personal insults, and exits punctuated with "It is impossible to argue rationally with you."

Astute, disinterested readers (but keenly interested in the truth of the matter) will then be able, going over the whole argument,
to discern whether (or not) the last sentence requires amendment to "It is impossible for me to argue rationally with you."

> >
> > [...]
> > > > > >he depicted God as a bumbler who obviously did NOT design the universe.
> > > >
> > > > > Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.
> >
> > > > Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
> > > > and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.
> >
> > > Even if one were to accept that there is a secular ID theory, which I don't do for a second,
> > ...because of a massive disinformation campaign against it by scientists, ACLU, Sandwalk, etc.
> > who sense that, unlike YEC creationism, science-based ID [especially fine-tuning arguments]

> Nope, simply based on their own written output, nothing else is needed.

Did you consult with someone (say, Bill Rogers) who is competent to judge Behe's
_The_Edge_of_Evolution_ as to whether what you just now wrote is the usual polemical
retort without evidential basis?

>We've been over this before.

Not you and I. We've been over the legal aspects of the Dover ruling, but
I recall nothing like that between you and me, inasmuch as you have shown
no understanding of science beyond that of a middle school graduate
who got a good grade by just comprehending what the textbook says.
[Middle school typically runs from 11 through 13 year olds, with outliers on both ends.]

> There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".

I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
to the opposite effect?

>To the extent that they do naturalistic research, they are firmly stuck, in terms of the comic, on panel 1, coming up with new reasons why they doubt that a non-design solution is possible, but they never even attempt to move to panel 2 and a competing theory.

If you are talking about the "dunno" comic, you must mean two non-overlapping theories.
What do you imagine the two viable alternatives I've told you about to be?

By the way, you are insulting the intelligence of the best of them by imagining that they
doubt that a non-design solution is POSSIBLE. They know that the current secular versions of
a multiverse are *possible* solutions. However, their arguments against it do not yet
have a secular "higher synthesis" between "no designer" and "yes, designer".

That may change as I flesh out the hypothesis that I introduced yesterday evening
(your early AM) on the thread, "Designer of Our Universe by the Back Door?"
[https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/QflrDHqlDD0/m/1p6NjO4TAgAJ]

>
> And as they don't have "any" ID theory, they also don't have a secular ID theory, by the simple application of logic.

You've got it backwards. The ONLY excuse for saying they don't have any
ID theory is that they don't have a secular one. But, as I said just now, that could change.

>
> Again we went over this before.

There you go again. Perhaps you should tack on "in your absence" at the end.

Oh, wait, you are changing the subject to design theories that YOU
are familiar with, but those fail to exhaust the subject by far.
Pure scientists [1] and mathematicians have a different take on this.
See my next comment.

[1] including exobiologists, as in an example I gave you a year ago.

>We have pretty good ideas how what a design theory looks like, anthropologists, forensic scientists and historians produce them all the time.

The movie "Contact" has an utterly different one from the ones these people use in their line of work.

By the way, "archaeologists" is more appropriate than "anthropologists." You would be lost in
the vast majority of arguments in sci.anthropology.paleo.

> And these in turn are mere instantiations of the general nomologic-deductive way of theory formation that all sciences are using

Spoken like a jack of all trades and master of none where pure science
and mathematics are concerned.

> - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it.

I've given you two hypothetical examples already where this has been done.

Here is a third, in spades: directed panspermia.

> ID, by contrast, is never going beyond word magic, in ways that the proponents of Moliere's "virtus dormitiva" would have found so embarrassing that they'd have insisted to not getting lumped in with them.

Confronted with this unsupported piece of condescending polemic, I postpone discussion of the rest of your post
to later today, perhaps tomorrow, with some of it postponed to next week. My top priority this week is the thread I referenced above.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 3:50:20 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:35:19 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:


> > Why yes indeed Petey, I did indeed not act on your bare assertion, and nothing you write below makes much of a difference as you'll see.


> Not to you, Burkie. But a disinterested reader would take into account the fact that the truth of
> something in a contentious dispute in talk.origins may take many iterations of back-and-forth before
> the arguments of one of the disputants begins to devolve into broken record routines,
> personal insults, and exits punctuated with "It is impossible to argue rationally with you."
>
> Astute, disinterested readers (but keenly interested in the truth of the matter) will then be able, going over the whole argument,
> to discern whether (or not) the last sentence requires amendment to "It is impossible for me to argue rationally with you."

Is the guy who calls Burkard "Burk" upset that he now
called you "Petey"? Nobody but Ray used Burk. He doesn't
use it for himself as far as I have seen. Don't tell me your
level of social dysfunction was unaware of what you were
doing?

And I would read what he's doing as more of a minor venting,
with a heavy sigh and a silent questioning "why do I bother?",
followed by a well considered response. But I don't think I
qualify as "disinterested".

[jillery]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:27:56 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 10:20:17?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:46:02 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
>> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> <snip for focus>
>
>The snip included the attribution line to me.
>
>More importantly, the snip included a theory I consider to be untenable:
>[restoration]
>>>>Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be" is untenable
>>>>if by "the cosmos" he meant our universe with these constants determining so much of the structure of what is in the universe.
>[end of restoration]
>> >> There are only two theories that are tenable: (1) a designer to make the stuff of our universe conform to these constants and (2) a multiverse with an incredibly large number (perhaps an infinite number) of individual universes, where the numbers vary all over the place, and we find ourselves in one of the incredibly unlikely universes where they are just right.
>> >
>> >I can't see why these should be the only alternatives
>
>> Neither can I.
>
>And so, what I told jillery's fan Burkhard yesterday also applies to jillery:
>
>"Unless you can come up with a fourth alternative that is significantly different from these three,
>you are just confessing to ignorance here."
>-- https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/iMh6j_zDAQAJ

>Apr 11, 2023, 10:10:18?PM


I have given up expecting to identify which specific post a GG URL
refers.

>These are alternative explanations for the exquisite sensitivity of the fundamental constants
>of our universe to tiny perturbations of their values that would make intelligent life impossible.
>This is commonly referred to as the "fine tuning" of the constants.

There are two common forms to the fine-tuning argument:

1. There are some fundamental constants which have no known
explanation for their values. Research continues to eliminate that
ignorance.

2. There are some fundamental constants whose values can only be
explained by the manipulation of an intelligent "tuner".

Multiverse becomes entangled with fine-tuning for two reasons:

1. Some but not all versions of multiverse allow the possibility of
different values of physical constants within each multiverse.
Intelligent life necessarily exists only in a multiverse which has the
physical constants necessary to support intelligent life.

2. Multiverse is an ad-hoc explanation for fine-tuning, designed to
evade the necessity for an intelligent "tuner".

>The aforementioned snip enabled jillery to use the term "false dichotomy"
>without causing cognitive dissonance in those reading jillery's post:

Incorrect, and a willful misrepresentation. As jillery noted, it is
to focus on a specific point, something which PeeWee Peter habitually
fails to do.

>> This false dichotomy is a common PRATT among cdesign
>> proponentsists.
>
>In this case, PRATT means "a theory that jillery fervently hopes to have been refuted by someone, somewhere."
>And to give voice to that hope, jillery uses the anachronism "cdesign proponentsists." This was a typo that
>slipped into a draft of a book [1] that had nothing to do with the fine tuning problem. [2]

Incorrect, and a willfully stupid lie. PRATT is a well-recognized
acronym that means "Point Refuted A Thousand Times". "cdesign
proponentsists" is not a typo, but the result of multiple "cut and
replace" instances, in a cheap and lazy effort to turn a Creationist
biology textbook into an ID biology textbook:

<https://ncse.ngo/cdesign-proponentsists>

This has been known since the Dover Trial discovery phase, and jillery
knows PeeWee Peter is well aware of these facts.

> In fact, I think the Discovery Institute only started talking about fine tuning after the book was published.
>
>[1] _Pandas and People_, not to be confused with the book _The Panda's Thumb_,
>by the atheist Stephen Jay Gould. I've read Gould's book several times, making lots of marginal notes.
>I have several other books by Gould; he is a great expositor on a wide range of biology and geology.
>
>[2] It was a book about the unfolding of life on earth. AFAIK there wasn't even any mention of exoplanets.
>I get the impression there was none from the things I've read about the book. I've never looked
>at a copy myself.

Perhaps PeeWee Peter should have read "Of Pandas and People" before he
waxed inane about it.

More to the point, the point of "cdesign proponentsists" is not to
refer to any particular book, but instead to refer to those who
presume an intelligent designer/tuner as a meaningful explanation of
natural phenomena.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/13/23 12:48 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:35:19 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

[re there being no ID theory worth being called a theory]

>> - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it.
>
> I've given you two hypothetical examples already where this has been done.

Somehow I missed them among your frequent distracting comments. Could
you please repeat those two (and nothing else)?

> Here is a third, in spades: directed panspermia.

I'll grant you that, but you forgot to mention that the spades are all
100 or more light years away, which makes testing difficult with current
technology.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That

doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 13 Apr 2023 19:01:15 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:

>On 4/13/23 12:48 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

>> On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:35:19?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>
>[re there being no ID theory worth being called a theory]
>>> - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it.
>>
>> I've given you two hypothetical examples already where this has been done.
>
>Somehow I missed them among your frequent distracting comments. Could
>you please repeat those two (and nothing else)?
>
>> Here is a third, in spades: directed panspermia.
>
>I'll grant you that, but you forgot to mention that the spades are all
>100 or more light years away, which makes testing difficult with current
>technology.
>

Yeah, I'm still waiting for the evidence supporting DP, a
method for testing it as a scientific hypothesis, and what
predictions we could look for. And I suspect that wait will
extend indefinitely.

[Burkhard]

On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 10:05:19 PM UTC+1, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 3:50:20 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:35:19 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>
>
> > > Why yes indeed Petey, I did indeed not act on your bare assertion, and nothing you write below makes much of a difference as you'll see.
>
>
> > Not to you, Burkie. But a disinterested reader would take into account the fact that the truth of
> > something in a contentious dispute in talk.origins may take many iterations of back-and-forth before
> > the arguments of one of the disputants begins to devolve into broken record routines,
> > personal insults, and exits punctuated with "It is impossible to argue rationally with you."
> >
> > Astute, disinterested readers (but keenly interested in the truth of the matter) will then be able, going over the whole argument,
> > to discern whether (or not) the last sentence requires amendment to "It is impossible for me to argue rationally with you."
> Is the guy who calls Burkard "Burk" upset that he now
> called you "Petey"? Nobody but Ray used Burk. He doesn't
> use it for himself as far as I have seen. Don't tell me your
> level of social dysfunction was unaware of what you were
> doing?

I was quietly hoping that someone would pick up on it, as it was surely not going to be Peter himself, so many thanks indeed :o) And yes, Ray was the only other one, and in real life too, it would be only mu kid brother (who had problems pronouncing "hard" when he was 3 and it stuck) and my partner, but only if I've done something really really stupid

[Burkhard]

The "Evidential Basis" is his book. Nowhere in the book, with the possible exception of a few throwaway lines in the last chapter (and these of truly sophomoric quality - "I am intelligent, therefore the motive of the designer must have been to create intelligent beings" _ I mean, please...) is a theory of ID even attempted. I don't need Bill Rogers for this, though I'm pretty certain he'd come to the same conclusion.

> >We've been over this before.
> Not you and I. We've been over the legal aspects of the Dover ruling,

That's worrying! Consult a doctor, in your age sudden memory loss can be a sign for something bad!
Here a few examples:

Here one just from January:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/WATJ1V2lWcI/m/SRHgWNS8BQAJ

or here
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/nmTq1MCK3hg/m/yvkGPiU6AQAJ

and here the one you seem at least to remember, which did start with Dover ruling, but the issue by then was not one of law, but "Is there a theory of ID":
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/h-e_UQkLAQAJ
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/UlnK7joGAgAJ

and the ensuing debate allowed you to demonstrate your profound ignorance of a whole range of disciplines, from history to epistemology to cryptology to literary studies etc etc etc

but
> I recall nothing like that between you and me, inasmuch as you have shown
> no understanding of science beyond that of a middle school graduate
> who got a good grade by just comprehending what the textbook says.
> [Middle school typically runs from 11 through 13 year olds, with outliers on both ends.]
> > There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".
> I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
> source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
> to the opposite effect?

I don't need a source for this, I only need to read what Behe does and apply the standard understanding of the concept of "theory" in the mainstream theory of science to it. It's not about "refuting" any argument he makes, it's about pointing out that he fails to even attempt making the relevant sort of argument, for building an ID theory.

> >To the extent that they do naturalistic research, they are firmly stuck, in terms of the comic, on panel 1, coming up with new reasons why they doubt that a non-design solution is possible, but they never even attempt to move to panel 2 and a competing theory.
> If you are talking about the "dunno" comic, you must mean two non-overlapping theories.
> What do you imagine the two viable alternatives I've told you about to be?

You seem to interpret one of them as a "design theory", but that is just your strange misreading of the comic. No, that is not the competing theory the author has in mind, design theories are all strictly panel 3 territory ("Alien Ghost Jesus did it"). There is no "alternative ID theory, nobody has ever tried to even develop one for a very long time now.

>
> By the way, you are insulting the intelligence of the best of them by imagining that they
> doubt that a non-design solution is POSSIBLE. They know that the current secular versions of
> a multiverse are *possible* solutions. However, their arguments against it do not yet
> have a secular "higher synthesis" between "no designer" and "yes, designer".

no idea what that's supposed to mean

>
> That may change as I flesh out the hypothesis that I introduced yesterday evening
> (your early AM) on the thread, "Designer of Our Universe by the Back Door?"
> [https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/QflrDHqlDD0/m/1p6NjO4TAgAJ]
> >
> > And as they don't have "any" ID theory, they also don't have a secular ID theory, by the simple application of logic.
> You've got it backwards. The ONLY excuse for saying they don't have any
> ID theory is that they don't have a secular one. But, as I said just now, that could change.

Nope, that is your persistent misreading of the argument. They do not have a theory, full stop. Of any kind. The last person who seriously tried to develop a intelligent design theory of biology was John Ray, and he dropped it when he realised where it would lead him, theologically. Paley had already more or less given up on the project, nothing that came afterwards even attempted one. For good reasons too, both scientific and theological.

> >
> > Again we went over this before.
> There you go again. Perhaps you should tack on "in your absence" at the end.
>
> Oh, wait, you are changing the subject to design theories that YOU
> are familiar with, but those fail to exhaust the subject by far.
> Pure scientists [1] and mathematicians have a different take on this.

Interesting. Yes, in the history of mathematics there have been occasional attempts to use design arguments, though I'd say none of them was successful or stood the test of time.

Cantor arguably the most famous one:
"One proof [of the reality of the transfinite] proceeds from the concept of God and infers from the greatest perfection of God’s essence the possibility of the creation of a transfinite order, from his supreme goodness to the necessity of the creation of the transfinite"

and even closer to a design argument:
"They (The cardinal numbers) build in their totality a manifold, unified, and from the other contents of God’s Intellect separated thing in itself, that itself forms an object of God’s Knowledge. But since the knowledge of a thing presupposes a unitary form, by which this thing exists and is known, there must in God’s intellect be a determinate cardinal number available, which relates itself to the collection or totality of all finite cardinals in the same way as the number 7 relates itself to the notes in an octave.
For this, which can be shown to be the smallest transfinite cardinal number, I have chosen the sign ω."

Though he himself would not have included what he did under the "Mathematics" header, for the very same reason:

"The general theory of manifolds … belongs entirely to metaphysics. You can easily convince yourself from this, when you examine the categories of cardinal number and ordinal type, these fundamental concepts of set theory, with respect to the degree of their generality and besides will remark, that in them thought is completely pure, so that there is not even the least scope for the imagination to play a role. This is not altered in the least by the images, to which I, like all metaphysicians, from time to time help myself, and also the fact that the works of my pen are published in mathematical journals, does not modify the metaphysical content and character of them.

Some of the responses to this were in a similar vein, but not that obviously leading to a design argument, especially the famous response by
Leopold Kronecker

"Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk" ( "our benevolent God made integers, all else is the work of man";

Now, two things on this. First, these and similar examples seem to be historical outliers, I haven't seen that type of design argument in in any modern mathematical papers, and I'm pretty certain that if you were to submit a paper to a math journal, on, oh, I din't know, say the question if "every proximal space weak shrinking" and you start by saying that you don't intent to give any formal proof for your conjecture, but instead proceed to show that they must be because in comparison to God who made all abstract objects, everything is shrinking and we should expect the creation to reflect that aspect of its designer, you would not get published and praised, but send to a shrink.

But apart from that, Cantor in particular is doing here a proper design theory, in just the sense that I asked for, and not in yours. That is he commits firmly and explicit to the designer, states as lemma some of the designer's properties, and then infers on the basis of these properties the properties of the cardinal numbers. At this point, the talk of the designer gets proper explanatory value as opposed to merely a pretentious way of saying "we don't know", and in theory at least also leads to falsifiable statements about the designer.

So I'd say that to the limited extend that mathematics has historically used a design theory, it confirms my reading of the poverty of ID not yours.

> See my next comment.
>
> [1] including exobiologists, as in an example I gave you a year ago.
> >We have pretty good ideas how what a design theory looks like, anthropologists, forensic scientists and historians produce them all the time.
> The movie "Contact" has an utterly different one from the ones these people use in their line of work.

Ahh, that explains a lt. Yes, if you get your science from Hollywood movies, it's clear that you struggle with proper scientific arguments. Not sure what I can do about this tbh, apart from recommending maybe some good science books?

>
> By the way, "archaeologists" is more appropriate than "anthropologists." You would be lost in
> the vast majority of arguments in sci.anthropology.paleo.

Anthropologists do the type of proper ID theory that I'm arguing for all the time, a typical example is here: Susman, Randall L. "Who made the Oldowan tools? Fossil evidence for tool behavior in Plio-Pleistocene hominids." Journal of Anthropological Research 47.2 (1991): 129-151.

There you can see quite nicely how after from starting point of properties of the tools, not only a number of candidates for the designer are hypothesised, but because all of these have different attributes, then tested against the hypothesis. And that makes it proper scientific research" stipulate explanation, specific attributes of the explanation, indicate what else we should expect to find if hypothesis is true, test, and then as needed refine your theory about the designer's attributes and identity.

Forensic anthropology is of course a sub-discipline of anthropology, which is why Ive co-supervised PhDs in anthropology and archeology alike, I also led research projects with anthropologists, one particular informed the way FIAG (Forensic Imagery Analysis Group) of which I was a member then evaluates digital face reconstructions from bones, published in the relevant journals, and occasional teach on our joint undergraduate program in law and anthropology. "Making myself look foolish in dying usenet groups" is a strategy to claim expertise that I happily leave to you

> > And these in turn are mere instantiations of the general nomologic-deductive way of theory formation that all sciences are using
> Spoken like a jack of all trades and master of none where pure science
> and mathematics are concerned.

We can of course debate the status of mathematics as a science. But pure science too follows the general methodology that I outlined above, and which the relevant literature has indeed identified as the most basic structure of all scientific theories. for a recent overview see Psillos, S. (2021). The deductive-nomological model of explanation. In The Routledge Handbook of Logical Empiricism (pp. 185-193). Routledge.

> > - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it.
> I've given you two hypothetical examples already where this has been done.

not really no

>
> Here is a third, in spades: directed panspermia.

It's true that DP in theory could be developed into a proper theory, just nobody ever tried. Well, to be fair, once in a while you post something you claim is a test for that hypothesis. Problem is these suggestions immediately get shot down - typically because what you proposed as evidence is incapable of differentiating between DP and non-DP explanations and therefore fails to do its job. Once that happens, you tend to flee from that discussion double quick rather than defending your proposed test. Typical example here, though one has to read past your usual attempts at detraction
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/eAG4chRavZk/m/I7eDbOfAAQAJ

So again, the ask for a scientific theory of DOP would be: Given the stipulated properties of the Panspermist, what are we likely to see that we would not see without panspermists. That provides a test of the properties we ascribe to them, which eventually gives us a theory of who they are, what they can do, how they did it and why.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

You are just showing your ignorance of what constitutes the statement of a theory.

The Big Bang Theory, for example, is not the simple thing that undergraduate textbooks describe.
It is founded on the deep mathematics of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Even the outstanding book that describes how COBE provided an indispensable input to the Big Bang theory [1]
does not go into these mathematical calculations, but only into some of their consequences for cosmology.

[1] _The_Very_First_Light_, by John C. Mather and John Boslough, Penguin Books, 1998.

Without the kind of data COBE provided, the Big Bang Theory would still be competing neck and neck
with Hoyle's Steady State Theory.


The input to Behe's bit of theory in TEoE was data-intensive, like COBE. The very title of the
book hints at the bit of theory. By analyzing the way various organisms develop immunity
to various deleterious agents, Behe analyzes the "Edge" of required mutations
at which the organisms can no longer cope. And with this "Edge" he presents the
thesis that the theory of natural selection is no better at explaining how evolution
got to this point than a theory of design is.

He devotes most of it to the various species of the malaria parasite Plasmodium,
which is right up Bill Rogers' alley, which is why I brought it up.

>I don't need Bill Rogers for this, though I'm pretty certain he'd come to the same conclusion.

About your useless condescending polemic, sure. But that's not where the action is.

I'll give you Behe's cute "Jeopardy style" riddle on page 52 and let you try and figure out just what
its ramifications are for all that went before and after it -- assuming you can follow it all.

"Answer: The obstacle that malaria has not been able to mutate around.

"Question: What is sickle hemoglobin?"

I suggest you read forward a page before entering the tangle of what went before,
and for which you might need Bill's coaching.

> > >We've been over this before.
> > Not you and I. We've been over the legal aspects of the Dover ruling,


> That's worrying! Consult a doctor, in your age sudden memory loss can be a sign for something bad!

Don't worry. I had to guess at what you meant. Way below, I realized we had been talking past each other:

[repeated from below]

> > Oh, wait, you are changing the subject to design theories that YOU
> > are familiar with, but those fail to exhaust the subject by far.

[end of repetition]

> Here a few examples:
>
> Here one just from January:
> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/WATJ1V2lWcI/m/SRHgWNS8BQAJ
>
> or here
> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/nmTq1MCK3hg/m/yvkGPiU6AQAJ
>
> and here the one you seem at least to remember, which did start with Dover ruling, but the issue by then was not one of law, but "Is there a theory of ID":
> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/h-e_UQkLAQAJ
> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/UlnK7joGAgAJ
>
> and the ensuing debate allowed you to demonstrate your profound ignorance of a whole range of disciplines, from history to epistemology to cryptology to literary studies etc etc etc

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You have a highly specialized understanding
of the ways people in these disciplines handle theories where they no longer are trying to solve them,
but just engaging in endless competing hypotheses. There's nothing "profound" about not knowing
about this, while knowing a huge lot about actual history, actual epistemology, etc.

Here's something I recalled less than a week ago. We have no idea how, when, and by what route
the original human inhabitants of Madagascar got there; nor of how big the first wave was,
nor whether there was a second wave, etc. The one thing we are sure of is that they came
from Southeast Asia, probably Malaysia/Indonesia. All else is folklore with no written records.

Feel free to regale me endlessly about how your favorite scholars would generate
huge amounts of "publish or perish" material about this riddle.

> > but I recall nothing like that between you and me, inasmuch as you have shown
> > no understanding of science beyond that of a middle school graduate
> > who got a good grade by just comprehending what the textbook says.
> > [Middle school typically runs from 11 through 13 year olds, with outliers on both ends.]

> > > There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".

> > I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
> > source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
> > to the opposite effect?

> I don't need a source for this, I only need to read what Behe does and apply the standard understanding of the concept of "theory" in the mainstream theory of science to it. It's not about "refuting" any argument he makes, it's about pointing out that he fails to even attempt making the relevant sort of argument, for building an ID theory.

I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.

Got to go now. Duty calls. Will try to address the rest later this week, hopefully tomorrow.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[jillery]

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

<snip for focus>

>> > > There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".
>
>> > I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
>> > source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
>> > to the opposite effect?
>
>> I don't need a source for this, I only need to read what Behe does and apply the standard understanding of the concept of "theory" in the mainstream theory of science to it. It's not about "refuting" any argument he makes, it's about pointing out that he fails to even attempt making the relevant sort of argument, for building an ID theory.
>
>I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
>reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.

The above isn't the first time you demand petty details from a
specific edition of a specific book. You also have done this
semi-regularly with "Darwin's Black Box". I can imagine the scorn
heaped upon you if you put such questions to your students.

<snip remaining>

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Unable to deal fair and square with what I wrote in reply to Burkhard,
jillery snipped out almost all of it, and capitalized on its
absence to create a thoroughly deceitful picture of what ID is all about.

It has always been necessary, not just for jillery, but for all the anti-ID people,
to avoid dealing with the most substantive parts of ID theory. What sets
jillery apart from all others is that no one else has the nerve to descend to the
depths to which jillery will descend.

On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 10::25 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>
> <snip for focus>

The "focus" is three earlier comments, two by Burkhard, after a long, snipped explanation by me,
THIS TIME AROUND, of how baseless these comments by Burkhard had been.

> >> > > There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".
> >
> >> > I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
> >> > source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
> >> > to the opposite effect?

The above was from earlier posts of mine and Burkhard, the attribution lines to which jillery also snipped,
allegedly "for focus".

> >
> >> I don't need a source for this, I only need to read what Behe does and apply the standard understanding of the concept of "theory" in the mainstream theory of science to it. It's not about "refuting" any argument he makes, it's about pointing out that he fails to even attempt making the relevant sort of argument, for building an ID theory.

I had corrected this benighted comment at great length, in my NEW text which preceded it and which
was snipped, allegedly for focus.

Here is part of that snipped text. Note the resemblance of Burkhard's comment near the ,beginning
to the [thus redundant] comments by him that jillery left in above.

____________________________________ excerpt, deletia marked by [...] _____________________________________________

> > Did you consult with someone (say, Bill Rogers) who is competent to judge Behe's

> > _The_Edge_of_Evolution_ [...]

> Nowhere in the book, with the possible exception of a few throwaway lines in the last chapter (and these of truly sophomoric quality - "I am intelligent, therefore the motive of the designer must have been to create intelligent beings" _ I mean, please...) is a theory of ID even attempted.

You are just showing your ignorance of what constitutes the statement of a theory.

[...]

The input to Behe's bit of theory in TEoE was data-intensive, like COBE. The very title of the
book hints at the bit of theory. By analyzing the way various organisms develop immunity
to various deleterious agents, Behe analyzes the "Edge" of required mutations
at which the organisms can no longer cope. And with this "Edge" he presents the
thesis that the theory of natural selection is no better at explaining how evolution
got to this point than a theory of design is.

He devotes most of it to the various species of the malaria parasite Plasmodium,
which is right up Bill Rogers' alley, which is why I brought it up.

[...]

I'll give you Behe's cute "Jeopardy style" riddle on page 52 and let you try and figure out just what
its ramifications are for all that went before and after it -- assuming you can follow it all.

"Answer: The obstacle that malaria has not been able to mutate around.

"Question: What is sickle hemoglobin?"

I suggest you read forward a page before entering the tangle of what went before,
and for which you might need Bill's coaching.

________________________________________________ end of excerpts
from
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/b3QDSySsAAAJ
to which jillery is replying here.

> >
> >I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
> >reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.

> The above isn't the first time you demand petty details from a
> specific edition of a specific book.

As can be seen, this was no "demand," it was a continuation of a suggestion
that jillery snipped, and was meant to recall Behe's thesis that I had stated a few lines earlier.

> You also have done this
> semi-regularly with "Darwin's Black Box".

"this" is about a few lines on page 40 that anti-ID regulars regularly sweep under the
rug with blatant falsehoods to the effect that "Behe claims IC (Irreducibly Complex) systems
can't evolve." Those few lines explicitly refute the falsehood.

You, jillery, who know better, are aiding and abetting this falsehood here and now,
as you have done many times in the past.

> I can imagine the scorn
> heaped upon you if you put such questions to your students.

You can and often do imagine such outlandish things.
In fact, your agenda forces you to do it, as I explained in the preamble.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS The post to which you, jillery, are replying was just the first installment of
my overall response to a long post by Burkhard. Since he hasn't shown awareness of this first
installment, I am postponing the next installment to tomorrow.

[jillery]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 19:20:49 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> trolled:

>Unable to deal fair and square with what I wrote in reply to Burkhard,
>jillery snipped out almost all of it, and capitalized on its
>absence to create a thoroughly deceitful picture of what ID is all about.
>
>It has always been necessary, not just for jillery, but for all the anti-ID people,
>to avoid dealing with the most substantive parts of ID theory. What sets
>jillery apart from all others is that no one else has the nerve to descend to the
>depths to which jillery will descend.

Let your descent into making T.O. a Hellhole continue.

>On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 10::25?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>>
>> <snip for focus>
>
>The "focus" is three earlier comments, two by Burkhard, after a long, snipped explanation by me,
>THIS TIME AROUND, of how baseless these comments by Burkhard had been.

The "focus" has utterly nothing to do with your "explanation". The
"focus" has to do with your "expectation" for Burkhard and other
readers to refer to the same edition of the same book to which you
allude. My deletion of approximately 400 lines of commentary which
have utterly nothing to do this "focus", reasonably can be described
as a mercy snip. Too bad my expressed purpose utterly failed to get
you to "focus" on your petty parlor tricks.


<snip your spam not relevant to this "focus">

>> >I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
>> >reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.
>
>> The above isn't the first time you demand petty details from a
>> specific edition of a specific book.
>
>As can be seen, this was no "demand," it was a continuation of a suggestion
>that jillery snipped, and was meant to recall Behe's thesis that I had stated a few lines earlier.

Po TAY to, Po TAH to. My point remains unchallenged.

>> You also have done this
>> semi-regularly with "Darwin's Black Box".
>
>"this" is about a few lines on page 40 that anti-ID regulars regularly sweep under the
>rug with blatant falsehoods to the effect that "Behe claims IC (Irreducibly Complex) systems
>can't evolve." Those few lines explicitly refute the falsehood.

DBB is but an example of your previous use of "this" petty parlor
trick.

>You, jillery, who know better, are aiding and abetting this falsehood here and now,
>as you have done many times in the past.

You, Peter Nyikos, are evading the issue. Putting aside the fact that
your interpretation of "those few lines" utterly refute Behe's
expressed argumentation, the point remains that your allusions to them
are valid only for specific editions of a specific book. That you
could just as easily quote the material to which you allude continues
to evade your "focus".

>> I can imagine the scorn
>> heaped upon you if you put such questions to your students.
>
>You can and often do imagine such outlandish things.
>In fact, your agenda forces you to do it, as I explained in the preamble.

I suppose, for bizarre and personal self-serving meanings of
"explained".

>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
>http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>PS The post to which you, jillery, are replying was just the first installment of
>my overall response to a long post by Burkhard. Since he hasn't shown awareness of this first
>installment, I am postponing the next installment to tomorrow.

Your compulsion to obfuscate remains remarkable.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Friday, April 21, 2023 at 2:15:27 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 19:20:49 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> trolled:
> >Unable to deal fair and square with what I wrote in reply to Burkhard,
> >jillery snipped out almost all of it, and capitalized on its
> >absence to create a thoroughly deceitful picture of what ID is all about.
> >
> >It has always been necessary, not just for jillery, but for all the anti-ID people,
> >to avoid dealing with the most substantive parts of ID theory. What sets
> >jillery apart from all others is that no one else has the nerve to descend to the
> >depths to which jillery will descend.

> Let your descent into making T.O. a Hellhole continue.

Dishonest blame-the-victim tactic noted. Apparently jillery thinks
I am "uppity" for daring to call her out for deceitful tactics,
and being "uppity" in this way is what makes T.O. a hellhole,
in The World According to Jillery.

> >On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 10::25?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> >> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> >> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip for focus>
> >
> >The "focus" is three earlier comments, two by Burkhard, after a long, snipped explanation by me,
> >THIS TIME AROUND, of how baseless these comments by Burkhard had been.

> The "focus" has utterly nothing to do with your "explanation".

THAT much is obvious. You again avoided trying to cope with the explanation,
and your agenda forces you to use scare quotes around the word.
And so, you strongly support what I already had written in the preamble last time.

Also, you are trying to make a virtue of confining yourself to off-topic personal attacks.
In the World According to Jillery, this elevates T.O. away from being a hellhole.
So does the attempt to obscure the main thesis of a book whose very identity
jillery tries to obscure below, along with the identity of its author.

> The "focus" has to do with your "expectation" for Burkhard and other
> readers to refer to the same edition of the same book to which you
> allude.

The "same book" is _The_Edge_of_Evolution_, where Behe extensively supports his
thesis about the limitations of natural selection and random mutation: they are inadequate
to account for the richness of the biological world around us, including our own species.

It is about this book that Burkhard made the comments that show that he has not
grasped what the book is about, and jillery is doing her best to keep the t.o. readership
from grasping it.

"same edition" assumes that the page numbers differ. However, I quoted
directly from page number 52 and it should not be too hard to find the quote
if it and the following page of text have been shifted. I will consult with Behe
to see whether jillery is just making up this assumption off the top of her agenda-driven head.

> My deletion of approximately 400 lines of commentary which
> have utterly nothing to do this "focus", reasonably can be described
> as a mercy snip.

"approximately 400" is less than 40 in the World According to Jillery.
I specified the text I added the last time around, prior to the part jillery left in,
when berating jillery for the snip.

Even if one counts all the lines of text that jillery snipped in the part I partially restored
last time, including lines by Burkhard, it comes to fewer than 40 lines.

However, I do believe most t.o. regulars, including Burkhard, would applaud
jillery for this "miscalculation," since it suits their agenda of creating a
virtual reality in t.o. to substitute for the actual reality of Behe and Intelligent Design (ID).

And jillery's snip of those < 40 lines was indeed merciful to them,
and thus counts as a "mercy snip" for that reason and ONLY that reason.

> Too bad my expressed purpose utterly failed to get
> you to "focus" on your petty parlor tricks.

Trying to get the truth about ID and Behe across is thus alleged to be "petty parlor tricks."
It would seem that jillery equates "talk.origins" with "bullshit.about.origins" and
considers any calling out of bullshit by jillery and other ID opponents as "making t.o. a hellhole."

>
> <snip your spam not relevant to this "focus">

And here, getting the truth about ID and Behe across
in the teeth of bullshit by jillery and Burkhard becomes "spam" in The World According to Jillery.

> >> >I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
> >> >reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.
> >
> >> The above isn't the first time you demand petty details from a
> >> specific edition of a specific book.
> >
> >As can be seen, this was no "demand," it was a continuation of a suggestion
> >that jillery snipped, and was meant to recall Behe's thesis that I had stated a few lines earlier.

> Po TAY to, Po TAH to. My point remains unchallenged.

Thus suggestion = demand in jillery's personal bullshit.about.origins.

Especially when the suggestion has to do with gently getting
Burkhard to reconsider his false impression of what Behe's TEoE is all about.


Remainder deleted, being about a different book by Behe,
about which I have not seen a summary dismissal by Burkhard.
If he or anyone else who claims to be familiar with the contents of that book
does a similar dismissal, I will deal with that.


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:20:12 -0700 (PDT), PeeWee Peter trolled:

>On Friday, April 21, 2023 at 2:15:27?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 19:20:49 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> trolled:
>> >Unable to deal fair and square with what I wrote in reply to Burkhard,
>> >jillery snipped out almost all of it, and capitalized on its
>> >absence to create a thoroughly deceitful picture of what ID is all about.
>> >
>> >It has always been necessary, not just for jillery, but for all the anti-ID people,
>> >to avoid dealing with the most substantive parts of ID theory. What sets
>> >jillery apart from all others is that no one else has the nerve to descend to the
>> >depths to which jillery will descend.
>
>> Let your descent into making T.O. a Hellhole continue.
>
>Dishonest blame-the-victim tactic noted.

Dishonest PeeWee Peterism noted. His baseless preamble above is him
exercising his compulsion to post pointless personal attacks.

<Remaining PeeWee Peterisms deleted without notation>

>> >On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 10::25?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> >> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>> >>
>> >> <snip for focus>
>> >
>> >The "focus" is three earlier comments, two by Burkhard, after a long, snipped explanation by me,
>> >THIS TIME AROUND, of how baseless these comments by Burkhard had been.
>
>> The "focus" has utterly nothing to do with your "explanation".

>> The "focus" has to do with your "expectation" for Burkhard and other
>> readers to refer to the same edition of the same book to which you
>> allude.

>> My deletion of approximately 400 lines of commentary which
>> have utterly nothing to do this "focus", reasonably can be described
>> as a mercy snip.
>
>"approximately 400" is less than 40 in the World According to Jillery.

The above comment goes beyond mere Peterisms into transparently
willful stupidity.

The following is from the headers to PeeWee Peter's post:
*******************************
From: "peter2...@gmail.com" <peter2...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: steady state theory of biological origin
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:18:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <ccce4cef-fd6a-45d1...@googlegroups.com>
*******************************

The following is from the headers to my post:
*******************************
From: jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: steady state theory of biological origin
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2023 10:50:35 -0400
Message-ID: <esvv3iho1d131rncc...@4ax.com>
********************************

My newsreader shows PeeWee Peter's post has 459 lines. This doesn't
include the additional lines it would have counted if line-wrap was
enabled. My post has 37 lines.

In the "World According to Jillery", 459-37 is approximately 400
lines.

In the world according to PeeWee Peter, this is an excuse to accuse me
of doing what he does even as he's doing it.

Only a willfully stupid troll would post something so trivial and
irrelevant and easily proved false.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

With the addition of the post below, I think jillery has provided Burkhard with enough entertainment to
last him the whole weekend. Of course, to get the full benefit of the entertainment, he will need to compare it
with the post to which jillery is replying:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/I2nYK75gAQAJ

Re: steady state theory of biological origin

Perhaps by Monday he'll return to active posting on this thread,
and then it would make more sense for me to resume my replies to him.
Until then, my usual weekend posting break takes effect, starting now.


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Fri, 21 Apr 2023 19:28:06 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>With the addition of the post below, I think jillery has provided Burkhard with enough entertainment to
>last him the whole weekend. Of course, to get the full benefit of the entertainment, he will need to compare it
>with the post to which jillery is replying:

Yes, it's always and only about you.

>https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/I2nYK75gAQAJ
>Re: steady state theory of biological origin
>
> Perhaps by Monday he'll return to active posting on this thread,
>and then it would make more sense for me to resume my replies to him.
>Until then, my usual weekend posting break takes effect, starting now.

Praise DOG.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, April 22, 2023 at 2:50:28 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Apr 2023 19:28:06 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >With the addition of the post below, I think jillery has provided Burkhard with enough entertainment to
> >last him the whole weekend. Of course, to get the full benefit of the entertainment, he will need to compare it
> >with the post to which jillery is replying:

> Yes, it's always and only about you.

That's certainly true of the entertainment you've provided in every post you've done to
this thread since you mangled my message in the April 18 post. The one to which
I am replying is the fourth so far.

I wish you had NOT done so, and this illustrates how your snarky comment is more literally true
than you intended it to be.

> >https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/I2nYK75gAQAJ
> >Re: steady state theory of biological origin
> >
> > Perhaps by Monday he'll return to active posting on this thread,
> >and then it would make more sense for me to resume my replies to him.
> >Until then, my usual weekend posting break takes effect, starting now.

> Praise DOG.

He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread priority; and that reply will
probably be the last post I do today.


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Tue, 25 Apr 2023 18:29:35 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, April 22, 2023 at 2:50:28?AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Apr 2023 19:28:06 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >With the addition of the post below, I think jillery has provided Burkhard with enough entertainment to
>> >last him the whole weekend. Of course, to get the full benefit of the entertainment, he will need to compare it
>> >with the post to which jillery is replying:
>
>> Yes, it's always and only about you.
>
>That's certainly true of the entertainment you've provided in every post you've done to
>this thread since you mangled my message in the April 18 post. The one to which
>I am replying is the fourth so far.

I suppose you think that should make me feel special.

>I wish you had NOT done so, and this illustrates how your snarky comment is more literally true
>than you intended it to be.
>
>
>> >https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/aEWcwKdnhaY/m/I2nYK75gAQAJ
>> >Re: steady state theory of biological origin
>> >
>> > Perhaps by Monday he'll return to active posting on this thread,
>> >and then it would make more sense for me to resume my replies to him.
>> >Until then, my usual weekend posting break takes effect, starting now.
>
>> Praise DOG.
>
>He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
>the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread priority; and that reply will
>probably be the last post I do today.
>
>
>Peter Nyikos

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 9:30:31 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:


> He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
> the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread priority; and that reply will
> probably be the last post I do today.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos

Might I suggest you search that thread for "Corfu".

[*Hemidactylus*]

Will he be wearing a kilt while hiking?

[Lawyer Daggett]

If it were me I'd want something with a pocket for my Gerald Durrell
paperbacks.

[erik simpson]

I doubt kilts have a pocket for anything. It's a pretty basic garment.

[DB Cates]

That's what the sporran's for Laddie.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[erik simpson]

Exactly. And Burk's a true Scotsman.

[Lawyer Daggett]

ahem, hardly.

[Burkhard]

You don't want to be wrapped in several layers of very heavy wool when hiking in Corfu, not even in April when it is still comparatively cool, believe you me :o) And at the danger of sounding like a traitor, but for a garment that started life as working clothes for peasants in a northern European climate, kilts are generally remarkably impractical. You get boiled at summer graduation - especially as you wear them underneath a 100% synthetic academic gown. And for winter graduation the cold wind gets right at your privates (and before you ask, no, I'm not wearing them the traditional way, quite on the contrary, I got special thermals for this, and still at the end of the ceremony I was numb waist down.

[Burkhard]

That's what the sporran is for, and mine is just big enough for an e-reader. I'd have gone for Lawrence rather than Gerald (the locals are rather ambivalent towards them, the same ambivalence they have to tourism in general), but opted for a rather eclectic mix of classical and modern Greek authors (Apostolos Doxiadis (great fun), Penga Elena, my Edinburgh colleague Angela Dimitrakaki, and for light entertainment Anne Zouroudi) and a few non-Greek takes on classical Greek texts (Madeline Miller, Pet Barker, Natalie Haynes)

For TO purposes the biggest discovery was Akis Papantonis, who in his day job is Professor for Translational Epigenetics and uses this as background for stories about immigration, culture and society.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 8, 2023 at 4:10:15 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:15:32 PM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> > Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 9:30:31 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
> > >> the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread
> > >> priority; and that reply will
> > >> probably be the last post I do today.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Peter Nyikos
> > >
> > > Might I suggest you search that thread for "Corfu".
> > >
> > Will he be wearing a kilt while hiking?

Your reports are very interesting, Burk. Are you still in Corfu? Or just not back yet to your home base?

I saw some activity from you in t.o. on the 9th as well -- it was nice to see you vote
on the Chez Watt for April, for instance -- but nothing since then.

> You don't want to be wrapped in several layers of very heavy wool when hiking in Corfu, not even in April when it is still comparatively cool, believe you me :o) And at the danger of sounding like a traitor, but for a garment that started life as working clothes for peasants in a northern European climate, kilts are generally remarkably impractical. You get boiled at summer graduation - especially as you wear them underneath a 100% synthetic academic gown. And for winter graduation the cold wind gets right at your privates (and before you ask, no, I'm not wearing them the traditional way, quite on the contrary, I got special thermals for this, and still at the end of the ceremony I was numb waist down.

Strange, then, that kilts originated in northern Europe. Was that during one of
the warm periods of that region, like the one that led to colonization of Greenland
about a thousand years ago?


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Thu, 18 May 2023 05:07:32 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, May 8, 2023 at 4:10:15?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

>> On Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:15:32?PM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> > Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> > > On Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 9:30:31?PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >> He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
>> > >> the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread
>> > >> priority; and that reply will
>> > >> probably be the last post I do today.
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >> Peter Nyikos
>> > >
>> > > Might I suggest you search that thread for "Corfu".
>> > >
>> > Will he be wearing a kilt while hiking?
>
>Your reports are very interesting, Burk. Are you still in Corfu? Or just not back yet to your home base?
>
>I saw some activity from you in t.o. on the 9th as well -- it was nice to see you vote
>on the Chez Watt for April, for instance -- but nothing since then.
>
>> You don't want to be wrapped in several layers of very heavy wool when hiking in Corfu, not even in April when it is still comparatively cool, believe you me :o) And at the danger of sounding like a traitor, but for a garment that started life as working clothes for peasants in a northern European climate, kilts are generally remarkably impractical. You get boiled at summer graduation - especially as you wear them underneath a 100% synthetic academic gown. And for winter graduation the cold wind gets right at your privates (and before you ask, no, I'm not wearing them the traditional way, quite on the contrary, I got special thermals for this, and still at the end of the ceremony I was numb waist down.
>
>Strange, then, that kilts originated in northern Europe. Was that during one of
>the warm periods of that region, like the one that led to colonization of Greenland
>about a thousand years ago?
>
>
>Peter Nyikos

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_kilt>

My impression is Burkhard refers above to the great kilt. The walking
or short kilt is of much more recent vintage, and by itself doesn't
work as winterwear, expect perhaps as a means of cultural sexual
selection; only those with the most robust metabolism and circulation
would survive such use.

[Burkhard]

Or as the Corries put it (to the melody of Scotland the Brave):

Land o' the Kilt and Sporran -
Underneath, there's nothin' worn!
How I wish the wind was warm!
Scotland the Brave.
I must admit it's pretty gruesome,
Walking about wi' your frozen twosome!
It's all we've got - we musn't lose 'em -
Scotland the Brave.

I only got mine when the issue of contribution to the gene pool had become moot, but otherwise your analysis seems spot on - and that applies to a lot of fashion I'd say,
Visual proof here, at the fitting stage a few years ago - another paradoxical shortcoming of the "Full Highland Dress" is that while worn a lot by men my age, it is remarkable inflexible when it comes to changes in circumference of the wearer, especially gains in girth. I'm now put on a diet a few weeks before graduations
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FT6oyCxXoAAL2zg?format=jpg&name=medium

[Burkhard]

On Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 1:12:49 PM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, May 8, 2023 at 4:10:15 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > On Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:15:32 PM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> > > Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 9:30:31 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >> He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
> > > >> the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread
> > > >> priority; and that reply will
> > > >> probably be the last post I do today.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> Peter Nyikos
> > > >
> > > > Might I suggest you search that thread for "Corfu".
> > > >
> > > Will he be wearing a kilt while hiking?
> Your reports are very interesting, Burk. Are you still in Corfu? Or just not back yet to your home base?
>
> I saw some activity from you in t.o. on the 9th as well -- it was nice to see you vote
> on the Chez Watt for April, for instance -- but nothing since then.

yah, back form holidays, but 3 weeks without computer means over 2k accumulated emails etc , so for the next few weeks I won't have much time I'm afraid, and also accepted way too many invitations and visiting positions during sabbatical, so may have generally to reduce activity

> > You don't want to be wrapped in several layers of very heavy wool when hiking in Corfu, not even in April when it is still comparatively cool, believe you me :o) And at the danger of sounding like a traitor, but for a garment that started life as working clothes for peasants in a northern European climate, kilts are generally remarkably impractical. You get boiled at summer graduation - especially as you wear them underneath a 100% synthetic academic gown. And for winter graduation the cold wind gets right at your privates (and before you ask, no, I'm not wearing them the traditional way, quite on the contrary, I got special thermals for this, and still at the end of the ceremony I was numb waist down.
> Strange, then, that kilts originated in northern Europe. Was that during one of
> the warm periods of that region, like the one that led to colonization of Greenland
> about a thousand years ago?

Or it was invented for a hardier people than me :o) Part of the reasons is as Jillery pointed out, the modern fèileadh beag, the short walking kilt, is a comparatively recent development and in its modern form a Victorian (lowlander and English) invention, not meant to be worn when people lived mainly outside. But it was also in its original form just very easy to do, much less complicated than tailoring trousers - you just wrap yourself in a long blanket. Another wee paradox, as the modern kilt is much more complicated (and hence expensive) to make than a pair of jeans.


>
>
> Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

My theory is that kilts were worn to have instant diagnoses of hernias from
all the caber tossing. A clear view of and access to the nads for manual
manipulation helps.

[*Hemidactylus*]

To quote someone you hold in such high regard: “Perhaps posters who act as
if they are above such things will stop enabling PeeWee Peter's willfully
stupid trolls.”

Given you almost seem cordial toward him above…odd. Or you misread the
headers.

[jillery]

Based on your comments above, you think my post above enables PeeWee
Peter's willfully stupid trolls. Since I disagree with PeeWee Peter's
comments, not sure how you come to that conclusion.

A related point is whether PeeWee Peter's post above qualifies as a
willfully stupid troll. I acknowledge his comments are pointless and
pedantic, but IMO are in keeping with Burkhard's post to which he
replies, and lack the personal insults and claims without evidence
that are the hallmark of willfully stupid trolls. Apparently your
mileage varies.

Based on your quote, I presume the inspiration for your post above is
my criticism of Mark Isaak for his expressed decision to cancel my
Chez Watt and not PeeWee Peter's. Feel free to post your criticism of
my criticism, which should include a justification of how PeeWee
Peter's post qualifies as a legitimate CHEZ WATT while mine does not.

Shall I get the popcorn?

[jillery]

On Thu, 18 May 2023 09:29:25 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

Please excuse my smile as I initially thought your "I only got mine"
referred to "your frozen twosome".

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Jillery will have to revise that formula: she has revealed that perfectly normal talk by me is "trolling"
in her vocabulary. See my demonstration of that here:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/RkWQ6hJfp2w/m/Bh5H36ZUAAAJ
Re: CHEZ WATT in re Cool Hand Luke
May 17, 2023, 10:40:23 AM

> Given you almost seem cordial toward him above…odd. Or you misread the
> headers.

You may not be far off with your second guess, Hemi: my demonstration was so airtight,
jillery was forced to pretend in her reply that she doesn't know how attribution lines work
in her desperation to deny the undeniable.


Something else that people ought to know: the nickname "Pee Wee Peter"
is a flagrant example of projection by jillery. If anyone reading this doubts
that it is one, I can give a history of the nickname.


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 12:40:24 PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 1:12:49 PM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, May 8, 2023 at 4:10:15 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:15:32 PM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> > > > Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 9:30:31 PM UTC-4, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >> He still hasn't returned to this thread, and so I am giving a post by Mark Isaak on
> > > > >> the "Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive." thread
> > > > >> priority; and that reply will
> > > > >> probably be the last post I do today.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Peter Nyikos
> > > > >
> > > > > Might I suggest you search that thread for "Corfu".
> > > > >
> > > > Will he be wearing a kilt while hiking?
> > Your reports are very interesting, Burk. Are you still in Corfu? Or just not back yet to your home base?
> >
> > I saw some activity from you in t.o. on the 9th as well -- it was nice to see you vote
> > on the Chez Watt for April, for instance -- but nothing since then.

> yah, back form holidays, but 3 weeks without computer means over 2k accumulated emails etc , so for the next few weeks I won't have much time I'm afraid, and also accepted way too many invitations and visiting positions during sabbatical, so may have generally to reduce activity

Looks like you've found a good bit of time to post at length on the thread that
I set up only a week after I wrote the above, on the modern theory of ID.
Before saying more about that, I have one more thing I'd like to mention about Corfu.

Every time I see it mentioned, my mind goes to a visual image of online
pictures of houses with immaculately white walls and roofs of an amazing rich blue.
I get the impression, though, that most houses in Corfu are not at all like that. Am I right?

The reason those pictures made such a deep impression on me is that
I am seeing them after my cataract operations. I explained what
they did to my perception of color to Hemidactylus on another thread,
after he mentioned a recent eye surgery:

"I was extraordinarily lucky in that one surgery was required before the other. I had not known for decades that I was no longer seeing
pure white or pure blue or pure violet. When the first surgery was over, it was astounding to see these colors again and to be able to compare them
to the dirty white, etc, that I was seeing with my other eye. I was seeing a truly blue sky for the first time in decades, for instance.
For the time between my first surgery and the second, I had a never-to-be-repeated experience of comparing one thing after another
using the two contrasting views."

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/khZM_6plMSc/m/t-XV5BRRDAAJ

To Lawyer Daggett, who responded with an account of his father's cataract surgery,
I gave another example in detail:

__________________________________________________________________
My experience lasted for a year and a half before the cataract on
the other eye became eligible for surgery, and I never stopped
enjoying the bright colors I saw with my right eye while my
left eye kept reminding me of what I had been missing for so long.

One of the most memorable contrasts was the flames in our fireplace
when I had a good wood fire going. For over a decade, as my daughters
were growing up, they kept exclaiming about the beautiful purple [technically, violet]
flames they were seeing. My thoughts were always like, "Well, I suppose they are
beautiful to you, but they are nothing special to me." Of course, I didn't
ruin their enjoyment by saying anything like that.

After the surgery on my right eye, I was bowled over by what I saw:
brilliant violet flames that I could never remember ever having seen before in my life.
Yet when I looked at the same flames with my left eye, I saw only a wispy
gray base to the flames which extended for nearly a foot before being
replaced by an unexciting violet.


Then I remembered something I had read decades ago in an essay
by Isaac Asimov. He said that the natural lenses of our eyes block out
what we commonly call the ultraviolet spectrum. But when they
are replaced after cataract surgery, what happens is commonly called
"seeing into the ultraviolet".

Asimov was not trying to get as technical as I am being about what happens,
but from a physics POV, what actually occurred to me was the ultraviolet
spectrum shifting over in my perceptions. "Ultraviolet" is an anthropocentric concept
that has no special status in the physical science of optics.

And so, I deduce that those gray wispy bases were emitting only
"ultraviolet light *sensu* left eye," but they were a special shade of violet to my right eye.

On occasion I would look at special "ultraviolet" lights at concerts,
and they would be a very deep and low-intensity violet to my left eye,
but a dazzling blue to my right eye, which evidently was seeing
a whole range of wavelengths that I had only dimly seen before,
or not at all the ones in part of the "ultraviolet".
======================================================

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/khZM_6plMSc/m/3rzwYPtYDAAJ


Peter Nyikos

[Burkhard]

On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 3:20:25 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 8:20:20 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:50:20 PM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:35:19 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 3:10:18 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 3:50:17 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > > > On Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 3:05:14 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > > > Again delayed by various forms of controversy in other threads (mostly in sci.bio.paleontology),
> > > > > > > I am returning to do my second reply to you, Burkhard.
> > > > > > > On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 4:30:40 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 12:25:40 AM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 2:10:37 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 7:00:37 AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 11:10:37 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 5:00:34 AM UTC-7, Burkhard wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > SMBC offers this crossover between two TO favourites, the origin of the universe and the miracle of reproduction
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > > > > > > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theory-2
> > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > If fine-tuning could be covered here, it would clear up everything.
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > > > ES> > >Burkhard provided the on topic response:
> > > > > > > > > > https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fundamental
> > > > >
> > > > > > > PN > > Only superficially on topic: the author of the strip got it wrong:
> > > > >
> > > > > >PN > I was a bit too stuck on what Erik had written that I didn't do justice to what you had written about gravity, Burk.
> > > > >
> > > > > > >PN > > gravity is NOT one of the fundamental constants. It depends on the units one uses for mass and acceleration.
> > > > > > > > ... I'd say you are also parsing the strip wrong. It starts with an informal notion of "Fundamental things in nature" ...
> > > > > > > >So from the POV of the speaker, adding gravity is perfectly correct,
> > > > > > > Yes, gravity is one of the most fundamental things in nature. Come Monday, I hope to have
> > > > > > > time to go to detail about this.
> > > > > > I'd say you are still genre confused. It's a funny comic, not an illustration for a science book, the punchline is not about the nature of the basic constants, but about inadequate conceptions of the godhead that come from misapplied engineering metaphors to religion, i.e. creationism and ID.
> > > > >
> > > > > You should have deleted "and ID" after seeing what I wrote later, Burk, but I
> > > > > see you are having trouble believing what I wrote, so I'm addressing your objections below.
> > > > Why yes indeed Petey, I did indeed not act on your bare assertion, and nothing you write below makes much of a difference as you'll see.
> > >
> > > Not to you, Burkie. But a disinterested reader would take into account the fact that the truth of
> > > something in a contentious dispute in talk.origins may take many iterations of back-and-forth before
> > > the arguments of one of the disputants begins to devolve into broken record routines,
> > > personal insults, and exits punctuated with "It is impossible to argue rationally with you."
> > >
> > > Astute, disinterested readers (but keenly interested in the truth of the matter) will then be able, going over the whole argument,
> > > to discern whether (or not) the last sentence requires amendment to "It is impossible for me to argue rationally with you."
> > > > >
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > > > > >he depicted God as a bumbler who obviously did NOT design the universe.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Well yes, that's part of the point - an accurate depiction of the God of the creationists/IDlers.
> > > > >
> > > > > > > Of the YEC creationists, I grant you. But ID theory is based on science, not scripture,
> > > > > > > and the fundamental constants play a big role in it. See below.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Even if one were to accept that there is a secular ID theory, which I don't do for a second,
> > > > > ...because of a massive disinformation campaign against it by scientists, ACLU, Sandwalk, etc.
> > > > > who sense that, unlike YEC creationism, science-based ID [especially fine-tuning arguments]
> > >
> > > > Nope, simply based on their own written output, nothing else is needed.
>
> > > Did you consult with someone (say, Bill Rogers) who is competent to judge Behe's
> > > _The_Edge_of_Evolution_ as to whether what you just now wrote is the usual polemical
> > > retort without evidential basis?
>
> > The "Evidential Basis" is his book. Nowhere in the book, with the possible exception of a few throwaway lines in the last chapter (and these of truly sophomoric quality - "I am intelligent, therefore the motive of the designer must have been to create intelligent beings" _ I mean, please...) is a theory of ID even attempted.
> You are just showing your ignorance of what constitutes the statement of a theory.
>
> The Big Bang Theory, for example, is not the simple thing that undergraduate textbooks describe.
> It is founded on the deep mathematics of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
> Even the outstanding book that describes how COBE provided an indispensable input to the Big Bang theory [1]
> does not go into these mathematical calculations, but only into some of their consequences for cosmology.

I have absolutely no idea what argument you try to make here, or how you think your ruminations about the big bang theory substantiate your claim that I'm showing "ignorance of what constitutes the statement of a theory". But feel free to elaborate

>
> [1] _The_Very_First_Light_, by John C. Mather and John Boslough, Penguin Books, 1998.
>
> Without the kind of data COBE provided, the Big Bang Theory would still be competing neck and neck
> with Hoyle's Steady State Theory.
>
>
> The input to Behe's bit of theory in TEoE was data-intensive, like COBE.

I've replied to a similar comment of your in a later post. Here in short:

a) even though data is a necessary part of a scientific theory, and collecting data a worthwhile endeavour, they are not a theory, they are what the theory is meant to explain. So even if it were true that Behe had contributed new data, my claim that he has no theory of ID stands

b) I don't think it's true. As far as I can see, Behe has a comparatively small (measured by how long he has been an academic) number of technical papers that describe new experiments, but they seem all to predate his interest in ID. As far as I can see, almost all of the references in TEoE is to data others have collected. Neither does there seem to be a significant database associated with him or his lab that acts as reference poitn for researchers in the filed, the way COBE does.

Behe is also in this respect much more like Paley than Darwin, who actually did, in addition to his theory, gathered massive amounts of data in his journeys, data that then stimulated the theorising of others in the field. Paley and Behe's use of data is entirely, or almost entirely, derivative of the efforts of such primary data collectors


The very title of the
> book hints at the bit of theory.

No, it doesn't really. It hints at the limits of an existing theory, it does not hint at all at any theory of what is beyond the edge.

By analyzing the way various organisms develop immunity
> to various deleterious agents, Behe analyzes the "Edge" of required mutations
> at which the organisms can no longer cope. And with this "Edge" he presents the
> thesis that the theory of natural selection is no better at explaining how evolution
> got to this point than a theory of design is.

That comparative evaluation would require a formulated theory of design, which is exactly what he does not have. In many ways, he makes a similar mistake to the flawed expert evidence by Roy Meadows in the Sally Clarke case - which so enraged the president of the royal Statistical society that he wrote an unprecedented open letter denouncing Meadows' methods.

Meadows had calculated the probability of a family suffering not just one but two sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and concluded it was extremely unlikely. There were mistakes in that calculation too (of the Kleinman variety) but let's assume he did this part correctly, as the other mistake does not depend on it.

From the result that two natural infant death are very unlikely to occur, he made a "design inference" and concluded that it therefore must have been premeditated murder.

But that is obviously not good enough (And Sherlock Holmes has a lot to answer for here) What he should have done, in the next step, is to calculate the probability that Clark had killed her children. Homicide is rare. Infanticide, trivially, even rarer. Double infanticide by the mother extremely rare. Double infanticide my a mother of the type Sally Clark was (no history of mental illness in her or her family; strong social support network, economically stress-free etc)

But he never bothered to formulate an explicit "ID theory" the way he had formulated an explicit SIDS theory. For an evaluation of probabilities, both are needed, especially if a "no better at explaining" claim is made.

>
> He devotes most of it to the various species of the malaria parasite Plasmodium,
> which is right up Bill Rogers' alley, which is why I brought it up.
> >I don't need Bill Rogers for this, though I'm pretty certain he'd come to the same conclusion.
> About your useless condescending polemic, sure. But that's not where the action is.
>
> I'll give you Behe's cute "Jeopardy style" riddle on page 52 and let you try and figure out just what
> its ramifications are for all that went before and after it -- assuming you can follow it all.
>
> "Answer: The obstacle that malaria has not been able to mutate around.
>
> "Question: What is sickle hemoglobin?"
>
> I suggest you read forward a page before entering the tangle of what went before,
> and for which you might need Bill's coaching.

Do we have different editions of the book? In mine, this is all in a chapter named "the mathematical limits of Darwinism". With other words, it is a critique of Darwinism, not a theory of ID.

And as long as the :design theory" is only evokes an otherwise unidentified designer, it is pretty straightforward to give an account of all the phenomena "beyond the edge" that Behe lists, an explanation that is both purely naturalistic and does not involve any type of design or teleology, but is at elast as detailed and has as much empirical content as the design alternative.


> > > >We've been over this before.
> > > Not you and I. We've been over the legal aspects of the Dover ruling,
>
>
> > That's worrying! Consult a doctor, in your age sudden memory loss can be a sign for something bad!
> Don't worry. I had to guess at what you meant. Way below, I realized we had been talking past each other:
>
> [repeated from below]
> > > Oh, wait, you are changing the subject to design theories that YOU
> > > are familiar with, but those fail to exhaust the subject by far.
> [end of repetition]
> > Here a few examples:
> >
> > Here one just from January:
> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/WATJ1V2lWcI/m/SRHgWNS8BQAJ
> >
> > or here
> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/nmTq1MCK3hg/m/yvkGPiU6AQAJ
> >
> > and here the one you seem at least to remember, which did start with Dover ruling, but the issue by then was not one of law, but "Is there a theory of ID":
> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/h-e_UQkLAQAJ
> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/XbEsTouIR3g/m/UlnK7joGAgAJ
> >
> > and the ensuing debate allowed you to demonstrate your profound ignorance of a whole range of disciplines, from history to epistemology to cryptology to literary studies etc etc etc
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Your factual mist-statements of the research in these fields was not absence of evidence, it was in plain sight.

>You have a highly specialized understanding
> of the ways people in these disciplines handle theories where they no longer are trying to solve them,
> but just engaging in endless competing hypotheses.

We call this the scientific method: collect the data, form a hypothesis that explains it, put it in the open for it to be tested. If there are two competing hypotheses, look for the "experimentum crucis" that is capable of distinguishing between them. This then leads to new observations, and better theories. That applies to all empirical sciences - the only difference for design based disciplines is that in them, motives and goals have explanatory function too - and that is the way to solve them. What is your alternative? Intuiting the truth through meditative contemplation? Might work on mathematics (Goedel sometimes wrote like this) , not in the empirical sciences, and you simply demonstrate here just how far out of your depth you are in you try to analyse empirical theories,

There's nothing "profound" about not knowing
> about this, while knowing a huge lot about actual history, actual epistemology, etc.
>
> Here's something I recalled less than a week ago. We have no idea how, when, and by what route
> the original human inhabitants of Madagascar got there; nor of how big the first wave was,
> nor whether there was a second wave, etc. The one thing we are sure of is that they came
> from Southeast Asia, probably Malaysia/Indonesia. All else is folklore with no written records.
>
> Feel free to regale me endlessly about how your favorite scholars would generate
> huge amounts of "publish or perish" material about this riddle.

This is really weird. Did I enter an alternative universe when I came back from holidays, one in which you argue my position? What are the rules here? Do I now have to develop Peter-type theories? I can have a go if you insist.!OK, here we go:

The attempts by mainstream science to explain how the original human inhabitants of Madagascar got there has been a failure for decades. These scientists at best cover what I call micro-migration, but are nowhere near a theory of macro-migration, they are forever stuck in the basement when they should be building skyscrapers.

I've developed an outline of two entirely naturalistic "macro-migration" hypothesis:

The first I call the Shroomian hypothesis: Having seeded the earth with life a long long time ago, the DP-ists were running out of funding and had to show to their backers the outcome of their experiment. They settled on Madagascar for an exhibition to their funders, where they showed the most impressive descendants of the probes they had originally send. That's where they landed their spacecraft, and then beamed human from a huge variety of settlements directly into the exhibition centre. Unfortunately the funders were not impressed and did not renew the grant, so there was no money to beam them home again.

The second I call the Phroomian hypothesis. Here too the DP-ist revisited earth to see what had happened to their initial probes, but now they did not directly move humans to Madagascar. They merely parked their massive Generation Ship in the water next to the island, which for a short period of time formed an artificial bridge between Madagascar and what is today Mozambique. The fist human settlers of Madagascar simply walked over it.

In both hypotheses, because the actions of the DP-ists interfered with an intelligent species, they were violating the Prime Directive and therefore had to be extremely careful not to leave any incriminating evidence behind, which is why unfortunately there can never be direct evidence. However the theories are falsifiable in principle: if we one day find the home planet of the DP-ists, and they pinky swear they were not around when Madagascar was populated, the theory would be falsified.

These are two entirely naturalistic theories of macro-migration that explain human settlement on Madagascar. I also have one that leaves room for divine intervention, and I give it a probability somewhere between 0.1 and 5%. In this view, God tried to rebuild the Garden of Eden, as revealed by C.S Lewis in the Narnia Chronicles when he talks about the "enclosed Garden" . When read in chronological order, and focus on the depiction of gardens, we get first equivalent of the biblical Garden of Eden in The Magician’s Nephew (inward struggle against temptation); then the garden restored - a terrestrial paradise - in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and finally the garden eternal in The Last Battle, heaven which will be open to Aslan’s followers. Madagascar obviously corresponds to the second garden, in this list, and He selected worthy individuals to join him there. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader also in its title hints at it being an explanation for the settlement.

So how did I do?

It was fun, I admit, but I'd prefer on the whole if we swap back. So yes, historical research, all historical research, is difficult, and there can never be a guarantee that it succeeds - sometimes the data may be irretrievably lost. But that means failure to find a good theory does not imply there is anything wrong with our method, that's just life. And if we struggle to figure out what happened to big, tool making humans mere 2000 or so years ago, then we should really not be surprised that we may not find out what happened millions of years ago to tiny molecules. SO nothing of interest follows from such a failure to develop a detailed theory.

But to the extend that progress is at all possible, it will follow the normal rules of scientific explanations: collect data, hypothesise an explanation for the data, and then put it out to the critical eyes of the world for testing and evaluation. And if one does it like this, papers like this one become possible:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5559028/

The competing theories are all formulated explicit enough to guide research that can test them - they tell us what to look for. The DNA data in the paper is then carefully aligned with these competing theories, to see which ones it lends support to, which ones it undermines, and also how we may be able to correct and improve some of them. And that children is how proper science is done, not by abstract contemplation of probabilities plucked out of thin air, or giving up all research whatsoever and simply claim some unspecified and unspecifiable aliens did it.







> > > but I recall nothing like that between you and me, inasmuch as you have shown
> > > no understanding of science beyond that of a middle school graduate
> > > who got a good grade by just comprehending what the textbook says.
> > > [Middle school typically runs from 11 through 13 year olds, with outliers on both ends.]
>
> > > > There is no ID theory, for any reasonable value of "theory".
>
> > > I don't doubt that you've read this factoid a hundred or more times, but did the
> > > source ever support this with refutations of the arguments of ID theorists like Behe
> > > to the opposite effect?
>
> > I don't need a source for this, I only need to read what Behe does and apply the standard understanding of the concept of "theory" in the mainstream theory of science to it. It's not about "refuting" any argument he makes, it's about pointing out that he fails to even attempt making the relevant sort of argument, for building an ID theory.

> I wonder how much recall of Chapter 3 you had when you wrote this. I'd like to see your
> reaction to the rest of p.52 and the first ten lines of page 53.
>

> Got to go now. Duty calls. Will try to address the rest later this week, hopefully tomorrow.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > >To the extent that they do naturalistic research, they are firmly stuck, in terms of the comic, on panel 1, coming up with new reasons why they doubt that a non-design solution is possible, but they never even attempt to move to panel 2 and a competing theory.
>
> > > If you are talking about the "dunno" comic, you must mean two non-overlapping theories.
> > > What do you imagine the two viable alternatives I've told you about to be?
>
> > You seem to interpret one of them as a "design theory", but that is just your strange misreading of the comic. No, that is not the competing theory the author has in mind, design theories are all strictly panel 3 territory ("Alien Ghost Jesus did it"). There is no "alternative ID theory, nobody has ever tried to even develop one for a very long time now.
> > >
> > > By the way, you are insulting the intelligence of the best of them by imagining that they
> > > doubt that a non-design solution is POSSIBLE. They know that the current secular versions of
> > > a multiverse are *possible* solutions. However, their arguments against it do not yet
> > > have a secular "higher synthesis" between "no designer" and "yes, designer".
> > no idea what that's supposed to mean
> > >
> > > That may change as I flesh out the hypothesis that I introduced yesterday evening
> > > (your early AM) on the thread, "Designer of Our Universe by the Back Door?"
> > > [https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/QflrDHqlDD0/m/1p6NjO4TAgAJ]
> > > >
> > > > And as they don't have "any" ID theory, they also don't have a secular ID theory, by the simple application of logic.
> > > You've got it backwards. The ONLY excuse for saying they don't have any
> > > ID theory is that they don't have a secular one. But, as I said just now, that could change.
> > Nope, that is your persistent misreading of the argument. They do not have a theory, full stop. Of any kind. The last person who seriously tried to develop a intelligent design theory of biology was John Ray, and he dropped it when he realised where it would lead him, theologically. Paley had already more or less given up on the project, nothing that came afterwards even attempted one. For good reasons too, both scientific and theological.
> > > >
> > > > Again we went over this before.
> > > There you go again. Perhaps you should tack on "in your absence" at the end.
> > >
> > > Oh, wait, you are changing the subject to design theories that YOU
> > > are familiar with, but those fail to exhaust the subject by far.
> > > Pure scientists [1] and mathematicians have a different take on this.
> > Interesting. Yes, in the history of mathematics there have been occasional attempts to use design arguments, though I'd say none of them was successful or stood the test of time.
> >
> > Cantor arguably the most famous one:
> > "One proof [of the reality of the transfinite] proceeds from the concept of God and infers from the greatest perfection of God’s essence the possibility of the creation of a transfinite order, from his supreme goodness to the necessity of the creation of the transfinite"
> >
> > and even closer to a design argument:
> > "They (The cardinal numbers) build in their totality a manifold, unified, and from the other contents of God’s Intellect separated thing in itself, that itself forms an object of God’s Knowledge. But since the knowledge of a thing presupposes a unitary form, by which this thing exists and is known, there must in God’s intellect be a determinate cardinal number available, which relates itself to the collection or totality of all finite cardinals in the same way as the number 7 relates itself to the notes in an octave.
> > For this, which can be shown to be the smallest transfinite cardinal number, I have chosen the sign ω."
> >
> > Though he himself would not have included what he did under the "Mathematics" header, for the very same reason:
> >
> > "The general theory of manifolds … belongs entirely to metaphysics. You can easily convince yourself from this, when you examine the categories of cardinal number and ordinal type, these fundamental concepts of set theory, with respect to the degree of their generality and besides will remark, that in them thought is completely pure, so that there is not even the least scope for the imagination to play a role. This is not altered in the least by the images, to which I, like all metaphysicians, from time to time help myself, and also the fact that the works of my pen are published in mathematical journals, does not modify the metaphysical content and character of them.
> >
> > Some of the responses to this were in a similar vein, but not that obviously leading to a design argument, especially the famous response by
> > Leopold Kronecker
> >
> > "Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk" ( "our benevolent God made integers, all else is the work of man";
> >
> > Now, two things on this. First, these and similar examples seem to be historical outliers, I haven't seen that type of design argument in in any modern mathematical papers, and I'm pretty certain that if you were to submit a paper to a math journal, on, oh, I din't know, say the question if "every proximal space weak shrinking" and you start by saying that you don't intent to give any formal proof for your conjecture, but instead proceed to show that they must be because in comparison to God who made all abstract objects, everything is shrinking and we should expect the creation to reflect that aspect of its designer, you would not get published and praised, but send to a shrink.
> >
> > But apart from that, Cantor in particular is doing here a proper design theory, in just the sense that I asked for, and not in yours. That is he commits firmly and explicit to the designer, states as lemma some of the designer's properties, and then infers on the basis of these properties the properties of the cardinal numbers. At this point, the talk of the designer gets proper explanatory value as opposed to merely a pretentious way of saying "we don't know", and in theory at least also leads to falsifiable statements about the designer.
> >
> > So I'd say that to the limited extend that mathematics has historically used a design theory, it confirms my reading of the poverty of ID not yours.
> > > See my next comment.
> > >
> > > [1] including exobiologists, as in an example I gave you a year ago.
> > > >We have pretty good ideas how what a design theory looks like, anthropologists, forensic scientists and historians produce them all the time.
> > > The movie "Contact" has an utterly different one from the ones these people use in their line of work.
> > Ahh, that explains a lt. Yes, if you get your science from Hollywood movies, it's clear that you struggle with proper scientific arguments. Not sure what I can do about this tbh, apart from recommending maybe some good science books?
> > >
> > > By the way, "archaeologists" is more appropriate than "anthropologists." You would be lost in
> > > the vast majority of arguments in sci.anthropology.paleo.
> > Anthropologists do the type of proper ID theory that I'm arguing for all the time, a typical example is here: Susman, Randall L. "Who made the Oldowan tools? Fossil evidence for tool behavior in Plio-Pleistocene hominids." Journal of Anthropological Research 47.2 (1991): 129-151.
> >
> > There you can see quite nicely how after from starting point of properties of the tools, not only a number of candidates for the designer are hypothesised, but because all of these have different attributes, then tested against the hypothesis. And that makes it proper scientific research" stipulate explanation, specific attributes of the explanation, indicate what else we should expect to find if hypothesis is true, test, and then as needed refine your theory about the designer's attributes and identity.
> >
> > Forensic anthropology is of course a sub-discipline of anthropology, which is why Ive co-supervised PhDs in anthropology and archeology alike, I also led research projects with anthropologists, one particular informed the way FIAG (Forensic Imagery Analysis Group) of which I was a member then evaluates digital face reconstructions from bones, published in the relevant journals, and occasional teach on our joint undergraduate program in law and anthropology. "Making myself look foolish in dying usenet groups" is a strategy to claim expertise that I happily leave to you
> > > > And these in turn are mere instantiations of the general nomologic-deductive way of theory formation that all sciences are using
> > > Spoken like a jack of all trades and master of none where pure science
> > > and mathematics are concerned.
> > We can of course debate the status of mathematics as a science. But pure science too follows the general methodology that I outlined above, and which the relevant literature has indeed identified as the most basic structure of all scientific theories. for a recent overview see Psillos, S. (2021). The deductive-nomological model of explanation. In The Routledge Handbook of Logical Empiricism (pp. 185-193). Routledge.
> > > > - it's fine to stipulate a new causal entity, but only if you then make statements about the properties of this entity, which then allows testing, refining and learning new things about it.
> > > I've given you two hypothetical examples already where this has been done.
> > not really no
> > >
> > > Here is a third, in spades: directed panspermia.
> > It's true that DP in theory could be developed into a proper theory, just nobody ever tried. Well, to be fair, once in a while you post something you claim is a test for that hypothesis. Problem is these suggestions immediately get shot down - typically because what you proposed as evidence is incapable of differentiating between DP and non-DP explanations and therefore fails to do its job. Once that happens, you tend to flee from that discussion double quick rather than defending your proposed test. Typical example here, though one has to read past your usual attempts at detraction
> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/eAG4chRavZk/m/I7eDbOfAAQAJ
> >
> > So again, the ask for a scientific theory of DOP would be: Given the stipulated properties of the Panspermist, what are we likely to see that we would not see without panspermists. That provides a test of the properties we ascribe to them, which eventually gives us a theory of who they are, what they can do, how they did it and why.
> > > > ID, by contrast, is never going beyond word magic, in ways that the proponents of Moliere's "virtus dormitiva" would have found so embarrassing that they'd have insisted to not getting lumped in with them.
> > > Confronted with this unsupported piece of condescending polemic, I postpone discussion of the rest of your post
> > > to later today, perhaps tomorrow, with some of it postponed to next week. My top priority this week is the thread I referenced above.
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

I just got the ball rolling on the second eye. Can’t wait until it’s done.
Looking forward to raving again to techno while under anesthesia.

[G]

I am just curious, what kind of operation is that? I had both my eyes operated
last year (the right one on monday and the left on the following friday), and
there were no anesthesia the whole thing lasted 15-20 minutes and I was able
to see immediately after, just a little fuzzy until the new lens settled in a
couple of hours. And, yes, in the days with only one new lens it was
surprising to realize what I was missing...

G

[Bob Casanova]

On 3 Jun 2023 08:46:48 GMT, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by G <g...@nowhere.invalid>:

>*Hemidactylus* <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> On Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 12:40:24?PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 1:12:49?PM UTC+1, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, May 8, 2023 at 4:10:15?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

>>>>>> On Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:15:32?PM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>>>>>>> Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting; thanks. I'm looking at this fairly soon, and
I'd heard it would be ~2 weeks with a patch until the eye
healed (for each eye). Good to know it might be quicker and
less of a hassle.
>
--

Bob C.

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

- Isaac Asimov

[broger...@gmail.com]

I had both eyes done at the same time, I don't think I even needed to wear a patch for 24 hours. The only hassle was having to sleep with sandbags on both sides of my head so that I'd sleep face up all night the first night.

I was supposed to have them done separately, but the wait for the second one was going to be many months, and my eyesight was pitiful, so I wheedled the ophthamologist into doing them both at the same time. He told me that they generally tell the patients they cannot do both eyes at once because on the off chance there's some contamination in the fluids they use you could get infections in both eyes. The actual risk, however, is tiny, and the real reason for doing them separately is that they can bill insurance companies more for two separate procedures than for one slightly longer procedure. This was all with the old fashion artificial lenses with a fixed focal length - recovery may be different when they do fancier things with newer types of lenses that can vary their focal length depending on where you are looking.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I had to *sleep* with a clear plastic “patch” with holes in it for 4 nights
to protect the eye from pressure against the pillow or from rubbing it. The
rest of the day no patch. Can’t get shower water or soap/shampoo in your
eye so…maybe no showering for a week or be very cautious washing your hair.
Lots of eye drops. I learned the trick of pulling my lower eyelid down to
capture the drop. After a week I was cleared to lift or bend over
cautiously. Yeah no bending over for ~7 days.

You may be given an option list of 3 or so differing types of lenses, each
with their own set of trade-offs. The actual surgery is pretty easy to deal
with IMO now. Perhaps not all ophthalmologists use anesthesia. I’m glad
mine did as it melted my anxiety away.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I chose a toric extended depth (Vivity) over the multifocal that was set to
deal with astigmatism. I’m probably going to do the same with the other
eye. I’m not super happy with the flaring off distant lights but it’s so
much better than the cataract itself. I see very well unaided both distance
and computer screen. Reading is ok, but I bought 2x readers that work well
with the IOL. I might not need them.

Someone I know got the standard lenses in both eyes recently and she sees
halos. YMMV. Reading about the weird night vision effects with multifocals
kept me away. The extended depth seemed a happy medium.

There’s also a laser procedure that some people get long after the IOL
installation to get rid of filmy buildup that sometimes happens. Maybe
called YAG laser capsulotomy.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 11:38:25 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com>:

OK; thanks. It seems every surgeon has different
instructions; I'll just have to see what mine says.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 03 Jun 2023 19:51:17 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

>>>> I just got the ball rolling on the second eye. Can?t wait until it?s done.

>>>> Looking forward to raving again to techno while under anesthesia.
>>>
>>> I am just curious, what kind of operation is that? I had both my eyes operated
>>> last year (the right one on monday and the left on the following friday), and
>>> there were no anesthesia the whole thing lasted 15-20 minutes and I was able
>>> to see immediately after, just a little fuzzy until the new lens settled in a
>>> couple of hours. And, yes, in the days with only one new lens it was
>>> surprising to realize what I was missing...
>>>
>> Interesting; thanks. I'm looking at this fairly soon, and
>> I'd heard it would be ~2 weeks with a patch until the eye
>> healed (for each eye). Good to know it might be quicker and
>> less of a hassle.
>>
>I had to *sleep* with a clear plastic “patch” with holes in it for 4 nights
>to protect the eye from pressure against the pillow or from rubbing it. The
>rest of the day no patch. Can’t get shower water or soap/shampoo in your
>eye so…maybe no showering for a week or be very cautious washing your hair.
>Lots of eye drops. I learned the trick of pulling my lower eyelid down to
>capture the drop. After a week I was cleared to lift or bend over
>cautiously. Yeah no bending over for ~7 days.
>
>You may be given an option list of 3 or so differing types of lenses, each
>with their own set of trade-offs. The actual surgery is pretty easy to deal
>with IMO now. Perhaps not all ophthalmologists use anesthesia. I’m glad
>mine did as it melted my anxiety away.
>

Thanks. It sounds similar to the requirements after my heart
surgery; specifically, no lifting anything heavier than 8
pounds for, IIRC, 12 weeks.

[jillery]

To make the following on-topic, I note that it shows the design of
human bodies leaves much room for improvement.


On Sat, 03 Jun 2023 17:57:30 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:55:07 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>To make the following on-topic, I note that it shows the design of
>human bodies leaves much room for improvement.
>

I don't think anyone here has ever doubted that, at least
among those who don't reject reality. In fact, *all* species
have room for improvement; the question is whether such
improvements are within the existing variation space
[term?]. Both flying and teleportation would be
nice-to-haves, but...

[jillery]

On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 09:40:59 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

>On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:55:07 -0400, the following appeared
>in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:
>
>>To make the following on-topic, I note that it shows the design of
>>human bodies leaves much room for improvement.
>>
>I don't think anyone here has ever doubted that, at least
>among those who don't reject reality.

That qualification eliminates cdesign proponentsists.

>In fact, *all* species
>have room for improvement; the question is whether such
>improvements are within the existing variation space
>[term?]. Both flying and teleportation would be
>nice-to-haves, but...

What you describe above would be introducing new designs based on new
information, in contrast to suboptimal implementation of existing
designs, which is what the following illustrates. So yes,
teleportation would moot poorly designed knees, but teleportation can
also be poorly designed, for example by combining humans with flies.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:30:31 -0400, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 09:40:59 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:55:07 -0400, the following appeared
>>in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>>To make the following on-topic, I note that it shows the design of
>>>human bodies leaves much room for improvement.
>>>
>>I don't think anyone here has ever doubted that, at least
>>among those who don't reject reality.
>
>
>That qualification eliminates cdesign proponentsists.
>

Obviously.

>
>>In fact, *all* species
>>have room for improvement; the question is whether such
>>improvements are within the existing variation space
>>[term?]. Both flying and teleportation would be
>>nice-to-haves, but...
>
>
>What you describe above would be introducing new designs based on new
>information, in contrast to suboptimal implementation of existing
>designs, which is what the following illustrates. So yes,
>teleportation would moot poorly designed knees, but teleportation can
>also be poorly designed, for example by combining humans with flies.
>

Apparently whimsy is a "foreign country". OK.

[jillery]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:29:50 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

wrote:

>On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:30:31 -0400, the following appeared
>in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:
>
>>On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 09:40:59 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:55:07 -0400, the following appeared
>>>in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>To make the following on-topic, I note that it shows the design of
>>>>human bodies leaves much room for improvement.
>>>>
>>>I don't think anyone here has ever doubted that, at least
>>>among those who don't reject reality.
>>
>>
>>That qualification eliminates cdesign proponentsists.
>>
>Obviously.
>>
>>>In fact, *all* species
>>>have room for improvement; the question is whether such
>>>improvements are within the existing variation space
>>>[term?]. Both flying and teleportation would be
>>>nice-to-haves, but...
>>
>>
>>What you describe above would be introducing new designs based on new
>>information, in contrast to suboptimal implementation of existing
>>designs, which is what the following illustrates. So yes,
>>teleportation would moot poorly designed knees, but teleportation can
>>also be poorly designed, for example by combining humans with flies.
>>
>Apparently whimsy is a "foreign country". OK.

Obviously, you accept "whimsy" only from yourself. OK.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 10:08:38 -0400, the following appeared

My initial comment about "nice-to-haves" referred to
available design space.

Have a nice day.

[jillery]

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 16:11:10 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

I understood your "teleportation" as whimsy. Too bad you won't
understand my comment in a similar spirit.


>Have a nice day.


Continue your whimsical troll...

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 22:48:42 -0400, the following appeared

I understood your final sentence, "combining humans with
flies", to be whimsical. The previous, however, commented
that teleportation would moot poorly designed knees, which,
while an accurate observation in itself, had nothing to do
with my post, which was about available design (or
evolutionary) space.

>
>>Have a nice day.
>
>
>Continue your whimsical troll...
>

"Troll"...You keep using that word. I do not think it means
what you think it means.

[jillery]

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 22:35:03 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

My observation added additional information to the subject you raised.
Obviously you accept as relevant only what you explicitly post.

>>>Have a nice day.
>>
>>
>>Continue your whimsical troll...
>>
>"Troll"...You keep using that word. I do not think it means
>what you think it means.

Obviously you think you know what I think better than I do, and
obviously you accept only your definition.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 07 Jun 2023 04:05:33 -0400, the following appeared

Uh-huh. Sure.

Done with this again.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Yes. Rise above it. Too many acute vicious cycles.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 07 Jun 2023 18:06:25 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

I've been trying to restrict myself to at most 2-3 exchanges
that take this course, and to refrain, unlike sometimes in
the past, from personal attacks and "shit-slinging". Life's
too short, and I have too many more enjoyable things to do.

[jillery]

Yes, follow your own advice, if only for the novelty of the
experience.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Seriously Jillery what the hell is wrong with you. You get unilaterally
pulled into tit for tat. If you would rise above that. I know I broke an
irony meter pointing that out. My bad.