Challenge Pertaining to the Top Six ID Theory Arguments

[Peter Nyikos]

On the thread, "OOL stages," Ron O has done his "Top Six" spiel once too
often: it finally occurred to me to ask the readership whether anyone has
anything to contribute to something that could become one of the Top Six
arguments for the superiority of evolutionary *theory* over Intelligent
Design *theory*. [1]

That may be too tall an order, so if readers prefer, they can
give what they consider to be the Top Six arguments against the
Top Six ID arguments. However, they will have to win out over
counter-arguments by myself (and maybe others). I can add a lot
to the less-than-optimal arguments in the articles in Evolution News on
some of the Top Six, and am an old hand at counter-counter-counter arguments.

[1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.


On "OOL stages," Ron O posted the following link to a post that
gives direct links to each of six articles on the Top Six that
appeared in Evolution News:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/L21KpMBQEXk/x8R6s8qoEAAJ


I'll spare you Ron O's illogical ranting in the post where he
challenged Glenn to support the Top Six, without giving or linking
arguments against any of them. If no one rises to either of
my challenges, and manages to make a case that will stand
up to cross-examination, the logical inference is that Ron O loses to
Glenn by default.


I'm going on my usual weekend posting break after tying up a
few loose ends elsewhere in t.o. and one on sci.bio.paleontology,
so there will be at least two days for responses to either challenge
to accumulate before I return to this thread.


TGIF.


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

[John Harshman]

On 6/5/20 6:23 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On the thread, "OOL stages," Ron O has done his "Top Six" spiel once too
> often: it finally occurred to me to ask the readership whether anyone has
> anything to contribute to something that could become one of the Top Six
> arguments for the superiority of evolutionary *theory* over Intelligent
> Design *theory*. [1]
>
> That may be too tall an order, so if readers prefer, they can
> give what they consider to be the Top Six arguments against the
> Top Six ID arguments. However, they will have to win out over
> counter-arguments by myself (and maybe others). I can add a lot
> to the less-than-optimal arguments in the articles in Evolution News on
> some of the Top Six, and am an old hand at counter-counter-counter arguments.
>
> [1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
> one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
> he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
> and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.
>
>
> On "OOL stages," Ron O posted the following link to a post that
> gives direct links to each of six articles on the Top Six that
> appeared in Evolution News:
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/L21KpMBQEXk/x8R6s8qoEAAJ

Why not just post the links themselves? Here:

1.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/

2.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/


3.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/


4.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-irreducibly-complex-molecular-machines/


5.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-animals/

6.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-humans/

Aren't these all explicitly assuming that the designer is God? And the
first two aren't about biology at all, and so not relevant to
intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.

One could argue that the hypothetical fine-tuning of the universe is
antithetical to intelligent design of life, since a universe
particularly hospitable to life would also make it more likely that live
would evolve naturally.

I presume that one should read the articles before otherwise commenting
on them. I'll get back to you.

[jillery]

If you hadn't spent time posting your gratuitous insults about RonO,
you might have noticed that you meant to say "and [Glen] manages to
make a case"

ONCE AGAIN, arguments against X is arguments for Y only in the
exceptional case they are complete opposites. So, in the same way
that ID wouldn't win if ToE is prove wrong, Glenn wouldn't win if RonO
is "proved" wrong.

Of course, the above is academic. Based on Glenn's posts, he couldn't
make a case if he worked for Perry Mason.

>I'm going on my usual weekend posting break after tying up a
>few loose ends elsewhere in t.o. and one on sci.bio.paleontology,
>so there will be at least two days for responses to either challenge
>to accumulate before I return to this thread.

For all the good that would do.


>TGIF.


I have noticed that weekend threads are far more coherent than those
during the week. That's no coincidence.

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

Do you employers know you associate them with your gratuitous insults?

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

[Peter Nyikos]

So far, there have been no takers to the challenge. It looks like
nobody has been made curious by Ron O's needlings of Glenn
about the "Top Six" to the point of reading them and trying
to refute any of them.

The only item that moves the thread forward in the two replies
I've gotten so far is in John Harshman's listing of the urls
for each of the ID theorists' "Top Six".

On the other hand, his use of the term "intelligent design as an
alternative to evolution" could turn out to be counterproductive
if people don't realize that it has nothing to do with what
the challenge is about.

The correct formula is, "evolution supplemented by either
exclusively naturalistic explanations or, in some cases,
Intelligent Design." That is, for items (3) through (6),
which have to do with what ID theory was mainly about in
2005, when Judge Jones used the phrase John used.

That should have been evident from the way my note [1] was worded,
but it seems that John, in his haste to reply within 10 minutes,
glossed over it:

[1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.

As for items (1) and (2), ID theory has enlarged to embrace them,
and rightly so: they are science-based modifications of ancient arguments
for the existence of a creator/designer of our universe.

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

http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[John Harshman]

On 6/8/20 5:23 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> So far, there have been no takers to the challenge. It looks like
> nobody has been made curious by Ron O's needlings of Glenn
> about the "Top Six" to the point of reading them and trying
> to refute any of them.
>
> The only item that moves the thread forward in the two replies
> I've gotten so far is in John Harshman's listing of the urls
> for each of the ID theorists' "Top Six".
>
> On the other hand, his use of the term "intelligent design as an
> alternative to evolution" could turn out to be counterproductive
> if people don't realize that it has nothing to do with what
> the challenge is about.
>
> The correct formula is, "evolution supplemented by either
> exclusively naturalistic explanations or, in some cases,
> Intelligent Design." That is, for items (3) through (6),
> which have to do with what ID theory was mainly about in
> 2005, when Judge Jones used the phrase John used.

Not true. Most IDers believe in separate creation of kinds, and in fact
in separate creation of Homo. See item 6.

> That should have been evident from the way my note [1] was worded,
> but it seems that John, in his haste to reply within 10 minutes,
> glossed over it:
>
> [1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
> one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
> he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
> and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.

True, but he's an outlier.

> As for items (1) and (2), ID theory has enlarged to embrace them,
> and rightly so: they are science-based modifications of ancient arguments
> for the existence of a creator/designer of our universe.

Nevertheless, they have nothing to do with your expressed challenge.

I see you have "replied" to me while snipping everything I said.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, June 8, 2020 at 12:35:01 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/8/20 5:23 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > So far, there have been no takers to the challenge. It looks like
> > nobody has been made curious by Ron O's needlings of Glenn
> > about the "Top Six" to the point of reading them and trying
> > to refute any of them.
> >
> > The only item that moves the thread forward in the two replies
> > I've gotten so far is in John Harshman's listing of the urls
> > for each of the ID theorists' "Top Six".
> >
> > On the other hand, his use of the term "intelligent design as an
> > alternative to evolution" could turn out to be counterproductive
> > if people don't realize that it has nothing to do with what
> > the challenge is about.
> >
> > The correct formula is, "evolution supplemented by either
> > exclusively naturalistic explanations or, in some cases,
> > Intelligent Design." That is, for items (3) through (6),
> > which have to do with what ID theory was mainly about in
> > 2005, when Judge Jones used the phrase John used.

This was in his impeccable ruling as to what is off limits legally,

"intelligent design as an alternative to evolution"

as opposed to using ID as a *supplement* to evolution.

> Not true. Most IDers believe in separate creation of kinds,

By IDers, you have to mean poofed-into-existence creationists
who contribute money to Discovery Institute or its online publication,
_Evolution News_. These are their last best hope for respectability,
and they don't care that they don't see anything expressly
endorsing their beliefs.

> and in fact
> in separate creation of Homo. See item 6.

The lower echelon person who wrote that hardly had anything to say beyond
a bunch of long quotes, and consequently cannot be pinned down to that: "design" does not come close to implying separate creation.

This is ANOTHER thing that should be evident from note [1]:

>
> > That should have been evident from the way my note [1] was worded,
> > but it seems that John, in his haste to reply within 10 minutes,
> > glossed over it:
> >
> > [1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
> > one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
> > he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
> > and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.
>
> True, but he's an outlier.

Even if that were true, it would still mean that your logic stinks
up there.

> > As for items (1) and (2), ID theory has enlarged to embrace them,
> > and rightly so: they are science-based modifications of ancient arguments
> > for the existence of a creator/designer of our universe.
>
> Nevertheless, they have nothing to do with your expressed challenge.

Not with the first one -- but you aren't talking about the first challenge
anywhere in this post.

You are talking about the second challenge, about the "top six" Ron O keeps
badgering Glenn illogically about. And it has everything to do
with this challenge.

Are you really this clueless, or are you just shooting from the
hip again?

> I see you have "replied" to me while snipping everything I said.

Dream on, twit. I did what you've done many times over the years,
often far into a thread where Google Groups is no longer threaded,
and it's a royal pain to figure out which post you are replying to.

And I did it because all too often, my second post in a thread
I started gets pushed further and further down while NGG *is* threaded,
always on the bottom if no one replies to it.


Sorry to burst your bubble, but I will be replying to your other post
before today is out, unless someone else posts in the meantime dealing
with one of the challenges, or at least shows more intelligence than
you've been showing so far.

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

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

[John Harshman]

I refer to those prominent in the movement, not just their funders and
supporters. The majority of them believe that humans are not related to
other mammals, so far as can be told from their occasional public
pronouncements. Are you, for example, familiar with their claims against
the chromosomal fusion in the human lineage?

>> and in fact
>> in separate creation of Homo. See item 6.
>
> The lower echelon person who wrote that hardly had anything to say beyond
> a bunch of long quotes, and consequently cannot be pinned down to that: "design" does not come close to implying separate creation.

So we aren't actually going to talk about the top 6? These are not
actual arguments for ID? Would you not agree that item 6 promotes
special creation?

> This is ANOTHER thing that should be evident from note [1]:
>
>>
>>> That should have been evident from the way my note [1] was worded,
>>> but it seems that John, in his haste to reply within 10 minutes,
>>> glossed over it:
>>>
>>> [1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
>>> one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
>>> he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
>>> and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.
>>
>> True, but he's an outlier.
>
> Even if that were true, it would still mean that your logic stinks
> up there.

How so?

>>> As for items (1) and (2), ID theory has enlarged to embrace them,
>>> and rightly so: they are science-based modifications of ancient arguments
>>> for the existence of a creator/designer of our universe.
>>
>> Nevertheless, they have nothing to do with your expressed challenge.
>
> Not with the first one -- but you aren't talking about the first challenge
> anywhere in this post.
>
> You are talking about the second challenge, about the "top six" Ron O keeps
> badgering Glenn illogically about. And it has everything to do
> with this challenge.
>
> Are you really this clueless, or are you just shooting from the
> hip again?

I am unaware that there are two challenges. The top 6 is the only one I
know about.

>> I see you have "replied" to me while snipping everything I said.
>
> Dream on, twit. I did what you've done many times over the years,
> often far into a thread where Google Groups is no longer threaded,
> and it's a royal pain to figure out which post you are replying to.

Yet another argument against Google Groups. I don't recall ever snipping
what I was replying to. It seems counterproductive.

> And I did it because all too often, my second post in a thread
> I started gets pushed further and further down while NGG *is* threaded,
> always on the bottom if no one replies to it.
>
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but I will be replying to your other post
> before today is out, unless someone else posts in the meantime dealing
> with one of the challenges, or at least shows more intelligence than
> you've been showing so far.

What "other post" are you talking about? And why, if you really want to
discuss anything, are you dropping all the casual insults. Do you think
they'll help spur conversation?

[Peter Nyikos]

They aren't even implicitly assuming it, except perhaps in 1.

It was prudent of you to implicitly admit that you haven't read them;
can you see why I say this?

> And the
> first two aren't about biology at all, and so not relevant to
> intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.

How on earth did you get the idea that this has anything to do
with either of my two specific challenges? Has your understanding
of ID stopped with Dover 2005 -- to be precise, reading what
fellow anti-ID folks say about it? See what I wrote in an earlier
post today.

> One could argue that the hypothetical fine-tuning of the universe is
> antithetical to intelligent design of life,

"antithetical to" is a bizarre substitute for "less than optimal for, IMO."

> since a universe
> particularly hospitable to life would also make it more likely that live
> would evolve naturally.

No one has come up with a blueprint for a *physical* universe that
is more hospitable for evolution than ours. Do you disagree?

Warning: fantasies that ignore such basic issues as whether there should
be gravity, or death, don't count as blueprints for physical universes
hospitable for life, let alone life with a chance to evolve human
level intelligence.

> I presume that one should read the articles before otherwise commenting
> on them. I'll get back to you.

Thanks for the implicit admission I mentioned above. May I also suggest
you think about three times as long about what you read than you typically
do, before commenting on it?

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

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

[John Harshman]

I really don't care for your little hints and riddles. Say what you mean.

>> And the
>> first two aren't about biology at all, and so not relevant to
>> intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.
>
> How on earth did you get the idea that this has anything to do
> with either of my two specific challenges? Has your understanding
> of ID stopped with Dover 2005 -- to be precise, reading what
> fellow anti-ID folks say about it? See what I wrote in an earlier
> post today.

Sure, feel free to enlarge the scope.

>> One could argue that the hypothetical fine-tuning of the universe is
>> antithetical to intelligent design of life,
>
> "antithetical to" is a bizarre substitute for "less than optimal for, IMO."

So spin is all you have here?

>> since a universe
>> particularly hospitable to life would also make it more likely that live
>> would evolve naturally.
>
> No one has come up with a blueprint for a *physical* universe that
> is more hospitable for evolution than ours. Do you disagree?

No, but very few physical universes have been considered, even with the
narrow set of parameters you want to vary.

> Warning: fantasies that ignore such basic issues as whether there should
> be gravity, or death, don't count as blueprints for physical universes
> hospitable for life, let alone life with a chance to evolve human
> level intelligence.

What argument can you make for this assertion?

>> I presume that one should read the articles before otherwise commenting
>> on them. I'll get back to you.
>
> Thanks for the implicit admission I mentioned above. May I also suggest
> you think about three times as long about what you read than you typically
> do, before commenting on it?

You may suggest anything you like. Let me know if there's anything you
actually want to discuss.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, June 8, 2020 at 6:15:01 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/8/20 2:47 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, June 8, 2020 at 12:35:01 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/8/20 5:23 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> >>> So far, there have been no takers to the challenge.

And that is still true, as of this moment. John Harshman, for instance,
has made no effort to meet either part of the challenge. He has merely
talked around the second part. Some of that talk, granted, enabled me
to clarify what the second part was about. See below.

The first part has to do with whether ID theory or evolutionary theory
does a better job of explaining the evolution on earth in its entirety,
from the humblest bacterial beginnings. Nobody has touched that topic yet,
even indirectly. I will remind readers about it below.


Here was the first occasion when I clarified the second part of the
challenge.

> >>> On the other hand, his use of the term "intelligent design as an
> >>> alternative to evolution" could turn out to be counterproductive
> >>> if people don't realize that it has nothing to do with what
> >>> the challenge is about.
> >>>
> >>> The correct formula is, "evolution supplemented by either
> >>> exclusively naturalistic explanations or, in some cases,
> >>> Intelligent Design." That is, for items (3) through (6),
> >>> which have to do with what ID theory was mainly about in
> >>> 2005, when Judge Jones used the phrase John used.
> >
> > This was in his impeccable ruling as to what is off limits legally,
> > "intelligent design as an alternative to evolution"
> > as opposed to using ID as a *supplement* to evolution.

<snip exchange between John and myself having to do with persons,
rather than with any of the items of the second part>

> >> separate creation of Homo. See item 6.
> >
> > The lower echelon person who wrote that hardly had anything to say beyond

> > a bunch of long quotes, and consequently cannot be pinned down to that: "design" does not come close to implying separate creation. [See explanation below.]


Now I address John, the only person who has even gone so far as to
talk around the subject matter of either part of the challenge.

> So we aren't actually going to talk about the top 6?

"we" is up to you. As for me: if nobody else actually addresses any of
the ID top 6, I will undertake to address one of them no later than tomorrow.

> These are not
> actual arguments for ID? Would you not agree that item 6 promotes
> special creation?

No, there could easily have been modification of genes, just as
the famous writer Loren Eiseley, an agnostic, suggested that there
*might* have been a "careful finger of God" making a small change
in a Devonian fish to make the cerebral hemispheres appear.

You can read about it where he talks about a fish, perhaps on the
level of *Elpistostege* or *Tiktaalik*, which he simply calls "the Snout".
This is in his classic book on evolution ending in our species,
_The Immense Journey_.

>
> > This is ANOTHER thing that should be evident from note [1]:
> >
> >>
> >>> That should have been evident from the way my note [1] was worded,
> >>> but it seems that John, in his haste to reply within 10 minutes,
> >>> glossed over it:
> >>>
> >>> [1] Arguments for common descent do not qualify. Michael Behe,
> >>> one of the top ID theorists, not only accepts common descent,
> >>> he has argued quite ably for it in _The Edge of Evolution_
> >>> and in his _Darwin Devolves_, published just last year.

The above was a footnote to the first part of the challenge,
but it also applies to items (3) through (6). None of these articles
on the "ID top 6" denies common descent. Number (6) is as close
as any get, and I've taken care of it up there.


<snip of exchange of the same nature as that involved in my first snip>

> >>> As for items (1) and (2), ID theory has enlarged to embrace them,
> >>> and rightly so: they are science-based modifications of ancient arguments
> >>> for the existence of a creator/designer of our universe.
> >>
> >> Nevertheless, they have nothing to do with your expressed challenge.
> >
> > Not with the first one -- but you aren't talking about the first challenge
> > anywhere in this post.

I was imprecise here: I should have said "first part of the challenge"
and "second part of the challenge". These are independent of
each other; in fact it would be difficult to make a single point
and have it address both parts of the challenge. Here is that first part again:

it finally occurred to me to ask the readership whether anyone has
anything to contribute to something that could become one of the Top Six
arguments for the superiority of evolutionary *theory* over Intelligent
Design *theory*. [1]

> > You are talking about the second challenge, about the "top six" Ron O keeps
> > badgering Glenn illogically about. And it has everything to do
> > with this challenge.

> I am unaware that there are two challenges. The top 6 is the only one I
> know about.

See clarification above. The second part talks about the ID top 6.
The first part has to do with a yet-nonexistent "Top 6 for Evolutionary
Theory" which I am challenging everyone here to come up with items for.


I do believe, though, that most people will want to focus on the
second part of the challenge, just from long years of experience.

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

PS The conversation in the parts I snipped is of on-topic interest,
very much in the tradition of what talk.origins was set up for.
If John wishes me to continue it, I will gladly set up another
thread for that purpose; but to continue it here would be to "hijack"
this thread. And I do believe that, given his performance on a
thread on macroevolution that I started last year, John wouldn't
want that.

[Peter Nyikos]

In this post, I perform the unusual feat of both supporting ID item 3
and undermining it in less than two dozen lines.

3. The Origin of Information in DNA and the Origin of Life

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

Hey, somebody's got to start addressing the challenge, even if
it has to be me. But it's only a beginning; I am only scratching
the surface of Item 3 and ignoring all the talk on the webpage
about information in DNA.

I'll actually be touching on this second item, too.


<snip for focus>

> >> Aren't these all explicitly assuming that the designer is God?
> >
> > They aren't even implicitly assuming it, except perhaps in 1.

<snip of things more appropriate for a different thread>

> > No one has come up with a blueprint for a *physical* universe that
> > is more hospitable for evolution than ours. Do you disagree?
>
> No, but very few physical universes have been considered, even with the
> narrow set of parameters you want to vary.

It's not I who wants to vary the parameters, it's physicists
and astronomers and cosmologists, including some of those who believe
our observable universe is an almost vanishingly small
part of the whole physical universe in which we live.

One study, reported in the article I link below, hypothesizes
that the whole physical universe is over 10^75 the size of
the observable universe:

https://scitechdaily.com/how-did-life-begin-new-study-reveals-life-in-the-universe-could-be-common/

Excerpt:

Indeed, the observable universe contains about 10 sextillion (10^22)
stars. Statistically speaking, the matter in such a volume
should only be able to produce RNA of about 20 nucleotides.

That's RNA, not DNA, but at least the following excerpt vaguely
hints at information in the necessity for self-replication:
[excerpt]
Researchers in this field have reason to believe that RNA no less than 40 to 100 nucleotides long is necessary for the self-replicating behavior required for life to exist. Given sufficient time, nucleotides can spontaneously connect to form RNA given the right chemical conditions. But current estimates suggest that magic number of 40 to 100 nucleotides should not have been possible in the volume of space we consider the observable universe.
[end of excerpt]

This seems to lend great weight to the arguments by Stephen Meyer
quoted in the webpage for Item 3 [url near the beginning of this post].

However, the following excerpt from the SciTechDaily article offers
a way out:

But it's calculated that, thanks to rapid inflation,
the universe may contain more than 1 googol (10^100) stars,
and if this is the case then more complex,
life-sustaining RNA structures are more than just probable,
they’re practically inevitable.

So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?
I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
reasoning behind them.

You may also want to look at the source the article uses...

Reference: "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe" by Tomonori Totani, 3 February 2020, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0

...and/or invite others to look at it.


<snip of things best left to another thread>

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

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

[John Harshman]

How is any of that relevant to what's supposed to be the subject of this
post, item 3?

> One study, reported in the article I link below, hypothesizes
> that the whole physical universe is over 10^75 the size of
> the observable universe:
>
> https://scitechdaily.com/how-did-life-begin-new-study-reveals-life-in-the-universe-could-be-common/
>
> Excerpt:
>
> Indeed, the observable universe contains about 10 sextillion (10^22)
> stars. Statistically speaking, the matter in such a volume
> should only be able to produce RNA of about 20 nucleotides.
>
> That's RNA, not DNA, but at least the following excerpt vaguely
> hints at information in the necessity for self-replication:
> [excerpt]
> Researchers in this field have reason to believe that RNA no less than 40 to 100 nucleotides long is necessary for the self-replicating behavior required for life to exist. Given sufficient time, nucleotides can spontaneously connect to form RNA given the right chemical conditions. But current estimates suggest that magic number of 40 to 100 nucleotides should not have been possible in the volume of space we consider the observable universe.
> [end of excerpt]

What is the basis for this computation of how long an RNA can be
produced in a universe of some particular size? Does it make any sense
to you?

> This seems to lend great weight to the arguments by Stephen Meyer
> quoted in the webpage for Item 3 [url near the beginning of this post].
>
> However, the following excerpt from the SciTechDaily article offers
> a way out:
>
> But it's calculated that, thanks to rapid inflation,
> the universe may contain more than 1 googol (10^100) stars,
> and if this is the case then more complex,
> life-sustaining RNA structures are more than just probable,
> they’re practically inevitable.
>
> So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
> DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?
> I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
> others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
> reasoning behind them.

I have no idea. I don't think the question is even well-constructed.

> You may also want to look at the source the article uses...
>
> Reference: "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe" by Tomonori Totani, 3 February 2020, Scientific Reports.
> DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0
>
> ...and/or invite others to look at it.

It seems like a physicist trying to tell biologists and chemists how
things ought to work. Do you think his calculations are meaningful?

[jillery]

ONCE AGAIN, right here would have been a good place for you to have
explained in your own words how your cited article, or the article
your cited article cites, comes to that conclusion. That an awful lot
of stars to produce such short chains of RNA. My impression is, this
claim by your cited article is based on invalid assumptions.

>That's RNA, not DNA, but at least the following excerpt vaguely
>hints at information in the necessity for self-replication:
> [excerpt]
>Researchers in this field have reason to believe that RNA no less than 40 to 100 nucleotides long is necessary for the self-replicating behavior required for life to exist. Given sufficient time, nucleotides can spontaneously connect to form RNA given the right chemical conditions. But current estimates suggest that magic number of 40 to 100 nucleotides should not have been possible in the volume of space we consider the observable universe.
>[end of excerpt]
>
>This seems to lend great weight to the arguments by Stephen Meyer
>quoted in the webpage for Item 3 [url near the beginning of this post].
>
>However, the following excerpt from the SciTechDaily article offers
>a way out:
>
> But it's calculated that, thanks to rapid inflation,
> the universe may contain more than 1 googol (10^100) stars,
> and if this is the case then more complex,
> life-sustaining RNA structures are more than just probable,
> they’re practically inevitable.

You don't say how the above offers a way out. However, the article
says it increases the probability of forming RNA chains of sufficient
length to support life.

However, the part you quoted refers to stars outside our observable
universe. ONCE AGAIN, this means even if long RNA chains were created
there, even if life evolved there, even if star-traveling
civilizations developed there, because even in principle they are too
far away to ever have affected anything on Earth. Which means this
claim by your cited article is nonsense in principle.

>So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
>DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?
>I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
>others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
>reasoning behind them.

So, Peter Nyikos, are you ONCE AGAIN tap dance around these points I
raised above, like you did in all of the other topics I mentioned
them?

>You may also want to look at the source the article uses...
>
>Reference: "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe" by Tomonori Totani, 3 February 2020, Scientific Reports.
>DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0
>
>...and/or invite others to look at it.
>
>
><snip of things best left to another thread>
>
>
>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>U. of South Carolina
>http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 6/9/20 6:45 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

This seems relevant: "Considering an example with lmin = 40, there are
4^40 ~ 10^24 possible sequences of 40-mers, and perhaps Nac = 10^4
sequences out of them may have a replicase activity8"

Now where does that crucial number of 10^4 come from? Reference 8 is
Robertson, M. P. & Joyce, G. F. The origins of the RNA world. Cold
Spring Harb Perspect Biol 4:a003608 (2012). Unfortunately, that paper
puts the number not at 10^4 but 10^20. There is however no support given
in either paper for either number. Incidentally, the authors of the
latter paper reject the model of randomly polymerized RNA sequences as
the origin of life.

[Peter Nyikos]

To what do "lmin" and "Nac" refer?

> Now where does that crucial number of 10^4 come from? Reference 8 is
> Robertson, M. P. & Joyce, G. F. The origins of the RNA world. Cold
> Spring Harb Perspect Biol 4:a003608 (2012). Unfortunately, that paper
> puts the number not at 10^4 but 10^20. There is however no support given
> in either paper for either number. Incidentally, the authors of the
> latter paper reject the model of randomly polymerized RNA sequences as
> the origin of life.

So, does either paper propose an alternative model? If so, what is it?
If not, do you know of any alternative models?

If the answer to both is No, how about naming some talk.origins people
who might have ideas for alternative models? Do you think some
of them might be more receptive to an invitation from you than from me?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

U. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[John Harshman]

Read the paper that you cited and told me I might want to look at.

>> Now where does that crucial number of 10^4 come from? Reference 8 is
>> Robertson, M. P. & Joyce, G. F. The origins of the RNA world. Cold
>> Spring Harb Perspect Biol 4:a003608 (2012). Unfortunately, that paper
>> puts the number not at 10^4 but 10^20. There is however no support given
>> in either paper for either number. Incidentally, the authors of the
>> latter paper reject the model of randomly polymerized RNA sequences as
>> the origin of life.
>
> So, does either paper propose an alternative model? If so, what is it?
> If not, do you know of any alternative models?

Yes. Robertson et al. does. I invite you to read it. The point is that
the guy you cite is using bad numbers. Same problem as the similar
approach of the Drake equation.

> If the answer to both is No, how about naming some talk.origins people
> who might have ideas for alternative models? Do you think some
> of them might be more receptive to an invitation from you than from me?

I wouldn't know, to both questions.

[Peter Nyikos]

<snip for focus>

> >>> One study, reported in the article I link below, hypothesizes
> >>> that the whole physical universe is over 10^75 the size of
> >>> the observable universe:
> >>>
> >>> https://scitechdaily.com/how-did-life-begin-new-study-reveals-life-in-the-universe-could-be-common/
> >>>
> >>> Excerpt:
> >>>
> >>> Indeed, the observable universe contains about 10 sextillion (10^22)
> >>> stars. Statistically speaking, the matter in such a volume
> >>> should only be able to produce RNA of about 20 nucleotides.
> >>>
> >>> That's RNA, not DNA, but at least the following excerpt vaguely
> >>> hints at information in the necessity for self-replication:
> >>> [excerpt]
> >>> Researchers in this field have reason to believe that RNA no less than 40 to 100 nucleotides long is necessary for the self-replicating behavior required for life to exist. Given sufficient time, nucleotides can spontaneously connect to form RNA given the right chemical conditions. But current estimates suggest that magic number of 40 to 100 nucleotides should not have been possible in the volume of space we consider the observable universe.
> >>> [end of excerpt]
> >>>
> >>> This seems to lend great weight to the arguments by Stephen Meyer
> >>> quoted in the webpage for Item 3 [url near the beginning of this post].
> >>>
> >>> However, the following excerpt from the SciTechDaily article offers
> >>> a way out:
> >>>
> >>> But it's calculated that, thanks to rapid inflation,
> >>> the universe may contain more than 1 googol (10^100) stars,
> >>> and if this is the case then more complex,
> >>> life-sustaining RNA structures are more than just probable,
> >>> they’re practically inevitable.
> >>>
> >>> So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
> >>> DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?

I hadn't noticed before, but you never answered this question, John.
That's a pretty important issue if the challenge about Item 3
is to be met.

> >>> I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
> >>> others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
> >>> reasoning behind them.
> >>>
> >>> You may also want to look at the source the article uses...
> >>>
> >>> Reference: "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe" by Tomonori Totani, 3 February 2020, Scientific Reports.
> >>> DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0
> >>>
> >>> ...and/or invite others to look at it.
> >
> >> This seems relevant: "Considering an example with lmin = 40, there are
> >> 4^40 ~ 10^24 possible sequences of 40-mers, and perhaps Nac = 10^4
> >> sequences out of them may have a replicase activity8"
> >
> > To what do "lmin" and "Nac" refer?
>
> Read the paper that you cited and told me I might want to look at.
>
> >> Now where does that crucial number of 10^4 come from? Reference 8 is
> >> Robertson, M. P. & Joyce, G. F. The origins of the RNA world. Cold
> >> Spring Harb Perspect Biol 4:a003608 (2012). Unfortunately, that paper
> >> puts the number not at 10^4 but 10^20. There is however no support given
> >> in either paper for either number. Incidentally, the authors of the
> >> latter paper reject the model of randomly polymerized RNA sequences as
> >> the origin of life.
> >
> > So, does either paper propose an alternative model? If so, what is it?
> > If not, do you know of any alternative models?
>
> Yes. Robertson et al. does. I invite you to read it.

That's your job, not mine, if you are serious about meeting the
challenge of Item 3:

3. The Origin of Information in DNA and the Origin of Life
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

You, or one of your fellow anti-ID regulars, needs
to make a strong case for such an alternative model
if you want to be able to handle the arguments of Stephen Meyer
in the linked webpage. They do NOT depend on the figures in the
Tomonori Totani paper.

> The point is that
> the guy you cite is using bad numbers.

This sounds like a baseless claim by you, given that his method
is utterly different from what you describe next:

> Same problem as the similar
> approach of the Drake equation.

The approach of the Drake equation involved a bunch of wild guesses where
the part about the beginning and evolution of life are concerned.
The numbers people like Carl Sagan gave for those factors had no
reasoning behind them except a completely naive idea of how far
Urey, Miller, and Fox had gotten on the way to life on the level
of prokaryotes.

Also they had no clue as to how great a mystery meiosis is.
Remember how our discussion/debate didn't even touch on the
question of how it could have evolved?

Wait...are you suggesting that there have been new attempts to
quantify these steps since the old ones? If so, I'd like to hear about them.

>
> > If the answer to both is No, how about naming some talk.origins people
> > who might have ideas for alternative models? Do you think some
> > of them might be more receptive to an invitation from you than from me?
>
> I wouldn't know, to both questions.

Too bad. I thought you knew more about who here has any expertise in this
general area.


Peter Nyikos

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

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

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 1:30:00 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:

> ONCE AGAIN,
jillery said things that she never said before,
and which she would do well to try and figure out herself,
if she wants to rise to any of the parts of the challenge in my OP.

[...]

> ONCE AGAIN,
jillery made more statements she'd never made before. These particular
statements belong in another thread, and I'll identify the appropriate
thread and even the appropriate point therein, if anyone is curious.

[...]

[On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 18:45:39 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:]

> >So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
> >DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?
> >I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
> >others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
> >reasoning behind them.
>

> ONCE AGAIN
jillery made an inchoate comment having nothing to do with the above,
and (fortunately) not repeating anything she had written before.
Also, nothing to do with trying to answer any part of the challenge
in my OP.


And if anyone reading this wants to spend his/her time reading anything
I snipped, they are invited to do so, and to get back to me about it.

But please start another thread with your reactions,
with ATTN: Peter at the end of the Subject line.


Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Yes I did, but you snipped it.

>>>>> I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
>>>>> others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
>>>>> reasoning behind them.
>>>>>
>>>>> You may also want to look at the source the article uses...
>>>>>
>>>>> Reference: "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe" by Tomonori Totani, 3 February 2020, Scientific Reports.
>>>>> DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0
>>>>>
>>>>> ...and/or invite others to look at it.
>>>
>>>> This seems relevant: "Considering an example with lmin = 40, there are
>>>> 4^40 ~ 10^24 possible sequences of 40-mers, and perhaps Nac = 10^4
>>>> sequences out of them may have a replicase activity8"
>>>
>>> To what do "lmin" and "Nac" refer?
>>
>> Read the paper that you cited and told me I might want to look at.
>>
>>>> Now where does that crucial number of 10^4 come from? Reference 8 is
>>>> Robertson, M. P. & Joyce, G. F. The origins of the RNA world. Cold
>>>> Spring Harb Perspect Biol 4:a003608 (2012). Unfortunately, that paper
>>>> puts the number not at 10^4 but 10^20. There is however no support given
>>>> in either paper for either number. Incidentally, the authors of the
>>>> latter paper reject the model of randomly polymerized RNA sequences as
>>>> the origin of life.
>>>
>>> So, does either paper propose an alternative model? If so, what is it?
>>> If not, do you know of any alternative models?
>>
>> Yes. Robertson et al. does. I invite you to read it.
>
> That's your job, not mine, if you are serious about meeting the
> challenge of Item 3:

I answered your question. That should be enough. Look for yourself if
you're interested.

> 3. The Origin of Information in DNA and the Origin of Life
> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/
>
> You, or one of your fellow anti-ID regulars, needs
> to make a strong case for such an alternative model
> if you want to be able to handle the arguments of Stephen Meyer
> in the linked webpage. They do NOT depend on the figures in the
> Tomonori Totani paper.

Why did you link that paper at all?

>> The point is that
>> the guy you cite is using bad numbers.
>
> This sounds like a baseless claim by you, given that his method
> is utterly different from what you describe next:

What I describe next is only an analogy: Totani finds a probability by
multiplying a bunch of numbers he pulls out of his ass; in that way it's
similar to the Drake equation. The glaring such number is the one I
quoted. Your question suggests you didn't even look at your own link,
which is bad form.

>> Same problem as the similar
>> approach of the Drake equation.
>
> The approach of the Drake equation involved a bunch of wild guesses where
> the part about the beginning and evolution of life are concerned.
> The numbers people like Carl Sagan gave for those factors had no
> reasoning behind them except a completely naive idea of how far
> Urey, Miller, and Fox had gotten on the way to life on the level
> of prokaryotes.
>
> Also they had no clue as to how great a mystery meiosis is.
> Remember how our discussion/debate didn't even touch on the
> question of how it could have evolved?
>
> Wait...are you suggesting that there have been new attempts to
> quantify these steps since the old ones? If so, I'd like to hear about them.

I'm sorry I mentioned the Drake equation, as it led you on a long,
irrelevant digression while ignoring my actual point.

>>> If the answer to both is No, how about naming some talk.origins people
>>> who might have ideas for alternative models? Do you think some
>>> of them might be more receptive to an invitation from you than from me?
>>
>> I wouldn't know, to both questions.
>
> Too bad. I thought you knew more about who here has any expertise in this
> general area.

I don't.

[RonO]

Fruitloop Nyikosian arguments aside, you two might try to get Glenn and
MarkE to tell you what it actually is about the Top Six that they cannot
face. The Top Six "challenge" has nothing to do with defending the
IDiot claptrap. It has to do with the fact that no IDiot can face what
the Top Six actually are, and what they have to deal with about what is
already known in order to claim that there is a gap for their
intelligent designer to fill. None of them can allow themselves to
learn anything about the Top Six in order to keep lying to themselves.
It is that simple. Just try to get any of them to deal with what the
Top Six are and what they mean about what we know about nature in order
for IDiots to claim that a gap exists where they claim that it exists.

The IDiots can only face the Top Six one at a time because that is the
only way that they can lie to themselves effectively enough to think
that they might be doing something. They have to forget what the
previous denial argument was in order to put up the next one. They
can't let themselves understand what leads us to determine that the gap
exists. They can't allow themselves to understand what is around the
gap and what is between each of the gaps of the Top Six.

They only use them as fool the rubes denial arguments, and they have no
intention of using any of it to build anything positive about IDiocy.
They could use the Top Six to build their best IDiot alternative like
Denton and Behe already have, but you will never see any of them do that
because they do not want to believe in the god that fills the Top Six gaps.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:11:57 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 1:30:00 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:

<cowardly snip restored>

>>ONCE AGAIN, right here would have been a good place for you to have
>>explained in your own words how your cited article, or the article
>>your cited article cites, comes to that conclusion. That an awful lot
>>of stars to produce such short chains of RNA. My impression is, this
>>claim by your cited article is based on invalid assumptions.
>

>jillery said things that she never said before,
>and which she would do well to try and figure out herself,
>if she wants to rise to any of the parts of the challenge in my OP.

Liar.


>[...]


<cowardly snip restored>

>>You don't say how the above offers a way out. However, the article
>>says it increases the probability of forming RNA chains of sufficient
>>length to support life.
>>
>>However, the part you quoted refers to stars outside our observable
>>universe. ONCE AGAIN, this means even if long RNA chains were created
>>there, even if life evolved there, even if star-traveling
>>civilizations developed there, because even in principle they are too
>>far away to ever have affected anything on Earth. Which means this
>>claim by your cited article is nonsense in principle.
>

>jillery made more statements she'd never made before. These particular
>statements belong in another thread, and I'll identify the appropriate
>thread and even the appropriate point therein, if anyone is curious.

Liar.

>[...]
>
>[On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 18:45:39 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
><nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:]
>
>> >So, John, do you think the other essentials in "life as we know it"--
>> >DNA and proteins, especially enzymes -- are also practically inevitable?
>> >I mean, if the universe has 1 googol stars? You may want to invite
>> >others to this thread, if you aren't sure about these numbers or the
>> >reasoning behind them.

<cowardly snip restored>


>>So, Peter Nyikos, are you ONCE AGAIN going tap dance around these points I

>>raised above, like you did in all of the other topics I mentioned
>>them?

So that's a "yes". Is anybody surprised.

>jillery made an inchoate comment having nothing to do with the above,
>and (fortunately) not repeating anything she had written before.
>Also, nothing to do with trying to answer any part of the challenge
>in my OP.

Liar.

FTR jillery notes that your cited article is the same one Oxyaena
posted awhile ago, and the same one you accused Oxyaena of "naively"
citing, whatever that means, and the same one you spewed your
temper-tantrum over jillery noting your accusation.

Your post above shows you to be a coward and a liar.

[Peter Nyikos]

With Harshman having returned to hijacking this thread,
and jillery never having stopped, it's a relief [*mirabile* *dictu*!]
to see Ron O pumping some new blood into it.

Unfortunately, he doesn't go so far as to meet any parts
of the challenge, but at least he gives some background on
the events that moved me to make it in the first place.


On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 8:09:59 PM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:

> Fruitloop Nyikosian arguments

I am much less of a fruitloop than Ron O; far less of one
than Ron O's most ardent admirer, Oxyaena; and less of one than his
two greatest benefactors: jillery, and Hemidactylus.
But projection is a way of life for Ron O, and here he
is doing both vicarious projection and self-centered projection.

[I started to give justifications for all of the above, but
snipped what I wrote because it was getting too long. But I've saved
what I wrote, and if anyone is puzzled by anything in the preceding paragraph,
I'll start a new thread for it and other things I've mentioned already.]

> aside, you two might try to get Glenn and
> MarkE to tell you what it actually is about the Top Six that they cannot face.

This is illogical on the face of it, because I've never seen
any attempt by Ron O to refute anything in any of the Top Six.

But jillery is an adoring fan of exactly this illogic, as she
amply demonstrated on her first post to this thread. Not only
did she double down on it, she hurled an indefensible insult
at me which was designed to divert attention from my words,

I'll spare you Ron O's illogical ranting in the post where he
challenged Glenn to support the Top Six, without giving or linking
arguments against any of them.

Ron O now tries to claim that he did NOT challenge Glenn to support
them, but jillery's "defense" of Ron O was based on the understanding
that Ron O *had* challenged Glenn in just that way.

> The Top Six "challenge" has nothing to do with defending the
> IDiot claptrap. It has to do with the fact that no IDiot can face what
> the Top Six actually are,

They are explained in articles of _Evolution News_, and if no one
can see any other meaning to Ron O's equivocation, "face what ...are,"
I'll just stick with "face what I, Ron O, believe to be six crappy
articles, in the sense of showing that they are not crappy".

There's not a dime's worth of difference between that and "defending
the IDiot claptrap" in those articles.

> and what they have to deal with about what is
> already known in order to claim that there is a gap for their
> intelligent designer to fill.

The articles that Ron O himself keeps posting urls for do argue
for such gaps. I've never seen Ron O give any "already known"
scientific facts that would call those arguments into question.
Certainly not in his yammering "....Go for it...." and the surrounding
claptrap that he keeps hitting Glenn with.

> None of them can allow themselves to
> learn anything about the Top Six in order to keep lying to themselves.

If they did learn what I've learned, they would not need to lie
to themselves about anything. That's because what I've learned is
enough to counter anything I've read in talk.origins that seeks
to circumvent the claims in those six articles that Ron O
keeps linking, and Harshman linked in his first post to this thread.


THAT is the rationale for the challenge in my OP. I want the
anti-ID zealots to give their best shot against ID, and I challenge
them to do better than anything I've seen from them so far.


It would be great for the health of this thread if I have missed some,
and they got posted here, but it looks like there is nothing
like that around.



Concluded in my next post to this thread, which will pick up
where this one left off.

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

[RonO]

On 6/11/2020 3:27 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> With Harshman having returned to hijacking this thread,
> and jillery never having stopped, it's a relief [*mirabile* *dictu*!]
> to see Ron O pumping some new blood into it.
>
> Unfortunately, he doesn't go so far as to meet any parts
> of the challenge, but at least he gives some background on
> the events that moved me to make it in the first place.

What is so sad about this post is that Nyikos will likely be lying about
it for the next 10 years. All he is doing is being the Nyikosian
asshole that has to bad mouth other posters while not being competent to
understand the post that he is being an asshole about. If this were
fiction it would be very bad fiction with Nyikos as the degenerate asshole.

>
>
> On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 8:09:59 PM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>
>> Fruitloop Nyikosian arguments
>
> I am much less of a fruitloop than Ron O; far less of one
> than Ron O's most ardent admirer, Oxyaena; and less of one than his
> two greatest benefactors: jillery, and Hemidactylus.
> But projection is a way of life for Ron O, and here he
> is doing both vicarious projection and self-centered projection.
>
> [I started to give justifications for all of the above, but
> snipped what I wrote because it was getting too long. But I've saved
> what I wrote, and if anyone is puzzled by anything in the preceding paragraph,
> I'll start a new thread for it and other things I've mentioned already.]

This just demonstrates that Nyikos doesn't understand the issue, and he
could not take the time to figure out what the issue actually is, and is
just taking the opportunity to be an asshole about other posters.

He is even projecting about his issue with projection. We all know that
Nyikos is the type that he claims others to be.

Snipping and running is just what Nyikos is known for.

>
>
>> aside, you two might try to get Glenn and
>> MarkE to tell you what it actually is about the Top Six that they cannot face.
>
> This is illogical on the face of it, because I've never seen
> any attempt by Ron O to refute anything in any of the Top Six.

This is a stupid thing to write because the intent was never to refute
the Top Six god of the gaps arguments. Nyikos would know that if he
understood anything about the post that he is responding to. Really, go
up to my post and read what I wrote. It had nothing to do with trying
to get the IDiots to defend the Top Six.

>
> But jillery is an adoring fan of exactly this illogic, as she
> amply demonstrated on her first post to this thread. Not only
> did she double down on it, she hurled an indefensible insult
> at me which was designed to divert attention from my words,
>
> I'll spare you Ron O's illogical ranting in the post where he
> challenged Glenn to support the Top Six, without giving or linking
> arguments against any of them.
>
> Ron O now tries to claim that he did NOT challenge Glenn to support
> them, but jillery's "defense" of Ron O was based on the understanding
> that Ron O *had* challenged Glenn in just that way.

Read the post that you, yourself linked to in order to get the links
that I provided to the ID perp's Top Six that they describe on the ID
scam web site. Do I ever want the IDiots to defend the Top Six? I
can't even get Glenn to face the fact that the Top Six exist. Nyikos
can ask Glenn why he can't face the Top Six's existence, and see what he
gets.

>
>> The Top Six "challenge" has nothing to do with defending the
>> IDiot claptrap. It has to do with the fact that no IDiot can face what
>> the Top Six actually are,
>
> They are explained in articles of _Evolution News_, and if no one
> can see any other meaning to Ron O's equivocation, "face what ...are,"
> I'll just stick with "face what I, Ron O, believe to be six crappy
> articles, in the sense of showing that they are not crappy".

This has nothing to do with refuting what I just wrote. I am the one
that gave you the links to the ID perp's Top Six in the link that you used.

>
> There's not a dime's worth of difference between that and "defending
> the IDiot claptrap" in those articles.

Why would you have to lie about something so stupid.

This just means that you can't even take the time to understand what you
are trying to be an asshole about.

Look at how the IDiots use the Top Six. They have no issue putting up
one at a time for their god of the gaps denial, but not a single one can
face them all as the Top Six. They do not have to defend the Top Six.
They can't face the Top Six because they do not want to understand what
they are. Really, Dean put up 3 of the Top Six one at a time, as I was
reminding him about what he could not deal with. MarkE can't face the
Top Six even though he can lie to himself about #3 and pretend that the
others do not exist.

The IDiots have no problem defending one of the Top Six at a time. What
they can't deal with is simply what the Top Six are.

Really, just try to find where Glenn has acknowledged the existence of
the Top Six for the last 2 and a half years. He has never been able to
do that even though he can repeatedly go back to the ID perps for second
rate denial junk that did not make the Top Six list.

>
>
>> and what they have to deal with about what is
>> already known in order to claim that there is a gap for their
>> intelligent designer to fill.
>
> The articles that Ron O himself keeps posting urls for do argue
> for such gaps. I've never seen Ron O give any "already known"
> scientific facts that would call those arguments into question.
> Certainly not in his yammering "....Go for it...." and the surrounding
> claptrap that he keeps hitting Glenn with.

What an IDiot. There is no question that these gaps exist. MarkE is
current trying to figure out what the #3 gap is so that he can claim
that it will never be filled, but what he keeps finding are the things
around the edges of the gap that make it smaller and smaller. There is
a gap there.

>
>
>> None of them can allow themselves to
>> learn anything about the Top Six in order to keep lying to themselves.
>
> If they did learn what I've learned, they would not need to lie
> to themselves about anything. That's because what I've learned is
> enough to counter anything I've read in talk.origins that seeks
> to circumvent the claims in those six articles that Ron O
> keeps linking, and Harshman linked in his first post to this thread.

You are really stupid when you are trying to be an asshole.

There is no doubt that the scientific creationists used these same 6 god
of the gaps denial arguments over 30 years ago. They are the best fool
the rubes junk that is left. The gaps are smaller and better defined
than they were 30 years ago, but that is the issue that the IDiots have
with them. The ID perps admit that the Top Six are not in the order of
significance to IDiocy, but in the order of their occurrence. #1 would
obviously be on the bottom of the vast majority of IDiot's lists (the
majority of IDiot rubes are YEC) because they have tried to ban teaching
about the Big Bang along with biological evolution in the science class
rooms. IDiots really can't deal with the god that fits in that gap.
They can lie to themselves just long enough to use #1 as a denial
argument, but they can't let themselves understand anything about #1
because the god that lives in that gap isn't the one that they want to
believe in. Just think of how stupid it was for the scientific
creationists to use #1 for their god of the gaps argument? The Big Bang
may be the best evidence science has for a creation event, but most
IDiots don't want to believe that it ever happened.

>
>
> THAT is the rationale for the challenge in my OP. I want the
> anti-ID zealots to give their best shot against ID, and I challenge
> them to do better than anything I've seen from them so far.

Your challenge is bogus and not based on reality. Face it you are just
wrong again.

Learn to live with it instead of lying about it for the next decade.
Get MarkE to tell you why he can't deal with the Top Six, but can put
them up one at a time. It is why he was running by claiming that I was
the one that needed to put up or shut up. MarkE can't face his OoL god
of the gaps argument for what it is. He can't put his god in that gap
because he is only using it the way that the ID perps use them. They
are only meant for the rubes to lie to themselves just long enough to
get to the next gap. The OoL gap is supposed to never have existed for
MarkE to keep believing in the god that he wants to believe in. Gaps 1
and 2 can not exist or MarkE wouldn't have to bother with his denial of #3.

>
>
> It would be great for the health of this thread if I have missed some,
> and they got posted here, but it looks like there is nothing
> like that around.
>
>
>
> Concluded in my next post to this thread, which will pick up
> where this one left off.

Quit while you are as much of an asshole as you are now, instead of
trying to become a bigger asshole.

Really, read the post that you linked to using the link that I gave
Glenn and read the post and try to understand it. I never ask the
IDiots to defend the Top Six, I have always asked them to deal with
their existence. There is no doubt that they can try to defend them one
at a time, but they can't deal with them as the Top Six.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/L21KpMBQEXk/x8R6s8qoEAAJ

Ron Okimoto

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 8:09:59 PM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:

After reading your long-winded rant that was a rebuttal to my first reply
to this post, I've decided to humor you and make a different reply
than my first one altogether.

> Fruitloop Nyikosian arguments aside, you two might try to get Glenn and
> MarkE to tell you what it actually is about the Top Six that they cannot
> face.

"cannot face" is different from "do not face at Ron O's beck and call".

> The Top Six "challenge" has nothing to do with defending the
> IDiot claptrap.

I take it you are talking about your numerous challenges to Glenn and others,
and not about the second part of my challenge in the OP, which is all about
attacking, and not defending, the ID Top Six.

I don't understand why you call them "claptrap" and yet you don't want
anyone to attack them. Is it because expressions like "The Top Six
are claptrap" are like music to the ears of almost every t.o. regular,
especially atheists like jillery and Oxyaena, and so they give you
support and attention and affection that you would be starved for otherwise?

> It has to do with the fact that no IDiot can face what
> the Top Six actually are,

Near as I can make out, what this use of the word "face" refers to
is for what you call "IDiots" to admit that the Top Six
are just disguised "god of the gaps arguments."
That expression has been music to the ears of atheists for
over a century, and sure to get more support and affection for
you from jillery and Oxyaena.

> and what they have to deal with about what is
> already known in order to claim that there is a gap for their
> intelligent designer to fill. None of them can allow themselves to
> learn anything about the Top Six in order to keep lying to themselves.
> It is that simple. Just try to get any of them to deal with what the
> Top Six are and what they mean about what we know about nature in order
> for IDiots to claim that a gap exists where they claim that it exists.
>
> The IDiots can only face the Top Six one at a time because that is the
> only way that they can lie to themselves effectively enough to think
> that they might be doing something. They have to forget what the
> previous denial argument was in order to put up the next one. They
> can't let themselves understand what leads us to determine that the gap
> exists. They can't allow themselves to understand what is around the
> gap and what is between each of the gaps of the Top Six.

This reminds me of something you wrote in your long-winded reply:

MarkE is current trying to figure out what the #3 gap is so
that he can claim that it will never be filled, but what
he keeps finding are the things around the edges of the gap
that make it smaller and smaller.

On the contrary, MarkE keeps finding gaps around the edges of the
gap that make it larger and larger -- things that he's finally
getting around to talking to me about.

Bill Rogers is afraid to deal with those things, and so he focuses
on trivial advances that come before the gap of #3. He only wants
to talk about early stages of OOL, because that is all he can deal with,
and to disguise his fear by insincerely claiming that MarkE isn't
interested in the science of OOL.

Are people like Rogers the real reason you don't want people
to deal with the Top Six? Are you afraid I will enlarge those
"gaps" to where even experts from the big outside world
can't deal with them?

> They only use them as fool the rubes denial arguments, and they have no
> intention of using any of it to build anything positive about IDiocy.
> They could use the Top Six to build their best IDiot alternative like
> Denton and Behe already have,

I don't know about Denton, but I've don't recall Behe using any of them
except number 4, and that only in his first book. Numbers 3 and 5 are
actually about what Dembski and Meyer have written, the latter in
_Signature in the Cell_ and _Darwin's Doubt_, respectively.

> but you will never see any of them do that
> because they do not want to believe in the god that fills the Top Six gaps.

What makes you think that? That "god" is just a modernized version
of the God of Genesis 1, and you think Glenn and MarkE are creationists
who believe in that God, don't you?

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

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

[jillery]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 13:27:39 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>With Harshman having returned to hijacking this thread,
>and jillery never having stopped,

Liar.

<snip remaining obfuscating lies>

Nothing left. Is anybody surprised.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 10:10:01 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 13:27:39 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >With Harshman having returned to hijacking this thread,
> >and jillery never having stopped,
>
>
> Liar.

To make this defamatory statement, you have conveniently simulated amnesia
over what "hijacking a thread" consists of. You knew the concept all too
well last year, when Harshman became obsessed with it:

_______________________ begin included post_____________________

On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 17:06:36 -0700, John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>On 3/27/19 4:10 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>If you actively want this thread to be hijacked, continue responding to
>Kleinman.


Based on Nyikos the peter's own posts, my impression is he will derail
his own topic, and sooner rather than later.

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

================================================== end of post
archived at:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/MAgP4bAfV40/3u-fo494BgAJ
Subject: Re: TOWARDS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF MACROEVOLUTION
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 21:38:34 -0400
Message-ID: <2c9o9et190k1g7p39...@4ax.com>


> <snip remaining obfuscating lies>

What you snipped were the remaining illuminating truths.
You must have seen that they reflected badly on someone you
like, and developed instant simulated amnesia after snipping them.

By the way, you did just the opposite of dishonest snipping in
the archived post. You left in an attribution line to me despite the
fact that nothing from me appears in the archived post.

> Nothing left. Is anybody surprised.

Yet another example of how immune you are to irony meters.

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

This also displays your immunity to irony meters, as did the .sig
in the archived post.


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 08:26:13 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

Your quote above illustrates at least two chronic problems with your
"proofs":

1) Simply copying text doesn't explain how you think it supports your
point, counters my point, or is relevant to anything anybody posted.

2) You show a fundamental lack of comprehension of the specifics and
context of the copied text.

ONCE AGAIN, making comments unrelated to the nominal topic, and
discussions unrelated to the nominal topic, are not... repeat NOT...
evidence of hijacking. Instead, hijacking is when somebody posts
comments having nothing to do with the topic, the thread, or with
anything anybody said in it. This is something you do, and Kleinman
did, compulsively.

Since Harshman's comment is a direct response to your comments, and my
comment is a direct response to Harshman's comment, these comments
can't be reasonably considered as hijacks. Not sure how even you
*still* don't understand this.

Your complaint above alleges that I "never stopped hijacking this
thread". Since the comments you quoted are not hijacks, your quote
doesn't support your complaint. Instead, it only shows you have no
idea what hijacking means.

More to the point, even IF what you quoted was evidence of me
hijacking this thread, it would still not support your complaint that
I "never stopped hijacking this thread".

These are things you have absolutely no reason to think is true, which
by your own definition, makes your complaint a lie, and you a liar.

QED.

<snip remaining obfuscating lies>

[Peter Nyikos]

Shades of the dog that didn't bark in the night! None of the three other
participants in this thread has replied to this post of mine, made 3 days ago.

And yet, what Ron O wrote was designed to actively discourage anyone
from joining the four of us, and I was asking Ron O some sharp
questions about the basis for this blatant discouragement.

I also have some sharp new words below, and would not be surprised
if this post got the same silent treatment this one is getting.

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 9:55:01 AM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 8:09:59 PM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:

> After reading your long-winded rant that was a rebuttal to my first reply
> to this post, I've decided to humor you and make a different reply
> than my first one altogether.
>
> > Fruitloop Nyikosian arguments aside, you two might try to get Glenn and
> > MarkE to tell you what it actually is about the Top Six that they cannot
> > face.

Note the "you two": Ron O was replying to Harshman, not me! Yet Harshman
never replied to him. And I'm pretty sure Harshman does NOT agree with
most of what I write below, and wouldn't phrase any of it the way I do.

On another thread, Ron O is making the false claim that the gaps
keep narrowing. This is his whole rationale for Glenn and MarkE
not taking the bait of the Top Six at this beck and call.

> > The IDiots can only face the Top Six one at a time because that is the
> > only way that they can lie to themselves effectively enough to think
> > that they might be doing something. They have to forget what the
> > previous denial argument was in order to put up the next one. They
> > can't let themselves understand what leads us to determine that the gap
> > exists. They can't allow themselves to understand what is around the
> > gap and what is between each of the gaps of the Top Six.
>
> This reminds me of something you wrote in your long-winded reply:
>
> MarkE is current trying to figure out what the #3 gap is so
> that he can claim that it will never be filled, but what
> he keeps finding are the things around the edges of the gap
> that make it smaller and smaller.
>
> On the contrary, MarkE keeps finding gaps around the edges of the
> gap that make it larger and larger -- things that he's finally
> getting around to talking to me about.
>
> Bill Rogers is afraid to deal with those things, and so he focuses
> on trivial advances that come before the gap of #3. He only wants
> to talk about early stages of OOL, because that is all he can deal with,
> and to disguise his fear by insincerely claiming that MarkE isn't
> interested in the science of OOL.

This is just as true now as it was 3 days ago when I wrote the above.
MarkE's opponents, except for Ron O himself, are afraid to touch
anything in Mark's greatly enlarged gap, on that other thread.

> Are people like Rogers the real reason you don't want people
> to deal with the Top Six? Are you afraid I will enlarge those
> "gaps" to where even experts from the big outside world
> can't deal with them?
>
>
> > They only use them as fool the rubes denial arguments, and they have no
> > intention of using any of it to build anything positive about IDiocy.
> > They could use the Top Six to build their best IDiot alternative like
> > Denton and Behe already have,
>
> I don't know about Denton, but I've don't recall Behe using any of them
> except number 4, and that only in his first book. Numbers 3 and 5 are
> actually about what Dembski and Meyer have written, the latter in
> _Signature in the Cell_ and _Darwin's Doubt_, respectively.
>
>
> > but you will never see any of them do that
> > because they do not want to believe in the god that fills the Top Six gaps.
>
> What makes you think that? That "god" is just a modernized version
> of the God of Genesis 1, and you think Glenn and MarkE are creationists
> who believe in that God, don't you?
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> U. of So. Carolina in Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

Dedicated perpetrator of deceit that he is, Ron O kept on pushing
the line he pushed above, on that other thread. He is oblivious
to the issues addressed by the two questions I am asking here at the end.
This adds to the already impressive evidence that Ron O is an atheist.

[John Harshman]

On 6/15/20 5:05 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> Note the "you two": Ron O was replying to Harshman, not me! Yet Harshman
> never replied to him. And I'm pretty sure Harshman does NOT agree with
> most of what I write below, and wouldn't phrase any of it the way I do.

I can think of nothing less fruitful than to intrude in an argument
between you and Ron. You boys have fun, now.

[jillery]

On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 05:05:25 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Shades of the dog that didn't bark in the night! None of the three other
>participants in this thread has replied to this post of mine, made 3 days ago.

In your haste to self-promote, you didn't consider that you didn't
post anything which justified a response. Sometimes even dogs don't
bark when there is nothing to bark at. Instead, the post you pimp was
nothing more than Parthian shots of repetitive irrelevant spew.

>And yet, what Ron O wrote was designed to actively discourage anyone
>from joining the four of us, and I was asking Ron O some sharp
>questions about the basis for this blatant discouragement.

The irony, it burns. jillery posted specific comments about issues
you raised in this topic, only to have you handwave them away with
your usual Big Lies. That shows your lack of interest in discussion,
and would actively discourage other participants far more than
anything RonO might have done.

<snip repetitive irrelevant spew>

>> Peter Nyikos
>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>> U. of So. Carolina in Columbia
>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>Dedicated perpetrator of deceit that he is, Ron O kept on pushing
>the line he pushed above, on that other thread. He is oblivious
>to the issues addressed by the two questions I am asking here at the end.
>This adds to the already impressive evidence that Ron O is an atheist.

Do your employers know you associate them with your repetitive
irrelevant spew?

[Peter Nyikos]

On the other hand, you might try coming clean on whether you
ever want to discuss any of the ID top six on this thread,
after having seen Ron O's rationale for never doing it again.

I managed to get you to say something about #3 in the Top Six,
after numerous red herrings by you having nothing to do with meeting
either half of my challenge.

> You boys have fun, now.

It is the two of you who are behaving like boys. You were so mischievous
in one post, that you acted at the end as though discussing one of your
red herrings wrt #2 in the top six was what this thread is all about:

Let me know if there's anything you actually want to discuss.

I can explain what that red herring was, if you have the chutzpah
to deny what I am writing here, or you have trouble finding the
post from which the above sentenced by you was taken.


Peter Nyikos

PS The "jillery" persona fell in line with Ron O's claims in the
post where he (Ron O) addressed you, even before he (Ron O) showed
up on this thread.

[Peter Nyikos]

It's been a bit over a month since I last visited this thread,
but now something has happened that makes it relevant to
post to it again: Ron O caused me to abandon this thread
under false pretenses.

The abandonment took place on the same day Harshman posted the
following insincere post to which I am replying for the second
time, now that the landscape has radically changed:

On Monday, June 15, 2020 at 9:15:01 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

This isn't an argument between Ron O and myself. It was an argument
between Ron O and reality for a while.

And just the other day, it devolved into an argument between
the Ron O who posted to this thread and the Ron O who posted
to another thread this week.

Here is the Ron O who posted to this thread and tried
to dissuade me from continuing my "Top Six Challenge" by
pretending he had no problem with the Top Six ID arguments:

The IDiots can only face the Top Six one at a time because that is the
only way that they can lie to themselves effectively enough to think
that they might be doing something. They have to forget what the
previous denial argument was in order to put up the next one. They
can't let themselves understand what leads us to determine that the gap
exists. They can't allow themselves to understand what is around the
gap and what is between each of the gaps of the Top Six.

And here is the Ron O of two days ago:

The ID perps likely killed any hope of
keeping the honest creationists when they lied about not being the same
as the scientific creationists, but ended up using the failed scientific
creationists denial arguments of the Top Six.

Note those words, "failed" and "denial".

That is what my challenge on this thread was all about: the false perception
that the Top Six failed as scientific arguments, and that ID workers
are in "denial" about that.

It turned out, though, that Ron O could not face the fact that the
fantasy he had about MarkE and Glenn (the one about which he ranted
on and on and on about in the post from which the first excerpt was taken)
was indefensible.

Ron O cannot face the question I asked him about the bottom line
in his long rants on this thread:

Here is what Ron O had written:

> but you will never see any of them do that
> because they do not want to believe in the god that fills the Top Six gaps.

And here is the question that Ron O has never dared to face, even though
I reposted it at least four more times, once on this thread and
at least three times on another thread or two:

What makes you think that? That "god" is just a modernized version
of the God of Genesis 1, and you think Glenn and MarkE are creationists
who believe in that God, don't you?

In the end, he was reduced to libeling Glenn with "torturing me"
by not responding to pleas for Glenn to confirm something for which Ron O
has never shown even the slightest smidgin of evidence.

The "torture" is all in Ron O's sick/dishonest mind. Whether he
is under the delusion that Glenn is torturing me, or whether he
knows better and wants to torture Glenn for not confirming his
fantasies, is almost immaterial.

But my bet is that the latter is true, based on what I've seen
from Ron O during the last nine and a half years.


Peter Nyikos

[RonO]

On 7/17/2020 11:03 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> It's been a bit over a month since I last visited this thread,
> but now something has happened that makes it relevant to
> post to it again: Ron O caused me to abandon this thread
> under false pretenses.
>
> The abandonment took place on the same day Harshman posted the
> following insincere post to which I am replying for the second
> time, now that the landscape has radically changed:
>
> On Monday, June 15, 2020 at 9:15:01 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 6/15/20 5:05 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>
>>> Note the "you two": Ron O was replying to Harshman, not me! Yet Harshman
>>> never replied to him. And I'm pretty sure Harshman does NOT agree with
>>> most of what I write below, and wouldn't phrase any of it the way I do.
>>
>> I can think of nothing less fruitful than to intrude in an argument
>> between you and Ron.
>
> This isn't an argument between Ron O and myself. It was an argument
> between Ron O and reality for a while.
>
> And just the other day, it devolved into an argument between
> the Ron O who posted to this thread and the Ron O who posted
> to another thread this week.
>
> Here is the Ron O who posted to this thread and tried
> to dissuade me from continuing my "Top Six Challenge" by
> pretending he had no problem with the Top Six ID arguments:

Why keep lying about this junk when you have run from my explanation
since you started this thread. I have given you this link multiple
times 3 times in a recent thread and you have just run. There is no
reason to keep lying about something when you can't face what the issue
actually is.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/GxB26Y4_QDk/9gYqAu8lBAAJ

How many times have you run from this link. I posted this post D-Day
the 6th of June.

This is not something that you should lie about for a decade.

If you have a beef with me, you should not lie to some other poster
about the issue.

Ron Okimoto

[BiologyMajor]

On 6/12/2020 4:12 PM, jillery wrote:


> ONCE AGAIN, making comments unrelated to the nominal topic, and
> discussions unrelated to the nominal topic, are not... repeat NOT...

This is what's known as 'Jillerying' a reply.

And it gets even better...

>
> Since Harshman's comment is a direct response to your comments, and my
> comment is a direct response to Harshman's comment, these comments
> can't be reasonably considered as hijacks. Not sure how even you
> *still* don't understand this.
>

Huh?

> Your complaint above alleges that I "never stopped hijacking this
> thread". Since the comments you quoted are not hijacks, your quote
> doesn't support your complaint. Instead, it only shows you have no
> idea what hijacking means.
>

What?




> More to the point,


I don't think so

> even IF what you quoted was evidence of me
> hijacking this thread, it would still not support your complaint that
> I "never stopped hijacking this thread".
>

No wait...oh forget it.

> These are things you have absolutely no reason to think is true, which
> by your own definition, makes your complaint a lie, and you a liar.
>
> QED.
>

OMG!


> <snip remaining obfuscating lies>
>
>

[Glenn]

I might have a beef with you, but you'd pay the tab and tip.

[jillery]

On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 01:08:51 -0400, BiologyMajor <L...@Umich.edu>
wrote:

>On 6/12/2020 4:12 PM, jillery wrote:
>
>
>> ONCE AGAIN, making comments unrelated to the nominal topic, and
>> discussions unrelated to the nominal topic, are not... repeat NOT...
>
>
>
>This is what's known as 'Jillerying' a reply.

Really? Let's itemize what's known as "jonathaning":

1) You reply to a post weeks old,
2) And remove all context,
3) To a topic to which you never posted before,
4) To show you have no idea what you're talking about,
5) Yet you seem to think you have posted something clever.

It's crap like that what got you banned once before. Just sayin'.

>And it gets even better...
>
>>
>> Since Harshman's comment is a direct response to your comments, and my
>> comment is a direct response to Harshman's comment, these comments
>> can't be reasonably considered as hijacks. Not sure how even you
>> *still* don't understand this.
>>
>
>
>Huh?
>
>
>> Your complaint above alleges that I "never stopped hijacking this
>> thread". Since the comments you quoted are not hijacks, your quote
>> doesn't support your complaint. Instead, it only shows you have no
>> idea what hijacking means.
>>
>
>
>What?
>
>
>
>
>> More to the point,
>
>
>I don't think so
>
>
>> even IF what you quoted was evidence of me
>> hijacking this thread, it would still not support your complaint that
>> I "never stopped hijacking this thread".
>>
>
>
>No wait...oh forget it.
>
>
>> These are things you have absolutely no reason to think is true, which
>> by your own definition, makes your complaint a lie, and you a liar.
>>
>> QED.
>>
>
>
>OMG!
>
>
>> <snip remaining obfuscating lies>
>>
>>
>

[RonO]

Why not tell Nyikos what your issue with the Top Six is? Put the guy
out of his misery. You are just supporting his assoholic behavior by
not doing something that honest and straigth forward. Just tell him why
you have had to run from the Top Six since the ID perps put it out, but
you can still go back to the ID perps for their second rate junk.

Your reasons are not what he thinks, so set the poor asshole straight.
You can even email him at his university account so you don't have to
embarass yourself here.

Ron Okimoto

[Glenn]

You really think I am embarassed, don't you.

[RonO]

I am actually just trying to get you to do the right thing. That you
don't want to understand that is why you should be embarassed.

Just run from the Top Six again, and even Nyikos may get a clue. You
could try to explain why you have run from these Top Six bestowed upon
you by your sacred ID Perps for more than 2 and a half years. Look at
the dates on the ID scam junk.

1.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/

2.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/

3.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

4.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-irreducibly-complex-molecular-machines/

5.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-animals/

6.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-humans/

Ron Okimoto

[Glenn]

Are you a professor of psychiatry as well?

[Peter Nyikos]

I think you meant to insert, "have to" before "pay." And don't
forget the taxi fare from your place and back.

Ron O is libeling me multiple times, by accusing me of "lying"
just because I've never replied to a post that is pure mindless
ranting about his fantasies, such as:

The simple fact is that the vast majority of
IDiots do not want to believe in the god that would fit in those gaps.
You can see it in how MarkE doesn't even want to put his god in the gap
that he is creating. If he did he would have to acknowledge that there
is no point in trying to demonstrate that such a gap exists or that it
is never going to be anything but a gap because he doesn't even want to
believe that, that gap exists.

This is sheer insanity. MarkE kept trying to get Bill Rogers to talk
about the vast gap around the tiny part of the abiogenesis gap that Bill wanted
to talk about, because it had been filled. Ron O never lifted a finger
to try to get Bill to look at the gap that Ron O THINKS MarkE never wanted to
put "his god" into.

With this "put his god in the gap," Ron O is in a "do as I say, not as I do"
situation. Note the lower case, by the way, and the "his".
This is the language of atheists, and Ron O has never tried to
show that he is NOT an atheist. He once claimed to "believe in a
creator," but has never tried to show that it is the Christian God.


Maybe you could help me out with something, Glenn, if you joined
talk.origins several years before 2011. Ron O had away from EVERY post
by Ray Martinez for a long time before I re-joined in December 2010, using the
transparently hypocritical and unspported claim that Ray was "insane."

My suspicion is that Ray kept interrogating Ron O about
his religious beliefs, and Ron O was afraid he would slip up and
say something so clueless that Ray could nail him and destroy Ron O's
claim that he is a real Methodist, instead of a mole within the Methodist Church.

Can you shed any light on this suspicion of mine?


Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

Ron O knows he cannot explain why he thinks your reasons are different, Glenn.
Unlike the prairie dog town of posts ["rabbit hole" is a huge understatement]
that he refers to when he wants to lie about me, he has never tried
to document these reasons.

By documentation, I mean posts where these reasons can be gleaned from your
reactions to pressure from him about those Top Six.

> > so set the poor asshole straight.
> > You can even email him at his university account so you don't have to
> > embarass yourself here.
> >
> You really think I am embarassed, don't you.

I doubt it, although I have not ruled it out. My opinion is at the
end of the following excerpt from the post with which I revived
this thread.

_______________________ excerpt ________________________

It turned out, though, that Ron O could not face the fact that the
fantasy he had about MarkE and Glenn (the one about which he ranted
on and on and on about in the post from which the first excerpt was taken)
was indefensible.

Ron O cannot face the question I asked him about the bottom line
in his long rants on this thread:

Here is what Ron O had written:

> but you will never see any of them do that
> because they do not want to believe in the god that fills the Top Six gaps.

And here is the question that Ron O has never dared to face, even though
I reposted it at least four more times, once on this thread and
at least three times on another thread or two:

What makes you think that? That "god" is just a modernized version
of the God of Genesis 1, and you think Glenn and MarkE are creationists
who believe in that God, don't you?

In the end, he was reduced to libeling Glenn with "torturing me"
by not responding to pleas for Glenn to confirm something for which Ron O
has never shown even the slightest smidgin of evidence.

The "torture" is all in Ron O's sick/dishonest mind. Whether he
is under the delusion that Glenn is torturing me, or whether he
knows better and wants to torture Glenn for not confirming his
fantasies, is almost immaterial.

But my bet is that the latter is true, based on what I've seen
from Ron O during the last nine and a half years.

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

The fact that Ron O left all this in his reply, and posted
everything he did in utter defiance of it, shows either mental illness
or the belief that jillery, Oxyaena, Mark Isaak, and other staunch
allies of Ron O's, as well as allies of the three I named, are
in almost absolute control of talk.origins and that he can get
off scot-free with anything he says or does.


Peter Nyikos

[Bill Esque]

I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
contrary information that challenges the six arguments?

Or am I missing something?

--
talk origins

[Glenn]

I don't recall anything between Ron and Ray. And I don't recall anything specific Ron has said in the past about any religious belief or conviction.

[Glenn]

I stopped trying to reason with Ron many years ago. I could not care less about his lies about me. I have little doubt that he suffers from a mental disorder.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Saturday, July 18, 2020 at 5:14:59 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 01:08:51 -0400, BiologyMajor <L...@Umich.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >On 6/12/2020 4:12 PM, jillery wrote:
> >
> >
> >> ONCE AGAIN, making comments unrelated to the nominal topic, and
> >> discussions unrelated to the nominal topic, are not... repeat NOT...

... out of the ordinary in talk.origins. Every time jillery lies her
head off with "Liar[1].", she is making comments unrelated to reality,
never mind anything that relates to the nominal topic.
And I can't recall a single time she used it truthfully.

Those footnotes direct the reader to a criterion for a certain kind
of behavior that I consider to come under the category of lying.
But for all jillery's uses of "Liar[1]." to be truthful, the
criterion would have to read something like this:

I consider any statement made without justifying it beyond
a reasonable doubt on the spot, and done with the intent
of rebutting something the opponent wrote, to be lying.

If jillery can find even ONE use of that "Liar[1]." taunt that does
not require such a devoid-of-reality "definition" for it to
be truthful, I'd be very surprised.

> >
> >
> >This is what's known as 'Jillerying' a reply.
>
>
> Really? Let's itemize what's known as "jonathaning":
>
> 1) You reply to a post weeks old,
> 2) And remove all context,
> 3) To a topic to which you never posted before,
> 4) To show you have no idea what you're talking about,
> 5) Yet you seem to think you have posted something clever.

I believe "4)" to be almost as libelous as the uses of "Liar[1]."
that I've described above. Not even jonathan was bipolar-manic
to deliberately show people he has no idea what he is talking about.

And "5)" is pure GIGO. There is only ONE time I've ever seen
jonathan do something like that, and that was when he lied that
he had caught my "daughter" and wife posting to a porn site.
Later he showed how proud he was of having lied about that.

However, I never contemplated having him banned for that, and
AFAIK jillery was not among the people who berated him for that.
The heavy lifting was done by Wolffan and Hemidactylus, but they
are so amoral that they missed what was really despicable about jonathan's charge.

MUCH more importantly, "4)" is a sickeningly self-serving charge
that jillery has used against ME countless times, and every single use of
it was a fraudulent substitute for trying to refute what I wrote.


Even MORE importantly, if any talk.origins regular can reasonably be suspected
to fit "4)" -- indeed, all five parts of "jonathaning, it is jillery's beloved
and Oxyaena's dearly beloved Ron O. See my second reply of today to Glenn for why I write this.

>
> It's crap like that what got you banned once before. Just sayin'.

If jonathan really got banned under THAT charge, I think he is far
more badly wronged than Kleinman was.

>
>
>
> >And it gets even better...
> >
> >>
> >> Since Harshman's comment is a direct response to your comments, and my
> >> comment is a direct response to Harshman's comment, these comments
> >> can't be reasonably considered as hijacks. Not sure how even you
> >> *still* don't understand this.

That last sentence is a thoroughly disingenuous and insincere comment
by jillery. The expression "direct response" simply renders the concept
of "hijacking" essentially devoid of content. Apart from the OP, the
only posts that could come under that rubric are those where all
text by others was snipped.

ANY other behavior could be spin-doctored by those cunning propagandists,
jillery and Harshman, and about a dozen others, into being a "direct response."
Just look at how "Liar." spin-doctors the bejesus out of my ACTUAL criterion.
> >
> >
> >Huh?

This was well said by BiologyMajor, and jillery was rendered speechless,
probably because it takes major effort to do the spin-doctoring that
jillery's self-serving and Harshman-serving "direct responses" call for.

> >
> >> Your complaint above alleges that I "never stopped hijacking this
> >> thread". Since the comments you quoted are not hijacks, your quote
> >> doesn't support your complaint. Instead, it only shows you have no
> >> idea what hijacking means.
> >>
> >
> >
> >What?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> More to the point,
> >
> >
> >I don't think so
> >
> >
> >> even IF what you quoted was evidence of me
> >> hijacking this thread, it would still not support your complaint that
> >> I "never stopped hijacking this thread".
> >>
> >
> >
> >No wait...oh forget it.
> >
> >
> >> These are things you have absolutely no reason to think is true, which
> >> by your own definition, makes your complaint a lie, and you a liar.

Wow. This is the first time I've seen jillery actually state my criterion
instead of just waving her hands insultingly over a display of my use
of it.

But jillery knows how Okimoto-servingly she used "hijack" a while back,
when she claimed that the person who did the OP ought to have a say
on what the thread is all about. So she is being a complete hypocrite
as well as a liar.

Details on request.

> >> QED.
> >>
> >
> >
> >OMG!
> >
> >
> >> <snip remaining obfuscating lies>

Translation: "For me, jillery, to spin-doctor what "peter" wrote below
into looking like obfuscating lies takes too much effort, so I will just do a
snip-n-deceive."


Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

That was my point from the very beginning, when I set up this thread.
Thank you for daring to say what very few regulars in talk.origin
have the motivation to say.


Thank you for challenging
the contorted thinking processes of Ron Okimoto.

> Or am I missing something?

You are missing out on the convoluted dynamics of talk.origins, I think.

Harshman and jillery are two regulars with a lot of influence here, and they
know how much trouble those six arguments cause for any rational
person of Harshman's run of the mill caliber and jillery's mediocre caliber. They know that most of the regulars of talk.origins are 1) even less well
equipped than Harshman to deal with them BUT ALSO
2) they want to create the illusion that they ARE equipped to deal with them.

And so, their very early presence in this thread, and their manifest reluctance
to meet either part of the challenge, served notice to these regulars that "here be dragons."

As for Ron Okimoto, if you can get a coherent statement out of him
as to why he doesn't want people to try and refute the six arguments,
you may have the makings of a real statesman.


Peter Nyikos

> --
> talk origins

[Glenn]

Shit happens.

>
> Or am I missing something?
>

Have you ever lost anything? Your passport? Your car keys?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/?ref_=tt_ch

[RonO]

Note that Nyikos did not address this post that I posted to him on this
subject. No one could make this up. Nyikos has run from this link so
many times that there is no excuse for continuing to lie about this subject.

Nyikos has run from this link half a dozen times, and never can face it.
He would rather lie about it in post to other posters. That is how
sad this is and it should stop.

I am going to repost this post when Nyikos starts lying about this
stupid topic again. This is not something that he should be lying about
for another decade.

This is Nyikos running from my explanation over and over. He has never
addressed the post that I posted June 6th even though I have given him
the link multiple times. All he had to do was follow the link and
address that post, and stop lying about the issue, but he runs instead
just like he did in this response.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/1hGfELwUerc/_ZgYFbJYAAAJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/hmhr1Ppyvi4/LTfmTt9LAAAJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/EBIabxugDAo/nSvuFBLxAgAJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/EBIabxugDAo/TlZFLKY8AwAJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/EBIabxugDAo/n865qRo8AwAJ

There are others, and Nyikos has run from my post addressing this issue
in all cases. He has just kept lying about the issue instead.

For whatever stupid Nyikosian reason Nyikos can't bring himself to
address my post addressing his stupidity about what the issue is with
the Top Six.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/GxB26Y4_QDk/9gYqAu8lBAAJ

He should have addressed this post over a month ago. I posted it June
6th. He should use this link and address that post.

I have told Nyikos that if he can't bring himself to get an explanation
from me that he should ask Glenn. That will never happen. This is why
Nyikos can't get Glenn to tell him what the issue is.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/rUGsNBW7cwA/DtxTLM-MAAAJ

Glenn could tell Nyikos what the issue is, but that will never happen
because denial of the Top Six is the only way that Glenn can deal with
the issue.

>>>
>>> How many times have you run from this link. I posted this post D-Day
>>> the 6th of June.
>>>
>>> This is not something that you should lie about for a decade.
>>>
>>> If you have a beef with me, you should not lie to some other poster
>>> about the issue.
>>>
>> I might have a beef with you, but you'd pay the tab and tip.
>
> I think you meant to insert, "have to" before "pay." And don't
> forget the taxi fare from your place and back >

> Ron O is libeling me multiple times, by accusing me of "lying"
> just because I've never replied to a post that is pure mindless
> ranting about his fantasies, such as:
>
> The simple fact is that the vast majority of
> IDiots do not want to believe in the god that would fit in those gaps.
> You can see it in how MarkE doesn't even want to put his god in the gap
> that he is creating. If he did he would have to acknowledge that there
> is no point in trying to demonstrate that such a gap exists or that it
> is never going to be anything but a gap because he doesn't even want to
> believe that, that gap exists.

If you want to address my post, don't post the junk to Glenn, and ignore
what I have written to you.

Your above quote is one reason, and it obviously applies to MarkE. You
can't demonstate otherwise because you know that I asked MarkE to state
where his God fit in that Gap and all he did was misdirect the argument
and run away. The IDiots can obviously put up the Top Six one at a
time, but none of them can face the Top Six as the Top Six. MarkE was
trying to better define the gap so that he could claim that it would
never be filled, but he could not face the gap that he was creating in
terms of what his god would have to have done to fill that gap. It is
what is around the gap that MarkE can't face. That is why MarkE can't
face the Top Six. Nothing is supposed to be learned from the god of the
gaps IDiot stupidity. They are only meant to allow the rubes to lie to
themselves just long enough to get to the next one, and they have to
remain willfully ignorant of the previous gap that they lied to
themselves about. The IDiots really can't face the Top Six as the Top
Six because they have to acknowledge that they all exist as what they
are. They aren't running from putting up the Top Six one at a time
because look at what Dean did. Before he quit posting he had forgotten
that he could not deal with the Top Six, and that no other IDiot would
help him out, and he put up 3 of the Top Six one at a time even as I was
reminding him of his utter failure from a few months before.

>
> This is sheer insanity. MarkE kept trying to get Bill Rogers to talk
> about the vast gap around the tiny part of the abiogenesis gap that Bill wanted
> to talk about, because it had been filled. Ron O never lifted a finger
> to try to get Bill to look at the gap that Ron O THINKS MarkE never wanted to
> put "his god" into.

All MarkE wanted to do was define the gap as something that would never
be filled. What he could not do himself was put his god in that gap
because the god that fit in that gap was not the god that he wanted to
believe in. This is no different from the scientific creationist YEC
fundies putting up #1 (The Big Bang) as a creationist denial argument
claiming that we will never determine what came before the Big Bang and
what caused the Big Bang. These creationists only want to lie to
themselves about reality for just a short period of time and then go
into denial mode again. Everyone knows that this is true because #1 was
one of the science topics that the Kansas creationist Fundies dropped
out of their science standards when they got the chance. They removed
the Big Bang, radiometric dating, and learning about isotopes in
Chemistry from the Kansas science standards along with biological
evolution. That tells you why a lot of IDiots can't face the Top Six.
#1 may be something that they can lie to themselves about, but they
don't want any connection with reality, nor the other Top Six topics.
The ID perps told the IDiot rubes that the Top Six were in their order
of occurrence. I haven't found a single IDiot source that has talked
about the ID perp Top Six since the ID perps put them up.

Nyikos can look for any IDiots supporting the Top Six and get back to
everyone. No IDiots can face the Top Six as the Top Six. All you will
see is them lying to themselves about them one at a time. Even the ID
perps have only addressed them one at a time since putting them up.

>
> With this "put his god in the gap," Ron O is in a "do as I say, not as I do"
> situation. Note the lower case, by the way, and the "his".
> This is the language of atheists, and Ron O has never tried to
> show that he is NOT an atheist. He once claimed to "believe in a
> creator," but has never tried to show that it is the Christian God.

Why keep lying about my religious beliefs. You are just a sick and sad
person. As far as I am concerned my God does not have to fit into any
gap. It is my belief that God has to fit into what we know, not what we
do not know at this time. Why do old earth creationists and other
theistic evolutionists exist if that were not the case for a lot of
religious people. The IDiot/creationists that depend on the Top Six
denial arguments do not want to understand nature, and why MarkE could
not put his god in the gap that he was creating. MarkE does not want to
believe in the god that would fit into that gap. He only wanted to use
the OoL (#3 of the Top Six) for denial purposes. He never wanted a
better understanding of nature, he only wanted to lie to himself just
long enough to get to the next gap. The Top Six puts all the gaps
together, and even IDiots aren't stupid enough to not understand that
they do not want to know what is between the gaps.

The sad thing is that Nyikos has to lie about my religious beliefs
because he has lied so often about his own. Nyikos is the church going
Catholic agnostic that has tried to defend Pascal's wager on TO. What
kind of IDiot would think that they could lie to God and get away with
it? Nyikos is that kind of religious nut job.

>
>
> Maybe you could help me out with something, Glenn, if you joined
> talk.origins several years before 2011. Ron O had away from EVERY post
> by Ray Martinez for a long time before I re-joined in December 2010, using the
> transparently hypocritical and unspported claim that Ray was "insane."

Glenn was posting before you left TO at the turn of the century. What
you should be asking him is what the issue about the Top Six is, so that
you no longer have to lie about it.

There is no doubt that Ray was insane. I could not help the guy, and I
just stopped posting to him. No matter how much he harassed me. He
eventually quit posting to me, and things had settled out for years that
way. That makes Ray saner than you, but that isn't saying much. You
are just a saddistic lying asshole, and you likely will never change.
Insanity isn't a defense, it is only an excuse for being the lying
asshole that you are.

>
> My suspicion is that Ray kept interrogating Ron O about
> his religious beliefs, and Ron O was afraid he would slip up and
> say something so clueless that Ray could nail him and destroy Ron O's
> claim that he is a real Methodist, instead of a mole within the Methodist Church.
>
> Can you shed any light on this suspicion of mine?

Nope. I just felt sorry for Ray, and I could no longer justify posting
to someone as lost as he was. You are just a lying asshole, so you get
what you deserve.

So I am going to repost this post whenever you start lying about this
issue. You could address the post that you have been running from for
over a month.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/GxB26Y4_QDk/9gYqAu8lBAAJ

Just to remind you of what a lying asshole that you have been for the
last decade this is the REPOST link, and you can lie about that forever.

The Top Six is not something that you should be lying about for the next
decade. It will only keep reminding Glenn and the other IDiots of what
they are running from.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/IRQMOuRz1WU/iqY8dmxlAgAJ

Additions to the repost with links to material where the links had gone
broken:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/gHqIIDqaiwI/hSScLtCuCQAJ

This link will take you to the 2018 thread which you likely have some
found memories over. Isn't it sad that I first posted this repost in 2014?

Ron Okimoto
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
>

[RonO]

You are missing a lot.

Nyikos has been wrong from the very beginning and he will not accept any
explanation from me. He has run from that explanation since June 6th
and never addressed it.

Don't listen to Nyikos or Glenn on the topic. Glenn will never tell you
what the issue is because he is in denial of the existence of the Top
Six. The issue is not that the IDiots have to defend the Top Six. They
obviously put them up one at a time routinely and run their denial out
as long as they can. What they can't do is build anything using the Top
Six. They can't afford to learn anything about nature. They can't deal
with the Top Six as existing as the Top Six because each denial argument
is supposed to be denied and forgotten before going on to the next
denial argument. Just look at how Glenn can't even face the existence
of the Top Six and has to remove them from the post before responding
with is stupid one liners.

Ron Okimoto

[Glenn]

There is no reason to assume or suspect your reasoning skill would be any different in your "scientific" papers than it is here.

Cluck cluck.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
>> [...]

> I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
> burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
> supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
> rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
> contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>
> Or am I missing something?

The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
diddly-squat about intelligent design.

There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
been figured out yet. (If that were not the case, all scientists around
the world would be unemployed.) Of course, part of a successful theory
is that it opens up new horizons to explore. In that sense, those six
"ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the value of evolutionary
theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).

Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to exalt
God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by telling
other people they are exalting God), so they force God to design all the
features mentioned in those articles according to their wills, ignoring
the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect of evils in
the world.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[jillery]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 17:31:58 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 18, 2020 at 5:14:59 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 01:08:51 -0400, BiologyMajor <L...@Umich.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On 6/12/2020 4:12 PM, jillery wrote:
>> >
>> >

<restore text mangled by the personas peter and BiologyMajor>

>> >>ONCE AGAIN, making comments unrelated to the nominal topic, and
>> >>discussions unrelated to the nominal topic, are not... repeat NOT...

>> >>evidence of hijacking. Instead, hijacking is when somebody posts
>> >>comments having nothing to do with the topic, the thread, or with
>> >>anything anybody said in it. This is something you do, and Kleinman
>> >>did, compulsively.

>
>... out of the ordinary in talk.origins. Every time jillery lies her
>head off with "Liar[1].", she is making comments unrelated to reality,
>never mind anything that relates to the nominal topic.
>And I can't recall a single time she used it truthfully.

Too bad for you that jillery didn't use "liar" even once in the post
you mangled. And nthing I wrote above remotely qualifes as a lie,
even by your definition. That makes you a liar[1].

>Those footnotes direct the reader to a criterion for a certain kind
>of behavior that I consider to come under the category of lying.
>But for all jillery's uses of "Liar[1]." to be truthful, the
>criterion would have to read something like this:
>
> I consider any statement made without justifying it beyond
> a reasonable doubt on the spot, and done with the intent
> of rebutting something the opponent wrote, to be lying.

Liar[1]

Don't like that I note your stupid lies? Don't like having to back up
your stupid lies? Then stop posting your stupid lies. Not sure how
even you *still* can't figure that out.

>If jillery can find even ONE use of that "Liar[1]." taunt that does
>not require such a devoid-of-reality "definition" for it to
>be truthful, I'd be very surprised.

Liar[1].


If you really wanted to comment on the issues jillery raised in the
post jonathan mangled, you would have done so long before now.

<snip your remaining obfuscating noise>


[1] The persona named peter's personal definition of "lie":
***********************
<7eeaa862-e4bb-4617...@googlegroups.com>
On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 17:54:36 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

I classify as a lie any statement that the utterer has absolutely no
reason to think is true, but is done to intensely denigrate the person
about whom it is uttered.
************************

[jillery]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:32:18 -0400, Bill Esque <"Bill
Johhnson"@gmail.com> wrote:


<snip mindless noise>

>I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
>burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
>supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
>rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
>contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>
>Or am I missing something?

Your comments above are technically correct but incomplete. When
Person X makes a claim, either positive or negative, Person X bears an
obligation to back up that claim. This includes counter-claims. So
when Person Y objects to Person X's claim, Person Y bears an
obligation to back up those objections. All parties are responsible
for backing up their own claims, for or against.

I am uncomfortable speaking for another, but since you asked, ISTM a
relevant question here is, who actually objects to EN's The Top Six ID
Arguments? IIUC RonO's point is that a lot of people who say they
agree with ID don't agree with The Top Six ID Arguments. If that is
so, this suggests a cognitive disconnect at least, and more likely a
fundamental misunderstanding of the implications raised by ID and The
Top Six Arguments.

IOW and again IIUC RonO isn't asking critics of The Top Six Arguments
to criticize them. Instead, he is asking the supporters of ID to
support the Top Six Arguments, to show they understand the
implications.

[RonO]

Bill Esque should not have any trouble understanding why he can't expect
any answer worth jack out of an IDiot like you. What did I just claim
about stupid one liners? This is all an IDiot like Glenn can manage at
this time. He had the opportunity to set Bill straight, but what did he
do instead?

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

"cluck cluck" is the kind of information Glenn frequently posts about
evolution and abiogenesis. Apparently this makes his strange
bedfellow proud.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 12:04:58 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
> >> [...]
> > I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
> > burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
> > supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
> > rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
> > contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
> >
> > Or am I missing something?
>
> The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
> diddly-squat about intelligent design.

Just as current evolutionary theory says diddly-squat about why
there are intelligent beings on earth. The playing field is level.

Current evolutionary theory, AKA The Modern Synthesis, AKA neo-Darwinism,
is all about mutation, and a concept mis-named "natural selection," and which
should be called "the natural selection that takes place within species,
and which sometimes leads to speciation."

> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
> been figured out yet.

Here, you reveal how you only pay lip service to science and have no
clue as to the minuscule amount that we know as compared to what we
don't know, especially in regard to evolutionary theory, abiogenesis,
and even cosmology.

> (If that were not the case, all scientists around
> the world would be unemployed.)

Yet more evidence of you being clueless about how minuscule our
scientific knowledge is. And you are also clueless about how
specialized scientific research is. Almost none of it is done
to shed light on such big questions as the origin of life as
sophisticated as the most simple bacterium, for instance.

Almost everyone here is in tune with Bill Rogers's rhapsodizing about
how far abiogenesis research has come. Imagine, discovering that life
more likely came from the vicinity of sea floor vents than from an
ocean-wide "soup" that got concentrated thanks to the tides.

That's like sweeping the first stair clean in the stairway leading
from the sub-basement of a 120 story skyscraper to the basement.

> Of course, part of a successful theory
> is that it opens up new horizons to explore.

Not since Darwin, where evolutionary theory is concerned. The Modern Synthesis
is just a bunch of footnotes to Darwin. And abiogenesis is just a bunch
of footnotes to Oparin.

OTOH Intelligent Design theory has incorporated a new horizon once Behe
broached the subject of the Crick-Orgel theory of Directed Panspermia,
and in an off-putting way at that. I have since run far and wide with
the theory, and Professor Emeritus Bill Jefferys actually was interested
in what I had to say about it, and even reprimanded someone who butted
in with the kind of garbage personal attack with which you love to hit me.

> In that sense, those six
> "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the value of evolutionary
> theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).

AND of the titanic gaps in these subjects.

You are dishonestly insinuating that ID is anti-scientific. YOU are
more anti-scientific by making it look like science is in the stage
of mopping-up what little we don't know. Then young adults of the
22nd century can safely ignore scientific research if they want to work on something EXCITING.

I'm actually afraid that this is exactly what will happen. Look at the
miasma into which NASA manned spaceflight sank after the last moon landing,
four and a half decades ago. If it weren't for Elon Musk, it would still
be in that miasma, and perhaps it will sink back into it now that we're
back in the business of putting people in low earth orbit, but no further.

>
> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to exalt
> God

The writer of the post to which I am replying thinks that he is
exalting science

> (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by telling
> other people they are exalting God),

(or, a cynic might say, that Mark can convince people that "Nyikos is
a car wreck" by making people think Mark is exalting science)

> so they force God to design all the
> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,

False. In fact, a libel.

> ignoring
> the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect of evils in
> the world.

You think of God that way anyway, and the Judeo-Christian God is an abomination
where you are concerned. Is that because God is depicted as rewarding honesty
and punishing dishonesty in a life after death?

I almost wrote "Judeo-Christian-Islamic," but you'd call that "Islamophobic,"
wouldn't you?


Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG
My contribution to this post has a major,fundamental scientific component,
and is highly relevant for the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Bill Esque]

On 7/24/20 12:02 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
>>> [...]
>> I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
>> burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
>> supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
>> rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
>> contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>>
>> Or am I missing something?
>
> The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
> diddly-squat about intelligent design.
>

As I understood it, this was about creation. ID is exactly the same as
creation. And whether or not the word "creation" was mentioned, this was
exactly what the six arguments were about.

>
> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
> been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all scientists around
> the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part of a successful theory
> is that it opens up new horizons to explore.  In that sense, those six
> "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the value of evolutionary
> theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
>

What's one interpretation of the evidence.

>
> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to exalt
> God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by telling
> other people they are exalting God),
>

So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
your justification embedded in their articles.

so they force God to design all the
> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills, ignoring
> the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect of evils in
> the world.
>

We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great degree
is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils committed by
people acting on their own free will.




--
talk origins

[Bill Rogers]

And God decides that not interfering with the free will of the rapist is more important than the suffering of his victim. It's His decision. So yes, God is the indubitable architect of evils in the world. And that's not even counting natural disasters.

>
>
>
>
> --
> talk origins

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:44:35 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bill Esque <"Bill
Johhnson"@gmail.com>:

<cut to the point>

>As I understood it, this was about creation. ID is exactly the same as
>creation. And whether or not the word "creation" was mentioned, this was
>exactly what the six arguments were about.

Were they? I confess I don't know if that's true or not. But
while "the six arguments" may or may not have been solely
about creation (I lack the interest to get into that, since
it's basically a matter of perception and belief), there are
those here who have argued vehemently that ID does *not*
specifically require either Special Creation or even the
existence of a deity; for one instance, "Directed
Panspermia" and its offshoots have been specifically
mentioned. Perhaps you should take it up with the
proponents?
--

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

[Bill Esque]

It seemed logical to expect the person making a claim to provide
evidence in support of the claim. You can either accept or reject
But to challenge the person who accepts the evidence to justify
his acceptance is irrational. In the case of our universe being
highly fitted for life is challenged by offering the concept pf infinite
numbers of parallel universes and a mathematical basis as supporting
evidence. On this point the math we know and understand throughout
our history is from mathematics through the 2/ND order of differential
equations. These parallel universes rest upon a little known and
little understood form of math 3/rd order of differing equations most
recent "discovered".

ttps://www.google.com/search?q=third+order+of+dirreriental+equationa+and+multiverses&oq=third+order+&aqs=chrome.1.69i59l3j69i57j0l4.12202j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=67752

>
> Thank you for challenging
> the contorted thinking processes of Ron Okimoto.
>

I was just expressing my view.

>
>> Or am I missing something?
>
> You are missing out on the convoluted dynamics of talk.origins, I think.
>
> Harshman and jillery are two regulars with a lot of influence here, and they
> know how much trouble those six arguments cause for any rational
> person of Harshman's run of the mill caliber and jillery's mediocre caliber. They know that most of the regulars of talk.origins are 1) even less well
> equipped than Harshman to deal with them BUT ALSO
> 2) they want to create the illusion that they ARE equipped to deal with them.
>

I've had some experience with Jillery. Frankly, I rather liked her. Not
that I agreed with her.

>
> And so, their very early presence in this thread, and their manifest reluctance
> to meet either part of the challenge, served notice to these regulars that "here be dragons."
>
> As for Ron Okimoto, if you can get a coherent statement out of him
> as to why he doesn't want people to try and refute the six arguments,
> you may have the makings of a real statesman.
>

I thought creation ID was strictly based om Genesis and the Bible. The
the six arguments were predicated on scientifically based discoveries, I
totally did not expect this.

> Peter Nyikos
>
>> --
>> talk origins
>

--
talk origins

[jillery]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 07:30:32 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 12:04:58 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
>> >> [...]
>> > I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
>> > burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
>> > supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
>> > rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
>> > contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>> >
>> > Or am I missing something?
>>
>> The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
>> diddly-squat about intelligent design.
>
>Just as current evolutionary theory says diddly-squat about why
>there are intelligent beings on earth. The playing field is level.

Let's see if you're smarter than a 5th-grader:

ID argument : ID
__________ : Evolution

Now fill in the blank. And to give you a chance, here's a hint: it's
not "why there are intelligent beings on Earth".

>Current evolutionary theory, AKA The Modern Synthesis, AKA neo-Darwinism,
>is all about mutation, and a concept mis-named "natural selection," and which
>should be called "the natural selection that takes place within species,
>and which sometimes leads to speciation."

Perhaps, but "natural selection" fits on book covers so much better.

>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
>> been figured out yet.
>
>Here, you reveal how you only pay lip service to science and have no
>clue as to the minuscule amount that we know as compared to what we
>don't know, especially in regard to evolutionary theory, abiogenesis,
>and even cosmology.

It's at least arguable there are infinitely many things to know. If
so, then however much we know, it will always be miniscule compared to
our ignorance. So that's not a useful comparison. Instead, it's
better to compare how much we know now to how much we knew in the
past.

>> (If that were not the case, all scientists around
>> the world would be unemployed.)
>
>Yet more evidence of you being clueless about how minuscule our
>scientific knowledge is. And you are also clueless about how
>specialized scientific research is. Almost none of it is done
>to shed light on such big questions as the origin of life as
>sophisticated as the most simple bacterium, for instance.

It's at least arguable that all knowledge ultimately helps to answer
the big questions. Even if not, our ignorance keeps us from knowing
what knowledge does or doesn't help. For example, nobody would have
guessed pre-20th Century that an arcane laboratory phenomenon later
called the photoelectric effect would ultimate lead to quantum
mechanics.

>Almost everyone here is in tune with Bill Rogers's rhapsodizing about
>how far abiogenesis research has come. Imagine, discovering that life
>more likely came from the vicinity of sea floor vents than from an
>ocean-wide "soup" that got concentrated thanks to the tides.
>
>That's like sweeping the first stair clean in the stairway leading
>from the sub-basement of a 120 story skyscraper to the basement.

Cue the spam about Emergent Systems.

>> Of course, part of a successful theory
>> is that it opens up new horizons to explore.
>
>Not since Darwin, where evolutionary theory is concerned. The Modern Synthesis
>is just a bunch of footnotes to Darwin. And abiogenesis is just a bunch
>of footnotes to Oparin.
>
>OTOH Intelligent Design theory has incorporated a new horizon once Behe
>broached the subject of the Crick-Orgel theory of Directed Panspermia,
>and in an off-putting way at that. I have since run far and wide with
>the theory, and Professor Emeritus Bill Jefferys actually was interested
>in what I had to say about it, and even reprimanded someone who butted
>in with the kind of garbage personal attack with which you love to hit me.

Liar[1].

> > In that sense, those six
>> "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the value of evolutionary
>> theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
>
>AND of the titanic gaps in these subjects.

The better to fit ID's titanic presumption of an unseen, unknown,
unnamed Designer.

>You are dishonestly insinuating that ID is anti-scientific. YOU are
>more anti-scientific by making it look like science is in the stage
>of mopping-up what little we don't know. Then young adults of the
>22nd century can safely ignore scientific research if they want to work on something EXCITING.

You're as good at creating stupid strawmen as you are at reading
minds.

>I'm actually afraid that this is exactly what will happen. Look at the
>miasma into which NASA manned spaceflight sank after the last moon landing,
>four and a half decades ago. If it weren't for Elon Musk, it would still
>be in that miasma, and perhaps it will sink back into it now that we're
>back in the business of putting people in low earth orbit, but no further.

That particular miasma is created and sustained by modern-day
right-wing Luddites who cancel funding for anything they think
contradicts their Biblical beliefs.

>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to exalt
>> God
>
>The writer of the post to which I am replying thinks that he is
>exalting science

You still suck at reading minds.

>> (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by telling
>> other people they are exalting God),
>
>(or, a cynic might say, that Mark can convince people that "Nyikos is
>a car wreck" by making people think Mark is exalting science)

This thread is NOT about you. Grow up.

>> so they force God to design all the
>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>
>False. In fact, a libel.

If God feels libeled, I have no doubt He will find excellent legal
representation. Even though you act as if you sit above God, you're
not qualified to speak for God.

>> ignoring
>> the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect of evils in
>> the world.
>
>You think of God that way anyway, and the Judeo-Christian God is an abomination
>where you are concerned.

You REALLY suck at reading minds.

>Is that because God is depicted as rewarding honesty
>and punishing dishonesty in a life after death?

No, it's because you haven't stopped beating you wife. Tu quoque back
atcha, asshole.

>I almost wrote "Judeo-Christian-Islamic," but you'd call that "Islamophobic,"
>wouldn't you?

More of your asinine allusions.

>Peter Nyikos
>NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG
>My contribution to this post has a major,fundamental scientific component,
>and is highly relevant for the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

Really? I found nothing you posted even remotely relevant or
scientific. Perhaps that's because it was obfuscated by your mindless
crap.

[1] The persona named peter's personal definition of "lie":
***********************
<7eeaa862-e4bb-4617...@googlegroups.com>
On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 17:54:36 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

I classify as a lie any statement that the utterer has absolutely no
reason to think is true, but is done to intensely denigrate the person
about whom it is uttered.
************************

[Bill Esque]

On 7/24/20 1:05 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:44:35 -0400, the following appeared
> in talk.origins, posted by Bill Esque <"Bill
> Johhnson"@gmail.com>:
>
> <cut to the point>
>
>> As I understood it, this was about creation. ID is exactly the same as
>> creation. And whether or not the word "creation" was mentioned, this was
>> exactly what the six arguments were about.
>
> Were they? I confess I don't know if that's true or not.
>

You could be right, But that the articles could certainly be taken
as evidence pointed to a creator.

But
> while "the six arguments" may or may not have been solely
> about creation (I lack the interest to get into that,
>

I had no interest either, but my interest has been somewhat
cultivated by some of the attitudes and positions I find on this
discussion group.
Furthermore, I don't know what I think about creation or evolution or
why we are here. But we are here, that's matters most.

since
> it's basically a matter of perception and belief), there are
> those here who have argued vehemently that ID does *not*
> specifically require either Special Creation or even the
> existence of a deity; for one instance,
>

Nothing comes from nothing. Also the universe is winding down
(something called the 2/law of thermodynamics) So, at the beginning
energy must have been at maximum and entropy at zero. Therefore, at the
end of the universe, energy will be at zero and entropy at maximum.
This universal energy had to come from somewhere outside the universe.
So, something had to initiate everything.
It could not have been natural, because before the existence of matter
there could be no natural entity. So, whatever it was it had to
have been pre-natural or supernatural. I personally call it God.

However, if a person challenges the existence of God then
he has either 1) denial of the evidence offered or 2) he is burdened
with the task of finding an alternative explanation.

But there is a counter argument to this. Everything is accidental
following natural laws.

"Directed
> Panspermia" and its offshoots have been specifically
> mentioned. Perhaps you should take it up with the
> proponents?
>

Francis Crick is deceased, No one else seriously advocates
this as far as I know.


--
talk origins

[erik simpson]

For what it's worth, a fervent apostle for DP is alive and present. See Peter
Nyikos, and good luck.

[Ernest Major]

You need to look at the first law of thermodyamics, and the law of
conservation of energy. The net amount of energy is the same at the
beginning of the universe, now, and at the end of the universe (assuming
the universe has a beginning and an end, which may not be true). The net
amount may well be zero.

>  So, something had to initiate everything.
> It could not have been natural, because before the existence of matter
> there could be no natural entity. So, whatever it was it had to
> have been pre-natural or supernatural. I personally call it God.

Calling a hypothetical first cause God brings in a lot of baggage
associated with the name God.

>
> However, if a person challenges the existence of God then
> he has either 1) denial of the evidence offered or 2) he is burdened
> with the task of finding an alternative explanation.
>
> But there is a counter argument to this. Everything is accidental
> following natural laws.
>
>
> "Directed
>> Panspermia" and its offshoots have been specifically
>> mentioned. Perhaps you should take it up with the
>> proponents?
>>
> Francis Crick is deceased, No one else seriously advocates
> this as far as I know.
>
>


--

alias Ernest Major

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/24/20 11:17 AM, Bill Esque wrote:
>> [...]

> I thought creation ID was strictly based om Genesis and the Bible. The
> the six arguments were predicated on scientifically based discoveries, I
> totally did not expect this.

In the beginning, there was Genesis. Over the centuries, there arose
all sorts of interpretations of it. In the early 1900s, some people
published a set of tracts titled "The Fundamentals", and Fundamentalism
was born. Those tracts supported biblical literalism, so some people
started looking at Genesis differently. It had been established by the
19th century that Earth's geology did not admit the possibility of a
global flood, but Whitcomb and Morris (a theologian and a hydraulic
engineer) found stuff about geology that they didn't know how to
explain, and they wrote a book saying that a global flood could explain
it, and scientific creationism was born. In many places, creationists
wanted scientific creationism -- showing (they claimed) how science
supports the Bible -- taught as science in public schools, but time
after time the courts said what they were teaching was a variety of
religion, and they didn't allow it. So the creationists changed
tactics. They took a creationist textbook that was already written but
not yet published and basically did a global substitution of
"creationism" with "intelligent design." To the church groups they
spoke to, they called it biblical creationism, but to civil authorities,
they claimed it stood apart from the Bible and should count as secular
science. Thus was ID born. (Courts saw through this ruse and would not
allow it taught in public schools either.)

So yes, the six arguments *are* based on Genesis, in the sense that that
is their whole reason for existing.

The history above, it should go without saying, is greatly simplified.
For a history of creationism to about 1990, see Ronald Numbers, _The
Creationists_. For the origin and early history of Intelligent Design,
see Barbara Forrest, _Creationism's Trojan Horse_.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/24/20 7:30 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 12:04:58 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>> I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
>>> burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
>>> supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
>>> rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
>>> contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>>>
>>> Or am I missing something?
>>
>> The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
>> diddly-squat about intelligent design.
>
> Just as current evolutionary theory says diddly-squat about why
> there are intelligent beings on earth. The playing field is level.

Attempt to change the subject noted. "The playing field" is not level,
because you're talking about two different playing fields that are not
even in the same universe. The fact remains that so-called Intelligent
Design theory says nothing about intelligent design. It only does what
you do: claim that not knowing X means we can be certain about the
unrelated subject Y.

>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
>> been figured out yet.
>
> Here, you reveal how you only pay lip service to science and have no
> clue as to the minuscule amount that we know as compared to what we
> don't know, especially in regard to evolutionary theory, abiogenesis,
> and even cosmology.

Here you reveal how ignorant and/or deluded you are about the history of
science. Humanity did not have a clue how much we don't know *until* we
made great strides in learning what we do. It will ever be thus. A
couple centuries from now, virtually all of the questions we have about
abiogensis, cosmology, and the evolution of myriad different biological
systems will all have been answered, and the Nyikos-equivalent of the
day will be harping about how what we don't know is orders of magnitude
greater.

There are unknowns. There will always be unknowns. Only damned fools
claim that not knowing X means we know Y.

>> (If that were not the case, all scientists around
>> the world would be unemployed.)
>
> Yet more evidence of you being clueless about how minuscule our
> scientific knowledge is.

When I say, "our scientific knowledge is minuscule," Peter's response
would be, "Yet more evidence of you being clueless about how minuscule
our scientific knowledge is." I don't think Peter even reads what he
responds to anymore.

>> Of course, part of a successful theory
>> is that it opens up new horizons to explore.
>
> Not since Darwin, where evolutionary theory is concerned. The Modern Synthesis
> is just a bunch of footnotes to Darwin. And abiogenesis is just a bunch
> of footnotes to Oparin.

> OTOH Intelligent Design theory has incorporated a new horizon once Behe
> broached the subject of the Crick-Orgel theory of Directed Panspermia,
> and in an off-putting way at that. I have since run far and wide with
> the theory, and Professor Emeritus Bill Jefferys actually was interested
> in what I had to say about it, and even reprimanded someone who butted
> in with the kind of garbage personal attack with which you love to hit me.

Get real. There are dozens of journals devoted to evolutionary theory
and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists doing productive research
in the field, with advances building upon advances for the last century
and more, and subfields spreading out to include molecular biology,
ecology, paleontology, psychology, economics, engineering, and more.

In contrast, the two Intelligent Design journals are defunct or
moribund. No research is being done in the field. Behe's ideas re ID
have been a complete dud. And the only person pushing directed
panspermia is a single nutjob on the web who admits he doesn't know how
to do any useful research on it.

> You are dishonestly insinuating that ID is anti-scientific.

Let me be clearer, then: ID is anti-scientific. It wants the trappings
of science, but not the important substance and the rigor. It starts
with its conclusion and will not let data stand in the way of supporting
that end.

[Robert Camp]

The Wedge helps to underscore the motivations machinations behind a lot
of this.

https://ncse.ngo/wedge-document

[Robert Camp]

"...and..."

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/24/20 8:44 AM, Bill Esque wrote:
> On 7/24/20 12:02 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/23/20 3:32 PM, Bill Esque wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>> I've watched this thread, I do not believe the challenge is the
>>> burden or the poster who accepts the six arguments as valid and
>>> supporting ID creation. The burden of a challenge to the six arguments
>>> rest on the critic who disagrees with the article. What is the
>>> contrary information that challenges the six arguments?
>>>
>>> Or am I missing something?
>>
>> The main challenge to those six arguments is that none of them says
>> diddly-squat about intelligent design.
> >
> As I understood it, this was about creation. ID is exactly the same as
> creation. And whether or not the word "creation" was mentioned, this was
> exactly what the six arguments were about.

That is where the authors of those articles want to lead you, but it is
not what those arguments are are about. The arguments say, "This is
complicated for our scientific understanding, so we're left with
Creator." In that, they are flawed, because the valid conclusion in all
such arguments is: "so I don't know." Nowhere will you find valid
arguments saying, "This is actual evidence of a god." (It is arguable
whether there ever can be such evidence.)

One exception to the above is the fine-tuning argument, which seems to
point to design, but which has other flaws which I won't go into here,
but which invalidate it, too.

>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
>> been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all scientists
>> around the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part of a
>> successful theory is that it opens up new horizons to explore.  In
>> that sense, those six "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the
>> value of evolutionary theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
> >
> What's one interpretation of the evidence.

I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.

>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to exalt
>> God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by telling
>> other people they are exalting God),
> >
> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
> your justification embedded in their articles.
>
> so they force God to design all the
>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
>> of evils in the world.
>>
> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great degree
> is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils committed by
> people acting on their own free will.

First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
suffering has zero roots in human activity.

Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
God's work. Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
ectoparasites. Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?

[Bill Esque]

I know, I had to take courses in physics. I thought then, as well as now
that there is somewhat of a contradiction between the first and second
law. We observe the second law of thermodynamics in action. But we
cannot observe the first.

>
> The net amount of energy is the same at the
> beginning of the universe, now, and at the end of the universe (assuming
> the universe has a beginning and an end, which may not be true). The net
> amount may well be zero.
>

I see no reason to question the moment of Big Bang as the beginning?
THere is the the beginning of time labeled Planck time approximately
..43 seconds _after_ the big bang.

>
>>   So, something had to initiate everything.
>> It could not have been natural, because before the existence of matter
>> there could be no natural entity. So, whatever it was it had to
>> have been pre-natural or supernatural. I personally call it God.
>
> Calling a hypothetical first cause God brings in a lot of baggage
> associated with the name God.
>>
>> However, if a person challenges the existence of God then
>> he has either 1) denial of the evidence offered or 2) he is burdened
>> with the task of finding an alternative explanation.
>>
>> But there is a counter argument to this. Everything is accidental
>> following natural laws.
>>
>>
>> "Directed
>>> Panspermia" and its offshoots have been specifically
>>> mentioned. Perhaps you should take it up with the
>>> proponents?
>>>
>> Francis Crick is deceased, No one else seriously advocates
>> this as far as I know.
>>
>>
>
>


--

talk origins

[Glenn]

I think that is claimed to be a very small fraction of a second. No one knows that "energy" existed prior to that, or space, or time, or anything. It all actually works out to an infinite amount, which doesn't compute in their minds, so they add a fudge factor in to make time start.

You're arguing with materialists, and it's pointless.

[Ernest Major]

On 25/07/2020 03:31, Bill Esque wrote:
>>> Nothing comes from nothing. Also the universe is winding down
>>> (something called the 2/law of thermodynamics) So, at the beginning
>>> energy must have been at maximum and entropy at zero. Therefore, at the
>>> end of the universe, energy will be at zero and entropy at maximum.
>>> This universal energy had to come from somewhere outside the universe.
>>
>> You need to look at the first law of thermodyamics, and the law of
>> conservation of energy.
> >
> I know, I had to take courses in physics. I thought then, as well as now
> that there is somewhat of a contradiction between the first and second
> law.

If thousands of experts think one thing, and you think something else,
the probable state of affairs is that you are wrong.

You may be failing to understand the distinction between work and energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(physics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(thermodynamics)

What happens as entropy increases is that the ability to convert other
forms of energy into work decreases. At the heat death of the universe
all the energy has been converted into a uniform bath of low frequency
photons - there's still the same amount of energy there, but you can't
do anything with it.

> We observe the second law of thermodynamics in action. But we
> cannot observe the first.

I'm baffled as to why you think that the first law of thermodynamics is
unobservable. How do you imagine that the first law of thermodynamics
was first postulated if it was unobservable?

>
>> The net amount of energy is the same at the beginning of the universe,
>> now, and at the end of the universe (assuming the universe has a
>> beginning and an end, which may not be true). The net amount may well
>> be zero.
>
> I see no reason to question the moment of Big Bang as the beginning?
> THere is the the beginning of time labeled Planck time approximately
> ..43 seconds _after_ the big bang.
>

What observation (combined with theory) tells us is that those parts of
the universe causally connected to the present day earth were once very
much hotter, very much denser and very much smaller. If you apply
General Relativity you can extrapolate back to a singularity. But
General Relativity is a classical theory, and reality is quantum
mechanical. You can treat General Relativity as an approximation and
that gets you back to the Planck time or thereabouts with the errors
getting too bad, but to know what happened before the Planck time you
need a working quantum theory of gravity, which we don't have. We don't
know whether or not the universe had a beginning.

--
alias Ernest Major

[jillery]

What you said. To which I add two points. First, as you say, when
most cosmologists use "Big Bang", they mean the theory based on
General Relativity, ie the classic Big Bang. And General Relativity
starts creating infinities, and ultimately a singularity, as its
extrapolation makes the universe ever hotter, smaller, and denser. A
problem is a singularity leads to logical consequences that don't
match observations. And so we know that classic Big Bang based
strictly on General Relativity isn't enough.

Second, my understanding is, most cosmologists accept that something
like cosmic Inflation must have happened before the Big Bang. Alan
Guth likes to describe Inflation as the "bang" of the Big Bang. As
you almost certainly know, Cosmic Inflation is a hypothesis that a
unit of spacetime doubled in size exponentially at least 100 times in
the first 10^-32 seconds of the universe. Given the above, then
10^-32 is the start of the Big Bang, not 10^-43.

I appreciate that 10^-32 and 10^-43 seconds are both unimaginably
small units of time, and to some the difference might seem a pedantic
quibble. However, the difference is a magnitude of 11, or 100
billion, which allows 100 billion Planck time events to happen between
them, and that is a quibble-worthy amount.

Also, my understanding is cosmic Inflation is based on quantum
gravity, specifically that under extreme temperatures and pressures
and densities, as predicted by classic Big Bang, gravity can act
repulsively:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEXDgpttmyc>

[jillery]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 20:26:12 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:36:28 -0400, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by Bill Esque <"Bill
Johhnson"@gmail.com>:

>On 7/24/20 1:05 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
>> On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:44:35 -0400, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by Bill Esque <"Bill
>> Johhnson"@gmail.com>:
>>
>> <cut to the point>
>>
>>> As I understood it, this was about creation. ID is exactly the same as
>>> creation. And whether or not the word "creation" was mentioned, this was
>>> exactly what the six arguments were about.

>> Were they? I confess I don't know if that's true or not.

>You could be right, But that the articles could certainly be taken
>as evidence pointed to a creator.

As I noted, I don't really have an opinion regarding what
the purported "evidence" might be; my only issue was with
your statement that "ID is exactly the same as creation". It
isn't, as I noted below.

Perhaps you should ask those here who disagree with your
claim. Or just do a search on "DP" and/or "directed
panspermia" in the t.o archives on GurgleGropes.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 13:40:37 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com>:

Yep. To both.

[William Hyde]

On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 6:59:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/24/20 11:17 AM, Bill Esque wrote:
> >> [...]
> > I thought creation ID was strictly based om Genesis and the Bible. The
> > the six arguments were predicated on scientifically based discoveries, I
> > totally did not expect this.
>
> In the beginning, there was Genesis. Over the centuries, there arose
> all sorts of interpretations of it. In the early 1900s, some people
> published a set of tracts titled "The Fundamentals", and Fundamentalism
> was born. Those tracts supported biblical literalism, so some people
> started looking at Genesis differently. It had been established by the
> 19th century that Earth's geology did not admit the possibility of a
> global flood, but Whitcomb and Morris (a theologian and a hydraulic
> engineer) found stuff about geology that they didn't know how to
> explain, and they wrote a book

As I understand from Numbers' "The Creationists" the geological portions of the book were entirely based on the work of George MacReady Price, a seventh day adventist who'd spent a lifetime on this.

Price was more interested in the cause than in getting credit for the work and enthusiastically recommended the book.

saying that a global flood could explain
> it, and scientific creationism was born.

Price worked hard to recruit scientists to the cause. The results were amusing. Price would recruit a devoutly Christian physicist or chemist, who was ready to believe that the godless biologists and geologists were out to get Christianity. But, being scientists, they would look at the evidence and start to retreat from that position. Sooner or later they'd leave Price's organization, becoming theistic or outright evolutionists. And believers in an old earth.

There is much that is admirable about Price, his energy, his determination, his self-sacrifice (he turned down several lucrative jobs at Christian colleges as they would interfere with his work).

Pity he wasn't attracted to a better cause.

William Hyde

[Bill Esque]

The article mentioned infinite or near infinite universes each with its
own set of laws or constants. but have any of these other universes been
observed or the constants of any other universe been specified?

>
>>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
>>> been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all scientists
>>> around the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part of a
>>> successful theory is that it opens up new horizons to explore.  In
>>> that sense, those six "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the
>>> value of evolutionary theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
>>  >
>> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
>
> I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
>

What alternative is there for the six arguments?

>
>>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
>>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
>>> telling other people they are exalting God),
>>  >
>> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
>> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
>> your justification embedded in their articles.
>>
>> so they force God to design all the
>>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
>>> of evils in the world.
>>>
>> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
>> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
>> committed by people acting on their own free will.
>
> First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
> Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
> suffering has zero roots in human activity.
>
> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
> God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
>

What os a BOmbardier geetle?

--
talk origins

[jillery]

My impression is you know they have not been observed, nor can they be
observed, even in principle. OTOH my impression is you also know
there is nothing observed or can be observed that shows the physical
laws and constants of this universe could be anything other than what
they are.

>>>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
>>>> been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all scientists
>>>> around the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part of a
>>>> successful theory is that it opens up new horizons to explore.  In
>>>> that sense, those six "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the
>>>> value of evolutionary theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
>>>  >
>>> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
>>
>> I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
> >
>What alternative is there for the six arguments?

My impression is you know that for each of the six arguments, there
are a host of alternatives. For example, just about every human
culture has had their own variant on how the universe and the world
and people were created.

>>>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
>>>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
>>>> telling other people they are exalting God),
>>>  >
>>> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
>>> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
>>> your justification embedded in their articles.
>>>
>>> so they force God to design all the
>>>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>>>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
>>>> of evils in the world.
>>>>
>>> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
>>> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
>>> committed by people acting on their own free will.
>>
>> First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
>> Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
>> suffering has zero roots in human activity.
>>
>> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
>> God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
>> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
>>
>What os a BOmbardier geetle?

If your question is supposed to be a joke, what's the punchline?

[Peter Nyikos]

Mark Isaak is just showing his ignorance of how far science has
progressed and how minuscule our progress has been in the three
fields that he lists. I have taken him to task in my reply to him,
and his replies are in the "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" category,
and not in a nice way.

> >> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
> >
> > I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
> >
> What alternative is there for the six arguments?

There are others, but these are the ones of which the scientific world
is most aware. And the one on fine tuning of the physical constants
is the most spectacular of them.

It compels most normal, rational people to believe either in a designer
of our observable universe, or an unimaginably titanic multiverse
of which our observable universe is a vanishingly small fraction...

... or to be in a state of suspended judgment between the two.

Strangely enough, most talk.origins regulars seem to opt for the 19th
century "village atheist" belief that our observable universe
(or, at best, a possibly infinite direct extension of ours) is everything
that is or was or can be.

> >
> >>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
> >>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
> >>> telling other people they are exalting God),
> >>  >
> >> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
> >> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
> >> your justification embedded in their articles.
> >>
> >> so they force God to design all the
> >>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
> >>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
> >>> of evils in the world.
> >>>
> >> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
> >> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
> >> committed by people acting on their own free will.
> >
> > First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
> > Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
> > suffering has zero roots in human activity.
> >
> > Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
> > God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
> > ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
> >
> What os a BOmbardier geetle?

I seem to recall Behe has a description of it early in _Darwin's Black Box_.
Unfortunately, my copy is back in my university office, and I go there
quite seldom since the pandemic hit.


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

[Peter Nyikos]

Not content with extensively rewriting talk.origins history over
the years, Mark does the same for history of the big outside world below.

On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 6:59:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:

> On 7/24/20 11:17 AM, Bill Esque wrote:
> >> [...]
> > I thought creation ID was strictly based om Genesis and the Bible. The
> > the six arguments were predicated on scientifically based discoveries, I
> > totally did not expect this.

The probable cause of Bill's confusion is that talk.origins is a godforsaken
forum in which the canard that ID is ALL creationism is part of the
propaganda machine that dominates it.

The propaganda readers see below is an extension of that.

> In the beginning, there was Genesis. Over the centuries, there arose
> all sorts of interpretations of it. In the early 1900s, some people
> published a set of tracts titled "The Fundamentals", and Fundamentalism
> was born. Those tracts supported biblical literalism, so some people
> started looking at Genesis differently. It had been established by the
> 19th century that Earth's geology did not admit the possibility of a
> global flood, but Whitcomb and Morris (a theologian and a hydraulic
> engineer) found stuff about geology that they didn't know how to
> explain, and they wrote a book saying that a global flood could explain
> it, and scientific creationism was born. In many places, creationists
> wanted scientific creationism -- showing (they claimed) how science
> supports the Bible

This is all in the prehistory of the intelligent design movement. I am
familiar with "flood science." These fundies put their money on the wrong horse, instead of turning to the kinds of things that the Top Six are all about.
NONE of the six touches on the Biblical flood account AT ALL.

> -- taught as science in public schools, but time
> after time the courts said what they were teaching was a variety of
> religion, and they didn't allow it. So the creationists changed
> tactics.

The good ones like Behe (who never was a creationist in the usual sense) and Meyer and Minnich adopted a different POLICY, putting ID on a firm scientific
basis. Their strategy is not a mechanical tactic like the one Mark
describes below.

> They took a creationist textbook that was already written but
> not yet published and basically did a global substitution of
> "creationism" with "intelligent design." To the church groups they
> spoke to, they called it biblical creationism,

I suspect Mark is lying here. The three I named wouldn't be caught dead calling
ID "biblical creationism".


Concluded in next reply to this post, to be done soon after I see that this
one has appeared.

Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG

This post has a good scientific and historical component,
both highly relevant for the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Mark Isaak]

That's not the problem with fine-tuning. Rather, it's a matter of
understanding a-priori vs. a-posteriori probabilities. What is the
probability that a universe would be configured to allow life to exist,
given that life exists? The ID argument wants you to think that the
probability is extremely small. In fact, it is 100%.

(Actually, it is slightly less than that, but in a way that confounds
the fine-tuning argument further. An omnipotent designer could make
life exist in a universe which was not fine-tuned to support life.
Fine-tuning, then, is evidence *against* a designer -- a very, very weak
bit of evidence, but still in negative column.)

>>>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything
>>>> has been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all
>>>> scientists around the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part
>>>> of a successful theory is that it opens up new horizons to explore.
>>>> In that sense, those six "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of
>>>> the value of evolutionary theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
>>>  >
>>> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
>>
>> I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
> >
> What alternative is there for the six arguments?

Accept what evidence shows (a universe which began about 14 billion
years ago, a planet which began 4.55 billion years ago, life which began
0.5-1 billion years after that and has evolved and diversified since),
and (this is the most important part) say "I don't know" to what we
don't know instead of making up shit.

>>>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
>>>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
>>>> telling other people they are exalting God),
>>>  >
>>> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
>>> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
>>> your justification embedded in their articles.
>>>
>>> so they force God to design all the
>>>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>>>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
>>>> of evils in the world.
>>>>
>>> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
>>> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
>>> committed by people acting on their own free will.
>>
>> First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
>> Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of
>> other suffering has zero roots in human activity.
>>
>> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence
>> of God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
>> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
>>
> What os a BOmbardier geetle?

It would be easier for you look it up than for me to explain. Better
yet, get Thomas Eisner's book _For Love of Insects_, which describes his
work on them and other insects. It's a great book.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 7:49:58 PM UTC-4, Robert Camp wrote:
> On 7/24/20 3:57 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:

[snip extensive rewriting of history by Mark, dealt with in a reply to
the same post to which you are replying, Robert]

> The Wedge helps to underscore the motivations machinations behind a lot
> of this.
>
> https://ncse.ngo/wedge-document

You are way behind the times, approaching the midway point to Rip van Winkle status.

Phillip Johnson pronounced the Wedge Document to be dead, in a "jaw-dropping,"
widely publicized interview. IIRC this was at the University of Berkeley.

Ron Okimoto should know the details, since he told me about them;
but he has ZERO motivation to tell people like you about this interview.
Needless to say, so does Mark.


[snip additional rewriting of history by Mark]

Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG

This post has a historical component,
and is relevant for one of the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 6:59:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:

[snip extensive rewriting of history, dealt with in first reply to
this documentably habitual falsifier of talk.origins history as well]


Picking up where I left off in the first reply:

> but to civil authorities,
> they claimed it stood apart from the Bible and should count as secular
> science. Thus was ID born.

Actually, ID was more firmly born in the writings of ancients, and carried
forward by e.g. Thomas Aquinas.

> (Courts saw through this ruse and would not
> allow it taught in public schools either.)

Mark Isaak is showing his ignorance of legal matters. There is a
constitutional right to teach about it in the public schools.
The Dover decision only affected *compulsion* to teach about it,
and the teaching of it as an ALTERNATIVE to evolution. ID, properly
understood, only teaches it as a SUPPLEMENT to microevolutionary
theory, which is what The Modern Syntheis, a.k.a. neo-Darwinism is all about.

> So yes, the six arguments *are* based on Genesis, in the sense that that
> is their whole reason for existing.

The scientists and historians in the Vatican would LOL if they read this.

"Evolution is more than just a hypothesis"
-- Pope John Paul II, who was a lot more conservative than Pope Francis

> The history above, it should go without saying, is greatly simplified.

"simplified" should read "falsified." I believe most talk.origins regulars,
including Mark himself, know that at least part of Mark's spiel plays
fast and loose with the facts.

> For a history of creationism to about 1990, see Ronald Numbers, _The
> Creationists_. For the origin and early history of Intelligent Design,
> see Barbara Forrest, _Creationism's Trojan Horse_.

I'd give Mark the benefit of the doubt, by remarking that he has been
asleep on this longer than the 20 years of Rip van Winkle, except
for his abysmal track record as regards honesty and sincerity and fairness.

Anyway, it's good to learn about the source of some of the propaganda Mark spews in this thread.

Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG

This post has a scientific and historical component,
and is relevant for some of the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Peter Nyikos]

Mark Isaak continues to show both how little he knows about
scientific reasoning and how much he knows about indulging in
sophomoric fallacies that have been shot down many times.

This is the most intensive week of the six week summer course
I've been teaching. I've got a test to grade, homeworks to grade,
power point presentions to prepare, etc. If Bill Esque thinks
Mark's bilge is worth responding to, I'll gladly join him
by putting my perspective on things.

Also, of course, if Bill replies to my own post of today, on a
different sub-thread, I will very gladly enter into a discussion with Bill.


Peter Nyikos


PS I've not deleted any of Mark's bilge below, just in case someone
wants to check how right I am about it.

[Bill Esque]

I think my question was fair.

>
>
>>>> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
>>>
>>> I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
>> >
>> What alternative is there for the six arguments?
>
> There are others, but these are the ones of which the scientific world
> is most aware. And the one on fine tuning of the physical constants
> is the most spectacular of them.
>
> It compels most normal, rational people to believe either in a designer
> of our observable universe, or an unimaginably titanic multiverse
> of which our observable universe is a vanishingly small fraction...
>

If these other universes cannot be observed or tested, this as I see it's
in no way a scientific hypothesis.
>
.... or to be in a state of suspended judgment between the two.

>
> Strangely enough, most talk.origins regulars seem to opt for the 19th
> century "village atheist" belief that our observable universe
> (or, at best, a possibly infinite direct extension of ours) is everything
> that is or was or can be.
>

I've read there is a mathematical basis for this multiverse. But then we
_know_ of one
universe, therefore, why not other universes? But this does not provide and
evidence for other universes.

>>>
>>>>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
>>>>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
>>>>> telling other people they are exalting God),
>>>>  >
>>>> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
>>>> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
>>>> your justification embedded in their articles.
>>>>
>>>> so they force God to design all the
>>>>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
>>>>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
>>>>> of evils in the world.
>>>>>
>>>> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
>>>> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
>>>> committed by people acting on their own free will.
>>>
>>> First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.
>>> Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
>>> suffering has zero roots in human activity.
>>>
>>> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
>>> God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
>>> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
>>>
>> What os a BOmbardier geetle?
>
> I seem to recall Behe has a description of it early in _Darwin's Black Box_.
> Unfortunately, my copy is back in my university office, and I go there
> quite seldom since the pandemic hit.
>

I researched this insect. It sprays a caustic liquid on attackers in its
defense.

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

--
talk origins

[Peter Nyikos]

> For what it's worth, a fervent apostle for DP is alive and present. The other direction was fine.

I am not especially fervent or apostolic about DP. And I think you know it, and
are exaggerating for effect.


Given the fact that I think life as "lowly" as the simplest free-living
bacterium is AT BEST a once-in-a-galaxy proposition, it follows logically
that the choice between Directed Panspermia (DP) and
"Mother Earth did it (abiogenesis)" is up in the air. Sometimes I lean
in the direction of DP, and sometimes in the other direction.

If we find life in our own solar system outside earth, it could radically
swing the odds in favor of "Mother Earth..." IF that life was fundamentally
different from what we have here (very different genetic code,
no genetic code, no DNA, ...) and is as sophisticated as ours.

OTOH if it is like our life in its biochemistry, nothing could be
concluded and we'd be about as much in the dark as ever as far
as making a choice goes. Only a look at exoplanets over myriads of years
could be expected to resolve the issue then.

> See Peter Nyikos, and good luck.

If Bill sees me, you'll have to wish yourself and your buddies luck,
because of some attempts to rewrite the history of what transpired
between me and professional astronomer Bill Jefferys, who got a good taste of what
my real attitude towards DP is, and had no real criticism of what
he had seen.

You cut a pretty poor figure when that was almost over, and some of your buddies
have been following your lead.

Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG

This post has a deep scientific component,
and is highly relevant for one of the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/27/20 9:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Not content with extensively rewriting talk.origins history over
> the years, Mark does the same for history of the big outside world below.

To anyone new to this group, it might be worth nothing that I have
criticized Peter in the past, causing him to dislike me so much so that
I could now write "2 + 3 = 5", and Peter would accuse me of playing fast
and loose with the truth.

It's the history. Scientific creationism, so-called, started with flood
geology. As William Hyde added, that started with George MacCready
Price, but Whitcomb and Morris took his material (almost entirely
without attribution) and popularized it. Flood geology is still a
mainstay of modern creationism.

>> -- taught as science in public schools, but time
>> after time the courts said what they were teaching was a variety of
>> religion, and they didn't allow it. So the creationists changed
>> tactics.
>
> The good ones like Behe (who never was a creationist in the usual sense) and Meyer and Minnich adopted a different POLICY, putting ID on a firm scientific
> basis. Their strategy is not a mechanical tactic like the one Mark
> describes below.

Behe and Minnich did absolutely nothing to put ID on a scientific basis.
They pretended to, and Nyikos has deluded himself enough to believe
them, but one only needs to look at the science (or lack of it) which
has followed from their work to see that it has no worth. One could
also look at their actual work, which falls apart on inspection and does
not even attempt to address design. That Peter calls Behe "one of the
good ones" shows how utterly bankrupt the rest of the ID program is.

>> They took a creationist textbook that was already written but
>> not yet published and basically did a global substitution of
>> "creationism" with "intelligent design." To the church groups they
>> spoke to, they called it biblical creationism,
>
> I suspect Mark is lying here.

I simplified. They also did a global replace of "creationist" with
"design proponent". Where do you think the phrase "cdesign
proponentists" came from?

> The three I named wouldn't be caught dead calling
> ID "biblical creationism".

Of course not. That would defeat the entire purpose of their work,
which is to make creationism look like not-creationism. But it's no
secret that ID is, in fact, divine creationism dressed up to appear
sciencey.

> Concluded in next reply to this post,

Since I abhor Peter's quirk of breaking up his posts, I'll reply to the
point of that one here.

Peter said ID was born in the writings of the ancients. I agree that
creationism is ancient, but the political movement which goes by the
name "intelligent design" was created in response to prohibitions
against religion in public schools, to make creationism look secular.

No court has accepted this. ID is still creationism. Peter says it is
constitutional to teach it as an alternative. It is not. ID is
religion, and a narrow and far-from-commonly-accepted religious view at
that. Teaching ID in public schools is every bit as legal as teaching
as fact that Mohammed is God's prophet, and for the same reason.

I don't believe courts have weighed in on "teach the controversy" (to
use the common creationist slogan), in which ID is stripped even of its
pretense of design and left only with unanswered problems in biology. I
suspect this is because there is no practical way to make this sound
like creationism (which would be the point of teaching it) without
making it be creationism. And most everyone is agreed that it is
pedagogically out of place.

Again, there are plenty of books about this history. Read up on it
yourself. I have not read it myself, but I have also heard Lauri Lebo's
_The Devil in Dover_ spoken highly of. And there are several good
popular histories of geology that address changing beliefs about earth's
history.

[erik simpson]

Well, I am surprised. I did think you were pretty well convinced of DP. I will
note that I'm not only one who misapprends you on that subject.

[Peter Nyikos]

The answer to your first question, Bill, is negative and may always remain so,
but there may be always be unexplained events in our universe that suggest
the existence of other universes. For example, so-called dark matter,
detectable only gravitationally so far, may actually represent
the influence of another universe on our own.

As to your second question, there has been some speculation about what
the effect of certain changes of the constants might do. Certainly
most of them are, as Astronomer Royal of Britain, Martin Rees, put
it in _Just Six Numbers_. Part of the introduction to that book,
summarizing the profound effect of alteration of those constants,
can be found here:

http://campus.mst.edu/physics/courses/23/handouts/Just6num.pdf

> >>>>> There is *some* validity to parts of the argument: Not everything has
> >>>>> been figured out yet.  (If that were not the case, all scientists
> >>>>> around the world would be unemployed.)  Of course, part of a
> >>>>> successful theory is that it opens up new horizons to explore.  In
> >>>>> that sense, those six "ID" arguments are actually celebrations of the
> >>>>> value of evolutionary theory (and cosmology and biochemistry).
> >
> > Mark Isaak is just showing his ignorance of how far science has
> > progressed and how minuscule our progress has been in the three
> > fields that he lists. I have taken him to task in my reply to him,
> > and his replies are in the "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" category,
> > and not in a nice way.

> I think my question was fair.

It certainly was, and my criticism above was leveled exclusively at Mark.

> >
> >>>> What's one interpretation of the evidence.
> >>>
> >>> I don't understand what exactly you're asking for.
> >> >
> >> What alternative is there for the six arguments?
> >
> > There are others, but these are the ones of which the scientific world
> > is most aware. And the one on fine tuning of the physical constants
> > is the most spectacular of them.
> >
> > It compels most normal, rational people to believe either in a designer
> > of our observable universe, or an unimaginably titanic multiverse
> > of which our observable universe is a vanishingly small fraction...
> >
> If these other universes cannot be observed or tested, this as I see it's
> in no way a scientific hypothesis.

It is a *physical* hypothesis, and perhaps the most important question
of theoretical physics. A lot of theoretical physics could with justice be called "speculative physics." Whether it fits various definitions of science
to be speculating about what might ACTUALLY be true about all physical
possibilites, is almost beside the point.

Here is how Martin Rees put it in his introduction:

These six numbers constitute a `recipe' for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be `untuned', there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator?

I take the view that it is neither. An infinity of other universes may well exist where the numbers are different. Most would be stillborn or sterile. We could only have emerged (and therefore we naturally now find ourselves) in a universe with the `right' combination. This realization offers a radically new
perspective on our universe, on our place in it, and on the nature of physical laws.

> >
> .... or to be in a state of suspended judgment between the two.
> >
> > Strangely enough, most talk.origins regulars seem to opt for the 19th
> > century "village atheist" belief that our observable universe
> > (or, at best, a possibly infinite direct extension of ours) is everything
> > that is or was or can be.
> >
>
> I've read there is a mathematical basis for this multiverse.

Not pure mathematics, just mathematics applied to "speculative physics."

> But then we _know_ of one
> universe, therefore, why not other universes? But this does not provide and
> evidence for other universes.

This, in itself, is not enough, of course.

>
> >>>
> >>>>> Of course, the writers of those articles think that they need to
> >>>>> exalt God (or, a cynic might suggest, that they can raise money by
> >>>>> telling other people they are exalting God),
> >>>>  >
> >>>> So, you think this is the purpose of their arguments. That would be
> >>>> self-serving, if they don't believe what they write. I don't see
> >>>> your justification embedded in their articles.
> >>>>
> >>>> so they force God to design all the
> >>>>> features mentioned in those articles according to their wills,
> >>>>> ignoring the fact that this also makes God the indubitable architect
> >>>>> of evils in the world.
> >>>>>
> >>>> We are not puppets on a string; the evils in the world to a great
> >>>> degree is due to us humans. Rape, murder, stealing etc are evils
> >>>> committed by people acting on their own free will.

And I have seen the evil done by the rampant dishonesty in talk.origins,
and in other forums, especially talk.abortion and alt.abortion in years past.

> >>> First, God (according to creationism) gave us that will to do evil.

Not just creationism, but orthodox Christianity, which says the evil resulting
from exercising that free will is not willed by God, only tolerated.
As Thomas Aquinas put it, part of the glory of God is that he can bring
good out of evil.

> >>> Second, even if you take out the human-caused suffering, plenty of other
> >>> suffering has zero roots in human activity.
> >>>
> >>> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
> >>> God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
> >>> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
> >>>
> >> What os a BOmbardier geetle?
> >
> > I seem to recall Behe has a description of it early in _Darwin's Black Box_.
> > Unfortunately, my copy is back in my university office, and I go there
> > quite seldom since the pandemic hit.
> >
> I researched this insect. It sprays a caustic liquid on attackers in its
> defense.

I think Mark was referring to the suffering of the hosts that harbor the larvae
as ectoparasites. But he neglected to mention what kind of animals the hosts
are. Do you happen to know?

Peter Nyikos
NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG

This post has a strong philosophy of science component,
and is relevant for some topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 11:49:58 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 8:44:57 PM UTC-4, Bill Esque wrote:
> > On 7/27/20 9:57 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 11:24:57 PM UTC-4, Bill Esque wrote:

Something got left out of a paragraph of mine below. I remedy that while
keeping some of the surrounding context.

> > >> The article mentioned infinite or near infinite universes each with its
> > >> own set of laws or constants. but have any of these other universes been
> > >> observed or the constants of any other universe been specified?
>
> The answer to your first question, Bill, is negative and may always remain so,
> but there may be always be unexplained events in our universe that suggest
> the existence of other universes. For example, so-called dark matter,
> detectable only gravitationally so far, may actually represent
> the influence of another universe on our own.
>
> As to your second question, there has been some speculation about what
> the effect of certain changes of the constants might do. Certainly
> most of them are, as Astronomer Royal of Britain, Martin Rees, put
> it in _Just Six Numbers_.

..."stillborn or sterile." Prosaically put, lifeless.

> Part of the introduction to that book,
> summarizing the profound effect of alteration of those constants,
> can be found here:
>
> http://campus.mst.edu/physics/courses/23/handouts/Just6num.pdf

<snip for focus>

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/27/20 8:46 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 8:44:57 PM UTC-4, Bill Esque wrote:
>> On 7/27/20 9:57 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 11:24:57 PM UTC-4, Bill Esque wrote:
>>>> On 7/24/20 7:56 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:

>>>>> [...]

>>>>> Creationists used to cite the bombardier beetle commonly as evidence of
>>>>> God's work.  Bombardier beetles are predators, and as larvae are
>>>>> ectoparasites.  Did God create such death and suffering, or didn't he?
>>>>>
>>>> What os a BOmbardier geetle?
>>>
>>> I seem to recall Behe has a description of it early in _Darwin's Black Box_.
>>> Unfortunately, my copy is back in my university office, and I go there
>>> quite seldom since the pandemic hit.
>>>
>> I researched this insect. It sprays a caustic liquid on attackers in its
>> defense.
>
> I think Mark was referring to the suffering of the hosts that harbor the larvae
> as ectoparasites. But he neglected to mention what kind of animals the hosts
> are. Do you happen to know?

Mainly on pupa of other beetles. And I should have called them
"parasitoid", since they ultimately kill their host.

[Burkhard]

Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 6:59:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
> [snip extensive rewriting of history, dealt with in first reply to
> this documentably habitual falsifier of talk.origins history as well]
>
>
> Picking up where I left off in the first reply:
>
>> but to civil authorities,
>> they claimed it stood apart from the Bible and should count as secular
>> science. Thus was ID born.
>
> Actually, ID was more firmly born in the writings of ancients, and carried
> forward by e.g. Thomas Aquinas.

Well, one can of course always quibble just how far back in history one
looks for precursors of an idea - is Darwin e.g "firmly based" in
Anaximander and Empedocles, or does it make more sense to talk about
theories of evolution only from Paupertious or Leclerc onwards?

There are no right answers as such, and it depends mostly on one's
interest, but Mark's approach has the advantage of being internally
consistent, which I'd say is doubtful for yours. Elsewhere you claim
that it is a distinguishing (from creationism, that is) feature of ID
that it is agnostic towards the issue of whether the designer is natural
or supernatural. Now, unless you think that Aquinas too countenanced a
naturalistic designer (which would be....an odd take) tracing back ID to
him would be a stretch, on your own terms. As I said, where one stops
with precursors for an idea is to a degree arbitrary, but at least it
should be internally consistent

>
>> (Courts saw through this ruse and would not
>> allow it taught in public schools either.)
>
>
> Mark Isaak is showing his ignorance of legal matters.

I'd say it is a reasonably correct statement of what transpired in the
courts. And definitely much more so than your own take, which is all
terribly confused - let's go through it bit by bit:

There is a
> constitutional right to teach about it in the public schools.

It's unclear what you mean with this, partly because you don't say who,
according to you, has this right, partly because you changed Mark's
"taught" to "taught about".

On the latter issue, it might not be unconstitutional to "teach about"
ID in history or other humanities and social science classes, as long as
care is taken not to endorse its content, and limit it to stating the
fact that that's what some folks believe (so also Edwards v Aguillard
But as Mark did not say "teach about", this point is moot.

On the first issue, the only way in which what you say is not plain
wrong is if you meant it as an enumerated powers/state rights argument.
It then would be a right (more accurate,in Hohfeldian terms, a power) of
state legislators or, in some states by way of delegation, school
boards or similar agencies that have the power to determine the
curriculum. And it would not be a constitutional right to teach ID, but
a right to determine curriculum content, a small but legally important
difference when it comes to things like standing etc.

In that sense, one might say that there is be a constitutional right of
state legislators, not to teach ID as you put it, but to require the
teaching of ID in school curricula - provided, arguendo, a form that's
compliant with the constitution could be found. That's also in line with
the "directly and sharply" test in Epperson v. Arkansas i

So if with "constitutional right to teach ID", you really meant "power
of states under the constitution to determine school curricula, as long
as Amendment rights or federal criminal laws are not affected", it is
sort of true, if trivial. It would not be specific to ID, but in that
sense be the same constitutional right that allows in principle state
legislators to require to teach that 2+2=5, phrenology, Lamarkism, that
the US is a monarchy and the 2. Amendment outlaws private possession of
weapons, that Japan won WW2, that slavery was a good thing (Arkansas
only) or that the Andes are a mountain range in Scotland. I.e. as
setting the school curriculum is not an enumerated power of the federal
government (though they can influence it to a degree through the
spending power of course), nor is the right to a sound education an
enumerated or implied right under the Bill of Rights, states and their
delegated organs have broad powers to put into the curriculum whatever
they like if they so chose (and are willing to pay the political price)

> The Dover decision only affected *compulsion* to teach about it,

Eh, no. "Compulsion to teach" played no role in Dover. That was the
issue in Scopes, and, much later and with reversed roles, cases such as
Webster v. New Lenox School District. "Compulsion to teach" cases are
cases brought by teachers, who claim a right of theirs (typically but
not always free speech) is infringed, or cases against laws that try to
give them such a right. There have been several attempts by teachers and
state legislators to use this approach to get ID or creationism int the
curriculum, or evolution out of it, they all failed in court.

Dover was not about the right of teachers, but the right of students,
the compulsion is the compulsion to attend the classes, not compulsion
to teach. And "Compulsion" matters for that case only for the question
of standing, (the analysis of which would be different if it were an
extra-curricular and entirely voluntary activity) nd has nothing to do
with the substance of the case

> and the teaching of it as an ALTERNATIVE to evolution. ID, properly
> understood, only teaches it as a SUPPLEMENT to microevolutionary
> theory, which is what The Modern Syntheis, a.k.a. neo-Darwinism is all about.

"Properly understood" here means "the way Peter and only he would like
it to be understood, even though no school board, ever, suggested to
teach it like this"

On the legal side, this is still rather confused. Dover is a District
Court decision. District Court cases are always fact-specific (one of
the reasons they don't set binding precedents.)

I simply guess with "supplement" or "alternative" you mean teaching
that the ToE is mostly true, but incomplete and there were in the
historical past intervention events by an intelligent agency. As this
was not what the School Board proposed, the court did not opine on it.

So the only thing you could say is that in your personal opinion,
changing how ID would be taught in that way makes a material difference
that would allow a future judge to distinguish Dover (not that that
would be strictly necessary, as Dover is only persuasive, not binding).
It is not something you find expressed in the decision as an obiter, or
as an implication of the reasoning of the court, it is at this point
merely your speculation based on the inevitable absence of an explicit
rejection in Dover

Absent litigated cases, inevitably this is speculative either way. But
if anything, I'd say Dover indicates the opposite. That is, merely
changing the role of the designer to occasional meddling, while leaving
it open if it is a natural or supernatural, would not be enough to
disentangle the state from matters religious.

Two reasons.

First, it would then be part of the science curriculum to say that at
least, "supernatural agency is consistent with the design theory" (as
the designer may be natural, or may be supernatural) But that is of
course what theistic evolutionists say already. And deists. And all
religions that have deities, but not creator deities, etc etc. So if
merely "being consistent with" science is sufficient to be taught in
science class, all these (and of course our old friend, the Spaghetti
monster) have at least an equal right to be taught in biology - and
indeed not teaching them would be a violation of their 1. Amendment
rights. All of that discussion would have to be scrupulously
non-partisan, or fall foul of Epperson v Arkansas. I can't see a court
opening that can of worms - it would turn science classes into a
battlefield of competing religious communities, the very thing the 1.
tries to avoid. And what is suggested here on supernatural intervention
would go beyond even what was Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of
Education.

Second, in that form at least it would still fall short of the
testability requirements of both Dover and the entanglement test in
Edwards. That is, simply saying "We just have no clue who the designer
is" is simply not good enough to prevent entanglement with religion and
serve a legitimate secular purpose. For this testable theories about the
designer are needed - at the very least as a roadmap on how to develop
such tests in the future, and an identifiable academic research
programme that pursues this question. Otherwise, the "designer" would be
treated differently from any other design inference we make in science,
without offering a secular explanation for this disparity.

>
>
>> So yes, the six arguments *are* based on Genesis, in the sense that that
>> is their whole reason for existing.
>
> The scientists and historians in the Vatican would LOL if they read this.
>
> "Evolution is more than just a hypothesis"
> -- Pope John Paul II, who was a lot more conservative than Pope Francis

There is no conflict with what Mark said that I could see. He isn't
saying belief in Genesis is sufficient for the six arguments, only that
it is necessary.

[Burkhard]

I'd hedge that just a bit more - after all ID is not trademarked, so if
a position is called ID, or calls itself ID, does not tell you a lot
about what it actually does.

That is, I think it would be possible to propose a form of ID that would
pass the constitutionality test. It's not something any of its
proponents ever publicly suggested, but as a matter of law it is
conceivable.

It would simply have to nail its colours to the mast and explicitly
endorse a natural designer - e.g. space alien type of DP. AND it would
need to suggest some ways to find out about the designer that follow
normal scientific practice in archeology etc - maybe put in a lot of
SETI stuff.

The result would likely be terribly bad, scientifically speaking- but
the constitution doesn't give the right to a good science education, or
any science education for that matter.

Of course nobody wants this, so it's not going to happen, It would also
face a massive opposition from religious folks across the spectrum -
occasionally meddling space aliens are more difficult to accommodate
than anything the ToE proposes ("we saw god, and they had green
tentacles") But it would pass the legal test I'd say, unless there were
direct evidence (in the form of minutes etc) that the proponent of that
idea do not really believe themselves in aliens and see it as a, however
misguided, attempt to get religion into science. But even in that case
there'd be some legal uncertainty on how much courts are willing to
probe the secondary and unstated motives of legislators. (they've become
more willing recently, but that may not last)

[Burkhard]

That depends a bit on what you mean with "tested" At lest some MV
theories are the implications of other theories that can be (and have
been) tested. That provides then indirect support (and also some direct
support, as the question which theory takes precedent, and in which
direction the implication runs, is sometimes more a question of
historical accident than a systematic issue.

To use a really simple analogy - imagine you investigate a murder scene.
Based on evidence A, B and C (say a fingerprint, a knife, a witness
statement) you form a mini theory x: X did it.

But of course, with that insight you also get a couple of other things
"for free", e.g. that there is now also one person, Y, who is the
greatgrandfather of a murderer (well, 4 of them, but you get what I mean)

Y is probably long dead. He will not have had any physical interaction
with the crime scene himself etc etc. But form your theory X, together
with some other things you have reasons to believe (i.e. that people
have a father etc) you can infer that such a person probably existed.

Of course, this now all depends on your theory x. If on closer
inspection, it turns out that there was no murder after all, just a
weird accident not involving third parties, also your belief in Y
(defined as a "grandfather of a murderer") falls. Or, more exotically,
we may learn that there are fatherless children (mad scientists with DNA
editor etc). In that case even if x is true, it does not any longer lend
support to Y.

Now this is arguably a gross oversimplification, but it shows how
"testable" can become a complex concept, depending on the logical
relations between theories. But my understanding is that MV is a
mathematical implication of other, confirmed theories. That gives room
for disagreements - some scientists consider the link too weak, others
just sufficient. My own guess (and my knowledge of physics is really
really limited, so this is first principle more than deep understanding
of these theories) is that "time will tell": Theories aren't 'Born
complete", they evolve over time. One reason to give up on a concept is
that even though it is not refuted by tests, it has proved infertile -
it did not lead to new discoveries, observations, or theoretical
insights. In this case they tend to get quietly dropped, not because of
a "this is false" but a "so what", and that can happen even to
comparatively well confirmed concepts (I'd say the ToE was heading that
way, before the new synthesis cane along)

[jillery]

On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 7:49:58 PM UTC-4, Robert Camp wrote:
>> On 7/24/20 3:57 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>[snip extensive rewriting of history by Mark, dealt with in a reply to
>the same post to which you are replying, Robert]
>
>> The Wedge helps to underscore the motivations machinations behind a lot
>> of this.
>>
>> https://ncse.ngo/wedge-document
>
>You are way behind the times, approaching the midway point to Rip van Winkle status.
>
>Phillip Johnson pronounced the Wedge Document to be dead, in a "jaw-dropping,"
>widely publicized interview. IIRC this was at the University of Berkeley.
>
>Ron Okimoto should know the details, since he told me about them;
>but he has ZERO motivation to tell people like you about this interview.
>Needless to say, so does Mark.

You *still* can't read minds, no matter how many times you pretend
that you can. That makes your comments above lies[1].

>[snip additional rewriting of history by Mark]
>
>
>Peter Nyikos
>NEW VIRTUAL FOUR LINE .SIG
>This post has a historical component,
>and is relevant for one of the topics for which talk.origins was set up.

[1] The persona named peter's personal definition of "lie":
***********************
<7eeaa862-e4bb-4617...@googlegroups.com>
On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 17:54:36 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

I classify as a lie any statement that the utterer has absolutely no
reason to think is true, but is done to intensely denigrate the person
about whom it is uttered.
************************

[jillery]

His hypothesis based on a presumption of fact that simple life is a
"once in a galaxy proposition" is based on almost complete ignorance.
Nobody, and especially not him, knows how many planets host simple
life. The most he can claim is we know of only one instance, which is
a very different fact.

His claim that Bill Jefferys "had no real criticism" is at best an
equivocation based on what Bill Jefferys did not say. OTOH what Bill
Jefferys did say is quite critical of DP and his representation of it,
which makes his claim a lie[1].

That he authored and posted DP FAQs, and spammed about Crick's
self-described speculations, and raises the subject of ID whenever ID
is discussed, shows he is far more "fervent and apostolic" than he
claims above. To the contrary, it suggests he is downright
evangelical.

Your apprehension is well-founded, and his claim of DP ambivalence is
actually a tacit admission that all of his comments about DP are at
best the spoor of a long-running troll. I am surprised you accept his
weasel words so willingly.

[jillery]

Your comments above are factually incorrect. Whatever dark matter is,
its effects are reasonably defined and observed throughout the
universe. Any influence from "another universe" would be directional,
and so can't account for the effects of dark matter.

[jillery]

What you said. WRT your final sentence, I recommend "The Rocks Don't
Lie" by David Montgomery. It was copyrighted in 2012, so you may have
read it already. It's as much about the history of myths and
fantasies created to explain the natural world, as it is about the
science of geology.