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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
 Posted - 04/18/2008 : 10:38:36 AM
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I see Darwinisim as just another attempt my men to worship themselves
For me it results in the opposite. I think humanity needs to get over ourselves and evolutionary biology presents a nice check to our egos. Biochemically we are no different from any other life on Earth and in terms of consiousness our difference with other animals is one of degree rather than kind.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 10:46:18 AM
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A lie is a lie and the film is full of distortions and lies. I don't care what philosophy one holds it gives no excuse for lying. Scratch the surface of this film and it's worse than anything Michael Moore cooked up. That's what gets me. I do believe in objective truth, I'm no post-modernist and by anyone who values fairplay whatsoever if you looks at what the film does and see what truly lies behiond the distortions how can one not see what a travesty it is? It's almost Leninesque.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 11:18:13 AM
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EricB, thanks for the TalkOrigins link. However, the items mentioned suffer from the Devil is in details. For instance, number 19 states that transpons, which according to the statement do nothing, are found in the same spot in different species and therefore show common descent to be true. The problem is that research done in 2001 showed that transpons can show up in the same place without the organisms being related. Also, given the changing view of how DNA works, it is likely that someone will find that transpons have some use that we haven't discovered yet. What happens, is when you start looking at the details of the assertions, you find the evidence is far from conclusive for macro-evolution.
[url]http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/abstract/158/2/769[/url]
This leads to the second part of your critique that ID isn't science. In some ways you are right. It's more of a paradigm the same way that Darwinism is more of a paradigm than science. It doesn't mean that we have nothing to learn. A paradigm that says we are created to some extent or another is going to create a different outlook than one that says we just happened by chance. The latter outlook results in scientists accepting a theory that DNA is mostly junk when in fact most of it appears to do a lot more than we expected. How long was science delayed by a faulty assumption, we are chance, instead of assuming everything serves a purpose and trying to discover that purpose?
Paul, Mike Gene runs a good site. His theory on front-loading is interesting. I always find it amusing that Darwinists pop-up and accuse him of being a Creationist, which he isn't.
Information theory kills Darwinism. Information, DNA, is what creates you. We have no known mechanism for creating information from non-information. The famous monkeys on a typewriter example is ridiculously improbable. So, even if one were to accept common descent and that we all evolved from a single cell, that cell has to have information. Where did that information come from? A single bacteria cell is more complex than anything we have ever created.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
Edited by - Terrahawk on 04/18/2008 11:19:11 AM |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 11:53:35 AM
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Terr, I'm not an expert on Information Theory and what I read about makes my head spin, though I have read critiques of ID uses of the theory.I'm not versed enough in it to really say much about it. To put the dicussion on a more practical level with a subject I'm more familiar with to show the problems I have with ID. So, on to paleontology:
From the Permain period to the end of the Triassic period we have a fairly good record of the evolution of basal syapsids thought to therapsids and finally to mammals (the first two groups are often refered to as "mammal-like reptiles" this term is no longer used as these early proto-mammals aren't closely related to current reptiles) a period of about 90 million years. Now, this evolution occured over a number of different changes in climate and geology and through the largest mass extinction ever at the end of the Permian. All through the Permian these animals were the dominant terrestial fauna and though they received a body blow from the end Permian extinction they were still the dominant animals in the early Triassic. However as the Triassic rolled along they became smaller and less numerous as they lost out to the archosaurs, a group that eventually included the dinosaurs. The therapsids got smaller and smaller and eventually were probably restricted to a nocturnal existence, a niche they would be stuck with until the end of the dinosaurs. Now this story makes a great deal of sense if one looks at it as an evolution through natural selection, a once dominant group losses out as the environment changes to another group that is better adapted. Eventually they are stuck with a tiny ecological niche until they next time there is a huge change and then they take over again. So here's my problem, how would an IDer relate this narrative using their theory? It's all in the fossil record. I've never heard any try. I'm just curous.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 1:26:46 PM
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I don't think an IDer would find this narrative disturbing at all. ID doesn't dispute natural selection and mutation which is what you described. ID disputes that NS and mutation are sufficient to explain things like DNA, eyesight, gender, the Cambrian explosion, new body structures (wings, etc), etc. A smaller creature is still the same creature just the same as a dalmation and a terrier are still dogs. But, you can't breed dogs to end up with dogs that fly. The information isn't in their DNA for wings. Even more importantly, even if you could end up with a dog with wings, the rest of the body type probably wouldn't work, and there wouldn't be the software (brain configuration) to allow the dog to use the wings. Think of it as adding a new video card to your computer. You can have a video card but if you don't have a monitor it's worthless. It's also worthless if you don't have the software to run the video card.
Thanks for the discussion EricB.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 1:59:09 PM
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But, you can't breed dogs to end up with dogs that fly. The information isn't in their DNA for wings. Even more importantly, even if you could end up with a dog with wings, the rest of the body type probably wouldn't work, and there wouldn't be the software (brain configuration) to allow the dog to use the wings.
That's just the thing Terrahawk, you don't need to add information for a dog to fly, you just have to modify preexisting information with mutations of hox genes and what not and given the right environmental circumstances and enough time they could evolve to fly. There are four examples in history of life of animals that developed the ability of powered flight and in none of these cases was it necessary to develope a new structure from scratch. I'm sure you've read about fruit fly experiments where they fiddle with the genes and made their antenna come out as legs. Insect wings are merely that, modified legs. What in a lobster or millipede would come out as a leg comes out in a fly as a wing because of mutations over time manipulated by natural selection.
In the case of vertebrates there have been three flying animals, pterasaurs, birds and bats. All three use modified front limbs to fly. What's interesting is that these three have modified their front limbs in completely different ways. Pterasaurs used their last digit as the scaffolding to hold a flap of skin, bats use their entire set of digits as the scaffolding while birds have lost their digits entirely and rely the their feathers for uplift. None of these cases require that the animal add any information to their dna or add brain activity to use any new information.
I'm not an geneticist, but I do know that there is much more than random mutation of jsut dna involved with evolution. There's a reason that evolution when into overdrive (comparatively speaking) with the invention of sex. Sex increases the possibility fo variation which serves as the enging of evolution. Sure there are plenty of unawsered question but that brings what I was trying to show with my post on the Permian. I used that example as a way to show how natural selection is a good theoy because it is the theory that best explains what we see in the fossil record. Is it perfect? Does it anwer all the questions? Of course not but it is the best theory we have at the moment and until a better one comes along we're kind of stuck with it. What an IDist should do is write a book on the history of life as we now know it through the fossil record using ID as its engine of major change giving convincing reasons why it explains what we see better than natural selection. That's probably what it would take to make me support ID.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 2:05:20 PM
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Oh, and thanks for the discussion as well. As you can probably tell, I love this stuff.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Paul LoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 2:09:02 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Terrahawk
But, you can't breed dogs to end up with dogs that fly.
I could have if it weren't for those meddling kids...
"...What are you people doing in my corpse hatch?" |
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 2:26:33 PM
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From everything I've read it sounds like this movie is just Michael Moore-style propaganda made by and for the same people who would under any other circumstances denounce a film like this for its questionable tactics.
Frankly, I'd suggest anyone who wants to watch a documentary on this topic go watch A FLOCK OF DODOS. That film makes no bones about it favoring evolution over ID but it's fairly even handed and actually tried to deal with these wacky things called facts.
Now Playing in Foyeurism at Foywonder.com: NEVER BACK DOWN - Much like the martial arts, the film's messages are also mixed
Plus: B-WARE THE BLOG is alive at http://www.livejournal.com/users/foywonder |
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Asta Kask
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Sweden
263 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 2:33:47 PM
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Originally posted by Terrahawk
Information theory kills Darwinism. Information, DNA, is what creates you. We have no known mechanism for creating information from non-information.
Yes, we do. In the article "Strange Attractors, Chaotic Behavior, and Information Flow" (1978), Robert Shaw describes how information can be generated from chaotic systems. Natural selection then weeds out the many, many combinations that don't work.
It is true that the cell is extremely complex. But it took three billion years to evolve. People sometimes forget that three fourths of the time life spent on earth was as unicellular (or precellular.)
Microevolution vs. Macroevolution. Scientific consensus is that macroevolution is the conserted effects of microevolution, over a very, very, very long time. People have a hard time grasping the masses of time involved. They speak of the "Cambrian Explosion" as a single moment, but it actually took about 60-80 million years. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs walked the earth.
Now, to the question about interesting research about ID. There is none, and here's why. ID is essentially a non-solution. What it says is that "life is so complex it must have been designed." The problem is that the designer must then have been even more complex. So he must have been designed by an even more complex designer. And so on ad infinitum. The only way out of this is to postulate a supernatural designer (which is, for instance, Michael Behe's suggestion.) A supernatural designer is by definition outside the realm of science.
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Originally posted by Paul LoJ
If we discover an ingenious virus or bacteria bearing signs of been an engineered bioweapon, would that be the end of scientific inquiry about the organism?
Finding such a lifeform, I would like to know what the starting materials were, what the blueprint was, how much was put together & how much was evolved from there, whether & how the design was front-loaded into a "seed" organism, and especially, whether the design-injection or front-loading technique can be reverse-engineered and appropriated elsewhere.
If the designer had to be supernatural it would be the end of scientific inquiry. A supernatural designer is not limited by natural laws, so there's no way to test any hypotheses about him (or her.) There's no way to disprove, for instance, that the ID created the universe five seconds ago, complete with memories and everything.
The introduction of ID into the science curriculum would be the end of science. Michael Behe stated - under oath! - that any definition of science broad enough to admit ID would also admit Astrology and Ufology. I don't think ID belongs in the science class, and I don't think that Astrology or Ufology belongs there. Call me a curmudgeon, but that's my point of view.
- Who is John Galt? - |
Edited by - Asta Kask on 04/18/2008 2:35:40 PM |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 2:39:18 PM
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Evolution has no answers for human kind.
Flange, I usually say that there is no moral message in evolutionary theory, it simply explains why the natural world is the way it is, but, peronally speaking, I do get a moral from the history of life, and it's this: "The meek shall inherit the Earth." It kind of goes against the sterotype of "survival of the fitest" and all that but there is much more to the history of life than that. There has been a cycle repeated many times of dominant groups of life being wiped out by mass extinctions and what were once the little guys hiding in the shadows of giants taking over the world. So if you're a big and tough gorgonopsid or tyannosaur you may be tough now but eventually that little creature cowering behind the bush is going to take over from you. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
It often works in human history too.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Asta Kask
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Sweden
263 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 04:41:32 AM
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Originally posted by Flangepart
I'll be up front. Evolution has no answers for human kind.
I'll have to take issue with that. It may not be the answers you want, or the answers to the questions you want answered, but it certainly has answers.
For instance, the Theory of Evolution has sparked a lot of interesting research on morality. Even if the theory turns out to be wrong (and it will take a lot for that to happen), it has generated useful results.
Also, I would like to question the reasoning here. The Theory of Evolution has nothing to say about morality, so let's jettison it? What about the Theory of Relativity, or Quantum Electrodynamics, or Thermodynamics? They have precious little to say about morality...
Anyway, I'm sorry if I set of a flame thread here. I suggest that further discussion be moved to a more appropriate forum, like TalkOrigins or Richardawkins.net.
- Who is John Galt? - |
Edited by - Asta Kask on 04/19/2008 04:42:17 AM |
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throughthelookingglass
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
47 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 11:24:34 AM
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My 2 cents
Without getting into the details of evolution or ID, I think it's good to have people questioning established scientific wisdom, even if that scientific wisdom turns out to be correct. That's what science is all about, continually questioning everything.
If it turns out that Ben Stein's movie is full of lies, distorted facts, and shoddy journalism, that's a shame, but the overall idea remains a useful one. |
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Maxtype
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 3:02:03 PM
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MY .02 cents? You guys lost me at about the third post-over this country boy's head.
However,I applaud you all for debating in such a civil and courteous manner! Makes me proud to associate with this Site! :D
This final mission will decide the fate of the human race.This is Operation:Final War |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 5:42:47 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Asta Kask
Yes, we do. In the article "Strange Attractors, Chaotic Behavior, and Information Flow" (1978), Robert Shaw describes how information can be generated from chaotic systems. Natural selection then weeds out the many, many combinations that don't work.
In the end Shaw's theory comes down to that you get complex, unpredictable behavior from simple rules interacting with one another. However, that doesn't explain how you get a coherent DNA strand that interacts with the necessary biological components to create a self-replicating cell. Constantly run a magnet over your HD and no matter how long you try, you will never end up with the Gettysburg Address unless it was there to start with. Information Theory is all about limiting chaos (or random/additional factors) because chaos disrupts useful creation and transmission of data. Although it may seem like it sometimes, Microsoft doesn't try to create operating systems that allow chaos.
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It is true that the cell is extremely complex. But it took three billion years to evolve. People sometimes forget that three fourths of the time life spent on earth was as unicellular (or precellular.)
Time doesn't matter it the process is inherently impossible. Hoyle's tornado and 737 illustration comes to mind. That's why Hoyle proposed life starting somewhere else.
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Microevolution vs. Macroevolution. Scientific consensus is that macroevolution is the conserted effects of microevolution, over a very, very, very long time. People have a hard time grasping the masses of time involved. They speak of the "Cambrian Explosion" as a single moment, but it actually took about 60-80 million years. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs walked the earth.
The problem with it is that whole new species appear without any predecessors. That's why Gould proposed his theory of punctuated equilibrium.
quote:
Now, to the question about interesting research about ID. There is none, and here's why. ID is essentially a non-solution. What it says is that "life is so complex it must have been designed." The problem is that the designer must then have been even more complex. So he must have been designed by an even more complex designer. And so on ad infinitum. The only way out of this is to postulate a supernatural designer (which is, for instance, Michael Behe's suggestion.) A supernatural designer is by definition outside the realm of science.
This is where the discussion delves into a comparison of worldviews. What you are describing is a materialistic (i.e. material is all there is) worldview which in the end is self-refuting.
Let me just conclude by saying that allowing that someone, supernatural or not, created us as some point in time is not going to bring science to a halt. It was moving along quite well before evolution popped up.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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