Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Man Behind the Curtain: Evolutionists React to The Voyage

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Nothing exposes the failure of a dogma more than the propaganda it hides behind. Pathetic ideas cannot stand the light of day. They run from open inquiry and call everyone a liar. Evolution is pathetic–not because it is a religiously motivated idea with little scientific support, but because of its deceitful cover up. It makes religious proclamations and then points the finger at others. It is scientifically absurd yet it claims to be a fact. And when probed, watch out.

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Comments
I've decided to stop posting on this thread and this forum. It's the nature of this type of "discussion" between entrenched positions to sometimes turn negative, bordering on hostile. I point a finger back at myself when I say that, but either way it's something I shouldn't engage in. I encourage those who know how to keep a discussion civil and constructive to do so, and not be swayed when lesser people try to hijack the debate for the amusement of provoking a reaction. As for the those, perhaps you serve some useful purpose in your real lives and this is just your ugly side, one of which we all have. Personally, I shouldn't be taking time from other pursuits to engage in this, and I don't feel good after arguing that much. I'm describing mostly myself, not this forum. I think UD is great, and I'll continue to read it. But if I'm tempted to open my mouth I'll have to ask Clive to ban me. (Sorry for interrupting this thread with my irrelevant personal statement.)ScottAndrews
July 1, 2009
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Actually, most of our thoughts relate reasonably well to reality...
That can't even survive Descartes' evil demon, which in turn has nothing on a mind constructed by random chance.Phinehas
June 30, 2009
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Sorry. Italicized quotes above from Shazard.iconofid
June 30, 2009
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iconofid, and who cares WHO is designer, if we are talking about design detection, not designer detection… That would be field of forenzics, which comes into play, when it is clear, that the event is not accident, but by-design… My point was that we don't know what unknown designers would or wouldn't design. Here is question? If I can’t find or proove identity of creator of my Car, does that prooves, that Car is not designed and result of chance and selection But you know your car was designed by members of your own species, and you understand what it's for, so of course you know it to be designed. What is a slug for? What is a blade of grass for? What are bacteria and cacti for? And final question, can YOU detect design? How? What if identity of designer is beyond your reach? I can detect design with reasonable accuracy if it's by known creatures from within our biosphere. I have never detected design from creatures who are not one of earth's life forms, so I cannot assess my ability to do this. Have you? If Seti detects a patterned message from an intelligent alien, then you can be absolutely sure that that alien will be dependent on the pre-existence of "FSCI", just like all known intelligent designers. This is iconofid's law!iconofid
June 30, 2009
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iconofid, and who cares WHO is designer, if we are talking about design detection, not designer detection... That would be field of forenzics, which comes into play, when it is clear, that the event is not accident, but by-design... So do not mix different fields of science. ID does design detection, and formal methods of such are being investigated as we speak, now... mathematical models etc. Coz, nobody till today haven't thought about design detection automation. Modern ID comes with this idea, and Seti@Home is one example of real implementation of such design detector... which as I sayed is very baby of what is really expceted and needed. And question of "Who designed it" and "Is the stuff designed" are very very different questions. The second one is formalisable and scientifically proovable, as ID claims. The first one question is... well... field of theology, forensics and some kind of cosmic antroplogy. Here is question? If I can't find or proove identity of creator of my Car, does that prooves, that Car is not designed and result of chance and selection? Another question for you, would you like to have DDS when we will send probes into Space? Would such detector be good to have on board? And final question, can YOU detect design? How? What if identity of designer is beyond your reach?Shazard
June 30, 2009
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Shazard: Wait wait… ID has how much… 10-20 years in hostile environment, and you allready want design-detection device on your table... I.D. is ancient, under various names, and you could date the modern version from William Paley, 207 years ago, when, far from being in a hostile environment, it was the prevailing view. 207 years, and we still don't know who the designers are, making it impossible to tell what they design. They might like bare rocks, not messy life, so the extinction events of the past might be your best evidence for their presence and their attempts at "design". :)iconofid
June 30, 2009
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ScottAndrews: This is exactly the uncertainty I’m thinking of: Was it mutation, recombinance, or a combination of the two? If we don’t know that, can we be certain that it was either? It’s not particularly scientific to point to a host of causes, none of which has been observed to effect macroevolutionary changes, and say that some of them did it. We’re not sure which ones, or how, but it’s in there somewhere. That’s not scientific. We can be pretty sure that mutation and recombination played a major role, because we can observe them changing the frequency of alleles in organisms that sexually reproduce. It's constant. And science, remember, especially historical science, is meant to be tentative in principle, so it certainly is scientific. I know that creationists always make this big deal about "macroevolution", because, by definition, it cannot be directly observed (or if it could be, it would just look like microevolution, so arguably it can be observed). But if I ask you to quantify how many mutations can become fixed across a population group, what would you say? What's the limit? One thing about macroevolution, we have obvious recent ancestors for many animals in the fossil record, and in many cases it's hard to distinguish whether we would consider the change between the two "macro" or "micro". If someone expressed incredulity at naturalistic evolution by mutation and selection producing birds, I'd find it odd, as flight has occured a number of times, and we have examples of convergent intermediates in the gliding animals, including at least one insect and one reptile that can glide without wings, or half-wings. Flying, like swimming and walking, seems inevitable in this planet's environment. However, you must agree with my main point; that the details of natural history are more a practical problem (more fossils needed, more and better understanding of molecular data, etc.) than a theoretical one. Natural history is a constant ongoing 4 dimensional jigsaw puzzle that our descendants will be working on for centuries. But I think that the debate over early bird evolution may be largely resolved over the next decade or two, because fossils of all creatures are coming up at an ever increasing rate.iconofid
June 30, 2009
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190 Echidna-Levy Wait wait... ID has how much... 10-20 years in hostile environment, and you allready want design-detection device on your table. Whats wrong with one in your head? Have you better design-detection system for now? It is evolution which suppose to have 150 years of existence, and still haven't producet a single usable and re-usable technology, nor even any mathematical model of evolution. ID has some mathematical formulas, refer to Dembsky... Again - special pledging - if ID can't do or explain something in ten years where Evolutn can't explain it in 150 years, then screw ID :) Why? Evolution had it's time and chance... Now let other alternatives do their work, and ask the question in 150 years... I am sure you will get your DDS (Design Detection System)... Which by the way is very usefull technology if we plan send some SETI@Home like devices to seek for life and Intelligence in space. And yes... BTW - SETI@Home is ID at work... very specific, but actuall particular Design Detection System build as parallel computer... Very brief, cheap dirti and nuclear device, but wait... ID had only ten years to be. Well Evolution seems to be famous with 100% incorrect predictions... and flagman of them is Junk DNA :)Shazard
June 30, 2009
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As I sign off, I'll mention that after over twenty-four hours and more of the usual derisive tone, Echidna-Levy has yet to tell us which mechanisms or selective pressures resulted in bird evolution. If evolutionary theory doesn't explain evolution, what does it explain? Don't let the superior tone fool you - EL is speaking from a position of weakness.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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Guys, is there mathematical model of evolution. If it is fact, then we should have mathematical model. Which means, we would have mathematical model of system able to produce protein synthesis schemas. It is amazing technology, why Does darwinists hide the papers of this magnitude? Let's implement this process in computers, and tomorrow it should produce very meny nanoscale machines... or subsystems of unimaginable complexity - echolocator like bats, vision lik eagle, navigational systems like birds... Common stop wasting time describing facts, lets yoke the facts into mathematics, and computers and let the evolution produce something usefull for us! What about ID... well it is working allready, ID is everywhere, actually honestly I am using device explainable by ID to post this message, this device can't be explained by evolution, but by ID - eazely! So...Shazard
June 30, 2009
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Echidna-Levy: Crop circles are like sandpiles. To ask where a crop circle came from is like asking why the sandpile collapsed when it did.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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Clive
The special pleading is obvious, why you think special pleading is okay, and that your system doesn’t defeat itself, is a different question.
Please go on, I'm interested to see where you are going with this.Echidna-Levy
June 30, 2009
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Jehu
After all, I don’t know how crop circles are made but I know that they are designed.
How wonderful! Could I see ID in action then? You "know" they are designed, but can you "prove" they are designed? It has been repeated over and over in this thread alone that ID is science, and ID can detect design. Would it be possible for somebody here to run an example of the Explanatory Filter on a given crop circle? Furthermore, would it be possible for somebody here to put a value on the CSI or FSCI of a given crop circle? If ID has a methodology then can it please be applied to crop circles? Or has it been a bluff all along? I will be glad to pick a particular crop circle if required.Echidna-Levy
June 30, 2009
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David Kellogg:
And the explanatory power of ID is . . . ?
I suspect you're only feigning ignorance of ID. Either way, what point is your ignorance supposed to prove? After over a hundred years, evolutionary theory has nothing to show except 'It evolved. We don't know how or why, and we're pretty light on any other specifics.' Then it takes credit for scientific advances that didn't require it. It's one thing to be ignorant. No one knows everything. But it takes a remarkable person to wear it like a feather in his cap and show it off.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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iconfid: This is exactly the uncertainty I'm thinking of:
There are actually quite a few mechanisms of variation, but mainly mutation and recombination.
Was it mutation, recombinance, or a combination of the two? If we don't know that, can we be certain that it was either? It's not particularly scientific to point to a host of causes, none of which has been observed to effect macroevolutionary changes, and say that some of them did it. We're not sure which ones, or how, but it's in there somewhere. That's not scientific.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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Clive Hayden: ....and including our thoughts, which means they have no relation to truth, anymore than a sandpile falling does.. Don't underestimate the quality of your thoughts, Clive. :) Actually, most of our thoughts relate reasonably well to reality, although there are exceptions, like the traditional way we have of making up supernatural explanations for things we don't fully understand. However, the ability to discover things about our world is certainly advantageous, and we all descend from a long line of organisms who were more likely to survive the more accurate they were at figuring out local reality. Get beyond that, and it can often be counter-intuitive, but it's because of general talents like observation, calculation, deduction and induction that we can slowly claw our way forward in understanding the world. These talents, along with the tendency to teach each other things, would have been advantageous to our ancestors, so I don't think you should swallow that Alvin Plantinga stuff about naturalistic minds being useless. Evolved minds are not perfect, though, it's accurate to say.iconofid
June 30, 2009
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David Kellogg, ------"A little science from the ID side please? Just a teensy-tiny bit? Pretty please?" A little sense from the anti-ID side, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top?Clive Hayden
June 30, 2009
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David Kellogg, ------"ID can’t answer any question. It takes any incomplete or partial answer as “I don’t know” = design!" Now you know this isn't true David. At least, I hope you know that. ID is a conclusion of things known, not a conclusion without premises, like naturalism is.Clive Hayden
June 30, 2009
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Echidna, ------"Rirds could have evolved. As it turned out in this universe, birds evolved instead. If the tape of evolution was rewound it’s unlikely things would play out in exactly the same way. Asking why birds evolved is aking to asking why a sandpile chose a particular moment to collapse." Yes, exactly, ;) nothing is anything in particular, and could have been otherwise, including us (the ones who are supposed to be able to make the judgments of other things), and including our thoughts, which means they have no relation to truth, anymore than a sandpile falling does. I'm glad you think you know things, even though the "truth" of your thoughts are not anything other than the equivalent to a sandpile falling, a material event, that could have been otherwise. The special pleading is obvious, why you think special pleading is okay, and that your system doesn't defeat itself, is a different question.Clive Hayden
June 30, 2009
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“That is where evolutionary theory lacks explanatory power.” And the explanatory power of ID is . . . ?
Is that it identifies that something was designed. Who or what designed is different field, whether theology or panspermia or what have you. After all, I don't know how crop circles are made but I know that they are designed. The argument that I must know how something was made before I can determine that it w as designed is illogical.Jehu
June 30, 2009
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"That is where evolutionary theory lacks explanatory power." And the explanatory power of ID is . . . ?David Kellogg
June 30, 2009
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Levy, Do you understand that the main actor in your theory is chance? Chance creates, selection edits. Your entire belief that birds evolved begins with the claim that chance generated all of the necessary genetic information, and selection governed its implementation. Do you really think that a proper scientific theory relies on "chance" as its primary, creative explanatory mechanism? Further, do you believe that one should "believe" such a theory, or hold it valid, if it hasn't even been demonstrated that there is sufficient chance in the entire universe for it to produce what it is claimed to produce? It might be proper to accept that it might be possible that RM & NS "could have" generated a bird, but to believe that it did so, without any description of point mutations, stepwise morphological integration of necessary tissues and codependent features as a function of natural selection pressures - by "description" I don't mean a convenient story, but from hard genetic and environmental data - I don't know how it is possible for a ration, neutrally skeptical person to accept it as a "fact" unless they are operating from ideology. There is surely no scientific reason to believe that birds evolved from any other ceature; there might be reason to suspect it could be so, but to believe it as a fact?William J. Murray
June 30, 2009
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ScottAndrews: Variation by what means? Selection by what criteria There are actually quite a few mechanisms of variation, but mainly mutation and recombination. Selection is just by individuals who function best in the environment having, on average, more influence over the future population than others. Differential reproduction. But I also mentioned niche filling, which is the nearest you get to "why" answers in a blind process.iconofid
June 30, 2009
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iconofid: Variation by what means? Selection by what criteria? I understand that these answers are in the distant past as part of natural history. (Yes, Echidna-Levy, I'm sure you knew that all along.) But all that leaves us with is that they evolved, somehow. We are left with no explanation of why a type of reptile, over millions of years, would become a bird. That is where evolutionary theory lacks explanatory power.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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ScottAndrews: How and why did birds evolve? How? Variation, natural selection and drift. Why? Either "no reason" or "niche filling", depending on what you mean. Scott, any evolutionary theory is an explanation of the observed phenomenon of evolution. It should be in keeping with any knowledge of natural history, but it does not give you the details of natural history, although it can lead to discoveries. Finding out the details of bird evolution can only be done by studying birds (phenotype and genotype), fossils, and the nearest relatives of birds. Competing hypotheses like "birds from some theropods" and "birds and theropods from a common ancestor" can only be resolved by those studies, and increasing information. Evolutionary theory only predicts that birds have common ancestry with all other animals, that they evolved from other animals by variation, selection and drift, and that transitional forms should have existed.iconofid
June 30, 2009
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Echidna-Levy: You claimed that you knew how and why birds evolved. So why did you send me link to a general search for "evolution?" You do not know how or why birds evolved. You do not know whether their modifications were effected by this mechanism or that one or both, or which selective pressures caused them to adapt. You're evading, bluffing, and trying to shift the focus, but anyone can see through you.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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iconifid,
“Ask your fellow I.D. supporter, herb, who thinks the Kentucky Flintstones museum provides scientific I.D. education. Do you agree or disagree?”
Notice that I didn't say I endorse all the information disseminated by the Creation Museum. My concern is that IDers like me who question common ancestry (e.g. Cornelius Hunter and Dr. Dembski) should not be asked to step to the back of the tent simply because we don't tow the establishment line.herb
June 30, 2009
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Echidna-Levy @170: You're comparing evolution to collapsing sandpiles? What is this nonsense? Is that what evolutionary theory says? Who knows why it happened because it's like a collapsing sandpile? Maybe I should rest my case right there.ScottAndrews
June 30, 2009
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Jehu: "Yes I have and abiogenesis is a bigger myth now than it ever has been. If, like Echidna-Levy and his flawless knowledge of bird evolution, you know how life began, I recommend you stop wasting time on this blog and immediately go publish in any of the most esteemed scientific journals." Did someone say the research is complete? And do you know what a myth is? Gods of the Gaps are mythological creatures. Sane adults surely shouldn't believe in such things. :)iconofid
June 30, 2009
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ScottAndrews
Just admit that evolutionary theory doesn’t explain evolution, and leave it at that.
Thanks for the laugh! Pick a paper http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&scoring=r&q=evolution&as_ylo=2007&btnG=Search Any paper. And tell me what they got wrong.Echidna-Levy
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