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The Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve is Actually Really Complex

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In Charles Darwin’s one long argument against final causes, teleology, separate creation, independent creation or as he sometimes simply put it, the “ordinary view,” he complained, among other things, that notions of independent creation were tantamount to rejecting “a real for an unreal, or at least for an unknown, cause.” Furthermore, separate and innumerable acts of creation amounted to a tautology, “only re-stating the fact in dignified language.” And echoing Descartes’ criticism of Aristotelianism (the qualities themselves are in need of explanation), Darwin complained that viewing nature as revealing the plan of the Creator is vacuous and “nothing is thus added to our knowledge.” In summary, Darwin argued that independent creation was a vacuous tautology that appeals to unknown or unreal causes. The problem, as usual, is that the evolutionist’s criticism of other points of view is, in fact, a perfect description of evolution itself.  Read more

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bb, This quote came across my facebook page right after I posted the video, a quote which I found very appropriate to the video , science is very dependent on faith (a faith, I would add, that I could only be rationally grounded in theistic metaphysics), as noted by the philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi: “Any effort made to understand something must be sustained by the belief that there is something there that can be understood” Also, science cannot check itself, heck, not even reason can check itself, As G.K. Chesterton explained: “Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?” The young sceptic says, “I have a right to think for myself.” But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, “I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.”bornagain77
June 1, 2014
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Thank you BA777 for the link to that discussion of the nature of faith. It will be a great reference when I come across a strawman representation of faith, as I often do.bb
June 1, 2014
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OT: Oxford Professors vs The New Atheists - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh7xoYMuAJY Evidence, Faith and Knowledge - John Lennox, Keith Ward and Alister McGrathbornagain77
May 31, 2014
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When you encounter an incredibly complex design, far beyond current technology, and then you find a part of it that you don't understand (imagine that!), it's not really wise to immediately conclude that it's junk, that the design is flawed, or that the designer is an idiot. The same is true in biology. -QQuerius
May 30, 2014
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I loved this part:
Their certainty has little to do with evolutionary mechanisms and pathways, which are usually quite speculative. Rather, their certainty has to do with the quality and aesthetics of the design. It doesn’t work, or if it does work it doesn’t look right. They are making non scientific, metaphysical judgments about the biological world. And their theory consists of so many just-so stories, immune to empirical data and removed from the realities of science.
Mung
May 30, 2014
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At first, the meaningless claptrap reveals there was no designer. And later, the discovered function reveals an adaptation. One way or another, evolution did it.
It's a truly amazing theory. I'm convinced. How could it not be true?Mung
May 30, 2014
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On a related note, this paper by Jerry Bergman, PhD presents some sound arguments in favor of design.Barb
May 30, 2014
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speaking of imagination instead of science,,, So, Here's the Source of Karl Giberson's Tailed-Baby Photo - David Klinghoffer - May 29, 2014 Excerpt: The source is Science Photo Library and yes, it's been "digitally manipulated." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/heres_what_seem086161.htmlbornagain77
May 30, 2014
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as to:
Darwin argued that independent creation was a vacuous tautology that appeals to unknown or unreal causes.
Contrary to what Darwin believed, i.e. that intelligence was appealing to a 'unreal' cause, we know for a fact that intelligence can create functional information. As Dr. Durston says, 'The probability that intelligence can can create information is '1'. Whereas no one has ever seen material processes create functional information.
The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel - Null Hypothesis For Information Generation - 2009 Excerpt of conclusion pg. 42: "To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662469/ Can We Falsify Any Of The Following Null Hypothesis (For Information Generation) 1) Mathematical Logic 2) Algorithmic Optimization 3) Cybernetic Programming 4) Computational Halting 5) Integrated Circuits 6) Organization (e.g. homeostatic optimization far from equilibrium) 7) Material Symbol Systems (e.g. genetics) 8) Any Goal Oriented bona fide system 9) Language 10) Formal function of any kind 11) Utilitarian work http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/ag
In fact the odds against material processes ever creating information are so overwhelming as to render appeal to material processes absurd:
Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome. So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html
Thus Darwinists are the ones who are continually appealing to 'unknown or unreal causes'. Dr. Behe, who has searched high and low for any evidence whatsoever that Darwinian processes can create functional information/complexity, states:
"Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination" Dr. Michael Behe - 29:24 mark of following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s6XAXjiyRfM#t=1762s EVOLUTIONARY JUST-SO STORIES Excerpt: ,,,“Some evolutionary biologists--like Richard Dawkins--have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish” (Darwin’s Black Box).,,, http://www.wayoflife.org/database/evolutionary_just_so_stories.html
And indeed when one asks a Darwinists for direct empirical evidence that Darwinian processes are up to the task of creating all life on earth (or any life on earth for that matter) one quickly finds the Darwinists backtracking from real science into speculative stories of imagination,, 'long, long ago, in a place far, far away,',,, i.e. Darwinists never demonstrate the feasibility of Darwinism but rely almost exclusively on imagination. ,,, I had this happen the other day with a Darwinists, and when I pointed out that imagination was not evidence, and that the actual evidence contradicted his 'just so story', he, in typical Darwinian fashion, derided me for not accepting such overwhelming evidence as he had imagined there to be for it in his head. :)bornagain77
May 30, 2014
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Recall reading that the circuitous route of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve in quadrupeds, is perhaps a necessity, if only due to development from a 'round' embryo to an 'elongated' trunk, neck and head. Unlike non-living mechanisms, a functioning nerve may need to exist for the benefit of forming tissue and organs, throughout the process. It could be considered somewhat ironic if premature material conclusions, made in ignorance, produce studies that discover such necessities and as yet unforeseen requirements.willh
May 30, 2014
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"But when the population of fish turned into a population of humans, and the blood vessel migrated rearwards, the nerve had no choice but to go along for the ride for it was looped around the vessel." Bwahaha, I laughed out loud after reading this. I fail to understand how anyone can believe such tripe. The mental gymnastics, imagination and story telling is so clear and obvious. It boggles the mind that so many actually believe this nonsense.humbled
May 30, 2014
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