The remarkable process of cell division

Lt Com Data: (apologies for not pasting you entertaining reply because of the problem I observed) So, you don't think it's possible for the ID view to be shown to be incorrect. Thank you for being honest and taking the time to answer. JVL

Silver Asiatic: I gave you this exact thing before about 6 months ago. You dropped the conversation and did not return. I apologise for that. I need to gain an idea of your understanding. Provide some framework on the question. I just want to know, based on your own understanding of the issues and evidence and data whether or not it's possible for the ID view to be shown to be incorrect. AND is it possible, based on your view and understanding, that the unguided view could be shown to be correct. I don't know why you're finding this so complicated. I'm asking for your own, personal opinion. JVL

@JVL ID as source of life will be invalidated when you will see a pig flying over Pacific ocean while singing rock ballads in mandarin dialect. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL

But the point is it’s not my view or perception of the probabilities; I’m interested in your view of them.

I need to gain an idea of your understanding. Provide some framework on the question. Silver Asiatic

247 JVL I gave you this exact thing before about 6 months ago. You dropped the conversation and did not return. I can take a sentence, randomize the letters and give it to you. Using whatever randomizer you want, create a complete, correct English language sentence without the help of human intervention. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: I asked you to frame the issue in the hopes that you’re not just asking loaded questions or gotchas. As easy as you think it might be to say if something is possible, would be as easy for you to say how probable it is. But the point is it's not my view or perception of the probabilities; I'm interested in your view of them. If you don’t want to help with probabilities in favor of something “simpler” then, yes, I think that’s a lot trickier. Apology accepted, although I don’t think you did it intentionally. I am interested in your own, personal view. If you don't want to offer it then fair enough. JVL

JVL

I asked a couple of very simple, potentially yes or no questions

I asked you to frame the issue in the hopes that you're not just asking loaded questions or gotchas. As easy as you think it might be to say if something is possible, it would be just as easy for you to say how probable it is.

If that’s too tricky an assignment I apologise.

If you don't want to help with probabilities in favor of something "simpler" then, yes, I think that's a lot trickier. Apology accepted, although I don't think you did it intentionally. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus: you know that far above I put up the random text experiments. that is a direct example of how it could be falsified by observation of FSCO/I by blind chance. And how would that be done? Just give an example of a possible experiment so I'm clear as to what you're thinking. Then I won't misinterpret you or argue against a straw man. JVL

As, JVL is appealing to falsificationism, ignoring what has already been pointed out about its deep problems. KF kairosfocus

Asauber: Why on earth would you need to find out if it’s possible to change someone’s mind, without the intent of possibly changing their mind? To see how you think. If you don't want to answer my questions then fine but don't drag out the suspense. Either you have an answer or you don't. JVL

JVL, you know that far above I put up the random text experiments. that is a direct example of how it could be falsified by observation of FSCO/I by blind chance. KF kairosfocus

"I’m merely wondering if it’s possible." JVL, Why on earth would you need to find out if it's possible to change someone's mind, without the intent of possibly changing their mind? It's rhetoric a salesperson would use. Andrew asauber

PS I have just noticed something: when I try to reply to Lt Com Data including a copy-and-paste part of his (?) post I get blocked by WordFence. When I reply to him (?) without the copy-and-paste it works just fine. Could he (?) have set something which is causing a problem? JVL

Lt Com Data: Should I take your reply to mean you don't think it's possible for the ID view to be shown to be incorrect? JVL

Asauber: I am not trying to change anyone's mind, I'm merely wondering if it's possible. Will you answer my simple questions? JVL

Silver Asiatic: if you could assist with the probability measures, that would help. You’ve made a decision so I’d hope you could – the probability of … I asked a couple of very simple, potentially yes or no questions (I'll leave that up to you) because I'm interested in your opinion, not mine. I know what I think. If that's too tricky an assignment I apologise. JVL

JVL @ 210 "Also, I CLEARLY stated I was NOT trying to change anyone’s mind. " JVL @ 235 "What kind of evidence or data would it take to change your mind?" Andrew asauber

JVL do you think it’s possible that at some time your ID view might be shown to be incorrect?

Considering that a single cell is much more complex than anything humanity invented then Id view will be shown to be incorrect in the moment a car ,a computer ,etc. will emerge from laws of physics without human/intelligent intervention. Billions of years and no iphone found underground in a coal mining? Why?If there are real chances to appear multiplications of a living cells then a phone than can't multiply itself should have much more chances to emerge.

Kairosfocus JVL, in principle possible,

KF in principle you are too nice. :) Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL - if you could assist with the probability measures, that would help. You've made a decision so I'd hope you could - the probability of ... The lucky chance that the universe exists with laws and constants as it is today The lucky chance that the earth emerged with conditions right for life The lucky chance that life emerged from non-living chemicals The lucky chance that cellular life emerged with cell-processing features The lucky chance that single cells multiplied and bonded for complex organisms The lucky chance that human beings evolved The lucky chance that rationality, consciousness and purpose evolved from unintelligent, irrational, blind nature Total those up - and then there's a probability for that. Maybe 1 in 1000 chances? Or one in a hundred billion? or much more than that? When you provide that, someone can say "yes, that's very probable" or not. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus: in principle possible What kind of evidence or data would it take to change your mind? I'm hoping you suggest something that is potentially achievable. JVL

JVL, in principle possible, I also believe the second law of thermodynamics can be in principle refuted, but for very similar reasons, maximally unlikely. KF PS, that unguided blind chance and mechanical necessity could give rise to life and body plans up to ours is in the same boat as failure of the second law of thermodynamics. And, again, you were already advised on the problems of falsificationism above. kairosfocus

Kairosfocus and Bornagain77 and anyone else who designs to respond: Hand on heart, do you think it's possible that at some time your ID view might be shown to be incorrect? Also, do you think it possible that the unguided view might be shown to be correct? Thanks. JVL

JVL, it was shown in 153 ff above that your redefinition in 150 of "history" and "records" to lend plausibility to the notion that there is observational warrant for claiming that FSCO/I came about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity fails. You have never cogently answered that. Further to the matter, on OoL, you imply that highly complex code and algorithms [present in D/RNA] -- involving language and goal directed stepwise processes came about by blind forces in Darwin's warm pond or the like, along with the molecular nanotech machinery to effect same, involving metabolic pathways of astonishing complexity and a von Neumann kinematic self replication facility manifesting another order of complex system integration . You and all of us full well know on a world of experience and linked blind needle in haystack search challenge that complex language and goals are highly characteristic of intelligently directed configuration, but you have tried to evade the force by linguistic manipulation. Which, you obviously cannot defend as your switch to tangents shows. It is likely that your reactions and arguments show underlying ideological commitment to the institutionalised orthodoxy of the day, but that is visibly in unacknowledged crisis. Such adherence is not insane and is common but lacks rational support. As for evil, a fair self assessment and evaluation of our common condition will at once show that Solzhenitsyn was quite correct. That is, the line between good and evil first passes through the individual human heart. Further to all of this, evolutionary materialism and so its fellow traveller ideologies too, is manifestly self referential regarding our cognitive powers and incoherently undermines credibility of rational freedom -- e.g. no free will from Provine and Haldane's chemical vs rational soundness -- thus is incoherent and self defeating, self falsifying. It cannot justify its insistence on being a yardstick of scientific truth or knowledge, much less institutional domination. So, instead it would be advisable to address the gaps and revise your thinking to better accord with what we know on trillions of observed cases and search challenge analysis, FSCO/I is a strong, highly reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration as a pivotal causal factor. Fair comment, insistence on a failed paradigm in the face of cogent correction is a mark of ideological commitment, not of sound analysis. Flailing away on distractive, tangential, polarising gambits only further shows lack of weight on the merits. KF kairosfocus

JVL, Instantly, you know, just from the calendar, the date of Christian founding and the founder of the faith defined by the gospel of the realm of God, the realm of truth lived by the right: Jesus of Nazareth, crucified c 30 AD at age 33, and risen with 500 witnesses, about two dozen of whom were prominent enough to be identifiable, especially his chief emissaries of the good news, the apostles. The same circle from which the foundational texts (apart from the Hebrew Scriptures Jesus fulfilled as Messiah, cf Isa 52:13 - 53:12 esp) known as the New Testament came. Islam, coming along 600 years later and asserting that Jesus was not crucified -- as well established a basic fact of history as one gets -- is simply not relevant. So, pretence not to know that Luther coming along 1500 years later as a Christian Theologian based on said scriptures and gospel message, cannot have been foundational, as well you knew all along. As for the sect you seem to suggest as though it were typical, that is what, late C20? And, an isolated sect of low repute by all accounts, for cause. Strawman based distractor no 1 fails. Next, we both know that what was shown in brief above was that the system of thought, evolutionary materialistic scientism, is hopelessly self referentially absurd. In brief, again, we cannot reduce our responsible rational freedom of mind to computation on a wetware substrate without undermining credibility of our reasoning. Haldane highlighted it c 1930 and Provine seemed to fail to see it twenty years ago, without real rational freedom, credibility of mind and its schemes disintegrates. Evolutionary materialism fails. In failing it is unsurprising to see that it has in it no world root is that can properly ground ought, an amorality that opens the door to that gross error of thought, nihilism. Plato knew better 2400 years ago. Finally, your weak turnabout projection also fails. For, as even your own attempts show, it is a regrettably typical pattern of objectors here at UD to use red herrings to go off on tangents: you are already switching from a subject you raised on alleged "history" of the prehistoric past of origins you tried to use to smuggle in the empirically unsupported notion that blind chance and mechanical necessity can and does create FSCO/I. In fact you had begged questions and fallaciously redefined history to lend unwarranted strength to your claims. You proceeded to toxically loaded strawmen and subtly ignited them to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise discussion. [What relevance is the claim of Islam to the fact that neither Luther nor an odd sect could be foundational to the Christian faith, and even that issue is tangential.] Of course, doubtless some ID adherents have behaved poorly and some will doubtless do so again. For, to struggle with evil is part of the human frame. But to try to divert a well founded observation made over more than a decade into a turnabout gambit is a fail. However, such distractions and evasions carry an implicit message: the objections are coming up short on the weight of merits. Otherwise, there would be triumphal, crushing arguments given by those who come here to object, not distractions and evasions. KF kairosfocus

JVL presents no real-time scientific evidence whatsoever for his extraordinary claims and has the audacity to claim, "their views are unscientific". The sheer audacity of his blatant hypocrisy is breathtaking. Sad, but breathtaking. bornagain77

Bornagain77 and Asauber can't quite seem to man-up and accept the fact that they consider anyone who thinks life arose on Earth via unguided processes is insane or evil in some way. But i think they've said as much without being explicit. To me that means their views are unscientific, they do not accept anyway their positions could be shown to be incorrect. This has nothing to do with any evidence I might present, this has to do with their ability to consider their views potentially incorrect. They don't think that is possible. So there is no point in talking about it. JVL

Very telling JVL, you can't be bothered to present any actual real-time empirical evidence for your extraordinary claims,, yet it is the evidence itself that, (if you had any), would stop me dead in my tracks from saying that it is an insane belief to believe that a series of 'selected accidents' can possibly create something as unfathomably complex as the brain or the eye.

The Human Brain Is ‘Beyond Belief’ by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * – 2017 Excerpt: The human brain,, is an engineering marvel that evokes comments from researchers like “beyond anything they’d imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief”1 and “a world we had never imagined.”2,,, https://www.icr.org/article/10186 The Human Eye, Like The Human Brain, Is A Wonder https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/from-philip-cunningham-the-human-eye-like-the-human-brain-is-a-wonder/

I don't care if you talk to me or not JVL. I just know, barring any compelling real-time empirical evidence to the contrary, that I am not going to stop saying that unguided Darwinian evolution is a completely absurd, even insane, belief for you JVL, a supposedly sane and rational person, to hold. bornagain77

JVL And if I have read and understood all the statements and still disagree . . . Am I insane or evil?

How we call a person that always blame somebody else and take no responsibility for his actions? It's always somebody else's fault , everybody else should change to serve ,respect, understand me, me, me . Cry louder or...change yourself . Grow a pair. Lieutenant Commander Data

Bornagain77: I consider your ‘anti-rational’ Darwinian worldview to be completely insane (Haldane, Lewis, Egnor), and I hold that you have, at least, the minimal amount of sanity required to recognize that it is a insane worldview. So, there is no reason you and I should continue to attempt to have any kind of conversation. So I can ignore your comments from no on? JVL, you keep dancing around the fact that you have presented no real-time empirical evidence to support your ‘extraordinary’ claim that unguided processes can create something as complex as the brain. That wasn't the immediate topic. You should try harder to pay attention. JVL

JVL, you keep dancing around the fact that you have presented no real-time empirical evidence to support your 'extraordinary' claim that unguided processes can create something as complex as the brain. bornagain77

As I made clear previously in post 189 JVL, https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-747050 I consider your 'anti-rational' Darwinian worldview to be completely insane (Haldane, Lewis, Egnor), and I hold that you have, at least, the minimal amount of sanity required to recognize that it is a insane worldview. bornagain77

Asauber: The position you have presented re: ID so far is irrational. So what can you present that would be worth considering to an ID proponent like myself that might alter my views? Is there anything you would consider rational? I'm trying to figure out if there is anyway to get you to consider my view rational. I'm not trying to alter your view, I'm just wondering what it would take for you to consider my point of view sensible. JVL

Bornagain77: Do you think that someone who disagrees with you regarding guided vs unguided evolution is, by definition insane or evil? You keep dancing around, ashamed (it seems) to answer the question. JVL

"You will consider me irrational, regardless of what I say or present." JVL, I'll consider anything you comment. The position you have presented re: ID so far is irrational. So what can you present that would be worth considering to an ID proponent like myself that might alter my views? Andrew asauber

"I think that evidence does exist and is easy to find." Apparently not so easy to find that you can be bothered to actually list it. I've looked high and low, I certainly can't find it. So again, I call your bluff. Where is your real-time empirical evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein? (see post 202) bornagain77

Bornagain77: If your claim is actually true, that all life on earth arose via unguided Darwinian processes, then you should literally be dripping from head to toe with real time empirical evidence supporting your claim. I think that evidence does exist and is easy to find. But . . . again . . . If someone disagrees with you are they, by definition, evil or insane? Why can't you be clear about this? Or, should I just assume that's what you think? Why would you be ashamed of such an opinion? JVL

JVL, "I consider the evidence to be present in 150 years of arguments, data, evidence and observations." And strangely the exact real-time empirical evidence that I asked for is completely missing from your post. Why is that? If your claim is actually true, i.e. that all life on earth, in all its amazing complexity and diversity, arose via unguided Darwinian processes, then you should literally be dripping from head to toe with real time empirical evidence supporting your claim. So I call your bluff. Where is your real-time empirical evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein? (see post 202) bornagain77

Asuaber: You are mischaracterizing. This is not about a disagreement. It’s about what’s actually rational and what isn’t. I think you have been clear but unwilling to state your case explicitly. You think those who disagree with the guided paradigm are irrational. So, there is no point in discussing the issues with you is there? If I disagree with you. You will consider me irrational, regardless of what I say or present. JVL

Bornagain77: Ahh, now we are starting to gett close to actual empirical evidence, i.e. to actual science.,, So by exactly whom, and by what exact empirical means, do you believe the case has been made for the ‘beyond belief’ brain to arise from a virtual endless series of ‘selected accidents’? How many Nobel prizes did the scientist receive for establishing that unguided processes can create what only intelligent minds have shown the capacity to create? Science is not based on Nobel prizes alone. I consider the evidence to be present in 150 years of arguments, data, evidence and observations. And that, logically, the best explanation is the one with the fewest assumptions. But you haven't addressed my question: why is it that I do not label you as insane or evil but you are happy to give me one or both of those monikers? Why is it that disagreeing with you ends up being a sign of crazy or manipulation? Why can't you accept that someone can honestly and sincerely disagree with you? JVL

"So, you don’t think it’s possible for a sane or honest person to disagree with you." JVL, You are mischaracterizing. This is not about a disagreement. It's about what's actually rational and what isn't. Andrew asauber

JVL: "I think the case for unguided evolution (creating the brain) has been made." Ahh, now we are starting to get closer to actual empirical evidence, i.e. to actual science.,, So JVL, by exactly whom, and by what exact empirical means, do you believe that the case has been made for the 'beyond belief' brain to arise from a virtual endless series of 'selected accidents'? How many Nobel prizes did the scientist receive for establishing that unguided processes can create what only intelligent minds have shown the capacity to create?

“We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence ‘is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;’ but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists.” - Smith, Wolfgang (1988) - Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin "Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!" - Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel laureate – Physics - A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69) "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.html Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution USA - 14 Jan, 2020 An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at www.evo2.org. ,,, "A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days," said Marshall. "One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they'd set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity." https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

bornagain77

Asuaber: I already answered your question above. You present an irrational position, which I suspect you don’t really adhere to. That’s what I think. You aren’t unique in behaving this way. Countless people do the same thing. So, you don't think it's possible for a sane or honest person to disagree with you. So, should I keep trying to have a conversation here? Should I even bother to answer questions? JVL

Bornagain77: JVL, if you want to prove that it is not indeed insane for you to believe that the unfathomable complexity of, say, the brain can be had by an endless series of ‘selected accidents’, then it is certainly not on me to say such an extraordinary, and unreasonable, claim is not, on its face, a completely insane for you, and other Darwinists, to make, but it falls completely on you, and on other Darwinists, to show, via empirical evidence, why it is, despite all appearances, not an insane position for you guys to hold. I think the case for unguided evolution has been made. You disagree. I'm happy to admit that we differ on this point but I'm not calling you insane or evil. But you choose to assign me those characteristics. Why? Why are you doing that? JVL

JVL, I already answered your question above. You present an irrational position, which I suspect you don't really adhere to. That's what I think. You aren't unique in behaving this way. Countless people do the same thing. Andrew asauber

Asauber: Remember my comment about your slip is showing? You implied in a comment that you hope or intend to change someone’s mind. What duties or obligations do you think you have that compel you to attempt to change the mind of an ID supporter? What is it that ID supporters lack that you could give them? You are clearly avoiding answering my question. Which is telling don't you think? You cannot say that you would not consider someone who disagrees with you about ID insane or evil. So, why should anyone even try to have a conversation with you if they disagree with you? Also, I CLEARLY stated I was NOT trying to change anyone's mind. You are clearly and blatantly misrepresenting what I said. And for what reason? Who is being manipulative here? Answer my question, honestly and honourably, or I will assume I shouldn't even bother trying. JVL

JVL, if you want to prove that it is not indeed insane for you to believe that the unfathomable complexity of, say, the brain can be had by an endless series of 'selected accidents', then it is certainly not on me to say such an extraordinary, and unreasonable, claim is not, on its face, a completely insane for you, and other Darwinists, to make, but it falls completely on you, and on other Darwinists, to show, via empirical evidence, why it is, despite all appearances, not an insane position for you guys to hold. That's simply how 'real' science works. Sorry if 'real' science hurts your feelings. bornagain77

JVL, Remember my comment about your slip is showing? You implied in a comment that you hope or intend to change someone's mind. What duties or obligations do you think you have that compel you to attempt to change the mind of an ID supporter? What is it that ID supporters lack that you could give them? Andrew asauber

Asuaber: You act like this is a simple difference of opinion, and it’s not. I asked you a question: do you consider that someone could disagree with you about ID and not be insane or evil? You answer that and then we can get on with our disagreement. JVL

"do you consider it possible that someone could disagree with you and not be insane" JVL, You act like this is a simple difference of opinion, and it's not. You have philosophical problems, and you won't address them. Andrew asauber

Asuaber: BA77 is essentially correct if you, JVL, are consistent. But you aren’t. Based on what? JVL

Bornagain77: JVL, you are trying to claim I am being unreasonable. I am asking: do you consider it possible that someone could disagree with you and not be insane or a liar? Which, yes, implies the question: could you be wrong? JVL

"But Bornagain77 thinks I must be insane to hold the views I do" JVL, BA77 is essentially correct if you, JVL, are consistent. But you aren't. There are a lot of people who pretend to believe the things they profess, but really don't believe with conviction. I suspect that is the case with you. Anyway, everyone is a little crazy. Andrew asauber

JVL, you are trying to claim I am being unreasonable. So, by all means, present any real time empirical evidence that you got for unguided Darwinian processes creating anything, say a single protein. I am all ears. Where is your real-time empirical evidence?

Claim: New Proteins Evolve Very Easily – Cornelius Hunter – April 25, 2017 Excerpt: It is now clear that for a given protein, only a few changes to its amino acid sequence can be sustained before the protein function is all but eliminated. Here is how one paper explained it: “The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability—the ability of proteins to acquire changes in sequence and function.” In other words, protein function precipitously drops off with only a tiny fraction of its amino acids altered. It is not a gradual fitness landscape. Another paper described the protein fitness landscape as rugged. Therefore it is not surprising that various studies on evolving proteins have failed to show a viable mechanism. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required to evolve a relatively short protein. And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences. Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. So something like 10^70 attempts are required yet evolutionists estimate that only 10^43 attempts are possible. In other words, there is a shortfall of 27 orders of magnitude. But it gets worse. The estimate that 10^43 attempts are possible is utterly unrealistic. For it assumes billions of years are available, and that for that entire time the Earth is covered with bacteria, constantly churning out mutations and new protein experiments. Aside from the fact that these assumptions are entirely unrealistic, the estimate also suffers from the rather inconvenient fact that those bacteria are, err, full of proteins. In other word, for evolution to evolve proteins, they must already exist in the first place. This is absurd. And yet, even with these overly optimistic assumptions, evolution falls short by 27 orders of magnitude. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/04/claim-new-proteins-evolve-very-easily/

It ain't rocket science JVL,

"Charles Darwin said (paraphrase) "If anyone could find anything that could not be had through a number of slight, successive, modifications my theory would absolutely breakdown." Well, that condition has been met time and time again now. Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It's all a mirage. None of it happens that way." - Douglas Axe - 200 Years After Darwin - What Didn't Darwin Know? - video - Part 2 of 2 https://youtu.be/VKIgNroTj54?t=329 "Enzyme Families -- Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - December 4, 2014 Excerpt: If enzymes can't be recruited to genuinely new functions by unguided means, no matter how similar they are, the evolutionary story is false.,,, Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. We have now addressed two objections raised by our critics: that we didn't test the right mutation(s), and that we didn't use the right starting point. We tested all possible single base changes in nine different enzymes, Those nine enzymes are the most structurally similar of BioF's entire family We also tested 70 percent of double mutations in the two closest enzymes of those nine. Finally, some have said we should have used the ancestral enzyme as our starting point, because they believe modern enzymes are somehow different from ancient ones. Why do they think that? It's because modern enzymes can't be coopted to anything except trivial changes in function. In other words, they don't evolve! That is precisely the point we are making. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/a_new_paper_fro091701.html

bornagain77

Asuaber: The first question is, do I have philosophical commitments that might inhibit me from evaluating evidence objectively? So, I might be insane because I can't see things the way you do? AND Bornagain77 thinks I must be insane to hold the views I do. So, should I bother trying to carry on a conversation? JVL

Bornagain77: but for you to cling to a Darwinian worldview that makes rationality itself impossible is for you, by definition, to cling an insane worldview. Nothing complicated about. That’s just the way it is So, I just shouldn't bother. Got it. JVL

"do you think that it’s intellectually sound to disagree with ID?" JVL, Speaking for myself, no. But that isn't the question. The first question is, do I have philosophical commitments that might inhibit me from evaluating evidence objectively? Andrew asauber

JVL: "Am I insane or evil?" Well, evil is for God to judge, but for you to cling to a Darwinian worldview that makes rationality itself impossible is for you, by definition, to cling an insane worldview. Nothing complicated about. That's just the way it is. Sorry if simple logic hurts your feelings :) Of course, to defend yourself from the fact that you are holding an insane worldview, you could try to prove that rationality can be grounded within your Darwinian worldview. Good luck with that. Many others have tried and failed. bornagain77

Asauber: Or you are just being a contrarian? Anyway, maybe you can do a little self-evaluation… what is it about your position that potentially could change an ID supporter’s mind? What’s your most effective or convincing idea? Let's just deal with one thing first: do you think that it's intellectually sound to disagree with ID? JVL

"And if I have read and understood all the statements and still disagree . . . Am I insane or evil?" JVL, Or you are just being a contrarian? Anyway, maybe you can do a little self-evaluation... what is it about your position that potentially could change an ID supporter's mind? What's your most effective or convincing idea? Andrew asauber

Andrew: "Your slip is showing." Well actually, not to be too picky, but when it comes to Darwinian evolution, it is bit more than just a slip that is showing. i.e. Darwinian evolution, as far a real-time empirical evidence is concerned,, is butt-ass naked! :)

A Case Of The Emperor’s New Clothes – Evolution vs Design Part 1 - Dr. Daniel Moran, Ph.D. Excerpt: However, a small child also looked upon the Emperor and saw only a naked man walking down the street. The child shouted, “But he doesn’t have anything on!” And one by one the people in the crowd murmured the truth of the child’s observation even to the hearing of the Emperor himself. Now knowing the truth of the farce the Emperor shuddered in shame, yet stood the bolder, saying to himself, “The procession must go on.”,,, Now I must admit, there are some believers in Darwin’s popular fairytale that genuinely believe our ancestors were slime molds and their ancestors were just particles of stardust. They have heard the idea often and long enough that they have come to believe that what is improbable, even impossible is actually the fact of life. No critical thought needed. No second opinion sought. And by the time they have become what they have become, it is a non-issue. They may live good, quiet and fulfilling lives, never knowing that they have lived believing a lie. Had they looked at the front of the crowd they would have seen the Emperor for themselves and cried out as did the little child, “But he doesn’t have anything on”.,,, https://blueprintsforliving.com/empobiological-evolution-a-case-of-the-emperors-new-clothes-part-1/ The Law Of The Emperor's New Clothes: And Darwin Said - Peter-Brian Andersson - 2014 https://www.amazon.com/Law-Emperors-New-Clothes-Darwin/dp/0692261060 The science community operates by an assumption that evolution is a FACT. This book examines the evidence to tell a very different story. Biology, chemistry, cosmology, genetics, mathematics, paleontology and physics show the world was made. Take a look for yourself. Both sides of the argument are presented fairly for the reader to decide.,,, - Peter-Brian Andersson is a Rhodes Scholar with doctorates in medicine (MBChB cum laude, University of Cape Town) and philosophy (DPhil, University of Oxford) and an honors degree in medical biochemistry (BScMed(Hons) University of Cape Town). He was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at Oxford University, a distinction afforded to its top 2% graduate researchers, and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha honor medical society in the United States. He has published widely in neuroimmunology and neurology including in Neuroscience, Trends in the Neurosciences, Journal of Experimental Medicine, The Lancet and Neurology. He has held college lecturer or clinical instructor positions at the Universities of Oxford, University of California San Francisco and Stanford University, and is currently a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of California Los Angeles and a neurologist in private practice.

bornagain77

Asauber: My suggestion: Maybe you should do more reading for comprehension and less commenting. And if I have read and understood all the statements and still disagree . . . Am I insane or evil? JVL

"Again, is there any point in me commenting here?" JVL, My suggestion: Maybe you should do more reading for comprehension and less commenting. Andrew asauber

Asauber: Your slip is showing. Is the * above what’s supposed to happen when JVL comments here? Sorry, but you are living in fantasyland. Again, is there any point in me commenting here? JVL

"they’ve decided and they are never, ever going to *change their mind*." JVL, Your slip is showing. Is the * above what's supposed to happen when JVL comments here? Sorry, but you are living in fantasyland. You just don't comment anything that would change somebody's mind. It's all been seen and read before 1000 times. Andrew asauber

Born-again77: I have thought about it and, IMHO, I am not being too harsh. I am being measured in my firmness against JVL’s insane worldview. It is simply intellectually dishonest and beyond crazy for a person to try to maintain, (especially when confronted with the nuts and bolts of the empirical evidence as JVL has been repeatedly confronted), that something as complex as say the brain, or the eye, or etc.., could have possibly been the result of an endless series of ‘selected accidents’. KF, to clear up any ambiguity about my position, I do not personally hold JVL to be ‘beyond crazy’ and to be ‘intellectually dishonest’. indeed I am presupposing that JVL has, at least, a minimal amount of sanity and honesty within himself to eventually see the sheer insanity that is clearly inherent within his Darwinian worldview and to honestly admit, (to himself and others), that it is indeed a ‘beyond crazy’ worldview for him to hold. But alas hope springs eternal and thus I persist in trying to ‘reason’ with JVL and show him, as well as with other Darwinian atheists, just how insane their worldview actually is. Speaking of trying to ‘reason’, and to clearly prove that atheistic materialism is a ‘beyond crazy’ worldview for a person to personally hold, the ability to reason in a logically coherent fashion is simply impossible on the presuppositions of Darwinian materialism. Thus, since it is so easy to grasp, I also firmly hold that it is simply ‘intellectually dishonest’ for JVL to not honestly admit that his atheistic worldview is ‘beyond crazy’ in that it undermines rationality itself. Sa, again, I am mad and maybe bad. So, what is the point of me trying to have a conversation with ID proponents? Perhaps I should just tell all the other supporters of unguided evolutionary theory to not even bother commenting at Uncommon Design; they've decided and they are never, ever going to change their mind. Is that stance science? Can a position which can never, ever be changed scientific? JVL

KF at 182 asks me to, "kindly ponder whether you have drifted into being too harsh in your comments." I have thought about it and, IMHO, I am not being too harsh. I am being measured in my firmness against JVL's insane worldview. It is simply intellectually dishonest and beyond crazy for a person to try to maintain, (especially when confronted with the nuts and bolts of the empirical evidence as JVL has been repeatedly confronted), that something as complex as say the brain, or the eye, or etc.., could have possibly been the result of an endless series of 'selected accidents'.

The Human Brain Is 'Beyond Belief' by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * - 2017 Excerpt: The human brain,, is an engineering marvel that evokes comments from researchers like “beyond anything they’d imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief”1 and “a world we had never imagined.”2,,, https://www.icr.org/article/10186 The Human Eye, Like The Human Brain, Is A Wonder https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/from-philip-cunningham-the-human-eye-like-the-human-brain-is-a-wonder/

KF, to clear up any ambiguity about my position, I do not personally hold JVL to be 'beyond crazy' and to be 'intellectually dishonest'. indeed I am presupposing that JVL has, at least, a minimal amount of sanity and honesty within himself to eventually see the sheer insanity that is clearly inherent within his Darwinian worldview and to honestly admit, (to himself and others), that it is indeed a 'beyond crazy' worldview for him to hold. If I truly held that JVL was personally 'beyond crazy', and pathologically dishonest, I certainly would not even bother trying to 'reason' with him about these matters in the first place. I would rather talk to a brick wall than do that. But alas hope springs eternal and thus I persist in trying to 'reason' with JVL and show him, as well as with other Darwinian atheists, just how insane their worldview actually is. Speaking of trying to 'reason',,,

reason noun 1. a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. 2. the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic. verb think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

Speaking of trying to 'reason', and to clearly prove that atheistic materialism is a 'beyond crazy' worldview for a person to personally hold, the ability to reason in a logically coherent fashion is simply impossible on the presuppositions of Darwinian materialism. KF, you yourself went on to quote J.B.S. Haldane on the inability of Darwinian materialism to ground 'reasoning' in the first place.

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere byproduct of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." - J.B.S. Haldane - from "When I am Dead" in Possible Worlds (1927)

Likewise, C.S. Lewis also clearly elucidated the sheer inability of atheistic materialism to ground 'reasoning' in the first place. i.e. "unless Reason is absolute—all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this (atheistic) world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based."

"Long before I believed Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it…. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula … obeys the thought laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory—in other words, unless Reason is absolute—all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based. The difficulty is to me a fatal one; and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare’s nest but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought from the very beginning. The man who has once understood the situation is compelled henceforth to regard the scientific cosmology as being, in principle, a myth; though no doubt a great many true particulars have been worked into it." - C.S. Lewis - From “Is Theology Poetry,” in The Weight of Glory, 134–136.

And as Dr. Michael Egnor also clearly pointed out, it is simply impossible to ground logic. (and/or reasoning). within the atheist's naturalistic/materialistic worldview.,,, i.e. "Even to define naturalism is to refute it."

Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: For Clark, thoughts merely appear out of matter, which has no properties, by the laws of physics, for generating thought. For Clark to assert that naturalistic matter as described by physics gives rise to the mind, without immateriality of any sort, is merely to assert magic. Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/

As should be needless to say, if your worldview cannot possibly ground 'reason', and/or logic, in the first place then that, necessarily, makes your worldview unreasonable,,, i.e. makes it insane, even males it "beyond crazy'. Yet, the presupposition that the universe is not 'beyond crazy', but is instead rational and intelligible is, in fact, a necessary, and essential, Judeo-Christian presupposition of modern science. As Robert Koons explained, "Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics."

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons?IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.theistic.net/papers/R.Koons/Koons-science.pdf

You simply can't even 'do science' unless you first believe that the universe is rational and that we ourselves have rational minds, (minds made in the image of "God" no less), that are capable of 'partly' grasping the rationality that God has imparted to the universe. As Paul Davies himself explained, "even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”

Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24

i.e. Darwinian Atheists, by the very act of 'doing science', are in fact providing direct evidence that their Atheistic worldview cannot possibly be true. Thus in conclusion, KF I have been firm but measured in calling out JVL for holding his 'beyond crazy' Darwinian worldview. Indeed, rationality, reason, and/or logic, themselves cannot possibly be grounded within JVL's Darwinian worldview and thus his worldview refutes itself and thus is, necessarily, 'beyond crazy'. And this conclusion about Darwinian atheism being 'beyond crazy' is not some line of reasoning that is extremely complex for someone to grasp. But is indeed a very straightforward and easy line of reasoning for someone to grasp. Thus, since it is so easy to grasp, I also firmly hold that it is simply 'intellectually dishonest' for JVL to not honestly admit that his atheistic worldview is 'beyond crazy' in that it undermines rationality itself. Again, to repeat C.S. Lewis, "unless Reason is absolute—all is in ruins", Verse and Quotes:

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” of note: ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos also happens to be the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html

bornagain77

Kairosfocus: JVL, you know that Westboro Baptist and even Martin Luther are not foundational sources of the Christian faith. I prefer NOT to judge other people's faiths from the outside. All Christians (and Muslims and Jews and . . . ) claim to know the truth but they don't agree. I will let them and you sort out your differences. As for consequences of evolutionary materialism, the incoherence undermining credibility of mind to even form such a theory is clear. And, the amorality issue goes back to Plato. If there is reason to think an ideology incoherent — done — then it is wholly appropriate to point to its damaging effects. Again, I must be mad or bad or both. So, again, why should I or anyone else who does not think life was actually designed bother to try and carry on a conversation here? So is the trifecta pattern of red herrings led away to strawmen soaked in ad homs then set alight to cloud, confuse poison and polarise. Something no ID proponents ever does? JVL

BETA! BETA MALE! (Jesse Lee Peterson) Lieutenant Commander Data

PS: Plato:

Ath[enian Stranger, in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos -- the natural order], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity; observe, too, the trichotomy: "nature" (here, mechanical, blind necessity), "chance" (similar to a tossed fair die), ART (the action of a mind, i.e. intelligently directed configuration)] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-

[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics, so too justice, law and government: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]

These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,

[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin"), opening the door to cynicism, hyperskepticism and nihilism . . . ]

and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].

kairosfocus

F/N3: Let me bring forward Haldane, again, as this is pivotal:

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For

if [p:] my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain [–> taking in DNA, epigenetics and matters of computer organisation, programming and dynamic-stochastic processes; notice, "my brain," i.e. self referential] ______________________________ [ THEN] [q:] I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. [--> indeed, blindly mechanical computation is not in itself a rational process, the only rationality is the canned rationality of the programmer, where survival-filtered lucky noise is not a credible programmer, note the funcionally specific, highly complex organised information rich code and algorithms in D/RNA, i.e. language and goal directed stepwise process . . . an observationally validated adequate source for such is _____ ?] [Corollary 1:] They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence [Corollary 2:] I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. [--> grand, self-referential delusion, utterly absurd self-falsifying incoherence]

In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Cf. here on (and esp here) on the self-refutation by self-falsifying self referential incoherence and on linked amorality.]

That has serious consequences, especially when Provine is pondered:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will [--> without responsible freedom, mind, reason and morality alike disintegrate into grand delusion, hence self-referential incoherence and self-refutation. But that does not make such fallacies any less effective in the hands of clever manipulators] . . . [1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address, U of Tenn -- and yes, that is significant i/l/o the Scopes Trial, 1925]

You may not like what Provine went on record with, but that is a serious issue given Haldane. For, discrediting moral knowledge is just a subset of discrediting knowledge and objective, warranted truth, where our whole rationality is inescapably morally governed through branch on which we all sit first duties. Yes Cicero is absolutely pivotal and we THEREFORE -- logical consequence -- have a perfect right to seriously doubt the intellectual claims and policy intent of power elites wedded to or fellow travelling with ideologies that undermine moral government. Such cannot be trusted to be truthful or responsibly reasonable, prudent and restrained. You may not like that, it is not something I put on the table lightly, but it is a sobering issue. Indeed, it has been that since Plato. KF kairosfocus

F/N2, JVL, you know that Westboro Baptist and even Martin Luther are not foundational sources of the Christian faith. Evolutionary materialist scientism is a fundamental commitment for many who fly the flag of science. It is institutionally entrenched and is enforced, marginalising whatever does not go along. That justifies pointing to the fellow traveller phenomenon, and in relevant cases where organically related bad policy or manifestly false claims are backed by power as "Science" or "knowledge" and are used to push dissent to the margins, it is in order to speak of enabling behaviour. Don't forget, we have had people held hostage over refusal to accredit their children's education to push through a fallacious, historically and factually unjustified evo mat scientism driven ideological redefinition of what Science is, backed by US NAS and NSTA. Things like that leave a very sour taste in our mouths. That's what the NSTA Board statement of 2000 was about. KF kairosfocus

F/N: As for consequences of evolutionary materialism, the incoherence undermining credibility of mind to even form such a theory is clear. And, the amorality issue goes back to Plato. If there is reason to think an ideology incoherent -- done -- then it is wholly appropriate to point to its damaging effects. A classic of this in living memory is marxism. So, I am led to wonder if this sensitivity you are putting on the table is shifting focus from a more fundamental issue on merits. Yes, civility is important, but that is a two way street, and I note that it does not excuse us from examining worldview assertions, logical and factual implications, coherence issues and associated cultural agendas. History tells us poor thought in power has ruinous consequences and it is proverbial that if there is smoke where it ought not to be look for a fire out of control. KF kairosfocus

BA77, kindly ponder whether you have drifted into being too harsh in your comments. KF kairosfocus

JVL, pardon but I must note -- having seen this just now in passing -- that I have spoken to hyperskepticism as I have found this to be a common fallacy and i speak to it for cause; not as a throwaway talk point. So is the issue of crooked yardsticks used to judge what is genuinely straight. So is the trifecta pattern of red herrings led away to strawmen soaked in ad homs then set alight to cloud, confuse poison and polarise. I suggest there are merits on the table and note to you that I responded point by point substantially above, latest being to falsificationism. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: JVL, ASSUMED, by me? I was specifically referring to comments made by Bornagain77 which is why I referred you to his comments above. You are generally more respectful although you do have a habit of saying that many people who disagree with you are being hyperskeptical or are ignoring the natural order of things or can't see the elephant in the room or are denying something in the teeth of . . . or warranting a lot of stuff. I can't remember when you've ever said: well, yes, that is a fair point but here's why I disagree with it or I understand what you are saying but I see it differently or let's say you are correct then wouldn't we see this or that? or IF there are no islands of function then how do you explain this or that. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind; I am trying to figure out what ID proponents believe and how they think life, as we see it, came about and developed because I find it hard to understand how and when design got implemented. It's also fair to ask why since design implies purpose but I'm happy to leave that until last. I generally try hard to reply to questions posed to me but when all I get is being called a liar or a clown or a denialist or a hyperskeptic and having my sanity questioned I wonder why I should bother trying to be respectful and curious in your house. I get told a lot: you should believe this or that because you believe in unguided evolution or some famous atheist said something so why do you agree with them? If I said to you: someone from the Westboro Baptist Church said something why do you agree with them or Martin Luther was a Christian, you're a Christian so you must agree with him or you believe in God, Muslims believe in God, maybe even the same one so you're part of their world and beliefs you'd get pretty annoyed and would tell me I shouldn't generalise. But you do that to me ALL THE TIME. So, again, why should I bother trying to have a conversation? Seriously. JVL

JVL, ASSUMED, by me? KF kairosfocus

^^^^ And where were you when Dawkins uttered these words,

“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).” - Richard Dawkins

I certainly did not sulk away from Darwinists when Dawkins uttered that, sulking that, "No one cares or will seriously consider anything I have to say so why bother?" But instead I confronted Darwinists head on with the scientific evidence itself and asked them, as I am asking you now, where is your real time empirical evidence that Darwinism is, not likely to be true mind you, but that it is even remotely feasible?

Claim: New Proteins Evolve Very Easily – Cornelius Hunter – April 25, 2017 Excerpt: It is now clear that for a given protein, only a few changes to its amino acid sequence can be sustained before the protein function is all but eliminated. Here is how one paper explained it: “The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability—the ability of proteins to acquire changes in sequence and function.” In other words, protein function precipitously drops off with only a tiny fraction of its amino acids altered. It is not a gradual fitness landscape. Another paper described the protein fitness landscape as rugged. Therefore it is not surprising that various studies on evolving proteins have failed to show a viable mechanism. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required to evolve a relatively short protein. And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences. Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. So something like 10^70 attempts are required yet evolutionists estimate that only 10^43 attempts are possible. In other words, there is a shortfall of 27 orders of magnitude. But it gets worse. The estimate that 10^43 attempts are possible is utterly unrealistic. For it assumes billions of years are available, and that for that entire time the Earth is covered with bacteria, constantly churning out mutations and new protein experiments. Aside from the fact that these assumptions are entirely unrealistic, the estimate also suffers from the rather inconvenient fact that those bacteria are, err, full of proteins. In other word, for evolution to evolve proteins, they must already exist in the first place. This is absurd. And yet, even with these overly optimistic assumptions, evolution falls short by 27 orders of magnitude. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/04/claim-new-proteins-evolve-very-easily/

bornagain77

Kairosfocus: As I have already said: there is no point in my responding when I am assumed to be a liar or a lunatic, see Bornagain77's comments. No one cares or will seriously consider anything I have to say so why bother? JVL

JVL, there are responses to your points on the table. KF kairosfocus

Lately even darwinists started to talk about guided/directed processes from cell because it's obviously and can't be denied this reality anymore but even so they still believe in magical foggy far away unknown unguided processes that produced a self-guided cell. Bad luck . PS: We see now live the reality of imposing the truth by force ( some gang decided that covid have only one cure and that is an experimental vaccine and that is the final truth) .Exactly the same method was used in imposing the truth of evolution. Lieutenant Commander Data

As to: JVL: "Also, apparently, you don’t think your position is falsifiable, another reason to stop replying." HUH??? You've got it completely backwards JVL. Darwinists are the ones who do not have a rigid falsification criteria. As Denis Noble, President of International Union of Physiological Sciences, stated in 2015, ““If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”

Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble - President of International Union of Physiological Sciences https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659

Here are few falsifications of core tenets of Darwinian theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory,

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit

Whereas, on the other hand, ID is easily falsifiable, it is just that it has never been, (and indeed never will be), falsified. In fact, there is currently a 10 million dollar prize that is being offered for the first person that can falsify ID and prove that unguided material processes have the capacity within themselves to produce the (immaterial) coded information that is necessary to explain life,

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt.,,, "A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days," said Marshall. "One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they'd set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity." https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

Of note: I am extremely confident that, since information is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence, that 10 million dollars will never be collected by Darwinists, and that therefore, ID will never be experimentally falsified.

“Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.’… Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes… This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.” - George Williams – Evolutionary Biologist – “A Package of Information” “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” - Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8 -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University, (Newton's alma mater), for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.

Verse:

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

bornagain77

JVL at 170: "Actually I was responding to your comment that I have ‘blind faith’ in unguided evolutionary processes." So, even though you are conceding that you have "not one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein" you are still trying to hold that you do not have "blind faith" that unguided Darwinian processes can create an entire human? Who is composed of, (among other things), (conservatively), something like a billion, trillion, protein molecules, all mysteriously working together as a unified whole to keep a human alive for, more or less, precisely a lifetime and not a moment longer?

HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE - Stephen L. Talbott - May 2012 Excerpt: “If you think air traffic controllers have a tough job guiding planes into major airports or across a crowded continental airspace, consider the challenge facing a human cell trying to position its proteins”. A given cell, he notes, may make more than 10,000 different proteins, and typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. “Somehow a cell must get all its proteins to their correct destinations — and equally important, keep these molecules out of the wrong places”. And further: “It’s almost as if every mRNA [an intermediate between a gene and a corresponding protein] coming out of the nucleus knows where it’s going” (Travis 2011),,, Further, the billion protein molecules in a cell are virtually all capable of interacting with each other to one degree or another; they are subject to getting misfolded or “all balled up with one another”; they are critically modified through the attachment or detachment of molecular subunits, often in rapid order and with immediate implications for changing function; they can wind up inside large-capacity “transport vehicles” headed in any number of directions; they can be sidetracked by diverse processes of degradation and recycling . . . and so on without end. Yet the coherence of the whole is maintained. The question is indeed, then, “How does the organism meaningfully dispose of all its molecules, getting them to the right places and into the right interactions?” The same sort of question can be asked of cells, for example in the growing embryo, where literal streams of cells are flowing to their appointed places, differentiating themselves into different types as they go, and adjusting themselves to all sorts of unpredictable perturbations — even to the degree of responding appropriately when a lab technician excises a clump of them from one location in a young embryo and puts them in another, where they may proceed to adapt themselves in an entirely different and proper way to the new environment. It is hard to quibble with the immediate impression that form (which is more idea-like than thing-like) is primary, and the material particulars subsidiary. Two systems biologists, one from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany and one from Harvard Medical School, frame one part of the problem this way: "The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. (Loewer and Lahav 2011)" ,,, And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,, http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2

JVL, If believing unguided Darwinian processes can possibly create that jaw dropping level of integrated complexity for, (conservatively), a billion, trillion, protein molecules in the human body is not "blind faith" on steroids then I don't know what in blue blazes "blind faith" is. For crying out loud, Pentecostal snake handlers and Muslim suicide bombers have far less "blind faith" than Darwinists do!

The Designed Body: Irreducible Complexity on Steroids = Exquisite Engineering - Steve Laufmann - March 8, 2017 Excerpt: The series by Dr. Glicksman discusses 40 interrelated chemical and physiological parameters that the human body must carefully balance to sustain life. The body deploys amazing, interconnected solutions to manage them. The parameters are: (1) oxygen, (2) carbon dioxide, (3) hydrogen ion, (4) water, (5) sodium, (6) potassium, (7) glucose, (8) calcium, (9) iron, (10) ammonia, (11) albumin transport, (12) proteins, (13) insulin, (14) glucagon, (15) thyroid hormone, (16) cortisol, (17) testosterone, (18) estrogen, (19) aldosterone, (20) parathormone, (21) digestive enzymes, (22) bile, (23) red blood cells, (24) white blood cells, (25) platelets, (26) clotting factors, (27) anti-clotting factors, (28) complement, (29) antibodies, (30) temperature, (31) heart rate, (32) respiratory rate, (33) blood pressure, (34) lung volume, (35) airway velocity, (36) cardiac output, (37) liver function, (38) kidney function, (39) hypothalamic function, (40) nerve impulse velocity.,,, For the human body, though, the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. This is exactly what we see with all complex engineered systems. In fact, this is a defining characteristic of engineered systems. With humans, the whole is also quite remarkable in its own right. It’s almost as if the body was designed specifically to enable the mind: thought, language, love, nobility, self-sacrifice, art, creativity, industry, and my favorite enigma (for Darwinists): music. The human body enables these things, but does not determine them. As near as we can tell, no combination of the body’s substrate — information, machinery, or operations — alone can achieve these things. Yet it’s exactly these things that make human life worth living. These are essential to our human experience. Human life involves so much more than merely being alive. This simple observation flies in the face of Darwinian expectations. How can bottom-up, random processes possibly achieve such exquisitely engineered outcomes — outcomes that deliver a life experience well beyond the chemistry and physics of the body? Such questions have enormous implications for worldviews, and for the ways that humans live their lives. I’ll look at some of those in a further post tomorrow. http://evolutionnews.org/2017/03/designed-body-engineered-system-displaying-irreducible-complexity-steroids/

Again, believing that such jaw dropping integrated complexity can possibly happen by a endless series 'selected accidents', as Darwinists believe, is "blind faith" on steroids! JVL then sulks that "not much point for me to continue to respond when I am assumed to be a liar and mentally ill." Well JVL, the proper, and honest, response from you would have been for you to, (instead of sulking about your feelings being hurt), honestly admit to yourself, and to others, that it is indeed dishonest, indeed it is beyond crazy, to believe, as Darwinists do, that such astonishing integrated complexity in the human body, (displayed from the billion, trillion, protein level up), can possibly be the result of an endless series of 'selected accidents'. It's really not rocket science JVL, "Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident… you have essentially “lost your mind.”

It’s Really Not Rocket Science - Granville Sewell - November 16, 2015, Excerpt: In a 2005 American Spectator article, Jay Homnick wrote:

"It is not enough to say that design is a more likely scenario to explain a world full of well-designed things. It strikes me as urgent to insist that you not allow your mind to surrender the absolute clarity that all complex and magnificent things were made that way. Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident… you have essentially “lost your mind.”

It has never required a PhD in science to understand the key issue in the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design. It is blindingly obvious to non-scientists like Jay Homnick that unintelligent forces alone cannot design hearts, eyes, ears, and brains. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/it_really_isnt/

Verse,

Psalm 139:13–14 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Of supplemental note: the "true whole" of an organism, (or even the 'true whole' of a single protein for that matter if you want to get technical), is, in principal, beyond the explanatory scope of the reductive materialistic explanations, (i.e. "step-by-step analytic process"), of Darwinists.

Thomas Aquinas contra Transformism - niwrad - August 25, 2014 Excerpt: Reply to objection 3: Some have claimed that the [first] man’s body was formed antecedently in time, and that later on God infused a soul into the already formed body. But it is contrary to the nature of the perfection of the first production of beings that God would make either the body without the soul or the soul without the body; for each of them is a part of human nature. It is especially inappropriate to make the body without the soul, since the body depends on the soul, but not vice versa. [Summa Theologiae, 91, IV] Aquinas ,,,Beings are “perfect” because they are “true wholes”. If they are “true wholes” then their constitution / organization spiritus-anima-corpus must be an integrated “unit” or “oneness”. As I said in the linked post a “true whole” is a synthesis that can be neither produced nor conceived by analysis, rather only by means of “synthetic knowledge” (related to intelligent design). Because of such “synthetic knowledge” any kind of being is a top-down manifestation / instantiation of a metaphysical archetype into matter, by means of a vertical causation across the three layers: spiritual, animic (soul), corporeal (body). Differently, a material macroevolution, or macro-morphing, of a being A to a being B would be a step-by-step analytic process, which — as we have seen — can never reach the limit of the target “true whole”. If the limit unit is not reached, and the beings are units, they neither can be produced by such analytic manner,,, https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/thomas-aquinas-contra-transformism/

bornagain77

JVL IF a verified, human observer is required to justify that new species arose via unguided processes then the same criteria applies to intelligent design does it not?

:lol: Nope! If you say that an arrow appeared via unguided processes burden is on you to demonstrate the processes exactly(that supposedly are more "stupid" than you) ,if I say that an arrow appeared by ID I don't need to demonstrate the process (because even if the ID landscape contain a hierarchy of increasing complexity to which I might/might not have access -ID "involvement" is self-evidently true even for a 3 years old ). Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, I just note that falsifiability is not a good criterion of truthfulness. There are things that are self-evident by being undeniably true, to start with. Then, for empirically observable entities, there is the point that one's self awareness and inner reflections can be the case without falsifiability, as they are incorrigible. Then, post Godel, we know no finite, internally coherent axiomatisation will entail all true claims about logic of structure and quantity, while there is no constructive procedure to guarantee coherence of such axiom systems; mathematics is utterly central to theorising and warrant starting with physics, which means the Godel issues are embedded. Of course relativity and quantum have key points of fundamental inconsistency. Going on to things we observe in the external world, that one cannot prove or potentially disprove what one may have seen etc to the satisfaction of an objector who may be hyperskeptical is irrelevant to its truth. Then, in science, the issue is testability and support rather than falsifiability as such, for example no one has seen an electron but it is a well supported entity and its characteristics are testable based on connected phenomena we may observe, often using instruments that are designed on the accepted reality of electrons. As for origins theories, the bottomline is, the actual past beyond record is unobservable and we must be doubly cautious in our reconstructive models, the matter at stake here. For example was the actual past infinite? [I argued on logic of structure and quantity that it cannot have been so, but those who disagree imply its utter unobservability.] Yes, we must be open ended and open minded, we must realise that claims are potentially in error and that if a claim can explain [imply] everything, it is suspect of incoherence. Then, Lakatos showed that core claims are surrounded by all sorts of auxiliary claims [e.g. about instrumentation etc] that are like sacrificial armour belts so wide ranging theories with strong institutional support can only rarely be falsified in practice, where with puzzles, anomalies and open problems it is confidence in a research programme that is the real issue, as there is no guarantee that all such will be solved at any period. No, Popper did not decide the matter. KF PS, is the claim that to be meaningful or credible etc scientific claims must be falsifiable, itself falsifiable? kairosfocus

Bornagain77: JVL in response to me pointing out that “he has not one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein.” States that “That is not correct. I have taken a lot of time to examine the support for unguided evolution and ID.” Actually I was responding to your comment that I have 'blind faith' in unguided evolutionary processes. JVL then, unsurprisingly, hand-waves off “not even wrong’ Pauli’s criticism of the Darwinian misuse of mathematical probability. Another mischaracterisation. JVL then dishonestly ignores real time empirical evidence . . . JVL then tries to dishonestly insinuate . . . That is simply dishonest on JVL’s part, . . . So again I remind JVL that “denialism” is considered a mental illness, not a valid scientific refutation. Then, after all that BS, JVL then tries to claim that he is being fair and honest and has questioned Darwinian evolution. One word: MALARKEY! There's not much point for me to continue to respond when I am assumed to be a liar and mentally ill. Apparently, you don't consider it possible to disagree with you without being a knave or a fool. Also, apparently, you don't think your position is falsifiable, another reason to stop replying. JVL

PPS, let me follow up on a clip by BA77, on alleged evolution of proteins by easy incremental changes -- NOT:

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/04/claim-new-proteins-evolve-very-easily/ Proteins are composed of a linear string of amino acids, often hundreds in length, and perform all sorts of important tasks in the cell. They could not have evolved by any stretch of the imagination, and so pose a rather difficult problem for evolutionists . . . . For evolution to work biology must be chocked full of structures that can arise via long, gradual evolutionary pathways. Mutations must be able to slowly accumulate, gradually improving the structure. In other words, the “fitness landscape” must be smooth and gradual, not rugged or precipitous. That evolutionary expectation has been found to be false many times, and proteins are no exception. It is now clear that for a given protein, only a few changes to its amino acid sequence can be sustained before the protein function is all but eliminated. Here is how one paper explained it:

The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability—the ability of proteins to acquire changes in sequence and function.

In other words, protein function precipitously drops off with only a tiny fraction of its amino acids altered. It is not a gradual fitness landscape. Another paper described the protein fitness landscape as rugged. [--> That is, we are looking at islands of function isolated in vast configuration spaces] Therefore it is not surprising that various studies on evolving proteins have failed to show a viable mechanism. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required to evolve a relatively short protein. And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences. Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. [several links are given at ENV] So something like 10^70 attempts are required yet evolutionists estimate that only 10^43 attempts are possible. In other words, there is a shortfall of 27 orders of magnitude. But it gets worse. The estimate that 10^43 attempts are possible is utterly unrealistic. For it assumes billions of years are available, and that for that entire time the Earth is covered with bacteria, constantly churning out mutations and new protein experiments. Aside from the fact that these assumptions are entirely unrealistic, the estimate also suffers from the rather inconvenient fact that those bacteria are, err, full of proteins. In other word, for evolution to evolve proteins, they must already exist in the first place. This is absurd. And yet, even with these overly optimistic assumptions, evolution falls short by 27 orders of magnitude. The numbers don’t add up. [NB: there is a discussion of nylonase, leading to the apt point, "A new gene, arising within a modern cell responding to an environmental challenge, is not analogous to chance origin." actual origin is not equated properly to low information content adaptation]

Proteins, the workhorses of the cell, exhibit observable islands of function. kairosfocus

PS: To further underscore my point, observe the subtitle for Vol III of Lyell's Principles of Geology:

Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation. VOL. III, THE SIXTH EDITION Charles Lyell

This is the like causes like premise, referred to observed causes and effects. It is of course not new to me, e.g. it is a key part of the work of Stephen Meyer when he did his PhD in Phil of Sci. kairosfocus

JVL: >>IF a verified, human observer is required to justify that new species arose via unguided processes>> 37: No such claim has been made, you are setting up and knocking over a strawman. 38: The actual claim is that explanatory causal factors for entities or events remote from observation in space and/or time should be warranted in our observation as having capability to cause effects observed in traces from what we did not directly observe. Do I need to note that species is not the relevant level, body plan origin is, where I have cited circumpolar species complexes, Red Deer vs American Elk and similar cases. Note in the 80s in Galapagos, a famous case of highly successful mating of a pair of birds of distinct species in the Darwin's Finches group of species is part of the observational record. 39, here, I excerpt Newton's Rules:

Rule I [--> adequacy and simplicity] We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true [--> it is probably best to take this liberally as meaning "potentially and plausibly true"] and sufficient to explain their appearances. To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. Rule II [--> uniformity of causes: "like forces cause like effects"] Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes. As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets. Rule III [--> confident universality] The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever. For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments; and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple, and always consonant to [398/399] itself . . . . Rule IV [--> provisionality and primacy of induction] In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. This rule we must follow, that the arguments of induction may not be evaded by [speculative] hypotheses.

40: That is precisely the problem, you are using a speculative hypothesis to evade what is rooted in reliable patterns of actual observation. >> then the same criteria applies to intelligent design does it not?>> 41: Not at all, we know on trillions of observed cases that reliably, FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits of complexity is routinely produced by intelligently directed configuration, while we know that designing intelligence cannot reasonably be exhausted by us. We already see beaver dams and the like to tell us other creatures show some intelligence. 42: Thus, having shown relevant capability we are entitled to infer, like causes like. Where the key phenomenon includes coded information bearing strings in the cell [ language] and algorithms expressed through such codes [goal directed, stepwise processes] well beyond the 500 - 1,000 bit threshold. This, for origin of life and of dozens of body plans. >> If we can only accept ‘evidence’ that can be collected in one human lifetime then there is no ancient history is there?>> 42: The strawman caricature is elaborated. Notice, what is actually put forward is that explanatory factors of causal nature be validated as actually existing and having claimed powers. 43: Where, on trillions of observed cases, FSCO/I readily comes about by intelligently directed configuration AND, 44: We have analysis -- ducked, of course -- on blind, needle in haystack search challenge, that going to turning every atom in the sol system or in the observed cosmos into an observer and allowing fresh observations at rates comparable to fast organic chemical reaction speeds, there is not enough scope of materials and time in 10^57 or 10^80 atoms and 10^17 s, at 10^12 to 10^14 observations per second of 500 or 1,000 bits worth of configuration space, to sample more than a negligibly small fraction of the space, i.e. we have negligible search potential. 45: Where also, on observing -- that key term again -- the nature of function based on specific, complex configuration of parts, whether say a fishing reel as illustrative or information bearing string data structures as key examples actually found in cells -- and strings are WLOG once we can reduce 3-d entities through description languages such as AUTOCAD etc -- we readily see that relevant function comes in deeply isolated islands in such beyond astronomical configuration spaces. 46: We note, that the vast continent of incrementally accessible function implied in the tree of life interpreted as a record of the origin and unfolding of life is wholly speculative; indeed the trade secret of paleontology as admitted by Gould is the systematic pattern of gaps in accounting for major features of body plans. 47: So, we see the strawman knocked over . . . >>Can you have a double standard for evidence?>> 48: Strawman. >>Also, does that mean we cannot have any kind of geographical reasoning before verified written records?>> 49: A forest of strawmen begins to be set up. 50: We obviously have geographical, geological, bio-geographical etc reasoning on matters of pre-history, However, such reasoning needs to be controlled by the principle that merely speculative hypotheses should not be allowed to present themselves as though claimed causes have been observed in action with requisite capability. 51: As biogeographical issues are likely intended, the stricture that there is absence of evidence of gradual emergence of body plan level features. [Such body plans for animals emerged "suddenly" in beds dated to the Cambrian era, without incremental precursors, cf the trade secret noted just above.] >> Does that mean that almost all archaeological evidence is rubbish?>> 52: Strawman, we note capabilities of human beings per observation and record so we have abundant patterns of empirical signs that distinguish archaeology from natural. 53: Indeed, you, JVL, are here neatly side stepping how archaeology is pervaded with recognition of the validity of the design inference on sign. 54: Where, of course, there are cases of shoddy or even fraudulent work in archaeology and beyond in paleontology. >>What is your definition of evidence?>> 55: The strawman continues, with invited inference that as not a true Scotsman [--> Scientist], I do not have a sound understanding of observation and evidence, we can read subtext. 56: Observation having been answered above, the word evidence is now trotted out. Okay, Wikipedia testifying against interest, is forced to acknowledge:

Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidence is what justifies [--> I would, post Gettier, use "warrants"] beliefs or what makes it rational to hold a certain doxastic [--> believing] attitude. For example, a perceptual experience of a tree may act as evidence that justifies the belief that there is a tree.

[--> our senses, though prone to error are typically reliable in most circumstances of relevance, and a credible witness can report accurately and provide good reason to accept claims as factual: I saw Tom club Tim who fell down . . . ]

In this role, evidence is usually understood as a private mental state.

[--> but such can be testified to and can warrant conclusions as to facts, which can be recorded and transmitted in good chain of custody to us. This is directly tied to what observation is.]

Important topics in this field include the questions of what the nature of these mental states is, for example, whether they have to be propositional, and whether misleading mental states can still qualify as evidence. [--> Yes, of our error prone cognitive framework and faculties] Other fields, including the sciences and the law, tend to emphasize more the public nature of evidence (for example, scientists tend to focus on how the data used during statistical inference are generated).[1] In philosophy of science, evidence is understood as that which confirms or disconfirms scientific hypotheses. Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit, for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity. In order to play the role of neutral [--> Wiki's bias shows here, OBJECTIVE is more correct] arbiter between competing theories, it is important that scientific evidence is public and uncontroversial [--> history shows that scientific evidence of good validity has often been controversial, try the case of recognising importance of handwashing by doctors], like observable physical objects or events, so that the proponents of the different theories can agree on what the evidence is. This is ensured by following the scientific method [--> there is no one, unique, one size fits all and only cases of Science method] and tends to lead to an emerging scientific consensus [--> consensus is not a sound criterion of truth or warrant in science, scientific theories are open ended and many key observations have had to be corrected] through the gradual accumulation of evidence. [--> refer to Kuhn's Structure of Scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts] Two issues for the scientific conception of evidence are the problem of underdetermination, i.e. that the available evidence may support competing theories equally well, and theory-ladenness, i.e. that what some scientists consider the evidence to be may already involve various theoretical assumptions not shared by other scientists. [--> a key admission!!!!!] It is often held that there are two kinds of evidence: intellectual evidence or what is self-evident and empirical evidence or evidence accessible through the senses. In order for something to act as evidence for a hypothesis, it has to stand in the right relation to it. In philosophy, this is referred to as the "evidential relation" . . . Probabilistic approaches hold that something counts as evidence if it increases the probability of the supported hypothesis. [--> broaden to include, plausibility or credibility] According to hypothetico-deductivism, evidence consists in observational consequences of the hypothesis. The positive-instance approach states that an observation sentence is evidence for a universal hypothesis if the sentence describes a positive instance of this hypothesis. The evidential relation can occur in various degrees of strength. These degrees range from direct proof of the truth of a hypothesis to weak evidence that is merely consistent with the hypothesis but does not rule out other, competing hypotheses, as in circumstantial evidence. In law, rules of evidence govern the types of evidence that are admissible in a legal proceeding. Types of legal evidence include testimony, documentary evidence, and physical evidence.

57: Evidence, can be seen in that context as observations and associated inferences or reasoning [to include mathematical derivations and calculations, where Statistics is a branch of Math, also credible testimony of observations or contemplations or self-awareness etc] that contribute to responsible warrant for claims. So, Merriam-Webster:

Essential Meaning of evidence 1 : something which shows that something else exists or is true There is no evidence that these devices actually work. He has been unable to find evidence to support his theory. See More Examples 2 chiefly US, somewhat formal : a visible sign of something 3 : material that is presented to a court of law to help find the truth about something The jury had a great deal of evidence to sort through before reaching a verdict. There is not a scrap/shred of evidence in her favor.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The pattern of evasion and absence of an actually observed case of FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits coming about by blind chance and/or machanical necessity continues. As predicted. KF kairosfocus

JVL, It is obvious that you need to distinguish the differing degree of warrant attaching to direct observation and witness, then to record of same [including issues of copies and chain of transmission] from THEORY-LADEN INTERPRETATION of traces from remote entities or events, remote in space and/or time. Newton rightly insisted that we observationally validate capability [thus, limitations] of causal processes we claim to have acted or be acting in circumstances where observation is absent, so that we have empirical control on speculations. The matter has nothing to do with my views or idiosyncrasies . . . your now habitual personalisation is fallacious . . . but is a matter of assuring that there is empirical observational control on models or explanations of things remote from our observation. It has nothing to do with whether archaeology of prehistoric sites [vs "natural"] can provide a degree of warrant, or whether dating techniques have some degree of warrant, or the like. It has nothing to do with estimated times for changes in question, the timeline itself is part of the theory-laden interpretive reconstruction we are talking about and insofar as it is based on assumed or extrapolated but not actually observed powers of incremental, claimed cumulative mutations filtered through differential reproductive success, it is a part of the same warrant challenge. The point is clear, you imply that you do not have actual observation of the power of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity to produce FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits so you have committed to faith in a model that reconstructs the remote past of origins on the assumption that such factors, however, did shape the past, never mind the relevant search challenge and nature of complex configuration based function; that is, you have begged the question and have tried to rewrite key meanings of terms like history in support. I do not expect you to acknowledge the point, but that is a conclusion quite clearly warranted by your arguments above. KF kairosfocus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKRTiHxvVJY 1 Minute worth your time. zweston

JVL in response to me pointing out that "he has not one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein." States that "That is not correct. I have taken a lot of time to examine the support for unguided evolution and ID." I did not claim that you have not examined the evidenced. I claimed that you do not have "one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein."

Claim: New Proteins Evolve Very Easily - Cornelius Hunter - April 25, 2017 Excerpt:  It is now clear that for a given protein, only a few changes to its amino acid sequence can be sustained before the protein function is all but eliminated. Here is how one paper explained it: “The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability—the ability of proteins to acquire changes in sequence and function.” In other words, protein function precipitously drops off with only a tiny fraction of its amino acids altered. It is not a gradual fitness landscape. Another paper described the protein fitness landscape as rugged. Therefore it is not surprising that various studies on evolving proteins have failed to show a viable mechanism. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required to evolve a relatively short protein. And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences. Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. So something like 10^70 attempts are required yet evolutionists estimate that only 10^43 attempts are possible. In other words, there is a shortfall of 27 orders of magnitude. But it gets worse. The estimate that 10^43 attempts are possible is utterly unrealistic. For it assumes billions of years are available, and that for that entire time the Earth is covered with bacteria, constantly churning out mutations and new protein experiments. Aside from the fact that these assumptions are entirely unrealistic, the estimate also suffers from the rather inconvenient fact that those bacteria are, err, full of proteins. In other word, for evolution to evolve proteins, they must already exist in the first place. This is absurd. And yet, even with these overly optimistic assumptions, evolution falls short by 27 orders of magnitude. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/04/claim-new-proteins-evolve-very-easily/

JVL then, unsurprisingly, hand-waves off "not even wrong' Pauli's criticism of the Darwinian misuse of mathematical probability. Yet, Pauli's criticism is just as valid today, if not more so, as it was when Pauli first stated it. When Darwinists use the word 'chance' they are not talking about any realistically mathematically defined probability for, say, the appearance of a butterfly wing, but they are instead speaking as if chance is a cause unto itself which is, in reality, "more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’ (Pauli)

What Is Chance? - Nicholas Nurston Excerpt: "The vague word 'chance' is used as a substitute for a more precise word such as 'cause'. “To personify ‘chance’ as if we were talking about a causal agent,” notes biophysicist Donald M. MacKay, “is to make an illegitimate switch from a scientific to a quasi-religious mythological concept.” Similarly, Robert C. Sproul points out: “By calling the unknown cause ‘chance’ for so long, people begin to forget that a substitution was made. . . . The assumption that ‘chance equals an unknown cause’ has come to mean for many that ‘chance equals cause.’” Others who reasoned in this fashion, Nobel laureate Jacques Monod, for one, used this chance equals cause line of reasoning. "Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, (is) at the root of the stupendous edifice of evolution,"... https://books.google.com/books?id=bQ5OAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25&lpg=PT25

Although the word “chance” is, in all other fields of science, defined as the mathematical probability of something happening, when Darwinists use the word ‘chance’ they are not appealing to any known mathematical probability of something happening but are in fact appealing to an unknown cause. Even Darwin himself, basically, agreed with Pauili assessment that this is 'very irrational' and said that to refer to something as "due to chance" is "a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation."

"I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations—so common and multiform in organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree in those in a state of nature—had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation." Charles Darwin - Origin - Chapter V http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/1860/1860-131-c-1859.html

Thus again, whenever you hear a Darwinist say that something happened randomly, or that it happened by chance, he is not appealing to any realistic mathematically defined probability but is, in reality, appealing to his ignorance of the actual cause. Which, (i.e. postulating an unknown cause as an actual cause), is just about as unscientific as one can get. You might as well be postulating magic wands as the actual cause for a rabbit appearing out of the magicians hat! JVL then dishonestly ignores real time empirical evidence that has been presented to him and appeals to his 'magic wand' of deep time, (i.e. billions of years), as if that will rescue him from what the real time empirical evidence is saying. (Namely, that Darwinian evolution is beyond impossible) Yet he is, once again, completely wrong in his reasoning. i.e. Deep time does not save him from his troubles.

Time: The Unlikely Villain Excerpt: When confronted with the problem of equilibrium, most scientific materialists will appeal to the magic ingredient of time. In chapter one we saw this appeal by Nobel Laureate, George Wald: “Time is in fact the hero of the plot. Given so much time the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: Time itself performs the miracles.” 49 However, Dr. (Harold F.) Blum, who is a materialist, points out that Wald’s faith in the miraculous ingredient of time is mere wishful thinking. Prolonged time periods, he asserts, actually worsen the dilemma: “I think if I were rewriting this chapter [on the origin of life] completely, I should want to change the emphasis somewhat. I should want to play down still more the importance of the great amount of time available for highly improbable events to occur. One may take the view that the greater the time elapsed the greater should be the approach to equilibrium, the most probable state, and it seems that this ought to take precedence in our thinking over the idea that time provides the possibility for the occurrence of the highly improbable.” 50 http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_life13.htm

In other words, entropy and time share a (very) deep connection which makes what’s impossible for Darwinism over short time periods, yet more impossible still over long periods of time. Then JVL tries to play the 'I am smarter than you in math' card yet once again. ,,, which reminds me of this old lawyers joke,,,

“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell” - Carl Sandburg

JVL then tries to dishonestly insinuate that Einstein and Wigner did not actually mean 'miracle' when they said the applicability of math to the universe was a 'miracle.' That is simply dishonest on JVL's part, For crying out loud, Wigner stirred up a (huge) hornets nest precisely because he meant exactly what he said when he said 'miracle'.

Mario Livio, or the Poverty of Atheist Philosophy: A Review of “Is God a Mathematician?” Excerpt: In short, Wigner committed a treason against ‘science’. He didn’t, in an Einsteinian fashion, just declare a personal faith in a God that had only marginal relevance to his scientific studies. He went farther than that: he implied that science was impossible and inexplicable without accepting a higher reality, transcending the mind of man and its capabilities for reasoning and experimentation. The short and ostensibly innocent article faced some really violent reactions; some objected to the conclusions in it, others to the premises, and still others refused to even deal with it, pretending it had never been written. But Wigner remained right about one thing: Despite the many attempts, no one could give a rational explanation for what Wigner described as the “uncanny ability of mathematics to describe and predict accurately the physical world.” http://americanvision.org/4333/mario-livio-or-the-poverty-of-atheist-philosophy-a-review-of-is-god-a-mathematician/

So again I remind JVL that "denialism" is considered a mental illness, not a valid scientific refutation.

"In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth" - per wikipedia

Then, after all that BS, JVL then tries to claim that he is being fair and honest and has questioned Darwinian evolution. One word.

MALARKEY! http://hayleyssavedgifs.tumblr.com/post/39232641080

bornagain77

JVL “Except, of course, no one is actually saying that. But a cute story.” You mistakenly attributed LCDs comment to me. Personally I like Berllnskis take that all Western novels are really one novel “Don Quixote” Vivid vividbleau

IF a verified, human observer is required to justify that new species arose via unguided processes then the same criteria applies to intelligent design does it not? If we can only accept 'evidence' that can be collected in one human lifetime then there is no ancient history is there? Can you have a double standard for evidence? Also, does that mean we cannot have any kind of geographical reasoning before verified written records? Does that mean that almost all archaeological evidence is rubbish? What is your definition of evidence? JVL

JVL It’s not plausible to get verified and documented evidence over millions of years.

Bad luck. In that case you will make more modest claims that you can prove scientifically. You can't suspend the scientific method and insert a Joker (wild card ) in science on the excuse that we can't observe on our life span what happens in millions of years. This is the point where you acknowledge there is something (that belongs to belief domain) trespassing the scientific border and you are willing to accept it as science. Lieutenant Commander Data

Vividbleau: "as our darwinist friends declare if you put all the components in a black box and shake it (few billions of years?) will emerge the reel." Except, of course, no one is actually saying that. But a cute story. JVL

LCD “If you ask a man (INTELLIGENCE) to assemble that fishing reel without a manual it’s very very difficult but as our darwinist friends declare if you put all the components in a black box and shake it (few billions of years?) will emerge the reel. Do we need to mention that reel doesn’t multiply by reel-division?” Doncha know every novel came from Don Quixote? On the Derivation of Ulysses from Don Quixote I imagine this story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe. His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the aging, nearly blind literary master observes that "the Ulysses," mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from "the Quixote." I raise my eyebrows. Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer. "The details of the remarkable series of events in question may be found at the University of Leiden," he says. "They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo." Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket. "As you know," he continues, "the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576." I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further service is needed. "Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying the Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now known as the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor's Los Hombres d'Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza's remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means, and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house and, rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infectious disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined." I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. "Is it your understanding, then," I ask, "that every novel in the West was created in this way?" "Of course," replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: "Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote." Vivid vividbleau

Kairosfocus: Having read through your statements I have a couple of questions I'd like you to address: Do you accept any kind of non-witnessed (as in human witnessed) ancient evidence? I'm thinking of geologic data primarily but also archaeological and such. How old do you think the earth is? How old do you think fossils are? Here's my reasons for asking these questions . . . IF you accept that the fossils we have discovered are as ancient as claimed then you must accept that the kind of changes you want to see 'observed' to justify a conclusion of unguided processes being adequate can take millions of years. But you seem to only accept a falsification of your view to be that you get verified documented evidence from trustable witnesses. Which makes no sense if the transitions we are looking at take millennia to occur. It's not plausible to get verified and documented evidence over millions of years. IF you will only accept verified eyewitness accounts for some events then don't you also have to apply that criterium to your own view? That is, you have no way of knowing if some of the fossilised species arose suddenly without the kind of testimony you are demanding of your opponents. Are you not then exercising a double standard? You guys have to provide this and this but I don't? Instead of a long list of numbered items I'd appreciate a more friendly and personal discussion. I don't need to be lectured to and I am sincerely interested in your answers. JVL

Bornagain77: Says the man who has complete blind faith in Darwinian evolution although he has not one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein. That is not correct. I have taken a lot of time to examine the support for unguided evolution and ID. Do I have “faith” that Wolfgang Pauli is more qualified than you are to judge whether or not Darwinists are using mathematical probability properly? You bet I do. That is your prerogative. I have to say that things have changed a lot since Dr Pauli died in 1958 so it's hard to say what he would think if he had all the up-to-date information. But, regardless, science does not depend on the opinion of one person, it progresses based on a collection of views and an accumulation of much data, i.e. not just one result or opinion. Moreover, you certainly have not experimentally “shown” his argument to be incorrect,,,, thus far you have merely agreed with other die-hard Darwinists who have criticized Behe. What is pretty clear is that Dr Behe misapplied the experimental results to form an erroneous probabilistic argument. It's pretty funny that you cannot even accept that one of your heroes might have got it wrong. There is no shame in making a mistake as long as you acknowledge it afterwards. WHAT??? Are you really trying to claim that you are justified in ignoring what the empirical evidence itself is saying just because I personally can’t answer nuanced probability calculations off the top of my head? The empirical evidence was about one kind of mutation arising, what kind of empirical evidence suggests that Dr Behe's conclusion is correct? Has someone spent more than the whole time the universe has existed to show his conclusion was correct? And it's not necessary to answer off the top of your head. You never even tried. Not even an attempt. You know you don't get the probabilities, why not just be honourable and admit it? Shoot, as was clearly evidenced by your nonchalant hand-waving dismissal of Einstein’s and Wigner’s mathematical “miracle” quotes, apparently nothing whatsoever can ever be allowed to question your a-priori commitment to atheism. Unlike you I don't just take quotes which seem to support my view as some kind of gospel. I actually take the time to read more and try and find out what the person quoted might have meant beyond what seems to be the case. But that doesn't fit your quote-mining approach does it? Contrary to what you believe, that is dogmatism, even “blind faith”, but it is certainly not anything remotely resembling science where everything is allowed to be questioned, especially including questioning Darwinian evolution itself. I have questioned unguided evolution. But when I question ID I get a lot of people telling me I'm an idiot, a liar, and a lot of other things. Perhaps you should allow for that in your discourse. Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath; you are so sure you are right that you cannot possibly conceive of being wrong. Which is why you are not being scientific. It's a good question for all of you: If questioning unguided evolution is a good thing then questioning ID should also be a good thing. Yes? JVL

KF 26: This extends far more generally, you come across as unfamiliar with the nature of multiple part, multiple feature complex entities, my favourite example being a rather simple machine: an ABU 6500C fishing reel.

:lol: If you ask a man (INTELLIGENCE) to assemble that fishing reel without a manual it's very very difficult but as our darwinist friends declare if you put all the components in a black box and shake it (few billions of years?) will emerge the reel. Do we need to mention that reel doesn't multiply by reel-division? Lieutenant Commander Data

PS: Orgel, 49 years ago:

living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity . . . . [HT, Mung, fr. p. 190 & 196:] These vague idea can be made more precise by introducing the idea of information. Roughly speaking, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions needed to specify the structure.

[--> this is of course equivalent to the string of yes/no questions required to specify the relevant J S Wicken "wiring diagram" for the set of functional states, T, in the much larger space of possible clumped or scattered configurations, W, as Dembski would go on to define in NFL in 2002, also cf here, -- here and -- here -- (with here on self-moved agents as designing causes).]

One can see intuitively that many instructions are needed to specify a complex structure. [--> so if the q's to be answered are Y/N, the chain length is an information measure that indicates complexity in bits . . . ] On the other hand a simple repeating structure can be specified in rather few instructions.  [--> do once and repeat over and over in a loop . . . ] Complex but random structures, by definition, need hardly be specified at all . . . . Paley was right to emphasize the need for special explanations of the existence of objects with high information content, for they cannot be formed in nonevolutionary, inorganic processes [--> Orgel had high hopes for what Chem evo and body-plan evo could do by way of info generation beyond the FSCO/I threshold, 500 - 1,000 bits.] [The Origins of Life (John Wiley, 1973), p. 189, p. 190, p. 196.]

kairosfocus

JVL, >>I believe you firmly believe in your ‘islands of function’ notion>> 24: Hardly new to me and hardly dismissible as a mere notion. 25: As has been pointed out at UD esp by GP many times over years, we start with workhorse molecules of life: proteins (including enzymes of course). There are about 6,000 fold domains in AA sequence space, with deep isolation as a dominant feature, no handy short spaced stepping stones. As a direct highly relevant empirical matter. 26: This extends far more generally, you come across as unfamiliar with the nature of multiple part, multiple feature complex entities, my favourite example being a rather simple machine: an ABU 6500C fishing reel. 27: Namely, that such entities have many components with particular configurations themselves. They are then clumped together so they are recognisable and available in the right place at the right time with correct mutual orientation. (This part is notorious, planes have crashed because a part was put in backways.) Then there has to be correct coupling and assembly to achieve due function based on a range of tolerable configurations. 28: There are vastly more scattered than correct part clumped configurations [selection from the wider pool of possible things picked], then vastly more arrangements that are in garbled, gibberish order and/or orientation, then coupling and assembly is nontrivial and highly specific, often intolerant of wrong ordering. In short the space of scattered vs clumped vs arranged and oriented vs coupled and assembled more than abundantly vindicates the point that functionally specific complex organisation and/or information [FSCO/I] comes in islands of function in config spaces dominated by seas of non function. 29: That you tried to dismiss this as a notion, implying idiosyncratic and dubious assertion speaks loud and clear, fail. For, any 7 year old knows the difference between [1] fhihdyrfhfvhffdjhdutkgfiyvk5w- or [2] asasasasasasasasasa and [3] coherent, meaningful, non-gibberish (the overwhelming result of randomness), non simply repetitive information poor strings, tracing to necessity or simple repetitive loops. 30: This point goes back, beyond Thaxton et al in TMLO to Orgel, Wicken and others, it is not even a design theory point. Random tars, crystal arrays and AA sequences in proteins are dramatically different. >> which implies that there would have to be big dumps of new ‘information’ to get from one to another, clearly.>> 31: A key acknowledgement against interest. 32: BTW, the explanation for why FSCO/I will come in islands of function is given in the page linked from every comment I have ever made at UD. >> But NO ONE in the unguided camp is saying or proposing that; they are saying there are NO islands of function. >> 34: They assert against what is manifest and has been acknowledged by Orgel et al for nearly 50 years because without there being an easily accessible grand continent of function their whole theory collapses. 35: So, explain to us why, on observation, there is a smooth progression from Darwin's warm pond or the like to first life; then onward to body plans and key organs or limbs, up to and including our own. Not on theories driven by assumptions but from observed initial circumstances and blind dynamic-stochastic forces. 36: As an example, move from random text to functional English sentences by blind forces, beyond 500 to 1000 bits worth of characters. Note, BLIND forces, not active information guided processes. This is directly comparable to getting to proteins or D/RNA in a pre life environment, or to creating the increments in same to support a new body plan, limb or organ. KF kairosfocus

JVL, >>I believe the historical records>> 1: History is the study of the past based on witness, record and analysis; witness is lifespan, valid record is delimited by availability of writing, i.e. eyewitnesses with intelligence giving direct or incidental accounts. 2: You are distorting language to suggest that pre-history is history, and worse that a reconstructed model past based on huge theoretical assumptions is history. You are responsible to know the difference. >> do establish that,>> 3: There is no establishment based on eyewitness testimony of then living, intelligent observers and/or records tracing to such. >> yes, over very, very long periods of time new life forms developed via unguided, natural processes.>> 4: Through distorting language and meaning, the inherently unobservable deep past of origin of life on earth and of body plans etc is smuggled in via theory and assumption laden models. Fail. >>But, knowing you don’t accept those records (fossils, genomes, morphologies, bio-geographics, etc),>> 5: Further distortion of language. Fossils and genes, body forms, geographical distributions are TRACES of the past not records. 6: There were no observers with intelligence and moral government testifying and leaving written record of the actual past that specifically led such things to be where modern era investigators come along and observe TRACES then infer to models of the past of origins more or less shaped by their assumptions and paradigms. 7: You know or should know the difference. >> I asked you what kind of evidence you would accept.>> 8: It seems you wish to distort the meaning of observation. Observations are made by intelligent observers -- that is, competent witnesses -- present at the relevant time and place, using their senses and possibly instrumental extensions of known reliability to detect what actually happened. 9: Someone interacting with traces [not records] is only a witness to those traces, not to the actual remote past of origins. 10: This, you know or should have known and acknowledged before I have had to explicitly point it out. 11: Referring to the random document exercise, you know that we interacted with summary reports of actual exercises carried out by investigators. >> Considering that the unguided paradigm suggests it might take millions of years for markedly new features to arise how long are you willing to wait to see the changes that would convince you?>> 12: Irrelevant, all that would suggest -- we are talking theory loaded models that try to reconstruct the remote past here -- is that reconstructions thus models of the remote, inherently unobserved past of origins cannot ever amount to the degree of warrant we can have for say the past 6,000+ or so years of recorded history. (That's when writing seems to have been invented.) 13: That should be frankly acknowledged to the general public and to pupils in school, instead of being presented as they too often are: practically certain. 14: Further to Newton's point, we must establish here and now under our observations that there are temporal-causal factors and forces capable of causing the like result as the traces from remote space or time and place. 15: Hence, my citing actual exercises and their results, which are entirely consistent with analysis of blind search challenge for large configuration spaces. Search challenge being a matter of mathematics, which carries its own certainty. 16: Namely, that it supports the view that it is maximally implausible to find a needle in a haystack far too large to be more than negligibly sampled blindly. 17: Your reference to "the unguided paradigm" of course shows precisely the insertion of assumptions that should have been separately established as reasonable. 18: Of course, the circle of argument then becomes self-reinforcing and invites marginalising those who dare to question allegedly settled and effectively certain science giving the "history" of the remote past. Crooked yardstick thinking. >> And what would stop you from even then saying: well, the designer intervened that time?>> 19: The design inference, of course is not an inference to designer as such but to process of intelligently directed configuration on tested reliable signs. 20: For example, were the first cells front loaded with relevant capabilities that would be enough to be design. Similarly, when we can estimate a novel body plan to need about 10 mn bases and see that body plans tend to come in at 100+ millions, we can compare known ability of intelligently directed configuration to create that much FSCO/I, vs search challenge for blind processes and on a trillions member observational base infer credibly that we are looking at design. That the DNA involves code and algorithms reinforces that: language and goal directed stepwise process. Whodunit, how, where etc are onward questions to be addressed on further inquiry. Arson credible, lets go looking for suspects now. >> So, again, what do you want someone to do?>> 21: First, to treat language with respect, recognising what history is and what pre-history is. Similarly, to know what an observer or witness is, what reports or witness are, what records are, that such can be and are sifted for reliability. 22: Second, to seriously address the point that one cannot simply poof claimed causal forces into being and assume the magnitude and kind of effects they can achieve, one needs to provide observational warrant. 23: Third, to avoid gross extrapolation of highly limited observations, especially when there is analysis that points to limited scale of possible impact. The search challenge of configuration spaces for over 500 - 1,000 bits is very real, with observational support on the table. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> So, we again have an evasion, there is no valid case of actually observed power of blind chance and mechanical necessity able to generate FSCO/I at or beyond 500 - 1,000 bits of complexity, equivalent to 72 - 143 ASCII characters. As was predicted. KF kairosfocus

JVL new life forms developed via unguided, natural processes.

Well , if life appears via natural processes what makes you think that those natural processes weren't engineered to mold the life forms ? Because you "believe " so? :lol: You mean that unguided natural processes emerged from unguided natural processes that emerged from unguided natural processes? Can you prove scientifically that? Take a natural law of your choice and prove it that is unguided. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, "You just believe that to be the case because someone else said so. Science on faith then?" Says the man who has complete blind faith in Darwinian evolution although he has not one scrap of scientific evidence that unguided Darwinian processes can create even a single protein. Moreover, in this case it just so happens to be Wolfgang Pauli himself who is pointing out that Darwinists are being "very irrational" in their use of mathematical probability. i.e. "While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Do I have "faith" that Wolfgang Pauli is more qualified than you are to judge whether or not Darwinists are using mathematical probability properly? You bet I do.

Wolfgang Pauli, in full Wolfgang Ernst Friedrich Pauli, (born April 25, 1900, Vienna, Austria—died Dec. 15, 1958, Zürich, Switz.), Austrian-born physicist and recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery in 1925 of the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that in an atom no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. Pauli made major contributions to quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and solid-state physics, and he successfully hypothesized the existence of the neutrino. In addition to his original work, he wrote masterful syntheses of several areas of physical theory that are considered classics of scientific literature.,,, Having demonstrated outstanding mathematical abilities—Pauli taught himself the then new theory of relativity in his gymnasium years and published his first paper on the subject when he was 18—he enrolled in physics at the University of Munich, where he studied the most advanced physics of the day: the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantum theory of the atom, under Arnold Sommerfeld. Pauli distinguished himself not only for his brilliance but also for his exacting rigour and impertinent witticisms. A review of the theory of relativity that he wrote for Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften (“Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences”) in 1921 gained him early fame and high praise from Albert Einstein. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wolfgang-Pauli

JVL goes on, "So, even if Dr Behe’s probabilistic argument was incorrect we should still accept his conclusions? That really is science by faith." I certainly did not say that. And it is dishonest for you to imply that is what I am arguing. Moreover, you certainly have not experimentally "shown" his argument to be incorrect,,,, thus far you have merely agreed with other die-hard Darwinists who have criticized Behe. I, on the other hand, have shown his argument to be in line with several other lines of experimental, and mathematical, evidence. Thus, directly contrary to what you tried to imply, It is you, not me, that is operating solely on "faith". I stated, "To repeat, In science it is the empirical evidence itself that has the final say, and it is the empirical evidence itself that is saying, (in concerted fashion I might add), that Darwinian evolution is beyond impossible." In response to that you quip, "Based on probability arguments you don’t understand? Too funny." WHAT??? Are you really trying to claim that you are justified in ignoring what the empirical evidence itself is saying just because I personally can't answer nuanced probability calculations off the top of my head? Sorry JVL, but contrary to what you falsely imagine to be true, science simply does not work that way. You could have every high-level mathematician in the world claiming that such and such theory is a probabilistic certainty, and it would only take one repeatable experimental result in science to blow all of their nuanced mathematical theorizing completely out of the water.

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period." - Crichton https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf

In short, mathematical models, in so far as they talk about physical reality, are wholly dependent on physical reality confirming whether they are even true or not. JVL, you then go on to claim that you are, contrary to all appearances, not really overtly biased against Intelligent Design and that you are being honest:, i.e. "I am being honest" and "I’m being straight and honest." I'm glad I was not drinking my coffee when I read that. I probably would have spit it out on my keyboard. I find you to be, contrary to what you are trying to claim, (and along with Seversky and ChuckyD), ranked among one of the most intellectually dishonest, even deceitful, people that I have ever met. Shoot, as was clearly evidenced by your nonchalant hand-waving dismissal of Einstein's and Wigner's mathematical "miracle" quotes, apparently nothing whatsoever can ever be allowed to question your a-priori commitment to atheism. Contrary to what you believe, that is dogmatism, even "blind faith", but it is certainly not anything remotely resembling science where everything is allowed to be questioned, especially including questioning Darwinian evolution itself.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

bornagain77

Kairosfocus: You have implied that there are observed cases of FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits coming about by known blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. I believe the historical records do establish that, yes, over very, very long periods of time new life forms developed via unguided, natural processes. But, knowing you don't accept those records (fossils, genomes, morphologies, bio-geographics, etc), I asked you what kind of evidence you would accept. Considering that the unguided paradigm suggests it might take millions of years for markedly new features to arise how long are you willing to wait to see the changes that would convince you? And what would stop you from even then saying: well, the designer intervened that time? So, again, what do you want someone to do? When you can come up with some achievable and clear criteria that you would accept for the observation of whatever it is you want to see why don't you spell it out in a new post? Then we could have a good discussion about it. NO ONE expects to see two dogs have a non-dog offspring so asking for something like that is just ludicrous and, frankly, shows a callous disregard for those you disagree with. I believe you firmly believe in your 'islands of function' notion which implies that there would have to be big dumps of new 'information' to get from one to another, clearly. But NO ONE in the unguided camp is saying or proposing that; they are saying there are NO islands of function. So, unless you can establish that there are 'islands of function' then it's just a hypothesis or assumption on your part. One that has not been established. Just you thinking there were interventionist jumps from species to species does not make it so. Can you establish that that is what actually happened? So far, you haven't been able to do that: you've got no witnesses or any kind of record so . . . JVL

Bornagain77: yet you yourself, (in completely ignoring Pauli’s critique of Darwinists misusing probability), are shown to not be analyzing mathematical probability in a fair and unbiased manner. How can you judge that if the mathematics is beyond you? You just believe that to be the case because someone else said so. Science on faith then? Moreover, for whatever lack I may, or may not, have in properly analyzing the math itself, I, via empirical evidence, (and even by appealing to others more qualified in math than I am), was, (in post 106, 107, and 119), never-the-less, able to ascertain that we should accept Behe’s conclusions as being correct, and the Darwinists’s conclusions as being incorrect, since Behe’s empirically derived conclusions line up with several other lines of empirical and mathematical evidence. So, even if Dr Behe's probabilistic argument was incorrect we should still accept his conclusions? That really is science by faith. So JVL, you can make hay of my personal lack of mathematical prowess all day long. I don’t care. And neither should you care. It simply does not matter as far as empirical science that I have now presented to you is concerned. It affects your ability to critically consider many of the arguments for and against unguided evolution. If you don't understand the math then you are just picking a side based on some other criteria. Additionally, for honour, you should state that you don't actually follow the mathematics instead of bluffing and trying to intimidate others with huge flurries of copy-and-pasted quotes. Are you an honourable and honest person? To repeat, In science it is the empirical evidence itself that has the final say, and it is the empirical evidence itself that is saying, (in concerted fashion I might add), that Darwinian evolution is beyond impossible. Based on probability arguments you don't understand? Too funny. But alas, for whatever severely misguided reason, you, by all apperances, have seemingly resolutely set yourself against ever honestly admitting that Intelligent Design is true. I don't think it is true. And I think many of the arguments for it being true are flawed including the one made by Dr Behe which is what I was initially discussing. I am being honest but you cannot accept that because you cannot believe that you might be wrong and so everyone who disagrees with you is a knave or a fool. Which means you're not really interested in having a dialogue or conversation about the issues; you're only interested in convincing the heathens that they're wrong. That's about it isn't it? You desperately need a change of heart JVL. My heart is fine. I'm being straight and honest. Can you say the same? JVL

Asauber it’s only a matter of time until the crack in the facade becomes too wide to Scotch tape over, and you’ve (not you personally) become too big a fool to fool anyone any longer. Andrew

The logic is simple and quick but the problem is that the soul have the inertia of a tanker ship. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, evasion duly noted. You have implied that there are observed cases of FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits coming about by known blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. It is you who need to provide same. Years ago attempts to claim such were seen here, every one was fatally flawed. My favourite was the one trying to simulate evolution of a pendulum clock, while not realising that even the plate that mounts bits and pieces is a serious bit of precision engineering and workmanship, much less holes and shafts at precise right angles, meshing gears and whatnot. Speaking of, gears are a whole discipline unto themselves as are screws and threading etc. You will love the incidence of irrationals involved. KF PS, note the example cited of particular individuals undertaking random document generation, their results as cited and the issue of being ~ 10^100 short as a factor on the config space for 500 - 1,000 bits. That already implies what observations mean, and shows that the sort of exercise in view is wide indeed. I have already noted that getting a vNSR into a metabolising entity is a huge increment in complexity. That's part of the ooL challenge. kairosfocus

"It’s not easy to find out that your map of the world is false. Actually is the most terrifying thing ." LCD, Agreed. But, it's only a matter of time until the crack in the facade becomes too wide to Scotch tape over, and you've (not you personally) become too big a fool to fool anyone any longer. Andrew asauber

Asauber JVL thinks that Winning on the Internet can turn false into true and/or true into false.

It's not easy to find out that your map of the world is false. Actually is the most terrifying thing . Lieutenant Commander Data

"You desperately need a change of heart JVL." JVL thinks that Winning on the Internet can turn false into true and/or true into false. It's a dead end, JVL. The sooner you grow up, the better it will be for you. Andrew asauber

JVL, you desperately want to cast doubt on my ability analyze mathematical probability in a fair and unbiased manner, yet you yourself, (in completely ignoring Pauli's critique of Darwinists misusing probability), are shown to not be analyzing mathematical probability in a fair and unbiased manner. That is called being a blatant hypocrite JVL. Moreover, for whatever lack I may, or may not, have in properly analyzing the math itself, I, via empirical evidence, (and even by appealing to others more qualified in math than I am), was, (in post 106, 107, and 119), never-the-less, able to ascertain that we should accept Behe’s conclusions as being correct, and the Darwinists’s conclusions as being incorrect, since Behe’s empirically derived conclusions line up with several other lines of empirical and mathematical evidence. Whereas the Darwinian conclusions are found to be severely wanting for any empirical back-up. i.e. again, Poverty of empirical evidence, thy name is Darwinian evolution! So JVL, you can make hay of my personal lack of mathematical prowess all day long. I don't care. And neither should you care. It simply does not matter as far as empirical science that I have now presented to you is concerned. To repeat, In science it is the empirical evidence itself that has the final say, and it is the empirical evidence itself that is saying, (in concerted fashion I might add), that Darwinian evolution is beyond impossible. It ain't rocket science for crying out loud!

“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” – Feynman

And If you had even an inkling of intellectual honesty in you then you would readily admit as much. But alas, for whatever severely misguided reason, you, by all apperances, have seemingly resolutely set yourself against ever honestly admitting that Intelligent Design is true. And thus you are basically stuck trying, (apparently by whatever means of deceptive rhetoric you can think of), to counter the arguments for intelligent design. That is truly sad and pathetic! You desperately need a change of heart JVL. Desperately! bornagain77

Bornagain77: So JVL, let’s get this straight, you adamantly want me to dig around and try to answer some basic math problems for you whilst you yourself completely ignore that your worldview is fatally flawed as to having a realistically “mathematically defined probability (Pauli)” in the first place? You do what you want to do. All I am saying is that you haven't shown the basic understanding necessary to evaluate some of the arguments made that you vociferously support. Which means you are just accepting those arguments on blind faith. Which means you are not doing science. It's your choice as to how you respond. You can attempt to deflect attention away from my basic point but it doesn't mean it's going to go away. But you keep desperately trying to avoid answering my questions and to change the subject. Why is that? I think it's because you can't actually answer my questions. But you could disprove that. I don't think you can. And, if that is the case, the honourable thing would be to admit it. Perhaps you've not an honourable person. Perhaps you're just an agent provocateur; you're just trying to trip other people up without making yourself look foolish. You can't answer my questions which means you can't personally actually evaluate Dr Behe's claims because you don't understand the underlying issues. I think we're done here, don't you? JVL

So JVL, let's get this straight, you adamantly want me to dig around and try to answer some basic math problems for you whilst you yourself completely ignore that your worldview is fatally flawed as to having a realistically "mathematically defined probability (Pauli)" in the first place? You are apparently completely oblivious to the fact that you have a beam in your own eye whilst you try to remove a speck from mine.

Matthew 7:5 You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Moreover, in post 106, 107 and 119, I gave ample reason why we should accept Behe's conclusions as being correct, and the Darwinists's conclusions as being incorrect, since Behe's empirically derived conclusions line up with several other lines of empirical and mathematical evidence. Whereas the Darwinian conclusions are found to be severely wanting for any empirical back-up. i.e. Poverty of empirical evidence, thy name is Darwinian evolution! You see JVL, contrary to what you apparently believe, It is the scientific evidence itself, not deceptive rhetoric, that has the final say in science!

"If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it." - Feynman

bornagain77

Bornagain77: JVL, you willful blindness/ignorance to the fatal flaws of your own worldview, as far as mathematical probability is concerned, would be amusing if it were not so sad. Your inability to answer some basic probability questions is, once again, noted. Why you think your basically admitting your ignorance is some kind of badge of honour I cannot fathom. Why don't you ask Dr Dembski, do you think he'll think ignorance of low-level probability is a selling point? JVL

JVL, you willful blindness/ignorance to the fatal flaws of your own worldview, as far as mathematical probability is concerned, would be amusing if it were not so sad.

Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf

bornagain77

Bornagain77: And I also am more than happy to let my posts at 106, 107, and 119 stand as stated, seeing as they are, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, completely devastating to your entire Darwinian worldview, (your predicted denial of your ‘denialism’ not withstanding of course If you can't do the math how do you know you're right? Is just buying into one view on faith good enough? Is it scientific? Why do you believe ID proponents if you can't actually check their work? AND you still can't answer some basic, undergraduate probability questions. JVL

JVL: "i’m happy to walk away leaving those problems unanswered." And I also am more than happy to let my posts at 106, 107, and 119 stand as stated, seeing as they are, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, completely devastating to your entire Darwinian worldview, (your predicted denial of your 'denialism' not withstanding of course) :)

106 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-746624 119 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-746647 "Cue JVL to deny that he is scientifically proven to be in the midst of ‘denialism’" :) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-746655

bornagain77

@JVL FLASH NEWS: You lost. Please don't stop squirming . Lieutenant Commander Data

Kairosfocus: Cite a single case of actually observed emergence of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or information by blind dynamic stochastic processes. What would you consider 'observed'? Are historical records good enough? What kind of historical records? Also, how would you rule out intervention by a deity, i.e. if I point to a particular situation what's to stop you from saying: ah yes, but that's a case of the designer intervening. How can we tell the difference? Basically, I'd like you to be very specific with your challenge. JVL

Bornagain77: I see nothing whatsoever in your responses that even comes close to ‘scientifically’ refuting these devastating empirical falsifications that I have listed against your Darwinian worldview. Gee, I thought we were discussion a particular statement by Dr Behe which you have no shown that you understand the underlying mathematics. I guess you've conceded that point then since you've chosen not to show you do have the understanding. Moreover JVL, to rub salt in your wound, I can ‘scientifically’ prove that atheists are in the midst of ‘denialism’ in regards to ever honestly acknowledging design. Gosh, even ET will tell you that science is not about proofs; it's about explanations. Anyway, since you're clearly not going to answer the basic probability problems I stated i'm happy to walk away leaving those problems unanswered. JVL

JVL

The other more general issue is the assumption or consideration that there is some kind of plan or goal ... There is no indication or evidence that we, humans, were the goal or target of the whole endeavour. If you disabuse yourself of that notion then it’s all just a bit of luck. I understand that is a difficult stance to abandon but, again, if there is no real evidence that there is a plan or goal . . . At least please try and consider the idea that there really is no goal or plan. Think of how things would play out under that criterium. And then think: is the evidence consistent with that view? Just honestly ask that question.

The idea that humans arose via "a bit of luck" with no plan or goal affects how you can appreciate the value of your fellow human beings, of society, or the value of yourself. A mindless, lucky-chance, with no goal or purpose at the beginning - assigns a certain non-value to all of human life, all the way to its end. Setting aside what "a bit of luck" can actually produce, as just about every person on earth has and can witness and attest to - it's difficult to find people who actually proclaim the meaninglessness of human beings in a way that is consistent. Maybe you would say it. A guy like Alex Rosenberg has come close. Friedrich Neitzsche famously went down that path - complaining about fellow atheists who tried to soften the message. But nobody really stays strong and consistent with the "random, no purpose, plan" idea. They always pull in some (usually Christian) value to assign to human life and their own life - and seek moral growth, virtue, meaning and a bigger impact in their life than you could get with just a bit of luck as your origin. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus BA77 & Q, for me the decisive issue is finding that D/RNA has coded strings and algorithms, with of course molecular nanotech execution machinery. Error correction stuff just adds to it. We are talking language and stepwise goal directed processes here, at the root of cell based life.

Biologists have the knowledge of big pieces of the cell but there are different levels of resolution/magnifying and as studying continue there are more and more complex levels of information. It's an unbridgeable gap between junk DNA (genes that codes for proteins are enough for cell functioning and the rest are just junk) and "epigenetics"( where an association of factors in parents life are recorded into genes(?) and offsprings react as if they already experienced what in fact only their parents did. . ) Lieutenant Commander Data

PPPS, I have for years pointed to Venter et al as showing actual lab scale design and modification of life forms using molecular nanotech. It is my opinion that such are early generation exercises that should lead to actually synthesised life by the end of this century. But of course that would be by intelligently directed configuration. You have been present when I have said as much. It sounds like it is time to remind that there are weak argument correctives under the resources tab. kairosfocus

PPS, do I need to note, that lotteries have to be designed to be winnable? kairosfocus

JVL, I call your bluff. Cite a single case of actually observed emergence of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or information by blind dynamic stochastic processes. Actually observed not inferred or assumed; that is Newton's very reasonable criterion for allowing explanatory factors into the work of science: seeing the like effects on a candidate cause which then leads to arguing like causes like. So, kindly fill in_ ________, no smuggled in active information by the back door, which plagues the various simulation exercises. I predict, you cannot fill in that claim, or it would long since have been in every UD thread for over a decade now. We can readily see how you tried to project blame to me above rather than simply providing a case in point, i.e. turnabout tactics. The case of the internet as well as your friendly neighbourhood hardware store [try, every screw and every nut with matching thread], mechanic's shop and library already ground trillions of observed cases of such FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits by intelligently directed configuration. KF PS, and it remains the case that the infinite monkeys exercises of random text generation are a factor of about 10^100 short on config space size. I clip Wiki again, inadvertently testifying against interest:

One computer program run by Dan Oliver of Scottsdale, Arizona, according to an article in The New Yorker, came up with a result on 4 August 2004: After the group had worked for 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey-years, one of the "monkeys" typed, "VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8.t" The first 19 letters of this sequence can be found in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". Other teams have reproduced 18 characters from "Timon of Athens", 17 from "Troilus and Cressida", and 16 from "Richard II".[27] A website entitled The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, launched on 1 July 2003, contained a Java applet that simulated a large population of monkeys typing randomly, with the stated intention of seeing how long it takes the virtual monkeys to produce a complete Shakespearean play from beginning to end. For example, it produced this partial line from Henry IV, Part 2, reporting that it took "2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years" to reach 24 matching characters: RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r"5j5&?OWTY Z0d

PPS: A search challenge plausibility argument is not a probability argument. A search space of 3.27 * 10^150 to 1.07 * 10^301 configs will greatly exceed the search capacity of 10^57 atoms in our sol system with ~ 10^12 - 14 ops per second per atom as observer, or 10^80 atoms, respectively. It is easy to see that such cannot search more than a negligible fraction, and further search for golden search exponentiates the problem. For, a search is a selected subset of a given set. So the space of possible searches is the power set, of scale 2^n for an original space of scale n. Search challenge then runs into, the sheer complexity of a von Neumann kinematic self replicator, but long before that, the need to have correct parts in well matched, correctly assembled and coupled together patterns to achieve coherent configuration based function. How long does one have to shake up the parts in a bait bucket to expect to correctly assemble an ABU 6500 C fishing reel or something else that is similarly functional? How long would one have to shake up 1,000 or even 500 coins to get a coherent ASCII coded text in English of 72 to 143 characters? Or a similar executable computer program? Monkeys typing is of similar character, where strings are WLOG as 3-d functional entities can be reduced through description languages, cf AUTOCAD. kairosfocus

BA77 & Q, for me the decisive issue is finding that D/RNA has coded strings and algorithms, with of course molecular nanotech execution machinery. Error correction stuff just adds to it. We are talking language and stepwise goal directed processes here, at the root of cell based life. The notion that blind chance and mechanical necessity in some Darwin's pond or the like somehow created a von Neumann self replicating entity with those characteristics blindly is not even able to pass the giggle test. This leaves the massively known source of language and goal-directed processes on the table, design. Design is there from OoL up in the tree of life. Beyond that stage, the design inference keeps on making sense once we look at body plans up to our own. That's going to be more and more sensible in an information age and the imposed a priori evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers are increasingly going to be obviously threadbare ideological question begging. A pre information age theory that did not foresee the information based tech of life is simply not viable in the long term. But given ideological power bases and centrality to the agenda of blocking the door against the shadow of possibility that there is a Divine creator, they will go down fighting, kicking, screaming and preening their lab coats all the way down. That's what's happening. KF kairosfocus

BA77, yup, they really are weird beasties. KF kairosfocus

"How about starting with first molecule that will be part of first cell ever." You are right LCD, it gets worse for Darwinists, far worse,

Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA Mathematical Basis for Probability Calculations Used in (the film) Origin Excerpt: Putting the probabilities together means adding the exponents. The probability of getting a properly folded chain of one-handed amino acids, joined by peptide bonds, is one chance in 10^74+45+45, or one in 10^164 (Meyer, p. 212). This means that, on average, you would need to construct 10^164 chains of amino acids 150 units long to expect to find one that is useful. http://www.originthefilm.com/mathematics.php Minimal Complexity Relegates Life Origin Models To Fanciful Speculation - Nov. 2009 Excerpt: Based on the structural requirements of enzyme activity Axe emphatically argued against a global-ascent model of the function landscape in which incremental improvements of an arbitrary starting sequence "lead to a globally optimal final sequence with reasonably high probability". For a protein made from scratch in a prebiotic soup, the odds of finding such globally optimal solutions are infinitesimally small- somewhere between 1 in 10exp140 and 1 in 10exp164 for a 150 amino acid long sequence if we factor in the probabilities of forming peptide bonds and of incorporating only left handed amino acids. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/minimal-complexity-relegates-life-origin-models-to-wishful-speculation/ The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds - Douglas Axe - 2010 Excerpt Pg. 11: "Based on analysis of the genomes of 447 bacterial species, the projected number of different domain structures per species averages 991. Comparing this to the number of pathways by which metabolic processes are carried out, which is around 263 for E. coli, provides a rough figure of three or four new domain folds being needed, on average, for every new metabolic pathway. In order to accomplish this successfully, an evolutionary search would need to be capable of locating sequences that amount to anything from one in 10^159 to one in 10^308 possibilities, something the neo-Darwinian model falls short of by a very wide margin." http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.1 “We have no idea how the molecules that compose living systems could have been devised such that they would work in concert to fulfill biology’s functions.” - James Tour – considered one of the top ten synthetic chemists in the world The Origin of Life: An Inside Story - March 2016 - Lecture with James Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQXgJ-dXM4

bornagain77

That paper by Behe that talk about probabilities of 2 mutations doesn't uncover the full image of reality because start calculating probabilities in "a life" environment that is already in place and FUNCTIONAL. How about starting with first molecule that will be part of first cell ever. :lol: Lieutenant Commander Data

Off topic: There is a very interesting article up on ENV concerning how Darwin himself considered his theory to be (very) short on facts, and was very hesitant to publish his book precisely because he knew that it was (very) short on facts.

Darwin’s Reticence: How on Earth Did the Origin of Species Ever Get Published? - Robert F. Shedinger - February 10, 2022 Excerpt: On November 29, 1857, he reported to Asa Gray: "What you hint at generally is very very true, that my work will be grievously hypothetical & large parts by no means worthy of being called inductive; my commonest error being induction from too few facts.",,, ,,, We must wrestle much more than we have with the irony that perhaps the most famous and influential scientific treatise in the Western world was viewed by its author as nothing more than an imperfect abstract of a larger work that never saw the light of day. And this abstract only made it into print through an unlikely series of serendipitous circumstances and virtually against the wishes of its author. The Origin of Species has dubious scientific value. The fact that it gets treated as seminal is a clear testament to the artificial and ideological nature of the entire edifice of the evolutionary theory that is built upon it. Even Darwin would be aghast at what the world has made of a mere abstract that he was almost pathologically ambivalent about ever publishing. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/02/darwins-reticence-how-on-earth-did-the-origin-of-species-ever-get-published/

bornagain77

Frankly JVL, your hand-waving "denialism" aside, I am quite satisfied to let my comments at 106, 107, and 119 stand as stated,

106 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-746624 119 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-remarkable-process-of-cell-division/#comment-746647

I see nothing whatsoever in your responses that even comes close to 'scientifically' refuting these devastating empirical falsifications that I have listed against your Darwinian worldview FYI, 'denialism' is not even close to being a valid refutation of a scientific argument, as you and other Darwinists seem to think, but is instead to be considered a mental illness.

"In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth." - Denialism - Wikipedia

Moreover JVL, to rub salt in your wound, I can 'scientifically' prove that atheists are in the midst of 'denialism' in regards to ever honestly acknowledging design.

Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/design_thinking065381.html Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study - Mary Papenfuss - June 12, 2015 Excerpt: Three studies at Boston University found that even among atheists, the "knee jerk" reaction to natural phenomenon is the belief that they're purposefully designed by some intelligence, according to a report on the research in Cognition entitled the "Divided Mind of a disbeliever." The findings "suggest that there is a deeply rooted natural tendency to view nature as designed," writes a research team led by Elisa Järnefelt of Newman University. They also provide evidence that, in the researchers' words, "religious non-belief is cognitively effortful." Researchers attempted to plug into the automatic or "default" human brain by showing subjects images of natural landscapes and things made by human beings, then requiring lightning-fast responses to the question on whether "any being purposefully made the thing in the picture," notes Pacific-Standard. "Religious participants' baseline tendency to endorse nature as purposefully created was higher" than that of atheists, the study found. But non-religious participants "increasingly defaulted to understanding natural phenomena as purposefully made" when "they did not have time to censor their thinking," wrote the researchers. The results suggest that "the tendency to construe both living and non-living nature as intentionally made derives from automatic cognitive processes, not just practised explicit beliefs," the report concluded. The results were similar even among subjects from Finland, where atheism is not a controversial issue as it can be in the US. "Design-based intuitions run deep," the researchers conclude, "persisting even in those with no explicit religious commitment and, indeed, even among those with an active aversion to them." http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/richard-dawkins-take-heed-even-atheists-instinctively-believe-creator-says-study-1505712 Is Atheism a Delusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ii-bsrHB0o

Cue JVL to deny that he is scientifically proven to be in the midst of 'denialism' :) Verse:

Romans 1:18-20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

bornagain77

Bornagain77: Case in point, JVL doubles, and even triples, down on his fallacious arguments, and now claims, “you are incorrect in your assessment that ‘Darwinists’ NEVER give any realistic mathematics defined probabilities.” Yup, they provided the rate that Dr Behe used in his supposition. Didn't they? Yes? Oh dear, now you're going to have to refute that information that you and Dr Behe used was given. Gosh, that is a bit of a dilemma. Then you go off on topics beyond the core issue in question, as you are won't to do. AND you haven't even attempted to answer the basic probability questions I posed for you, or anyone, to answer. Nice try but I think I'll wait 'til you address those. Moreover, JVL also pretended as if the fact that Dr. Behe empirically derived results are in general agreement with several other lines of empirical, and mathematical, results, is not relevant to the overall question of whether, number one, Dr. Behe’s results are, in fact, correct or not, and, number two, whether JVL’s own Darwinian worldview is even true or not. You are just flailing around all over the place when all I did was say that Dr Behe got one mathematical model wrong. You must be really desperate to avoid drawing attention to the fact that you and Kairosfocus and ET have not been able to answer the basic probability questions I posed above. And why is that I wonder? Because it shows you don't really understand the issues involved? And admitting that would make you look very, very foolish. What ever happened to honour and truth? Why is it so hard for you to admit when you don't know something? You must be really, really scared. How will you be judged if you've avoided being honest and true? JVL

Kairosfocus: JVL, first, the design inference filter as you know has defaults of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, it is only when such become maximally implausible that design is on the table. You are making a probabilistic argument are you not? ET is not going to like that. AND, in this case, most people with knowledge in the field think that Dr Behe did not make the correct probabilistic inference meaning: unguided processes have not been shown to be 'maximally' improbable. You do realise that 'maximally' improbable has no strict mathematical meaning? I understand you won't say impossible but 'maximally' improbable? Really? Next, there is no blind, dynamic-stochastic process shown empirically to lead to FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits; there are trillions of cases by design as observed and search challenge readily explains. You mean none that you accept as probable or even likely. The thesis that there is no design or plan, to become scientific, would have to have observational basis relevant to origin of life and body plans, nothing is there that is close and nothing is seriously in prospect Well, if you can provide a clear and unambiguous design or plan then please do so. As for combinations, the rule I noted is for independent events, there are others for somewhat dependent events. Yes, yes, we all know that! You don't have to lecture us. Well, not me anyway. Again, I have posed several, simple, easy to solve probability problems above, can you solve any of them? JVL

per KF at 97, "Were your controllers electronic, hydraulic or pneumatic? KF" Well, in tech school, I built, from the component level up, an electronic PID controller. But I have worked on all three types of controllers. Each type is, save for the math behind it, pretty much its own unique beast that must be tamed in its own unique way. :) bornagain77

To repeat what I stated earlier, "I don't know what in blue blazes Darwinists are doing, but they are certainly not doing science." Case in point, JVL doubles, and even triples, down on his fallacious arguments, and now claims, "you are incorrect in your assessment that ‘Darwinists’ NEVER give any realistic mathematics defined probabilities." Okie Dokie JVL, now is your chance to prove to all the Darwin doubters on UD that Darwinian evolution is a real scientific theory, (instead of being a blind faith religion for atheists as it actually is). What is the realistic mathematically defined probability for the appearance of an eye, a butterfly wing, and/or for an entire human? (peer-reviewed citations please! :) ) I'll even generously give you a prokaryote cell and artificial selection as starting points, (effectively giving you loaded dice to start with). Let's see your numbers JVL. How many generations and rounds of selection before you are reasonably likely to get something resembling a rudimentary eye? How many more generations and rounds of selection before you are reasonably likely to get something resembling a butterfly wing? And how many more generations and rounds of selection before you are reasonably likely to get something resembling a human? Remember only 10^40 organisms have ever existed on the face of earth (M. Behe, S. Meyer), so please do try to be judicious in how you decide to parse out your probabilistic resources. :) Moreover, JVL also pretended as if the fact that Dr. Behe empirically derived results are in general agreement with several other lines of empirical, and mathematical, results, is not relevant to the overall question of whether, number one, Dr. Behe's results are, in fact, correct or not, and, number two, whether JVL's own Darwinian worldview is even true or not. JVL is dead wrong on both counts. Having several lines of independent empirical, and mathematical, evidence all converging to the same conclusion, (namely that Darwinian evolution is probabilistically impossible), is one of the most sure signs in science that you are, in fact, dealing with a correct scientific conclusion. Moreover, I just remembered another line of empirical evidence that, number one, falls into general agreement with Dr. Behe's empirically derived results, and, number two, 'devastatingly' undermines the entire reductive materialistic foundation upon which Darwin's theory sits. This 'devastating' empirical evidence comes from recent advances in 'quantum biology'. Specifically, in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

To state the blatantly obvious, this one in 10^50 empirical finding is certainly found to be in general agreement with what Dr. Behe's found, (as well as being 10 billion times above the 10^40 number for organisms that have ever existed on earth). Moreover, to drive this point even further home, this follow up 2018 article stated that “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”

Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)

As well, DNA itself does not belong to the world of classical mechanics, (as is presupposed within Darwinian thought), but instead belongs to the world of quantum mechanics. In the following video, at the 22:20 minute mark, Dr Rieper shows why the high temperatures of biological systems do not prevent DNA from having quantum entanglement and then at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper goes on to remark that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.

"What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state." Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176

In fact, classical information is now found to be a subset of quantum information. In the following site entitled “Quantum Information Science”, a site where Charles Bennett, (of quantum teleportation and reversible computation fame), himself is on the steering committee,

Quantum Information Science Steering Committee C. H. Bennett IBM D. P. DiVincenzo IBM N. Gershenfeld MIT H. M. Gibbs University of Arizona H. J. Kimble Caltech J. Preskill Caltech U. V. Vazirani UC/Berkeley D. J. Wineland NIST C. Yao Princeton University https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/nsf00101.htm

On that site, they have this following illustration showing classical information to be a subset of quantum information. They state, "The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”

Classical Information is a subset of Quantum information – illustration https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif below that illustration they have this caption, “Figure 1: The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”

What is so devastating to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists with the finding pervasive quantum information, coherence and/or entanglement, within molecular biology on such a massive scale, (I.e in every important biomolecule), is that quantum information, coherence and/or entanglement, is a non-local, beyond space and time, effect that requires a beyond space and time cause in order to explain its existence. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, and especially with the falsification of 'hidden variables', simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the 'non-local' quantum information, coherence and/or entanglement, that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology.

“hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize. John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it. How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?” per Jimfit https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/quantum-physicist-david-bohm-on-why-there-cannot-be-a-theory-of-everything/#comment-662358

Whereas on the other hand, Christians readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain quantum information, coherence and/or entanglement. As Colossians 1:17 states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

it is also important to realize that quantum information, unlike classical information, is conserved. As the following article states, In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

The implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, cannot be created nor destroyed, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have several lines of empirical evidence strongly suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies (just as Christians have claimed all along). As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) - per radar online

Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of scientific, theological, and even personal, significance. As Jesus once asked his disciples, along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?” Verse:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

At least please try and consider the idea that there really is no goal or plan.

:lol: Oops an atheist is forced to lie saying that "survival" is not a purpose. You mean that you win a lotto prize every day for "millions of years" without buying the ticket ? If an atheist say so , must be true. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, first, the design inference filter as you know has defaults of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, it is only when such become maximally implausible that design is on the table. Next, there is no blind, dynamic-stochastic process shown empirically to lead to FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits; there are trillions of cases by design as observed and search challenge readily explains. I have noted this many times so there is no fair basis for suggesting mere bias against blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. The thesis that there is no design or plan, to become scientific, would have to have observational basis relevant to origin of life and body plans, nothing is there that is close and nothing is seriously in prospect. As for combinations, the rule I noted is for independent events, there are others for somewhat dependent events. Mutations are generally held to be accidental, if they are highly correlated and aligned with function or survival in stressed environments that may be interesting and significant evidence of built in functionality, ie even more FSCO/I. As to oh, there are many mut combinations likely to confer function, so things are much more probable, the basic problem is, if that were materially the case for Malaria, we should be seeing a lot more resistance emerging. Such would shift odds but the search challenge issue obtains esp when complexity of combinations mounts up. . But then, this is not my main point. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: As for probabilities of composites, the matter is never simple as you will see I noted on independence and combination to effect a given result, which is not the same as simultaneous occurrence. When events are not independent, different rules obtain, with provisions to avoid double counting etc. I take it you are trying to suggest the mutations are not independent, but not so combined as to point to design. That is a tough row to hoe. Yes, you are stating the obvious criteria except that there is no need to refer to design. The question is: if certain mutations are required for a certain modification to occur then what is the chance of that happening. That's what Dr Behe was addressing. And he made a probabilistic argument that it was so unlikely that the required combination would arise that, in his mind, it implied the existence of a designer. But, if he got the mathematical modelling wrong, then that occurrence would be much more likely and that would undercut his argument. So, part of the problem is arguing from the point of view of a particular modification and that is like saying: what are the chances of a particular person winning the lottery? That is always vanishingly small but IF there is no designer and no plan then you have to consider what is the chance of any modification happening. And that changes the probabilities. The other more general issue is the assumption or consideration that there is some kind of plan or goal. This is akin to the sharp-shooter fallacy: what is the chance that this particular target was hit if the process was random? But, again, the argument is made from the point of view from the 'winner' of the process. The life form that won. There is no indication or evidence that we, humans, were the goal or target of the whole endeavour. If you disabuse yourself of that notion then it's all just a bit of luck. I understand that is a difficult stance to abandon but, again, if there is no real evidence that there is a plan or goal . . . At least please try and consider the idea that there really is no goal or plan. Think of how things would play out under that criterium. And then think: is the evidence consistent with that view? Just honestly ask that question. JVL

JVL, for argument, I will accept that you have withdrawn the suggestion that is rhetorically implicit in characterising Behe as a Chemist. Similarly, the reluctant half withdrawal on focus on substance. As for probabilities of composites, the matter is never simple as you will see I noted on independence and combination to effect a given result, which is not the same as simultaneous occurrence. When events are not independent, different rules obtain, with provisions to avoid double counting etc. I take it you are trying to suggest the mutations are not independent, but not so combined as to point to design. That is a tough row to hoe. KF PS, to underscore the point drawn from Lewontin, here is the US NSTA, in 2000:

All those involved with science teaching and learning should have a common, accurate view of the nature of science. [--> yes but a question-begging ideological imposition is not an accurate view] Science is characterized by the systematic gathering of information through various forms of direct and indirect observations and the testing of this information by methods including, but not limited to, experimentation [--> correct so far]. The principal product of science is knowledge in the form of naturalistic concepts [--> evolutionary materialistic scientism is imposed] and the laws and theories related to those [--> i.e. ideologically loaded, evolutionary materialistic] concepts . . . . science, along with its methods, explanations and generalizations, must be the sole focus of instruction in science classes to the exclusion of all non-scientific or pseudoscientific methods, explanations, generalizations and products [--> censorship of anything that challenges the imposition; fails to appreciate that scientific methods are studied through logic, epistemology and philosophy of science, which are philosophy not science] . . . . Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science [--> a good point, but fails to see that this brings to bear many philosophical issues], a number of shared values and perspectives characterize a scientific approach to understanding nature. Among these are a demand for naturalistic explanations [--> outright ideological imposition and censorship that fetters freedom of responsible thought] supported by empirical evidence [--> the imposition controls how evidence is interpreted and that's why blind watchmaker mechanisms never seen to actually cause FSCO/I have default claim to explain it in the world of life] that are, at least in principle, testable against the natural world. Other shared elements include observations, rational argument [--> ideological imposition may hide under a cloak of rationality but is in fact anti-rational], inference, skepticism [--> critical awareness is responsible, selective hyperskepticism backed by ideological censorship is not], peer review [--> a circle of ideologues in agreement has no probative value] and replicability of work . . . . Science, by definition, is limited to naturalistic [= evolutionary materialistic scientism is imposed by definition, locking out an unfettered search for the credibly warranted truth about our world i/l/o observational evidence and linked inductive reasoning] methods and explanations and, as such [--> notice, ideological imposition by question-begging definition], is precluded from using supernatural elements [--> sets up a supernatural vs natural strawman alternative when the proper contrast since Plato in The Laws, Bk X, is natural vs artificial] in the production of scientific knowledge. [US NSTA Board, July 2000, definition of the nature of science for education purposes]

kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: Here, I note how you loaded up on a no true scotsman fallacy, by using “Chemist,” rather than what even the tendentious Wikipedia’s hit piece has to concede at outset: BIO-Chemist, i.e. knowledgeable on the chemistry involved in cellular and higher bodily processes, thus intimately familiar with the molecular biology and associated chemical interactions. Which, are key to his claims. Where, given the hostility of some of his colleagues, it is highly relevant to note, too, a career achievement he lists: “[he is] Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.” You make assumptions. I almost stated that Dr Behe was a bio-chemist but then I thought maybe that wasn't true. And I failed to look it up. So I admit to getting that wrong but there was no intended malice in the mistake. Where, any fair person will agree that consistently, I have focussed on the substance of the argument, making a note on credibility as appropriate, as I did just above with Wikipedia, using principle of embarrassment, here a concession against known tendentiousness and ideological interest. I don't think that is completely true but, in interest of pursuing the actual topic under discussion, I won't continue to push the point. Here, too, he is effectively using a 5th form first unit of probability point that with a composite event E made up of components e1 and e2 . . . en, where there is reason to see these as independent, P(E) = p1 x p2 x . . . pn. Mutations and their locations in biomolecules are going to be effectively independent of one another and it seems we are looking at a composite effect conferring drug resistance. Again, the point is, not made by me initially, is that the situation is more complicated than that and that Dr Behe was mistaken in his characterisation of the situation. So, the matter is back to where it should always have been, that odds of 1 in 10^20 established empirically lead to 1 in 10^40 for a composite result. No, the situation is more complicated than that. You're just saying it is simple doesn't make it so. JVL

Bornagain77: Thus, although JVL falsely claimed that Dr. Behe, (and especially me), don’t really understand the mathematical probabilities involved, the fact of the matter is that it is Darwinists, and JVL himself, who either doesn’t understand the entire concept of realistically defining mathematical probabilities, and/or who is being purposely deceitful about the entire nature of the mathematical probabilities being dealt with. I said Dr Behe made a mistake. I suspect you don't really understand the mathematics, which you could clear up but you won't. As far as the rest of your screed is concerned: who are you to judge who is right and who is wrong when you (apparently) can't do the mathematical modelling yourself? Moreover, although JVL falsely claimed that Dr. Behe was not qualified to truly understand the mathematical probabilities involved since he was only a chemist, and is not a (evolutionary) biologist and/or a mathematician, the fact of the matter is that Dr. Behe’s straightforward, and empirically derived, results for the probabilities involved are in general agreement with several other lines of empirical, and mathematical, evidence, I said Dr Behe made a mistake. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Does that better match your conception of all this being an ideological war instead of just a scientific disagreement? IOW, directly contrary to JVL’s claim that Darwinists understand mathematical probabilities better than ID advocates do, Darwinists NEVER give any realistic mathematical defined probabilities as to the time frame of when it might be reasonable to expect Darwinian processes to produce some biological structure,,, say, producing an eye, a butterfly wing, and/or producing an entire human. Aside from escalating what I actually said you are incorrect in your assessment that 'Darwinists' NEVER give any realistic mathematics defined probabilities. But I've stopped expecting you to be fair. JVL falsely insists that only he and other die-hard Darwinists, who oppose Dr. Behe, truly understand mathematical probabilities and that ID advocates, like Dr. Behe, (and especially like me), do not really understand the probabilities involved I said Dr Behe made a mistake. And I suspect you don't understand the mathematics. You can show you do understand the mathematics but you won't. Why is that? Just because at one point you managed to accomplish a technically difficult task in good time does that mean you can understand a complicated probabilistic, biological situation? I'm not diminishing your accomplishment just like I'm not demonising Dr Behe or other ID proponents (despite your attempts to make it sound that way). I am suggesting that Dr Behe made a mistake and that you have failed to show a basic understanding of the mathematics involved and have chosen to not try and show you do understand. JVL

ET: OK- JVL is correct in that two events with a probability of 10^20 do NOT give us a combined probability of 10^40. Behe was wrong in saying that it does. It does depend on the nature and relationship of the events; sometimes it is appropriate to multiply the probabilities. But the case that Dr Behe was addressing was more complicated and required more analysis and a more complicated mathematical model. I have always had time for Dr Behe: he is completely honest and straight-forward, he testified at the Dover trial when some of his fellow ID supporters didn't, he allowed himself to be interviewed on the Skeptical Inquirer podcast years ago, he has (unless he's retired) stayed a respected member of the Lehigh faculty but not been afraid or stifled from expressing his support for ID, he has conceded some parts of unguided evolution as being true. I consider him an honourable fellow. I have often thought that if the 'dialogue' between ID and no-ID proponents wasn't so toxic at times he might have had a better discussion with his critics over this issue. JVL

The probability discussion has absolutely no relevance because darwinists have no clue about internal mechanism that maintain homeostasis and regulate genomic activity(aka intelligent responses to environment ). Their ignorance is disguised by general expressions like random mutation , natural selection that explain nothing . it's like saying that a rabbit(evolution) can be explained by a magician(natural selection) and his hat(random mutation). Ok we've seen the rabbit appearing from magician's hat but this is not the explanation for the existence of a rabbit. Lieutenant Commander Data

If they're independent events, then the probability of 10^20 and 10^20 would be 10^40. If there's a dependency or common elements then they would be added so, 200000000000000000000. Silver Asiatic

ET: "JVL is correct in that two events with a probability of 10^20 do NOT give us a combined probability of 10^40. Behe was wrong in saying that it does." HUH??? I disagree with you, Behe's reasoning is straightforward. (and agrees with several other lines of empirical and mathematical evidence as I just pointed out in posts 106 and 107). As I further pointed out in posts 106 and 107, It is Darwinists who have to put up smoke and mirrors, as far as probabilities are concerned, to try to get around his straightforward reasoning. bornagain77

OK- JVL is correct in that two events with a probability of 10^20 do NOT give us a combined probability of 10^40. Behe was wrong in saying that it does. But that doesn't diminish the point that the only reason probability arguments are used is because there isn't any actual evidence. ET

Moreover, although Durrett and Schmidt's mathematical estimates, via population genetics, are in general agreement with Dr. Behe's, (and Axe and Gauger's), empirically derived results, Dr. Behe's empirically derived results, as far as science itself is concerned, are to be considered far more valid, and/or far more realistic, than Durrett and Schmidt's mathematical estimates are, since Dr. Behe's estimates are based on real world experimental results, and are not based on mathematical models. Mathematical models which often fail to take certain real world facts into consideration. As Dr. Behe explains, “The difficulty with models such as Durrett and Schmidt’s is that their biological relevance is often uncertain, and unknown factors that are quite important to cellular evolution may be unintentionally left out of the model. That is why experimental or observational data on the evolution of microbes such as P. falciparum are invaluable,,,”

Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that 'for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years' (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless "using their model" gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. Generally, when the results of a simple model disagree with observational data, it is an indication that the model is inadequate.,,, The difficulty with models such as Durrett and Schmidt’s is that their biological relevance is often uncertain, and unknown factors that are quite important to cellular evolution may be unintentionally left out of the model. That is why experimental or observational data on the evolution of microbes such as P. falciparum are invaluable,,, http://www.discovery.org/a/9461

Thus, although JVL falsely claimed that Dr. Behe, (and especially me), don't really understand the mathematical probabilities involved, the fact of the matter is that it is Darwinists, and JVL himself, who either doesn’t understand the entire concept of realistically defining mathematical probabilities, and/or who is being purposely deceitful about the entire nature of the mathematical probabilities being dealt with. Moreover, although JVL is a sad one-trick pony, who ignores any and all empirical evidence that falsifies his Darwinian worldview, and who likes to, repeatedly, pretend that you have to have a PhD in mathematics, (and/or a PhD in ‘evolutionary’ biology), to truly understand Darwin’s theory, (and if you don’t have a PhD in mathematics or evolutionary biology then, according to JVL's reasoning, you have no right to even criticize Darwin’s theory), the fact of the matter is that, as mathematician Granville Sewell himself pointed out, “It has never required a PhD in science to understand the key issue in the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design. It is blindingly obvious to non-scientists,, that unintelligent forces alone cannot design hearts, eyes, ears, and brains.”

It’s Really Not Rocket Science - Granville Sewell - November 16, 2015 Excerpt: “It is not enough to say that design is a more likely scenario to explain a world full of well-designed things. It strikes me as urgent to insist that you not allow your mind to surrender the absolute clarity that all complex and magnificent things were made that way. Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident… you have essentially “lost your mind.”” - Jay Homnick It has never required a PhD in science to understand the key issue in the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design. It is blindingly obvious to non-scientists like Jay Homnick that unintelligent forces alone cannot design hearts, eyes, ears, and brains.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/it_really_isnt/

Moreover, to drive one final nail in JVL’s mathematical coffin, and to repeat what I said earlier in this thread, that fact that we can even apply mathematics to trying to understand the universe in the first place is to be considered, by all rights, a ‘miracle’ in and of itself. And this is according to no less than both Wigner and Einstein.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt:,, certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine

Verse:

Ephesians 4:14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

bornagain77

JVL falsely insists that only he and other die-hard Darwinists, who oppose Dr. Behe, truly understand mathematical probabilities and that ID advocates, like Dr. Behe, (and especially like me), do not really understand the probabilities involved First off, I certainly understand the probabilistic math well enough to follow the arguments being made by each side. Again, I actually had to physically build a PID controller to graduate from tech school As well, 'understanding math' was central in my work as a instrumentation technician in the Chemical industry. i.e. Keeping thousands of process control systems calibrated properly, and running smoothly as a whole. (I literally had to ‘crunch numbers’ all day long in my work). Secondly I hold that JVL is been flat out deceitful about Darwinists understanding mathematical probabilities better than ID advocates do. In fact, I hold that hard-core Darwinists, such as JVL, have no realistic clue about using mathematical probabilities correctly as far as science itself is concerned. JVL listed a few instances of finding mathematically defined probabilities using dice,,,

"what is the probability that rolling two fair, 6-sided dice 20 times you would get both dice coming up 4." "What’s the probability of getting one prime number if you roll a fair 6 sided die four times?" etc..

Yet as "not even wrong" Wolfgang Pauli himself pointed out, when Darwinists use mathematical probabilities they are not using "the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability," (as with dice in JVL's examples), but are instead, "Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity" wherein the word 'chance' becomes "more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”

Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf

And without any realistically defined mathematical probabilities, (like we have with JVL's examples of dice), then Darwinists, instead of being "completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ are instead "actually very irrational," (W. Pauli). Thus, although JVL falsely accused me of "bait-and-switch", it is actually JVL himself who is deceitfully 'baiting and switching'. i.e. In regards to mathematical probabilities, JVL, in his appeal to the mathematically defined probabilities of dice, is disingenuously acting like Darwinian evolution is related in some meaningful way to some realistically defined mathematical probabilities. That is simply a completely false impression that JVL is trying to convey. The fact of the matter is that Darwinists "use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability" but use it in a way that is indistinguishable from a claiming that a 'miracle' happened (Pauli). Moreover, it is simply impossible to build a scientific theory without any realistically defined mathematical probabilities. As Murray Eden pointed out in an article entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory”, “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible",,,

“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” - Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109.

IOW, directly contrary to JVL's claim that Darwinists understand mathematical probabilities better than ID advocates do, Darwinists NEVER give any realistic mathematical defined probabilities as to the time frame of when it might be reasonable to expect Darwinian processes to produce some biological structure,,, say, producing an eye, a butterfly wing, and/or producing an entire human. As mathematician, (par excellence), Kurt Gödel himself stated, “The formation within geological time of a human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field, is as unlikely as the separation by chance of the atmosphere into its components.”

“The formation within geological time of a human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field, is as unlikely as the separation by chance of the atmosphere into its components.” - Kurt Gödel

Moreover, Homoplasy, (and/or what is often deceitfully called 'convergent evolution' by Darwinists), greatly exasperates this problem that Darwinists have with finding realistically defined mathematical probabilities for their theory, "(e.g., eyes 'evolved' 45 times independently, and bioluminiscence 27 times;,,,)"

Extinct Four-Eyed Monitor Lizard Busts Myth of a Congruent Nested Hierarchy - Günter Bechly - April 23, 2018 Excerpt: Homoplasy is now recognized as a ubiquitous phenomenon (e.g., eyes evolved 45 times independently, and bioluminiscence 27 times; hundreds of more examples can be found at Cambridge University’s “Map of Life” website). https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/extinct-four-eyed-monitor-lizard-busts-myth-of-a-congruent-nested-hierarchy/

As Bernard d'Abrera explains, "For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is mathematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply mathematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.,,,"

Bernard d'Abrera on Butterfly Mimicry and the Faith of the Evolutionist - October 5, 2011 Excerpt: For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is mathematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply mathematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.,,, ,,, Evolutionism (with its two eldest daughters, phylogenetics and cladistics) is the only systematic synthesis in the history of the universe that proposes an Effect without a Final Cause. It is a great fraud, and cannot be taken seriously because it outrageously attempts to defend the philosophically indefensible. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/in_this_excerpt_from_the051571.html

Moreover, although JVL falsely claimed that Dr. Behe was not qualified to truly understand the mathematical probabilities involved since he was only a chemist, and is not a (evolutionary) biologist and/or a mathematician, the fact of the matter is that Dr. Behe's straightforward, and empirically derived, results for the probabilities involved are in general agreement with several other lines of empirical, and mathematical, evidence, Specifically, Dr. Behe found that, "(By “the same mutational complexity” I mean requiring 2-3 point mutations where at least one step consists of intermediates that are deleterious, plus a modest selection coefficient of, say, 1 in 10^3 to 1 in10^4. Those factors will get you in the neighborhood of 1 in 10^20.) *Any adaptive biological feature requiring a mutational pathway of twice that complexity (that is, 4-6 mutations with the intermediate steps being deleterious) is unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes during the history of life on Earth.,,,"

Guide of the Perplexed: A Quick Reprise of The Edge of Evolution – Michael Behe – August 20, 2014 Excerpt: *Any particular adaptive biochemical feature requiring the same mutational complexity as that needed for chloroquine resistance in malaria is forbiddingly unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes and fixed in the population of any class of large animals (such as, say, mammals), because of the much lower population sizes and longer generation times compared to that of malaria. (By “the same mutational complexity” I mean requiring 2-3 point mutations where at least one step consists of intermediates that are deleterious, plus a modest selection coefficient of, say, 1 in 10^3 to 1 in10^4. Those factors will get you in the neighborhood of 1 in 10^20.) *Any adaptive biological feature requiring a mutational pathway of twice that complexity (that is, 4-6 mutations with the intermediate steps being deleterious) is unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes during the history of life on Earth.,,, What’s more, Nicholas White’s factor of 1 in 10^20 already has built into it all the ways to evolve chloroquine resistance in P. falciparum. In the many malarial cells exposed to chloroquine there have surely occurred all possible single mutations and probably all possible double mutations — in every malarial gene — yet only a few mutational combinations in pfcrt are effective. In other words, mutation and selection have already searched all possible solutions of the entire genome whose probability is greater than 1 in 10^20, including mutations to other genes. The observational evidence demonstrates that only a handful are effective. There is no justification for arbitrarily inflating probabilistic resources by citing imaginary alternative evolutionary routes. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/guide_of_the_pe089161.html

And that, (unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes during the history of life on Earth), empirical finding of Dr. Behe is in general agreement with what Doug Axe and Ann Gauger empirically found, i.e. "The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That’s longer than the age of the universe."

New Paper from Biologic Institute, "Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" Ann Gauger - January 1, 2015 We went on to test for cooption the two most likely enzymes by generating two-base combinations of mutations. After testing 70 percent of all possible two-base mutations for each enzyme, or about 40 million cells each, that also failed. What does this mean? In an evolutionary scenario, to get an enzyme to switch functions the first step is to make a spare copy that can be mutated without destroying a function the cell needs. Second, the cell has to overproduce the mutating enzyme, because any newly emerging enzyme will be very bad at the job at first. To compensate there will need to be lots of enzyme around. Third, there is the problem of finding the right combination of mutations by random search. Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That’s longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/01/happy_new_year/

And Behe's straightforward empirical finding is also in general agreement with the mathematics of population genetics. Dr. Sanford, who's credentials in genetics are impeccable, (i.e. he invented the 'gene gun' and taught at Cornell for 20 years), found, via population genetics, that, "the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer),, the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years,,, Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect),,, When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years."

The waiting time problem in a model hominin population - 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/

And is also in general agreement with what Durrett and Schmidt themselves found, i.e. "You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect."

More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes,, in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/

bornagain77

JVL, you just confirmed my intent to take up the marginalisation game in my next OP. In due course, ASAP. I beg to first remind you that arguments have three main levers of persuasion, pathos, ethos, logos. The most persuasive is emotions, and Ari duly noted that our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not as those we make when we are pained and hostile; which is an obvious factor in the polarisation over ID. Going into details, our emotions are no better than the quality of underlying expectations and judgements; which of course are prone to become warped by crooked yardstick principles and commitments. A big part of objectivity, then, is filtering out such biases by appropriate warrant, an issue that has been gone over in enough detail to show why we need such filters. Second, we come to the credibility or authority of a presenter or source (and I extend to, a witness), where no authority or witness or presenter exceeds the value of his facts, logic and underlying assumptions -- and let us bear in mind that 99.9+% of arguments depend on authorities starting with the dictionary and the first level textbooks, authors and teachers we all started from. All of this points to the least rhetorically persuasive form of appeal, but the only one that actually has power to warrant, weight of merits on fact, logic and start-point premises: fact, logic, startpoints. Thus, first principles and duties of right reason, rightly followed and applied. Here, I note how you loaded up on a no true scotsman fallacy, by using "Chemist," rather than what even the tendentious Wikipedia's hit piece has to concede at outset: BIO-Chemist, i.e. knowledgeable on the chemistry involved in cellular and higher bodily processes, thus intimately familiar with the molecular biology and associated chemical interactions. Which, are key to his claims. Where, given the hostility of some of his colleagues, it is highly relevant to note, too, a career achievement he lists: "[he is] Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania." He is clearly standing on his crease as an effective batsman, whether scoring or defending his wicket. Your attempt to marginalise and taint by implying that here is some weekend windball dabbler going up against a Test Team thus fails, fails in a way that exposes your own biases and unreliability. Your credibility just took a big hit. Your ad hominem attempt to attack me also collapses. Where, any fair person will agree that consistently, I have focussed on the substance of the argument, making a note on credibility as appropriate, as I did just above with Wikipedia, using principle of embarrassment, here a concession against known tendentiousness and ideological interest. When it comes to the ideological imposition, your quarrel is not with me, try Lewontin as just one striking case in point -- and a case you must know given longtime engagement here, so you have set up and knocked over a strawman also:

. . . to put a correct [--> Just who here presume to cornering the market on truth and so demand authority to impose?] view of the universe into people's heads

[==> as in, "we" the radically secularist elites have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge, making "our" "consensus" the yardstick of truth . . . where of course "view" is patently short for WORLDVIEW . . . and linked cultural agenda . . . ]

we must first get an incorrect view out [--> as in, if you disagree with "us" of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of acknowledged manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world [--> "explanations of the world" is yet another synonym for WORLDVIEWS; the despised "demon[ic]" "supernatural" being of course an index of animus towards ethical theism and particularly the Judaeo-Christian faith tradition], the demons that exist only in their imaginations,

[ --> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying "our" elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to "fix" the widespread mental disease]

and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth

[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]

. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [--> "we" are the dominant elites], it is self-evident

[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]

that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [--> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [--> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is "quote-mined" I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]

(Do you want me to give further cases in point, I can. You need to withdraw your ad hominem; which is well below your usual level of participation.) Back on the core matter, Behe's claims including the one being objected to are about molecules and their interactions, accidents etc: mutations. He is on his crease. Here, too, he is effectively using a 5th form first unit of probability point that with a composite event E made up of components e1 and e2 . . . en, where there is reason to see these as independent, P(E) = p1 x p2 x . . . pn. Mutations and their locations in biomolecules are going to be effectively independent of one another and it seems we are looking at a composite effect conferring drug resistance. Going on, you are likely implying onward the dubiousness of Behe's main thesis, irreducible complexity and the minimal likelihood that such would come about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. I have always found the objections to that dubious, for cause. For example, let us consider Menuge's five criteria:

IC is a barrier to the usual suggested counter-argument, co-option or exaptation based on a conveniently available cluster of existing or duplicated parts. For instance, Angus Menuge has noted that:

For a working [bacterial] flagellum to be built by exaptation, the five following conditions would all have to be met:

C1: Availability. Among the parts available for recruitment to form the flagellum, there would need to be ones capable of performing the highly specialized tasks of paddle, rotor, and motor, even though all of these items serve some other function or no function. C2: Synchronization. The availability of these parts would have to be synchronized so that at some point, either individually or in combination, they are all available at the same time. C3: Localization. The selected parts must all be made available at the same ‘construction site,’ perhaps not simultaneously but certainly at the time they are needed. C4: Coordination. The parts must be coordinated in just the right way: even if all of the parts of a flagellum are available at the right time, it is clear that the majority of ways of assembling them will be non-functional or irrelevant. C5: Interface compatibility. The parts must be mutually compatible, that is, ‘well-matched’ and capable of properly ‘interacting’: even if a paddle, rotor, and motor are put together in the right order, they also need to interface correctly.

( Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science, pgs. 104-105 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). HT: ENV.)

In short, the co-ordinated and functional organisation of a complex system is itself a factor that needs credible explanation. However, as Luskin notes for the iconic flagellum, “Those who purport to explain flagellar evolution almost always only address C1 and ignore C2-C5.” [ENV.]

So, the matter is back to where it should always have been, that odds of 1 in 10^20 established empirically lead to 1 in 10^40 for a composite result. And to begin with, 1 in 10^20 or for that matter plausible rates for multicellular forms, together with the required cumulative information to create novel body plans, rapidly run into the requirement for coherent, coordinated information rich functionality from molecules to gross anatomy, tied back into reproduction [so DNA and cell structure], thus yielding deeply isolated islands of function in vast configuration spaces. Those islands start as you should know, with protein fold domains in AA sequence space, the stepping stones just aren't there to bridge the gaps. Thus, there is no plausible blind chance and mechanical necessity observationally anchored explanation for OoL, requiring D/RNA of 100 - 1,000 kbases much less body plans each requiring 10 - 100+ million bases. Hugely beyond the blind search capacity of the only actually observed universe, ours. There is no observed dynamic-stochastic blind mechanism observed to be able to get to OoL much less origin of body plans. But routinely, FSCO/I is observed to come about by design. Where, from von Neumann, we know that kinematic self replication requires huge additional complexity involving stored tape info and effector mechanisms with availability of parts. This points to the massive integrated complexity of the biochemistry of metabolism. Which also comes back to Behe being on crease. So, whatever the imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism dressed up in a lab coat may wish to impose there is no contest on the merits. Blind mechanisms have failed and design is the natural reasonable alternative. Notice, for record, the defaults are blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. It is their failure that warrants an inference on sign to design. In my case, I note that it is beyond dispute true that D/RNA involves considerable coded information, thus language. That code in part expresses algorithms for assembling of AA sequences for proteins, i.e. stepwise, finite, halting goal directed processes. Such are not matters of biology as such, but information, communication and cybernetics. They are also clearly diagnostic of just one empirically warranted cause, intelligently directed configuration. That settles the matter. Design best explains OoL and OoBP. Absent entrenched ideology, that would have been settled decades ago. KF kairosfocus

Bob O'H:

I was wondering where the 10^20 came from – the only way I could see it being a “real world, data point” would be if someone had actually looked at 10^20 plasmodia.

Cuz you say so? That isn't an argument.

So no they didn’t count plasmodia. This is actually the probability of mutation and establishment, estimated from the number of times resistance has been seen to evolve and estimates of the numbers of P. falciparum.

Looks like real world data points! ET

JVL:

Oh and by the way: you and most all the ID proponents here frequently and predictably call into question the abilities and intentions of any and all who support the unguided evolutionary paradigm including many with greater and more respected reputations than Dr Behe.

Of course we do! The only evidence for unguided evolution is with genetic diseases and deformities! The people who support unguided evolution only do so with nonsensical and unsupportable diatribe. All bacterial flagella are unaccountable for via unguided evolutionary processes. Universal common descent is a non-starter given unguided evolution. You lose ET

JVL:

And, again, Dr Behe seems to have assumed that the initial mutations would have had to arise together ...

No, he does no such thing. So shut up. Again, the ONLY reason probability arguments are used is due to the fact there isn't any actual evidence. You lose, so stuff it. ET

:lol: Darwin forgot to tell you how stable is the mechanism which produce the mutation. If darwinists have no clue if mutation is random or directed imagine that they have no clue about the (much more complex)mechanism that produce a mutation . Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, you are, (willingly or not), completely oblivious to the fact, (regardless of how you try to finagle the math to make it compatible with your Darwinian worldview), that the 10^20 number is not a mathematical estimate but is a empirically derived, i.e. real world, data point. i.e. It exists independently of the math!

I was wondering where the 10^20 came from - the only way I could see it being a "real world, data point" would be if someone had actually looked at 10^20 plasmodia. It turns out they didn't. This is the paper cited, and this is where the number appears:

Resistance to chloroquine in P. falciparum has arisen spontaneously less than ten times in the past fifty years (14). This suggests that the per-parasite probability of developing resistance de novo is on the order of 1 in 10^20 parasite multiplications.

So no they didn't count plasmodia. This is actually the probability of mutation and establishment, estimated from the number of times resistance has been seen to evolve and estimates of the numbers of P. falciparum. Bob O'H

Kairosfocus: VL, Behe is an established, credentialled academic. Your prejudice in the teeth of fact and logic applied to empirical evidence and linked math amounts to little more than ideologically driven question begging fallacious appeal to authority leading to selective hyperskepticism. You have again made yourself into a case study on the impact of crooked yardstick thinking. I suggest you should think again. Dr Behe is a chemist; as far as I know a fine chemist with a good publication record. But he's not a biologist or a mathematician. In order to correctly mathematically model a biological situation you need to have a very good understanding of all the dynamics that contribute to the situation. I think it's pretty complicated. I was not the one who initially pointed out that Dr Behe got the model wrong. I'm not condemning him, I'm just agreeing that he got the model wrong and, therefore, made an incorrect conclusion. Oh and by the way: you and most all the ID proponents here frequently and predictably call into question the abilities and intentions of any and all who support the unguided evolutionary paradigm including many with greater and more respected reputations than Dr Behe. And you do that in the face of evidence and arguments contrary to your opinion. You have no moral right to call someone else on a behaviour you yourself frequently indulge in. Perhaps you should remove the mote from your own eye before you accuse others of having one? JVL

Bornagain77: VL, you are a sad one trick pony. You ignore any and all experimental evidence that directly contradicts your Darwinian worldview and focus solely on your (supposed) expertise in mathematics over others to try to claim that your Darwinian worldview is true. Uh huh. It wasn't me who initially pointed out that Dr Behe incorrectly modelled a situation mathematically. And how would you know? You haven't even attempted to do the simple problems I presented. I'm guessing you haven't got a clue. If you don't understand the mathematics or how to model the situation then you have no way of knowing if Dr Behe got it right. Which means you are just accepting his statement on faith. Which means you're not considering it might be wrong and that his critics might have a point. Which means you're not doing or participating in any kind of scientific endeavour. You picked your view and have spent years and years looking for quotes which support (or you think support) your view. If you don't actually understand the science or the mathematics then why should anyone take you seriously? What kind of person tells others they don't understand the science when they themselves don't actually understand it? Someone who blindly accepts what some people say? PS I'm not chomping on your bait-and-switch. Just because you brought up Dr Marks, etc doesn't mean I'm gonna follow. JVL

BA77, ah yes the joys of instrumentation and control, with Shannon info systems lurking, not to mention Laplace transforms, transients, instability and worse. Were your controllers electronic, hydraulic or pneumatic? KF kairosfocus

EDTA, the product implies inference that relevant mutations are effectively independent. Do you have any good reason to infer that such are directed and correlated? That would itself be remarkable evidence of design. But it is obvious that the point is, mutations are generally held to be accidents uncorrelated to increased functionality in a context or more correctly increased survival to reproduce. Random changes in a complex information signal have another name, noise; known to be conducive to breaking the code. Hence Behe's rule of thumb that the likely outcome under adverse selection pressure is to break something that blocks how the attack works but also that does not prevent reproduction. The point is glorified common sense, but it is not going towards building up further FSCO/I. KF kairosfocus

JVL, Behe is an established, credentialled academic. Your prejudice in the teeth of fact and logic applied to empirical evidence and linked math amounts to little more than ideologically driven question begging fallacious appeal to authority leading to selective hyperskepticism. You have again made yourself into a case study on the impact of crooked yardstick thinking. I suggest you should think again. KF kairosfocus

Hi JVL, From Behe's quote: "So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40." I have not seen the rebuttal against Behe; are they saying the events are not independent? Or that such mutations happen at some rate, and so might accumulate over time? Thanks. EDTA

JVL, you are a sad one trick pony. You ignore any and all experimental evidence that directly contradicts your Darwinian worldview and focus solely on your (supposed) expertise in mathematics over others to try to claim that your Darwinian worldview is true. I'm sorry, experimental science simply does not work that way. In science, it is the experimental evidence itself that has the last word, and it is the experimental evidence itself that is directly contradicting your Darwinian worldview.

“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” – Feynman

Perhaps you now want to disagree with Feynman, like you disagreed with both Einstein and Wigner when they said the applicability of mathematics to the universe was a quote-unquote 'miracle'? Moreover, I am not nearly as impressed with your supposed mathematical prowess as I am with, say, Dr. Robert Marks' mathematical prowess,,, who has found, after years of study with colleagues I might add, that, “there exists no (mathematical) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”

Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia

Again, he found that “there exists no (mathematical) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” That statement from Marks and company is simply completely devastating to the claim that Darwin's theory even qualifies as a 'hard' science' in the first place. Even someone as willfully blind as you are JVL ought to, from that 'mathematical' finding, at least get a small inkling that all is not well in Darwinland, (a place where magical make-believe 'just-so stories reign supreme). Moreover, directly contrary to what you are repeatedly trying to imply in your posts, I am more than sufficient in math to understand Behe's basic argument. I built a PID controller in order to graduate from tech school for crying out loud.

PID controller A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID controller or three-term controller) is a control loop mechanism employing feedback that is widely used in industrial control systems and a variety of other applications requiring continuously modulated control. A PID controller continuously calculates an error value,,, as the difference between a desired setpoint (SP) and a measured process variable (PV) and applies a correction based on proportional, integral, and derivative terms (denoted P, I, and D respectively), hence the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller

Let's just say JVL, that I have serious reservations that you, with all your "supposed' mathematical prowess, could have successfully built that PID controller on your first try, like I did. (Many people had to take the class 2 or 3 times before they did it, and more than a few people washed out of school because of that class). bornagain77

Bornagain77 Last time I checked, miracles were the sole province of God!

Atheists use the word "evolution" as a synonym for "miracle" and "Chance" as a synonym for God. Nothing new just another church. Lieutenant Commander Data

Okay, here's a really good test of everyone's mathematical abilities. What's the probability of getting one prime number if you roll a fair 6 sided die four times? There are 2 prime numbers between 1 and 6 (2 and 3 if you've forgotten what prime numbers are) so the chance or probability of getting a prime number on one roll is 2 out of 6 or 1/3. So, you're going to roll the die 4 times. If you multiply the probability, (1/3)^4, you get 1/81 which is less than 1/3 which doesn't make sense. The chance should go up if you make multiple rolls. If you add the probability (1/3 + 1/3 +1/3 + 1/3) you get 4/3 or something more than 1 which means over 100% of the time which doesn't make sense either since you cannot be sure you will get a prime number. So . . . what's the solution? What's the probability of getting one prime number if you roll a fair 6-sided die 4 times? Please note: this is not the same probability of getting AT LEAST ONE prime number if you roll a fair 6-sided die 4 times. Nor is it the same as the probability of getting 4 prime numbers if you roll a fair 6-sided die 4 times. These are all basic, simple, undergraduate probability problems. If you can't understand these then you can't understand why Dr Behe's argument was flawed. JVL

Bornagain77: So, if I am reading you right, you want Behe’s responses to the non-peer-reviewed responses to him, by Darwinists, to be peer-reviewed, by Darwinists, before you will accept them? ? No, you got it wrong . . . again. The responses to Dr Behe's critics were not peer-reviewed. The critics responses were from established academics with their reputations up for international scrutiny. Well it seems clear to me JVL that you need a lot of help to learn basic grammar before you try to master basic math. Hahahahahahahaha. Too funny. You can't even address my basic probability/statistics questions. You haven't even got a clue. You've never even taken a pertinent course. Let's recap: Tell me a simple, easy to understand situation where you would multiply probabilities. Tell me a simple, easy to understand situation where you would add probabilities. Answer me this: what is the probability that rolling two fair, 6-sided dice 20 times you would get both dice coming up 4. I know you can't answer these simple, undergraduate questions. And, if you were man enough, you would just admit it. But you won't because you're scared people will start questioning your understanding of all the ID positive stuff you post since you probably don't actually understand the math behind it all. But still, it's better to be honest than to be a pretender isn't it? Or maybe not, since the people who think you're great don't understand the math either. Which is why you don't actually have any of your own research or publications or results. You haven't actually done any science yourself. You just pretend to understand it all and hope no one calls you on the stuff you don't get. Well, I'm calling you on some simple, basic probabilities. Let's see you actually show your workings, if you can. JVL

JVL, "Non-peer reviewed responses to the critiques of Dr Behe’s suppositions haven’t passed the basic hurdle: is it sound?" So, if I am reading you right, you want Behe's responses to the non-peer-reviewed responses to him, by Darwinists, to be peer-reviewed, by Darwinists, before you will accept them? :) You are a joke. For crying out loud, the entire issue was over Summer's peer-reviewed experimental findings. As to "Plus, it will not has (sic) escaped anyone’s attention: you have not been able to give a couple of simple probability examples for when you add probabilities and when you multiply them." Well it seems clear to me JVL that you need a lot of help to learn basic grammar before you try to master basic math. But if you need help understanding basic math, here is neat download that you can get that looks to be very good https://brilliant.org Cue rant on how good at math JVL thinks he is than everybody else. Shoot, JVL even disagreed with Einstein and Wigner on the 'miracle' of the applicability of mathematics to the universe. :)

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine - Albert Einstein - March 30, 1952 Excerpt: "You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles." -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine

Last time I checked, miracles were the sole province of God! :) bornagain77

Bornagain77 Non-peer reviewed responses to the critiques of Dr Behe's suppositions haven't passed the basic hurdle: is it sound? Plus, it will not has escaped anyone's attention: you have not been able to give a couple of simple probability examples for when you add probabilities and when you multiply them. Seems like you can't do that which means you don't understand basic, undergraduate probability and statistics. Which means you cannot evaluate Dr Behe's statements. So, you don't really know if he is correct. Which means you just have to take it on faith. Which means you're not being scientific. Here's a really basic scenario: What is the probability that two fair dice both roll a 4 during 20 rolls of them both? Do you know how to figure that out? (hint: it's not just squaring the chance of getting a 4 on one die.). If you don't know then how can you be sure Dr Behe got it right? JVL

Kenneth Miller Resists Chloroquine Resistance - Michael Behe - January 14, 2015 Excerpt: Kenneth R. Miller has posted a (11 page) reply to my challenge to him to give a quantitative account for the extreme rarity of the origin of chloroquine resistance in malaria.,,, The first two and a half pages of the PDF version of Miller's essay consist of stage-setting and throat-clearing. The last six pages are a reprise of his review of The Edge of Evolution and a defense of the evolutionary musings of University of Chicago biologist Joseph Thornton from my skepticism. I'll deal with those later. Miller's only response to my take on the importance of Summers et al. is in the section "Parasites and Drugs." Although the section is less than three pages (including several large figures), as we shall see it includes a number of serious mistakes. Unfortunately, Miller dodges my challenge to provide a quantitative account of the rarity of the origin of chloroquine resistance. I had asked him to "Please keep the rhetoric to a minimum." Alas, to no avail. He cites no relevant numbers, makes no calculations -- just words.,,, Miller's reading of Summers et al. is seriously mistaken. Sadly, a person who can't accurately report the results of a paper makes for an unreliable guide. I urge everyone who has sufficient background to read at least the disputed parts of Summers et al. Determine for yourself which account is correct. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/kenneth_miller092691.html The Very Neutral Kenneth Miller - Michael Behe - January 15, 2015 Excerpt: But is there any direct, positive, experimental evidence indicating whether a single, uncompensated K76T mutation is deleterious or neutral? Yes, there is. As I wrote earlier, to see if a mutation is harmful by itself, at the very least you have to test it without any other mutations present in the relevant organism. Lakshmanan et al. did this carefully in the lab in 2005:,,, Miller's claim that the individual mutation is neutral is wrong. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/the_very_neutra092721.html The Many Paths of Kenneth Miller - Michael Behe - January 16, 2015 Excerpt: Suppose you were given a choice of a billion trillion roads to travel, but were told that only one of them led to safety; the others all led to certain death. You would likely feel pretty pessimistic about your chances.,,, The number of 1 in 10^20 against developing chloroquine resistance comes from estimating the number of malaria cells without resistance that it takes to produce and select one with resistance, no matter what genetic route is taken. So the number of routes that Miller emphasizes turns out to have no effect at all on the statistical likelihood of developing chloroquine resistance. Each route itself is actually less likely than the cumulative probability. All of the routes together add up to only 1 in 10^20. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/the_many_paths092761.html Kenneth Miller Steps on Darwin’s Achilles Heel Michael Behe - January 17, 2015 Excerpt: So what should we conclude from all this? Miller grants for purposes of discussion that the likelihood of developing a new protein binding site is 1 in 10^20. Now, suppose that, in order to acquire some new, useful property, not just one but two new protein-binding sites had to develop. In that case the odds would be the multiple of the two separate events — about 1 in 10^40, which is somewhat more than the number of cells that have existed on earth in the history of life. That seems like a reasonable place to set the likely limit to Darwinism, to draw the edge of evolution. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/01/kenneth_miller_1/

Moreover, to top it all off, and to add insult to injury, the I in 10^20 chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite came at a loss of fitness for the parasite, not a gain. (Which is exactly the opposite type of experimental evidence that Darwinists need in order to give their theory even a tiny semblance of being remotely feasible, as far as experimental science itself is concerned).

Metabolic QTL Analysis Links Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum to Impaired Hemoglobin Catabolism - January, 2014 Summary: Chloroquine was formerly a front line drug in the treatment of malaria. However, drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite have made this drug ineffective in many malaria endemic regions. Surprisingly, the discontinuation of chloroquine therapy has led to the reappearance of drug-sensitive parasites. In this study, we use metabolite quantitative trait locus analysis, parasite genetics, and peptidomics to demonstrate that chloroquine resistance is inherently linked to a defect in the parasite's ability to digest hemoglobin, which is an essential metabolic activity for malaria parasites. This metabolic impairment makes it harder for the drug-resistant parasites to reproduce than genetically-equivalent drug-sensitive parasites, and thus favors selection for drug-sensitive lines when parasites are in direct competition. Given these results, we attribute the re-emergence of chloroquine sensitive parasites in the wild to more efficient hemoglobin digestion. http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004085

As I said years ago, "I don't know what Darwinists are doing, but they sure in blue blazes are not doing science!"

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

bornagain77

JVL : "My point was that his critics said he (Behe) misused the data" So what? His very biased Darwinian critics were all shown, in detail, to be dead wrong, (as is usual for Darwinists)

An Open Letter to Kenneth Miller and PZ Myers - Michael Behe July 21, 2014 Dear Professors Miller and Myers, Talk is cheap. Let's see your numbers. In your recent post on and earlier reviews of my book The Edge of Evolution you toss out a lot of words, but no calculations. You downplay FRS Nicholas White's straightforward estimate that -- considering the number of cells per malaria patient (a trillion), times the number of ill people over the years (billions), divided by the number of independent events (fewer than ten) -- the development of chloroquine-resistance in malaria is an event of probability about 1 in 10^20 malaria-cell replications. Okay, if you don't like that, what's your estimate? Let's see your numbers.,,, ,,, If you folks think that direct, parsimonious, rather obvious route to 1 in 10^20 isn't reasonable, go ahead, calculate a different one, then tell us how much it matters, quantitatively. Posit whatever favorable or neutral mutations you want. Just make sure they're consistent with the evidence in the literature (especially the rarity of resistance, the total number of cells available, and the demonstration by Summers et al. that a minimum of two specific mutations in PfCRT is needed for chloroquine transport). Tell us about the effects of other genes, or population structures, if you think they matter much, or let us know if you disagree for some reason with a reported literature result. Or, Ken, tell us how that ARMD phenotype you like to mention affects the math. Just make sure it all works out to around 1 in 10^20, or let us know why not. Everyone is looking forward to seeing your calculations. Please keep the rhetoric to a minimum. With all best wishes (especially to Professor Myers for a speedy recovery), Mike Behe http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/show_me_the_num088041.html Laurence Moran's Sandwalk Evolves Chloroquine Resistance - Michael Behe August 13, 2014 Excerpt: That's the reason I issued the challenge in the first place. In my experience almost all Darwinists and fellow travelers (Professor Moran doesn't consider himself a Darwinist) simply don't think quantitatively about what their theory asks of nature in the way of probability. When prodded to do so, they quickly encounter numbers that are, to say the least, bleak. They then seem to lose all interest in the problem and wander away. The conclusion that an unbiased observer should draw is that Darwinian claims simply don't stand up to even the most cursory calculations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/laurence_morans088811.html How Many Ways Are There to Win at Sandwalk? - Michael Behe - August 15, 2014 Excerpt: ,, with chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum. The best current statistical estimate of the frequency of de novo resistance is Nicholas White's value of 1 in 10^20 parasites. That number is now essentially fixed -- no pathway to resistance will be found that is substantially more probable than that. Although with more data the value may be refined up or down by even as much as one or two orders of magnitude (to between 1 in 10^18-10^22), it's not going very far on a log scale. Not nearly far enough to lift the shadow from Darwinism. What's more, we can also conclude that the mutations that have already been found are the most effective available of any combination of mutations whose joint probability is greater than 1 in 10^20, since more effective alternatives would already have occurred and been selected if they were available.,,, The bottom line for all of them is that the acquisition of chloroquine resistance is an event of statistical probability 1 in 10^20.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/how_many_ways_a088981.html Guide of the Perplexed: A Quick Reprise of The Edge of Evolution - Michael Behe - August 20, 2014 Excerpt: *Any particular adaptive biochemical feature requiring the same mutational complexity as that needed for chloroquine resistance in malaria is forbiddingly unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes and fixed in the population of any class of large animals (such as, say, mammals), because of the much lower population sizes and longer generation times compared to that of malaria. (By "the same mutational complexity" I mean requiring 2-3 point mutations where at least one step consists of intermediates that are deleterious, plus a modest selection coefficient of, say, 1 in 10^3 to 1 in10^4. Those factors will get you in the neighborhood of 1 in 10^20.) *Any adaptive biological feature requiring a mutational pathway of twice that complexity (that is, 4-6 mutations with the intermediate steps being deleterious) is unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes during the history of life on Earth.,,, What's more, Nicholas White's factor of 1 in 10^20 already has built into it all the ways to evolve chloroquine resistance in P. falciparum. In the many malarial cells exposed to chloroquine there have surely occurred all possible single mutations and probably all possible double mutations -- in every malarial gene -- yet only a few mutational combinations in pfcrt are effective. In other words, mutation and selection have already searched all possible solutions of the entire genome whose probability is greater than 1 in 10^20, including mutations to other genes. The observational evidence demonstrates that only a handful are effective. There is no justification for arbitrarily inflating probabilistic resources by citing imaginary alternative evolutionary routes. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/guide_of_the_pe089161.html Drawing My Discussion with Laurence Moran to a Close - Michael Behe - August 26, 2014 Excerpt: And just as those alternative chloroquine resistance pathways are imaginary, Professor Moran’s "millions and millions of possible evolutionary outcomes" are imaginary. In the absence of actual evidence that a huge number of relevant unrealized biochemical features could have been built by Darwinian processes, it is illegitimate to arbitrarily multiply probabilistic resources. Moran is right that there is "no a priori requirement that Earth contain red pines and white pines." But he doesn’t follow his own logic far enough. In fact there’s no a priori requirement that Earth contain any life at all, or that any life that does exist be able to successfully traverse a mutational pathway by Darwinian means to give rise to a form of life significantly different from itself. In the absence of an a priori requirement, science is obliged to investigate whether or not such pathways exist. Right now the evidence we have in hand militates strongly against it. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/08/drawing_my_disc/

bornagain77

Cell division have to be succesfull and complete from the first "attempt" . Figure that. Which action is more complex a launch of a racket into space or a cell division? :lol: Lieutenant Commander Data

ET: Wow. You are clueless. For that you would have to determine the probability of the two meeting and mating successfully. And if the two mutations are required in the same gene, then your scenario is an impossibility. Clearly you are also ignorant about biology and genetics. Except that people a lot better at mathematics and probability than you disagree. They were very clear about how Dr Behe got it wrong. And, again, Dr Behe seems to have assumed that the initial mutations would have had to arise together which is not true; they could have come about at different times in different individuals. So, let's see what you do understand: Give an example of when probabilities are multiplied using die or cards or a spinner. Give and example of when probabilities are added again with something similar like die or cards or a spinner. If you cannot quickly give easy to understand examples of these two situations then you really do not understand probabilities or how they are properly combined. Which would mean you cannot evaluate whether or not Dr Behe got it right. And that would mean you are just accepting what someone who you agree with is saying rather than actually being able to evaluate the quality of their statement. JVL

Bornagain77: JVL, you are, (willingly or not), completely oblivious to the fact, (regardless of how you try to finagle the math to make it compatible with your Darwinian worldview), that the 10^20 number is not a mathematical estimate but is a empirically derived, i.e. real world, data point. i.e. It exists independently of the math! My point was that his critics said he misused the data; i.e. he used 10^20 but not correctly. And I never disputed the 10^20 figure, no one has. Not even Dr Behe. Again: when do you add probabilities and when do you multiply them? Can you give some simple examples of when you use them both? JVL

JVL:

I do understand probability but that wasn’t the right calculation for that situation. Dr Behe was criticised for misusing the values, i.e. not calculating the correct probability for the situation. That is, he made an incorrect probabilistic argument.

Wrong. Obviously, you do not understand probability.

He did the math correctly, but that was the right way to measure the probability he was seeking. The right way would be to also consider the case of one mutation arising in one individual and being passed on combined with the case of the other mutation arising in a different individual (not necessarily at the same time) also being passed on and then, eventually those two mutations getting combined together in one individual. That Dr Behe did not do.

Wow. You are clueless. For that you would have to determine the probability of the two meeting and mating successfully. And if the two mutations are required in the same gene, then your scenario is an impossibility. Clearly you are also ignorant about biology and genetics. So, the entire issue is JVL is ignorant of science, probabilities, biology and genetics. ET

JVL, you are, (willingly or not), completely oblivious to the fact, (regardless of how you try to finagle the math to make it compatible with your Darwinian worldview), that the 10^20 number is not a mathematical estimate but is a empirically derived, i.e. real world, data point. i.e. It exists independently of the math! i.e. It is the real world empirical evidence that is disagreeing with your Darwinian worldview not some mathematical model as you are trying to argue. Moreover, there are also many more lines of empirical evidence that falsify Darwinian claims, it is not just this one empirically derived data point that falsifies Darwinian claims. For instance, the fossil record of microorganisms throughout the history of life on earth tells us that we have every right to believe that microorganisms, (and therefore life in general), are highly constrained in their ability to evolve into new organisms.

The Paradox of the "Ancient" (250 Million Year Old) Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; - 2002 “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial counterparts. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330 Scientists find signs of life in Australia dating back 3.48 billion years - Thu November 14, 2013 Excerpt: “We conclude that the MISS in the Dresser Formation record a complex microbial ecosystem, hitherto unknown, and represent one of the most ancient signs of life on Earth.”... “this MISS displays the same associations that are known from modern as well as fossil” finds. The MISS also shows microbes that act like “modern cyanobacteria,” http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/13/world/asia/australia-ancient-life/ Geobiologist Noffke Reports Signs of Life that Are 3.48 Billion Years Old - 11/11/13 Excerpt: the mats woven of tiny microbes we see today covering tidal flats were also present as life was beginning on Earth. The mats, which are colonies of cyanobacteria, can cause unusual textures and formations in the sand beneath them. Noffke has identified 17 main groups of such textures caused by present-day microbial mats, and has found corresponding structures in geological formations dating back through the ages. http://www.odu.edu/about/odu-publications/insideodu/2013/11/11/topstory1

bornagain77

WJM @72 That video argues for a theistic world origin. He doesn't explain what God is except as the first cause - God is observing us, so God's consciousness causes the existence of reality. The universe has a beginning in God. According to that video, it does not originate from nothing and it does not come from a physical source. It comes from God (or Cosmic Consciousness) which the video gives little or no explanation for. But classical theism has already outlined the characteristics and logical-continuity of the attributes and necessity of God. As this video explains, everything (including Quantum mechanics) is dependent on God. Silver Asiatic

:lol: You can't talk about probabilities in a casino without explaining how appeared the roulettes or slot machines themselves. Darwinists just presume those mechanisms don't require explanation in the first place. Lieutenant Commander Data

ET: JVL is clearly just an ignorant troll. The 10^20 came from the researcher. I don’t know if he is a materialist. The 10^40 follows from the rules of probability. I thought JVL said he understood mathematics. Clearly not. I do understand probability but that wasn't the right calculation for that situation. Dr Behe was criticised for misusing the values, i.e. not calculating the correct probability for the situation. That is, he made an incorrect probabilistic argument. How about this: why did he multiply the probabilities together instead of add them? Can you explain why you think multiplying is correct? JVL

Zweston: So, you don’t think there is necessarily a supernatural force that created the universe? Even though it had a beginning? And therefore it cannot create itself? I don't know how the universe came into being but the argument put forth does not establish the existence of a deity. JVL

Bornagain77: But Behe did not combine probabilities incorrectly. Just as surely as 2+2 equals 4,,, 10^20 x 10^20 certainly does equal 10^40, He did the math correctly, but that was the right way to measure the probability he was seeking. The right way would be to also consider the case of one mutation arising in one individual and being passed on combined with the case of the other mutation arising in a different individual (not necessarily at the same time) also being passed on and then, eventually those two mutations getting combined together in one individual. That Dr Behe did not do. JVL

JVL:

Anyway, he made a unique probabilistic argument based on the work of others but he got it wrong.

Liar.

He assumed the mutations would be independent and had to occur at the same time.

Liar. He never said the mutations had to happen at the same time. But, AGAIN, this is all moot as there isn't any evidence that unguided evolution can produce the diversity of life. There isn't even a way to test the claim. ET

Behe:

My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. Generally, when the results of a simple model disagree with observational data, it is an indication that the model is inadequate.

JVL is too stupid to understand that. ET

JVL is clearly just an ignorant troll. The 10^20 came from the researcher. I don't know if he is a materialist. The 10^40 follows from the rules of probability. I thought JVL said he understood mathematics. Clearly not. Behe did NOT interpret anything. the 10^20 came from the researcher. JVL doesn't even know the paper Behe is referring to and yet he feels he can comment on it. What a dolt. No one can support unguided evolution unless they are claiming it can produce deformities or genetic diseases. JVL doesn't have any idea if the scientist of the paper Behe referenced supports unguided evolution. Said scientists definitely has never published anything that shows unguided evolution can do anything more than what I have said. And, AGAIN, that is all moot as there isn't any evidence to support unguided evolution's ability to produce universal common descent. JVL is a liar and a fool. ET

The idea that the universe had a "beginning" (at least in the ordinary sense of a "beginning") is a theory which has been falsified by relatively recent quantum physics experiments that have disproved both local and non-local realism. The first half of this video presents the evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM William J Murray

JVL, thanks for responding. So, you don't think there is necessarily a supernatural force that created the universe? Even though it had a beginning? And therefore it cannot create itself? zweston

Behe stated,

“The number I cite, one parasite in every 10^20 for de novo chloroquine resistance, is not a probability calculation. Rather, it is a statistic, a result, a data point.",,, (and also stated) ",,,the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40." - Michael Behe

Yet, JVL falsely claims that, "He (Behe) combined probabilities together incorrectly as was made very, very clear.",, But Behe did not combine probabilities incorrectly. Just as surely as 2+2 equals 4,,, 10^20 x 10^20 certainly does equal 10^40,

Kenneth Miller Steps on Darwin’s Achilles Heel – Michael Behe – January 17, 2015 Excerpt: Miller grants for purposes of discussion that the likelihood of developing a new protein binding site is 1 in 10^20. Now, suppose that, in order to acquire some new, useful property, not just one but two new protein-binding sites had to develop. In that case the odds would be the multiple of the two separate events — about 1 in 10^40, which is somewhat more than the number of cells that have existed on earth in the history of life. That seems like a reasonable place to set the likely limit to Darwinism, to draw the edge of evolution. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/kenneth_miller_1092771.html

JVL then falsely claims that, "He (Behe) assumed the mutations would be independent and had to occur at the same time." Yet Behe assumes nothing,

"I (Behe) assume nothing at all. I am simply looking at the results. The malaria parasite was free to do whatever it could in nature; to evolve resistance, or outcompete its fellow parasites, by whatever evolutionary pathway was available in the wild. Neither I nor anyone else were manipulating the results. What we see when we look at chloroquine-resistant malaria is pristine data — it is the best that random mutation plus selection was able to accomplish in the wild in 10^20 tries." - Michael Behe

Simply put, the empirical evidence is what it is. Moreover, empirical evidence could care less how Darwinists try to manipulate their mathematical models to be in their favor.

"If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it." - Feynman

Moreover, despite Darwinists trying to manipulate mathematical models to be in their favor, the fact of the matter is that, in reality, mathematics has never really been kind to the imaginary 'just-so stories'* of Darwinists, For instance, there was a infamous "heated exchange' between mathematicians and evolutionary biologists in 1966

HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY - WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION Excerpt: A number of mathematicians, familiar with the biological problems, spoke at that 1966 Wistar Institute,, For example, Murray Eden showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that the genes of E. coli contain over a trillion (10^12) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. *Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist12.htm

To this day, “There exists no (realistic mathematical) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution."

Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia

To repeat Dr. Marks's words, “there exists no (mathematical) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” ,, Moreover, the insurmountable 'mathematical problems' for Darwinists have only been greatly exasperated for Darwinists as we have learned more, and our knowledge of the details of molecular biology has increased,

"In light of Doug Axe's number, and other similar results,, (1 in 10^77 for finding a single functional protein fold), it is overwhelmingly more likely than not that the mutation, random selection, mechanism will fail to produce even one gene or protein given the whole multi-billion year history of life on earth. There is not enough opportunities in the whole history of life on earth to search but a tiny fraction of the space of 10^77 possible combinations that correspond to every functional combination. Why? Well just one little number will help you put this in perspective. There have been only 10^40 organisms living in the entire history of life on earth. So if every organism, when it replicated, produced a new sequence of DNA to search that (1 in 10^77) space of possibilities, you would have only searched 10^40th of them. 10^40 over 10^77 is 1 in 10^37. Which is 10 trillion, trillion, trillion. In other words, If every organism in the history of life would have been searching for one those (functional) gene sequences we need, you would have searched 1 in 10 trillion, trillion, trillionth of the haystack. Which makes it overwhelmingly more likely than not that the (Darwinian) mechanism will fail. And if it is overwhelmingly more likely than not that the (Darwinian) mechanism will fail should we believe that is the way that life arose?" - Stephen Meyer - 46:19 minute mark - Darwin's Doubt - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg8bqXGrRa0&feature=player_detailpage#t=2778 When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/18022460402/when-theory-and-experiment-collide Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne - September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/

One final note, these insurmountable 'mathematical difficulties' that Darwinists face, (when they are confronted with actual real world empirical evidence), should not be all that surprising to learn about. The 'immaterial' world of mathematics is, in principle, simply completely incompatible with the reductive materialistic framework of Darwin's theory.

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html

Shoot, in 1910 Alfred Wallace himself observed that 'immaterial' mathematics is, in principle, completely incompatible with the materialistic framework of Darwin's theory,

"Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." - Alfred Russel Wallace - 1910 interview

And as Adam Sedgwick himself scolded Charles Darwin in 1859, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly,,,"

"There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly,,," - Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin - 1859

In short, if we really were purely material beings, as Darwinists hold, then it would simply be impossible for us to even do 'immaterial' mathematics in the first place. Quote and Verse:

Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”?,,, What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,,, per ENV Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

All discussions about probabilities in a certain limited situation are false because they start the calculation with the elements involved as if those elements themselves are at 100% probability. A true discussion about probabilities with some elements that exist now and here will start with probability of something appearing from nothing then adding all probabilities of all stages till this specific case. Lieutenant Commander Data

ET: Learn how to read. Dr Behe used the probabilistic argument made by another scientist. That scientist used his RESEARCH to come up with his probability. That means it is based on something other than hearsay. From a Dr Behe quote provided by Bornagain77:

The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.

That is NOT an argument made by the researchers who work he interpreted. And they told him how he had misinterpreted their work. He combined probabilities together incorrectly as was made very, very clear. Anyway, he made a unique probabilistic argument based on the work of others but he got it wrong. He assumed the mutations would be independent and had to occur at the same time. Umm, Dr Behe didn’t make any probabilistic argument about binding sites. Durrett and Schmidt did. Which he misinterpreted in a new probabilistic argument which they hadn't made. I told you that it was. Again, learn how to read. So, Dr Behe's probabilistic argument, based on the work of materialist scientists who don't know their head from a hole in the ground (by your standards) and used their work to support unguided evolution was a scientific argument? Is that about right? It's pretty funny: you don't trust the scientists who support unguided evolution but you trust their data. How does that work exactly? Which bits of research do you keep and what do you throw out? It's like the demarcation problem isn't it? Or, like you trying to decide which mutations are guided and which aren't. Something you can't explain how to do; i.e. it's all in some book which we all will have to read because you can't summarise the methodology for us. Meanwhile you ask us to bring all our evidence and arguments to you on a plate. JVL

Zweston: JVL, so what do you hold then? Do you hold to a creator? Are you a deist? I'm an agnostic as in: I haven't been convinced of the existence of a deity but accept that new data or evidence may arise which could change my mind. JVL

JVL, so what do you hold then? Do you hold to a creator? Are you a deist? zweston

"The number I cite, one parasite in every 10^20 for de novo chloroquine resistance, is not a probability calculation. Rather, it is a statistic, a result, a data point. (Furthermore, it is not my number, but that of the eminent malariologist Nicholas White.) I do not assume that “adaptation cannot occur one mutation at a time”; I assume nothing at all. I am simply looking at the results. The malaria parasite was free to do whatever it could in nature; to evolve resistance, or outcompete its fellow parasites, by whatever evolutionary pathway was available in the wild. Neither I nor anyone else were manipulating the results. What we see when we look at chloroquine-resistant malaria is pristine data — it is the best that random mutation plus selection was able to accomplish in the wild in 10^20 tries." - Michael Behe Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that 'for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years' (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless "using their model" gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. Generally, when the results of a simple model disagree with observational data, it is an indication that the model is inadequate.,,, The difficulty with models such as Durrett and Schmidt’s is that their biological relevance is often uncertain, and unknown factors that are quite important to cellular evolution may be unintentionally left out of the model. That is why experimental or observational data on the evolution of microbes such as P. falciparum are invaluable,,, http://www.discovery.org/a/9461 How Many Ways Are There to Win at Sandwalk? - Michael Behe - August 15, 2014 Excerpt: What's more, we can also conclude that the mutations that have already been found are the most effective available of any combination of mutations whose joint probability is greater than 1 in 10^20, since more effective alternatives would already have occurred and been selected if they were available.,,, The bottom line for all of them is that the acquisition of chloroquine resistance is an event of statistical probability 1 in 10^20.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/how_many_ways_a088981.html Dr. Michael Behe, Guest Lecture at YISS - 2015 video (31:00 minute mark: empirical verification of 1 in 10^20 'edge' of evolution) https://vimeo.com/110110918 "This is not an argument anymore that Darwinism cannot make complex functional systems; it is an observation that it does not." - Michael Behe - Observed (1 in 10^20) Edge of Evolution - video - Lecture delivered in April 2015 at Colorado School of Mines 25:56 minute quote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9svV8wNUqvA “The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.” – Michael Behe – The Edge of Evolution – page 146

bornagain77

The universe is all time, space and matter - all physical reality. Whatever caused the universe to exist cannot be a physical entity, bound by time or space or physical laws. Since it is not physical, it is not determined by physical processes. So,, it causes by free choice, not forced by physics. That which acts by free choice is personal. Silver Asiatic

JVL:

I don’t think the inference that the universe having a cause necessitates a personal creator.

True. It does mean it needs a cause. ET

JVL:

And then Dr Behe made a probabilistic argument. Clearly. Do you think his argument was scientific: yes or no?

Learn how to read. Dr Behe used the probabilistic argument made by another scientist. That scientist used his RESEARCH to come up with his probability. That means it is based on something other than hearsay.

So, Dr Behe’s probabilistic argument about binding sites is NOT scientific because you contend there is no knowledge of how they could have come into being.

Umm, Dr Behe didn't make any probabilistic argument about binding sites. Durrett and Schmidt did.

Was Dr Behe’s argument based on valid scientific research?

I told you that it was. Again, learn how to read. The whole point is that you are LYING, here. There isn't any evidence for macro-evolution. Just blind faith based on the need. ET

:) To believe that a kiss could transform a frog into a prince is considered gullibility , to believe a bacteria became a bacteriologist is considered wit. If you put in front the word "science" or "scientific studies" it's like a magic wand that transform a dumb theory( like darwinism ) into a very "respectable" theory. Not only that the second worse thing is that people who believe that dumb theory think that they are smart. Lieutenant Commander Data

Zweston: How do you sort out the Kalaam argument? Okay, you made a typo: you meant the KALAM argument. From Wikipedia:

The Kalam cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is named after the kalam (medieval Islamic scholasticism) from which its key ideas originated. William Lane Craig was principally responsible for giving new life to the argument, due to his The Kal?m Cosmological Argument (1979), among other writings. The kalam cosmological argument's premises surrounding causation and the beginning of the universe were discussed by various philosophers, the philosophical view of causation being a subject of David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and the metaphysical arguments for a beginning of the universe being the subject of Kant's first antinomy. The argument's key underpinning idea is the metaphysical impossibility of actual infinities and of a temporally past-infinite universe, traced by Craig to 11th-century Persian Muslim scholastic philosopher Al-Ghazali. This feature distinguishes it from other cosmological arguments, such as that of Thomas Aquinas, which rests on the impossibility of a causally ordered infinite regress, and those of Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, which refer to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Since Craig's original publication, the Kalam cosmological argument has elicited public debate between Craig and Graham Oppy, Adolf Grünbaum, J. L. Mackie and Quentin Smith, and has been used in Christian apologetics. According to Michael Martin, the cosmological arguments presented by Craig, Bruce Reichenbach, and Richard Swinburne are "among the most sophisticated and well argued in contemporary theological philosophy".

The most prominent form of the argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, states the Kalam cosmological argument as the following syllogism:[4] Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a philosophical analysis of the properties of the cause of the universe: The universe has a cause. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful. Referring to the implications of Classical Theism that follow from this argument, Craig writes: "... transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ex nihilo ... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."

I don't think the inference that the universe having a cause necessitates a personal creator. That seems to me to be a supposition with no evidence. The notions of thousands of years of theists does not prove the case. JVL

ET: He was using the findings of another scientist working on, wait for it, the parasite that causes malaria. It was actual experimental research that led to the probabilities. Behe just cited the research and the findings. And then Dr Behe made a probabilistic argument. Clearly. Do you think his argument was scientific: yes or no? And, AGAIN, the ONLY reason probabilistic arguments are used is because there isn’t any actual evidence. Probability arguments are scientific if there is knowledge of how something could come into being. That means they don’t apply to any bacterial flagellum because no one has any idea how they came into being. Wild guesses based on the need is all you will ever see. So, Dr Behe's probabilistic argument about binding sites is NOT scientific because you contend there is no knowledge of how they could have come into being. Probability arguments based on actual research, would also be scientific. Was Dr Behe's argument based on valid scientific research? If yes then why accept that research and not other research? If not then Dr Behe's argument is not scientific. JVL

Yes, JVL's position is one of absolute faith. Blind faith, at that. There isn't any evidence to support it. There isn't even a way to test it. Blind faith. ET

JVL:

Dr Behe claimed that the probability of getting the right sequence of mutations at the right location was exceedingly small, almost non-existent.

Right. He was using the findings of another scientist working on, wait for it, the parasite that causes malaria. It was actual experimental research that led to the probabilities. Behe just cited the research and the findings. And, AGAIN, the ONLY reason probabilistic arguments are used is because there isn't any actual evidence. Probability arguments are scientific if there is knowledge of how something could come into being. That means they don't apply to any bacterial flagellum because no one has any idea how they came into being. Wild guesses based on the need is all you will ever see. Probability arguments based on actual research, would also be scientific. But the probability of unguided evolution producing eukaryotes from populations of prokaryotes, doesn't have that. So, it isn't scientific. ET

Zweston: JVL- at 85-95%, would you then say your position is one of faith? No. How do you sort out the Kalaam argument? As I am not familiar with it I shall have to look it up and get back to you. JVL

JVL- at 85-95%, would you then say your position is one of faith? How do you sort out the Kalaam argument? zweston

Was that a scientific argument: Yes or no?

In which grade are you now? Lieutenant Commander Data

ET: 1- It wasn’t Behe’s argument Dr Behe claimed that the probability of getting the right sequence of mutations at the right location was exceedingly small, almost non-existent. That's a probabilistic argument. Was that a scientific argument: Yes or no? JVL

JVL:

So . . . it’s okay when an ID proponent makes a probabilistic argument? Was Dr Behe’s argument scientific?

1- It wasn't Behe's argument 2- Because there isn't any supporting evidence for unguided evolution, beyond genetic diseases and deformities, probabilistic arguments are all there is. That's how pathetic unguided evolution is. ET

"I don’t think there is any evidence against it" Here's a piece of evidence that JVL has trouble with the concept of evidence. Andrew asauber

JVL So . . . it’s okay when an ID proponent makes a probabilistic argument? Was Dr Behe’s argument scientific?

So...are we at Comedy Hour? There was no scientific evidence for evolution in THE FIRST PLACE . Lieutenant Commander Data

ET: Behe’s argument was probabilistic because there isn’t any experimental evidence to draw upon. So . . . it's okay when an ID proponent makes a probabilistic argument? Was Dr Behe's argument scientific? JVL

Folks, if it were known c 1860 or 1870 or even 80 that the cell is based on self replicating nanotech using coded strings with algorithms, Darwin would have got nowhere. In the 20's - 40's, the Neo- synthesis was entrenched and when the presence of language and goal directed stepwise processes was identified, such was force fitted into processes that cannot credibly, on observation -- Newton's rules again -- account for it. That is, we have an orthodoxy in unacknowledged crisis that will sooner or later go over the cliff. As for me, I have simply declared independence of the orthodoxy in unacknowledged crisis. There is precisely one credible source of language, complex code and algorithms, intelligently directed configuration. That's actually a no brainer. An intellectual revolution is coming, once a critical mass of people raised on digital tech realise that the Emperor is walking around in underwear and pretending to be in fancy robes. KF kairosfocus

JVL:

One of Dr Behe’s arguments was probabilistic so when addressing that argument the responders addressed how his probabilistic argument was incorrect.

Wow. Behe's argument was probabilistic because there isn't any experimental evidence to draw upon. And if the evos had any actual evidence they would have used it to refute him. They don't have the evidence and they messed up their alleged refutation. ET

ET: There is a reason why evos tried to refute Behe using a probabilistic argument as opposed to actual experimental evidence. There isn’t any experimental evidence that refutes Behe! One of Dr Behe's arguments was probabilistic so when addressing that argument the responders addressed how his probabilistic argument was incorrect. JVL

Weston: Your big refutations of intelligent design: Not everyone agrees on who the designer is? And it can’t be predicted or tested….. You asked me why I believed the unguided paradigm was true, which I explained. And I also gave some ideas of why I thought it was a better explanation than ID. That was not an attempt to refute ID; I was merely trying to give you some ideas of why I prefer the one explanation over the other. JVL, have you ever doubted Neo-darwinism? Yes, because of some things I was exposed to here. Do you feel more strongly about it now than you have in the past after being on this site? After having considered all the evidence several times then yes, I do feel more strongly than before that the unguided paradigm is correct. If you could put a percentage on it that you are certain Neo-darwinism is correct over intelligent design saying those are the only two options… how high would you rate Neo-darwinism percentage wise? If I include potential new evidence that could falsify the unguided paradigm (which I absolutely agree could happen) then I'd say I'm something like 85 - 95 % sure. Also, there are lots of questions and issues that haven't yet been adequately explained. But I don't think it's likely that the unguided paradigm will be falsified even though I admit it could be. What would you hold as the best evidences against the Neo-darwinist paradigm? I don't think there is any evidence against it but I think there are ways it could be falsified some of which may be down to the resolutions of problems like: how did the genetic 'code' arise? Or even how did the first basic replicator arise? I think those issues are more likely to dethrone unguided evolution than finding a fossil out of place or some biological structure that is irreducibly complex. But that is just my personal opinion. IF I were trying to falsify unguided evolution I'd be looking at the origin of life and the genetic 'code'. JVL

Your big refutations of intelligent design: Not everyone agrees on who the designer is? And it can't be predicted or tested..... --Like when junk dna and vestigial organs aren't junk or vestigial? Or like you want to empirically verify and observe someone that exists outside of time space and matter? ---------- JVL, have you ever doubted Neo-darwinism? Do you feel more strongly about it now than you have in the past after being on this site? If you could put a percentage on it that you are certain Neo-darwinism is correct over intelligent design saying those are the only two options... how high would you rate Neo-darwinism percentage wise? What would you hold as the best evidences against the Neo-darwinist paradigm? zweston

As my post in 41 makes clear, the supposed 'strongest' evidence that Darwinists put forth to support their theory evaporates under scrutiny. Moreover, there are many more lines of very strong experimental evidence, that Darwinists simply ignore, that go to core of Darwinian theory and falsify it from the inside out as it were.

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. Darwinism vs. Falsification – defense of each claim https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit

And yet Darwinists simply refuse to accept these experimental falsifications of their theory. And therefore, since Darwinists simply refuse to accept these experimental falsifications of their theory, then their theory is, as Denis Noble himself noted, "not a scientific theory.”

Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble - President of International Union of Physiological Sciences https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659

And as Popper himself noted, "In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality."

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." - Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge

Shoot, as Robert Marks and company have now demonstrated, Darwinian evolution doesn’t even have a realistic mathematical model to experimentally test against in the first place.

Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: There exists no (computer) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Period. By “model,” we mean definitive simulations or foundational mathematics required of a hard science.,,, There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,, ,,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia

Again, to repeat, ",,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,," (R. Marks) That is a completely damning statement against the claim that Darwin's theory qualifies as a 'hard' science if there ever was one. Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Of supplemental note: As to Intelligent Design (ID) and falsification, Darwinists will often try to falsely claim that ID is not falsifiable. Yet, there is currently a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can falsify 'the' primary claim of ID. Namely, that only Intelligent minds can create the coded information that is necessary to explain life.

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution – Jan 2020 Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at http://www.evo2.org.,, The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. “A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days,” said Marshall. “One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they’d set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity.” https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

Let's just say, given the fact that information is profoundly immaterial in it foundational essence, I am extremely confident that Darwinists will NEVER falsify that primary claim of ID.

“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin??And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce.?In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires.?Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.”?- - Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8? Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University (Isaac Newton's alma mater), for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.

Verse:

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

bornagain77

This demonstrates that he is out of the mainstream of cellular evolution

Darwinism is one religion among other religions of this world. The god of darwinists is Randoom and is so crazy that even has no purposes manage to create a very complex life that have very clear goals. Everybody knows how a pigeon or a rabbit appears from the hat of a magician but darwinists still think that "could be possible to be real and not a magic trick " . Good luck. :) Lieutenant Commander Data

Refutations of : "the fossil record, the biogeographic record, the morphological record and the genomic evidence." and '29 evidences'

Fossils: Mysterious Origins (Science Uprising, EP9) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20AGi50UNf0 Problem 9: Neo-Darwinism Struggles to Explain the Biogeographical Distribution of many Species. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/02/problem_9_neo-d/ On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3 Extinct Four-Eyed Monitor Lizard Busts Myth of a Congruent Nested Hierarchy – Günter Bechly – April 23, 2018 Excerpt: We can safely conclude: it is an epic myth, willingly perpetuated by evolutionary biologists, that the similarities between organisms mostly fall in a hierarchic pattern of nested groups and thus suggest common ancestry and indicate phylogenetic relationship. In reality this claim is contradicted by a flood of incongruences and reticulate patterns that shed doubt on fundamental paradigms of evolutionary biology like the notions of homology and common descent. This inconvenient conflicting evidence is explained away with a pile of ad hoc hypotheses, correlated with more and more contrived and implausible evolutionary scenarios. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/extinct-four-eyed-monitor-lizard-busts-myth-of-a-congruent-nested-hierarchy/ New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model - Cornelius Hunter - July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert’s three types of data are: (i) sample computer software, (ii) simulated species data generated from evolutionary/common descent computer algorithms, and (iii) actual, real species data. Ewert’s three models are: (i) a null model which entails no relationships between any species, (ii) an evolutionary/common descent model, and (iii) a dependency graph model. Ewert’s results are a Copernican Revolution moment. First, for the sample computer software data, not surprisingly the null model performed poorly. Computer software is highly organized, and there are relationships between different computer programs, and how they draw from foundational software libraries. But comparing the common descent and dependency graph models, the latter performs far better at modeling the software “species.” In other words, the design and development of computer software is far better described and modeled by a dependency graph than by a common descent tree. Second, for the simulated species data generated with a common descent algorithm, it is not surprising that the common descent model was far superior to the dependency graph. That would be true by definition, and serves to validate Ewert’s approach. Common descent is the best model for the data generated by a common descent process. Third, for the actual, real species data, the dependency graph model is astronomically superior compared to the common descent model. Where It Counts Let me repeat that in case the point did not sink in. Where it counted, common descent failed compared to the dependency graph model. The other data types served as useful checks, but for the data that mattered — the actual, real, biological species data — the results were unambiguous. Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand. Ten thousand is a big number. But it gets worse, much worse. Ewert used Bayesian model selection which compares the probability of the data set given the hypothetical models. In other words, given the model (dependency graph or common descent), what is the probability of this particular data set? Bayesian model selection compares the two models by dividing these two conditional probabilities. The so-called Bayes factor is the quotient yielded by this division. The problem is that the common descent model is so incredibly inferior to the dependency graph model that the Bayes factor cannot be typed out. In other words, the probability of the data set, given the dependency graph model, is so much greater than the probability of the data set given the common descent model, that we cannot type the quotient of their division. Instead, Ewert reports the logarithm of the number. Remember logarithms? Remember how 2 really means 100, 3 means 1,000, and so forth? Unbelievably, the 10,064 value is the logarithm (base value of 2) of the quotient! In other words, the probability of the data on the dependency graph model is so much greater than that given the common descent model, we need logarithms even to type it out. If you tried to type out the plain number, you would have to type a 1 followed by more than 3,000 zeros. That’s the ratio of how probable the data are on these two models! By using a base value of 2 in the logarithm we express the Bayes factor in bits. So the conditional probability for the dependency graph model has a 10,064 advantage over that of common descent. 10,064 bits is far, far from the range in which one might actually consider the lesser model. See, for example, the Bayes factor Wikipedia page, which explains that a Bayes factor of 3.3 bits provides “substantial” evidence for a model, 5.0 bits provides “strong” evidence, and 6.6 bits provides “decisive” evidence. This is ridiculous. 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence, and when the dependency graph model case is compared to comment descent case, we get 10,064 bits. But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/ A Critique of "29 Evidences for Macroevolution " By Ashby L. Camp ,,, I have argued that what he (Theobald) labels falsifiable predictions of the hypothesis of universal common ancestry are in fact mere observations that have been read back into a plastic theory and claimed as predictions. His hypothesis accommodates these observations, but since it could also accommodate contrary ones, that fact has little or no probative value. As Hunter says, "There is nothing wrong with a theory that is comfortable with different outcomes, but there is something wrong when one of those outcomes is then claimed as supporting evidence. If a theory can predict both A and not-A, then neither A nor not-A can be used as evidence for the theory." (Hunter, 38.) I have shown how Dr. Theobald's evidence can be accommodated by alternative hypotheses. I have also highlighted instances where his interpretation of the evidence is driven by theological assumptions. One who rejects those underlying assumptions is justified in rejecting the conclusions that follow from them. http://www.arn.org/docs/pbsevolution/theobaldcritique.htm

bornagain77

LoL! @ seversky! Theobald is a joke. In the introduction he says the evidence doesn't depend on any mechanism. Then he sets out the evidence as patterns and patterns depend on the mechanisms! Not only that he doesn't know what a nested hierarchy is. There aren't any known naturalistic mechanisms capable of producing eukaryotes, given starting populations if prokaryotes. Endosymbiosis only accounts for mitochondria or chloroplasts. There isn't anything that accounts for all the differences between euks and proks. Given single-celled eukaryotes, there isn't any naturalistic mechanisms capable of accounting for the developmental biology required by metazoans. ET

JVL:

For me it’s the combination of several major threads of evidence: the fossil record, the biogeographic record, the morphological record and the genomic evidence.

There isn't a naturalistic mechanism capable of accounting for the organisms that were fossilized. And there isn't even any unguided evolutionary hypothesis. Some unknown processes did and continue to do something, isn't a scientific claim. There is a reason why evos tried to refute Behe using a probabilistic argument as opposed to actual experimental evidence. There isn't any experimental evidence that refutes Behe! Unguided evolutionary processes can even account for any bacterial flagellum! Universal common descent is a non-starter as far as unguided evolution is concerned. ET

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution The Scientific Case for Common Descent Version 2.89 Copyright © 1999-2012 by Douglas Theobald, Ph.D. Introduction Evolution, the overarching concept that unifies the biological sciences, in fact embraces a plurality of theories and hypotheses. In evolutionary debates one is apt to hear evolution roughly parceled between the terms "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Microevolution, or change beneath the species level, may be thought of as relatively small scale change in the functional and genetic constituencies of populations of organisms. That this occurs and has been observed is generally undisputed by critics of evolution. What is vigorously challenged, however, is macroevolution. Macroevolution is evolution on the "grand scale" resulting in the origin of higher taxa. In evolutionary theory, macroevolution involves common ancestry, descent with modification, speciation, the genealogical relatedness of all life, transformation of species, and large scale functional and structural changes of populations through time, all at or above the species level (Freeman and Herron 2004; Futuyma 1998; Ridley 1993). Universal common descent is a general descriptive theory concerning the genetic origins of living organisms (though not the ultimate origin of life). The theory specifically postulates that all of the earth's known biota are genealogically related, much in the same way that siblings or cousins are related to one another. Thus, universal common ancestry entails the transformation of one species into another and, consequently, macroevolutionary history and processes involving the origin of higher taxa. Because it is so well supported scientifically, common descent is often called the "fact of evolution" by biologists. For these reasons, proponents of special creation are especially hostile to the macroevolutionary foundation of the biological sciences. This article directly addresses the scientific evidence in favor of common descent and macroevolution. This article is specifically intended for those who are scientifically minded but, for one reason or another, have come to believe that macroevolutionary theory explains little, makes few or no testable predictions, is unfalsifiable, or has not been scientifically demonstrated.

Seversky

Zweston: chuck, sev… others… what are your best evidences that macroevolution is a valid idea. For me it's the combination of several major threads of evidence: the fossil record, the biogeographic record, the morphological record and the genomic evidence. On their own, none of those threads are arguably complete or compelling (other opinions are available) but, considering that as none of them are in contradiction with the unguided evolutionary hypothesis, I'd say that when you consider all the evidence then the unguided hypothesis is the best explanation. Also, I'd consider the unguided hypothesis to be the most parsimonious explanation because the ID hypothesis invokes an undefined and unspecified designer who may (or may not) be outside of our defined rules of physics. That is an extraordinary claim which, I would say, requires some very, very strong evidence to support. So, for me, the combination of the physical evidence, which is in congruence with the unguided hypothesis, and also considering there is no clear and universally accepted definition of the mysterious designer AND the fact that the hypothesised existence of such a designer entails a lot of unsupported assumptions I consider the unguided model to be the 'best' explanation. AND it can take past events or observations and predict that other such events or observations will be found. A capricious and untestable designer cannot be tested in that way. JVL

ChuckyD falsely claims that "You are the one that brought up endosymbiosis via you references to Jeffery Tomkins. It is Tomkins, the YEC, that characterizes endosymbiotic contribution to eukaryote evolution a “myth.”" But actually ChuckyD is the one who, at post 26, brought up "how eukaryotic cells originated.” , i.e. “I’m going to echo Seversky’s point that biologists don’t know precisely how living cells originated or cellular evolution began although they do have a pretty solid explanation how eukaryotic cells originated.” ChuckyD then claims that Dr. Jeffrey Tomkins is disqualified to "give an opinion on endosymbiosis given his YEC commitment" Yet, I hold that it is Darwinists themselves who are disqualified from ever commenting on science because of their a-priori commitment to atheistic materialism. Go figure!

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, April 18, 2021 - Detailed Defense of each claim https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/philosopher-mary-midgeley-1919-2018-on-scientism/#comment-728595 It would be hard to fathom a worldview that turns out to be more antagonistic towards modern science, indeed more antagonistic towards reality itself, than the presumption of Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism has turned out to be for the atheist. 2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

In short, although Dr. Tomkins (who's degree is in genetics, not cosmology, by the way), may be a YEC, he is, despite that shortcoming, far more qualified to speak on genetics than Darwinists apparently are. Darwinists, via their commitment to atheistic materialism, have simply disqualified themselves from ever 'speaking for science'. ChuckyD also cited this quote, "Although the origin of mitochondria from the endosymbiosis of a proteobacterium is well established," That 'well established' claim is a patently false claim! Darwinists, although they may fervently imagine that it happened that way, simply have no empirical evidence whatsoever that endosymbiosis of a proteobacterium is even remotely feasible. Darwinists are simply stopped dead in their tracks at the level of just two protein-protein binding sites being generated, (M. Behe), much less can they possibly explain the total reworking of literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of protein-protein binding sites which would have been required for the origin of eukaryotic cells via endosymbiosis. In other words, empirical science could care less for the unrestrained imagination of Darwinists,

“The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.” – Michael Behe – The Edge of Evolution – page 146

Moreover, Darwinists simply have no empirical evidence whatsoever for the unlimited plasticity and/or flexibility in bacteria that they assume to be true. In the following paper, Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, states that 'Bacteria are ideal for this kind of study, But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another,'

Scant search for the Maker - 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282

etc.. etc.. etc.. Tell you what ChuckyD, go 'randomly' mutate one protein into a completely new protein and then I will grant that you at least have a tiny smidgen of empirical evidence supporting your grandiose claims. Until then, you are blowing smoke and selling snake oil.

"Enzyme Families -- Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - December 4, 2014 Excerpt: If enzymes can't be recruited to genuinely new functions by unguided means, no matter how similar they are, the evolutionary story is false.,,, Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. We have now addressed two objections raised by our critics: that we didn't test the right mutation(s), and that we didn't use the right starting point. We tested all possible single base changes in nine different enzymes, Those nine enzymes are the most structurally similar of BioF's entire family We also tested 70 percent of double mutations in the two closest enzymes of those nine. Finally, some have said we should have used the ancestral enzyme as our starting point, because they believe modern enzymes are somehow different from ancient ones. Why do they think that? It's because modern enzymes can't be coopted to anything except trivial changes in function. In other words, they don't evolve! That is precisely the point we are making. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/a_new_paper_fro091701.html "Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - January 1, 2015 Excerpt: The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/happy_new_year092291.html

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

BA77 @ 33 I don't think you are properly understanding my post on eukaryotic evolution. You are the one that brought up endosymbiosis via you references to Jeffery Tomkins. It is Tomkins, the YEC, that characterizes endosymbiotic contribution to eukaryote evolution a "myth." This demonstrates that he is out of the mainstream of cellular evolution, which is not surprising for a YEC. I was merely commenting, by interrogatory, on Tomkin's qualifications to give an opinion on endosymbiosis given his YEC commitment. Here is another paper by Gray which is similar to the one you provided but clearer on the role of endosymbiosis in the formation of eukaryotic cells. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428767/#A011403C27 Gray does not characterize endosymbiosis as a myth, quite the contrary. Rather he is expressing surprise that it is not more ubiquitous. Also contained in that paper is a telling dedication to Gray's mentor:

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Professor Lynn Margulis (1938–2011), a passionate advocate for the idea that endosymbiosis is a driving force in cell evolution and was the process that led to the origin of mitochondria and plastids. (emphasis added)

Note the language: endosymbiosis as "a" driver of eukaryotic cell development, not the only driver. Use of the term "mosaic" should clue you in. Here is an even more clear discussion which cites both of Gray's papers:

Abstract Although the origin of mitochondria from the endosymbiosis of a proteobacterium is well established, the nature of the host cell, the metabolic complexity of the endosymbiont and the subsequent evolution of the proto-mitochondrion into all its current appearances are still the subject of discovery and sometimes debate. Here we review what has been inferred about the original composition and subsequent evolution of the mitochondrial proteome and essential mitochondrial systems. The evolutionary mosaic that currently constitutes mitochondrial proteomes contains (i) endosymbiotic proteins (15-45%), (ii) proteins without detectable orthologs outside the eukaryotic lineage (40%), and (iii) proteins that are derived from non-proteobacterial Bacteria, Bacteriophages and Archaea (15%, specifically multiple tRNA-modification proteins). Protein complexes are of endosymbiotic origin, but have greatly expanded with novel eukaryotic proteins; in contrast to mitochondrial enzymes that are both of proteobacterial and non-proteobacterial origin. This disparity is consistent with the complexity hypothesis, which argues that proteins that are a part of large, multi-subunit complexes are unlikely to undergo horizontal gene transfer. We observe that they neither change their subcellular compartments in the course of evolution, even when their genes do. (emphasis added) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21080492/#:~:text=The%20evolutionary%20mosaic%20that%20currently%20constitutes%20mitochondrial%20proteomes,Bacteriophages%20and%20Archaea%20%2815%25%2C%20specifically%20multiple%20tRNA-modification%20proteins%29.

To reiterate, the term "mosaic" should clue you in..... See also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/endosymbiosis chuckdarwin

chuck, sev... others... what are your best evidences that macroevolution is a valid idea. Can you prove that it happened? How certain are you of it? Have you ever doubted it? Have you doubted it more lately or less? What are the best evidences against the idea? zweston

So ChuckyD, in your twisted world of Darwinian apologetics, (where deceptive rhetoric apparently trumps actual scientific evidence), a YEC in not even allowed to quote from what Darwinists themselves are finding about eukaryotic evolution, and/or the lack of evidence thereof?

“What was not anticipated was how relatively few mitochondrial proteins with bacterial homologs [sequence similarity] would group specifically with -Proteobacteria in phylogenetic [evolutionary tree] reconstructions: At most, only 10–20% of any of the mitochondrial proteomes examined so far display a robust -proteobacterial signal.4” 4, Gray, M. W. 2015. Mosaic nature of the mitochondrial proteome: Implications for the origin and evolution of mitochondria. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112 (33): 10133–10138.

In case your are wondering ChuckyD, that finding directly contradicts your claim for eukaryotic evolution. And if you really want to press the matter, as far as scientific evidence goes, it gets worse for you ChuckyD. Much worse! bornagain77

BA77 @ 31 So, your designated expert on eukaryotic evolution is a YEC outlier? chuckdarwin

at 26 ChuckyD made this claim, "I’m going to echo Seversky’s point that biologists don’t know precisely how living cells originated or cellular evolution began although they do have a pretty solid explanation how eukaryotic cells originated." And yet even that oft repeated Darwinian claim is found to be wanting of experimental support. In fact, experimental evidence contradicts the claim.

Endosymbiosis: A Theory in Crisis by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * - Oct. 30, 2015 Excerpt: However, now that genome sequencing is inexpensive and widespread, the evolutionary story of endosymbiosis has become increasingly clouded and controversial. As new bacterial and eukaryotic genomes are sequenced and the proteins they encode are deduced, the whole evolutionary idea of endosymbiosis has been thrown into utter confusion. One of the most unexpected discoveries has been the utter lack of identified genes that would support the evolutionary tale. As stated in a recent paper, "What was not anticipated was how relatively few mitochondrial proteins with bacterial homologs [sequence similarity] would group specifically with -Proteobacteria in phylogenetic [evolutionary tree] reconstructions: At most, only 10–20% of any of the mitochondrial proteomes examined so far display a robust -proteobacterial signal.4" This lack of evidence for mitochondrial genes derived from bacterial origin in both the mitochondrial DNA and the genome contained in the cell’s nucleus, where most mitochondrial genes are located, is a serious problem for the evolutionary story.,,, http://www.icr.org/article/endosymbiosis-theory-crisis Information Processing Differences Between Archaea and Eukarya—Implications for Homologs and the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 18, 2015 Abstract In the grand schema of evolution, a mythical prokaryote to eukaryote cellular transition allegedly gave rise to the diversity of eukaryotic life (eukaryogenesis). One of the key problems with this idea is the fact that the prokaryotic world itself is divided into two apparent domains (bacteria and archaea) and eukarya share similarities to both domains of prokaryotes while also exhibiting many major innovative features found in neither. In this article, we briefly review the current landscape of the controversy and show how the key molecular features surrounding DNA replication, transcription, and translation are fundamentally distinct in eukarya despite superficial similarities to prokaryotes, particularly archaea. These selected discontinuous molecular chasms highlight the impossibility for eukarya having evolved from archaea. In a separate paper, we will address alleged similarities between eukarya and bacteria. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-archaea-and-eukarya/ Information Processing Differences Between Bacteria and Eukarya—Implications for the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 25, 2015 Excerpt: In a previous report, we showed that a vast chasm exists between archaea and eukarya in regard to basic molecular machines involved in DNA replication, RNA transcription, and protein translation. The differences in information processing mechanisms and systems are even greater between bacteria and eukarya, which we elaborate upon in this report. Based on differences in lineage-specific essential gene sets and in the vital molecular machines between bacteria and eukarya, we continue to demonstrate that the same unbridgeable evolutionary chasms exist—further invalidating the myth of eukaryogenesis. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-bacteria-and-eukarya/

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

bornagain77

Notice how the darwinists have NO data or evidence to support their claims in this thread. No links to data. Just claims... and bashing intelligent design. How in the world does a system that can detect and repair replication errors come about randomly over time through natural selection? zweston

Chuckdarwin a general college bio text

:lol: That explain why Chuckdarwin have no clue. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, And to one other point you brought out, but still in regards to being culturally and politically vigilant:

We take in our share of economic and cultural refugees which does cost but it is the right thing to do isn’t it?

To a point, yes, nations can take in refugees. But there is always a limit. Do you know what the numerical limit is for your nation? Would you expect the US to take in all 7 billion other people on earth if the need arose? That would be foolish. We are near or at the point where nations cannot simply take in all the refugees that other nations can produce, because they can seemingly produce an endless stream of them. We are approaching a time when free nations may have to interfere with refugee-producing nations rather than simply saying, "sure, come on over here," because that may no longer be practical. There are no frontiers left. Note also that Hitler artificially created refugees to destabilize other European nations, and all leaders since that time are aware of the offensive power of sending streams of refugees into neighboring nations. And, depending on the refugees' beliefs, they may alter something fundamental of your nation; they may not assimilate as you think. Think deeply with us about these matters, JVL. EDTA

ChuckyD at 25 quotes from the following advanced textbook on Darwin's theory,

Silly Jokes for Silly Kids. Children's joke book age 5-12 https://www.amazon.com/Silly-Jokes-Kids-Childrens-joke/dp/1540619397

Which is just as well since Darwin's theory is, as far as science itself is concerned, a 'silly joke' in and of itself. bornagain77

Martin_r @10 So, I answer your question about biology curricula, but that's not enough. If you are really curious and not just wasting my time, just find a general college bio text on Amazon and browse the index. I'm going to echo Seversky's point that biologists don't know precisely how living cells originated or cellular evolution began although they do have a pretty solid explanation how eukaryotic cells originated. I'll repeat: natural selection is about evolution once life has started. Darwin made no claim to explain the origins of life. As to cell division, I assume that the origination of the process is closely tied to cell origination, but it is way beyond my level of knowledge. Legitimate biologists candidly admit what they do not know at this juncture. Again, to echo Seversky, if ID has a coherent theory of how life originated on planet earth, we are all ears. Thus far the silence has been deafening...... chuckdarwin

BA77 @17 Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt……… chuckdarwin

EugeneS at 19 claims, "(2) thermal motion at this scale would really be noticeable, which is not shown either, for illustrative purposes." Actually there is found to be far less 'random thermodynamic jostling' at the molecular level of life than was expected from the perspective of Darwinian materialism. Although there are many lines of evidence that establish this fact, the simplest way to demonstrate this fact is with the following finding on human vision: The following article on human vision stated that, “Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light”.,,, “it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,”,, and the researched added, “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,, “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise?”

Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light – July 21, 2016 Excerpt: Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light. Previous studies had established that human subjects acclimated to the dark were capable only of reporting flashes of five to seven photons.,,, it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,” says Vaziri. “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,, The gathered data from more than 30,000 trials demonstrated that humans can indeed detect a single photon incident on their eye with a probability significantly above chance. “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise?” http://phys.org/news/2016-07-humans-smallest.html

The only way it is possible to achieve such sensitivity in the presence of noise is if, as Erwin Schrödinger predicted in his book "What is Life? (1944)", biological life is actually based on quantum principles instead of being based on 'random thermodynamic jostling' principles as is presupposed within Darwinian materialism. As Jim Al-Khalili stated, “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”.

Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it." At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

Of supplemental note:

William Bialek: Seeing the Natural World With a Physicist’s Lens Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark, among them;,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/science/02angier.html William Bialek - Research Interests I am interested in the interface between physics and biology, broadly interpreted. A central theme in my research is an appreciation for how well things work in biological systems. It is, after all, some notion of functional behavior that distinguishes life from inanimate matter, and it is a challenge to quantify this functionality in a language that parallels our characterization of other physical systems. Strikingly, when we do this (and there are not so many cases where it has been done!), the performance of biological systems often approaches some limits set by basic physical principles. While it is popular to view biological mechanisms as an historical record of evolutionary and developmental compromises, these observations on functional performance point toward a very different view of life as having selected a set of near optimal mechanisms for its most crucial tasks. https://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/wbialek.html William Bialek is the John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics, and a member of the multidisciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, at Princeton University. Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg

Verse:

Psalm 139:13-14 For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

bornagain77

JVL:

Or, you could just realise that you’ve been saying the same things over and over and over again for years and that’s the reason that no one actually reads your posts anymore.

Your projection is laughable. ET

seversky:

No, there is no detailed evolutionary history of how cell division came about as yet.

There isn't any scientific theory of evolution.

By all means, though, if you have a better explanation then let’s hear it.

Better explanation than what, exactly? You and yours have nothing.

And your alternative account with greater explanatory reach is _____ ?

Intelligent Design offers the only scientific explanation for cells. ET

chuckdarwin:

Typically there is a unit on the cell that includes the basics of mitosis and meiosis

Typically, you don't know anything about biology. ET

ES, yes. KF kairosfocus

Clear pointers to design. However, with animations like this, it is worth noting that in reality (1) it is crammed with matter so it doesn't look as spectacular, and (2) thermal motion at this scale would really be noticeable, which is not shown either, for illustrative purposes. EugeneS

Sev, admitting the failure of a grossly inadequate explanation is progress. There is a dominant school of thought coming up manifestly short -- otherwise you would hasten to provide triumphal links and clips. We start there, and we should open our minds to the known source of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, the process that may be described: intelligently directed configuration, aka design. And yes, that would be a superior and more powerful explanation per Newton's rules on explaining the unobserved by light of what has been observed to actually produce the like effect, FSCO/I. KF kairosfocus

Seversky, mindless Darwinian processes, (which have never been shown to create even a single functional protein fold, (D. Axe), nor anything greater than 2 protein-protein binding sites, (M. Behe)), have 'greater explanatory reach'' in explaining the astonishing process of DNA packaging how exactly?

How DNA is Packaged (Advanced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbSIBhFwQ4s

Just because Darwinists tell imaginary just-so stories certainly does not qualify as 'greater explanatory reach''. It qualifies as deluding oneself about the intricate design that is sitting right in front of your eyes. i.e. 'denialism'

“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case” - Francis Crick – co-discoverer of DNA, What Mad Pursuit - 1988 Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/design_thinking065381.html Is Atheism a Delusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ii-bsrHB0o Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study - Mary Papenfuss - June 12, 2015 Excerpt: Three studies at Boston University found that even among atheists, the "knee jerk" reaction to natural phenomenon is the belief that they're purposefully designed by some intelligence, according to a report on the research in Cognition entitled the "Divided Mind of a disbeliever." The findings "suggest that there is a deeply rooted natural tendency to view nature as designed," writes a research team led by Elisa Järnefelt of Newman University. They also provide evidence that, in the researchers' words, "religious non-belief is cognitively effortful." Researchers attempted to plug into the automatic or "default" human brain by showing subjects images of natural landscapes and things made by human beings, then requiring lightning-fast responses to the question on whether "any being purposefully made the thing in the picture," notes Pacific-Standard. "Religious participants' baseline tendency to endorse nature as purposefully created was higher" than that of atheists, the study found. But non-religious participants "increasingly defaulted to understanding natural phenomena as purposefully made" when "they did not have time to censor their thinking," wrote the researchers. The results suggest that "the tendency to construe both living and non-living nature as intentionally made derives from automatic cognitive processes, not just practised explicit beliefs," the report concluded. The results were similar even among subjects from Finland, where atheism is not a controversial issue as it can be in the US. "Design-based intuitions run deep," the researchers conclude, "persisting even in those with no explicit religious commitment and, indeed, even among those with an active aversion to them." http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/richard-dawkins-take-heed-even-atheists-instinctively-believe-creator-says-study-1505712

i.e. It is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature and biology, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves are seeing in nature. And yes, ‘denialism’ is considered a mental illness.

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism - Wikipedia

Verse:

Romans 1:19-20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

bornagain77

Kairosfocus/5

CD, does not make it any less of a wonder. Your observationally anchored account of its origin by blind chance and mechanical necessity , is? _____

And your alternative account with greater explanatory reach is _____ ? Seversky

Martin_r/2

how on earth can cell division be ever explained by Darwinism ???

No, there is no detailed evolutionary history of how cell division came about as yet. By all means, though, if you have a better explanation then let's hear it. Seversky

JVL,

Upon what do you base your ‘sense’? That I don’t support theological support for widely held moral values? Do you see largely secular societies in Europe encompassing hideously dangerous policies and laws? Things that have been demonstrated to destabilise their countries? What actual evidence do you have for your slippery slope ‘sense’?

My use of the word "sense" was in regard to relative degrees of apparent vigilance. I base the perception on two things: 1) a post of yours from a month or so ago, where you admonished BA77 to go out and watch a movie or something instead of harping on issues here at UD, and 2) the fact that you don't mention a single problem that Europe might have; only social conditions that are at the moment going the way you like. To have no concerns at all is unusual from my perspective. Is nothing required to maintain the European utopia? No dangers from any angles at all? The "eternal vigilance" problem has been solved? EDTA

JVL, regardless of whomever your theological rant was directed towards, you still have not even started to explain how it is even remotely possible for mindless Darwinian processes to produce such an astonishing thing as 'DNA packing'.

How DNA is Packaged (Advanced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbSIBhFwQ4s

Frankly, to suggest that such astonishing complexity can be had by mindless Darwinian processes is, by all rights, to be considered insane. To give you a small clue just how insane this 'mindless' claim is from Darwinian atheists, I will give you the following snippet,

Genes and Organisms: Improvising the Dance of Life - Stephen L. Talbott - Nov. 10, 2015 Excerpt: The performances of countless cells in your body are redirected and coordinated as part of a global narrative for which no localized controller exists. This redirection and coordination includes a unique choreography of gene expression in each individual cell. Hundreds or thousands of DNA sequences move (or are moved) within vast numbers of cell nuclei, and are subjected to extraordinarily nuanced, locally modulated chemical activity so as to contribute appropriately to bodily requirements that are nowhere codified — least of all in those DNA sequences.,,, DNA in its larger matrix You may recall from my earlier article, “Getting Over the Code Delusion” (Talbott 2010), that packing DNA into a typical cell nucleus is like packing about 24 miles of very thin, double-stranded string into a tennis ball, with the string cut up (in the normal human case) into 46 pieces, corresponding to our 46 chromosomes. To locate a protein-coding gene of typical size within all that DNA is like homing in on a one-half-inch stretch within those 24 miles. Or, rather, two relevant half-inch stretches located on different pieces of string, since we typically have two copies of any given gene. Except that sometimes one copy differs from the other and one version is not supposed to be expressed, or one version needs to be expressed more than the other, or the product of one needs to be modified relative to the other. So part of the job may be to distinguish one of those half-inch stretches from the other. “Decisions” everywhere, it seems. But no such decisions are made in a vacuum. As it happens, the chromosome does not consist of a naked DNA double helix. Our DNA, rather, is bound up with a massive, intricate, and dynamic protein-RNA-small molecule complex (called chromatin) that is as fully “informative” for the cell as the DNA sequence itself — and, you might say, much more active and directive.,,, the cell, by managing the shifting patterns of the chromatin infrastructure within which DNA is embedded, brings our chromosomes into movement on widely varying scales. These include large looping movements that put particular genes into connection with essential regulatory sequences and with other, related genes (that is, with other one-half inch stretches of our “24 miles of string in a tennis ball”).,,, A gene is not in any case the kind of rigidly defined entity one might hope to calculate with. As a functional unit appropriate to current circumstances, it must be cobbled together by the cell according to the needs of the moment. There is no neatly predefined path to follow once the cell has located the “right” half inch or so of string, or once it has done whatever is necessary to bring that locus into proper relation with other chromosomal loci participating in the same “dance”. One issue has to do with the fact that there are two strands in the DNA double helix and, starting from any particular point, it is possible to transcibe either of two DNA sequences in either of two directions: “forward” along one strand, or “backward” along the other. This yields two completely different products. One of them is very likely not even a protein-coding RNA, and yet it may still play a vital role in gene expression and in cellular processes more generally. And even when the cell would proceed in one particular direction, it must “choose” the exact point in the genetic sequence at which to begin. Different starting points can yield functionally distinct results. “Many studies focusing on single genes have shown that the choice of a specific transcription start site has critical roles during development and cell differentiation, and aberrations in . . . transcription start site use lead to various diseases including cancer, neuropsychiatric disorders, and developmental disorders”.8,,, http://www.natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2015/genes_29.htm

JVL, in case you were wondering, now would be a good time for you to thank God for being 'fearfully and wonderfully made':

Psalm 139:13-14 For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

bornagain77

EDTA: I’m glad for that too. But the price of liberty (and lots of other good things) is indeed eternal vigilance. I don’t sense the same degree of vigilance from you as I do from BA77 and KF for instance. And we have genuine concerns that, with a flimsy foundation for morals, anything could become permissible with little notice. Upon what do you base your 'sense'? That I don't support theological support for widely held moral values? Do you see largely secular societies in Europe encompassing hideously dangerous policies and laws? Things that have been demonstrated to destabilise their countries? What actual evidence do you have for your slippery slope 'sense'? JVL

Bornagain77: JVL, and your anti-theology rant qualifies in explaining exactly how ‘astonishing’ DNA packing arose by mindless Darwinian processes how exactly? I think, if you actually paid attention, you'll find I was criticising your view and the way you express it and not Christianity itself. You do realize that your personal ‘distaste’ of “God explanations” does not remotely qualify as an actual scientific rebuttal of “God explanations” do you not? Or are you actually that blind to your own personal biases against God? Are you that oblivious to the fact that it's not possible to test the God hypothesis in a lab? Can it be considered science then? JVL

Chuck. thank you for the "THERE IS" explanation :)))) you must be kidding ... I know, everybody knows... THERE ARE lots of thing inside a cell... did Darwinists show you how it came to existence ? So, one again, what exactly Is taught about cell division in schools? martin_r

JVL, "...in my father’s lifetime Germans and Italians were killing French and English and Danish, and Belgians and Poles and Dutch and Finns but now they are all working together..." I'm glad for that too. But the price of liberty (and lots of other good things) is indeed eternal vigilance. I don't sense the same degree of vigilance from you as I do from BA77 and KF for instance. And we have genuine concerns that, with a flimsy foundation for morals, anything could become permissible with little notice. EDTA

Martin_r @ 7 Typically there is a unit on the cell that includes the basics of mitosis and meiosis chuckdarwin

Chuck and Co.

This Is simply basic cell biology. Taught in any advanced high school or college freshman biology class.

what exactly about cell division is taught in advanced high school/college freshman biology class ? as far as i know, it is taught that THERE IS a cell division ... is it also taught how cell division evolved? anything scientific ? Not just-so stories and Darwinian fairy tales .... martin_r

JVL, and your anti-theology rant qualifies in explaining exactly how 'astonishing' DNA packing arose by mindless Darwinian processes how exactly?

Episode 8/13: Nucleotides // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiguQYCSio How DNA is Packaged (Advanced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbSIBhFwQ4s

You do realize that your personal 'distaste' of "God explanations" does not remotely qualify as an actual scientific rebuttal of "God explanations" do you not? Or are you actually that blind to your own personal biases against God?

2 Corinthians 4:4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

bornagain77

CD, does not make it any less of a wonder. Your observationally anchored account of its origin by blind chance and mechanical necessity , is? _____ KF kairosfocus

This Is simply basic cell biology. Taught in any advanced high school or college freshman biology class. chuckdarwin

Bornagain77: JVL, Seversky, ChucyD, etc.., Crickets got your tongue? You don't have to wait for one of us to respond to post several of your extensive copy-and-pasted, mined references replies. Why don't you tell us AGAIN about how amazing and incredible the living world is, how ludicrous and stupid it is to conceive of it being undesigned, don't forget a vaguely pertinent Bible quote at the end. Oh and please throw in several reasons why modern science could not have arisen without not just any religious view but Christianity. You may also indulge in the designer-centric view that the universe was created to be discoverable. Or, you could just realise that you've been saying the same things over and over and over again for years and that's the reason that no one actually reads your posts anymore. I must admit, I am a bit curious about your contention that you feel you are in some kind of conflict (between the forces of good and evil? God and the god-less?) so, therefore, you have to be vigilant and attack the heathens whenever they say anything you disagree with. I don't really know what you are afraid of: many European countries are generally non-religious in word and deed and they are doing just fine. For example: the rate of gun crime in America is much higher than it is in any European country. There are no homosexual vs homophobic pitched battles in Europe. We don't have doctors being killed by abortion protestors. Our elections are well run and uncontested to any significant effect. We take in our share of economic and cultural refugees which does cost but it is the right thing to do isn't it? We mostly have what you would call socialistic health care systems which are roundly supported and appreciated by the populace; who wouldn't be in support of a system which promises decent health care even to those who have no job or paid for coverage? We even offer coverage to guests and recent arrivals. Again, the right thing to do surely. Our education systems are good and respected. We have active and strong cultural support and output. Yet the fact that we sanction same-sex marriage and humanitarian values means you assume we're all poised on the edge of some kind of ideological precipice. Here's a thought: in my father's lifetime Germans and Italians were killing French and English and Danish, and Belgians and Poles and Dutch and Finns but now they are all working together, economically and strategically. After millennia of conflict Europe is relatively peaceful and co-operative. That's a good thing isn't it? JVL

how on earth can cell division be ever explained by Darwinism ??? all scientists got mad ? martin_r

JVL, Seversky, ChucyD, etc.., Crickets got your tongue? :)

https://c.tenor.com/Y0fH-3sQDQsAAAAC/jake-tapper-jake-tapper-crickets.gif

bornagain77