Here is an informative little video by a guy named Steve Mould who does a lot of “science” videos on youtube. Its all (ostensibly) about how simple little processes can make “meaningful” structures from stochastic processes-and he uses magnetic shaped little parts to show this. Its a popular channeled followed by millions, and is often referenced by other famous people in the science community-and his fans love it.
And hey, it does show how meaningful structures CAN form from random processes. Right? So you can learn from this. Wink, wink. Nod, nod. And all the skeptics will know exactly what he is really saying. Cause we are all part of the clique that knows this language-the language of the skeptic propagandist. I mean, he almost hides it, the real message, it is just under the surface, and the less skeptically aware, the casualist, might even miss it. The casualist might not learn as much about Steve Mould and what he is trying to say here-but the skeptic knows. “See, atheism is true! Spread the word!” Steve has given the wink. The same wink used by DeGrasse Tyson, and Sean Carroll, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, and on and on. You know the one.
And for 95% of his viewers, whether they know it or not, they got his message. I mean, look, its plain as day, right? He just showed you, that is certainly a meaningful structure that arose from random processes, isn’t it? Its defintely meaningful, its a, a, a , well, it’s shape that, we have a, a name for…that’s kind of…anyway, defintely random, I mean other than the magnets and the precut shapes, and the little ball with nothing else inside, and the shaking only until its just right then stopping kind of way…That’s random kind of right???
But there are 5% percent of his viewers that spotted his little wink and nod, and said, hold on a second. If you want us to believe that your little explanation about how simply life can form from nonsense without a plan, how blind exactly do you want us to be? 95%, they are hooked, you got them (Ryan StallardThere are so many creationist videos this obliterates. Especially 4:18.). But some likeGhryst VanGhod helpfully point out: “this is incorrect. the kinesin travels along fibres within the cell and takes the various molecules exactly where they need to be, they are not randomly “jumbling around in solution”. https://youtu.be/gbycQf1TbM0 ” and then you get to see a video that tells you just a few more of the things that are ACTUALLY happening which are even more amazing if you weren’t already skeptical (the real kind).
And if you go through some more of the comments you will notice a few more (real) skeptics, not the wink and nod kind, and you will start to notice why the wink nod propogandist skeptics everywhere you look in modern culture are a very puposefully designed cancer on knowledge and thought.
Alan Fox in a nutshell.
phoodoo,
Well, I see he’s well known by Google. Another prediction from me: if phoodoo makes any effort to support the claim that there is any substance to parapsychology, involving Dean Radin or not, it will lead nowhere.
Alan Fox,
I have already made it clear that I don’t think materialists, especially the materialists for whom its criticial they maintain their worldview of hoping there is no God, because they wouldn’t like that (just like you have stated) would never accept any evidence of a metaphysical world.
Those who consider atheism to be crucial to their lives can always fall back on the “unknown” of the gaps. If something can’t be explained by physics alone, then they can just say, well, we don’t know the answer, but one day we will. So of course they won’t believe any evidence. How can there be substance when you have already ruled out substance? If someone who has died, and comes back to life and say they experienced an afterlife, the atheist response has always been -“Well, just because we can’t explain it…”
If tomorrow the sky lights up at night with the words, “God is real” that won’t be substance for the atheist. Of course not. It would just be more of your bucket full of “just because we can’t explain it…”
So my prediction is that there is no such thing as evidence for people who deny evidence could exist.
Whereas others are seeing evidence everywhere but unlike other believers desperately need it to be labeled scientific evidence and then get all worked up when it turns out faith is a matter of .. you know … faith.
Can’t wait to see the Divine light show. When is it planned?
You say that but your “writing in the sky” is a dog being able to use PSI to predict when it’s owner is coming home. And you refuse to even discuss the details of that.
So you want people to believe “a god is real” and are using dog-psi to do it?
Deluded.
What is the strongest evidence you are aware of for PSI? Is there something so definitive that nobody can deny it or find any holes in the testing procedure?
Do tell? Do present your “god is real” sky writing that everybody is denying.
You say that there is no such thing as evidence for people who deny evidence could exist, I’m saying show that evidence and demonstrate the truth of that!
The irony is of course that phoodoo probably believes he’s already presented undeniable evidence of PSI and all we’re really doing is finding how that phoodoo does not understand what “evidence” means just like he does not understand what “fitness” means.
I just read China is using weather control, so putting up sky writing doesn’t seem so magical now.
And this oft-repeated argument that atheists/materialists wouldn’t accept any evidence that shows gods exist would be more convincing if the evidence were actually proposed. Something more than personal testimony, direct or reported.
Sunsets can be beautiful but beautiful sunsets are not evidence that Jesus is our saviour.
Electromagnetic effects can be seen with the eyes, electromagnet fields cannot be seen with the eyes but they can be see with the mind. It is the same with life fields. The migrating cells in drosophila embryos are following the pattern of the life field in the same way that iron filings follow the pattern of an electromagnetic field. But whereas iron filings round a bar magnet assume a static form, the form of living substance is dynamic. The drosophila development is dynamic global coordination.
The formative field is a property of all living tissue. All we have to do is observe. As we develop the strength of the life force varies in our bodies. Once established the growth of the head is less pronounced than that of the limbs. Livers have greater regenerative power than brains.
The field does not “follow” the egg. The egg we observe is the visible physical substance, but the life field is also the egg. The field is not a separate entity hovering over that which is visible to us. It is as much the egg as it’s gross substantiality. You can’t see it by looking through a microscope, but its existence is not governed by its lack of amenability to the classical human senses.
Obviously their field-like quality. They cannot be represented as being in a specific location in space. They have a peripheral quality.
I don’t need rescuing from materialism. It has its place. The “field” aspect adds the polarity that a one-sided materialism lacks. Mechanical measuring requires there to be points of measurement. Peripheral effects cannot be reduced to numbers in this way. But this does not negate these effects. Magnets and molecules can have a polarity which determines attraction and repulsion, but there is an even greater polarity. That is the polarity between point and plane, between expanding and contracting. We have looked for the fundamental in the smaller and smaller because of the ease of measurement and calculations via this route. But we should also be looking at the ever expanded periphery as equally fundamental.
Ah, so there is no connection, apart from the fact that they all have the word “field” in them. That’s what I suspected.
By the way, I have a magnet here in my house. Do you see it attracting all kinds of metal objects in your house? If not, then I fear the magnetic field does have specific location pretty much centered on the magnet it is associated with. I suspect all fields have spatial coordinates that describe their area of influence.
phoodoo,
Summary: phoodoo can only think of gaps in knowledge as evidence for magical beings in the sky.
That also works
I am inclined to agree with phoodoo here. The notion that one or more gods is dicking with reality is a policy position, but the notion that everything has a non-magical explanation even if we don’t know what it is, even if we can’t begin to decide how to find out, is also a policy position.
However, as we’ve repeated enough for some of us to remember, a very large number of candidates have eventually fallen to human investigation and the cumulative weight of human knowledge and understanding. As I understand it, gods have been gradually morphing from what amounts to invisible powerful people, into something more woolly and spiritual, who don’t actually have to DO anything (which can be investigated) so much as BE something, a sort of mental companion forever beyond the reach of science.
So I think phoodoo is right: If something can’t be explained by physics alone, then they can just say, well, we don’t know the answer, but one day we will. Though I would expand our toolkit of investigation beyond physics alone. My belief is that no gods will EVER be a component of ANY accurate explanation of anything. So far, I dont know of any exceptions.
Now, I do disagree with phoodoo when he says that an inability to explain something is “evidence”. Ignorance is not evidence. LACK of an explanation is not evidence. Atheists are perfectly willing to admit ignorance; they’re not so insecure they have to invent gods rather than admit ignorance — AND they’re willing to go out and seek explanations rather than piously sit back content that goddidit and no thinking is necessary.
Alan Fox,
So you don’t believe Willaim Wallace fought against the British at Stirling Bridge?
The statement “Willaim Wallace fought against the British at Stirling Bridge” is incorrect.
How do you know?
Well, the battle was fought near the existing Stirling Bridge (the remains of the stone piers of the wooden bridge have been found a few hundred yards from the existing stone bridge built in the fifteenth century) on 11th September, 1297. There are several surviving accounts of the battle and there has been some archaeological work done at the site. William (not Willaim) Wallace was in joint command of the Scottish forces with Andrew Moray who died from injuries at the scene or shortly after.
But the forces fighting the Scots that day were not British (The United Kingdom of Great Britain did not exist prior to the Acts of Union in 1706/1707) but English (with some Scots and Welsh) under the command of the sixth Earl of Surrey representing King Edward I of England.
Oh?
How do you know that the people who are jailed are suspected of conspiring to do terrorist harm actually did conspire to do terrorist harm? Because your paymasters told you?
No wonder you believe in psychic dogs.
Alan Fox,
I am completely confused, I asked how do you know any of this. And you answered by giving me things you read about? By historical accounts? By testimony?
What the heck? Were you just being funny? You don’t believe in any of that evidence malarkey, right?
If you say so.
What you wrote was: So you don’t believe Willaim Wallace fought against the British at Stirling Bridge.To which I replied honestly.
Indeed. Though plenty of archaeological evidence exists. The key is multiple sources corroborate each other. History is often only written by the winners. The result of this battle was somewhat indecisive and accounts from both sides survive. Monastic records also survive. We even have a somewhat colourful later account by “Blind Harry” though that seems to have been written two centuries later and is perhaps somewhat embellished.
I think anyone making a claim that the battle of Stirling Bridge didn’t happen at all would struggle to convince. The precise details, motives, actions of those involved are lost to time but enough context survives. The event also fits neatly into the context of the recorded history of England and Scotland. Also nothing in the accounts (maybe Blind Harry) refers to the supernatural. The events described are plausible and within the known laws of the Universe. I find it fascinating.
I get the impression you don’t give a fuck but whatever.
Humm. I could try (like Alan above) explaining consilience and independent corroboration to phoodoo, but I don’t envision that sticking. Fortunately, thanks to Lewontin’s foot in the door, there is a much simpler solution:
Of course, I could be deluding myself.
Alan Fox,
I got the impression that you didn’t really give a fuck about evidence. But whatever.
Testimony.
Alan Fox,
Wait a seond, are you talking about the mythical Scottish hero Willelm Wylisc?
I know there was a similar character from the Old Testament called Elhanan, son of Jair, who fought against Goliath the Gittite, probably this Wilhelm character was derived from this.
There were a lot of stories back then.
The same homeotic genes can be utilized in different organisms in the production of vastly differing organs and structures. This shows that it is the organism that is using the genes, not that the genes are controlling the organism.
In order to account for the distribution of homeotic genes among extant species there has been a lot of speculation of whole genome duplications, divergent evolution, convergent evolution, parallel evolution and a variety of mutations along the way. All this genetic shuffling fits the story, but in my view it’s a bit like the system of perfectly circular movement of planets in the solar system. It conforms to observation but becomes very cumbersome.
A much more parsimonious account of genetic activity is provided by Michael Levin as he demonstrates in the video Bioelectric Networks: Taming the Collective Intelligence of Cells for Regenerative Medicine
He uses the analogy of computer programming to the control of morphology in developing organisms. The genes and their resulting proteins are the hardware and the morphogenetic fields which include electrical gradients are the controlling software inputs.
He says, “we can now read and write target states into collective intelligence of cell groups”. By manipulating ions channels they can control which genes are expressed in an area of the organism.
In his work on frogs and axolotls he shows the fundamental gaps in understanding of the shaping of organisms. Where does form come from?
The genetic hardware provides the materials but “it’s not enough to have the building blocks”, it needs to be arranged.
Understanding the “collective intelligence of cells” addresses this problem. And morphogenetic fields play a large part in form building.
As in animal motility electrical activity allows the animal to move around so in development electrical communications move the body through morphospace. And the bioelectric patterns appears before the relevant genes are turned on.
Bioelectrical gradients control gene expression.
He gives a good demonstration of this where they produce “Picasso” tadpoles in which many features are out of place. This is done not by targeting genes, nor with electrical probes, but by molecular manipulation of the communication systems between the cells in a tissue. The “Picasso” tadpoles give rise to normal frogs.
As in the case of the ectopic drosophila leg, in Levin’s lab they have developed techniques for altering the location of body parts in animals such as amphibians.
It’s all in the video if you care to watch it.
Turning on any homeotic gene is just one step in a complex network of genetic activities and cascades that are necessary for the building of form, but we have to understand how and why the gene was activated in the first place.
Think about the polarity between matter and space. In the past space was considered to be the place where there was no matter, just an empty void of nothingness. Now space is understood to have qualities that are not just nothing. Subtle field are now thought to occupy this place which used to be considered nothing.
That is the connection. Matter appears at the focal points of peripheral fields.
CharlieM,
Or random accidents…Ha.
Yes, polarities are everywhere. The complimentary symbol of yin and yang is a very good subject to meditate on. And this complimentary opposition is fundamental to projective geometry.
And out of this comes the trinity. Point, plane and line. The point is the focus of an infinite number of planes and a plane is an infinity of points.
CharlieM,
I always felt it interesting (and silly) that geometry proposes impossible premises of non-existant entities to decribe the measuring of existing objects.
There should be asterisks after all geometric axioms that they are not to be taken seriously.
So the “results” you mention are not results of experimental research but the results of your own personal experience?
You cannot really comment on the former.
He is one of the very few people who has spent decades researching psychic phenomena.
Interesting route to take, phoodoo.
I do like the idea that Longshanks threw Piers Gaveston to his death, but Piers survived Edward by five years; I positively love the idea that Edward III was not the son of Edward II, but rather the son of Wallace — again, the timeline does not fit (unless you reckon Isabella was pregnant for 7 years — I know she was tenacious, but really…)
So historians can spot and do call out the embellishments in the historical narrative, whether they come from Mel Gibson or from Blind Harry. This is where the whole consilience and corroboration and archeological evidence and independent accounts, etc, etc come in.
Contrast this with the performance of some Bible apologists, who reckon it is fine to insert the phrase “brother of” into 2 Samuel in order to manufacture consilience, or (my favorite)
WTF?
It works. What’s silly about that?
Why not?
I love the story of the Richard the Third Society who dedicated themselves to the rehabilitation of Richard III. One claim they made was that Richard III wasn’t crippled or a hunchback. This was a story put about by the Tudors after Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) had defeated him in a pitched battle near Market Bosworth and usurped/legitimately ascended the English throne. But scholarly research established good grounds for a burial site and archaeology found the remains (confirmed by DNA comparison with a living descendant). The skeleton exhibited a pronounced scoliosis. Not exactly a hunchback but…
Alan Fox,
Yeah, but Shakespeare did write Elizabethan propaganda.
Regarding the idea that the British lost at Stirling Bridge, I am reminded of the combatants memorialised in song thus:
although more often that not, we would sing this version.
DNA_Jock,
This must be that consilience thing you were talking about.
DNA_Jock,
My memory isn’t what it was but I was getting a vague déjà-vu feeling. Another king, another battle, as an example of consilient evidence.
Ahah! Aethelstan, king of Mercia, and the battle of Brunanburh.
Alan Fox,
You mean to say you are finally starting to believe in the Bible?
Nope.
The Bible is a somewhat arbitrary collection of texts of unknown provenance. I have read it argued that the bulk of the Old Testament was written about 2nd century BCE in Alexandria using the famous library as source material and in Greek, then translated into Hebrew and that the entire history of the Biblical Jewish state is fabrication. This is not a popular viewpoint among Jewish and Christian theologians, I suspect, but there is a distinct lack of consilient evidence for a Biblical Jewish kingdom of any significance.
Contrast that with the so-called Hittite empire, a civilisation that flourished for half a millennium in Anatolia leaving a rich archaeology, whose border, according to their own surviving records and those of ancient Egypt (also leaving vast archaeology), shared a disputed border that bisected the Levant; No mention of Israel. And the Bible is almost silent about the Hittites, painting them as a marginal group.
And the issue for me is the “supernatural”. Claims about seas parting, talking snakes, bushes and donkeys, folks coming back from the dead. I dismiss these sorts of things as fairy tales.
But…
Live and let live. What anyone chooses to believe is entirely up to them. Wanting to impose those beliefs on others is not acceptable.
The futility of arguing facts versus belief:
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/genealogical-abraham/14519
ETA: maybe an even better example
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/geneological-geology/14544
Well maybe. He has written several popular books to little critical acclaim. Can you tell me anything about the methodology and results of this “parapsychological” research? Is it an improvement on Sheldrake’s “dogs know when their owners are coming home”?
Right. You only accept testimony for things you want to believe. I get that.
Whether its true or not is not really your thing. You already know what things you believe. You have never even heard of Dean Radin, the most famous parapsychology researcher in the world, and you claim you have studied the subject.
I mean why would you?
As I said, never heard of him prior to Charlie mentioning him.
Really? Who else is world famous as a parapsychology researcher? I don’t know of any so the claim may be true as it stands.
I’ve tested my mind powers. I cannot read minds, I am unable to tell when someone is coming home without them saying so or other physical information. I am unable to move objects without interacting physically with them in some way. Asking among a wide circle of family, friends and acquaintances, there are some who claim there are psychic phenomena but the evidence is lacking so far.
So phoodoo, CharlieM, anyone else who has or knows of psychic powers, please enlighten me with more than assertions if you can.
Gauntlet laid.
It’s a well known fact that The FBI use psychics all the time!
A few unanswered challenges in that thread. Not boding well for any chance of a gauntlet being picked up.
J-Mac posted a thread in which you can watch a video by Radin (2nd video). You can find his bio here
If you are interested in facts and don’t just think, “it’s not something that I’ve experienced so it cannot be true”, then maybe you’ll give his work some unbiased scrutiny. The effects he is measuring are not glaringly obvious but they are definitely statistically significant.
Just the facts, ma’am!
Forget videos, biopics etc. What was the research? How was it done? What were the results? Is it repeatable? Facts!