and they said that they used to use psychics regularly but the had a review and found that it was not really working and the ‘results’ could be by chance. So they’ve now stopped using them altogether as they have now determined there is no science supporting it.
Over two working days.
In this comment colewd says: “Let’s start with this overview.”
An “overview” that according to this tool contains 187153 words.
Where those words according to this tool will take over 15 hours to read.
15 hours for an “overview”. 15 hours.
If only there was some way to take a sprawling set of claims and refine them down into a core that could then be reviewed by others and feedback given until it is a reasonable size (typically 3,000 to 10,000 words on the average scientific paper) where all claims have been tested by other experts and errors removed.
It seems to be it’s a strategy. Never get pinned down on anything too specific and you never have to be wrong. Hence the sprawl.
colewd, do you seriously expect people to spend 15 hours reading an “overview”? How long is the main argument? A million or two words?
So, much like the ‘rejected for ideology’ thread, this thread stands testament to the ability of creationists to believe things which are demonstrably, objectively untrue.
Continue readingA TSZ member recently made this claim:
Sanford’s recent paper with Cordova was rejected by multiple venues for bogus reasons. Everyone agreed the science is solid, but made up reasons why the paper should not be accepted.
And then is asked:
Name the venues and give their reasons for the rejection.
I’ve actually been asking this for literally years over at UD, although not lately. The claim that papers are rejected not because of the science but instead because of some other reason is often made. But I’ve never seen any actual evidence of this. Has anyone?
Continue readingIntelligent Design advocates are still talking about CSI and determining the value of it.
CSI measures whether an event X is best explained by a chance hypothesis C, or some specification S.
So I’d like this thread to be a list of biological entities and the value of CSI that has been determined for each.
If no entries are made then I believe that would demonstrate that CSI might measure X Y or Z but it never actually has done so.
Out of interest, what is the CSI of a bacterial flagellum?
?
Historian Jon Meacham: “To some extent what’s happening is as particularly mainline Protestantism begins to fade from the center of the country, to some extent political strife and political loyalties have replaced religious belief and religious practice.”
fifthmonarchyman has helpfully explained how we can detect intention for specific mutations:
No, I have suggested that humans are hardwired to infer that intentional things are non-random and non-algorithmic.
Therefore directly intentional mutations would be differentiated from those that would be categorized as nonintentional by this property.
Given that statement, I hope that fifthmonarchyman can give a demonstration of how to determine if specific mutations are directed or not.
So, fifthmonarchyman, can you walk us through the process of how you perform that differentiation? Or will you admit that this claim cannot be grounded in reality and that you nor anyone else cannot perform any such differentiation?
I can give some examples of fully sequenced mutations in human populations if that would be useful fifth? Or pick your own, it really does not matter as it’s more about the process then the specific mutation.
FMM: Purposeful intervention is pretty much the opposite of random mutation.
FMM notes in the same comment:
If there in nothing about an idea that distinguishes it from it’s alternative it seems to be superfluous.
So the idea is “non designed mutations” and the alternative is “purposeful intervention”.
Give that, and given FMM has not discarded the idea of purposeful intervention there must be something that distinguishes it from non designed mutations.
What is that distinguishing factor? What is the actual evidence for “purposeful intervention” regarding mutations?
And, more broadly, what is the evidence for “purposeful intervention” in any area of biology? Apart from, of course, wishful thinking.
But not all of them. It’s interesting that even the most hardened creationists who have exposure to some science still cannot quite bring themselves to rule out the possibility of a beneficial mutation. Here’s Sal:
Much (not all) the heterozygosity and alleles were created and thus differences were strategically positioned to not cause functional compromise and most of the mutations thereafter are rare variants and slightly damaging.
So if most are slightly damaging then a few are beneficial. And if a few are beneficial then even fewer will be highly beneficial.
Can a newborn baby ever be evil and deserving of death? It seems that in their quest to justify the unjustifiable some theists indeed think so.
a God that can cause a worldwide flood that kills off a world full of evil people and saves only a few that are good
In recent reading, Dembski and other ID proponents make the claim that evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 185 years.
From: http://answersinscience.org/demise.html
It seems that some current commenters on the site are unaware of the long history of such claims.
To those commenters, I would ask – when do you predict evolution will fall?
1878: “There are some signs of this whimsical theory of Evolution soon taking another phase. Carl Vogt has given hints that perhaps they have, after all, made a mistake as to the line of descent. It may be found, he conjectures, that Man is not descended from the Ape family but from the Dog! “Other theories may soon be heard of–for the human mind is restless under the burthen of mystery.” Thomas Cooper, Evolution, The Stone Book and The Mosaic Record of Creation, (London: Hodder and Stoughton), p. 186-187
2008: “It is not too early to chart the intellectual course to the 22nd century. The 21st century may well mark a gradual disaffection with Darwinism, comparable to the 20th century’s loss of support for Marxism.” Steve Fuller, Science vs Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007, page 126
2017: “One would think that scientific, experimental evidence convinced Darwinists to change their mind… Unfortunately, just like many of my posts and comments have revealed, no such evidence has emerged…. ” TSZ
That last one there is from J-Mac, who apparently thinks evolution is on it’s deathbed but is also presumably unaware of the long long history of people making similar claims…
So, evolution denies, what year will it fall and why? What will be the final straw?
A charge has been made that evolution seems to be a popular religion here at TSZ and that it is difficult to separate the ideology from the science.
J-Mac thinks that parasites are “designs gone wrong” via adaptation, and phoodoo thinks that such things are required so that we can have free will.
One of our regular commenters explains why they stick with ID:
ID is a perfectly reasonable alternative to “it just happened, that’s all.”
Yet that “reasonable alternative” is just “it happened like that because it was Intelligently Designed“. ID as yet has no specifics as to who, when, what, how, why etc.
So it seems to me that said commenter has just replaced “it just happened” with another phrase that means exactly the same thing but now they can be an intellectually fulfilled theist. Continue reading
colewd made a comment I found interesting:
We should also admit the major evolutionary transitions are poorly understood because they require significant new biological information.
We should educate them on what biological information is.
We should admit that the origin of biological information is poorly understood.
This video is doing the rounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8rFGVFxhc
To those that believe in such things as ghosts and poltergeists (Clive @ UD I’m looking at you), does this video demonstrate that the realm of ghosts is real? If not, why not?
To the believers, is it possibly a real video or must it have been faked?
To those that don’t believe in such things, has this video converted you? Why not?
Is it relevant that the video was sourced from the Daily Mail? Does the messenger matter?
Apparently theists do not look kindly upon liars but some don’t understand why atheists feel the same. A commenter on this site writes:
Most [atheists] appear to despise lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations as much as any theist. I’m just a bit fuzzy on why.
So I thought I’d look to their leader for support for this. And it seems to me theists are happy to lie when it suits their agenda:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/17/pope-africa-condoms-aids
“The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids.”
That is from the head theist at the time, Pope Benedict XVI.
