…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
Alan Fox,
So you mean you can not be critical of creationism, because you are not capable of understanding it?
Seriously, Sal, do YOU believe the first chicken poofed into existence by either miracle or natural poofing, and subsequently laid the first egg?
Do you suggest to these children that chickens represent the current end product of a very long line of ancestors? And that hundreds of millions of years ago, when different sexes began to appear, the process of encapsulating germ line cells for reproductive purposes developed along with it? That egg-laying had become standard practice along thousands of lineages before there was ever anything like a chicken?
Where IS that possibility? Why give children only non-answers or nonsense answers to choose from? How does that help inform them?
Do you mean the bad copying error, which somehow resulted in a germ line cell accidentally becoming encapsulated, and somehow resulted in a reproductive advantage accidentally, ….because when you say the “process” its a little confusing.
When evolutionists use the word process, they mean stupid luck, right?
Yes I believe it poofed. That is the everything first model, because at least that would work. Half a chicken — not so functional.
I plan to tell them what I believe and I’m happy when they get to hear the other side as well especially since they are attending public schools. But I want them to know what is represented as fact in public schools as far as evolution is only a speculation represented as direct observation when in reality it is just a speculation that cannot in principle be directly verified.
Atheism is a reasonable position. Most people don’t see miracles, and hence many conclude there is no God based on their very limited sample size. I respect that. I don’t disparage the atheistic view (like I would the Muslim view). Atheism is my 2nd choice after Christianity, and all other religions a distant third or worse. I’m not like Arrington and the other atheist demonizers at UD.
I think the kids need to know, if they sign up to the Christian faith, they may have to do so possibly without ever witnessing God directly nor seeing miracles. They will have to decide for themselves whether they find a miracles the best explanation or not even though they may never see God directly working miracles in their lifetime.
I hope their beliefs will be challenged and questioned and that they have the opportunity to hear both sides and decide for themselves. For right now, I have the floor to give my arguments. At some time in the future, the kids will get to hear the other side when someone else has the floor.
But for now, the parents are eager for me to teach them what I’m teaching them. It’s their kids, and they have a lot of say in terms of what beliefs and values they want their kids exposed to.
You want me to give them the other side?
Can you give a terse 3 paragraphs that an 8-year old can read explaining what you believe and why?
I’ll post mine here. I’m of the opinion, brief forceful argument are better than long winded ones. Brief arguments actually take more thought to craft.
Remember you will be writing to an 8-year old!
PS
By the way, Einstein’s quote highlights the problem with CSI and the 2nd law of thermodynamics as arguments for ID. Or how the principles of lead to the conclusion of ID. At least with the 2nd law, it’s clear to me the IDists who most vehemently promote it as an evidence of ID, have no clue what they are saying. “KF, can you freakin’ give a delta-S calculation to defend your claims. You think that’s not too much to ask since I just did that sort of delta-S calculation for evolving a lifeless ice cube into a living human. Sheesh!”
I showed the 6-year-old brother the coin examples and he was able to identify designs and was able to say “law of large numbers”. The larger the number of coins, the more difficult a random process will be able to produce 100% heads. He got it even without me explaining, I just shook a cup of coins and said, “If I pour them out, will they be all heads?” He shook his head. I poured it out, and experiment and observation agreed with theoretical prediction. 🙂 Formulating a design conjecture is based on a search for systems that exist far outside expectation of plausible non-intelligent processes.
Suppose the coins are accidentally unbalanced.
Ho hum. You should also include answer no. 4:
‘Life is a continuum whereas human language is discrete. This is why there can be paradoxes in language that do not exist in reality. In reality, there was no sharp boundary between an ‘almost-chicken’ and an ‘real chicken’, just as there is in reality no sharp boundary between day and night, even though in our language these words refer to diametrical opposites.’
Hey, that is the right answer, and it would teach children something very important about maps and territories.
fG
For an 8-year old, such questions usually have limited scope, and answers are not expected to be encyclopedic. I do not believe in lying, which I think is what you are doing.
Sal, just out of curiosity, how many children do you have?
I’ve raised two kids and have two grandchildren. I can honestly say that in 40 years, I’ve never had a long and deep discussion of faith and religion with my kids.
I’ve mentioned before that when they were young, I sang in a church choir. Because I love the music of Mozart and Fauré and the like. My kids spent some time in church, but never expressed any curiosity about faith.
A few years ago on father’s day, my daughter wrote me a letter thanking me for showing that a person could be good without religion.
stcordova,
I have three sentences that any child who has the misfortune to be in your presence should hear:
The man with the cup of coins is a liar.
He is a bad man.
Don’t believe anything he says.
For a while I thought that Sal Cordova might be in the process of turning over a new leaf. I thought he might be genuinely interested in learning. I even thought he might end up questioning his beliefs, especially his utterly ridiculous YEC position.
I was wrong.
Abbie Smith, a genuinely accomplished scientist and superb writer, called Sal out on his appalling, dishonest behavior back in 2007 (skip this excerpt if you are easily offended):
(The whole essay is well worth reading.)
Sal Cordova has not changed at all since then. Smith’s assessment of his character is still spot on. As Google’s algorithms become more accurate, her post should become the number one hit when searching his name, followed immediately by “child abuser.”
In other words, you anticipate that someone with real knowledge will actually educate these kids someday, and you see your task as armoring them against it. The “other side” is the real world, and is apparently your enemy.
YOU yourself are a shining example of what happens when a mind is poisoned before it reaches the age of reason, rendering reason impotent to penetrate. And this mental parasite is using you as the host, to pass itself on to new victims.
We can only hope that when they are exposed to actual knowledge and understanding (the “other side”), some of them will have retained the ability to think.
faded_glory,
FWIW, I tell the children the evidence for the world be old is hard to prove, there is plenty of evidence against YEC right now. I would have no problem highlighting the issues you raised to any YEC or creationist.
In general, I have no problem letting both sides be heard, but in the case of kids, they are young.
Some of the stuff with naturalistic OOL, I don’t find believable. If it were believable I’d be with the agnostics/atheists. I share that with the kids.
I have no kids.
I don’t demonize atheists and I find what you say is true, in fact I find many atheist behaving more morally, ethically, and kindly than theists. That’s why I found Arrington’s spewing of venom, against people like Mark Frank and Elizabeth Liddle, calling them liars publicly — I found that really repugnant especially since I knew he wasn’t being straight with me (someone who volunteered for his blog for 10 years).
I think atheism is a very reasonable position, and I’d be with on your side of the aisle if it weren’t for the OOL issue primarily, and the various problems with cumulative selection working in the real world.
Then you’d be lying to them. Again.
You talk about “both sides” as though they have equal evidence. They don’t, the score is Science 100,000,000 to YECkery 0. Don’t lie to the children.
Scientifically verified reality doesn’t depend on a lying human shit stain like Sal Cordova finding it believable.
I recently tutored physics to a college biology major who is now a senior. He accepts ID, and he likes the way I frame the ID argument.
I think many people interested in these topics would prefer to see the exchange of each side’s best arguments.
I feel a responsibility to give the other side of the argument a fair hearing, both for myself and those I teach. In the case of college students, this is far easier than little children.
I usually don’t teach kids as young as six, but the parents have been eager for me to do so, so as a favor to them and to refine my own critical thinking, I have decided to invest time. They will hear the other side in public school and when they visit museums like the museum of natural history in Washington, DC. I credit the mom and dad feeling confident to send them to secular schools and venues like museums to hear other viewpoints.
The nine year old loves animals. He will hear the evolution story a lot. I’m fine with that. In fact I think if he chooses to remain a Christian, his faith will be strengthened, not diminished by having a chance to hear both sides.
So you lie to young adults too. Not surprising.
Which sure won’t be coming from you with your long history of dishonesty and lying.
Another self-serving, self-aggrandizing lie.
Sal Cordova, child abuser.
Being a Christian has nothing to do with believing YEC lies no matter how much you tap dance.
1. Even if they were biased such that expectation is 75% heads, 25% tails , for a large number of coins, 100% heads is astronomically improbable. The exact calculations can be done for improbability using the binomial distribution. I have gone through those calculations personally, and I’d be happy to share them with anyone really interested.
The question you raise is actually relevant to one of the biochemical features of life namely homochirality in amino acids, DNA, and sugars. Outside of active policing by a host of chemicals in living organisms, the homochirality degrades over time, with half lives that are driven by the binomial distribution.
The homochirality issue in biology is a serious barrier to OOL, and that is the just the beginning of the statistical arguments that I find compelling.
2. You can load a die, you can’t really bias a coin:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/diceRev2.pdf
Unless there was a feedback mechanism which retained the heads like evolution has a feedback mechanism which retains beneficial genetic variations.
Your whole stupid coin analogy is dead right out of the gate.
I think Sal knows about selection, but also appreciates the value of simple misdirection in brainwashing children. All you have to do is PRETEND it’s an accurate analogy. Religion is all claims and no demonstrations.
stcordova,
It doesn’t matter whether it’s possible to bias coin flips, or if we consider that it IS possible, whether 75-25 is the limit to such biasing. My point was that a change from the expected distribution of a “fair” coin (or die if you prefer) need not result from any design. It could have been an accident. In fact, in the manufacture of dice, the industrial statistician will expect that some of them will be accidentally “unfair” and be expected to predict the number and severity of these errors.
What that means is that your explanation to the toddlers:
…is extremely misleading. And I think it’s clear that it is intended to mislead. I don’t want to sound insulting, Sal, but I can’t tell you how glad I am that nobody was trying to brainwash my own children in this fashion. I find the entire course of instruction kind of horrifying.
I think the real problem is pretending that tossing coins has anything at all to do with the OOL.
Nothing wrong with a gentle introduction to statistics and forecasting, so by itself a coin experiment could be of some value. It is the link with OOL that I find highly problematic. The idea that we can somehow assign probabilities to the OOL in the absence of detailed knowledge of the parameter space existing at the time is profoundly mistaken.
If you want to give the kids a chance in life to grow up and form their own ideas, you should just be saying that the OOL is currently unknown, and different people have different ideas about it, such as a natural process or divine action, or even other options. Those are the facts of the matter. Your speculations about probabilities are just that, speculations, and ones that many people have grave reservations about, as you very well know.
Trying to get the kids to adopt your own personal and subjective views is abusing your position as a teacher. If these kids were 16 instead of 6 you would not get away with that, so yes, you are taking advantage of their young age and their trust in you as an adult.
fG
The coin analogy is relevant to OOL because the binomial distribution which governs the behavior of coins governs the evolution of homochirality in a pre-biotic environment because of thermal agitation (like shaking coins in a cup).
I could go on to dominos, and highly exceptional states…but I have not yet develop that argument.
Regarding cumulative selection such as described in in Dawkins WEASEL, there are at least 3 problems with it that don’t make it conform to real world and real time observations:
1. Natural selection ELIMINATES species. That is confirmed, that is expected, hence the accounting of a cumulative selection scenario is a biased sample when selection between species is considered. Suppose we have 10 complex diverse species, and only 1 survives — like say a human competing with a species of plant, a species of fish, a species of mouse, etc. and the human survives. Doesn’t that show that natural selection then has sent the genome complexity to zero for the 9 species that got wiped out? Something is wrong with the accounting that says 1 species, like humans improves, while 9 complex species die out and hence all the supposed accumulated complexity goes to zero, and then this is upheld as and example of how selection builds, when it could just as well be held up as an example of how selection destroys!
For diversification to happen, for the emergence of “endless forms most beautiful”, competition for resources between species has to be arrested, or else ANNIHILATOR will overturn in many more species what ever gains WEASEL made in a few species. That’s a problem.
2. The observed dominant role of evolution in the lab and field, as best as we can tell is reductive, not cumulative. It begins with Muller’s ratchet for asexuals, and something somewhat like Muller’s ratchet in sexual species.
Example, tape works lose digestive tracts, other creatures evolve loss of organs. Microbes lose sections of their genomes and don’t recover them, etc. What is bad is that it looks like REDUCTIVE rather than CUMULATIVE selection is the tendency in the biological world when there is selection present.
3. Reproduction rate must be substantial based on genome size and mutation rates. We see this in accelerated mutation experiments. Blasting enough radiation into a population kills it. But that may be a fast motion picture of what is happening more slowly — purifying selection can at best slow down genetic deterioration, and that’s on the generous assumption selection isn’t already operating in reductive mode.
The problem is what Darwin and Dawkins calls “Natural Selection” is really what they imagine selection to be, not what actually happens in lab and field observations, dare I say, what real experimental and observational science actually see and report.
I have no problem having both sides of an argument aired. I have no problem trying to learn both sides of an argument. That’s why I come to TSZ to be exposed to critical thinking and objections to what I have to say.
I’m sorry fg, the parents have the right to choose me as the kids teacher, and they have chosen me because I have the same beliefs and values as them. It’s their kids, and they would find it wrong to not expose kids to both sides. I’m there to provide their side of the argument, and they are fair by sending their kids to secular school to hear the other side of the argument.
Imho, it’s plain wrong for evolutionists to insist they absolute know the truth. It is more fair to say, each side doesn’t absolutely know, they only believe what they believe.
Disagree, I teach ID to college biology students. Many agree with what I say.
Even though I don’t have an undergrad biology, I’m now a graduate biology student at an evening school that is partnered with my graduate alma mater, Johns Hopkins, since computational and physics backgrounds are welcomed in the medical community, schools are opening their biology departments to interdisciplinary students.
So it’s fair to say, some who are fairly versant in college level science agree with me, some don’t. But the point is, one can’t universally say, my arguments won’t hold traction if a science student is given the opportunity to hear both sides.
Sal, your “teach both sides of the controversy” won’t work with anyone having the slightest bit scientific knowledge. You have to lie to children because they’re the only ones lacking the skill set to see through your bullshit.
William lied:
Really, an extremely long bunch of creationist quotes ripped from context that start out with a false quote, along with the statement that they don’t even care enough to make sure that their non-contextual quotes are even honest quotes (apart from the quotemining part, which is clearly all right by them), don’t amount to quotemining? Because of a slimy disclaimer?
Murray is the quintessential case of a liar who is too deep into his life of dishonesty that truth barely makes a ripple in his psyche. It’s his philosophy, after all, that any appalling lie that works for him is his dais (he doesn’t put it that way, naturally). Any encounter with truth is just reason to spit out more poisonous lies.
He can look at hundreds of quotemines by his allies and claim that it’s everyone else who doesn’t know what a quotemine is. Basically, he always privileges lies by his allies over any truth by the demonized opposition, hence the flimsy disclaimer by the liars at the IDEA Center become his basis for what constitutes truth-telling in this case. It works for his egregiously dishonest mind, so it’s his truth.
The only thing interesting about IDiots is the various ways in which they are dishonest. Sal admits to his enormous confirmation biases from time to time, and still thinks that he’s capable of intellectual honesty, and that he’s a decent teacher for children. Murray is just an a-hole who baptizes anything he likes as truth, and attacks anything that is actually credible for not being part of his fantastically dishonest world, since it doesn’t agree with his wonderfully self-serving “truth,” whatever it might be this week. These are interesting in their ways, but both intensely false ways of looking at the world make those who espouse them incapable of reasoned discourse.
Glen Davidson
Read again what I said:
If you want to give the kids a chance in life to grow up and form their own ideas, you should just be saying that the OOL is currently unknown, and different people have different ideas about it, such as a natural process or divine action, or even other options. Those are the facts of the matter.
I advocate exactly what you propose, so why don’t you just do that when you teach these kids?
That will be then because they haven’t been trained in critical thinking. If they had been, they would be able to tell when a teacher is feeding them his own personal subjective beliefs instead of the science. If they could tell the difference they wouldn’t let you get away with it.
One reason why they struggle with critical thinking is that they have been indoctrinated from early age with the personal subjective beliefs of their teachers. And so round and round we go…
fG
Sounds like you are seconding the parasite model – religious faith alters the thinking ability of its host to ensure that it will be transmitted to the next generation. Sal has the same relationship to his species of superstition that crabs have to the sacculina barnacle.
No wonder the debates here are so interesting.
Since you’re incapable of believing that any ID proponent posts here in good faith, why are you even here, unless it’s just to troll?
I bet you’re one of Elizabeth’s favorites. I bet that’s why you stay. Mommy’s boy.
My belief in ID is not science, it is a personal subjective belief. I have no problem saying it. I said, “ID falsifiable, not science, not positive, not directly testable.”
FWIW, I told them the evidence for the YEC scenario of ID is weak and there are plenty of problems with the theory. You came to mind when I told them that. I have no problem whatsoever being straight with them about the problems with the YEC model. That’s the responsible thing to do.
That said, I provided 3 reasons Darwin and Dawkins conception does not agree with field and lab observations. That is what I view as critical thinking.
If there is a naturalistic mechanism of macro evolution, it’s nothing consistent what we see in the present day, it would have to be a mechanism we don’t have access to.
I respect if someone rejects miracle as an explanation for the simple reason they haven’t seen them. That’s fine. But Dawkins ideas of evolution should not be given a free-pass either. Formally speaking, Dawkins could be dead wrong and naturalism true. If I were a philosophical naturalist, I’d suppose it was some mechanism we haven’t figured out, just like OOL. That’s Fodor’s position, btw. Fodor is an atheist.
I have no problem telling the kids, “this is what I believe. I have no absolute proof, no one does, but this is the idea I have entrusted my life to, and my faith is no different than yours — just like having the faith of a little child. The faith I have is the faith your mother and father have and the faith you have.”
Since only God knows all things, we can only access ultimate truth through God’s grace and hope and trust our faith is well placed since we cannot formally prove it.
That is my subjective belief, it is not experimental science.
I can, however, in good conscience, tell them why I have no faith in evolutionary theory (theories) and naturalistic OOL. The numbers simply don’t work for me. If I told them the numbers work for evolution and OOL, I would feel like I’m lying.
stcordova,
That’s only relevant if the OoL involved condensation of random molecules from a soup. Amino acid chirality could easily be explained by ribosomal stereospecifity at a much later date. There is no fundamental reason to demand protein at OoL. And in fact the kind of scenario you imagine, where isomers are indistinguishable but different acids are not, is very unlikely. We struggle to distinguish isomers because they have the same molecular weight, stoichiometry and chemical property. But any process that can distinguish one amino acid molecule by side chain from another would absolutely not be fooled by stereoisomers. Because the difference between isomers is the side chain. It’s hydrogen in all D acids, not the thing on the other side (which is hydrogen in all L acids).
Of course nucleic acids are chiral as well – but they have the interesting property of binding more tightly to homochiral complementary sequences than to the chirally mixed. As Mike Elzinga was fond of saying, these aren’t Scrabble tiles.
There’s more content than just ID scrutiny.
Barry’s purse, Mung. Getting of your high horse will be easy without testicles to get ion the way.
See Sal, it’s when you say stupid shit like that which gives you your lower than whale poo reputation. Making false pronouncements about things you could easily research and find examples of with a 10 second Google search.
I suppose a child abuser like you never even considered looking at the available scientific evidence before mouthing off.
That’s pretty funny coming from a gonad-less wonder like you Mung whose only purpose seems to be to shit in and disrupt every thread.
Let’s say that a single step is a microjourney, and a trip of 100 miles or more is a macrojourney. Now, let’s watch someone walk. He takes a step, then another, then another, then another. Nothing here but microjourneys. After not all that long, he’s traveled 100 miles. So has he achieved a macrojourney? No, sorry, we don’t have access to any such mechanism in the present day. Nothing but microjourneys all the way down.
Your fixation with Barry’s testicles is noted. Not sure what that has to do with ID though.
Allan,
Thank you again for the skeptical and critical analysis of what I’m saying. However, I must point this out:
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Origins_of_a_Homochiral_Microbial_World
I believe that is because of the biophysics. If they are all the same chirality, they can wind into a helix more nicely.
I have to add, I think spontaneous proteolysis won’t give the soup much time or material in the form of proteins to make life.
I hate disagreeing with you. Your such a pleasant conversationalist, and very knowledgeable.
Couldn’t we talk about other things that are less confrontational?
It’s your lack of testicles that’s the problem Mung. With all that ass kissing of Barry you do they seem to have shriveled right off.
Adapa,
I personally would like to thank Adapa and Richard for giving Elizabeth exactly the site she wants.
A lot of people would probably be surprised to know how big a fan she actually is of random dick jokes and other homo-erotic imagined blatherings. She can’t get enough of it in fact.
So thank you, on her behalf.
Hi Phoodoo. You read that article you wrote a post about yet? The honesty!
Richardthughes,
Scrotum!
Ahaha….Cracks me up every time!
Shoutout to Lizzie, Richard. Cheers!
Sheesh, is there a grown-up in the room?
Nope. 🙂
Elizabeth is the wise landlord. Always absent. Never her fault. But she trusts known and demonstrable lairs to administer her site.
Gee, how many stupid lies did you string together there?
Glen Davidson
Who cares? You cower under Elizabeth’s skirts. If you ever utter a true statement it is by pure accident. But hey, I’m an ID proponent and all ID proponents are liars.
Better for you that you just say that it is so rather than demonstrate that it is so. Now be sure to call on your buddy Richardthughes to stand up for you, because you fight like a girl.
Mung,
You’ve been in a terrible mood ever since KF gave you the brush-off.
Maybe if you bought him some flowers?
Maybe it would be helpful, before posting something like this, to reflect that your posts are a window into your person and your nature.
I’m pretty certain that ID posters are sincere. That’s what’s scary.
What universe are you in?
I’ve been in a terrible mood ever since Salvador Cordova decided it would be a good idea to post the contents of private email correspondence between he and Barry Arrington here at TSZ and actually received encouragement from Elizabeth and other admins here at TSZ to do so.
I’ve been in a terrible mood ever since I posted an OP calling into question the wisdom of that policy here at TSZ and inviting discussion of that policy and suggesting that a rule be drafted opposing posting of private email correspondence here at TSZ.
I’ve been in a terrible mood ever since that thread was shut down because admin Patrick, who is [allegedly] opposed to censorship here at TSZ, suggested that it be
censoredclosed down.And then lies and obfuscations and failures to admit what was going on and then further censorship followed. Apparently, because non published “rules” were being violated.
This is right up your alley.
Did you willfully overlook Alan Fox’s statement that he could not possibly have created the “Whine Cellar” thread and move your posts to that thread because admins just can’t to that?
Really?
Of course they are. And I now know Glen doesn’t post in good faith.