Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I don’t usually look at UD. Did Joe ever name a Nobel laureate who is currently actively researching OOL?
And has anyone in the ID movement actually addressed current OOL research?
JoeG,
When I got them, they are presented on an A4 sheet in point 9 Arial. On that basis alone I have already determined design as typed sheets of numbers are not something that I’ve seen nature unaided produce before, but it seems that there were in fact two similar sheets and I’ve already gotten them mixed up!
My sheet of random numbers has now somehow got mixed up with the sheet of paper with the numbers on that SETI asked me to look at.
If only there was some way to determine which sheet’s numbers, if any, were in fact intelligently designed.
Joe,
And another days’ “intelligent designin” comes to an end.
I do hope KF does not have a conniption over your use of “butt” young man!
OMagain,
I’m sure that kairosfocus is calling for Joe to be banned, just as he would if any IDC opponent wrote the same thing. No double standards at UD, nosiree!
This is a problem the ID side has never managed to explain.
How do you know any existing configuration was actually intended?
Joe snarks
Gordon Eliot Mullings responds helpfully
Then, A Miracle Occurs: Joe’s neurons both fire in sync :
Took him a while, and five wrong guesses.
So, are the denizens of UD dismissing Jack’s work out-of-hand?
Well, KF admits dismissing the post-2009 work out of hand.
19 papers in pubmed – 13 of them freely available.
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along, now.
So has anyone in the ID movement addressed Szostak’s work? Other than to say he hasn’t made a squirrel from scratch.
The simple thesis of my personal argument is that designing biology by any process other than evolution is “impossible.” That means I do not expect Szostak or anyone else to succeed easily or quickly. Of course Szostak is studying chemical evolution, which is simpler.
What goes on in the minds of ID advocates when they assert the designer doesn’t have to be omniscient?
In case you weren’t sure how Gordon Mullings feels about us here at TSZ:
Simplier Gordon: “Those Meanies at TSZ!”
ETA: Sentence completion
I wonder if Gordon is aware that we have discussed Sewell’s paper in considerable depth on this blog. With a master’s degree in physics, he ought to be able to follow the discussion and to ask questions if something is unclear.
There are multiple threads under the category 2nd law of thermodynamics. And for the impatient, here is my comment with links to the technical points and a non-technical summary.
I predict that he will dodge this opportunity.
The most important part of that KF post:
Perhaps he copied that part from Sewell.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask: Gordon (along with a few others) starts his comments with “F/N”. What does that stand for?
Abuse = disagreement.
Robin,
From various internet sources:
The Meaning of FN
FN means “F***ing”
Footnote, I think.
Things are certainly more active here since UD started calling attention to the site.
Well poisoning=Denying that Darwin=Hitler.
Has TSZ been called a “fever swamp” yet? – for that seems to be the ultimate in KF’s paranoia about the sites of Unbelievers.
No offense Petrushka, but I’m betting Lizzie’s on to something… 🙂
Thanks Lizzie!
Yes:
It’s also inferred up thread on this post as well.
And then there’s:
Must have a more serious negative connotation to those who live in the tropics.
KF is hysterical, in both senses of the word.
That thread must have been before they banned scordova for being uncivil.
I’m drafting a response, that I’ll probably publish here. I’ll point out KF’s strawman (It’s IDiots, not Christians I call ‘the American taliban’) and will happily point them back to their own Christian reconstructionist history. Any thoughts on this are welcome.
Where’s my penguin gone? :-C
I would personally ignore the taunts and invite KF to debate islands of function. As far as I can tell, it’s the only ID argument worthy of discussion.
UD seems willing these days to engage us. My only stipulation is that KF needs to read the comments here directly and not depend on Joe’s edited versions.
That presents too great a risk of reading something offensive, from kairosfocus’ perspective. Joe’s calm, honest, informed, and, above all, always civil summaries are all he needs.
Sorry, will it will be back. I’m making something.
Back, I hope.
Whatever.
I’ve spent nearly 15 years on forums where I was in the minority and subject to all kinds of taunts. I survived because I paid attention to the content of the argument and not to the taunts.
I had a fairly good run at UD and might still be there except for the purge.
I am not interested in people’s real life names unless they disappear and might be ill. there have been three unexpected deaths among members of forums I attend, and that doesn’t include friends and relatives of members.
The simple fact is that KF doesn’t have anything to say regarding the validity of evolutionary theory except for his assertion of isolated islands. And he refuses to debate it.
By which I mean he refuses to engage in an open ended discussion of the details of his claim or to respond to evidence presented that is not compatible with isolated islands.
Lizzie,
Thanks!
Sigh.
KF,
OK, so the Nazis, KF and the people who wrote the bible think homosexuality is immoral.
And so?
No, I never said that only Nazis think that way. You do too and I don’t think you are a Nazi.
In any case, I was responding to this
Seems you don’t like your allusions reflected back at you.
The point is that both you and the Nazi’s have something in common. They believe that some people have a lifestyle that means they are inferior to others. Simple as that.
Yes, yes yes. And?
What tour is it that you think you’ll be making Alan do when you win? That’s what I’m asking!
And what do communities typically do to people who exhibit behavior that is patently disordered and damaging to self and community?
Yes, design theorists are being lined up and gassed in the millions.
KF, you are a real piece of work. You disgust me.
Tell me one thing – what is it that you think should be done to homosexuals then?
Cast them out of the village? Brand them? Gas them?
What is it that you think should be done to those who are patently disordered and damaging to self and community?
I’ve emphasized one word in the above. kairosfocus, dude, you are in so much trouble!
Here’s a fun quotation. I have trouble telling whether it’s serious or whether it’s a parody.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
Joe Felsensenstein, Richard Hoppe, Wesley Elsberry, PZ Myers, Ian Musgrave, and Mark Perakh have all hosted threads about thermodynamics and evolution – including Sewell’s paper – over on Panda’s Thumb.
Mark Perakh’s thread.
PZ Myers.
Joe Felsenstein.
Wesley Elsberry.
Richard Hoppe.
Joe Felsenstein again.
Nick Matzke on the origins of life, in which the thermodynamics issues came up.
Between this TSZ site and Panda’s Thumb, Sewell has been so thoroughly debunked that there is nothing left for the UD people to argue. Dan Styer showed up on some of the threads, as did a number of others who actually know something about thermodynamics.
If the people over at UD want to continue to argue, they will have to read all these threads for understanding rather than for quote mining; and I suspect that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
Just something I wanted to put out there, but it occurs to me what one of the differences is between TSZ, ATBC and UD.
Sure I usually read UD for the lols, like anybody else, but not so much lately.
But the difference is that at sites like this I obtain a tangible benefit from reading. I’ve learnt a hell of alot! And as people have been talking about (for example) different mutation modes I’ve been adding that into code for some personal projects.
More then that however, loads of things to think about and research and damm, if I have a question then people might even have a go at answering it!
At one point a sock of mine at UD was mistaken for a fairly prominent (in their country) scientist by some of the regulars. Which was immensely gratifying (don’t worry, your present is still cooking atbc’ers) so thanks you lot.
But when I read UD I don’t get any of that. Sure, I get an education in their arguments but you only need to get that once. Then you are set.
Then it’s just the same thing over and over again. If they had a category I could filter to, say “developments in intelligent design by intelligent design proponents” then that would be that. I’d never need to look.
So no to little learning going on at UD apart from the little they allow through from the reality based community.
And KF, a whole blog post where you godwin yourself from a few comments of mine? Really? That mega-post must have taken you at least 10-15 minutes to regurgitate from your copy+paste archive, don’t you have actual down to earth “intelligent design’n” to be getting on with?
And KF, would you allow me to respond at UD were I to create an account? Consider that a rhetorical question. I won’t be reading UD for your answer, if you would like to deliever it here yourself them nobody at all is stopping you. Which is odd, because if I read that post of yours it seems to be saying that people are doing to ID what the Nazis did to, well, whoever they disagreed with. And yet there you are, able to write all that despite the order of oppression level “Nazi” that is (according to you KF!) in effect against ID proponents and yet it’s me that cannot respond to your screed. How very odd, don’t you think Gordo?
Come over here, register an account. The water is lovely! You get a little icon and everything.
I think urbanity is the best approach. I don’t always achieve it, but I admire it in others. KF will be KF; Joe will be Joe.
Robin:
I have been around the entire time of these “Culture Wars.”
My biggest frustration with the post-modernists is that, despite all their apparent “erudition,” I always had feeling that not one of them knew how to interrogate nature.
They were critiquing scientists who had a far better understanding of ontological and epistemological issues than did most philosophers in that post-modernist camp. Scientists don’t happen to display their knowledge with the paragraph-long sentences that many philosophers do; so apparently scientists are seen to be not as erudite as philosophers. There was more than a hint of condescension in post-modernist critiques of scientists.
And when the cultural anthropologists attempted to study scientists “in the wild,” most of what we could see coming from their analyses of scientific activity were projections of their own inner interpretations of what they thought was going on. They never tried to understand what the scientists were actually thinking. These cultural anthropologists were doing cargo cult science in their own minds.
In fact, I have the suspicion that if we in the science community were to ever try to give them concept tests in key areas of science, few of them could pass. Even earlier, when C.P Snow asked his liberal arts and philosophical colleagues if any of them could describe the second law of thermodynamics, he reported that he got a pretty cold response.
ID/creationism copied many of its criticisms of science from the post-modernists. Pile that on top of all the misconceptions and misrepresentations they inherited from Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and the DI crowd after Edwards, v. Aguillard, and you end up with the messes we see over at UD, the ICR, the DI and AiG.
Nightlight is a new phenomenon at UD; an ID advocate who challenges the others on technical grounds. He seems to accept Dembski’s argument, but is literate in defending it. He seems more worthy of a thread here than most of the UD regulars.
I’m sure it’s a coincidence that Nightlight hasn’t posted at UD since a few hours after I called attention to him and shortly after Lizzie invited him here.
Driveby Mung
1 Beers
2 Driveby posts
3????
4 Profit!
It’s my late night opinion that ID wishes to lay claim to science without doing any.
Pssst. KF: Lot’s on how and when crystal skulls were made:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_skull
It is my early-morning opinion that I.D. proponents do plenty of science, and that they’re also perfectly justified in their own interpretations of the findings of other scientists’ research. I know I, myself, have used the findings of many ardently anti-I.D. scientists to strengthen my support for I.D. For example, every time a new design element or function is discovered in the living world, I smile a little.
Patrick,
Given the level of serious institutionalized discrimination and despicable expulsion present in the design vs. magic (abiogenesis + Darwinian evolution) debate, you’ll have to forgive me for finding your whining over blog moderation double-standards to be a bit melodramatic.
Kairosfocus posted this is UD:
Addressing comment 4.
I posted a response, but my comments at UD typically disappear into “in moderation”. Sometimes they appear, sometimes they don’t. For what it is worth, here is what I posted:
This is a bit difficult to follow, so bear in mind that the parts beginning “>>” come from Joe Felsenstein’s post here and the parts beginning “numeral->” come from kairosfocus. The bits with no header come from me.
And may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.
timothya
. . . . . .
KF:
Critics of ID commonly point out that the only difference between an evolutionary explanation of how biology works and how ID explains the same observations is that ID requires that an intelligent designer must be present. Occam’s Razor applies: if two hypotheses explain the same observations with the same accuracy, but the second explanation requires an additional cause, then ditch the second one.
KF:
Valid predictions are a feature of scientific theories that are likely to be correct.
It would assist ID if it were to make predictions about how biology works from its (ID’s) premises about the requirement for design. For example, are there any predictions from ID about the nature of the designer? When and where the designer undertook its actions? How did it do its work? By what means? What are the characteristics of the designer?
KF:
Nonsense. The whole of evolutionary biology aims to explain the origins of “body plans” and “innovations in bio-function”. In the context of the debate at the UD site, the point is that evolutionary biologists think that your version of “information” is incoherent.
KF:
A case for design, without a case for a designer, is (how can I say this politely), trivial.
KF:
I agree with you. The cartoon is a strawman en gros.
KF:
I don’t understand what you are saying here. The cartoon is a product of the creationist Access Resource Network. Do you agree with its meaning, or do you not?
KF:
“and the only thing that can be properly gleaned is that the establishment feels threatened and is challenged across a wide range of topics.”
Until you supply evidence (concerning the nature of your designer, its mode of operation, and the times and places that it did its work) you should not be surprised that the “establishment” thinks you are blowing smoke.
KF:
There is nothing invidious in associating you with creationism. You do it yourself. You are the one who requires that biology can only work if a supernatural entity intervenes in its processes at some point (who knows when: maybe 10,000 years ago, maybe all the time, maybe only once).
KF:
Hint: science and theology are two incompatible modes of thought. Science works, theology doesn’t.
KF:
And biology has demonstrated that each of these putative criteria have been met by actual biological organisms. So your point would be?
KF:
FIASCO is your claim. Produce evidence that it exists, that it can be measured without prior knowledge of the system under observation (no smuggling allowed).
KF:
This depends on what someone has read. Whether Behe’s ideas or Dembski’s ideas are difficult to understand depends on how clearly they are expressed and how much attention they receive from people who understand the arguments they are making. In the case of Behe and Dembski, the counter-arguments have been comprehensive. It would help if you were to lay out what critiques you think are “most serious”.
KF:
More FIASCO. First show that FIASCO exists, and then show how to measure it without any “background knowledge” (no smuggling allowed).
KF:
I am sorry, but your statement is incoherent. What do you mean?
KF:
I assume that means your answer is: No, I have no evidence that DNA contains any pre-determined messages. Thanks for confirming.
KF:
Or a missed opportunity.
KF:
What needs to be addressed is the answer to the question: how does genetic material capture changes in the environment in which organisms live? Biology tries to do that, ID just asserts that somethingdidit (but not nature).
KF:
1. What humans do. 2. What all biological organisms do.
KF:
The answer is we don’t yet know. The research is continuing. Leaping to the assumption that it is impossible for life to emerge from non-life is premature. Your call.
KF:
Since FIASO has not been empirically demonstrated to be measurable, your question is incoherent.
KF:
Hang on a sec, are you saying that the “collective authority of Biologists” has no reason to be taken seriously? I believe they do, and you are doing the bluffing.
KF:
Of course.
Are you the same Jared of “TSZ and Jared fame”? Your stance seems to have hardened somewhat.
[eta: the penny dropped while I was taking my son to the station … Jared, Jerad … transposon]
I’m not sure which of my comments you’re referring to, but my issue with the hypocritical and dishonest moderation at UD is based on a respect for free speech and the skeptical values of questioning even one’s most deeply held beliefs and supporting one’s claims with evidence. Barry has every right to run UD however he wishes. How he does so, though, is a reflection of his character and the characters of those who support his approach.
And the only “institutionalized discrimination” is against people who either don’t produce (e.g. Gonzalez) or who try to sneak their unsupported sectarian beliefs into science classes. See http://www.expelledexposed.com for what Stein’s execrable movie failed to mention.
What would a pro ID, positive case experiment look like?
Perhaps predicting, searching for and finding function in what was once considered “junk” DNA by Darwinists?
Start with the onion! They’re Genomically oversized and would be a good target IMHO. But aren’t we presupposing optimal design?
Richardthughes,
The ID movement is self-contradictory over optimal design. They scornfully reject the notion that they presume optimal design, whenever anyone uses “bad design” against them. Then when junk DNA shows up, they are insistent that it can’t really be there. Why? Optimal design.