What’s the point?

We are all too familiar with the schtick of certain posters. I’d like to know what they hope to achieve by pounding their limited collection of nails year in year out.

One could summarise the entire output of some in a dozen or so sentences. They KNOW that no-one will answer their challenges to their satisfaction. They KNOW (rather, they think they know) that this is because their challenges cut right to the heart of the matter, and evolutionary theory (“which evolutionary theory?”, a poster mutters for the thousandth time) is not an arena of explanation that will satisfy them. So, once you have satisfied yourself that this is the case, why keep buzzing against that glass like a trapped house-fly?

133 thoughts on “What’s the point?

  1. Gregory:
    Fair Witness,

    A list of things that are/what is not ‘natural’

    Cars, planes, toothbrushes, trains, phones …..

    This assumes we define natural as anything not obviously an artifact of human invention.

    How does this help anything?

  2. Fair Witness,

    “Cars, planes, toothbrushes, trains, phones …..”

    O.k., keep going. Anything else?

    What are those things that are not ‘natural’ called as a category or as multiple categories? It seems you are saying ‘artificial’, is that correct? Or ‘technological’? No? Yes? And?

  3. Frankie,

    I KNOW that I am hoping someone will- or at least try.

    Don’t believe you. Many have tried. All will fail to do so – to your satisfaction. As you well know.

    But this is obviously not that place.

    OK … and … ?

  4. Mung,

    Skepticism here means being skeptical of the beliefs of others.

    Yeah, that’s one of the nails – the name of the site strikes some as ironic. Meh. I don’t think it is, since theists are continually expressing skepticism of evolution, and are hardly forbidden from doing so.

  5. Gregory:
    Fair Witness,

    “Cars, planes, toothbrushes, trains, phones …..”

    O.k., keep going. Anything else?

    What are those things that are not ‘natural’ called as a category or as multiple categories? It seems you are saying ‘artificial’, is that correct? Or ‘technological’? No? Yes? And?

    Why change terms? We are already calling them non-natural.

  6. Mung,

    I can’t begin to tell you how many books I’ve purchased due to discussions at this site.

    One day, I might stop procrastinating and restart my magnum opus. Can I put you down for ten? 🙂

  7. Allan Miller: Don’t believe you. Many have tried.

    Evidence please. Many have used equivocation but no one has tried to meet the challenge that blind and mindless processes didit. All of the alleged evidence for Common Descent is absent a mechanism. So no, Allan, no one has explained how to test the claims of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes to anyone’s satisfaction. You are sadly mistaken.

    And to top it off you bastardize the argument from a Common Design and think it means something. Do you really think a designer is going to reinvent a DNA sequence for every organism? Do you not understand that saying Camaro’s and Firebirds are very similar due to a common design is actually meaningful when trying to understand why the two cars are so similar?

  8. Allan Miller: Can I put you down for ten?

    Absolutely! I still owe you one for your donation for refugees. I forget, was it your sister’s organization? Do they have a site or paypal or anything where they accept donations?

    ETA: Ten quid or ten copies? 😉

  9. Just a note to self in case I ever do an OP on Blind and Mindless, lol.

    Someone somewhere here used the term “unthinking” process. That could be a useful way forward.

  10. Gregory:
    And I can tell you I’m not sticking around this abandoned place for skeptic despair counselling, no indeed. “What’s the point?” Wallow down the tread mille into the dust with UD. That’s this site’s destiny.

    “I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

  11. I’d like to know what they hope to achieve by pounding their limited collection of nails year in year out.

    As near as I can tell the supply of nails is unlimited. Sort of like the unlimited variation assumed by Darwinists.

  12. (“which evolutionary theory?”, a poster mutters for the thousandth time)

    That would be once a day for over three years. 🙂

    Not sure if I can catch up.

  13. Mung,

    Absolutely! I still owe you one for your donation for refugees. I forget, was it your sister’s organization? Do they have a site or paypal or anything where they accept donations?

    It was on behalf of my eldest daughter, who asked us to make charitable donations instead of presents this year. I donated half to the Red Cross Europe Refugee appeal and half to Shelter – a UK homeless charity. Both causes dear to her heart, as she’s been on late-night soup runs as well as spending some time in refugee transit camps. Despite being raised by an atheist! 😉

  14. Mung,

    As near as I can tell the supply of nails is unlimited. Sort of like the unlimited variation assumed by Darwinists.

    No to both. Sigh.

  15. Frankie,

    Me: Many have tried

    F/J: Evidence please.

    You fucking serious? You want evidence that people have tried? Who do you think you were talking to all these years – your reflection in the screen?

    Many have used equivocation but no one has tried to meet the challenge that blind and mindless processes didit.

    Yeah great. So now whatchoo gonna do? Ask again? Why? What’s the point?

  16. AhmedKiaan,

    what’s the point? Well, watching William J Murray be racist is kinda entertaining.

    Acartia,

    What is the point? It gives me a reason to post cartoons of drunk parrots.

    Sure, entertainment, I can buy!

    (Cue: “it’s entertaining watching evolutionists flail”. I need to find some parrot pictures … ).

  17. Allan Miller:
    Frankie,

    You fucking serious? You want evidence that people have tried? Who do you think you were talking to all these years – your reflection in the screen?

    Yeah great. So now whatchoo gonna do? Ask again? Why? What’s the point?

    Yes, Allan, I am fucking serious. No one has tried to demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce living organisms nor life’s diversity.

    What am I going to do now? Continue to demonstrate that you and your have absolutely nothing to support the claims of your position. And also continue to demonstrate that you have no right to butcher ID and science.

  18. AhmedKiaan: a physics student at NC State,

    Ever take anything (or otherwise get to know–like through ultimate frisbee) my buddy, Jason Bivins?

  19. In answer to Allan’s question. (i) It passes the time/is entertaining; (ii) It gives an opportunity to find out what people who disagree with one think about stuff–what’s “in the air” so to speak; (iii) I’ve learned quite a bit here. So, I sometimes post (maybe this is self-aggrandizing) to try to “give back” something to those I have learned from. (iv) It’s an outlet for anger against those with whom we disagree and gives an opportunity to make jokes or otherwise show off.

    That’s about it, I think.

  20. GlenDavidson: I think the point is to show the world to what intellectual heights ID has risen over the years.

    You are failing at that. However you are showing what intellectual lows evolutionism has stooped to over the years

  21. Fair Witness,

    “Why change terms? We are already calling them non-natural.”

    No change of terms. You’ve identified the term ‘artificial’ (artefact) as ‘non-natural’ and under that category listed “Cars, planes, toothbrushes, trains, phones …..” They are all ‘artificial’ things, manufactured technology; I count that in one ‘category’. (& agree with you that none of those things is ‘natural’ per se though they are quite obviously composed by ‘nature’ or of ‘natural’ substance)

    Are there other non-natural things/what else is not ‘natural’ in your worldview in addition to what you began to identify above?

  22. Frankie:
    Yes, Allan, I am fucking serious. No one has tried to demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce living organisms nor life’s diversity.

    What am I going to do now? Continue to demonstrate that you and your have absolutely nothing to support the claims of your position. And also continue to demonstrate that you have no right to butcher ID and science.

    Come on Allan ,Frankie is serious this time.

  23. Gregory:
    Fair Witness,

    No change of terms. You’ve identified the term ‘artificial’ (artefact) as ‘non-natural’ and under that category listed “Cars, planes, toothbrushes, trains, phones …..” They are all ‘artificial’ things, manufactured technology; I count that in one ‘category’. (& agree with you that none of those things is ‘natural’ per se though they are quite obviously composed by ‘nature’ or of ‘natural’ substance)

    Are there other non-natural things/what else is not ‘natural’ in your worldview in addition to what you began to identify above?

    Yes. You can include anything made by humans in that category.

    What’s your point?

  24. Frankie,

    Yes, Allan, I am fucking serious. No one has tried to demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce living organisms nor life’s diversity.

    They have – they simply have not done it to your satisfaction. They have certainly tried. So, we get it. You are unpersuadable. Before anyone even types a word, you have already decided that even the very quarks of matter are evidence of design. So: got it. Drink deep of the draft of personal certainty.

    I still don’t understand the aim. You are satisfied. You. No-one on the opposing side appears remotely persuaded by your gibber; you can’t seriously hope to persuade them. People who agree it’s Design all the way down, meanwhile, already think it’s design all the way down.

    What am I going to do now? Continue to demonstrate that you and your have absolutely nothing to support the claims of your position. And also continue to demonstrate that you have no right to butcher ID and science.

    What, by pasting the same half dozen sentences over and over again? Look, it’s your life and all, but …

  25. Allan Miller: What, by pasting the same half dozen sentences over and over again? Look, it’s your life and all, but …

    It’s doubly odd because if life and the universe is designed and Joe has a divine purpose, it seems that divine purpose is to repeat the same few sentences over and over again in response to any and all stimuli. Are you happy with your divine lot Joe? A divinely ordained jester of few sentences?

    And also continue to demonstrate that you have no right to butcher ID and science.

    To an audience who all (apart from the imaginary lurker whose utter silence you take as support) without exception think you have nothing useful to add to this or any debate? Even Mung is laughing at you. You are demonstrating it to the wrong audience, if you really cared you’d be attempting to demonstrate it to an audience where something might possibly change because of your actions.

    Did you ever stand up in front of that school board and make your case for ID FrankenJoe?

  26. walto,

    Thanks walto, I recognise most of those motivations!

    My OP could be seen as something of a parallel to WJM’s on Trump. “I don’t understand the motivations of ‘you people'”, while in my case at least recognising that I still probably won’t understand when explained.

  27. Allan Miller: They have

    That is your opinion and one that you cannot support. I have a thread asking for such a thing and got nothing.

    Look, I get it. All you can do is bluff because you don’t have anything else.

    Keep telling yourself that the genetic code isn’t really a code and that I have my mind already made up…

  28. OMagain: Even Mung is laughing at you.

    If laughing at pictures of parrots is laughing at Frankie, yes. I will confess that I’d like to see Frankie be more creative. But to echo Allan, what would be the point?

  29. Frankie: You are conflating evidence for Common Descent with evidence for blind and mindless processes.

    So what are the entailments (random, guided by environment, direct designer intervention, front loaded)

  30. I don’t know what Common Descent entails- no one can say with any scientific validity. I don’t know what evolution by means of blind and mindless processes entail. That is up to the people promoting it to say and yet they refuse to. I don’t even know what “guided by the environment” means as no one has provided anything about it. I know what ID entails and have said. And Mike Gene has covered front loading.

    Anything else, Richie?

  31. Frankie,

    Me: They have

    Frankie: That is your opinion and one that you cannot support. I have a thread asking for such a thing and got nothing.

    Let’s just review:

    Me: They KNOW that no-one will answer their challenges to their satisfaction.

    Frankie: I KNOW that I am hoping someone will- or at least try.

    So your contention is that no-one has even attempted to answer your challenges to your satisfaction. 😀 I think they probably thought they were trying, y’know? They didn’t realise where the bar was set.

    OK … do you think anyone ever will? When you ask the thousandth time? Maybe if you try the millionth? This is the whole point. What do you hope to achieve by asking a question you already know no-one can answer to your satisfaction? You set the bar here.

    Same goes for colewd, otangelo, Gaulin et al. “Convince Me (bearing in mind I am not in the market to be convinced)”. Answer my challenge to my satisfaction. By Jove, you are right, it can’t be done. Meantime, hundreds of papers are published every month in the field of evolutionary theory. ID, not so much. But you think you are achieving something by endless repetition in a blog with – what – 30, 40 readers? Get a grip, man.

  32. Frankie,

    I know your M.O. chubs. You get destroyed whenever you make declarative statements about entailments. You just want to try and spread doubt without offering anything positive or concrete. The fact you can’t work out the entailments shows us the subject matter is beyond you and you should return to toaster maintenance.

  33. Allan Miller: So your contention is that no-one has even attempted to answer your challenges to your satisfaction

    No- no one has even tried to defend the claim of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes.

    OK … do you think anyone ever will?

    It is a possibility

    What do you hope to achieve by asking a question you already know no-one can answer to your satisfaction?

    That’s your straw man. No one has answered my challenge- period. No one has produced a testable hypothesis for the evolution of vision systems by means of blind and mindless processes, ie natural selection, drift and/ or neutral construction. No one has produced any evidence that those processes could produce vision systems.

    You are sadly mistaken if you think otherwise.

    Meantime, hundreds of papers are published every month in the field of evolutionary theory.

    LoL! Too bad not one supports the claim that blind and mindless processes did it.

  34. Richie, your post is factually challenged and is just a projection of your own personal faults. You don’t seem to be able to work out anything. You are too afraid to make any statements and can just poke and provoke. You have nothing but sloppy thinking and a total lack of self-awareness.

    Good luck with that

  35. Allan Miller: Let’s just review:

    Let’s- I am still waiting for the evidence where someone tried to tell me the merits of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. If you can’t produce that then what’s your point, Allan?

  36. Frankie,

    There you go again, Chubs. Unable to operationalize your terms in any meaningful way. Straight from your YEC playbook. Boring. Subject matter is beyond you.

  37. Work it out, Richie and let us know what you have. Or not. You obviously don’t have a point so your posts are finally on topic. 😎 😛

  38. Whatever Richie- someday you will learn to form an argument and actually make a case. That day is a long ways away, though

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