666...the Devils Moving Average

Discussion in 'Politics' started by crackhead, Oct 3, 2003.

  1. Impressive sounding post which boils down to:

    1) Nothing but attacks on darwin, which has supporting evidence.
    2) Not the tiniest itsy bitsy piece of evidence for intelligent design.

    And he has the nerve to call DE a weak hypothesis? :D
    Ah... not so impressive after all.

    A bunch of nothing wrapped in pretty sugar coated wordsmithing.
    Kind of like the empty middle of sweet bubble gum ball :)

    Is this the best the intelligent design guys can do?
    Propose a supernatural hypothesis without a shred of evidence to support it?

    Might as well propose the universe was created by unicorns,
    and then attack darwinism, as if this will support my case.

    peace

    axeman
     
    #751     Oct 21, 2003
  2. stu

    stu

    dark... a charming and inspiring piece of biblical enlightenment, perhaps one theists would choose as particularly suitable for a nation's children at the breakfast table :D
     
    #752     Oct 22, 2003
  3. stu

    stu

    Just where in his paper DID Morowitz say this ??
    Morowitz's Energy Flow in Biology was a work which established a fact to do with the effects of maximized entropy on a chemical system and had nothing to do with the odds against life origination.

    Harold Morowitz:
    It is always possible to argue that "any unique event would have occurred" but "this is outside the range of probabilistic considerations and, really, outside of science."

    And again….

    "Analysis of the metabolic chart makes it very likely that the first chemistry was the reductive citric acid cycle. You now have a source of those compounds to jump start the process - to get life started "

    And again:...

    "So that you have the core, based on the modern metabolic chart, of the pathways to make everything you need to be a cell. And now we can get a number of these reactions to go without enzymes."

    Morowitz's Arkansas Court Testament:...

    "In general in the creation science literature, they start out by assuming, by making statements about the complexity of living systems. These will generally be fairly accurate statements about the complexity of living systems.

    They then proceed on the basis of probabilistic calculations to ask, what is the probability that such a complex system will come about by random. When you do that, you get a vanishingly small probability, and they then assert that therefore life by natural processes is impossible.

    But the fact of the matter is, we do not know the processes by which life has come about in detail. To do the probabilistic calculations, we would have to know all the kinetic and mechanistic details by which the processes have come about, and, therefore, we would then be able to do the calculations. We are simply lacking the information to do the calculations now, so to present them on the basis of the random model is somewhat deceptive

    ......they play rather fast and loose with the use of the second law of thermodynamics to indicate that the natural origin of life would not be possible. "

    Drifting off to discuss Morowitz's life story a IS avoiding the point! But looking at what he actually says does show up your emphatic statements on what he is supposed to have said, to be false.
     
    #753     Oct 22, 2003
  4. stu

    stu

    OK to get this clear. 1. It is scientific fact that DNA/RNA enzyme self-replicating proteins exist

    2. The "Prebiotic soup experiment" has nothing to do with demonstrting self-replicating proteins replicate That has already been established.

    To then go on and try to reproduce what conditions are required or might have been like in early earth history , to kick start the "Prebiotic soup experiment" is a quite separate issue.

    It is like saying puppy dogs self replicate - the evidence and proof of that is now obvious...but how can the conditions which kick starts this self replication be recreated in a laboratory. (On second thoughts it would be more interesting if the subject matter were buxom blonde replication in a laboratory).

    But these are laboratory conditions !!! The Universe as a laboratory has infinitely more forces and (yet) unknown phenomena about itself. It is has been impossible to emulate the sun's power or to create precious elements at will in the scientists' laboratory. If time is one ingredient which is essential for 'Prebiotic soup experiments' then they will be buggered from the get go. Billions of years is a long time to be hanging around to see if you can kick start life. A way around that complication is needed but "Prebiotic soup experiments" do not negate self-replicating proteins as creationists would have them do.

    However notwithstanding all this, proteins from an amino acid chain (ie: organic polymers) have bloody well been produced in the lab. so have all 20 amino acids , so have the purine and pyrimidine bases found in DNA/RNA. So there :D
     
    #754     Oct 22, 2003
  5. stu

    stu

    I do not think 'the science community' would describe conditions as "a firestorm of unimaginable intensity" , that would fit more to a description of conditions when the Earth itself was forming.....scorched earth might be more appropriate. However that is me being a little picky.

    Nevertheless I am not avoiding the point......

    Now I have to admit, I do not encounter that as any sort of an answer. "We may have had several afterwards" and "something incredible may have happened"... is so tenuous, none of it amounts to even a rough explanation to my question

    Well how about this being something "incredible may have happened" and which I alluded to in my answer to you.

    At temperatures over 1,000 °C. (water boils@ 100 °C in the laboratory), and at 1.5 miles deep under what should be intolerable pressures for any life form to exist (including primitive bacteria), "a LIVING HELL for even the most primitive of life" The 'science community' was astonished to find abundant and unusual life on the sea floor, thriving in impossibly hostile conditions next to hot water vents.

    But what would not be so incredible, is the idea that in early earth history, life would be unaffected from "AT LEAST 30" of your life exterminating impacts" in same or similar circumstances.
     
    #755     Oct 22, 2003
  6. stu

    stu

    And it is that which I am contesting. I do not see anywhere Harold Morowitz and guys like him using these numbers anyway - let alone as scientific fact. I do however see guys like James Coppedge making bogus suppositions and assumptions around massive numbers and odds against, which are then attached to Morowitz and others work.
    Now just calm down shoeshineboy :D Let me explain one thing here. I don't give a flying crap for arguing against a big theistic conspiracy. Theists generally do a pretty good job of destroying their own arguments without my help.

    The big numbers you put forward, which are in the context of the 'odds against life', are NOT meaningful because for one thing THERE IS LIFE and for another nobody knows all the conditions to make valid probability assumptions .

    If you then use these bogus numbers as fact, you are inviting criticism.

    Odds against life forms being able to survive at 1.5 miles down, no light, horrendous sea pressure, someone could easily produce odds of 10 to the 100,000,000,000 against and say it was based on scientific fact and reality.
    The big numbers you have used are given reasons why they are daft ,meaningless and bear no corresponding relationships to the issue.
     
    #756     Oct 22, 2003
  7. stu

    stu

    I am sorry for that. I thought it was clear enough to be taken only as a simple analogy as to how molecules/atoms do not rely on chance, but rather that they are attracted to each other for specific observable reasons. I intended this to reflect toward similar observation where amino acid candidates seek to bond with each other in sequences.
    "Four billion years for the first galaxies to from ...." where did you get that from???

    13-15 billion years from Big Bang to now. The first billion years to get to gravity which causes gases to conflate forming the first stars. Galaxies as large as the Milky Way had formed when the Universe was about a billion years old. That was about 11 Billion years ago.

    But even when using your figures...13 billion years ago = Bang... less 4 billion to first galaxy(incorrect but...) leaves 9 billion... less 5 billion for your "3rd generation stars" leaves... OH 4 billion !!. So this "closes the window even further "...does it??? How exactly?
    I agree, complex it is. I was trying to make the simple point that you do not know that complex amino acid sequences cannot be formed by the candidates seeking out their preferred position. You do not know either that these have to be sequentially constructed, you sound as if you know that just one single DNA replicator per go is the rule. With billions upon billions of simultaneous sequences forming in the oceans alone, you could just as easily say the chances of viable life forms are odds on inevitable.
     
    #757     Oct 22, 2003
  8. stu

    stu

    Well I think we are just batting back and forth here. >>:)We now seem to be agreeing:)<< though that a reducing atmosphere IS conducive to the synthesis of organic molecules. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the early primitive atmosphere of earth was mostly formed from volcanic out gassing. Volcanic vapor consists of shit loads of of water vapour, comparatively small amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen gas and yes .... very little oxygen. That leaves a nice big "friendly" environment for the primitive anaerobic bacteria which can't live in oxygen.

    Oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago (not 4 billion years.. that's supposed to be how old the earth is) kicked off the 'Biological Era'. A free oxygen atmosphere would not in any event interfere with 'amino acid assembly'.... in the sea !!!

    So now as free oxygen gradually accumulates there is potential for land based 'amino acid assembly' AND life form evolution - from sea based 'amino acid assembly' - just what is the problem here? Is it "this "reactions occur at least 30 MILLION times slower" assumption?? So you KNOW for a fact the exact amount of free oxygen present in primitive earth's atmosphere, which could slow down molecular synthesis to "at least 30 MILLION times" .......even where there is no free oxygen for around 1.5 Billion years or so!! ???

    But wait one second. aren't you now saying that there WAS amino acid assembly at this time, albeit that you state it is slow ("...at least 30 MILLION times slower).??

    Therefore doesn't it follow - there is amino acid assembly and as the 'scientific community' knows of DNA/RNA self-replicants (Nobel Prize stuff) - then this sorta now fucks up (no offence intended) your overall 'fantastic odds' hypothesis anyway??
     
    #758     Oct 22, 2003
  9. stu

    stu

    Isn't that the kind of patronizing supercilious pomposity that you wanted people not to assault YOU with. Using big numbers to misrepresent theses people is where the fault lies.
    A true geek would deal only in true numbers.
    Again I say yours are not the numbers of reputable scientists, they are the construction of people who want to practice the art of misrepresentation.

    Science does not go about ignoring problems with it's theories. If it is doing that, then it isn't science. Observation evidence and experiments, repeatable, testable conclusion is not faith. It offers natural explanations of how things are and in biology, how life may have come about.

    It is usually the recidivist theist who says that in place of all that, only a metaphysical - invisible - incorporeal - deity, whose claimed existence has exactly the same testable validation as a pink flying poo with fairy wings attached....... can create life et al. Now that IS a requirement of (blind) faith.

    It is starting to appear to me, that it is you is sounding worried of conspiracies shoeshineboy.
    You were supposed to addressing my responses and then responding in turn to me, not confusing this with any problems you may feel you have with GG !!
     
    #759     Oct 22, 2003
  10. stu

    stu

    The process of reasoning may well lead to conclusion, it often can.

    A lack of evidence in the courtroom appears to leave arguments of science in a quest for ever more rationale, whereas the arguments of divinity are regularly dismissed for too much unsafe testimony.
    I see no substantive reasons why there must be something intrinsically flawed because it is anthropocentric?? A lot of IF’s there darkhorse but I am glad of that. Thinking back I seem to recall no If’s but just determinate assertion.

    Reasoning how man stands in relation to his creator first requires a reasoning that man has a Creator.
    I agree with you , those are two distinct questions. But a hypothetical acceptance of the first only requires the questioners to establish another IF. If God exists is God moral etc
    But even before that, a definition of God is essential , before the hypothetical acceptance for the sake of argument. If not God may well be being argued as nothing more than a quantum flux by both questioners, without either side of the argument realizing it.
    Then examine what an omnipotent form must entail. It is possible that it is inconceivable and/or it may be that an omnipotent form can apply to anything....including fairies.

    Is it right to value an invisible, absent, hurtful, violent father the same as a living, breathing, loving, physical father. Is it not right for a child to refuse a father who is unreasonably cruel within a set of experiential events. For a God to give rationality but then say rationality is useless when thinking of God.,,, Isn’t that by any rational standard simply self defeating contradiction .

    But then again I agree with what you say in essence.... "many things that can be imagined or hypothesized cannot actually be actualized" --- unfortunately for the theist that must include the proposition for God along with anti gravity ointment , invisibility pills, and Pink Unicorns.
    I don’t agree man is by and large the source of pain. Any number of parasitic microbes or cancerous tumors cause of all sorts and type of pain and suffering to man. The choice to combat these in any way possible does not become the option of choosing to have such ‘evil’ present.

    Having the option of being free to choose evil does not require you to choose evil.
    It’s the being free to choose which is the free will, not the choice itself. And in the absence of other worthy standards, then man’s worthy standards set by mankind itself must be the crucial benchmark. Standards which are then essential to assess even the things which ‘cannot actually be actualized’.
     
    #760     Oct 22, 2003