Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.


Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.

Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.

That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.

Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.

Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


An hypothesis entails a prediction.


Not necessarily. A prediction entails a predetermined end result,
a hypothesis could entail anything.

Perhaps as you use the term. In the scientific method 'hypothesis'
is a term of art with a more restricted defintion. An hypothesis
is a statement that follows from a theory. If the theory
is true, the hypothesis will be true.


But recall what Niehls Bohr said about
prediction, that it is very difficult, especially
about the future. A prediction, in the sense of an hypothesis
may be made about past events, evidence of which has not yet
been discovered, (e.g. predictions of what may be found in
the fossil record), or current phenomena not yet observed,
which has been happening a lot over the past several decades
in DNA studies.


If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.


Evolution is not an hypothesis.


Sure it is. Unless you are limiting the term to "micro-evolution".

An hypothesis is a statement, not a single word.



Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


Evolution, in the broader sense, is a theory. There certainly is the study
of evolution, but I don't think it's considered a study of a study.

To be precise, Evolutionary Biology is a field within Biology, I used
'evolution' as shorthand for 'Evolutionary Biology'. It can also refer
to a family of theories, or a natural process or group of natural
processes.

Of course there are other definitions that lie outside of the context
of the current discussion.



Over the centuries there have been several theories
within that field, those theories spawn hypotheses which can be tested.

... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.

Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.

Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.

I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.

--

FF

Mark & Juanita wrote:
I'm done follwing this post. The amazing thing to me is that when one
points our logical inconsistencies in things that are accepted on faith
such as macro-evolutionary theory and big-bang non-causal cosmology, the
logical inconsistency for some reason doesn't register.

You continue to confabulate comsmology with evolutionary biology
and continue to claim to not understand what has been explained you
in plain English.

You're not fooling anyone. You are going away becuase you have
nothing to offer. You have haven't even tried to show that
any part of any cosmology or any evolutionary theory is contrary
to logic or causality. You simply declared it so.

That may work fine for the 700 Club but it doesn't work when there
are people to answer you back.

--

FF



... but you said it yourself, they are all HORSE-LIKE things.

By which, as you know, he meant different species.

What came
before the first horse-like thing? Where are the examples of those things
that moved from not-quite horse-like to horse-like? Those are the
"between-things" to which I refer.


He answered your question and you left the answer in your reply.
So will I.


Do you NOT believe they exist?

Or do you have a concept of "between-things" as "things that there is
no fossil record for."

Or do you have a concept of a "between-thing" that shows a
relationship between two species where you define the species where
you expect to find a relationship between?

When you mention "horse and cow" - why do you mention these particular
species? Why not "horse and worm" or "cow and bird?"

I see hyperbole doesn't register with you. Fine, pick horse and worm,
pick cow and bird. The point is that there is strong evidence of the
change within various species, but a horse is still a horse, a cow is still
a cow, etc.. Where are the "links", those fossils that definitively point
to something that is moving from one species to another?

Don't you realize that you're not fooling anyone by pretending to not
understand?



Using http://tolweb.org/ we find ::
Horses are part of the odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla). Cows are
even-toed ungulates. (Artiodactyla)

Cows have more in common with whales than they do with horses, and
much more in common with creatures of category Ruminantia (deer,
goats, sheep, antelopes, etc.) i.e. animals that chew their cud.
There are more primitive cud-crewing animals that can be considered
common ancestors to cows and sheep.

To get a common horse/cow ancestor, you need to find primitive
placental mammals (Eutheria) because that's what horses and cows have
in common. And such creatures exist in the fossil record.

I get the impression you are looking for some sort of half and half
creature that is half horse and half cow, and if you can't find that
exact combination exactly as you expect, you discard the entire
concept.

As I say, hyperbole didn't work. You indicate placental mammals have
been found in the fossil record

Doh! They are found typing articles into UseNet too.


-- where are the steps between those
mammals and the ones of your primitive horses or cows?

Like he said, they're in the fossil record.

How do you show
that those placental mammals were not simply species that for whatever
reason became extinct while other co-existing species became dominant?


Maybe, as an article of faith you do not believe that fossils
can be dated. Some of us (Anna Nicole Smith for instance) don't
share your faith.

--

FF

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.

Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.


It would be another wild guess hypothesis then. We know that gravity
exists and we know some of it's properties well enough to call them
laws but we don't know all there is to know about it, even though
it is testable and observable. I don't see how anyone can presume
any laws about an Intelligent Designer since he would beyond our
scope of observation.


Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


All I suggest is the possibility of a designer, especially since it's so
unlikely that the universe and life jump started itself into existence.
If someone says there's a better likelyhood that there is no designer,
they do so out of faith, not science.


We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.


That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.


I answered the assertion.


Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.


I don't follow that either. How does having multitudes of theories
prove what we are discussing?


Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


Sure, how about the Cambrian Explosion? Lots of theories, no answers.



An hypothesis entails a prediction.


Not necessarily. A prediction entails a predetermined end result,
a hypothesis could entail anything.


Perhaps as you use the term. In the scientific method 'hypothesis'
is a term of art with a more restricted defintion. An hypothesis
is a statement that follows from a theory. If the theory
is true, the hypothesis will be true.


No problem there. My point was that the hypothesis doesn't prove
anything.


But recall what Niehls Bohr said about
prediction, that it is very difficult, especially
about the future. A prediction, in the sense of an hypothesis
may be made about past events, evidence of which has not yet
been discovered, (e.g. predictions of what may be found in
the fossil record), or current phenomena not yet observed,
which has been happening a lot over the past several decades
in DNA studies.


If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.


Evolution is not an hypothesis.


Sure it is. Unless you are limiting the term to "micro-evolution".

An hypothesis is a statement, not a single word.


That's what I was addressing. The hypothesis or theory of
evolution.


Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.


Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.


Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.


True, so science doesn't exclude an Intelligent Designer.


I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.


If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.


Which one? I would assert that to not include one and give the
students the sense that biology started itself, which *is* taught,
is religion.

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

....

You need to actually go read some IDers because you keep erecting strawmen
as you cling to your position. They are attacking the method of *knowledge*
used by contemporary science.

I'm not sure what you mean by "method of knowledge". I daresay the
proper object of "method of..." must be a verb, or a noun that is the
name of an avtivity of some sort. Possibly your typing was slower
than your thinking and some words were omitted.

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge, and the body of knowledge
acquired thereby.

ID's proponents are attacking that method by trying to impose a
requirement that scientific theory consider as a natural law,
the existance of a god.

A system that has not been around all that long
(essentially from Darwin forward) and which has some fairly large gaping holes in
its assumption (the "something from nothing" premise being one of the biggest ones).

"Something from nothing" is the ID premise so what is your point?

You tone and intensity is religious here not inquisitive...


Hmpfth.

--

FF
..

Bruce Barnett wrote:
Australopithecus scobis writes:

My question is why anyone would choose to be an ignorant fool: The
creationists and other fundies, the "moon hoax" nuts, the "there is no
global warming" heads-in-the-sand; the list goes on. Why does anyone
drink the Kool-Aid of willful ignorance?

Unfortunately our schools teach memorization over thinking. I was
really upset when a local teacher "taught" their class that you can
only balance an egg on end on the equinox.

This is a teacher. A simple experiment would be able to test this
theory, yet the teacher was woefully ignorant of the principles of
science and ended up teaching her kids an urban legend.


Of course. Teachers are a great source of Urban Legends. So
are ministers, police and scientists. These are all people
who have a fascination with rules and order and that comes
with a keen interest and curiosity in the supposed counter
examples.

Few scientists will fall for the egg/equinox legend but _The
State Legislature set pi = 3_ is rather popular among them.

That teacher should be encouraged to have the class try balancing
eggs on the equinoxes, and the solstices too. Class should
be in session for at lesat one of each. Make it homework if
the event is on the weekend/holiday.

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk writes:
Steve Peterson wrote:

snip

Horsehockey. Intelligent design postulates a designer. The
existance (or non existance) of a designer cannot be falsified,
thus, cannot be postulated.


It goes further than this. They claim the complexity of some things, like
the human eye, is so great that they are irreducibly complex, and there is
no point or hope of further investigation. In this way, ID is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Utter baloney. I have never seen an IDer even suggest that this follows
from irriduceable complexity. You are erecting a strawman to desparately
try and save your position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Irreducible_complexity


Tim is only going to be convinced if you actually take all the evidence for
evolution, starting with the pre-Darwinian data, add all that has been
learned since Darwin provided a theoretical framework that makes it all
sensible and coherent, fill in future discoveries, and then do a Reader's
Digest condensation to make it simple enough for him to comprehend.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ad hominem. You have no idea how well or poorly I assimiliate complex

Actually, we get a pretty good idea from your writings. Unless you
maintain that your writings don't reflect your knowledge, beliefs and
viewpoints.

scott

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:




They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term. I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

I see no reason to exclude the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster either. They are both equally [im]probable. If you
want your children to study ID, send them to sunday school or
bible study. Don't expose my kids to that nonsense.

scott

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...
Which is why I am reading up on all this at the
moment.


You may find useful information and your articles will be
on-topic and perhaps even welcomed at talk.origins.

--

FF

In article .com, wrote:

Few scientists will fall for the egg/equinox legend but _The
State Legislature set pi = 3_ is rather popular among them.

You know, don't you, that *that* one is actually true (or nearly so).

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

Tim Daneliuk writes:


You need to actually go read some IDers because you keep erecting strawmen
as you cling to your position. They are attacking the method of *knowledge*

They are attacking a method of acquiring and validating knowledge that has been used since
the time of the greek philosphers over two thousand years ago.

used by contemporary science. A system that has not been around all that long
(essentially from Darwin forward) and which has some fairly large gaping holes in

First off, the scientific method predates darwin by a couple of thousand years.

The ID folks are attacking darwinism, using "Argument from ignorance" to
claim purported shortcomings in the scientific method. The "absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence".

And in fact, you are wrong. The ID'ers all want their particular deity
acknowleged as the Intelligent Designer. Including Behe, Dembski and
Stephen C. Meyer.

You are using the same arguments that the Cold Fusion and other snake oil
proponents use to justify their beliefs - "science is wrong" "The Scientific
Method is bogus" "You didn't touch your bellybutton first" and so forth.

its assumption (the "something from nothing" premise being one of the biggest ones).

You have erected another strawman. No scientist has ever proposed
"Something from nothing". Whether it be the big bang or evolution,
nothing is not a precursor.

You tone and intensity is religious here not inquisitive...

I think you are taking it personally. There was nothing religious
in any sense about the paragraph to which you responded.

scott

I STILL do not see what this has to do with Geroge Bush Drinking

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.

Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.


It would be another wild guess hypothesis then.

Huh? How would it be a wild guess? (And what would be the
antecedant guess making this 'another' one?). The hypothesis
follows straight from the observation that Jewish males have been
circumcized in infancy for thousands of years, surely hundreds
of generations.

We know that gravity
exists and we know some of it's properties well enough to call them
laws but we don't know all there is to know about it, even though
it is testable and observable. I don't see how anyone can presume
any laws about an Intelligent Designer since he would beyond our
scope of observation.

Ding! ding! ding! ding! ding! We have a winner!



Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


All I suggest is the possibility of a designer, especially since it's so
unlikely that the universe and life jump started itself into existence.
If someone says there's a better likelyhood that there is no designer,
they do so out of faith, not science.

Fine. Unless you can state a testable hypothesis your "possiblity
of a designer" is irrelevant to the scientific porcess. Not only
can one do science with or without considering the possibility,
indeed, the scince one does, in either case, will be the same.



We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.


That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.


I answered the assertion.

With a repetition of statement I showed to be false.



Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.


I don't follow that either. How does having multitudes of theories
prove what we are discussing?


You lost me.


Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


Sure, how about the Cambrian Explosion? Lots of theories, no answers.

Al theories are answers. Take for example, the question, "Why
the Cambrian Explosion?" There are lots of answers, maybe
some are correct.




An hypothesis entails a prediction.


Not necessarily. A prediction entails a predetermined end result,
a hypothesis could entail anything.


Perhaps as you use the term. In the scientific method 'hypothesis'
is a term of art with a more restricted defintion. An hypothesis
is a statement that follows from a theory. If the theory
is true, the hypothesis will be true.


No problem there. My point was that the hypothesis doesn't prove
anything.

Of course not. An hypothesis is a statement to be tested.
It is the testing that proves or disproves something.



But recall what Niehls Bohr said about
prediction, that it is very difficult, especially
about the future. A prediction, in the sense of an hypothesis
may be made about past events, evidence of which has not yet
been discovered, (e.g. predictions of what may be found in
the fossil record), or current phenomena not yet observed,
which has been happening a lot over the past several decades
in DNA studies.


If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.


Evolution is not an hypothesis.


Sure it is. Unless you are limiting the term to "micro-evolution".

An hypothesis is a statement, not a single word.


That's what I was addressing. The hypothesis or theory of
evolution.

That doesn't make any sense. Hypotheses are suggest by theories.
E.g. given a modern horse and a modern cow most evolutionary theories
predict that there should have been a species that was a common
ancestor of both. One looks to the fossil record to test that
hypothesis.



Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.


Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.


Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.


True, so science doesn't exclude an Intelligent Designer.


It is silent on the subject. IJ a similar vein, biology is silent
on cosmology.


I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.


If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.


Which one?

Intelligent Design.

I would assert that to not include one and give the
students the sense that biology started itself, which *is* taught,
is religion.

Here is why your assertion is wrong. Silence may be simple
silence, a non-statement. But if silence is to be interpretted,
silence implies consent.

Silence on the issue of God implies consent to whatever belief
each student brings to school.

--

FF

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com, wrote:

Few scientists will fall for the egg/equinox legend but _The
State Legislature set pi = 3_ is rather popular among them.

You know, don't you, that *that* one is actually true (or nearly so).


I've heard it asserted for Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana.

IIRC, it came closest (and not very, but please do check)
to being true for Indiana. At the suggestion of a person
described as a math crackpot a bill suggesting
several values for pi (including 221/70) was introduced
into a committee in the state legislature. That commitee
decided it wasn't their baliwick and sent it over to another
commitee where a member (chairman perhaps) consulted with
a mathematician on the subject after which the bill died.

ISTR that this was part of the old UseNet FAQ, back when
the UseNet had but a single FAQ.



--

FF

Scott Lurndal wrote:

Tim Daneliuk writes:



You need to actually go read some IDers because you keep erecting strawmen
as you cling to your position. They are attacking the method of *knowledge*


They are attacking a method of acquiring and validating knowledge that has been used since
the time of the greek philosphers over two thousand years ago.


used by contemporary science. A system that has not been around all that long
(essentially from Darwin forward) and which has some fairly large gaping holes in


First off, the scientific method predates darwin by a couple of thousand years.

But the materialist suppositions (philosophically) don't get exclusive
traction until Darwin.


The ID folks are attacking darwinism, using "Argument from ignorance" to
claim purported shortcomings in the scientific method. The "absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence".

Snakeoil. The IDers are attacking the current claim that the observable
Universe can be fully understood in purely mechanical-materialist terms.


And in fact, you are wrong. The ID'ers all want their particular deity
acknowleged as the Intelligent Designer. Including Behe, Dembski and
Stephen C. Meyer.

Citations please. You are once again arguing from the bad practice
of a few Rev. Billybob Fartbottoms and trying to generalize onto the larger
discipline in a way I do not believe to be valid (but I am willing to
be shown otherwise.)


You are using the same arguments that the Cold Fusion and other snake oil
proponents use to justify their beliefs - "science is wrong" "The Scientific
Method is bogus" "You didn't touch your bellybutton first" and so forth.

No one - not me or any IDer I have read - claims that "science is wrong."
The assertion here is that the philosophy of science currently en vogue by
necessity will lead to incomplete knowledge about the observable universe
because the first propositions of that philosophy are unnecessarily restrictive.


its assumption (the "something from nothing" premise being one of the biggest ones).


You have erected another strawman. No scientist has ever proposed
"Something from nothing". Whether it be the big bang or evolution,

They do so every time they argue that First Cause is not important in the
discussion of how the universe came to be. "There may be a First Cause or
not, but we don't care (because our tools are inadequate to apprehend such
a thing), so we dismiss it out of hand as 'not scientific'. We thus operate
as if the whole business started magically and only concern ourselves with
the consquences."

nothing is not a precursor.


You tone and intensity is religious here not inquisitive...


I think you are taking it personally. There was nothing religious
in any sense about the paragraph to which you responded.

Yes there is - you espouse a belief system without evidence or proof
of its sufficiency (thought there is plenty of proof for its
effectiveness). You then denigrate any position that dares to question
your orthodoxy. This a a religious mode of thinking.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.


You know that is false.

What you call *Macro-evolution* is demonstrated in the fossil
record. You may not be convinced by that demonstration, (and
if not, why not?). But THAT does justify your claim that the
demonstration does not exist.

--

FF

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:

You can't predict anything with evolution.


Sure you can.

First of all, we can predict characteristics of layers of
rocks. We can generaly predict the type of rocks found above
and below each layer. (Timewise, as the Earth can move a lot).

We can therefore classify layers to geological ages.

From this we can predict the types of fossils found in rocks.
We know what sort of fossils will exist in the same layer.
And with billions of fossills, we have lots of oportunities to
test these prpedictions.


We also know that fossils of a certain category (i.e. horse like)
will have certain characteristics.


Are the legs flexible and rotatable?
Are bones fused or unfused?
How many toes does it have?
How big in the brain?
How big are the small frontal lobes?
Are the teeth low crowned?
How many incisors, canines, premolars and molars?


Now suppose we find fossils that ar 20 million years old, ad
compare them to horse-life fossiles that are 30 milllion years
old.

We can predict many of the characterists of that fossil. We
can even predict some of the traits of a fossil of a type
never seen before.

For instance, if we have a 3-toed horse and a one-toed horse,
we expect to find a horse with the outer toes smaller as paprt
of the transition. And that is what happened.


Occasionally we find branches of animals that seem to have not
survived. Some of the traits may be unusual, and we may not
know some of the details. Perhaps the position of the eye
socket is not where we would have expected. That's one
characteristic, but the other dozen traits are still present,
and fit into the model.

If evolution didn't occur, we would see human footsteps along
side animals that existed 100 million years ago (MYA). And
fossils from 20 MYA would be next to 50 MYA fossils.

There would be no separation of fossils by layer. But fossils
ARE separated by layer, in a predictable manner.

There are some cases things seem confusing, but if there were
so many exceptions to the predictive model, where is the
evidence?

And it should be just one or two cases, but MILLIONS of
examples where the model fails. If evolutuon was THAT
unreliable, where is the evidence?

Yes, some claim that the Paluxy river has both human and
dinosaur tracks co-existing. But the evidence does not support
this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/tsite.html

If fossils were randomly placed, there but be billions of
exceptions. Where are they?

If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.

it is no longer considered a theory, but a fact. The hypothesis has
been tested each and every time a fossil has been discovered.
And every time the model works.

--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

writes:

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.

But there are evolutionary dead ends. e.g. Dodo birds.
So does that mean the predictive ability of ID fails?
I'll let Tim answer that.

--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

"Scott Lurndal"
"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:




They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term. I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

I see no reason to exclude the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster either. They are both equally [im]probable.



That's insane. Einstein probably knew more about it than you
and he believed in a ID. There's no reason to believe in your
example.


If you
want your children to study ID, send them to sunday school or
bible study. Don't expose my kids to that nonsense.

scott


Such wisdom. I hope you aren't a teacher.

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:

Not necessarily. A prediction entails a predetermined end result,
a hypothesis could entail anything.

A scientific hypothesis IS a prediction. If the prediction fails, then
the hypothesis is wrong or flawed.

More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term. I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

Scienctific reasoning is not a general term. It's the process we use
examine what we see, try to explain them, and find out if the
explanation is right or wrong.

DO you believe everything you are told? No, of course not. You use
reason to determine if what you are told is right or not. This is
essential to each and every one of us.

Scientific reasoning teaches us HOW to find out if something is true
or false. Especially when we don't know the right answer, or have
anyone to ask.


--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

On 5 Oct 2005 16:33:53 -0700, wrote:

But THAT does justify your claim that the
demonstration does not exist.

Howdy,

I assume that was intended to be:


"But THAT does justify your claim..."
^
not



All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

Tim Daneliuk writes:

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.
We CAN use evolution to predict results.

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.

As I understand it, "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" is a term
used by creationists.

"Micro-evolution" exists becase we have watched it happen in our presence.

"macro-evolution" requires a length of time longer than man has been
on the earth. There we can never watch it happen.


*Neither* predicts anything in any real sense. You are overstating
(by a lot) exactly the state of knowledge as regards to evolution.

Nope. See my other post.

Ask a paleonology to predict the characteristics of a horse fossil in
rocks 25 millions years old.


--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

I STILL do not see what this has to do with Geroge Bush Drinking


I missed out on all those insults.



Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.

Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.


It would be another wild guess hypothesis then.


Huh? How would it be a wild guess? (And what would be the
antecedant guess making this 'another' one?). The hypothesis
follows straight from the observation that Jewish males have been
circumcized in infancy for thousands of years, surely hundreds
of generations.


....by human hands.


We know that gravity
exists and we know some of it's properties well enough to call them
laws but we don't know all there is to know about it, even though
it is testable and observable. I don't see how anyone can presume
any laws about an Intelligent Designer since he would beyond our
scope of observation.

Ding! ding! ding! ding! ding! We have a winner!


????



Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


All I suggest is the possibility of a designer, especially since it's so
unlikely that the universe and life jump started itself into existence.
If someone says there's a better likelyhood that there is no designer,
they do so out of faith, not science.



Fine. Unless you can state a testable hypothesis your "possiblity
of a designer" is irrelevant to the scientific porcess.


I don't agree. Neither did Albert Einstein, who after all scientific observations
concluded that there was a designer.



Not only
can one do science with or without considering the possibility,
indeed, the scince one does, in either case, will be the same.


It should be that way. I didn't suggest otherwise.


We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.


That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.


I answered the assertion.

With a repetition of statement I showed to be false.


No, you asserted it to be false.



Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.


I don't follow that either. How does having multitudes of theories
prove what we are discussing?


You lost me.


You brought it up. What does a multitude of theories have to do with
anything?


Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


Sure, how about the Cambrian Explosion? Lots of theories, no answers.


Al theories are answers.


Only to the faithful.


Take for example, the question, "Why
the Cambrian Explosion?" There are lots of answers, maybe
some are correct.


Such as 'anything but a designer will do' ?


That's what I was addressing. The hypothesis or theory of
evolution.


That doesn't make any sense. Hypotheses are suggest by theories.
E.g. given a modern horse and a modern cow most evolutionary theories
predict that there should have been a species that was a common
ancestor of both. One looks to the fossil record to test that
hypothesis.


Good example. If one sees a different species that has some similarities
to both and concludes that's the common ancestor, they did so to
support a prior conclusion.



Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.


Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.


Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.


True, so science doesn't exclude an Intelligent Designer.


It is silent on the subject. IJ a similar vein, biology is silent
on cosmology.


That isn't similar or even relevent. Science includes all possibilities.
You said many theories are included in scientific hypothesis. Many
are not testable, i.e. parallel universes, bubble universes, etc. yet
are part of the scientific discussion.



I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.


If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.


Which one?

Intelligent Design.

That's a religion? Isn't a religion more specific?



I would assert that to not include one and give the
students the sense that biology started itself, which *is* taught,
is religion.


Here is why your assertion is wrong. Silence may be simple
silence, a non-statement. But if silence is to be interpretted,
silence implies consent.

Silence on the issue of God implies consent to whatever belief
each student brings to school.

Schools aren't silent on the subject of the creation of life. Since
life is testable and its' beginnings are unproven, then according
to you they are teaching a religion.

wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.



You know that is false.

What you call *Macro-evolution* is demonstrated in the fossil
record. You may not be convinced by that demonstration, (and
if not, why not?). But THAT does justify your claim that the
demonstration does not exist.


If it were "demonstrated" there would be no contention on
the matter *within* he scientific community. But there is,
in some measure because of the absence of transition fossils.
Since direct experimental demonstration is impossible due to
the timelines claimed, the next best level would be fossil
records demarcating the ooze-slime-....-Hillary Clinton
intermediate forms. But these are strangely absent ...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

"Bruce Barnett"
"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:

You can't predict anything with evolution.


Sure you can.

First of all, we can predict characteristics of layers of
rocks. We can generaly predict the type of rocks found above
and below each layer. (Timewise, as the Earth can move a lot).



That predicts evolution?


We can therefore classify layers to geological ages.


Generally so.



From this we can predict the types of fossils found in rocks.
We know what sort of fossils will exist in the same layer.
And with billions of fossills, we have lots of oportunities to
test these prpedictions.


Those are observations, not predictions.



We also know that fossils of a certain category (i.e. horse like)
will have certain characteristics.


Are the legs flexible and rotatable?
Are bones fused or unfused?
How many toes does it have?
How big in the brain?
How big are the small frontal lobes?
Are the teeth low crowned?
How many incisors, canines, premolars and molars?


Now suppose we find fossils that ar 20 million years old, ad
compare them to horse-life fossiles that are 30 milllion years
old.

We can predict many of the characterists of that fossil.


You can predict that similar fossils have similar characteristics?
Don't go too far out on the limb.


We
can even predict some of the traits of a fossil of a type
never seen before.

For instance, if we have a 3-toed horse and a one-toed horse,
we expect to find a horse with the outer toes smaller as paprt
of the transition. And that is what happened.



But was it formally a bird or mudskimmer?



Occasionally we find branches of animals that seem to have not
survived. Some of the traits may be unusual, and we may not
know some of the details. Perhaps the position of the eye
socket is not where we would have expected. That's one
characteristic, but the other dozen traits are still present,
and fit into the model.

If evolution didn't occur, we would see human footsteps along
side animals that existed 100 million years ago (MYA). And
fossils from 20 MYA would be next to 50 MYA fossils.

There would be no separation of fossils by layer. But fossils
ARE separated by layer, in a predictable manner.


Different species at different times doesn't prove evolution.



There are some cases things seem confusing, but if there were
so many exceptions to the predictive model, where is the
evidence?

And it should be just one or two cases, but MILLIONS of
examples where the model fails. If evolutuon was THAT
unreliable, where is the evidence?

Yes, some claim that the Paluxy river has both human and
dinosaur tracks co-existing. But the evidence does not support
this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/tsite.html



http://www.trueorigin.org/


If fossils were randomly placed, there but be billions of
exceptions. Where are they?

If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.


it is no longer considered a theory, but a fact.


By you, perhaps. The scientific community still calls it a theory.


The hypothesis has
been tested each and every time a fossil has been discovered.
And every time the model works.


I don't rule out micro-evolution but I can't share your faith.

Bruce Barnett wrote:

Tim Daneliuk writes:


There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.
We CAN use evolution to predict results.

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.


As I understand it, "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" is a term
used by creationists.

These are terms use to distinguish between demonstrable and not-demonstrable
forms of evolution. It is convenient for your purposes to call it all
"evolution" but there is a considerable difference in the quality of
evidencary support for different aspects of the theory. Hence my
use of the terms. So much for your guilt-by-association tactics, BTW.


"Micro-evolution" exists becase we have watched it happen in our presence.

Agreed.


"macro-evolution" requires a length of time longer than man has been
on the earth. There we can never watch it happen.

Right. So unless some indirect *evidence* (beyond just supposition,
extrapolation, and fairy tails) exists, you have to stipulate this
is a *weak* theory. No modern evolutionary apologist seems willing to
do this (to the detriment of their credibility). Instead they
cling to it with religious fervor. I'm not saying it is wrong,
I am saying it is currently undemonstrable even indirectly.


*Neither* predicts anything in any real sense. You are overstating
(by a lot) exactly the state of knowledge as regards to evolution.


Nope. See my other post.

Ask a paleonology to predict the characteristics of a horse fossil in
rocks 25 millions years old.


OK - let me be more precise - Macro-evolution is an inductive theory that
is presently absent direct experimental verification or the transition
fossils that make the whole business work. It is thus non-predictive.
Your earlier examples of micro-evolution *do* provide some predictive
ability exactly because a horse, is a horse, is horse...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Scott Lurndal"
"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:




They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term. I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

I see no reason to exclude the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster either. They are both equally [im]probable.



That's insane. Einstein probably knew more about it than you
and he believed in a ID. There's no reason to believe in your
example.


You're insane. I probably know more about Einstein than you
do. At some times in his life he was an atheist at others,
a theist, at times I would suppose he was agnostic.

But I daresay at no time in his adult life would he ever have
recommended ID be published in any scientific journal or taught
in any science class.

--

FF

Fine. Unless you can state a testable hypothesis your "possiblity
of a designer" is irrelevant to the scientific porcess.


I don't agree. Neither did Albert Einstein, who after all scientific observations
concluded that there was a designer.


A common misconception.

For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Religious_views

Einstein wrote, "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions,
a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a
personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the
unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our
science can reveal it."

(Written March 24, 1954).

scott

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:

"Scott Lurndal"
"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:




They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term. I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.

I see no reason to exclude the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster either. They are both equally [im]probable.



That's insane. Einstein probably knew more about it than you

Church of FSM http://www.venganza.org/

and he believed in a ID. There's no reason to believe in your
example.

Actually Einstein did _not_ believe in ID, nor a designer.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Religious_views



If you
want your children to study ID, send them to sunday school or
bible study. Don't expose my kids to that nonsense.

scott


Such wisdom. I hope you aren't a teacher.

Semantically void comeback.

scott

Tim Daneliuk writes:

If it were "demonstrated" there would be no contention on
the matter *within* he scientific community. But there is,

You are making this up. There is no contention within
the scientific community over the idea of evolution. There
are competing theories and hypothesis for various elements
in evolution, but the scientific community uniformly and
universally embraces evolution.

Like all communities, there are fringe elements of the
community that do not believe in evolution, but almost
exclusively such beliefs are based upon their religious
convictions.

If 98% of scientists believe in evolution and 2% don't,
it doesn't imply any lack of concensus or any contention
in the scientific community.

Just because the Discovery Institute says there is doesn't
make it so.

scott

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Bruce Barnett wrote:

writes:


There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


But there are evolutionary dead ends. e.g. Dodo birds.
So does that mean the predictive ability of ID fails?
I'll let Tim answer that.


Why do you presume that an intelligent designer is required
to produce an *optimal* design? Talk about a leap of faith.
The assertion that there is design supposes nothing about
the elegance, parsimony, or beauty of said design, merely
that there is *intention* in the design rather than purely
random/chaotic/probablistic mechanisms (and these may also
exist in a "designed" environment).

Does that answer it for you?

I'm far more interested in what testable hypothesis you find
or propose that can be used to discriminate between ID and
slow mutation and natural selection.

Absent a testable hypothesis, there is no _scientific_
difference between ID and slow mutation and natural selection.

ID would then be a philosophic ocnstruct combining a scientific
theory with somethign else that is not a cientific theory.

--

FF

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

I STILL do not see what this has to do with Geroge Bush Drinking


I missed out on all those insults.



Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.

Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.


It would be another wild guess hypothesis then.


Huh? How would it be a wild guess? (And what would be the
antecedant guess making this 'another' one?). The hypothesis
follows straight from the observation that Jewish males have been
circumcized in infancy for thousands of years, surely hundreds
of generations.


...by human hands.

Something a bit sharper I should hope. Regardless, forskins should
have grown smaller and disappeared the same way that giraffe necks
got longer, as each generation stretched its further, right?



We know that gravity
exists and we know some of it's properties well enough to call them
laws but we don't know all there is to know about it, even though
it is testable and observable. I don't see how anyone can presume
any laws about an Intelligent Designer since he would beyond our
scope of observation.

Ding! ding! ding! ding! ding! We have a winner!


????

You made it clear that you understood the difference between
scientific theory and religious doctrine.


Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


All I suggest is the possibility of a designer, especially since it's so
unlikely that the universe and life jump started itself into existence.
If someone says there's a better likelyhood that there is no designer,
they do so out of faith, not science.



Fine. Unless you can state a testable hypothesis your "possiblity
of a designer" is irrelevant to the scientific porcess.


I don't agree.

Well than what DOES separate one scientific theory from another
if not testable hypotheses?

Neither did Albert Einstein, who after all
scientific observations concluded that there was a designer.

Splorf!

Nonsense. Einstein NEVER denied that hypothesis testing was
the proper way to distinguish between scientific theories.

Most of the people promoting ID want it taught in a classroom
or published in scientific journals. Einstein NEVER advocated
either for his religious views.

What do you suppose to be the reason for that difference?




Not only
can one do science with or without considering the possibility,
indeed, the scince one does, in either case, will be the same.


It should be that way. I didn't suggest otherwise.

Why have a component of a scientific theory, when that component
has no affect on that theory?



We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.


That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.


I answered the assertion.

With a repetition of statement I showed to be false.


No, you asserted it to be false.

No, you asserted that "you can't predict anything with evolution".

Perhaps incorrectly, I interpretted that to mean "You can't
use any evolutionary theory to make any prediction" and then
went on to point out how one could use specific evolutionary
theories to make predictions, like the vanishg foreskin
prediction of some tranmutational theories, or predictions
as to what may be found in the fossil record.

If that is NOT what you meant, WTF did you mean by "you can't
predict anything with evolution".





Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.


I don't follow that either. How does having multitudes of theories
prove what we are discussing?


You lost me.


You brought it up. What does a multitude of theories have to do with
anything?

I never wrote "multitude of theories". I never said that having
theories proves anything. Now you are just trolling.



Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


Sure, how about the Cambrian Explosion? Lots of theories, no answers.


Al theories are answers.


Only to the faithful.

No, all theories are answers. The faithful choose among them wihout
concern for hypothesis testing.



Take for example, the question, "Why
the Cambrian Explosion?" There are lots of answers, maybe
some are correct.


Such as 'anything but a designer will do' ?

What theory is that?



That's what I was addressing. The hypothesis or theory of
evolution.


That doesn't make any sense. Hypotheses are suggested by theories.
E.g. given a modern horse and a modern cow most evolutionary theories
predict that there should have been a species that was a common
ancestor of both. One looks to the fossil record to test that
hypothesis.


Good example. If one sees a different species that has some similarities
to both and concludes that's the common ancestor, they did so to
support a prior conclusion.

I would not go so far as to ascribe the motivation but certainly
that person is not doing science because they did not test an
hypothesis.



Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.


Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.


Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.


True, so science doesn't exclude an Intelligent Designer.


It is silent on the subject. In a similar vein, biology is silent
on cosmology.


That isn't similar or even relevent. Science includes all possibilities.
You said many theories are included in scientific hypothesis.

No, I did not say that.

Many
are not testable, i.e. parallel universes, bubble universes, etc. yet
are part of the scientific discussion.

No, you confuse speculation with science.




I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.


If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.


Which one?

Intelligent Design.

That's a religion? Isn't a religion more specific?


It is a particular religious doctrine.



I would assert that to not include one and give the
students the sense that biology started itself, which *is* taught,
is religion.


Here is why your assertion is wrong. Silence may be simple
silence, a non-statement. But if silence is to be interpretted,
silence implies consent.

Silence on the issue of God implies consent to whatever belief
each student brings to school.

Schools aren't silent on the subject of the creation of life.

The public schools I went to were, dunno about yours.

Since
life is testable and its' beginnings are unproven, then according
to you they are teaching a religion.

I said nothing of the sort. It is clear that you misunderstand
or malinterpret much of what I wrote.

--

FF

In article ,
says...
That is, there is a lower
bound of biological complexity (in some cases) that you could not get to
evolutionarily because the path to that point would not exhibit
sufficient complexity for the precedant organisms to survive and
evolve.



Well, I remember when the debate was whether or not virii were alive.
Now it's whether prions are. Can't get much simpler than that :-).

And I'm still waiting for a logical explanation of where the "designer"
came from. Who created him/her/it/they?

In article . net,
says...

"LARRY BLANCHARD" wrote in message
...
I guess "claim" is a good word for it. My problem is who created the
creator? At this point all I hear in response is "but he's eternal".
Why is it any more logical to assume an eternal creator than an eternal
universe? All they do is move the question back one level.

"And what is the turtle standing on?"

As somebody said, "It's turtles, all the way down."


Terry Pratchett, although it's sometimes falsely attributed to the
physics whiz in a wheelchair, whose name I'll remember 5 seconds after
posting this :-).

Nobody should leave this life without reading at least one Pratchett
novel.

But I note that none of the religious types here have answered the "Who
created the creator?" question. Guess them turtles'll just have to keep
doing the heavy lifting :-).

In article , "Fletis
Humplebacker" ! says...

"Bruce Barnett"
"Fletis Humplebacker" ! writes:

You can't predict anything with evolution.


Sure you can.

First of all, we can predict characteristics of layers of
rocks. We can generaly predict the type of rocks found above
and below each layer. (Timewise, as the Earth can move a lot).



That predicts evolution?


We can therefore classify layers to geological ages.


Generally so.



From this we can predict the types of fossils found in rocks.
We know what sort of fossils will exist in the same layer.
And with billions of fossills, we have lots of oportunities to
test these prpedictions.


Those are observations, not predictions.



We also know that fossils of a certain category (i.e. horse like)
will have certain characteristics.


Are the legs flexible and rotatable?
Are bones fused or unfused?
How many toes does it have?
How big in the brain?
How big are the small frontal lobes?
Are the teeth low crowned?
How many incisors, canines, premolars and molars?


Now suppose we find fossils that ar 20 million years old, ad
compare them to horse-life fossiles that are 30 milllion years

Your posts show a remarkable level of ignorance about even grade school
science. Perhaps you should do a little reading before you spout any
more nonsense. Assuming of course that you aren't so desperate for
attention that even ridicule from your betters is a welcome gift.

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.



You know that is false.

What you call *Macro-evolution* is demonstrated in the fossil
record. You may not be convinced by that demonstration, (and
if not, why not?). But THAT does [not] justify your claim that the
demonstration does not exist.


If it were "demonstrated" there would be no contention on
the matter *within* he scientific community. But there is,

Where have you seen this contention *within* the scientific
community. I though you said ID couldn't get published.

in some measure because of the absence of transition fossils.

BTW,
Macromutaion ('hopeful monster') theory predicts that for some
major changes there will be no transitional organisms.

Since direct experimental demonstration is impossible due to
the timelines claimed, the next best level would be fossil
records demarcating the ooze-slime-....-Hillary Clinton
intermediate forms. But these are strangely absent ...


If those are absent it is strange indeed.

What happened to the evidence for homo erectus, a 'transition
fossil' beween homo sapiens and homo habilis? What happened
to the evidence for homo habilis, a 'transition fossil'
bewtween homo erectus and australopithecus africanus?

What happened to fossil evidence for magnetotactic bacteria?

What happened to the fossil evidence for numerous species
more complex than magnetotactic bacteria but not yet clearly
the same as australopithecus afarensis, like early placental
mammals?

Your claim of 'no intermediate forms' is baffling. OTOH it
is true that there have not yet been found fossil evidence
for *all* intermediate forms. So yes, there are differences
between homo sapiens and homo erectus.

--

FF

In article ,
says...
In article .com, wrote:

Few scientists will fall for the egg/equinox legend but _The
State Legislature set pi = 3_ is rather popular among them.

You know, don't you, that *that* one is actually true (or nearly so).



Well, maybe for large values of 3 :-)

wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Bruce Barnett wrote:


writes:



There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


But there are evolutionary dead ends. e.g. Dodo birds.
So does that mean the predictive ability of ID fails?
I'll let Tim answer that.


Why do you presume that an intelligent designer is required
to produce an *optimal* design? Talk about a leap of faith.
The assertion that there is design supposes nothing about
the elegance, parsimony, or beauty of said design, merely
that there is *intention* in the design rather than purely
random/chaotic/probablistic mechanisms (and these may also
exist in a "designed" environment).

Does that answer it for you?


I'm far more interested in what testable hypothesis you find
or propose that can be used to discriminate between ID and
slow mutation and natural selection.

Absent a testable hypothesis, there is no _scientific_
difference between ID and slow mutation and natural selection.

I agree, and I further stipulate that a test such as you
describe may well not exist. However, the issue *still*
matters (to science). What we accept as propositions for
knowing things (propositions are not provable one way or the other)
profoundly influences the general manner in which we approach
things. For example, if science were ever move away from
materialist/mechanical propositions and just admit the
*possibility* that a non-material reality exists which is
reflected in the observable world, a whole lot of people
would go try to construct experiments to validate it.

I'm not saying science should promptly go out and do this.
I've said all the way though this thread that existing
science should be engaged in a civil and throughtful
debate with people like the IDers rather than running from
them. The very fact that we have never observed "something
springing from nothing" coupled with the fact that the
Universe is a "something" should be triggering really deep
questions about existing methods of science and how they
might be improved.



ID would then be a philosophic ocnstruct combining a scientific
theory with somethign else that is not a cientific theory.



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

wrote:


Tim Daneliuk wrote:


...

*Micro evolution* (within a given species) has been demonstrated.
*Macro evolution* (moving from lower- to higher biocomplexity and
achieving new speciation) has never been demonstrated.



You know that is false.

What you call *Macro-evolution* is demonstrated in the fossil
record. You may not be convinced by that demonstration, (and
if not, why not?). But THAT does [not] justify your claim that the
demonstration does not exist.


If it were "demonstrated" there would be no contention on
the matter *within* he scientific community. But there is,


Where have you seen this contention *within* the scientific
community. I though you said ID couldn't get published.

ID is not the sole source of these claims last I looked (admittedly
some time ago). I am still catching up on my readings in the
area so I cannot provide current references. This is *my*
problem, not a problem with the overall argument.



in some measure because of the absence of transition fossils.


BTW,
Macromutaion ('hopeful monster') theory predicts that for some
major changes there will be no transitional organisms.


Since direct experimental demonstration is impossible due to
the timelines claimed, the next best level would be fossil
records demarcating the ooze-slime-....-Hillary Clinton
intermediate forms. But these are strangely absent ...



If those are absent it is strange indeed.

What happened to the evidence for homo erectus, a 'transition
fossil' beween homo sapiens and homo habilis? What happened
to the evidence for homo habilis, a 'transition fossil'
bewtween homo erectus and australopithecus africanus?

There is still not, last I looked, fossil evidence leading
us all the way through these variations to modern man.
Is this an incorrect understanding on my part?


What happened to fossil evidence for magnetotactic bacteria?

I don't understand the relevance of this in this discussion
context.


What happened to the fossil evidence for numerous species
more complex than magnetotactic bacteria but not yet clearly
the same as australopithecus afarensis, like early placental
mammals?

Your claim of 'no intermediate forms' is baffling. OTOH it
is true that there have not yet been found fossil evidence
for *all* intermediate forms. So yes, there are differences
between homo sapiens and homo erectus.

As I thought.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:


I'm not saying science should promptly go out and do this.
I've said all the way though this thread that existing
science should be engaged in a civil and throughtful
debate with people like the IDers rather than running from
them. The very fact that we have never observed "something
springing from nothing" coupled with the fact that the
Universe is a "something" should be triggering really deep
questions about existing methods of science and how they
might be improved.


The problem with civility of discourse in this case is not with the
scientists. It is the IDers who insist they are correct, without an
iota of proof, and who get excessively forceful about it, insisting on
equality with proven science.

Scott Lurndal wrote:

Tim Daneliuk writes:


If it were "demonstrated" there would be no contention on
the matter *within* he scientific community. But there is,


You are making this up. There is no contention within
the scientific community over the idea of evolution. There
are competing theories and hypothesis for various elements
in evolution, but the scientific community uniformly and
universally embraces evolution.

There are still, I believe, non-ID motivate scientists
who have a problem with current evolutionary orthodoxy.
I need to do some catchup reading to get current before
I go down this road further. But let's just say you're
right and evolution is more-or-less "embraced universally."
That means it is the currently regnant theory - much
of which cannot be experimentally verified and thus
must use "weaker" forms of indirect proof. Does this
mean no one ought to dare question the theory? Is it
not open to scrutiny both as a matter of science and
as a matter of philosophical points of departure?


Like all communities, there are fringe elements of the
community that do not believe in evolution, but almost
exclusively such beliefs are based upon their religious
convictions.

If 98% of scientists believe in evolution and 2% don't,
it doesn't imply any lack of concensus or any contention
in the scientific community.

Science is not about "consensus". It is ultimately about
what you can verify. The "scientists" of a great many
portions of history hand consensus on all matter of
nonsense such as a flat earth, but just because they all
agreed at the time didn't make it so.


Just because the Discovery Institute says there is doesn't
make it so.

This is ad hominem - again, the sign of scared debater. I am not now, or
have I ever been, a member or supported of the Discovery Institute and
have only very recently started reading some of their stuff to get some
perspective on the matter. Moreover, just because "the Discovery
Institute says is ..." doesn't make it *wrong* either.

With- or without ID, you mode of argumentation is supicious. You argue
vehemently to defend the portions of science that have the weakest
evidence to support them - the stuff that cannot be experimentally
verified and thus must be examined indirectly by use of induction. This
is an entirely valid mode of reaching new knowledge but the ferocity of
your defense is - IMHO - out of proportion with the actual level of
knowledge we have in these areas. It is a truism of human psychology
that we argue the most about the things we understand least. I find your
regular appeal to authority, consensus, and use of guilt-by-association
ad homina more in keeping with defenders of religious fundamentalism
than objective inquiry. But that's just my opinion, I could well be
wrong ...


scott


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Charlie Self wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:


I'm not saying science should promptly go out and do this.
I've said all the way though this thread that existing
science should be engaged in a civil and throughtful
debate with people like the IDers rather than running from
them. The very fact that we have never observed "something
springing from nothing" coupled with the fact that the
Universe is a "something" should be triggering really deep
questions about existing methods of science and how they
might be improved.



The problem with civility of discourse in this case is not with the
scientists. It is the IDers who insist they are correct, without an
iota of proof, and who get excessively forceful about it, insisting on
equality with proven science.


How many of the IDers have you personally read? I've just started,
but I've not seen a single instance of what you describe so far.
The behavior you describe is more likely something you will find
in some school board meeting, not among the intellectuals within
the ID movement. And - as I've said before - we can fix the school
board problem by (very properly) getting rid of tax-funded education.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/