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Comments

  • #1172
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,034 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    ... this full scale model of the Ark doesn't seem to be falling apart ... as you have predicted ... so your hypothesis isn't supported by reality.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246247/Dutchman-Johan-Huibers-launches-life-sized-Noahs-Ark-replica-Dordrecht.html
    You haven't addressed what oldrnwsr said. That replica hasn't been subjected to the super-tsunamis that would be a result of the scenario you proposed. All you've done is shown that a model of the ark exists based on the information in the bible. That boat would be toothpicks if subjected to months of super-storms as the world attempts to pull itself apart.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #1173
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    koth wrote: »
    Can you elaborate on why the quality of the information is decreased for those of us not versed in genetics?

    You don't know what the extra information is, so how exactly can you say the quality is diminished?
    It is a mathematical impossibility to improve the quality of CFSI by making random changes ... because the non-functional combinatorial space is effectively infinite ... and the functional combinatorial space is strictly limited to a tiny number of tightly specifed combinations.


  • #1174
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    There you go mentioning CFSI again as if it's not undefined bullsh*t that even the charlatan who coined the term gave up on. You going to man up and define it this time, or will you run away from it all over again?


  • #1175
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Sarky wrote: »
    Might it surprise you to learn that once again J C has absolutely no idea what he's talking about? "Quality" is a subjective attribute and has no place in such a discussion of information. It presupposes too many things, but of course J C is no stranger to presupposition, and for some bizarre reason thinks it's scientifically valid to make wild assumptions about the 'purpose' of information and the directions mutation takes it. Honestly, I think he's trying to come up with another term for whatever his idea of genetic purity is, which is a little, uh... eugenic, to be honest.
    ... when it comes to CFSI quality is the most important factor ... because serious problems can arise with even marginal random changes to complex specified systems.


    ... and genetic perfection is no longer possible due to the Fall ... and it is the Eugenecists who are deluding themselves as they try to give a (non-existent) Evolution a 'helping hand' to achieve perfection ... which is an impossibility.


  • #1176
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    Again with the CFSI. Dembski gave up on it as bollocks, why do you persist with it?


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  • #1177
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    [-0-] wrote: »
    Do you shave JC? The bible forbids it. Do you wear two different types of fabric? The bible forbids it.
    I shave and wear mustiple types of fabric ... just as well I'm not an ancient Israelite under Israelite Law !!!:)


  • #1178
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,034 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    It is a mathematical impossibility to improve the quality of CFSI by making random changes ... because the non-functional combinatorial space is effectively infinite ... and the functional combinatorial space is strictly limited to a tiny number of tightly specifed combinations.

    That doesn't make any sense (especially now that you've introduced the smoke and mirrors that is CFSI).

    I asked how could you know the quality is diminished without knowing what the increase in information is. You're saying it's impossible to improve quality but the quantity can and does change. You can't make a blanket statement the quality can't be improved since quantity can increase. You'd need to prove that no matter what the increased information is, it's impossible to be an improvement. If quantity can increase then it's logical that quality (a subjective interpretation of the increase) can be deemed improved (not not) post increase.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #1179
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Sarky wrote: »
    Again with the CFSI. Dembski gave up on it as bollocks, why do you persist with it?
    Dembski hasn't given up on it ... and neither have I ... its patiently obvious and repeatably observable that CFSI exists.


  • #1180
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    koth wrote: »
    That doesn't make any sense (especially now that you've introduced the smoke and mirrors that is CFSI).

    I asked how could you know the quality is diminished without knowing what the increase in information is. You're saying it's impossible to improve quality but the quantity can and does change. You can't make a blanket statement the quality can't be improved since quantity can increase. You'd need to prove that no matter what the increased information is, it's impossible to be an improvement. If quantity can increase then it's logical that quality (a subjective interpretation of the increase) can be deemed improved (not not) post increase.
    Quantity of 'gobbledy-gook' information can easily be increased by random and or deterministic processes ... but random changes to CFSI always degrades it.
    ... just try making random changes to English sentences in any book ... and you can prove this for yourself.


  • #1181
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    clock_1558736c.jpg


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  • #1182
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,034 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    Quantity of 'gobbledy-gook' information can easily be increased by random and or deterministic processes ... but random changes to CFSI always degrades it.
    ... just try making random changes to English sentences in any book ... and you can prove this for yourself.

    That doesn't answer my question. Of course making random changes to English sentences have a higher chance of making nonsense of the sentence.

    But we're not talking about that, we're discussing the mutation of biological organisms and you're (as yet unsupported) claim that the quality of information is always diminished. You don't know what the increased genetic information is, so how can you know the quality is diminished?

    The inclusion of CFSI in the discussion does nothing to help you btw as it has nothing to do with evolution/modern science.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #1183
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    koth wrote: »
    You haven't addressed what oldrnwsr said. That replica hasn't been subjected to the super-tsunamis that would be a result of the scenario you proposed. All you've done is shown that a model of the ark exists based on the information in the bible. That boat would be toothpicks if subjected to months of super-storms as the world attempts to pull itself apart.
    The original Ark didn't fall apart ...
    ... the replica was built in less than 5 years by a Dutch Carpenter ... so I don't know if it is as seaworthy as the original article ... but I understand that there are plans to sail the replica from Holland to America ... so I guess its seaworthiness may indeed also be tested.


  • #1184
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,034 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    The original didn't ... the replica was built in less than 5 years by a Dutch Carpenter ... so I don't know if it is a seaworthy as the original article ... but I understand that there are plans to sail the replica from Holland to America ... so I guess its seaworthiness may indeed also be tested.

    It's absolutely certain that they won't get the weather your suggested scenario supposes. And thank spongebob for that, as I'd rather not be around when world pulls itself apart into bitesize pieces.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #1185
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    Dembski? DEMBSKI? Seriously?

    That guy is wrong about everything he bloody says.

    Did you hear about what he said about ants?
    Dembski wrote:
    Now here’s an interesting twist: Colonies of ants, when they make tracks from one colony to another minimize path-length and thereby also solve the Steiner Problem . So what does this mean in evolutionary terms? In ID terms, there’s no problem — ants were designed with various capacities, and this either happens to be one of them or is one acquired through other programmed/designed capacities. On Darwinian evolutionary grounds, however, one would have to say something like the following: ants are the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process that programmed the ants with, presumably, a genetic algorithm that enables them, when put in separate colonies, to trace out paths that resolve the Steiner Problem. In other words, evolution, by some weird self-similarity, embedded an evolutionary program into the neurophysiology of the ants that enables them to solve the Steiner problem (which, presumably, gives these ants a selective advantage).

    I trust good Darwinists will take this in without skipping a beat, mumbling something like “evolution sure is amazing” or “natural selection is cleverer than us.” Dispassionate minds might wonder if something deeper is at stake here.

    The man is a bloody fraud. Everyone and their mother knows that ants follow their own pheromone trails.

    JC - please read this: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/dembski.cfm and refute it before continuing to quote Dembski and spout CFSI tripe on here.

    I'll start my stopwatch.


  • #1186
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    JC, here's the paper Sarky wants you to refute as well: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf

    At your leisure of course. We're waiting.


  • #1187
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    J C wrote: »
    Dembski hasn't given up on it ... and neither have I ... its patiently obvious and repeatably observable that CFSI exists.

    You haven't given up on it? A quick search shows that this post almost 4 years ago is likely the first mention of the paper that demolished Dembski's claims with appalling ease. In the 4 years since, you've never addressed it with anything close to a refutation. The best you could do was say "I disagree", without explaining WHY you disagree. Sounds pretty damn close to giving up to me. Maybe you're using some biblical definition of "giving up" that means completely the opposite of the every day meaning?

    If you're going to go down this tired old col-de-sac again, J C, I hope you have finally developed the necessary know-how to actually discuss a paper like a real scientist, because that's the first thing in a long list of evidence against your claims you're going to have to deal with.

    Oh snap, [-0-]. Glad someone else remembered it. Poor old J C's memory is clearly just falling apart...

    Also f*cking LOL at what Dumbski said about ants. What a very stupid man.


  • #1188
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    koth wrote: »
    That doesn't answer my question. Of course making random changes to English sentences have a higher chance of making nonsense of the sentence.
    ... and the exact same problem applies to making random changes to genetic 'sentences'.
    ... and that is why mutagenesis is avoided at all costs by everybody, including Evolutionists.
    koth wrote: »
    But we're not talking about that, we're discussing the mutation of biological organisms and you're (as yet unsupported) claim that the quality of information is always diminished. You don't know what the increased genetic information is, so how can you know the quality is diminished?
    ... I know this just as surely that I know that making random changes to any English sentence will also degrade its meaning ... and thus the functionality of the information contained therein.


    koth wrote: »
    The inclusion of CFSI in the discussion does nothing to help you btw as it has nothing to do with evolution/modern science.
    There are two (closely related) 'elephants in the room' of modern Evolutionism ...
    1. The denial that random mutagenesis can do anything other than damaging genetic information ...

    2. The denial of the existence of CFSI ... despite its existence being patently obvious in all living and non-living systems, that have been intelligently designed.


  • #1189
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,034 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    ... and the exact same problem applies to making random changes to genetic 'sentences'.
    ... and that is why mutagenesis is avoided at all costs by everybody, including Evolutionists.

    ... I know this just as surely that I know that making random changes to any English sentence will also degrade its meaning ... and thus the functionality of the information contained therein.
    You're still not providing any evidence. You're just repeating yourself regarding corrupting English sentences.

    Using the sentence "There once was a pony that lived in house on a hill".

    By adding a random word to the sentence we could diminish or improve the meaning of the sentence. You're stating that it will always be diminished, that's incorrect.

    There are two (closely related) 'elephants in the room' of modern Evolutionism ...
    1. The denial that random mutagenesis can do anything other than damaging genetic information ...

    2. The denial of the existence of CFSI ... despite its existence being patently obvious in all living and non-living systems, that have been intelligently designed.

    both Sarky and [o] have posted homework for you to do before CFSI has any validity in this discussion.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #1190
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    ... and the exact same problem applies to making random changes to genetic 'sentences'.
    ... and that is why mutagenesis is avoided at all costs by everybody, including Evolutionists.

    ... I know this just as surely that I know that making random changes to any English sentence will also degrade its meaning ... and thus the functionality of the information contained therein.



    There are two (closely related) 'elephants in the room' of modern Evolutionism ...
    1. The denial that random mutagenesis can do anything other than damaging genetic information ...

    2. The denial of the existence of CFSI ... despite its existence being patently obvious in all living and non-living systems, that have been intelligently designed.

    Refute the paper posted above.

    JC, your problem is that you are corrupted from the outset by a preexisting desire to push a faith-based agenda which has no scientific merit whatsoever. The sooner you accept this, the better for all involved.


  • #1191
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    While I'm at it, here's a nice list of the many and varied failures of William Dembski:

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Dembski

    Fascinating reading. Not only is he a bit thick, he's also a douchebag. Some of the juicier points:

    -While he does have a PhD (very rare in creationists), none of his qualifications have anything to do with biology.

    -He's been promising peer-reviewed papers for years now, but not a peep from him. In today's publish-or-perish scientific world, that makes him a bit of a loser.

    -He tried to set up a Myspace for creatards. It flopped spectacularly.

    -He got fired from his original university for blatantly disregarding procedures, lying and being a jerk.


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  • #1192
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    The Discovery Institute defines Intelligent Design as the following:
    Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

    Firstly, it's important to point out that every single sentence I have quoted suffer from major flaws. Notice the glaring admission that their program is not about gathering data and allowing the evidence to lead them wherever it may, but rather a mission to find evidence which supports a predetermined conclusion -- that being that an intelligent agent created everything. This is the definition of bias. By doing this, you confine analysis of only those findings which may have use for the conclusion you have already arrived at. It goes without saying that this is not science.

    This is not science. Dembski is a fraud. Creationism is a logical fallacy.


  • #1193
    Days 298
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭Days 298


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    http://www.uncommondescent.com/
    Oh. So much stupid in one place.
    Stupid stupid stupid.


  • #1194
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    Sarky wrote: »
    While I'm at it, here's a nice list of the many and varied failures of William Dembski:

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Dembski

    Fascinating reading. Not only is he a bit thick, he's also a douchebag. Some of the juicier points:

    -While he does have a PhD (very rare in creationists), none of his qualifications have anything to do with biology.

    -He's been promising peer-reviewed papers for years now, but not a peep from him.

    -He tried to set up a Myspace for creatards. It flopped spectacularly.

    -He got fired from his original university for blatantly disregarding procedures, lying and being a jerk.

    Creatards. :pac:


  • #1195
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    Ah, why the hell not, I'll put up the same link for Kent Hovind:

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind

    A criminal, bigot, dominionist, it looks like all of his degrees were purchased in a friend's house, and if his writings since he went to prison for 58 tax-related crimes are anything to go by, in need of a good psychiatrist.

    My favourite part is the Hovind scale:
    Kent unwittingly lent his name to the hovind, a unit of measurement which evaluates statements for kookery; speaking roughly, 0 is the score for a scientifically valid statement, 100 is the score for a lie that isn't even wrong.


  • #1196
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    The hamsters clearly don't like this thread. Double post glitches all over the place.


  • #1197
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    [-0-] wrote: »
    Creatards. :pac:
    ... when the ad hominems emerge it's a certainty that you guys have nothing to say about the issues under discussion.
    ... and ye have conceded the debate ... once again.


  • #1198
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    J C, before accusing people of ad hominems, you should probably look up what it means.

    Or perhaps you'd like to conflate our disagreeing with you with Nazis again?


  • #1199
    [-0-]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    FYI: This is Option Number Twenty-Five. Isn't this being a bit, uh, mean on the hamsters?
    J C wrote: »
    ... when the ad hominems emerge it's a certainty that you guys have nothing to say about the issues under discussion.
    ... and ye have conceded the debate ... once again.

    Refute the paper JC. You have no business posting here until you do so.

    While we wait for you to try to get your head around the paper, here's some more evidence of Dembski being a known fraud.
    DEMBSKI'S CURIOUS INCOMPETENCE WITH QUOTATIONS

    By Jeffrey Shallit

    Posted April 13, 2004

    We all know about William Dembski's many educational degrees -- in part because he isn't shy about reeling them off. It's not the usual man who can exhibit two master's degrees and two Ph. D.'s. Such educational experience suggests a man who is in love with learning and who respects scholarship. All the more strange, then, that Dembski seems to be so completely incompetent when it comes to quotations.

    In my review of Dembski's No Free Lunch, I already pointed out how Dembski's use of a line from the movie Contact was misleading. Not only did he get the quote wrong, he also misstated the name of the character who said it and what the line referred to!

    In that article, I also showed how he quoted selectively from a review of Keith Devlin to make it appear that Devlin was endorsing his work.

    In another article that recently appeared in Reports of the National Center for Science Education, I showed how Dembski took a claim of Del Ratzsch about the Smithsonian and dramatically inflated it, to the point where it became false. (An earlier version of my article is available here.)

    Now Dembski's latest book, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design shows an even more curious inability to relate quotations accurately.

    Take, for example, page 201. There Dembski writes
    One of skepticism's patron saints, H. L. Mencken, remarked, "For every problem, there is a neat, simple solution, and it is always wrong."

    Wrong again, Dr. Dembski. It only took me 5 minutes on the Internet, and a 5-minute trip to the library, to find the original source of the quotation. It is Mencken's 1920 book, Prejudices: Second Series, and it appears on page 158. The real quote is: "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem --- neat, plausible, and wrong." Now if I can do this in ten minutes, why can't Dembski be bothered? Is good scholarship so unimportant?

    On page 20, Dembski quotes Haldane about the four stages of acceptance of new ideas, but the first part of the quotation "Theories pass through four stages of acceptance" doesn't appear in Haldane's actual quote. Instead, Haldane wrote "I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:" (See "The truth about death" in Journal of Genetics 58 (1962-3), pp. 463-464 for the real quote.)

    The fact that Haldane uses the term "usual" suggests the four stages predate him, and in fact similar statements can be found in the writings of the German embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer (1866) (where it is attributed to Agassiz), Zahm (1896) (where it is attributed to Whewell); and William James (1907).

    But it gets even worse. Also on page 20, Dembski writes

    According to Arthur Schopenhauer, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

    The only problem is that Schopenhauer apparently never said this.

    Several years ago, long before Dembski used this quote, I spent about three years, off and on, looking for its source. It wasn't easy. I consulted Schopenhauer scholars, examined dozens of quote dictionaries, used many electronic resources, and submitted a query to the British radio program Quote, Unquote. Eventually I determined that in all likelihood, Schopenhauer never said this (although he did say something vaguely analogous in 1818) and that the erroneous attribution may have originated in a 1981 interview with author Edward Packard.

    When I saw the quote being touted in a preliminary version of Dembski's book in May 2002, I immediately wrote him and informed him that the quote was very probably specious. He then replied with a three-word message: "Prove me wrong."

    But quotations are particularly susceptible to misattribution; there are even two books (Boller and George's They Never Said It, and Keyes' Nice Guys Finish Seventh) devoted to tracking down the original source of quotations. It is, of course, nearly impossible to prove that someone didn't say something. And anyone can invent or misremember a quotation and then find someone to attribute it to. As Ralph Keyes said, "Any quotation that can be altered will be." The burden of proof is on the person hawking the quotation, not the skeptic.

    I then referred Dembski to my forthcoming letter to Skeptic magazine (which was published later that year), in which I explained why the Schopenhauer quote was in all likelihood fabricated. Since it was so discredited, I felt sure that Dembski would not use the quote in the published version of his book.

    So I was astonished to open The Design Revolution and discover that Dembski continues to use the quote, and continues to attribute it to Schopenhauer. The fact that he does so suggests a certain contempt for accuracy incompatible with being a scholar -- no matter how many degrees he has. As American humorist Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) wrote, "I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain't so."

    Oh, and the Mencken quote? Ironically, it appears in a piece he titled The Divine Afflatus. The Oxford English Dictionary gives one definition of "afflatus" as "the miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge". Maybe ID should be renamed "afflatus theory". Or even better, "a flatus theory".


  • #1200
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Sarky wrote: »
    J C, before accusing people of ad hominems, you should probably look up what it means.
    Actually, come to think of it, calling a whole class of people 'Cretards' is name-calling.

    ... and name-calling is actually below Ad Hominem in the heirarchy of disagreement.
    ... somewhere down in the 'school yard' levels of debating technique actually.

    Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement1.svg

    ... you're plumbing new depths here guys!!!:(


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  • #1201
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    OMG! Spoiler!
    Playing the victim is so much easier than backing up your claims, isn't it? It's definitely easier to hide behind that than acknowledging the mountains of evidence and data we've shown you.

    You going to refute that paper, or would you like to hide from it for another 4 years?


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