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The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Twelve years on. Still going. Answer soon.

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Comments

  • #2102
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Vivisectus wrote: »
    I will repeat myself once more. You are modelling something like a single roll of 120 20 sided dice.
    Its a multi-quadrillion roll of 120 of a 20 sided dice.
    Vivisectus wrote: »
    But what you are claiming to model with that is not like that at all.

    There is no random soup of amino acids combining and recombining, while we hope for something complex to appear as if out of nowhere.

    That is a strawman that you keep merrily attacking. No-one else is proposing this.
    There was and is no randon amino acid soup involved allright ... it was originally created by an intelligence ... and it now reproduces after its Kind (as it was designed to do by it's Creator).


  • #2103
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Doctor Jimbob wrote: »
    Also continuing the proud trend of ID proponents not being biologists.
    Michael Denton is an ID proponent and a Medical Doctor and Biochemist, Micheal Behe is a Biochemist, Jonathan Wells is a Molecular Biologist.
    The ID movement within science, has the required breadth and depth of scientific ability to do the required research allright.:)


  • #2104
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Doctor Jimbob wrote: »
    Go reproduce ID in a lab then get back to us.

    I won't hold my breath.
    Practically all laboratory research, whatever the scientific discipline, are examples of Human Intelligent Design in action.:):cool:


  • #2105
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Squeedily Spooch wrote: »
    Faith in the impossible. You're forever harping on about Dembski's nonsense and UPB, basically something that's uncomputable. Dembski just gives it a figure he came up with...somehow. It's been refuted loads and you just won't accept the examples or address them.
    The UPB has been accepted as an upper limit allright ... no refutation has been made on this thread.
    If I have missed something please post a link.


  • #2106
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,042 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    J C wrote: »
    Practically all laboratory research, whatever the scientific discipline, are examples of Human Intelligent Design in action.:):cool:

    Humans created humans?

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



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  • #2107
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,156 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    6 J C posts in a row? If you didn't skip through his posts you'd feel like Andy Dufresne while he was escaping Shawshank.


  • #2108
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    6 J C posts in a row? If you didn't skip through his posts you'd feel like Andy Dufresne while he was escaping Shawshank.

    When you have him on ignore (JC, please note I only reply to the most egregiously wrongheaded of your posts, and then only because I see them quoted by others) his posts just fly by. Blink and you miss them, and you often do even when you don't blink.


  • #2109
    Harika
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,585 ✭✭✭Harika


    J C wrote: »
    Many biologists are Christians and indeed Creationists ... so your generalisation is certainly false.:)

    can you give a source for that because cruising through the net there seems to be an overwhelming number of biologists not believing in creationism but supporting evolution.


  • #2110
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,156 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    I'm guessing J C's also including graduates of moronic fundie universities.


  • #2111
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    SW wrote: »
    Humans created humans?
    Intelligent Design isn't confined to living systems ... we find Intelligent Design in all of its complex functional specificity in many things that are the product of Human intelligence as well.


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  • #2112
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    When you have him on ignore (JC, please note I only reply to the most egregiously wrongheaded of your posts, and then only because I see them quoted by others) his posts just fly by. Blink and you miss them, and you often do even when you don't blink.
    That is OK Brian ... its a free country and you can choose to ignore anybody and any thing ... it doesn't mean that what they say isn't true, though.:)


  • #2113
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    I'm guessing J C's also including graduates of moronic fundie universities.
    Ah yes, 'the battle of the lists' ... I'll show you mine, if you show me yours!!!:eek:


  • #2114
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,042 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    J C wrote: »
    Intelligent Design isn't confined to living systems ... we find Intelligent Design in all of its complex functional specificity in many things that are the product of Human intelligence as well.

    Well at least you've conceded that ID can arise from non-supernatural creators. So it's quite possible that humanity arose from entirely natural means.

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



  • #2115
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,042 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    J C wrote: »
    That is OK Brian ... its a free country and you can choose to ignore anybody and any thing ... it doesn't mean that what they say isn't true, though.:)

    Bit ironic coming from a self professed creationist.

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



  • #2116
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    SW wrote: »
    Bit ironic coming from a self professed creationist.
    Why?


  • #2117
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    SW wrote: »
    Well at least you've conceded that ID can arise from non-supernatural creators. So it's quite possible that humanity arose from entirely natural means.
    Never said otherwise ... ID doesn't scientifically specify who or what the intelligence was that designed life.
    Some people have speculated that it was Aliens.


  • #2118
    Squeedily Spooch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 264 ✭✭Squeedily Spooch


    J C wrote: »
    Ah yes, 'the battle of the lists' ... I'll show you mine, if you show me yours!!!:eek:

    Show your what? Scientific credentials? oh wait...


  • #2119
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,042 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    J C wrote: »
    Never said otherwise ... ID doesn't scientifically specify who or what the intelligence was that designed life.
    Some people have speculated that it was Aliens.
    Actually you have, frequently. If God is the creator, which is what creationism claims, then it's entirely super-natural means that you're supporting as the origin of humans and reality.

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



  • #2120
    Vivisectus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 807 ✭✭✭Vivisectus


    J C wrote: »
    Its a multi-quadrillion roll of 120 of a 20 sided dice.

    I am glad you agree that you are modelling a dice-roll. This is the reason the probability math does not apply.
    There was and is no randon amino acid soup involved allright ... it was originally created by an intelligence ... and it now reproduces after its Kind (as it was designed to do by it's Creator).

    That is indeed what you continue to claim based fallacious reasons, as I have shown in detail.


  • #2121
    Vivisectus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 807 ✭✭✭Vivisectus


    J C wrote: »
    It is design allright ... but it doesn't have the hallmarks of Intelligent Design ... which are functionality and specificity.

    Nonsense! It's function is to form a part of a bridge. It is also specifically rectangular, a form that (according to Dembski anyway) is not created naturally.

    But of course "specificity" is one of those special vague ID terms that handily apply to whatever the user wants to be isolated from the rest - see below.
    ... they don't because they lack specificity.
    Complexity and design, on their own, are found in many systems that are deterministic (and therefore don't require an intelligent input) ... snowflakes are an obvious example.

    Dembski disagrees: nature does not create rectangular solids (he claims), so if you find a rectangular solid (his words!) then you see both complexity and specificity and thus you can assume it is created by an intelligence.

    But of course "Specificity" is just part of the circular logic of ID: it already implies that there is an intent behind the way something is made up.


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  • #2122
    Vivisectus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 807 ✭✭✭Vivisectus


    Meanwhile, the problems that remain unadressed are:

    - The probability math with which you try to support you claims does not apply
    - The process of elimination by which you come to the conclusion that intelligent design was involved is not a reliable way of forming theories. Please see the example of the disappearing socks.


  • #2123
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    Using Dembski's logic I broke the UPB when I was born. The chances of me having such complex functions such as eyes and ears are astronomically small. The chance of me being human and born on Earth, a planet that could support me and to my parents, just two of seven billion are so tiny it's laughable. Clearly I was constructed in a lab by aliens and my parents had their memories altered.

    (Really though it was all biology, chemistry and physics, but shh.)


  • #2124
    Vivisectus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 807 ✭✭✭Vivisectus


    Just to demonstrate the problem of specificity:

    I will now hit some random characters on my keyboard:

    ahhgt sjhdt lkkskjs ejsgjle wyujsgt whsyh

    According to Demsbki, this string is complex (it has a lot of parts), but not specific. It is a random string of characters, such as could be put together by chance.

    However, if I devise a code that translates the above string into a sentence, all of a sudden the string has specificity... and can only have been put together by an intelligent designer!

    And it is still just a random string of numbers that I got by hitting the keyboard randomly. So how come this string lacks this magical quality now, but will possess it when I devise the code?

    Quite simple: a "thing with specificity" is just "something to which I attribute purpose". But this "specificity" is proposed as a way for detecting that same purpose! And round and round the circular logic goes from then on...


  • #2125
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    Vivisectus wrote: »
    I will now hit some random characters on my keyboard:
    ahhgt sjhdt lkkskjs ejsgjle wyujsgt whsyh
    According to Demsbki, this string is complex (it has a lot of parts), but not specific. It is a random string of characters, such as could be put together by chance.
    However, if I devise a code that translates the above string into a sentence, all of a sudden the string has specificity... and can only have been put together by an intelligent designer!
    And it is still just a random string of numbers that I got by hitting the keyboard randomly. So how come this string lacks this magical quality now, but will possess it when I devise the code?
    Hang on, how is it possible to devise a code that 'translates' a random string into a sentence? Surely there must be a meaning present for it to be translated, otherwise it's not a translation, it's a substitution? Which is to say, in that case it would be the code that contains the meaning, not the original string.

    For the string to be both complex and specific it would have to have it's own inherent meaning without any translation/substitution, would it not? I don't see how there's a particular issue with a complex and specific string occurring spontaneously as a result of random chance (a la the infinite monkey theorum), so what am I missing?


  • #2126
    Vivisectus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 807 ✭✭✭Vivisectus


    Absolam wrote: »
    Hang on, how is it possible to devise a code that 'translates' a random string into a sentence? Surely there must be a meaning present for it to be translated, otherwise it's not a translation, it's a substitution? Which is to say, in that case it would be the code that contains the meaning, not the original string.

    For the string to be both complex and specific it would have to have it's own inherent meaning without any translation/substitution, would it not? I don't see how there's a particular issue with a complex and specific string occurring spontaneously as a result of random chance (a la the infinite monkey theorum), so what am I missing?

    That is more or less the point: it commits something like the modal fallacy. Just like you need a code and an end result in mind to think of the characters as having meaning, Dembskis specificity only works if you think there is intent, a goal, there to start with and then work backwards from what you can observe.

    The chances of the characters coming up correctly if you already have a fixed code are very small. But since you only devise the code after the fact, that does not really matter.

    The same applies to Dembski's thinking about specificity. It assumes that there is one possible solution (what we see today) and then works backwards as if it was the only thing that could have happened, that it was necessary that it happened this way.

    The flagellum, for him, is impossibly complex because he thinks of it as having a reason for existence and then works backwards. And indeed, if you start with a specific flagellum and then work out how small the chances are of such a combination coming up if all elements are random, it seems an impossibly small chance. But we see similar dna coding for something that is just like a flagellum, but has a different function. Sometimes we even see the exact same code being expressed differently because of the influence of other coding elements.

    In other words - the end result is not a fixed goal. The specificity (in the dembskian sense), like the code, is invented later.


  • #2127
    Colonialboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,533 ✭✭✭Colonialboy


    Vivisectus wrote: »
    Just to demonstrate the problem of specificity:

    I will now hit some random characters on my keyboard:

    ahhgt sjhdt lkkskjs ejsgjle wyujsgt whsyh

    According to Demsbki, this string is complex (it has a lot of parts), but not specific. It is a random string of characters, such as could be put together by chance.

    However, if I devise a code that translates the above string into a sentence, all of a sudden the string has specificity... and can only have been put together by an intelligent designer!

    And it is still just a random string of numbers that I got by hitting the keyboard randomly. So how come this string lacks this magical quality now, but will possess it when I devise the code?

    Quite simple: a "thing with specificity" is just "something to which I attribute purpose". But this "specificity" is proposed as a way for detecting that same purpose! And round and round the circular logic goes from then on...

    Where did your keyboard originate from ?


  • #2128
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    Colonialboy wrote: »
    Where did your keyboard originate from ?

    I'm guessing Taiwan via an electrical goods store.

    What relevance though does your question have to the matter at hand.


  • #2129
    Colonialboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,533 ✭✭✭Colonialboy


    Vivisectus wrote: »
    And it is still just a random string of numbers that I got by hitting the keyboard randomly. So how come this string lacks this magical quality now, but will possess it when I devise the code?

    Where, when, how, who ...... did the code originate ?


  • #2130
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,042 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    Colonialboy wrote: »
    Where, when, how, who ...... did the code originate ?
    Computers and Technology
    >

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



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  • #2131
    Miguel Squeaking Teenager
    Posts: 0 ✭ Miguel Squeaking Teenager


    Colonialboy wrote: »
    Where, when, how, who ...... did the code originate ?

    Could you give me an example of a few things that aren't "ID" so that we can reframe the question in a more suitable manner to you?


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