666...the Devils Moving Average

axeman · Oct 12, 2003

"One of the reasons they want so badly to accept evolution is that it is against creation which they hate as do you."

Your poisoning the well here.

Would be VERY difficult for you to prove that science merely
supports evolution because it hates creationism.
Nothing more than a conspiracy theory

I also don't "hate" creationism, I simply consider it a fable.
I hate it no more than I hate the story of little red riding hood

( AKA - I don't )

I think your are giving creationism way too much credit here

I think most scientists don't waste their time with it because
they perceive it as yet another silly creation story that
theists hopelessly cling to like a safety blanket.

Let me turn the tables on you. How many thousands of
hours have you spent on pondering the Japanese creation
story I posted?

Scientists are no different with YOUR creation story.
Provide some HARD evidence, and you will then get their
attention.

Make lots of empty claims with no supporting evidence, and
they will ignore you. They have better theories to study with
supporting evidence.

" You must believe in an idealistic scientific community and I definitely do not."

No I don't. But I only have to look at sciences INCREDIBLE,
and mind blowing track record, to see that it obviously works very well.
Or I wouldn't be typing on this PC that is more powerful than
multimillion dollar Cray super computers 10+ years ago

peace

axeman

Quote from Doubter:

Evolution IS taken seriously, not because of this peer pressure
and bias as you claim, but because of the body evidence
supporting it.

To believe otherwise, would be to believe that somehow,
a scientist FABRICATED this whole evolution story, and SOMEHOW
"slipped thru" the ARMY of scientists who attack, shred, and rip
to pieces all new scientific theories. It's the proper thing to do.
This is the ULTIMATE test of truth and is precisely what gives
us a high confidence level in things we wish to label FACT.

Very hard to swallow.
Axeman
______________________________________

That is exactly what I believe happened but the army wanted to support it instead of really testing it and seeing if it held water. They may be still in some ways testing it. One of the reasons they want so badly to accept evolution is that it is against creation which they hate as do you. You must believe in an idealistic scientific community and I definitely do not. There are both good and bad scientists, obviously, and different fields of study are effected in different ways but the ones around evolution I totally distrust. I have seen them lie so bad in court that even they couldn't see their own propensity to lie instead of just telling the truth.

axeman · Oct 12, 2003

You contradict yourself.

Previously you said that science constantly "changes" their story
as new evidence is discovered. ( As they should )

Creationists are the group which have held to their story
over time, and continue REPEATING themselves.

peace

axeman

Quote from Doubter:

Repetition of the same flawed argument does not make it any stronger.

peace

axeman
____________________________________________

Amen to that! Evolution just keeps it up though!

Doubter · Oct 12, 2003

Quote from ShoeshineBoy:

One side comment: an ever-expanding universe would put to death once and forever an idea that was very fashionable several decades ago: an oscillating (or reincarnating) universe. With the flow of eastern religions into our country in the 60's and 70's, the idea of a reincarnating universe was considered a verification of certain ancient Hindu scriptures (that claimed the universe was a little over 4 billion years old).

Actually, a reincarnating universe was destroyed in 1983 and 1984 by no less of a astrophysicist than Alan Guth due to reasons of entropy.

______________________________________________
Below is a continuum of religions via their worldview.

Atheism Theism Animism
_________________________________________________

1. 2. 3.

The various religious worldviews as they relate to time.

1. Aethism= limited time, time ticking down to the end. A beginning and an end. A limited and depleting earth and universe.

2. Theism= time is event oriented. Living from one extra natural event to the next. Creation - to the fall - to Christ - etc. Beginning maybe no end.

3. Animism= continual cycles of time ie. seasons, years, reincarnation. Cycles mainly taken from their agriclutural backgrounds.

Ironically the failure of atheism has driven many of its adherents to "New Age" which is animist, clear on the other end of the spectrum. The failure was mainly because it left too many voids that adherents wanted to fill so one is growing and the other dwindling.

Doubter · Oct 12, 2003

No I don't. But I only have to look at sciences INCREDIBLE,
and mind blowing track record, to see that it obviously works very well.
Or I wouldn't be typing on this PC that is more powerful than
multimillion dollar Cray super computers 10+ years ago

peace

axeman
________________________________________

Ironically your PC was designed and created and someone or something helped with its creation. You could say it evolved but not in the macro-evolution sense.

Sorry I have to sign off my mommy says I have to go be the hunter gatherer tomorrow and need my rest.

ShoeshineBoy · Oct 12, 2003

Quote from Doubter:

______________________________________________
Below is a continuum of religions via their worldview.

Atheism Theism Animism
_________________________________________________

1. 2. 3.

The various religious worldviews as they relate to time.

1. Aethism= limited time, time ticking down to the end. A beginning and an end. A limited and depleting earth and universe.

2. Theism= time is event oriented. Living from one extra natural event to the next. Creation - to the fall - to Christ - etc. Beginning maybe no end.

3. Animism= continual cycles of time ie. seasons, years, reincarnation. Cycles mainly taken from their agriclutural backgrounds.

Ironically the failure of atheism has driven many of its adherents to "New Age" which is animist, clear on the other end of the spectrum. The failure was mainly because it left too many voids that adherents wanted to fill so one is growing and the other dwindling.

Interesting idea, but I would argue that most secular humanists want steady state in one form or another. Of course, a steady state universe has been disproven for our universe, so what they're essentially hoping for is that the universe is part of the "The Universe of Universes". In other words, they are hoping to find an "infinity of universes" or something similar that exists and always has existed and explains everything w/o a Creator. They don't really care whether our universe has a beginning or an end just so that there is something that is self-existing.

Axe and stu can probably better speak for their camp, though, but that's my impression. With the advent of the big bang and the destruction of the steady state and oscillating universe models, they are essentially left with a variety of "infinity of alternate universes" and "quantum gravity" models which are the step children of the philosopy I wrote about above.

ShoeshineBoy · Oct 12, 2003

Quote from axeman:

"The fourth irony is that the cosmological constant is actually one of the most finely tuned of the Intelligent Design parameters and must be within 10 to the 120th for any life to exist in the universe! "

Again. Not proven. More huge assumptions.

Here is the cited source:

Lawrence M. Krauss, âThe End of the Age Problem and the Case for a Cosmological Constant Revisited,â Astrophysical Journal, 501 (1998), p. 461.

ShoeshineBoy · Oct 12, 2003

Quote from axeman:

"The Big Bang establishes a universe that is MUCH too young for evolution as I have previously posted. The universe is only 14 billion years which is not NEARLY old enough for hundreds of thousands of sequentially linked random events to chain themselves together in a pattern to make advanced life here on earth. "

You have not proven this and are making huge assumptions.

This was inflammatory wording I admit (even though I agree with it). I'll try to tone it down. I get a little worked up at times...

ShoeshineBoy · Oct 12, 2003

Quote from axeman:

Again. Not proven. More huge assumptions.
As stated earlier in this thread, you are completely incapable
of calculating odds without even knowing what all the variables
are or even how many variables exist.

It may very well be the case that life would evolve for EVERY
combination of variables you can come up with.

In other words, you have consistently failed to state
your null hypothesis and therefore can not make these
kinds of claims at all, but for some reason, continue to do so.

I disagree. Let me explain why. Here's part of the example that I used on p. 58:

"Let's take the reptile to bird transition. We both know that virtually every aspect of a reptile has to be completely altered in order to change into a bird. Bone density, bone configuration, skeleton, scales to feathers, feet to claws, tail to bird tail for flight, flight instincts, tree dwelling instincts, care for the young, circulation, heart beat, vision, motor skills, warm bloodedness, muscle reconfiguration, digestion, migratory skills, lung oxigenation, visual acuity, and on and on. (A biologist could come up with several more major structural and biochemical examples as well I feel confident.) Everything must radically change. Now a car probably has around 10,000 parts so let's give evolution the benefit of the doubt and conservatively estimate that a bird has around 1,000 parts (and we both know this is WAY too low - it should be at least as much as a car!) each of which requires a 100 good mutations.

And let's say for each 99 bad mutations there's 1 good mutation. (Again, that's much better than real mutation rates in real creatures.) And let's say the average lifespan for these missing links is 1 year and that it takes generally 25 years on average for the mutation to propogate significantly throughout the species.

If you add it up: that's 250 million years. And this is only if the mutations happen serially in the EXACT order necessary to sustain life (and if my ridiculously favorable-to-Darwin estimates are true). For example, if the bird develops wings before hollow bones, it will be easy prey, i.e cat food. If the bird develops wings but does not have the altered muscular structure or rapid heart rate, etc., etc. it will not be able to sustain flight."

I argue that the kind of highly rapid evolutionary development that you are arguing for is no better than Goldschmidt's Hopeful Monster that is made fun of in one's first semester biology class. The probabilities that I sight merely point out that you are asking us to believe the mathematically ridiculous.

Am I really supposed to believe tens of thousand of mutations in exactly the right sequence somehow magically happened in less than ten million years? Am I really supposed to believe that flight independently evolved in the bats and the dinosaurs in similarly short time periods at different times in the earth's history? (And let's don't forget the insects as well!)

And am I really supposed to believe this when there's not a shred of fossil evidence to support it? Wouldn't we expect to see at least one half-bat, half-rodent? Wouldn't we expect to see at least one half-reptile, half-bird?

Sorry, but on this one the burden of proof is on you guys...

axeman · Oct 13, 2003

Notice how you conveniently changed the subject?

This time, I'm not going to explicitly state what it is.

Go back and read what you wrote, then read my reply,
and tell me precisely what i'm addressing, because
this ain't it.

peace

axeman

Quote from ShoeshineBoy:

I disagree. Let me explain why. Here's part of the example that I used on p. 58:

"Let's take the reptile to bird transition. We both know that virtually every aspect of a reptile has to be completely altered in order to change into a bird. Bone density, bone configuration, skeleton, scales to feathers, feet to claws, tail to bird tail for flight, flight instincts, tree dwelling instincts, care for the young, circulation, heart beat, vision, motor skills, warm bloodedness, muscle reconfiguration, digestion, migratory skills, lung oxigenation, visual acuity, and on and on. (A biologist could come up with several more major structural and biochemical examples as well I feel confident.) Everything must radically change. Now a car probably has around 10,000 parts so let's give evolution the benefit of the doubt and conservatively estimate that a bird has around 1,000 parts (and we both know this is WAY too low - it should be at least as much as a car!) each of which requires a 100 good mutations.

And let's say for each 99 bad mutations there's 1 good mutation. (Again, that's much better than real mutation rates in real creatures.) And let's say the average lifespan for these missing links is 1 year and that it takes generally 25 years on average for the mutation to propogate significantly throughout the species.

If you add it up: that's 250 million years. And this is only if the mutations happen serially in the EXACT order necessary to sustain life (and if my ridiculously favorable-to-Darwin estimates are true). For example, if the bird develops wings before hollow bones, it will be easy prey, i.e cat food. If the bird develops wings but does not have the altered muscular structure or rapid heart rate, etc., etc. it will not be able to sustain flight."

I argue that the kind of highly rapid evolutionary development that you are arguing for is no better than Goldschmidt's Hopeful Monster that is made fun of in one's first semester biology class. The probabilities that I sight merely point out that you are asking us to believe the mathematically ridiculous.

Am I really supposed to believe tens of thousand of mutations in exactly the right sequence somehow magically happened in less than ten million years? Am I really supposed to believe that flight independently evolved in the bats and the dinosaurs in similarly short time periods at different times in the earth's history? (And let's don't forget the insects as well!)

And am I really supposed to believe this when there's not a shred of fossil evidence to support it? Wouldn't we expect to see at least one half-bat, half-rodent? Wouldn't we expect to see at least one half-reptile, half-bird?

Sorry, but on this one the burden of proof is on you guys...

ShoeshineBoy · Oct 13, 2003

Quote from axeman:

Notice how you conveniently changed the subject?

This time, I'm not going to explicitly state what it is.

Go back and read what you wrote, then read my reply,
and tell me precisely what i'm addressing, because
this ain't it.

Oops! You're right. Here's your original post:

Quote from axeman:

As stated earlier in this thread, you are completely incapable
of calculating odds without even knowing what all the variables
are or even how many variables exist.

It may very well be the case that life would evolve for EVERY
combination of variables you can come up with.

In other words, you have consistently failed to state
your null hypothesis and therefore can not make these
kinds of claims at all, but for some reason, continue to do so.

Repetition of the same flawed argument does not make it any stronger.

I'm glad you re-posted this, because I think I finally understand what you are saying and I definitely disagree with it now that I think I understand where you're going. (Or at least what I'm pretty sure you're saying.) Let me put some #s to it though to double check. I have mentioned that there are around 50 parameters that science has discovered that are finely tuned within a VERY narrow range so that life can exist in this universe.

Now let's say there's 50 other parameters that really don't matter - they could be almost any range for life to occur. That's a total of 100 parameters. I think you are arguing that there are various combinations of these 100 parameters that could produce life.

If that is what you are proposing, then I could not disagree more. You cannot tweak any one of the 50 life-dependent parameters without destroying the possibility for life in our universe at any time period. More importantly, it does not matter what any of the other parameters are.

Example: If you tweak the strong nuclear force just a little lower, then there is only hydrogen in the universe. It doesn't matter what your other parameters are: you don't stand a chance for life. (There are 30 other examples on p. 75.)

Your null hypotheses only works if there are combinations of parameters yield different results than individual.