Intelligent Design struck down in Federal Court

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from Ricter:

Deductive reasoning, extrapolation, they're completely lost on Z. After proving that 1+1=2 to him, you'd then have to prove 1+1+1=3. And so on. Each observation would have to be considered in strict isolation from the previous observations.

Yeah, it's fascinating; he seems to be able to understand English but if you pose a syntactically coherent question, he is able to come back with something that is unrelated and he seems to think he's answering the question as it was posed! Just check out my post a few back from this one. You will see my challenge to him and his response - with great surety he answers a different question! I considered going point by point through that responses he gave, showing how many of the sentences he wrote as rebuttals didn't actually have anything to do with the text he quoted in boldface, but I realized it was probably pointless.

If you point these things out to him, he's the kind of guy who will say, 'You may believe that, but I don't' or something equally evasive. It won't matter that you are arguing a point of fact. But then people who adhere to faith-based belief systems aren't encumbered by a need for facts; it's all about what you believe. It is right and true, and when someone challenges you, you just say

1) I don't like that question

2) You may believe that but I don't

3) That is speculative

4) Your question is silly

5) You are making me the topic of this argument

and my personal favourite from Z10

6) I don't think that question is worth answering!!!

That last one says it all, doesn't it?

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

I see you have made me the topic.

How "revelatory."

Quote from traderNik:

Yeah, it's fascinating; he seems to be able to understand English but if you pose a syntactically coherent question, he is able to come back with something that is unrelated and he seems to think he's answering the question as it was posed! Just check out my post a few back from this one. You will see my challenge to him and his response - with great surety he answers a different question! I considered going point by point through that responses he gave, showing how many of the sentences he wrote as rebuttals didn't actually have anything to do with the text he quoted in boldface, but I realized it was probably pointless.

If you point these things out to him, he's the kind of guy who will say, 'You may believe that, but I don't' or something equally evasive. It won't matter that you are arguing a point of fact. But then people who adhere to faith-based belief systems aren't encumbered by a need for facts; it's all about what you believe. It is right and true, and when someone challenges you, you just say

1) I don't like that question

2) You may believe that but I don't

3) That is speculative

4) Your question is silly

and my personal favourite from Z10

5) I don't think that question is worth answering!!!

That last one says it all, doesn't it?

 

[kjkent1]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

Pick any species, and I can predict what the life span will be within a reasonable time frame barring external damage to the organism by the environment.

OK: "E-Coli."

This ability to predict lifespan is the indication of order, not chaos.

You present no proof with which to support this conclusion (lots of untested observations, but no proof).


I predict that human beings will not evolve into another species ever, they will forever be human beings, living a lifespan within a relatively narrow and predictable time frame. They may grown into their full human potential, but that full human potential is not a new species.

Move over Nostradamus, there's a new prophet in town!

Natural law is ID, most people just are too afraid of God and what that means in their lives to accept the simple truth of it.

I honestly don't understand why so many people here at ET make is so difficult.

Well, it's because, as Judge Jones pointed out, there's one little detail missing from your observations about intelligent design:

Proof.

There just isn't any. But, you and the rest of the ID crowd are never at a loss for making observations and concluding things from those observations without bothering to actually test the observations to determine their validity.

Testing would require work. Far easier to just propound conclusions, and hope that the masses will just come along for the ride.

For you, the Earth will always be flat, because you won't do the work necessary to travel to the edge and thereby discover that the edge of the abyss was only in your imagination.

 

[FanOfFridays]

qute from kjkent1Well, it's because, as Judge Jones pointed out, there's one little detail missing from your observations about intelligent design:

Proof.

There just isn't any. But, you and the rest of the ID crowd are never at a loss for making observations and concluding things from those observations without bothering to actually test the observations to determine their validity.

Testing would require work. Far easier to just propound conclusions, and hope that the masses will just come along for the ride.

That's what I was trying to say, but to every point I made, he had a response which was kind of related, but not really. I asked him specifically

"which scientic method are you applying to which naturally occurring phenomenon?"

Here is his answer

"Simple observation of change and consistency in the workings of nature, and the naturally following ability to predict future behavior on that basis".

?????

Actually, now that I think of it, you're description of what he is doing is spot on! Making observations and then pretending that you can make scientific conclusions from those observations without the encumbrance of proof, testing, validation, attempts to disprove., etc. It's all internally self-consistent, but has no relation to the real world.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

I see you have made me the topic.

How "revelatory."

No. The topic is the claims you have made, and the debating of those claims. You don't see that? What a waste of typing if you don't!!

My questions to you are unanswered. We understand that we shouldn't hold our breaths for an answer.

 

[MaxDrawdown]

Intelligent Design does not lend itself to being scientific because it can never be disproven. The hallmark of science is the belief that nothing can be proven. You can come up with a theory/law that is reaffirmed a million times with experiments and it will never be proven right. However, just one counter-example can prove it wrong!

So no, I don't believe ID belongs in schools.

However, I do agree with Z in that I don't like the way evolution/sciences are taught. I don't think people have enough appreciation for how little we actually know and how often we are wrong. Science is not a destination, it's path that is supposed to lead us down many wrong-turns and dead-ends. I think this element of science is too often left out of the classroom.

Anyone who believes that science leaves no room for God, or vice versa, understands neither.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

For me the earth has always been round, and around, and around....

I don't know why you so often have to make it personal....

Aging and Death in E. coli

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030058

Published: February 1, 2005

Copyright: © 2005 Public Library of Science. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Citation: (2005) Aging and Death in E. coli. PLoS Biol 3(2): e58

As human beings, aging and death are an inevitable part of our lives. As we pass through each decade, the concrete signs of aging—greying hair, aches and pains, the gradual failure of one organ system after another—and the realization that we are mortal increasingly occupies our thoughts.

All other multicellular animals and plants also show clear signs of aging, as do some single-celled organisms. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast), for example, the function of individual cells gradually declines with time, and each yeast cell has a finite life span. In organisms like this, it has been proposed that reproduction by asymmetric division is a prerequisite for aging. In other words, for a unicellular organism to age, when it divides, it must give rise to a “parent” cell and a smaller offspring cell (as in yeast), which then has to go through a juvenile phase of growth or differentiation before it divides. At each cell division, the parent cell becomes older until it reaches its natural life span and dies.
A growing microcolony of E. coli

But what about organisms that produce two apparently identical cells when they divide? Do such organisms age? The assumption has been for some years that cells that divide symmetrically do not age and are functionally immortal. Eric Stewart and colleagues have now tested this idea by analyzing repeated cycles of reproduction in Escherichia coli, a bacteria that reproduces without a juvenile phase and with an apparently symmetric division.

E. coli is a rod-shaped organism that reproduces by dividing in the middle. Each resultant cell inherits an old end or pole and a new pole, which is made during the division. The new and the old pole contain slightly different components, so although they look the same, they are physiologically asymmetrical. At the next division, one cell inherits the old pole again (plus a brand new pole), while the other cell inherits, a not-quite-so-old pole and a new pole. Thus, Stewart and co-workers reasoned, an age in divisions can be assigned to each pole and hence to each cell.

The researchers used automated time-lapse microscopy to follow all the cell divisions in 94 colonies, each grown from a single fluorescently labeled E. coli cell. In all, the researchers built up a lineage for 35,049 cells in terms of which pole—old or new—each cell had inherited at each division during its history. They found that the cells inheriting old poles had a reduced growth rate, decreased rate of offspring formation, and increased risk of dying compared with the cells inheriting new poles. Thus, although the cells produced when E. coli divide look identical, they are functionally asymmetric, and the “old pole” cell is effectively an aging parent repeatedly producing rejuvenated offspring.

Stewart and his colleagues conclude that no life strategy is immune to the effects of aging and suggest that this may be because immortality is too costly or is mechanistically impossible. This may be bad news for people who had hoped that advances in science might eventually lead to human immortality. Nevertheless, E. coli should now provide an excellent genetic platform for the study of the fundamental mechanisms of cellular aging and so could provide information that might ameliorate some of the unpleasantness of the human aging process.

Quote from kjkent1:
kjkent1


Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1567


12-22-05 07:26 AM

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

Pick any species, and I can predict what the life span will be within a reasonable time frame barring external damage to the organism by the environment.

OK: "E-Coli."

This ability to predict lifespan is the indication of order, not chaos.

You present no proof with which to support this conclusion (lots of untested observations, but no proof).


I predict that human beings will not evolve into another species ever, they will forever be human beings, living a lifespan within a relatively narrow and predictable time frame. They may grown into their full human potential, but that full human potential is not a new species.

Move over Nostradamus, there's a new prophet in town!

Natural law is ID, most people just are too afraid of God and what that means in their lives to accept the simple truth of it.

I honestly don't understand why so many people here at ET make is so difficult.

Well, it's because, as Judge Jones pointed out, there's one little detail missing from your observations about intelligent design:

Proof.

There just isn't any. But, you and the rest of the ID crowd are never at a loss for making observations and concluding things from those observations without bothering to actually test the observations to determine their validity.

Testing would require work. Far easier to just propound conclusions, and hope that the masses will just come along for the ride.

For you, the Earth will always be flat, because you won't do the work necessary to travel to the edge and thereby discover that the edge of the abyss was only in your imagination.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:


Stewart and his colleagues conclude that no life strategy is immune to the effects of aging and suggest that this may be because immortality is too costly or is mechanistically impossible. This may be bad news for people who had hoped that advances in science might eventually lead to human immortality. Nevertheless, E. coli should now provide an excellent genetic platform for the study of the fundamental mechanisms of cellular aging and so could provide information that might ameliorate some of the unpleasantness of the human aging process. [/B]

???

Why did you post this? What does it have to do with this discussion?

Try reviewing the thead. No ones has suggested that biological entities can or will achieve immortality.

Very confusing...

I notice that the article does support my argument, though, in the sense that it mentions the fact that genetic technologies could have an impact upon human ageing. Normally I would cite an article or two, but let's see if you care enough about the dialectical process to find them yourself. After all, you are in the minority here - the majority of respondents are challenging your views. You are obviously competent at doing Google searches. You can also try scholar.google.com.

If you choose not to educate yourself about the arguments coming from the other side, then what are we left with?

That's right. Faith-based belief.

PS - Doesn't the Bible say that Noah was 847 years old?

 

[kjkent1]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

For me the earth has always been round, and around, and around....

I don't know why you so often have to make it personal....

Aging and Death in E. coli

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030058

Published: February 1, 2005

Citation: (2005) Aging and Death in E. coli. PLoS Biol 3(2): e58

(clip)

LOL! This is a historic moment. You did RESEARCH! And, really interesting research, at that! Congratulations! I commend you on actually attempting to learn something new, and provide the information to others.

I suggest that (1) your research doesn't support your original claim, i.e., your predictive capabilities with regard to biological aging, and (2) proof that single-celled organisms age is not proof of intelligent design, but rather is merely proof that entropy exists even in such organisms.

You still have no scientific evidence of the existence of an intelligent designer. You have made a rather loose observation that the fact that all lifeforms apparently age, indicates design rather than evolution.

But, why is it any more a function of design that organisms age, vis-a-vis that they do not? Why isn't aging a demonstration of an imperfect design, from a designer widely believed to be incapable of fault?

Perhaps your evidence provides greater weight to the argument in favor of evolution, with all of its accidental magic, than it does any intelligent designer's wizardry.

After all, don't we as God's favorite creation attempt to generally design things to be as long lasting as possible? Why wouldn't God do similarly. Thus, built-in obsolescence is as likely a product of chance as it is design.

In summary, your research and your postulate does not favor either side of the argument.

However, it's certainly interesting information and I do thank you for your work.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from kjkent1:

But, why is it any more a function of design that organisms age, vis-a-vis that they do not? Why isn't aging a demonstration of an imperfect design, from a designer widely believed to be incapable of fault?

Perhaps your evidence provides greater weight to the argument in favor of evolution, with all of its accidental magic, than it does any intelligent designer's wizardry.

Well said. The whole thing seems rather arbitrary to me too. But this is the point - it's a matter of faith, and not based on any objective condition or premise.

I guarantee you - the response will be something like this.

"I don't think that's a valid question. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"