Two challenges for KL – (fossil) Lucy’s defender

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 3, 2011

Human evolution}

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A most interesting discussion has got started here at “But ‘Lucy’ herself is mostly an artifact”. Commenter KL got it going, I suspect, by observing that

I certainly don’t consider you hicks. However, my spouse and associates are primate researchers, physical anthropologists, geologists and archeologists. It’s strange to come here and see their work dismissed as a just so story. Some of them have been in the field extensively and have published many, many papers. Are you guys saying that somehow all these people are simply mistaken?

Yes, it is quite possible.

My question is, is there anything fronted by “evolution researchers” that KL wouldn’t believe? How about the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution? Or Marc “Well, the monkeys talk to me!” Hauser? How about any single item on this list? Is there nothing that KL would even wonder about? Does he know that E. O. Wilson has retracted his own kin selection theory?

Two things: The public of a free society is not stupid. When we see a parade of amazing nonsense – marketed as evolution – we wisely don’t believe any of it. I don’t bother sorting through it for the same reason as I don’t scan the tabloids to see if anything in them is true.

It is no use berating us, let alone blaming us for low science scores. Revisit your strategy.

And second, would KL be willing to read The Nature of Nature, to understand what the controversy is really about? Then we could have a serious discussion.

(Note: KL has a spouse and associates in primate research, and I have a number of relatives and friends in medicine. That does not commit me to any particular theory, no matter how widely espoused, and a good thing too: Look how much medicine has changed. )

Comments

Sonfaro, Thanks for stepping in and sharing a useful thought or two. Observe how JR has again resorted to Sagan's classic hyperskeptical evidentialist blunder, as though it has not been repeatedly exposed and long since corrected:
extraordinary [to me -- but am I being simply closed minded and question-begging at worldviews level?] claims require ~~extraordinary~~ [adequate] evidence . . .
Nowhere above do we see serious evidence that JR has actually engaged evidence in a way that understands that one must be consistent in standards of warrant. Similarly, she again cries out that I am not saying anything on Lucy specifically, when I have taken a fair piece of time to show my particular concerns on ape men fossils and the claim that humans came from apes. Until the evo mat blind watchmaker paradigm can explain coherently and on empirical observation, the dynamics and stages of the emergence of mind and language, its advocates have not got a leg to stand on. The ape man reconstructions then become little more than "images made to look like men, birds, beasts and reptiles" and surrounded by just so stories that are plausible in the main because we have been conditioned to think in a materialistic circle that is imposed on science. As has been abundantly documented, and never seriously addressed. Compare my comment today at 197, for instance, and the earlier one overnight where I gave links to further reading. As for the geochronological timeline, I have long since linked my reasons for my doubts about the whole scheme, which pivots on the self same problem of the materialistic circle of reasoning, a circle that often maintains public consistency by the assumption that the discordant results are errors and must be tossed. There is a serious want of truly independent tests, and that obtains across the whole spectrum o methods. I am not saying toss the lot out, but instead use with caution, and recognise the gap between a plausible to us model of a past we did not observe, and cannot observe, and the reality of whatever actual past was there. Hence my agnosticism: a claim that our models do not amount to knowledge, but instead are speculative and often based on circles of reasoning. I find it almost amusing, but then quite sad, to see someone who looks at solid historical evidence from multiple sources and abundant archaeological confirmation and wants to dismiss on "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence," but then turns around and cannot see that there are far more serious difficulties in the things she wants to take as -- I was going to say, "gospel." Classic selective hyperskepticism. I need hardly comment on the increasing blatant uncivil behaviour, distractions, distortions, denigrations and slanders. Sad, but telling. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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F/N: Onlookers, one of the points where I am being accused of dishonesty above is on the problem of ancient historical chronology, where I pointed out that once we go beyond about 1,000 - 2,000 things get fuzzy, and that in that window, things are getting fuzzy too. I simply draw your attention to this discussion, to give you a beginning of a feel for why I take that view. Things are simply not neat and clean when it comes to dating ancient history, starting with the pivotal Egyptian chronology. Yes, we can construct timelines and make correlations, but we must be aware that things are not so neat and clean as a timeline may suggest; I suggest a grain of salt or two once we go past 1,000 BC, and more caution when we pass 2,000; of course when we have a plausible argument for an astronomical correlation, that is a help, but the correlation between king lists or the like and astronomical events is not always so easy. When we go beyond the point where there are records at all -- into the deep past of origins, things get much more challenging. Hence my cautions on timelines here, in the context of a survey of origins science done right -- and the implications of the finetuning that comes out. GEM of TKI PS: Debates on Bible difficulties and skeptical Sunday School ticklers etc are utterly tangential to the focus of the blog as a whole, much less this thread. Above, in response to a series of accusations, I pointed to the scientific case for design, the implications of finetuning and contingency for origins of our observed cosmos, which warrant a genric theism on inference to best explanation; then also I linked on the core historical warrant for Christian faith, which was turned into an occasion to try to raise such distractions. There are sites enough and references enough to address the sort of questions raised, if one is serious instead of simply raising village atheist/skeptic level debate points that exploit the ignorance of those who do not know the answers; unfortunately a stock in trade of the new atheists -- and BTW, part of the reason for another work in progress course, cf mod 2 here. (I will not follow the tangents in this blog -- notice, how JR, KL etc consistently seek to distract and distract then slander instead of answering to the sort of issues that point to the gaping holes in the evo mat account of origins -- but I will point to the Blue Letter Bible and suggest Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, for the serious inquirer.) PPS: And as for the taunt that I do not publish in the academic research literature [to which I have pointedly said I have no interest, with a particular emphasis on the evo mat censored trade rags and popularising magazines], my considered opinion is that it is far more strategic for me to develop a critical overview survey with a corrective educational emphasis. The hostility, namecalling and evasiveness above suggest that that is a correct judgement.kairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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Sonfaro,
Quite a bit of history at this point was written ‘well after the facts’. Doesn’t stop us from acknowledging they probably happened.
Sure, but incredible claims require incredible evidence.
Besides, the gospels were only a generation removed, if that… it’s not like there was a million years worth of difference.
All I'm saying is that if we consider the evidence for the age of the earth and if Jesus walked on water, there's alot more evidence for the age of the earth. Yet KF cannot form an opinion on the age of the earth but cannot articulate a single reason why not apart from the vaguest of vague generalities and demands that I explain consciousness. Yet he'll accept unquestioningly that water was walked on and will wonder at your sanity for pointing this inbalance of evidence out.
I mean we’ve got Josepheus and friends confirming the dude was around… unless you’re suggesting we can’t believe those either. Which would just play into KF’s accusation of you being hyperskeptical.
See, mutiple lines of evidence pointing to the same thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience There are multiple independent lines of evidence that all independently point to a single age of the earth. One that they all agree on within the limitations of each particular method. Check it out if you don't believe me! And yet despite those multiple independent streams of evidence KF cannot form an opinion on the age of the earth. What would it take to convince him one has to wonder?
Either way, that’s an issue of biblical inerrancy, which only affects super literalists, not the faith on the whole.
Good for faith on the whole. But it illustrates my point that you've no way of knowing the actual name hence the arguments from people of faith all over the world. The difference with science is that you can come to an agreement and move on, using what you agreed on as the foundation for the next step. Standing on he shoulders of giants. nanos gigantium humeris insidentes And my point is only that by dismissing as wrong the life's work of a group of people whose arguments and evidence he does not even comprehend he deserves to be shown up to be an empty suit, all mockery but no substance. If you were able to replace it all at a single sweep with a new paradigm, one that would instantly be more productive then fine, such arrogance would be par for the course. But to have nothing but an empty shell of a website and some made up terminology to replace such a deep and wide body of work with? Delusional. KF does not understand the scope of nor appreciate the level of detail built up over decades which is present in the fields he dismisses out of hand. And yet he accepts evidence of a objectively much poorer nature as the foundation of his religious belief system. I've got no problem with people choosing to be religious, for whatever reason. I've got a problem with people who hide behind their religion when asked to defend their scientific claims. I've got a problem with people who claim to know better then entire groups of professionals when he can't even answer the simplest questions about the subject at hand. People who justify the moderation of the comments from the person this thread was supposed to allow to defend their viewpoint I have a problem with. Explain Lucy KF. Tell me something about Lucy that only common design would predict. Tell me something about Lucy that only ID would be able to determine. Mr Chatty-Chatt be force ripe, or fasse, zeen? Mout-a-massy plenty.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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Hey JemimaRacktouey, Don't wanna defend my faith in this thread too much, but some of your problems and what not kinda come of as general youtube atheist stuff: kinda funny, but generally baseless. Eh, sorry, that's a little harsh. What I mean is, I don't think it's quite the nail in the coffin you think it is. You say: -"On the other hand your religious beliefs are much more supported. I mean, a compilation of ancient texts describing events that may (or may not) have occurred over two thousand and more years ago. That these documents were written well after the facts they describe, have no empirical support and are full of discrepancies apparently does not matter so much to you." 1.) Quite a bit of history at this point was written 'well after the facts'. Doesn't stop us from acknowledging they probably happened. Besides, the gospels were only a generation removed, if that... it's not like there was a million years worth of difference. 2.) Have 'no' empirical support? I mean we've got Josepheus and friends confirming the dude was around... unless you're suggesting we can't believe those either. Which would just play into KF's accusation of you being hyperskeptical. Besides that, the 'no' part of that is too strong regardless. Maybe not 'enough' for you to believe? 3.)Eh... Full of discrepancies? Most of the ones I know of really aren't that big a deal. I can point you to an apologist site that deals with most if you want... though I'm guessing you'd just roll your eyes. :-( -"What was the name of Josephs (husband of Mary) father?" Probably Jacob. Lukes lineage is usually thought of as Mary's side of the fam from my side of the faith (Missionary Baptist) though I'm sure people all over would argue it. Either way, that's an issue of biblical inerrancy, which only affects super literalists, not the faith on the whole. Just my two cents. Hope all is well with you. - SonfaroSonfaro_{April 9, 2011
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Onlookers: I am now finished with Ms Jemima Racktouey, who has now definitively crossed over into the realm of the uncivil closed minded propagandist, not a serious participant in serous dialogue. (For just one point, has she in her fulminations above shown a single sign of having read much less bothered to reflect on say this discussion of the minimal facts relevant to the credibility of the NT documents, which was previously linked? Much less, soundly addressing the harder to deal with matters of origins science that are about things that go beyond the era of historical record? Much less basic matters of warrant on first principles of right reason and onward evaluation of worldview options on comparative difficulties?) Sadly, instead, she has repeatedly and stubbornly shown herself utterly uninterested in discussion on the merits or in the truth or in fairness, only in distracting, distorting, tagging and slandering. While clothing her ideological agenda in the holy lab coat. We would therefore do well to heed the warning about evolutionary materialism-indoctrinated zealots and factionalists given by Plato in The Laws Bk X, 2350 years ago; she has plainly shown herself to be an example of such: _____________ >> [[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . . >> _______________ We have been warned. We would be wise to heed such a warning, bought at a dear price indeed. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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F/N: Onlookers, if you are interested in a specifically creationist critique of Lucy, you can go here and have fun. My critique -- summarised below -- is far more fundamental and differently based than that:
1: the dominant feature of the fossil record, on the conventional timeline, is that of sudden appearances, stasis and disappearances or continuity into the modern world, with the Cambrian life revolution as exhibit no 1, and with the sad state of OOL research not far behind. Or, maybe in front -- there is no credible root to the commonly promoted iconic darwinian tree of life. And since the only empirically warranted explanation for the FSCO/I and IC involved in a metabolic entity with an integral von Neumann self replicator on coded algorithmic representation is design, we have no need to be trying to impose a blind watchmaker straightjacket on science beyond that point. Worse, the only reasonable explanation for the cosmos that is contingent and fine tuned for C-chemistry cell based intelligent life is design, rooted in a necessary being with the power, knowledge skill and intent to produce such a cosmos. 2: this pattern of evo mat gaps where it counts is consistent with the issues of irreducible complexity and with the challenge of searching config spaces to get to create FSCO/I as strong pointers to the need to stop censoring design on origins. Unanswered and largely brushed aside by the evo mat advocates. 3: In the case of our own origin, two key features of our body plan are that we are conscious minded embodied creatures and we are physically equipped to use language. This is an utterly unanswered challenge for evo mat views and claims. 4: On a rough cut orders of magnitude calculation, we are going to need to account for probably millions of base pairs worth of genetic and regulatory information and networks of organisation to give it effect, to account for the difference between us and a chimp or similar ancestral animal. 5: This is vastly, orders of magnitude beyond the plausible limits -- 1,000 bits or 500 base pairs [1.07*10^301 possible configs] is a useful yardstick -- of blind watchmaker search strategies in genome etc space. 6: the only empirically warranted source of such FSCO/I is design. Indeed, on a considerable body of evidence and reasonable induction, as well as the infinite monkeys analysis, we have every epistemic right to hold that -- absent a specific credible counter example -- that FSCO/I is an empirically reliable sign of design. 7: this is being resisted, not because it is a weak induction, but because it cuts across a dominant worldview imposition that currently censors origins science, Sagan-Lewontin a priori materialism seen as the defining essence of science and rationality. 8: So, we need to expose the thought police hiding in lab coats and bluffing on the extent to which they have successfully answered the actual evidence. 9: And given the ways that reconstructions of alleged ape-man ancestors across time have turned into repeated failures, we have very good reason to view such icons and their proposed dates with high skepticism. 10: Not on religiously motivated denialism, but on want of adequate evidence and explanation of salient facts and phenomena. Starting with the origin of conscious, minded life that has credible bases for knowledge, rationality and morality, as well as accounting for the origin of our ability to communicate using verbal, propositional, conceptual, symbolic language. 11: What of Lucy, the notorious icon? S/he fits into this general critique. Absent a cogent answer to the general questions as posed, it is simply yet another exaggerated report of basically a partly bipedal ape with a relatively small brain compared to that of humans, and with no significant much less pivotal clues for the origin of language on blind watchmaker thesis type evolutionary accounts. 12: We would do well then to heed the warning of Hooton, given in 1946 (and as linked already but predictably ignored):
Put not your faith in reconstructions. Some anatomists model reconstructions of fossil skulls by building up the soft parts of the head and face upon a skull cast and thus produce a bust purporting to represent the appearance of the fossil man in life. When, however, we recall the fragmentary condition of most of the skulls, the faces usually being missing, we can readily see that even the reconstruction of the facial skeleton leaves room for a good deal of doubt as to details. To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can, with equal facility, model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public. [[Earnest Albert Hooton, Up from the Ape (NY: Macmillan, 1946), p. 329.]
13: Observe how I immediately followed up:
So long as [[Neo-]Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory lacks an empirically credible, tested and well-supported explanation of the origin and validity of human intelligence, language and associated reasoning powers, the very need to use these same human faculties to propose, discuss and analyse a theory that should but cannot account for them, turns every presentation of (or argument for) the theory into an unintended but eloquent illustration of the major and un-answered weaknesses of the theory.
Look above and in earlier threads to see if you find anywhere the faintest trace of a serious response to that challenge. It is not there, and no prizes for guessing why. So, all the evo mat bluster and hugging and puffing above is in vain. the empress is dressed in rags, not a robe of exquisite design. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
On evidence, I hold that we do not know enough to safely more than rather approximately date anything of consequence on earth beyond about 1,000 – 2,000 BC — the odd astronomical date is the exception not the rule — without injecting increasingly implausible hypotheses.
On the other hand your religious beliefs are much more supported. I mean, a compilation of ancient texts describing events that may (or may not) have occurred over two thousand and more years ago. That these documents were written well after the facts they describe, have no empirical support and are full of discrepancies apparently does not matter so much to you. After all, were you there? Yet somehow methods of dating that are accepted across the board and are well supported and which have proven themselves over and over cannot be trusted in any way shape or form. It seems that "selective hyper-skepticism" is alive and well, but it’s only being applied to certain things by you KF. Perhaps a more honest approach would pay dividends? A simple question KF which I hope will illustrate my point: What was the name of Josephs (husband of Mary) father? 'JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
On evidence, I hold that we do not know enough to safely more than rather approximately date anything of consequence on earth beyond about 1,000 – 2,000 BC — the odd astronomical date is the exception not the rule — without injecting increasingly implausible hypotheses. .
Citation please to one of these "implausible hypotheses" or withdraw the claim (the honest thing to do).JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
PS: Has it ever dawned on JR in her haste to distract from the gaping holes in the Empress’s new robes, and to smear and dismiss, that I have utterly no interest in the political games involved in jumping the hurdles and hoops to seek publication in the a priori materialism censored trade rags?
Then publish in the ID friendly journals. There are several and they seem to be desperate for content.
(And there is a snidely suggested false claim that there are no design theory publications that have broken through the censorship barriers imposed by NCSE and other busybody thought police, cf this growing list focssed on the biological side.)
So, to be clear, you won’t publish because the materialist trade rags will censor your viewpoint, but in the next sentence you provide a list of such published papers that have been published despite that censorship? Huh? Seems to me that you, deep down, know that your work is not of sufficient quality, depth, relevance or ability to publish it. Or you would. Simple as that. Gordo, why would you not jump at the chance of publishing in an ID friendly journal? The evo-mat censors have no control over those? Illogical.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF
Until you can show how Lucy’s bodyplan or the like, as imaginatively reconstructed can be transformed into a human being’s via chance plus necessity across 6 – 10 MY, accounting for rhe origin of relevant FSCI and answering the hard problem of conscieousness and the origin of language, we need not take your argument seriously.
“imaginatively reconstructed”? Again, the dismissal of the life’s work of many serious scientists as “imagination”. What have you ever contributed to science? Until you can show that FSCI actually exists, explain how to calculate it and show it calculated in more then a “back of the envelope” way then I don’t have to do any such thing. And you are asking me to answer the hard problem of consciousness and the origin of language before you’ll take my argument seriously or answer my questions, questions that you claim to have answers for? How very convenient. As you know I can’t do those things (nobody currently can, not ever you) then that’s an easy escape for you to avoid having to put a firm foundation of FSCI. Why does your ability to explain the points I'm asking about hinge on my ability to explain something totally unrelated? Seems like a trick you are using just to avoid having to say "I don't know". Tell me, how does ID explain consciousness? Let me guess, it was designed? How does ID explain the origin of language? It was designed?
Especially given the track record of fossil ape men reconstructions and the dominant feature of the fossil record: sudden appearance, stasis and disappearance or continuity to the modern world. Which precisely fits the ID theses of CSI and IC as key explaining points of reference.
It not only has to fit precisely it has to explain more then the current explanation. Just like how common descent and common design according to you are just as good explanations for the facts of the fossils. If common design does not explain more it’s irrelevant and just an invention with no relevance. When common design explains something that common descent cannot then it will be useful. Does it? Does the ID “thesis” explain Lucy specifically? No, of course not. And as far as sudden appearance, stasis and disappearance goes, your continued misrepresentation of Gould disgusts me. As a person professing to have a religious belief I’m surprised at your outright lies. Gould would have laughed in your face were to to misrepresent him in this way to him directly. And then explained why you were so very wrong.
Lucy so far as I can see was a somewhat bipedal ape
And this from a person who thinks they are qualified to dismiss the life’s work of primate researchers, physical anthropologists, geologists and archeologists? A compelling analysis of "Lucy" indeed! I guess you must have studied for a long time before coming up with that gem.
Now, you tell me why we should take the NG photopainting seriously, or the claim that on chance variations plus natural selection the FSCO/I to transform her into us — based on empirical observational data — has been accounted for.
FSCI/I is something that you made up. So nobody has any interest in doing what you ask here. And that suits you as you get to continue to claim that because nobody has explained how the quantity you made up came to be it must have been designed in. And even if somebody had such an interest it's so ill defined that it's impossible to calculate. Even you admit that with your "back of an envelope" calculation, but you still insist that this ill-defined quality must be explained before you'll accept that the designer didn't do it. And even then you'd not change your mind.
EVO MAT BLUFF CALLED . . .
Hardly. Get your thoughts on FSCO/I written up, published and if you’ve shown that “Lucy” could not have turned into us then that’s called science. Right now it’s not.
JR wants to push me into a 6 – 10,000 year old earth creationist pigeonhole.
Hmm, doubts that dating methods are accurate. Thinks there was some sort of flood that created the fossils we see. Refuses to come out and say how old the earth is. Refuses to say specifically what the problems with the dating methods that everybody else accepts are, but rejects them anyway.
I have to be direct: SLY SLANDERER!
Just the hard truth you’ve probably been hiding from yourself, creationist. Let's face it, if you can't accept mainstream science regarding dating methods then I'm surprised you trust your computer to behave in the way it's supposed to behave. If our understanding of dating methods (and the associated physics) is so wrong it would have been impossible for the computer to have been invented at all. Yet it has, and here we are. You are sitting in front of a machine that proves that our understanding of the relevant physics is well grounded and yet you refuse to believe that the age of the earth can be calculated with any accuracy whatsoever using that very same understanding of physics.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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PPS: Has it ever dawned on JR in her haste to distract from the gaping holes in the Empress's new robes, and to smear and dismiss, that I have utterly no interest in the political games involved in jumping the hurdles and hoops to seek publication in the a priori materialism censored trade rags? (And there is a snidely suggested false claim that there are no design theory publications that have broken through the censorship barriers imposed by NCSE and other busybody thought police, cf this growing list focssed on the biological side.)kairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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KF
On evidence, I hold that we do not know enough to safely more than rather approximately date anything of consequence on earth beyond about 1,000 – 2,000 BC — the odd astronomical date is the exception not the rule — without injecting increasingly implausible hypotheses.
Yet radiocarbon dating alone extends to 45,000 years into the past! Care to explain why *nothing* can be dated beyond 2000BC then? What is the specific problem? Perhaps you think that radioactive decay rates were different in the past? Is that it? Or did you just read it on a AIG website and that's that?
Indeed, even within that window, things get fuzzier as we go in deeper. Or, have you not seen Rohl’s recent challenges to Egyptian chronology and the can of worms they opened up?
Were you there?
So, your attempt to subtly cast the pall on me of a priori presumptions on religious texts, is a baltantly willful smear and distraction form teh unanswered challenges to the evo mat scheme of the past and a priori censoring impositions on science, not a serious argument.
Onlookers can view the evidence for themselves, in your always linked. Your mixture of religion and science in support of religion is plain to see.
For just one instance, for all the huffing and puffing on having the answers for human origins, can you kindly provide an answer to the hard question of consiousness and the origin of language on evo mat terms?
I’ll do that after you’ve explained “Lucy”.
specially when, it is beyond reasonable doubt — onlookers, reread the Lewointin statement and keep on going through what NAS and NSTA have to say — that a priori evolutionary materialism has been imposed on origins science in the major institutions, and is exerting undue influence on theories, models and other explanatory contructs.
We’ve been through that. Allowing miracles as an explanation makes a mockery of science. Hence your quotemine. And you just said a moment ago that my attempt to subtly cast the pall on me of a priori presumptions on religious texts, is a baltantly willful smear yet you want to introduce miracles into science as an explanation! Don’t you see the irony here?
Now, JR: why then are you so eager to tag me as a “Creationist”?
I follow the evidence where it leads. You link to AIG. You refuse to state your position on the age of the earth. You think that radioactive decay rates were different in the past (hence radioactive decay forms of dating are all invalid). All adds up to a creationist who knows that if they come out and say what they really think their “science” will also be dismissed. A very fine line to walk, and I’m calling you out.
I am sorry, that sort of rhetoric is a PERSONAL ATTACK (one that ducks abundant issues on the evidence and merits of fact, logic and inference to best warranted explanation), and is utterly uncivil.
All rational people think that AIG’s arguments are baseless. Except you.
You have a lot of ‘splainin and ‘pologisin to do, madam.
After you’ve explained “Lucy” perhaps we’ll get to that.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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JR: Until you can show how Lucy's bodyplan or the like, as imaginatively reconstructed can be transformed into a human being's via chance plus necessity across 6 - 10 MY, accounting for rhe origin of relevant FSCI and answering the hard problem of conscieousness and the origin of language, we need not take your argument seriously. Especially given the track record of fossil ape men reconstructions and the dominant feature of the fossil record: sudden appearance, stasis and disappearance or continuity to the modern world. Which precisely fits the ID theses of CSI and IC as key explaining points of reference. Lucy so far as I can see was a somewhat bipedal ape. Now, you tell me why we should take the NG photopainting seriously, or the claim that on chance variations plus natural selection the FSCO/I to transform her into us -- based on empirical observational data -- has been accounted for. EVO MAT BLUFF CALLED . . . GEM of TKI PS: Onlookers, observe too how, predictably, in the teeth of specific remarks on the cosmological evidence and an explicit declaration of geochronological agnosticism on serious doubts about tools, techniques and observations, JR wants to push me into a 6 - 10,000 year old earth creationist pigeonhole. I have to be direct: SLY SLANDERER!kairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
It is worth pausing to discuss varves, so that we can see why there is good reason to create a school of geochronological agnosticism, to replace falsely confident declarations of knowing the deep unobserved, unobservable past.
Please do so.
If one goes to the usual first references, one will see that varves are DEFINED and presented to us, by the august collective authority of the experts, as though they were known to be annual somewhat cyclical deposits of lakes or the like, potentially going across hundreds or more thousands of years.
How do you explain their existence then?
In fact, all that we actually observe are banded deposits forming micro-strata. There are no observations or credible records of a continual, stable pattern of dynamics that allow us to extrapolate to the deep and unobserved past with confidence.
How do you explain their existence then?
And in fact, shocker: varves were apparently used to calibrate C14 dates, so we see stratigraphy intruding circularity into the C14 radiodating that was supposedly independent and “absolute.”
Citation please.
Sort of like how index fossils premised on the assumption of evolution keep on cropping up in most inconvenient dating contexts (and in the case of KNM-ER 1470 determining the date over the various radioactive methods).
Citation please.
Notice that: “too uncertain” for use on a long-term timescale.
Nonetheless the formation of varves is understood well enough to draw many conclusions.
Would you have got that impression from JR’s bland statement on a million years worth of varves? Of course not.
How many years worth are there then in the example I gave?
Nor, would you know that there are questions about diurnal tidal cycles or that the sort of assumed steady state above is seriously prone to disturbance.
Yes, indeed. Anybody who cares to do more then a moments research would find such out. But the point you have to explain is given all that how do you get the formations that we see today and what is the minimum time for it to form?
So, again, we come to the usual circularities, the lack of independent cross-checks and the like. So, while we may well put forth model timelines on varves and interwoven dating methods otherwise, we should realise that these are inescapably provisional and even tentative models of the past as we think it may have been, not realities.
Then you need to explain the facts (the varves) better then current explanations. And your “usual circularities” are just creationist talking points. Your claim of lack of independent cross-checks and the like is simply not true. The evidence is clear.
And, as I pointed out already, there is no well founded theory of solar system formation that would allow us to be confident that we know how a solar system such as ours formed.
But you know how the solar system formed remember? It was designed!
The recent observations on extrasolar planets and their highly variable orbital patterns tell us that we just do not know enough to speculate too strongly, on top of the problems of angular momentum distribution in our solar system. (Angular momentum conservation — though not as headlined as its kissing cousin, energy conservation — is a major conservation law in science.)
Ah, yes, if the earth was millions of years old then the moon would have crashed into it. Or something. What’s your point? Nobody is speculating on this, they are making conclusions from facts. You are welcome to do the same.
(That is part of why the IOSE starts with these issues as an example of origins science done right.)
Publish or perish.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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Clive,
There is no chemical process that creates the code to begin with. The code may determine a process after it is coded, but that’s not the question at hand.
In fact the question at hand is if primate researchers, physical anthropologists, geologists and archeologists are all wasting their lives because they have started from an invalid premise. What do you think? Have they wasted their lives Clive?JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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JR: I am a scientist, first and foremost, and what I have had to say on the design issue is driven by scientific not a priori worldview considerations. Per what Newton had to say long ago in Opticks, Query 31. Had you troubled to take a moment to seriously examine <a href = "http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2010/06/cosmology-and-timelines-of-world.html"the IOSE unit on cosmology and timelines -- origins science done right! -- you would see that my conclusions are driven by evidence on empirical data, not by citations from religious texts. (Just compare to say the sites for Answers in Genesis or Institute for Creation Research etc, to see the distinctly different flavour, frame of reasoning and focus.) I am sorry, but you are plainly indulging in the well-known uncivil rhetorical or propaganda tactic of a distractive, strawmannising slander, given that the specific point I raised -- with evidence and links -- was that geochronology is ill founded on evidence, lacking independent observational corroboration of the deep past on earth [in a context where we do not even have a good model for the origin of the solar system] and has in it worrying circularities, not that it contradicts religious texts. Observe, my specific contrast to the situation with certain key cosmological lines of evidence. Nor, do I infer from the serious defects in the methods of geochronology, that the earth is 6 - 10,000 years of age. Indeed, I have explicitly declared myself a geochronological agnostic. Again, let me further remind: I have much higher confidence in cosmological timeline analyses, but not absolute confidence. For we were not there, nor do we have generally accepted record in detail. On evidence, I hold that we do not know enough to safely more than rather approximately date anything of consequence on earth beyond about 1,000 - 2,000 BC -- the odd astronomical date is the exception not the rule -- without injecting increasingly implausible hypotheses. Indeed, even within that window, things get fuzzier as we go in deeper. Or, have you not seen Rohl's recent challenges to Egyptian chronology and the can of worms they opened up? So, your attempt to subtly cast the pall on me of a priori presumptions on religious texts, is a baltantly willful smear and distraction form teh unanswered challenges to the evo mat scheme of the past and a priori censoring impositions on science, not a serious argument. For just one instance, for all the huffing and puffing on having the answers for human origins, can you kindly provide an answer to the hard question of consiousness and the origin of language on evo mat terms? Especially when, it is beyond reasonable doubt -- onlookers, reread the Lewointin statement and keep on going through what NAS and NSTA have to say -- that a priori evolutionary materialism has been imposed on origins science in the major institutions, and is exerting undue influence on theories, models and other explanatory contructs. In short, you are guilty of the turnabout false accusation, a classic resort of the lowest sort of propagandists. I will not even name the main proponent of the tactic in recent times, beyond saying that his name should have been Schicklegruber. Now, I happen to be also a theist, with a foundational warrant for that theism as a worldview claim on inference to best explanation across competing alternatives being the issues that our observed cosmos is contingent as well as fine tuned for C-chemistry, cell based life and requires explanation on a necessary being with the knowledge, skill, purpose and ability to create such a world. On the finetuning half of that observation, I am among others, in the company of Sir Fred Hoyle [as has been explicitly cited], Nobel equivalent prize holding astrophsysicist. And lifelong atheist/agnostic, but he was honest about what evidence is and what it points to. I make no bones, he is one of my personal heroes of science. On the cosmological argument half, I am simply inferring from a credibly contingent cosmos we inhabit to an underlying necessary being, even as in former days, it was widely assumed that the wider observed universe was the necessary being that explained the contingent beings on our world. But, after the Hubble expansion and background radiation observations, that is no longer credible. I simply multiply the one line of evidence by the other -- an unquestionably scientific inference from fine tuning to design as best empirically warranted explanation -- to see that the best candidate for a necessary being is beyond the material world [matter is contingent, just cf E = m*c^2], and is of enormous power and knowledge, with design ability. That is IMHCO, more than enough to warrant theism, generic form. Indeed, the formerly leading philosophical atheist in the world, the late Antony Flew, agreed with my position on that; once the balance of evidence was decisively shifted by the design evidence on fine tuning etc. The difference between Flew's latterday Deism and my Christian theism [and notice, onlookers -- we are dealing with a strawmannising slanderer here: to this point I have used no religious texts to drive my conclusions . . . ], is that on the minimal historical facts of the NT texts -- here treated as simply prime C1 historical documents -- in the context of the past several hundred years of critical studies, I think the best explanation is that Jesus of Nazareth rose from death c 30 AD just outside Jerusalem, fulfilling astonishingly detailed prophecies in Isaiah 52 - 53, c 700 BC. Now, JR: why then are you so eager to tag me as a "Creationist"? The answer is plain and long since stated in the UD weak argument correctives:
5: Intelligent Design is “Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo” In fact, the two theories are radically different. Creationism moves forward: that is, it assumes, asserts or accepts something about God and what he has to say about origins; then interprets nature in that context. Intelligent design moves backward: that is, it observes something interesting in nature (complex, specified information) and then theorises and tests possible ways how that might have come to be. Creationism is faith-based; Intelligent Design is empirically-based. Each approach has a pedigree that goes back over two thousand years. We notice the “forward” approach in Tertullian, Augustine, Bonaventure, and Anselm. Augustine described it best with the phrase, “faith seeking understanding.” With these thinkers, the investigation was faith-based. By contrast, we discover the “backward” orientation in Aristotle, Aquinas, and Paley. Aristotle’s argument, which begins with “motion in nature” and reasons BACK to a “prime mover” — i.e. from effect to its “best” causal explanation — is obviously empirically based. To say then, that Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm (Creationism) is similar to Aristotle, Aquinas, Paley (ID) is equivalent to saying forward equals backward. What could be more illogical? 6] Since Intelligent Design Proponents Believe in a “Designer” or “Creator” They Can Be Called “Creationists” First, a basic fact: while many intelligent design proponents believe in a Creator (which is their world-view right), not all do. Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe. That is: to believe in intelligent design is not necessarily to believe in a transcendent creative being. However, what is rhetorically significant is the further fact that the term “creationist” is very often used today in a derogatory way. Traditionally, the word was used to describe the world view that God created the universe, a belief shared by many ID scientists, and even some ID critics. But now, that same term is too often used dishonestly in an attempt to associate intelligent design, an empirically-based methodology, with Creationism, a faith-based methodology. Some Darwinist advocates and some theistic evolutionists seem to feel that if they can tag ID with the “Creationist” label often enough and thus keep the focus away from science–if they can create the false impression that ID allows religious bias to “leak” into its methodology–if they can characterize it as a religious presupposition rather than a design inference –then the press and the public will eventually come to believe that ID is not really science at all. In short, anti-ID ideologues use the word “creationist” to distract from a scientific debate that they cannot win on the merits. The only real question is whether someone who uses this dubious strategy is doing so out of ignorance (having been taken in by it, too) or out of malice.
I am sorry, that sort of rhetoric is a PERSONAL ATTACK (one that ducks abundant issues on the evidence and merits of fact, logic and inference to best warranted explanation), and is utterly uncivil. You have a lot of 'splainin and 'pologisin to do, madam. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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KF
* how did the fish in the Green River sit there for millennia on the surface to be deposited on when alkalis or the like would most likely break up the proteins etc [in short, mass death and rapid, catastrophic deposition in a regional flood or the like is the best explanation for such, and that is true whether or not it is uncomfortably close to what YEC's are wont to say].
Mass Death? Rapid, catastrophic deposition in a global flood ( inferred from "or the like"). Yes indeed. Creationist for sure. Tell me plainly KF: A) Given the available evidence how old do you think the earth is? B) Was there or was there not a global flood like the one described in the bible. I realize that on A) you claim not to have an opinion, but I'm asking you to say what the evidence supports best, not what your belief is regarding that evidence. So given the evidence, what is best supported? A YEC 6000 year old earth or a much much older one?JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF
Can you kindly provide a case where a symbolic code was created in our observation by unintelligent forces tracing to chance and mechanical necessity?
Can you kindly provide a case where the human genome was created in our observation by an intelligent force? No? And as I’ve said over and over again if your code is really “symbolic” then it stores meaning. If that meaning is something other then “this structure in, this structure out” then you should be able to tell me what it is.
All of these have only ever been observed to be the product of our now famous semiotic agents, aka designers.
Then presumably your designer was itself designed. And that designer designed. And so on.
That is, we see here an irreducibly complex set of core components that must all be present in a properly organised fashion for a successful self-replicating machine to exist. [[Take just one core part out, and self-replicating functionality ceases: the self-replicating machine is irreducibly complex (IC).]
Therefore ID? No, hardly.
All of this, had you been in the slightest degree interested to actually investigate seriously, was a click or two away.
As I’ve noted already, your personal webpage is not science. It’s opinion. Support your opinions with evidence, experiment and actual work rather then typing words at it might become science.
Remember, onlookers: without this integrated, irreducibly complex system, we do not get TO cell based life.
Were you there?
All of these metaphysical speculations on RNA worlds and imaginary clay or autocatalytic life are just that, speculations without empirical observation that Newton warned us not to entertain in natural philosophy.
At least those “speculations” have some substance to them. Tens of thousands of words of substance supported by experiment. Your alternative is “it was designed.” Hardly competing on detail are you? http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/ool-www/program/ Please examine the contents on that link. Please tell me which of the talks are speculations without empirical observation? Perhaps Iron-Sulfur Enzyme Evolution? Or Metals, Sulfide and Phosphate Bring Wet Rocky Worlds to Life? What about Narrowing the Gap between Hadean and Abiotic Earth by Catalytic Processes on Iron-Sulfur Mineral Surfaces and Particles? The fact is if ID had anything like the level of detail regarding the origin of life that just a single one of those presentations does you’d be crowing like you’d won Olympic gold. Yet you don’t have 0.0001% of that level of detail but remain sure 100% you are in the right. Bizzare.
In particular, symbolic codes are plainly classic artifacts of art not chance and necessity.
Plainly. So what do these symbols symbolise?
The answer is, that too many fields of science are now held ideological captive to a worldview agenda of evolutionary materialism that likes to wrap itself in the holy lab coat of science.
Yes, indeed. One thing that likes to wrap itself in the holy lab coat of science is creationism. Which is what your website attempts to do. Wrap up creationist in a crunchy scientific outer coating but inside is still irrational rejection of evidence.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF
All of this, had you been in the slightest degree interested to actually investigate seriously, was a click or two away. Remember, onlookers: without this integrated, irreducibly complex system, we do not get TO cell based life.
A click or two away on a personal webpage where the author has an obvious axe to grind. Why don't you take your strongest arguments and actually engage the scientific community with them? Your website is just that, a website. When you have tested the claims you make on it then perhaps it will have some weight, but right now it's just your opinion. When your specific claims have been evaluated by a panel of experts then perhaps it would be worth treating as a serious resource but until then how does anybody know that a claim you are making has any actual support at all? Get your work peer reviewed, if you dare, and perhaps that will advance ID. As it is you deflect specific questions to your "always linked" like it's some kind of definitive resource.
Onlookers, would you believe that a discussion on those topics was just one click away at all times, if all you had to go on was the remarks of JR and KL above?
Your "always linked" says nothing about "Lucy", the ostensible subject of this thread. You know that yet you still claim the answers are all there.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF
By utter contrast, the varves on a beach [etc] — and BTW we did not observe a million years: “were you there?” [If not, do not "darken counsel" by spewing forth falsely confident words on certitude without sound warrant on observation as a witness and/or tested, credible record . . . so, have the humility to acknowledge the limitations and circularities involved in your timeline models . . . ]
Just going back to this, did you know that the entire Green River varve formation was laid down in a huge lake bed during the Eocene (55-34 mya), leaving a 15-20 million year continuous record averaging about about 5.6 varves per mm. Just using that as the basis for the age of the earth alone give you a value of 15-20 million years. Tell me, do you have any doubt whatsoever about that? I know I was not there but you can see the data for yourself. You can count the layers! There is no way to explain such a formation in a 6000 year old earth.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
By utter contrast, the varves on a beach [etc] — and BTW we did not observe a million years
Ah yes, the cry of the YEC. “But were you there???” No, we have not observed a million years. We’ve not observed continental drift either in any significant way but we’re really rather sure that it happens. If we were to apply “were you there” to your claims they fall apart. Where *you* there when the bacterial flagellum was designed? Were *you* there at the origin of life?
[If not, do not "darken counsel" by spewing forth falsely confident words on certitude without sound warrant on observation as a witness and/or tested, credible record
Sounds like selective hyper-scepticism to me. There is a tested, credible record for the age of the earth. The fact that you don’t find it credible is neither here not there, what you have to do is explain why it’s invalid. And that you have not done. Your “always linked” complains a lot about the accepted age of the earth but you don’t every say specifically what component of the calculation is invalid. Without that it cannot be “corrected” and so what’s the point?
so, have the humility to acknowledge the limitations and circularities involved in your timeline models . . .
All models have their limitations. And by “circularities” you presumably mean dating the strata by the fossils and dating the fossils by the strata. Another standard creationist mis-representation.
are the result of a physical dynamic process of forces and materials; without symbolic representation as any component of the creation of the marks.
But were you there?
You INTERPRET the marks on the beach on various models of those dynamics, and in your case involving assumptions that you use to infer a timeline.
Assumptions that have been proven valid time and time again. Assumptions that have stood up to every attempt from people who believe the earth is an absurd 6000 years old, over and over and over again. That you refuse to believe such a consilient body of evidence is just yet more evidence of the fact that you only accept as true things which comport with your existing belief system and reject others with spurious claims “were you there???”.
Coded symbolic information does not emerge until it has been processed by the semiotic agent in the form of the judging, measuring, counting, calculating, recording and analysing observer.
Then such information has meaning independent of it’s encoding. What is that meaning please?
DNA is encoded, and when the tRNA “taxi” anticodon matches the codon sequence in the ribosome, the attached amino acid is on the opposite end of the tRNA. In turn the tRNA acts as a position-arm device with the AA loaded into the tool tip end. It is nudged to “click” into place in the emerging AA chain for a coded for protein.
The boundaries of the puddle are matched with an atomic precision to the exact irregularities of the solid surface it founds itself in. The odd molecule needs a “nudge” provided by Brownian motion to exactly fill the space but that’s soon done.
Sorry if that is a bit direct, but that is where you have now put yourself, in the company of a Barbara Forrest.
Company I’m proud to be in, creationist.
The very fact that you so stoutly resist plain and easily accessible facts of the working of DNA, is telling on the import of those facts. Especially, as regards the coded, functionally specific complex information involved.
Facts like those on the “always linked”? Creationist propaganda. Write a paper with your claims, submit it to a journal dealing with such issues and watch as it’s shredded like tissue paper by a kitten. When I've asked you before why you do not submit a formal paper to a relevant journal you've replied that it would not be published due to Darwinist pressure. Well KF there are now several ID friendly journals out there, I think the time has come to put your ability to write to good use - put a paper together and submit it to such an ID friendly journal and start to change what you perceive as wrong. If you have the facts and evidence on your side how can you fail?JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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JR: Kindly stop wrenching words and trying to divide the audience by creating perceived conflicts where there is not any real conflict. Can you kindly provide a case where a symbolic code was created in our observation by unintelligent forces tracing to chance and mechanical necessity? An algorithm? A data structure? A coded program that expresses and algorithm and uses data structures? The Wicken wiring diagram, functionally organised cluster of complex executing machinery that gives effect to such coded programs? All of these have only ever been observed to be the product of our now famous semiotic agents, aka designers. And, the matter gets more serious once we look at the fact that the living cell actually implements two integrated things, a metabolic entity with a self-replicating facility based on the von Neumann kinematic self-replicator: _________________ >> such a machine uses . . . (i) an underlying storable code to record the required information to create not only (a) the primary functional machine [[here, for a "clanking replicator" as illustrated, a Turing-type “universal computer”; in a cell this would be the metabolic entity that transforms environmental materials into required components etc.] but also (b) the self-replicating facility; and, that (c) can express step by step finite procedures for using the facility; (ii) a coded blueprint/tape record of such specifications and (explicit or implicit) instructions, together with (iii) a tape reader [[called “the constructor” by von Neumann] that reads and interprets the coded specifications and associated instructions; thus controlling: (iv) position-arm implementing machines with “tool tips” controlled by the tape reader and used to carry out the action-steps for the specified replication (including replication of the constructor itself); backed up by (v) either: (1) a pre-existing reservoir of required parts and energy sources, or (2) associated “metabolic” machines carrying out activities that as a part of their function, can provide required specific materials/parts and forms of energy for the replication facility, by using the generic resources in the surrounding environment. Also, parts (ii), (iii) and (iv) are each necessary for and together are jointly sufficient to implement a self-replicating machine with an integral von Neumann universal constructor. That is, we see here an irreducibly complex set of core components that must all be present in a properly organised fashion for a successful self-replicating machine to exist. [[Take just one core part out, and self-replicating functionality ceases: the self-replicating machine is irreducibly complex (IC).] >> __________________ All of this, had you been in the slightest degree interested to actually investigate seriously, was a click or two away. Remember, onlookers: without this integrated, irreducibly complex system, we do not get TO cell based life. So, organised, digitally coded, algorithmic information systems are foundational to the origin of the cell as we know it -- BTW, the ONLY observed biological life. All of these metaphysical speculations on RNA worlds and imaginary clay or autocatalytic life are just that, speculations without empirical observation that Newton warned us not to entertain in natural philosophy. Multiply by the implications of the large config spaces involved and the infinite monkeys analysis and we see that the only credible, inductively and analytically warranted explanation that is credible is that such an entity is designed. In particular, symbolic codes are plainly classic artifacts of art not chance and necessity. That is why JR was so desperate to conflate dynamically deposited varves -- and BTW, JR, note the asterisk* -- with symbolically organised and expressed coded statements or instructions. _____
* how did the fish in the Green River sit there for millennia on the surface to be deposited on when alkalis or the like would most likely break up the proteins etc [in short, mass death and rapid, catastrophic deposition in a regional flood or the like is the best explanation for such, and that is true whether or not it is uncomfortably close to what YEC's are wont to say].
Codes based on digital symbols are a classic artifact of mind at work. And of course even out ability to produce such codes as a capacity that is built into the human body plan, is deeply embedded with FSCO/I and is utterly unexplained on evolutionary materialist grounds, as inter alia I pointed out overnight in my set of notes and links from here at 165 on. Given that huge gap in evo mat explanation -- on a point where even to blandly brush it away you must use the linguistic ability -- why is there such a bluff and pretence that all major issues have been solved, just a little tidying up to do? The answer is, that too many fields of science are now held ideological captive to a worldview agenda of evolutionary materialism that likes to wrap itself in the holy lab coat of science. Sad. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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StephenB
God cannot, however, change the laws of reason because they are manifestations or extensions of his unchangeable essence of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Being, and Love. The principles of right reason are a reflection of God as Truth.
Your God can change the laws of reason, who are you to say otherwise?
No, God cannot violate his own essence of Truth and be changeable. The principles of right reason are not arbitrary.
Why? StephenB says so? Fact is you are making all of this up.
The principle of causality, by the way, is another component of these principles. If they were changeable, humans’ couldn’t think.
No, God is just leaving it alone right now. Perhaps it’ll change in the future. Or perhaps it already changed. You simply don’t know and have no way of finding out.
This, by the way, is why I almost never discuss advanced science with Darwinists.
Yes, no doubt your calculation of CSI for the four examples MathGrrl gave has left you exhausted.
What is the point of searching for causes with irrational people who think some events are uncaused?
That’s the very core of your position however, that there was an uncaused cause. Therefore you are irrational by your own logic.
A material physical thermometer is not the same as the immaterial measurement that it provides.
And yet that immaterial measurement cannot be made without a material thermometer. And the value for that immaterial measurement has no existence outside of a material brain that is taking the reading. Hint Hint.
It exists as a non-material, scientific measurement.
Where?
If you want to actually think about what you are saying, just ask yourself how much mass and energy are contained in the words, “25 degrees centigrade.” The answer, again, is none.
Incorrect. The framework for those words contains mass/energy. They are stored as digital bits somewhere which have measurable properties. Without that framework those words cannot exist.
The molecules are manifestations of a changing material reality; the description of their accelerated movement is not.
Exactly so. Temperature is a property that we’ve invented and applied to a given system. Just like the other “immaterial” properties you’ve invented and given to various systems. They did not exist before you invented them. These “immaterial” things you claim exist in fact only exist in our minds. The universe does not care about them. The fact that these “immaterial laws” happen to comport well with the reality we see about use does not mean that they exist outside of our awareness. Thanks for helping me prove my point.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF
AFTER THIS, FOR GOOD REASON, I WILL HAVE TO CONSIDER ANY ONE IN THIS THREAD WHO KNOWINGLY & INSISTENTLY CONTINUES TO USE THE ID = [YOUNG EARTH] CREATIONISM SMEAR, A WILLFUL DECEIVER AND SLANDERER, AKA A LIAR.
While I happen to think that's true, It's not an argument I'm attempting to make. The argument I'm attempting to make is that you are a creationist, not that ID==Creationism. Let's look at the evidence.
even when the generally promoted timeline is taken at face value, without a grain or two of salt.
So the “generally promoted timeline” should not be taken at face value? What can that possibly mean except that you think the “generally prompted timeline” should not be taken at face value? I doubt you are arguing that the age of the earth has been underestimated. And these “grains of salt”, "cum grano salis", in its Latin form, are often used when it is needed to show that intelligence and personal judgment are needed. While I’d not disagree with that in general here it seems to indicate that you think the “generally promoted timeline” is invalid. And if I check your “always linked” it seems to confirm that you are indeed a YEC. For example:
Here, we move from the origin of life to its diversity as observed in the current world and as is generally inferred from the fossil record and geological dating schemes. (It is not my purpose here to challenge the generally accepted dating systems and their "standard" chronology. [Cf. ICR's summary remarks here for a start if you are interested in that secondary issue. Also cf. Wiens' remarks here from the Old Earth Creationist view, as well as J P Moreland, here, on the related Bible interpretation issues. The YEC view is summarised here, in a report on a debate: Ross/Lisle.]
Onlookers, please note the links. Answers in Genesis and other creationist organisations. Why would anybody link to such resources if they did not agree with their claims regarding the age of the earth? Let’s look at the content of that first link: http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842 Title: Evidence for a Young World And the first paragraph:
Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the biblical age (6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus, the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the biblical time scale. Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with the old-age view only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a recent creation.
You are a creationist KF, pure and simple. I’m not saying here that ID = Creationism, I’m saying that you are a YEC. And all based on your own words and website. Nobody except creationists relies on creationist websites to support their argument. Here are the other links in that paragraph: http://reasons.org/resources/fff/2002issue10/index.shtml#more_than_id%22%3Ehere%3C/A%3E%20 http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0125radio_debate.asp http://reasons.org/resources/apologetics/moreland_jp_age_of_earth.shtml http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0414lisle_transcript.asp Onlookers, what is the only logical inference here? Those that are willing to follow the evidence where it leads will be following a path to YEC.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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StephenB,
On the contrary. A miracle may simply be something that God does over and above the laws he has created–something that the laws themselves do not have the capacity to produce.
I've highlighted the key word. It may be eh? Well, it seems a bit of a pointless argument to make as many things may be true but you've no way of finding out have you? No way of determining the truth of your claim. So all you have is speculation. In fact you don't know and cannot know.
While it is true that God can, if he chooses to, change his physical laws, [God is not bound by his own laws]
Therefore God can make a square circle, make a thing be and not be at the same time. Change the unchangeable. If God is not bound by his own laws then it is certainly is not bound by yours.JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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KF,
You know or should know that codes are specifically symbolic, involving rules and meanings as an inherent component of their expression.
Then you disagree with Upright Biped. This is interesting. You see, Upright's point is that regardless of the content of the code it's the fact that the code exists at all that proves ID. And there's another problem. A severe problem for you, that is. If meaning is an inherent component in the information that is encoded in DNA then it would be possible, as I suggested, to translate that information into different languages. If DNA really stored "meaning" it would be possible to do as I suggested and translate a word into a different language via DNA even if that word has no direct equivalent in the target language. When you translate you attempt to keep the "meaning" intact, whatever particular symbol (word) you use in the new language. The meaning is what you translate, unlike the 1:1 mapping that we see with DNA. The "meaning" in DNA cannot be translated into a different language because it is not a language to start with. With DNA there is no "meaning" to the symbols. Unlike the language strings that you can indeed encode into DNA, as Upright says you can encode an entire dictionary. But even then the only "meaning" is the one we've applied to the various strings. It's just digital storage. So, KF, if the information that DNA stores has meaning, what is it's meaning then? What does DNA mean? If you can't say, how are you so sure the codes have meanings as an inherent component of their expression. Unless of course you mean meaning as in "getting water poured over you means you will get wet". I.E this DNA sequence "means" this protein sequence. It's just chemicals people. Their arrangement has no "meaning" outside of their implementation as a string that makes something particular happen. If you claim it does, tell me what it is!JemimaRacktouey_{April 9, 2011
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F/N: It is worth pausing to discuss varves, so that we can see why there is good reason to create a school of geochronological agnosticism, to replace falsely confident declarations of knowing the deep unobserved, unobservable past. (You will recall from 152 above, my declaration in answer to Torquemada-style demands for self-incrimination.) If one goes to the usual first references, one will see that varves are DEFINED and presented to us, by the august collective authority of the experts, as though they were known to be annual somewhat cyclical deposits of lakes or the like, potentially going across hundreds or more thousands of years. In fact, all that we actually observe are banded deposits forming micro-strata. There are no observations or credible records of a continual, stable pattern of dynamics that allow us to extrapolate to the deep and unobserved past with confidence. And in fact, shocker: varves were apparently used to calibrate C14 dates, so we see stratigraphy intruding circularity into the C14 radiodating that was supposedly independent and "absolute." Sort of like how index fossils premised on the assumption of evolution keep on cropping up in most inconvenient dating contexts (and in the case of KNM-ER 1470 determining the date over the various radioactive methods). So, it should be no surprise to see Wiki making this little admission against interest deep in its article on the matter:
1940 saw the publication of a now classic scientific paper by De Geer, the Geochronologia Suecica, in which he presented the Swedish Time Scale, a floating varve chronology for ice recession from Skåne to Indalsälven. Lidén made the first attempts to link this time scale with the present day. Since then, there have been revisions as new sites are discovered, and old ones reassessed. At present, the Swedish varve chronology is based on thousands of sites, and covers 13,200 varve years. In 2008, although varves were considered likely to give similar information to dendrochronology, they were considered "too uncertain" for use on a long-term timescale.[1] . . . . Varves form in a variety of marine and lacustrine depositional environments from seasonal variation in clastic, biological, and chemical sedimentary processes . . .
Notice that: "too uncertain" for use on a long-term timescale. Would you have got that impression from JR's bland statement on a million years worth of varves? Of course not. Nor, would you know that there are questions about diurnal tidal cycles or that the sort of assumed steady state above is seriously prone to disturbance. So, again, we come to the usual circularities, the lack of independent cross-checks and the like. So, while we may well put forth model timelines on varves and interwoven dating methods otherwise, we should realise that these are inescapably provisional and even tentative models of the past as we think it may have been, not realities. And, as I pointed out already, there is no well founded theory of solar system formation that would allow us to be confident that we know how a solar system such as ours formed. The recent observations on extrasolar planets and their highly variable orbital patterns tell us that we just do not know enough to speculate too strongly, on top of the problems of angular momentum distribution in our solar system. (Angular momentum conservation -- though not as headlined as its kissing cousin, energy conservation -- is a major conservation law in science.) I repeat, I find the Hubble expansion and the stellar distance scale metrics [the subject of my first ever public presentation] far more persuasive, especially when joined to the Hertzprung-Russell plots and the patterns of HR diagrams of open clusters which are then fitted into models of H-balls collapsing out of molecular clouds and igniting fusion from released gravitational energy converted into heat. (That is part of why the IOSE starts with these issues as an example of origins science done right.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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Onlookers: TGP is right. Until there is a willingness to seek and be shaped by warranted, credible truth in the light of first principles of right reason, there can be no progress in discussion. And so, when we see the sort of willful twisting of words and persistent, un-apologised-for slandering of persons by evo mat advocates as has happened above, we must no longer be naive. Let us therefore pay attention to Plato's grim warning from the last time around that Evo Mat views captured the avant garde of a major culture [apart from of course the sad fate of the countries put in the grips of Marxism], and -- through impact on Alcibiades and co -- helped lead to its collapse. Yes, evolutionary materialism is nothing new, and the sort of behaviour we see above -- and in the fever swamps full of angry ideological mosquitoes -- is exactly what we should expect and must be prepared to recognise and counter. At least, if we care to have a serious discussion of serious matters, in a respectful dialogue where we work together towards finding out the truth as nearly as we can. Here, then, is Plato, in The Laws, Bk X (and see how he goes on to correct the error based on a cosmological design inference, as I excerpt and discuss in the IOSE course, here): _______________ >> [[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature [phusis, necessity] and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them [i.e the mechanical forces of nature]-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [evo mat, c 400 BC] . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding democratic liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . . >> ________________ It is not a coincidence that across the months that I have repeatedly drawn attention to this grim warning from the past, evo mat advocates have been studiously silent. But the precise sort of amoral factionism that Plato predicted is quite evident in the thread above. We cannot say that we -- as a civilisaiton now in mortal danger of internal collapse at the hands of amoral factions from the fever swamps infected with Alinski's subversive and explicitly amoral rules for radicals -- have not been warned in adequate time about what we are dealing with. After all, Plato wrote 2,350 years ago. (BTW, I find it highly interesting that until I came across this almost by accident, I have never seen this telling analysis discussed anywhere. Frankly, I am now suspicious about that.) And so, to "yon straight path . . . " GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 9, 2011
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So JR at 145 says: Even the “laws of logic” could be changed by your God. How could it be otherwise?" Although Upright brilliantly replied, JR still refuses to get it. I am certain that I know why. The following questions for JR will demonstrate my claim. 1. How do you know something is true? 2. How would others know something is true? 3. If there are opposing truth claims, how would one judge which one was true? Then we will get somewhere.tgpeeler_{April 8, 2011
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It’s a chemical process. One that follows rules. And it is symbolic representation. But the symbols used don’t encode concepts. They were not put there by a mind like any we know.
There is no chemical process that creates the code to begin with. The code may determine a process after it is coded, but that's not the question at hand.Clive Hayden_{April 8, 2011
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