“Debunking” is not and has never been part of science. Science doesn’t debunk, magicians and media skeptics debunk. 7% of the UFO sitings in Project Blue Book special report remain unidentified. If instead it were 7% of drugs tested had the potential to cure every form of cancer researchers would be doing everything they could to investigate those 7% farther, not saying “most drugs can’t cure cancer so we shouldn’t even try.”

Nice post. What I find most interesting about UFO’s is that just about everyone seems to have a story. Both my parents have had paranormal/UFO encounters, and I myself had a sighting which I can’t explain about 25 years ago. Whatever the cause, I think it’s clear something is going on, whether it’s aliens or some sort of government coverup.

Ease up on calling people’s comments stupid, I don’t want to have to moderate you for being rude.

You come here, you make stupid comments, you are given info, then you say you haven’t actually tried to understand the issue, so you are given the benefit of the doubt, then you return with the same stupid comments.

Nicely done.

JTaylor (21)

1. Again, I never said my 1% estimate was scientific! I never said it was helpful to anyone in any way! Besides, the Drake equation has seven variables of which we can make reasonable speculations of two; everything beyond that is a complete guess based on nothing. The only difference between my gut and the Drake equation is that my gut doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not – namely science.
2. I agree that our skill in finding other planets is increasing but it’s not like we can zoom in with three meter resolution on the planets surfaces and see anything. There might well be intelligent life existing in some form on those planets or their moons that current technology cannot detect or there might not. Right now looking at the gravitational effects on stars isn’t good enough to make any statements about the orbiting planets other than their potential distance and/or mass.
3. I never assumed you accepted that extraterrestrials exist, I said you didn’t up to the point of my posting deny their existence, that is, you did not openly argue that they do not exist. One is a positive statement and the other is a negative one.
4. “Debunking” is not and has never been part of science. Science doesn’t debunk, magicians and media skeptics debunk. 7% of the UFO sitings in Project Blue Book special report remain unidentified. If instead it were 7% of drugs tested had the potential to cure every form of cancer researchers would be doing everything they could to investigate those 7% farther, not saying “most drugs can’t cure cancer so we shouldn’t even try.”
More solid evidence other than the biggest government coverup in history (if no UFOs are extraterrestrial and they’re not national security concerns why doesn’t any government in the world besides Mexico come out and tell what they are? Why has the USAF come out with four different “official” reports of the Roswell crash, each one stating that the previous “official” reports were false misinformation campaigns?). More solid evidence than thousands of trained witnesses – pilots, retired military personel, police – who have come out with their reports to great personal risk of job loss, public ridicule, etc., who have nothing to gain by their testimony. If you want more evidence than that look into the trace cases. Potential landing sites with unusual chemical or radioactive properties, plants won’t grow in these areas even after decades when the surrounding areas are perfectly fine. Some people have gotten radiation burns from handling debris, sometimes leading to cancer and death. A supposed piece of the Roswell crash debris that has changed hands several times, each of the owners meeting with highly unlikely deaths (extremely rare diseases, improbable “accidents”). The website that was going to air a world-wide press conference revealing test results of chemical analysis was shut down, the server the site was on was stolen the night before, threatening phone calls convinced others not to cancel the conference.
Roswell Debris Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjQgqZ6eMP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q18VaAQneaU
More answers to UFO questions:
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sf-ufo-why1.html

ID posits absolutely nothing about the supernatural

But thats its reason detre. Dembski et al are all claiming that biological complexity could not have involved, that there must be a designer. They get all coy about the details, but its clear that there is some external agent. I refer to it as the ‘supernatural’ because of the obvious religious motivation of its supporters (remember Dover?).

If it all proceeds according to the laws of this universe the only possibility remaining is some intelligent alien or something (Raelians?). This is possible, and doesnt violate any known laws, but its getting a bit weird.

I simply dont have the competence to critically assess the quoted papers (and I suspect very few others do either).

I appreciate your honesty. I think you gain significant personal credibility, although I must say, it brings into serious question your earlier assessment of the inference to agency involvement in the natural world.

The 1st article ends with the statement: But under no known circumstances can self-ordering phenomena like hurricanes, sand piles, … produce algorithmic organization

The quoted statement is clearly the view of the author, but not the rest of the biology community. They obviously believe complexity can arise as a result of evolution.

I won’t beat this to death, but would simply ask you to understand what an algorithm is. The author is discussing the observable reality of a set of instructions that transfer their information for the express purpose of organizing the physically discreet objects within living systems. This is nothing like what is found in self-ordering phenomena.

The conclusion being made is no more the author’s personal assessment than the observation of the algorithms themselves.

I can only repeat that if appeals to the supernatural are productive, then please show us some results.

Graham, this is where the wheels leave the track. ID posits absolutely nothing about the supernatural. As you can readily see by the paper I posted from, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever in the evidence for agency that relies upon, or empirically suggests, the existence of anything happening outside the laws of this universe. Such are the remarks made in order to ignore what is actually known.

I know I have no grounds to ask for anything, but you might consider reading the entirety of the two papers I posted. There are no concepts within the text that are not immediately available by a simple web search.

If for no other reason, you might find the true issues interesting.

The 1st article ends with the statement: But under no known circumstances can self-ordering phenomena like hurricanes, sand piles, … produce algorithmic organization

The quoted statement is clearly the view of the author, but not the rest of the biology community. They obviously believe complexity can arise as a result of evolution.

I can only repeat that if appeals to the supernatural are productive, then please show us some results.

Quoting evidence? I looked back over your posts on this thread. I didn’t see any evidence.

In any case, I would want you to know that we see your type stroll in here fairly often – full of certitude and certain brand of density, but fairly short on details. In fact, I just responded to another poster who thought of IDs position as “cartoonish”. I picked just one of the evidences of agency in the existence of Life on this planet and presented it.

Since I am almost certain you would agree with the cartoonish characterization, then please allow me to save time and repost from the earlier thread. I can’t imagine that I would ask you anything different than I asked before:
From peer-review: “Genetic algorithms instruct sophisticated biological organization. Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC). FSC alone provides algorithmic instruction. Random and Ordered Sequence Complexities lie at opposite ends of the same bi-directional sequence complexity vector. Randomness in sequence space is defined by a lack of Kolmogorov algorithmic compressibility. A sequence is compressible because it contains redundant order and patterns. Law-like cause-and-effect determinism produces highly compressible order. Such forced ordering precludes both information retention and freedom of selection so critical to algorithmic programming and control. Functional Sequence Complexity requires this added programming dimension of uncoerced selection at successive decision nodes in the string. Shannon information theory measures the relative degrees of RSC and OSC. Shannon information theory cannot measure FSC. FSC is invariably associated with all forms of complex biofunction, including biochemical pathways, cycles, positive and negative feedback regulation, and homeostatic metabolism. The algorithmic programming of FSC, not merely its aperiodicity, accounts for biological organization. No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization.”

Is there anything in this passage that you’d like to argue? Please feel free to discuss it.

Continuing: “In life-origin science, attention usually focuses on a theorized pre-RNA World [52-55]. RNA chemistry is extremely challenging in a prebiotic context. Ribonucleotides are difficult to activate (charge). And even oligoribonucleotides are extremely hard to form, especially without templating. The maximum length of such single strands in solution is usually only eight to ten monomers (mers). As a result, many investigators suspect that some chemical RNA analog must have existed [56,57]. For our purposes here of discussing linear sequence complexity, let us assume adequate availability of all four ribonucleotides in a pre-RNA prebiotic molecular evolutionary environment. Any one of the four ribonucleotides could be polymerized next in solution onto a forming single-stranded polyribonucleotide. Let us also ignore in our model for the moment that the maximum achievable length of aqueous polyribonucleotides seems to be no more than eight to ten monomers (mers). Physicochemical dynamics do not determine the particular sequencing of these single-stranded, untemplated polymers of RNA. The selection of the initial “sense” sequence is largely free of natural law influences and constraints. Sequencing is dynamically inert [58]. Even when activated analogs of ribonucleotide monomers are used in eutectic ice, incorporation of both purine and pyrimidine bases proceed at comparable rates and yields [59]. Monnard’s paper provides additional evidence that the sequencing of untemplated single-stranded RNA polymerization in solution is dynamically inert – that the sequencing is not determined or ordered by physicochemical forces.

Again I ask, is there something you find distressing about the information so far?

Continuing still: “Little empirical evidence exists to contradict the contention that untemplated sequencing is dynamically inert (physically arbitrary). We are accustomed to thinking in terms of base-pairing complementarity determining sequencing. It is only in researching the pre-RNA world that the problem of single-stranded metabolically functional sequencing of ribonucleotides (or their analogs) becomes acute. And of course highly-ordered templated sequencing of RNA strands on natural surfaces such as clay offers no explanation for biofunctional sequencing. The question is never answered, “From what source did the template derive its functional information?” In fact, no empirical evidence has been presented of a naturally occurring inorganic template that contains anything more than combinatorial uncertainty. No bridge has been established between combinatorial uncertainty and utility of any kind.”

At this point please allow me to jump to some conclusions “What testable empirical hypotheses can we make about FSC that might allow us to identify when FSC exists? In any of the following null hypotheses [137], demonstrating a single exception would allow falsification. We invite assistance in the falsification of any of the following null hypotheses:

The fundamental contention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in this paper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to each configurable-switch-position symbol, algorithmic function and language will not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to each combinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source and destination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meanings in a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such a cybernetic coding/decoding scheme [71].”

In case you are not familiar with the text, it is a qualitative profile of the mechanisms for sequencing nucleotides (available on the NIH PubMed website). Abel and Trevors:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g.....id=1208958

and also

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g.....id=2662469

Graham, by all means, feel free to read the research and provide any details where the information is incorrect. And, if you find that perhaps you didn’t fully understand or appreciate the actual issues behind agency involvement, then certainly anyone here will be happy to discuss it with you.

instead of dealing with evidence

Eh? But thats exactly what I AM quoting. Centuries of it. Have you seen a psychic give us an equation ? I havent.

ID focuses on empirical science … I presume thats a typo.