News:

Look, I haven't mentioned Zeus, Buddah, or some religion.

Main Menu

"A Planet without Laughter" by Raymond Smullyan

Started by Gerry Rzeppa, December 17, 2014, 11:01:45 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Dobermonster

I thought you were already pointed towards Talkorigins...they have quite a database of rebuttals and references. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you did look and just missed this particular page:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html

Gerry Rzeppa

Quote from: Niya on December 30, 2014, 12:50:51 PMWhat? Gerry, the article at trueorgin doesn't even attempt to discredit the paper by Dobzhansky. Are you really going to throw this on the table?

Yes. I was replying to the ridiculous claim that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." I think the article (http://www.trueorigin.org/biologymyth.asp) answers that particular claim nicely. Personally, I think O'Leary is much closer to the truth when he says, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of biochemistry, which is what gives biology its place in the linked chain of sciences. Evolution is a form of history, a history that may or may not have happened as described in any current work on the subject."

Gerry Rzeppa

Quote from: Dobermonster on December 30, 2014, 12:51:47 PM
I thought you were already pointed towards Talkorigins...they have quite a database of rebuttals and references. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you did look and just missed this particular page:  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html

That's exactly the kind of thing I specifically said I'm not looking for: it tells me what some evolutionist thinks is wrong with some creationist's figure, but doesn't tell me what the evolutionist thinks the figure should be (and how he arrives at that conclusion). Typically, when correcting a somebody's work, you (a) point out where they went wrong, and then (b) rework the problem so they can see how it should have been done. Part (b) is conspicuously (and suspiciously) absent in evolutionary writings. The page you cite leaves me hanging: if the odds of even one simple protein molecule forming by chance are not 1 in 10^113, then what are the odds?


Dobermonster

Again - the answer to "What is the probability of life forming?" is most honestly answered with "Nobody knows", and anyone who says they know is a liar or does not understand what it would take to calculate an accurate probability. The link I gave you contains a hyperlink to a more indepth discussion on the same website of the creationist claims of probabilities.

I think if you just spent an afternoon reading the material that has been collected and organized on that site, it would save everyone a lot of time going over persistently debunked concepts and questions.

Niya

QuoteI think the article (http://www.trueorigin.org/biologymyth.asp) answers that particular claim nicely.
How so? Please elaborate.
Not that anyone cares what I say, but the Restaurant is on the other end of the universe." –Marvin
-----
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

xSilverPhinx

You're not actually looking for evidence, are you Gerry?
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dobermonster

It's like talking to a flat-earther and trying to show them the curvature of the Earth and data on the movement of planets and stars and all they want to know is what the probability of the Earth being round is. ><

OldGit

He's desperately looking for little odd scraps of doubtful pseudo-evidence with which to prop up the shaky barrier between him and reality.

Recusant

Quote from: Gerry Rzeppa on December 30, 2014, 07:10:29 AM
Quote from: Recusant on December 29, 2014, 05:53:06 PMWhat is the "fatal flaw in the overall idea" of a planet that is billions of years old?

The fatal flaw isn't in the idea that a planet might be billions of years old. The fatal flaw I had in mind is thinking that billions of years is enough time for random mutation and natural selection to do what it is claimed they have done.

Let me get this straight. Are you saying that there is no fatal flaw in the overall idea that the Earth is billions of year old?
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Gerry Rzeppa

Quote from: Niya on December 30, 2014, 03:50:04 PM
QuoteI think the article (http://www.trueorigin.org/biologymyth.asp) answers that particular claim nicely.
How so? Please elaborate.

It's right there in the abstract:

"It is commonly claimed that Darwinism is the cornerstone of the life sciences and that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.' To evaluate this claim I reviewed both textbooks used to teach life science class at the college where I teach and those I used in my university course work. I concluded from my survey that Darwinism was rarely mentioned. I also reviewed my course work and that of another researcher and came to the same conclusion. From this survey I concluded that the claim 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' is not true."

See the appendices at the end of the article for the details.

If evolution is so essential to biology, why is it so infrequently mentioned in textbooks and classes?

xSilverPhinx

#235
Quote from: Gerry Rzeppa on December 31, 2014, 12:32:06 AM
If evolution is so essential to biology, why is it so infrequently mentioned in textbooks and classes?

Unless you're taking college level courses in biology or are an autodidact, you'll only get superficial information from high school classes. I went to a Catholic high school and it was mentioned plenty, and there was an entire chapter out of thirteen devoted to evolutionary theory in my textbook. It was taught last because students would have to have acquired some knowledge in order to fully appreciate it.    

ETA: my teachers then weren't afraid of teaching evolutionary theory, and the school didn't avoid buying certain textbooks because they mentioned evolution and neodarwinism. That could also be a factor.

I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Crow

Quote from: Gerry Rzeppa on December 31, 2014, 12:32:06 AM
If evolution is so essential to biology, why is it so infrequently mentioned in textbooks and classes?

Maybe you went to a shit school? It was talked about in every single one of my biology lessons for 5 years which we had three times a week. Just because you had a bad education doesn't mean everyone did.
Retired member.

Gerry Rzeppa

Quote from: Recusant on December 30, 2014, 04:32:49 PMLet me get this straight. Are you saying that there is no fatal flaw in the overall idea that the Earth is billions of year old?

I don't know of any single fact that can a priori eliminate the possibility of the earth being billions of years old. I do know of at least 101 facts that make me wonder about it (http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth). And as I've said in other places, I personally prefer the "artistic" view of the universe which makes the kind of chronological ordering done by both old-earthers and young-earthers somewhat moot: a painter may, for example, paint a flower before he paints the sun that sustains it; an author may create a child before he creates the parents; a composer may write the middle of a piece of music before the end and the beginning; I know these things first-hand.

And then there's relativity to be considered, which makes time itself flexible. From Wikipedia's article on physicist Gerald Schroeder: "...from the perspective of the point of origin of the Big Bang, according to Einstein's equations of the 'stretching factor', time dilates by a factor of roughly 1,000,000,000,000, meaning one trillion days on earth would appear to pass as one day from that point, due to the stretching of space. When applied to the estimated age of the universe at 13.8 billion years, from the perspective of the point of origin, the universe today would appear to have just begun its sixth day of existence, or if the universe is 15 billion years old from the perspective of earth, it would appear to have just completed its sixth day. Antony Flew, an academic philosopher who promoted atheism for most of his adult life indicated that the arguments of Gerald Schroeder had influenced his decision to become a deist."


Recusant

#238
Quote from: Gerry Rzeppa on December 31, 2014, 02:10:24 AM
Quote from: Recusant on December 30, 2014, 04:32:49 PMLet me get this straight. Are you saying that there is no fatal flaw in the overall idea that the Earth is billions of year old?

I don't know of any single fact that can a priori eliminate the possibility of the earth being billions of years old. I do know of at least 101 facts that make me wonder about it (http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth). And as I've said in other places, I personally prefer the "artistic" view of the universe which makes the kind of chronological ordering done by both old-earthers and young-earthers somewhat moot: a painter may, for example, paint a flower before he paints the sun that sustains it; an author may create a child before he creates the parents; a composer may write the middle of a piece of music before the end and the beginning; I know these things first-hand.

And then there's relativity to be considered, which makes time itself flexible. From Wikipedia's article on physicist Gerald Schroeder: "...from the perspective of the point of origin of the Big Bang, according to Einstein's equations of the 'stretching factor', time dilates by a factor of roughly 1,000,000,000,000, meaning one trillion days on earth would appear to pass as one day from that point, due to the stretching of space. When applied to the estimated age of the universe at 13.8 billion years, from the perspective of the point of origin, the universe today would appear to have just begun its sixth day of existence, or if the universe is 15 billion years old from the perspective of earth, it would appear to have just completed its sixth day. Antony Flew, an academic philosopher who promoted atheism for most of his adult life indicated that the arguments of Gerald Schroeder had influenced his decision to become a deist."

You've tried before to use Schroeder's ideas to support your position. Apparently, you don't care that they're useless in that regard, as the piece about them I linked at the time shows. No doubt you didn't bother to read it, just as you appear to have failed to read pretty much anything I've pointed out to you since you joined this site. Rather a shoddy approach, Gerry Rzeppa. I've patiently waded through pretty much every crock of crap link (including the dreary piffle that served as the basis for this thread) you've used in your attempts to form coherent arguments on this site, but it seems you just don't have time to return that courtesy. These threads have been an intrepid search for the truth. Or something.

As for the reference to Anthony Flew, it surprises me a little that you'd include it. Flew's conversion to deism, and the exploitation of his deteriorating condition by an unscrupulous creep is far from a triumph of Christianity. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, though. Your arguments have been a display of an apparently incorrigible contempt for facts since you've joined this site. Your willingness to use notoriously duplicitous sources as support for your position is also a consistent theme here.

If you took the time to investigate the claims made by Don Batten in that article from Creation Ministries International, you'd find that they are pretty much all presented dishonestly. The first example is of "DNA in ?ancient? fossils." Almost immediately after that paper was published, there were serious questions raised regarding its contents.
 
Then we have Batten saying that the the so-called "Lazarus bacteria" found in Permian salt deposits were revived. Again, this result was called into question shortly after it was published.

The third example is the painfully dishonest book Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of The Genome, by John Sanford. There is an effective dissection of how Sanford uses distortions of science at the "Letters to Creationists" blog. As a bonus, the first section of that page shreds Behe's The Edge of Evolution.

The fourth is mitochondrial Eve. Batten says that this discovery is "consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago." The problem with this is that Batten is simply lying. According to a recent article in Nature, the estimate is "between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago." That's somewhat different than "several thousand," I think you'll agree. Even worse, at the time the linked Creation Ministries International article was published (2006), the estimate was that mitochondrial Eve lived as long ago as approximately 200,000 years. Now, Creationists might jump up and down in glee as they point out that the estimate has changed in seven years. Yes, strangely enough, science does get revised as time goes by. But only a Creationist would have us believe that 99,000 (not to mention 200,000) is the same as "several thousand."

I could go on down that sad list of misrepresentations and outright lies, but I don't see any point. Going by your past behavior here, you're not going to pay the slightest attention to the research I've done on just these first four on the list.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Gerry Rzeppa

#239
Quote from: Recusant on December 31, 2014, 04:21:56 AMYou've tried before to use Schroeder's ideas to support your position. Apparently, you don't care that they're useless in that regard, as the piece about them I linked at the time shows. No doubt you didn't bother to read it, just as you appear to have failed to read pretty much anything I've pointed out to you since you joined this site. Rather a shoddy approach, Gerry Rzeppa. I've patiently waded through pretty much every crock of crap link (including the dreary piffle that served as the basis for this thread) you've used in your attempts to form coherent arguments on this site, but it seems you just don't have time to return that courtesy. These threads have been an intrepid search for the truth. Or something.

As for the reference to Anthony Flew, it surprises me a little that you'd include it. Flew's conversion to deism, and the exploitation of his deteriorating condition by an unscrupulous creep is far from a triumph of Christianity. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, though. Your arguments have been a display of an apparently incorrigible contempt for facts since you've joined this site. Your willingness to use notoriously duplicitous sources as support for your position is also a consistent theme here.

If you took the time to investigate the claims made by Don Batten in that article from Creation Ministries International, you'd find that they are pretty much all presented dishonestly. The first example is of "DNA in ?ancient? fossils." Almost immediately after that paper was published, there were serious questions raised regarding its contents.
 
Then we have Batten saying that the the so-called "Lazarus bacteria" found in Permian salt deposits were revived. Again, this result was called into question shortly after it was published.

The third example is the painfully dishonest book Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of The Genome, by John Sanford. There is an effective dissection of how Sanford uses distortions of science at the "Letters to Creationists" blog. As a bonus, the first section of that page shreds Behe's The Edge of Evolution.

The fourth is mitochondrial Eve. Batten says that this discovery is "consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago." The problem with this is that Batten is simply lying. According to a recent article in Nature, the estimate is "between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago." That's somewhat different than "several thousand," I think you'll agree. Even worse, at the time the linked Creation Ministries International article was published (2006), the estimate was that mitochondrial Eve lived as long ago as approximately 200,000 years. Now, Creationists might jump up and down in glee as they point out that the estimate has changed in seven years. Yes, strangely enough, science does get revised as time goes by. But only a Creationist would have us believe that 99,000 (not to mention 200,000) is the same as "several thousand."

I could go on down that sad list of misrepresentations and outright lies, but I don't see any point. Going by your past behavior here, you're not going to pay the slightest attention to the research I've done on just these first four on the list.

I really think you're missing the point here. I've said that none of these subjects really interest me because they're all disputed. And they mostly concern things that I consider far out of the realm of the provable: pre-history. So when I post a link to an article on creation.com, or to a Wikipedia article on Schroeder, or to a page on some other site you don't like, I'm not saying they're necessarily right and you're wrong, or even that I'm in full agreement with everything the referenced piece; I'm simply demonstrating that the subject is disputed, most likely impossible to resolve, and thus not of immediate interest to me.

It seems to me the important things in life ought to be more obvious to an experienced and mature human than that. Which is why I try to focus on things we have all experienced first-hand. Things like:

(a) our own individual creative endeavors (like writing posts on this forum);

(b) the ubiquitous appearance of design in things natural and artificial (like guitar amps and human bodies);

(c) clear distinctions in kind (like fish and people);

(d) belief as the prime motivator behind all enduring pursuits (including all of the very non-scientific "Aha!"s and hunches and insights and inspirations that drive the entire scientific enterprise);

(e) practical and scalable simulations (balloons and blimps come to mind);

(f) simple probability calculations (as in, "What's the chance of that ever happening?"); and

(g) the aesthetic, moral, and emotional corollaries of different doctrines (Could an unbeliever, for example, ever convincingly write a story like "Les Miserables"?).

Now it appears to me that the atheistic evolutionary perspective on things requires me to reject, in one sense or another, all of the above. In effect, if I have understood everyone's replies to my posts here correctly, the "Happy Atheist" community view is that:

(a) the concept-design-construction paradigm that all people in all times and all places have found so effective bears no relation to how the universe (or we ourselves!) have come to be;

(b) our experienced intuitions regarding the appearance of design in human artifacts can usually be trusted, but the same intuitions regarding natural things must be considered completely and utterly illusory;

(c) clear distinctions in kind are really mere differences in degree;

(d) reason must be exalted to a position far beyond its capacity to replace belief as our prime motivator;

(e) practical and scalable simulations aren't important;

(f) simple probability calculations aren't important; and

(g) that we must abandon all hope when we enter here, since our certain and not-too-distant end -- whatever we think, say, or do -- is non-existence.

And that's all I have to say about that.