(February 21, 2016 at 1:16 pm)AAA Wrote: Filling in the gaps of what? And if an asteroid hit tomorrow with a circuit board attached to it, would we have to say that we are just filling in the gaps by saying it was designed?

First, the asteroid hasn't hit yet. Alert me, if it does.

Secondly, we don't know - as of yet - that's filling the gaps. You don't know something, so it has to be god. You look for confirmation at your favorite apologist websites and that's about it. That's why I called you a caveman at heart. You simply can't live without having an explanation for something you or anyone else doesn't understand as of yet. And you also are looking rather desperately for your god evidence. You want him to exist, so you bend and shape, till it fits your desired narrative.

A hundred years ago, we understood a lot less than we do today. And in another hundred years, we will understand even more. I'm pretty comfortable with that and don't need a supernatural explanation for something we don't have explained so far.

I was told a few ghost stories while sitting outside in an open garage after midnight. You could hear sounds (like the typical cat wandering, rooftop crackles, normal night time sounds). A girls claimed she lived in a haunted house. Another claimed she say a curly haired ghost carrying a baby in a hotel, and later read about it in the town library. Stories of the sort. So anyway, we fucken saw ghosts, therefore, god.

Laaaaame!

(February 21, 2016 at 1:36 pm)abaris Wrote:

(February 21, 2016 at 1:16 pm)AAA Wrote: Filling in the gaps of what? And if an asteroid hit tomorrow with a circuit board attached to it, would we have to say that we are just filling in the gaps by saying it was designed?

First, the asteroid hasn't hit yet. Alert me, if it does.

Secondly, we don't know - as of yet - that's filling the gaps. You don't know something, so it has to be god. You look for confirmation at your favorite apologist websites and that's about it. That's why I called you a caveman at heart. You simply can't live without having an explanation for something you or anyone else doesn't understand as of yet. And you also are looking rather desperately for your god evidence. You want him to exist, so you bend and shape, till it fits your desired narrative.

A hundred years ago, we understood a lot less than we do today. And in another hundred years, we will understand even more. I'm pretty comfortable with that and don't need a supernatural explanation for something we don't have explained so far.

The cell is more complex than the circuit board on the asteroid. It was an analogy. We don't know how it could have gotten there. There is only ONE cause that is so far sufficient to lead to the phenomena that are observed in the cell. That is intelligence. But this answer is unacceptable, and according to you anyone who reasons this way is a caveman. 

And you called me a caveman because it makes you feel better about yourself. After all, you are truly one of the great thinkers of our time. And I don't necessarily want God to exist. The thought of it is frightening, but what we want to be true doesn't impact what actually is true. You are bending the evidence so you don't see God; so it fits your desired narrative.

(February 21, 2016 at 1:17 pm)AAA Wrote:

(February 21, 2016 at 1:15 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Which must be why you aren't concerned about holding ID to the same standard of peer review as actual scientific papers. You have to know, at least on some level, that it cannot withstand the scrutiny.

I think they should be held to the same standard, but they aren't.

Well they are, just not by you by your own admission. They are both held to the standard of peer review. Anyone can submit a paper for publication, even if they have to start their own journals to do it. That's not the point. They have to be able to withstand strict, expert criticism; more importantly, whatever doesn't survive the process either serves to correct what does, or worst case scenario toss it in the shredder altogether. The process is self-correcting; junk science, on balance, will always be caught in the filter.

It's not the critics' fault that ID claims don't pass muster. Get better claims.

AAA, can I also ask a few questions:

1. If complex biochemistry was designed, by what mechanism was it designed?
2. At what point was it designed? (i.e. how long ago). Is there evidence for this?
3. What does your interpretation of intelligent design predict for the future? I.e. is someone going to find the specific mechanism by which it happened?

I assume that you are going to pursue Intelligent Design in your research. If so, what experiments do you have planned to test your hypothesis? And I mean test it in any way? What results from your experiments would add to our knowledge one way or another?

You say I misunderstand the nature of Meselson / Stahl. I think you misunderstand the nature of science itself.

(February 21, 2016 at 1:52 pm)AAA Wrote: We don't know how it could have gotten there.

Exactly. Hence caveman, not being content with we don't know, as of yet.

(February 17, 2016 at 10:13 pm)AAA Wrote:

(February 17, 2016 at 10:04 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Only if you think argument from analogy and complexity are compelling.

Problem is, complexity is not a sign of design.

It's not just complex, though. There are so many purposeful interactions that need to take place in order for the cell to regulate itself. These interactions are dependent on intricate structures, which are dependent on sequence of characters in DNA. When you remove one enzyme, the whole system might no longer be able to function. So the problem is that in order for it to work well enough to evolve (reproduce), you need tens of thousands of nucleotides in a proper sequence. It couldn't get there gradually, at least not by mutation and natural selection.

Who are you, as one person, to say what could or couldn't happen? Like, where does your authority come from exactly? Who do you seriously think you are?

Okay, let's assume for a moment that there was a designer. Who is the designer?

The Christian God? Unlikely. Most of the works of the Christian God are claimed to require faith, which has about as much power (maybe less so) as wishful thinking. Nothing in this world requires faith to work. You don't need faith to have your skull shaped correctly, or faith to have nerve endings in your fingers. In fact Jesus is claimed to break the rules of the universe quite frequently.

Another God? Again, unlikely. All of those gods are personal gods, who have origin stories that don't match up with science.

At most you'd have an impersonal designer. An argument for Deism at best, and a poor argument for theism overall.

Still you have yet to prove a designer. All you've done is state that it looks designed, therefore it must have a designer. This isn't the case. Something can have an appearance of design, and not actually be designed. There could be any number of explanations for appearance of design. Assuming a supernatural cause doesn't give you an answer.

Take this image:



You can make out a dog. Does this mean that it was designed? Of course not. There's another explanation possible. But it gives the appearance of design.

And how's that? Jesus on dog ass? Clearly designed?

(February 17, 2016 at 10:57 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote:

(February 17, 2016 at 9:22 pm)AAA Wrote: It's not perfect (it literally couldn't be) but the design is pretty apparent when you look at how the cell works.

Your god is supposed to be perfect. It works like this: either your god is perfect, and a dithering dick for creating imperfect life, or he doesn't exist at all. Actually, there is only one option, because life clearly isn't perfect and there is no evidence of any design. This makes a perfect god impossible, even if there was any sort of initial designer. You cannot make anything imperfect and still be perfect yourself, and neither can your god. It is you, the theists who claim that your god cannot do evil, and doesn't make mistakes, so get consistent with your claims if you're going to make them and stop making excuses which blame said god's imperfect creatures for all the shit which he allowed to happen. Why, by the way does shit exist when life is supposedly so fucking perfect? Why in fallacious fuck do you exist, loser who you are to come around where you know you don't belong, knowing that you will achieve nothing but to annoy those who you have willfully decided to disagree with, all the time pounding your chest and sniggering? Oh, right, that's just what any perfect prince of a perfect god would always do! Why then did even your apostle Paul show the good sense to take off and never come back when they made it clear they just weren't interested in what he had to sell?

The world in which we live is in no way perfect at all, ∴ your god fucked up stupendously, if he created any life here at all. There is no legitimate blame on anybody for "sin" because a perfect god should have known better than to allow what he did - he could not and would not have decided on allowing "free will", such a decision would in itself be a weakness. More obvious problems which your creationist mental gymnastics bends around and sidesteps: there can't be anything which your god's said creation can do which would ever annoy a perfect god, because goddammit, he's perfect - well, that's what he's said to be! ∴ your god doesn't exist, and you are just an asshole who wants to wield god-like power over other people - on that, no thank you and feel free to go fuck yourself into the next dimension and out of sight.

I wish I could give kudos to this reply an unlimited number of times! [emoji106]