The code that is DNA

[Mister Agenda]

It would be a straw man if the purpose was to substitute your actual position (whatever that is) with one that is easier to defeat. Personally, I haven't a clue what your actual position is, so the best I can do is infer it from the scant evidence available to me.

Am I giving you too much credit when I assume creator monkeys is not your actual position?

[downbeatplumb]

It would be a straw man if the purpose was to substitute your actual position (whatever that is) with one that is easier to defeat. Personally, I haven't a clue what your actual position is, so the best I can do is infer it from the scant evidence available to me.

Am I giving you too much credit when I assume creator monkeys is not your actual position?

It does make more sense than a god doing it I suppose. Monkeys are known to exist.

[R00tKiT]

I’m not assuming any of that. It’s your argument. So, god didn’t need to fine tune the universe? He just wanted to? How did you determine that?

The definition of a god entails not needing anything, are you that stubborn to make any progress with this stuff, really?

Because these arguments have been done to DEATH here, Klorophyll. Do you think you’re blowing our minds with this stuff? We had an almost 100 page thread just on whether or not an infinite regress is possible in reality with members who are actually qualified to talk about the math of such circumstances. You should go read it; you might learn something. I did.

You also have a very long thread discussing the possibility of something coming out of nothing, which is insane, sophistic, wrong.

and you have no evidence of tuning

Are you kidding me? Just flip the fucking statement around, what would convince you of tuning anyway? How many more physical constants do you need to be discoverd to finally shake your head and think this is too precise to be the product of nothing.

Fortunately for evolution, the fact that you refuse to accept it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true, lol.

Bla bla bla...

[downbeatplumb]

The definition of a god entails not needing anything, are you that stubborn to make any progress with this stuff, really?

From my experience the definition of a god is what ever helps the theists argument at the time and is prone to change at any moment.

Or are you going to give us a comprehensive definition!

Do it in bullet points please.

[R00tKiT]

The definition of a god entails not needing anything, are you that stubborn to make any progress with this stuff, really?

From my experience the definition of a god is what ever helps the theists argument at the time and is prone to change at any moment.

Or are you going to give us a comprehensive definition!

Do it in bullet points please.

No pal, the mere possibility of a deity needing something jepordizes anything that makes it a deity, namely omnipotence.

A comprehensive definition of God would be the unique, eternal being with at least the two absolute properties of omnipotence and omniscience.

* If we omit the uniqueness property we no longer respect the parcimony principle, a deity with such properties is enough to explain the whole existence. And it's possible to logically rule out multiple deities with these properties.

* Omiting that it's eternal only displaces the problem, what was before this deity existed? And we're back to actual infinite regress of which is, I would argue, logically impossible.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Am I giving you too much credit when I assume creator monkeys is not your actual position?

I am a Christian; but I don't hold positions. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that I'm not a skeptic. If someone wants to speculate creator monkeys, aliens, God, or evolution, I'll gladly speculate with them. I'm also scientifically trained; broadly speaking science moves by two concepts: conjecture and refutation. First you make something up, and then you or others try to falsify it. The process of falsification is almost the complete opposite of the burden of proof, which others keep bringing up. If I say creator monkeys, the forum will say prove it or I won't believe you. But science doesn't prove, it disproves. Falsifying creator monkeys is the only approach that works, and the only approach a scientist would take. The burden of proof finds better use in the courtroom than the lab.

Theories are just tools in science; they don't require our acceptance or belief, only our understanding. I don't care if evolution is true or not. I only care if it works or if it doesn't. So if phylogenies cannot be properly tested, that's a problem. If species are poorly defined and speciation is not always identifiable, that's a problem.

I may have gone on a tangent. But I think that until the forum understands this about me they'll just waste my time.

[no one]

Caecilius Statius:
Fear created the first gods in the world.

Arrogance and ignorance played their parts as well.

[Succubus]

Are you kidding me? Just flip the fucking statement around, what would convince you of tuning anyway? How many more physical constants do you need to be discoverd to finally shake your head and think this is too precise to be the product of nothing.

'Physical constants' being the operative term here. What choice did god have when he created the universe? The universe can't work any other way.

Billy says...

'Do not multiply entities beyond necessity'!

[LadyForCamus]

I’m not assuming any of that. It’s your argument. So, god didn’t need to fine tune the universe? He just wanted to? How did you determine that?

god entails not needing anything.

How, exactly, did you determine that?

are you that stubborn to make any progress with this stuff, really?

I’m just waiting patiently for you to make a positive and well evidenced argument for your case. 

Because these arguments have been done to DEATH here, Klorophyll. Do you think you’re blowing our minds with this stuff? We had an almost 100 page thread just on whether or not an infinite regress is possible in reality with members who are actually qualified to talk about the math of such circumstances. You should go read it; you might learn something. I did.

You also have a very long thread discussing the possibility of something coming out of nothing, which is insane, sophistic, wrong.

I agree that something can’t come from nothing, but probably not for the same reasons as you.

and you have no evidence of tuning

Are you kidding me? Just flip the fucking statement around, what would convince you of tuning anyway? How many more physical constants do you need to be discoverd to finally shake your head and think this is too precise to be the product of nothing.

Who said this world is the product of nothing? Not me. What would convince me of tuning you ask? Evidence of a tuner, and tuning, lol. You have neither. You’re simply looking around at reality and saying, “wow!”. That’s not evidence or an argument. Why am I convinced cars are designed, Klorophyll? Because, there exists evidence of engineers, and engineering; design plans and the folks who wrote them, and evidence of how they wrote them; because I can walk into an automobile manufacturing company and watch manufacturing employees putting cars together using various parts; because when my car breaks, I can bring it to the repair shop and watch the auto repair guy diagnose and replace the broken part. You have no such evidence for tuning, or a tuner; for a designer or design. No mechanism; no nothing.

Fortunately for evolution, the fact that you refuse to accept it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true, lol.

 bla bla...

Let me know when you win the Nobel for overturning evolution, mmkay?

[Fake Messiah]

So if phylogenies cannot be properly tested, that's a problem.

Sure, I mean nothing can be properly tested. How can you tell if a history book is accurate? We cannot replay history, nor time-travel.
How can we properly test gravity and prove beyond any doubt that it's not angels pushing planets.
And we can never tell if a phylogeny is accurate (except in special cases where we have made direct observations on the past, for example when culturing bacterial strains in the lab).

So all we can do is make observations on the present to infer the past, while cautiously leaning on the assumption that things proceeded in the past in a similar way to how they proceed in the present.