“Intelligence,” OUT OF NOTHINGNESS!

[Angrboda]

gish-gallop?

Is that a real word/phrase?

Named after creationist Duane Gish.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

The Gish Gallop is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of small arguments that their opponent cannot possibly answer or address each one in real time. More often than not, these myriad arguments are full of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments - the only condition is that there be many of them, not that they be particularly compelling on their own. They may be escape hatches or "gotcha" arguments that are specifically designed to be brief, but take a long time to unravel. Thus, galloping is frequently used in timed debates (especially by creationists) to overwhelm one's opponent.

[Ryantology]

For further reference, look at every post Statler Waldorf has ever made on this forum. No user on this forum embraces the Gish Gallop technique as often, or as deliberately, as he does.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Why are first cause threads always started by people with zero reps?

Probably naive teenagers just hearing WL Craig's "Kalam" argument for the first time.

[archangle]

we take you apart and find nothing ... so there is no "you".
wtf people.

[Harris]

Nope: we have evidence that man made objects have designers, but we have none that natural things do, regardless of complexity. Snowflakes, crystals, and a number of other natural phenomenon are complex, but you're begging the question of you seek to insert a designer into their makeup despite knowing their natural origins simply because they are complex, as you haven't demonstrated that complexity is the sole domain of designers.

At many occasions, I disputed that CHANCE has no scientific value. There is nothing in nature, which has no cause for its existence. If we do not have, appropriate scientific evidence that does not mean CHANCE prevail and outrun the scientific reasoning by mere axioms and postulates. In case you are not a promoter of CHANCE, then what proposition you have to explain the origin of complex structures such as DNA code?

I’ll give you few quotes which perfectly fit to the intelligent design argument:

"The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
Wickramasinghe, C., Interview in London Daily Express (August 14, 1981)

"Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 10 to the power 15 or a thousand million million. Numbers in the order of 1015 are of course completely beyond comprehension. Imagine an area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile. If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of leaves in the forest would be 1015, equivalent to the number of connections in the human brain."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
Denton
page 330:

Denton briefly scratches the surface of the supposedly "simple" cell:
"Altogether a typical cell contains about ten million million atoms. Suppose we choose to build an exact replica to a scale one thousand million times that of the cell so that each atom of the model would be the size of a tennis ball. Constructing such a model at the rate of one atom per minute, it would take fifty million years to finish, and the object we would end up with would be the giant factory, described above, some twenty kilometres in diameter, with a volume thousands of times that of the Great Pyramid."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
pages 329-30

Bullshit: humans are born with at least sixty mutations, up to a couple hundred, and the majority of them are benign if not beneficial. Ditto with other animals, where beneficial mutations or neutral ones are commonly observed. You're just talking nonsense, here.

I had discussed two types of mutations, injurious and Positive mutations. In both cases, I argued that mutation does not produce anything new. I intentionally not touched neutral mutation, as it has no positive or negative effect on the organ. Neutral mutation happens when different triplet of nucleotides, codes the same protein. In the genetic code, each protein has three nucleotides, which identify a protein, but there are several other triplets, which can identify the same protein as well. Therefore, if a different triplet identify same protein that means there is no change at all in the protein formation.

Neutral mutation like other types of mutations do not add anything new to the organ.

Evolutionist publicise positive mutation to justify evolution. Positive mutation says there is something new and different. Something that would be selected for and not against. However, this is only a postulate not a documented evidence.

Wrong again..

8 Examples of Evolution in Action are only postulates, which have no significance in the world of laboratory. Natural selection cannot justify these examples, as it is no more than a postulate whereas mutation adds nothing new and thus it goes in opposite direction to evolution.

It's interesting that you say that when it took me all of five seconds on google to find eight examples of entirely natural evolution, of new traits, with observed evidence. It really does call into question how much you actually know about the topic you're commenting on at such length.

These 5 seconds examples satisfy only naïve people who have no idea about evolution and they normally avoid going into the hassle for having scientific proofs.
To cut a long story short I will address the example of peppered moth only. This is one of the most popular among followers of Darwin, which they often bring to justify evolution in action.

It is discernible in nature that population of the same species have variations. If fragment of a population get isolated in some different environment then that fragment lacks some typical variants. This fact means that isolated fragment has lower diversity and it does not represent the whole population. In other words, an isolation itself is the cause of differences. The differences in populations are the result of genetic drift.

When isolated population grow due to favourable environments, the genetic differences also grow due to genetic drift alone. This is how races are formed. Therefore,

• Loss of variation (genes) does not give anything new.
• When isolation discontinue, recombination of genes return. Some variants may be reconstituted, but nothing new results.
• Race formation is the reverse process to evolution because evolution requires new genes.

Black peppered moth is different from the white peppered moth because of isolation, genetic drift, and natural processes that cause reduction of genetic information.

However, in evolution, bird is the selecting agent for moth to be black or white. This postulate has no scientific foundation and it is ridiculous to count this postulate equivalent to an established scientific fact.

This quote is an argument from ignorance, as are many of the other arguments you've advanced here. Hardly surprising.

All right! Here is another one form the same Lee Strobel.


"A system or device is irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish the task of the system, and if you were to remove one of the components, the system would no longer function. An irreducibly complex system is highly unlikely to be built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because the system has to be fully present in order for it to function."

"The Case for a Creator,"
by Lee Strobel

---

Humans have about 20,000 genes, but about 100,000 proteins. This is because of alternative RNA splicing. Basically, the RNA transcript of the gene has exons and introns. The exons are joined together as the introns are removed, and the final product is translated into a polypeptide (the composing unit of a protein). The term "alternative RNA splicing" denotes instances of mutually exclusive exons, allowing the RNA to be "spliced" in multiple ways to produce slightly different proteins. This is probably the explanation for why we have so many more proteins than genes.

What is the point you are trying to make here by giving this piece of information?

The irony is that artificial selection is actually a better designer than we are. We have no clue how to design a brand new protein for a particular function, yet we can produce one through "directed evolution".

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997618/

You can defend Darwin’s Theory by saying anything but the fact is Darwin’s Tree of Life has no roots.

Russian biologist Alexander Oparin (Atheist) aimed to explain how the first living cell of the alleged common ancestor of all living beings could emerged. All of his efforts were in vain and he himself had to confessed:

“Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question that is actually the murkiest aspect of the whole theory of evolution.”
Page 196, Origin of life

Engineering enzymatic activity is particularly difficult, because very small changes in structure or chemical properties can have very significant effects on catalysis. Thus predicting the amino acid sequence, or changes to an amino acid sequence, that would generate a specific behavior remains a challenge, particularly for applications requiring high performance (such as an industrial enzyme or a therapeutic protein). Unfortunately, where function is concerned, details matter, and we just don't understand the details.

Evolution, however, had no difficulty generating these impressive molecules. Despite their complexity and finely-tuned nature, proteins are remarkably evolvable: they can adapt under the pressure of selection, changing behavior, function and even fold. Protein engineers have learned to exploit this evolvability using ‘directed evolution’ — the application of iterative rounds of mutation and artificial selection or screening to generate new proteins. Hundreds of directed evolution experiments have demonstrated the ease with which proteins adapt to new challenges.

First question is how the living cell emerged and why it is alive.
Second question is how this living cell gets the complex genetic code.


Professor Antony Flew is the world’s foremost academic atheist and author of more than 30 books, wrote a paper “Theology and falsification.” This paper became most widely reprinted philosophical publication and a key foundation for atheist who advanced materialist evolutionism in the last half century. However, advances in science forced Flew to change his view from atheism to theism.

He said in an interview
“What I think the DNA material has shown unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which lead to produce this being that intelligence must have been involved in getting those extraordinarily diverse elements to work together.”

Although Darwin had no clue about the complexity of DNA, yet he was thoughtful on complex living structures and that causes discomfort in him.

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications my theory would absolutely break down.”

Page 189
Chapter “Difficulties”
The origin of species

---

On the "embodied mind"...we have no evidence or reason that a mind can exist apart from matter. All of the evidence points to the mind being a creation of matter.

True, “we have no evidence that a mind can exist apart from matter,” neither have we any documented evidence for “mind being a creation of matter.” Lack of evidence does not change any value in nature. I recommend you to study Descartes Mind–Body Dualism along with its popular critics.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Nope: we have evidence that man made objects have designers, but we have none that natural things do, regardless of complexity. Snowflakes, crystals, and a number of other natural phenomenon are complex, but you're begging the question of you seek to insert a designer into their makeup despite knowing their natural origins simply because they are complex, as you haven't demonstrated that complexity is the sole domain of designers.

At many occasions, I disputed that CHANCE has no scientific value. There is nothing in nature, which has no cause for its existence. If we do not have, appropriate scientific evidence that does not mean CHANCE prevail and outrun the scientific reasoning by mere axioms and postulates. In case you are not a promoter of CHANCE, then what proposition you have to explain the origin of complex structures such as DNA code?

I’ll give you few quotes which perfectly fit to the intelligent design argument:

"The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
Wickramasinghe, C., Interview in London Daily Express (August 14, 1981)

"Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 10 to the power 15 or a thousand million million. Numbers in the order of 1015 are of course completely beyond comprehension. Imagine an area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile. If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of leaves in the forest would be 1015, equivalent to the number of connections in the human brain."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
Denton
page 330:

Denton briefly scratches the surface of the supposedly "simple" cell:
"Altogether a typical cell contains about ten million million atoms. Suppose we choose to build an exact replica to a scale one thousand million times that of the cell so that each atom of the model would be the size of a tennis ball. Constructing such a model at the rate of one atom per minute, it would take fifty million years to finish, and the object we would end up with would be the giant factory, described above, some twenty kilometres in diameter, with a volume thousands of times that of the Great Pyramid."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
pages 329-30

Could you just explain, for my benefit if you would, how any of the above actually disproves the theory of evolution?

Forgive me but all I read is a mixture of personal incredulity and arguments from ignorance, so please point out where I'm misreading this as I presume you wouldn't have posted this in order to evidence something.

[Harris]

I not know. You?

*snerk*

I look at time in two different ways. One religious and second standard.

Religious view:
Allah is the creator of everything (including space). He regulates all events and actions in the universe. He determines to what extent His created beings would exist. In other words, He allocate age to every being. His creatures are time dependent, but He is not. Allah’s activities is time for His created beings. He is time Himself.

“Allah. There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).”
Al Baqarah (2)
-Verse 255-
Quran


Standard view:
Aging + Relative motions = Human sense of Time

Please also check my response to Pickup_shonuff below

---

Causality as I understand it cannot be without time.

That's the dirty little secret none of them seem to notice or care about.

Everything in the universe has a Local frame of causality that means everything in the universe is reliant on the laws that run the universe. However, the cause (whatever it maybe) that prompted Big Bang, transcends the scope of universe.

Causality without time within the scope of universe is not possible but what about the causality that originated the universe. Is there any reason to believe that before Big Bang time exist in similar way how we perceive it today?

---

What a pile of gish-gallop.

I'll just break it down to the basics.

1.If x, then y.

2.Therefore, if x, then not y.

3. Myriad of bullshit gish-gallop.

4. QED: This couple of Quran verse are true.

Lolwut?

When to an evolutionist a genuine scientific evidence is presented as a fact against evolution, almost immediately he moved away from the scientific material and jumped into the areas of philosophy, theology, the worldview, etc. He just start throwing lots of smoke and name-calling and get people even not to listen to the message of science by essentially criticising the messenger.

---

That's the dirty little secret none of them seem to notice or care about.

Don't you guys know? God exists outside of time, which means he never changes, never moves a finger, never acts in a way that was not already part of the immutable process. But also, and this is key, he can be petitioned to intervene within time! Isn't that comforting!? But how does that work, one might ask?

Well, unfortunately, human logic, which both God and theists are immune too, only offers rebuttals to the idea. So only God knows.

Remove the process of aging and you will get an active and fully energetic person who will live without having any limits of time.

Allah. There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-Subsisting, Eternal.
Ali Imran (3)
-Verse 2-
Quran

---

Theists call their beliefs 'logical'. In that same spirit, North Korea calls itself a "democratic republic".

And atheist thinks everything is popping out of nothingness and without any cause

---

Why are first cause threads always started by people with zero reps?

Probably naive teenagers just hearing WL Craig's "Kalam" argument for the first time.

Kalam is logical argument for naïve teenagers as well as for old professional boys.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Theists call their beliefs 'logical'. In that same spirit, North Korea calls itself a "democratic republic".

And atheist thinks everything is popping out of nothingness and without any cause

Strawman (I presume you've tried to demolish this multiple times on this thread).

[Harris]

At many occasions, I disputed that CHANCE has no scientific value. There is nothing in nature, which has no cause for its existence. If we do not have, appropriate scientific evidence that does not mean CHANCE prevail and outrun the scientific reasoning by mere axioms and postulates. In case you are not a promoter of CHANCE, then what proposition you have to explain the origin of complex structures such as DNA code?

I’ll give you few quotes which perfectly fit to the intelligent design argument:

"The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
Wickramasinghe, C., Interview in London Daily Express (August 14, 1981)

"Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 10 to the power 15 or a thousand million million. Numbers in the order of 1015 are of course completely beyond comprehension. Imagine an area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile. If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of leaves in the forest would be 1015, equivalent to the number of connections in the human brain."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
Denton
page 330:

Denton briefly scratches the surface of the supposedly "simple" cell:
"Altogether a typical cell contains about ten million million atoms. Suppose we choose to build an exact replica to a scale one thousand million times that of the cell so that each atom of the model would be the size of a tennis ball. Constructing such a model at the rate of one atom per minute, it would take fifty million years to finish, and the object we would end up with would be the giant factory, described above, some twenty kilometres in diameter, with a volume thousands of times that of the Great Pyramid."
Evolution: A theory in Crisis
pages 329-30

Could you just explain, for my benefit if you would, how any of the above actually disproves the theory of evolution?

Forgive me but all I read is a mixture of personal incredulity and arguments from ignorance, so please point out where I'm misreading this as I presume you wouldn't have posted this in order to evidence something.

Please read all of my responses to Esquilax

[Cato]

Professor Antony Flew is the world’s foremost academic atheist ...

I didn't think it possible to be that full of shit.