Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[AAA]

1) Atheism is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. Scientific data is used to assess the value of specific claims. Also to refute the utter BS spouted by ID muppets who haven't heard the result from Dover yet...

2) Life shows apparent "design" due to the bias of the human brain, this is merely an artifact of the observer, not an inherant property of life.

3) The Cell is formed by a phospholipid bilayer membrane, Phopholipids have hyrophilic heads and hyrophobic tails and thus form a double membrane in order to prevent water from contacting the tails. Pure mathmatical chemistry, nothing magical.

4) Protein chains have been produced in the lab from base compounds subjected to environmental conditions from the Hadean period.

How do you know that your desire to not believe in a God is not a product of your human brain, which is susceptible to deluding itself to believe what makes it feel comfortable. How convenient that only the Christian position is biologically predisposed. Moreover, why is something automatically wrong if we are predisposed to believe it?

The cell membrane is formed by a phospholipid bilayer (and in some cases it's a monolayer), but that is not what anyone is concerned about forming. Also, you fail to acknowledge that the membrane is composed of about 50% proteins as well, which are largely responsible for balancing the internal environment and initiating complex signal transduction pathways that change the transcription pattern of the cell. You also have ignored the DNA, RNA, proteins, and the way the three are interconnected and interdependent. 

Even if you link a few amino acids, you are still not getting life. You are not even getting functional protein folds. That would be like me saying that I found some copper out in nature and saw lightning. That must mean that my ipod formed without input from intelligence. After all we know that some of the raw materials can be found in nature. How ignorant we must be of this fact to assume that an ipod had a designer.

[The Grand Nudger]

How do -you- know that anyone has a "desire to not believe"........lol?

In any case, I'm comfortable with my atheism being a product of my brain.  The rest of my personality is, why would it be different? What's the problem?

Last I checked, when you opened up an ipod, you didn't find an analog computer tucked neatly away inside - even more fundamentally, you don't find a clay tablet and stylus packed within that tucked away analog computer, buried in the middle of your digital processor. Yet another difference between evolved and designed systems.

[AAA]

Well that was about 10 assertions.

No, they are all backed by evidence.

More complex molecules are not the same as genomes.

They are building blocks.

You can't just assert that given chemicals, life will start.

I didn't actually assert that.

You not only have to form the molecules, but you must explain their sophisticated sequence that allows them to reproduce.

There exist self-replicating molecules - what's to explain?

It is not a given we are just constantly moving toward a state of higher complexity and functionality.

Who said it was?  Not I.

And were you referring to the long term evolution experiment where the bacteria gained the ability to metabolize citrate? They already possessed the enzymes necessary to break it down, it's just that they could not take it in under aerobic conditions.

Where do you come by that bit of misinformation?  

It could easily be explained by a degrading cell wall, which is not even entirely dependent on DNA for its proper replication. And I think natural selection limits the accumulating mutations. Your genome can only take so much mutation before it is rendered functionless.

You do not understand the Lenski experiment.  Try again.

No, I think I do understand it.

"Throughout the duration of the LTEE, there has existed an ecological opportunity in the form of an abundant, but unused, resource. DM25 medium contains not only glucose, but also citrate at a high concentration. The inability to use citrate as an energy source under oxic conditions has long been a defining characteristic of E. coli as a species. Nevertheless, E. coli is not wholly indifferent to citrate. It uses a ferric dicitrate transport system for iron acquisition, although citrate does not enter the cell in this process. It also has a complete tricarboxylic acid cycle, and can thus metabolize citrate internally during aerobic growth on other substrates. E. coli is able to ferment citrate under anoxic conditions if a cosubstrate is available for reducing power. The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions. Indeed, atypical E. coli that grow aerobically on citrate (Cit+) have been isolated from agricultural and clinical settings, and were found to harbor plasmids, presumably acquired from other species, that encode citrate transporters."

Note that they say that the only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to tranport citrate under anoxic conditions. This is what I said.
here is the article:
Blout, Z.D., Borland, C.Z., Lenski, R.E., 2008. Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. CrossMark. 105(23) 7899-7906.

[Mr Greene]

1) Atheism is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. Scientific data is used to assess the value of specific claims. Also to refute the utter BS spouted by ID muppets who haven't heard the result from Dover yet...

2) Life shows apparent "design" due to the bias of the human brain, this is merely an artifact of the observer, not an inherant property of life.

3) The Cell is formed by a phospholipid bilayer membrane, Phopholipids have hyrophilic heads and hyrophobic tails and thus form a double membrane in order to prevent water from contacting the tails. Pure mathmatical chemistry, nothing magical.

4) Protein chains have been produced in the lab from base compounds subjected to environmental conditions from the Hadean period.

How do you know that your desire to not believe in a God is not a product of your human brain, which is susceptible to deluding itself to believe what makes it feel comfortable. How convenient that only the Christian position is biologically predisposed. Moreover, why is something automatically wrong if we are predisposed to believe it?

The cell membrane is formed by a phospholipid bilayer (and in some cases it's a monolayer), but that is not what anyone is concerned about forming. Also, you fail to acknowledge that the membrane is composed of about 50% proteins as well, which are largely responsible for balancing the internal environment and initiating complex signal transduction pathways that change the transcription pattern of the cell. You also have ignored the DNA, RNA, proteins, and the way the three are interconnected and interdependent. 

Even if you link a few amino acids, you are still not getting life. You are not even getting functional protein folds. That would be like me saying that I found some copper out in nature and saw lightning. That must mean that my ipod formed without input from intelligence. After all we know that some of the raw materials can be found in nature. How ignorant we must be of this fact to assume that an ipod had a designer.

"My desire to not believe in a god"... Nonsensical, gods don't never have existed so the point is moot. The Jews lied as demonstrated by the direct contradiction between scripture and archaeology prior to 450 BCE. I have no influence over either scripture or archaeology, thus my "desire" plays no part either way.

Regarding the transfer of chemicals across the membrane of vesicles the attached video describes this process, I would suggest you take on the information before demonstrating your ignorance of the subject, but we both know you aren't here for education. This is just an attempt to massage your ego.
Prove me wrong, can you actually research the details of the archaeology relevant to position or even just watch the video, or you just yet another emotional cripple attempting to pleasure yourself?

[Tonus]

Again, I think that some of these scary features of our world that you are referring to can be considered mechanisms to ensure that the genetic integrity is maintained. For example, we have mechanisms to avoid bacterial infections. When we have a poor diet/ lifestyle, we are more susceptible to being overcome by these infections. They may be a mechanism to weed out those who are not living healthy lives.

If such things are designed, what does it say about the designer? Nature is beautiful in many respects, and horrifying and deadly in many others. If these horrors are being used to weed out the weak then it feels as if the intelligent designer is... Wes Craven?

[AAA]

You're right, the claim is that it is the only known cause, not that it is the only cause. I should have been more careful with that. Information is defined as that which is conveyed by a sequence of things. The specified part is indicating that the information is used to accomplish a desired function.

And you have no way to define that rigorously.  This is a backward definition.  It implies design in the way you've formulated it, which makes it nothing more than begging the question.  Can you use it in a sentence?  Show how fairy rings do not contain specified information in a way that doesn't implicitly reference design.

Couple that with the fact that the sequence is highly irregular, and you start to see how intelligence is a good candidate.

This is mere complexity and is back to the argument that it couldn't arise by pure chance.  Since evolutionary processes have already been demonstrated to produce greater complexity from simpler origins, it makes some form of evolutionary process an equally viable candidate.

This is why it is essential to compare the competing hypothesis for the origin of information. When the others fail, and only one remains, we can conclude that the remaining one is the only known cause. We can and should look for other causes, but that doesn't change the fact that only one possible explanation has been identified despite rigorous searching.

Rigorous searching doesn't change this from an argument from ignorance.  It's unsound to conclude that the cause was intelligence until all possible alternative causes have been explored.  Not just 'known' causes but all possible.  This you've failed to do.  That's why you have all this talk about known causes, instead of a positive argument for design.  If you had a positive argument, you'd use it.  Therefore an argument from ignorance is the only known argument for intelligent design.

And the intelligent design advocates have been working hard to develop methods of design detection. William Dembski has worked on this issue.

The same could be said for abiogenesis.  It means little without any actual results.  Despite "rigorous searching" no positive argument for design has been developed.  

You're right that it doesn't necessarily point to God, and that is why the ID community does not attempt to identify the designer(s).

This is disingenuous twaddle.  We all know your end game.  You're not fooling anyone.

Define 'define' so that I know what definitions count. Also please define 'rigorously' so I can meet that criterion. I'm joking of course. Maybe instead of getting hung up on the quality of the definitions (which I did provide), maybe deal with the concept of the argument. 

And when did evolutionary forces produce higher complexity? Are you talking about things like horizontal gene transfer, because I would accept that it increases complexity, but only by adding pre-existing information to the system.

And for the third time, I am not saying that design is the only cause. I'm saying that it is the only known cause. There has been a thorough search, but obviously not all possibilities have been considered. So we literally have to investigate every possible explanation for any observation before we can say that we believe one stands out as best? If you follow your own type of reasoning, then you do not have any beliefs about anything because you are waiting for us to investigate possible explanations that nobody has thought of yet. 

And I've used positive evidence. We see intelligence creating information all the time. Scientists are constantly creating RNA sequences in the lab to guide CRISPR-CAS 9 machinery. If I go back to my university and create a functional protein by linking a series of amino acids in a desired way, then will I have given positive evidence that intelligence is an adequate cause?

I believe that the designing intelligence is God, but that is simply not the type of claim that ID is making. There are ID proponents who do not believe this.

---

Again, I think that some of these scary features of our world that you are referring to can be considered mechanisms to ensure that the genetic integrity is maintained. For example, we have mechanisms to avoid bacterial infections. When we have a poor diet/ lifestyle, we are more susceptible to being overcome by these infections. They may be a mechanism to weed out those who are not living healthy lives.

If such things are designed, what does it say about the designer?  Nature is beautiful in many respects, and horrifying and deadly in many others.  If these horrors are being used to weed out the weak then it feels as if the intelligent designer is... Wes Craven?

I think that putting mechanisms in place to preserve the integrity of the genetic code is more moral than letting our genetic code degrade to the point  where we suffer defects and functional disparities.

[LastPoet]

Genetic code degrading. Lol. Another idiot that does not understand evolution.

[LastPoet]

Oooooh I get it, our genetic code degrades because we don't follow a particular god. It designed it like it.

I dunno wether to laugh or cry. Are people this ignorant?

[AAA]

How do you know that your desire to not believe in a God is not a product of your human brain, which is susceptible to deluding itself to believe what makes it feel comfortable. How convenient that only the Christian position is biologically predisposed. Moreover, why is something automatically wrong if we are predisposed to believe it?

The cell membrane is formed by a phospholipid bilayer (and in some cases it's a monolayer), but that is not what anyone is concerned about forming. Also, you fail to acknowledge that the membrane is composed of about 50% proteins as well, which are largely responsible for balancing the internal environment and initiating complex signal transduction pathways that change the transcription pattern of the cell. You also have ignored the DNA, RNA, proteins, and the way the three are interconnected and interdependent. 

Even if you link a few amino acids, you are still not getting life. You are not even getting functional protein folds. That would be like me saying that I found some copper out in nature and saw lightning. That must mean that my ipod formed without input from intelligence. After all we know that some of the raw materials can be found in nature. How ignorant we must be of this fact to assume that an ipod had a designer.

"My desire to not believe in a god"... Nonsensical, gods don't never have existed so the point is moot. The Jews lied as demonstrated by the direct contradiction between scripture and archaeology prior to 450 BCE. I have no influence over either scripture or archaeology, thus my "desire" plays no part either way.

Regarding the transfer of chemicals across the membrane of vesicles the attached video describes this process, I would suggest you take on the information before demonstrating your ignorance of the subject, but we both know you aren't here for education. This is just an attempt to massage your ego.
Prove me wrong, can you actually research the details of the archaeology relevant to position or even just watch the video, or you just yet another emotional cripple attempting to pleasure yourself?

Ok, you don't have to call it a desire if you don't want to, but the point is still there. I resent being called an emotional cripple. I think that you think that Christians are blinded by their emotion. If you think this, then who is really here to massage their ego? 

And who cares if the video addresses vesicle transfer. Nobody was even talking about that. And vesicular transfer is hardly the only way by which compounds move into or out of a cell.

---

Oooooh I get it, our genetic code degrades because we don't follow a particular god. It designed it like it.

I dunno wether to laugh or cry. Are people this ignorant?

I think you really didn't understand the point.

[The Grand Nudger]

And when did evolutionary forces produce higher complexity?

You mean, other than the evidenced examples....of...for example...every living thing?  Unless, ofc, your "higher complexity" is a floating trashcan term.  Are human beings more "complex" than single celled organisms? If the answer you would provide is yes, then you've answered your question..if it's no, you've rendered your question meaningless.

And for the third time, I am not saying that design is the only cause. I'm saying that it is the only known cause.

You keep saying it, but it's no more true now than it was the first time.  That's kind of the problem.  

There has been a thorough search, but obviously not all possibilities have been considered. So we literally have to investigate every possible explanation for any observation before we can say that we believe one stands out as best?

"We" wouldn't have to do that, a known explanation already stands out as the best explanation.  All available evidence poins to it without a single dissenting peice of evidence.   You might have to, though, since you'd rather not refer to the theory we have.  

And I've used positive evidence. We see intelligence creating information all the time. Scientists are constantly creating RNA sequences in the lab to guide CRISPR-CAS 9 machinery. If I go back to my university and create a functional protein by linking a series of amino acids in a desired way, then will I have given positive evidence that intelligence is an adequate cause?

Indeed, which isn't a problem forevolutionary theory - it's kind of the crowning achievement, and is only accomplished by leveraging evolutionary theory.  You can't really refer to their success without tacitly approving of the body of knowledge they use to accomplish it.  Are they achieving consistent results by accident, by leveraging an incorrect theory?  It's happened before, just figured some clarity was in order.  Did "god" do it exactly like modern synth did it?  What's the problem?

I believe that the designing intelligence is God, but that is simply not the type of claim that ID is making. There are ID proponents who do not believe this.

Actually, that -is- the claim that ID made, which is why it appeals to you..unfortunately, they failed to support that claim and ultimately discredited themselves by hanging their hats on an irreducible complexity that does not exist. Meanwhile modern synth continues to collect evidence...there is still no evidence to the contrary, and it produces results like crispr, above, that you seem to be quite enamoured with. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how it is you're trying to argue -against- modern synth by presenting a litany of corroborating points of data for the theory with which you have a religious objection to.........