DNA Proves Existence of a Designer

[CDF47]

At work.

How old are you?  I am near 40 in April.

40?

Ye young whipper-snapper!

I should be shouting at you to get off me lawn! :lol:

LOL

[Amarok]

Your side has nothing

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66 years old

Yeah, you got me beat with age.

Not sure i would call it a victory really 

[T0 Th3 M4X]

That you didn't read.

There was no need to read it.  I referenced it for the definition.

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I read this towards the end to get what we're you're at now with this (I'm not ready through 1000+ pages).

"Irreducible Complexity" has been around for awhile.  I remember reading Behe's book when it first hit the shelves. There's some good insight in it in regard to systems and how they work together.  However, you're not going to win an argument using it, because it has been around for awhile, so there are layers of arguments that attempt to prove it's not necessary, even if we can't observe them to say "yay" or "nay."

Of course monkeys can pull fully developed eyeballs out of their buttocks and shove them into their skull.  And there you have it.  A spontaneous process of evolutionary wonder.

Now information theory on the other hand is a little bit more difficult.  Time + Mutations = Chicken, Elephants, Giraffes, Lemurs, and Goats.  Why not?

But then you have to deal with the nature of mutations.  This is problematic because you need positive mutations that unlock or expand into new genetic information.  Of course mutations cause things like deformities and cancer.  So assuming it's possible you need more time, and even if the mutation creates something new, it has to be useful, and it has to be introduced into the reproductive system of the parent(s).  Why?  Well if a fly develops a third wing, it won't be able to fly properly, and it will be more likely to be picked off by a predator.  Additionally it has to be passed along through the reproductive system so the offspring can carry the same trait.  If you manage to get the new species you have to cross your fingers that it isn't sterile.  And so on, and so on, and so on...

And this is just the beginning of why it's a waste of time to argue.  In a human life, there is not enough time to gather enough information to prove or disprove said processes and demonstrate it as a feasible explanation.

Welcome to the discussion.  Some interesting information.

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I wonder why Ev was banned.  I hope for not posting those videos.  She stopped after a warning was given.

Thanks for the welcome.

[CDF47]

Yeah, you got me beat with age.

Not sure i would call it a victory really 

Yeah, it depends on how you look at it.

[Paleophyte]

I read this towards the end to get what we're you're at now with this (I'm not ready through 1000+ pages).

"Irreducible Complexity" has been around for awhile.  I remember reading Behe's book when it first hit the shelves. There's some good insight in it in regard to systems and how they work together.  However, you're not going to win an argument using it, because it has been around for awhile, so there are layers of arguments that attempt to prove it's not necessary, even if we can't observe them to say "yay" or "nay."

Of course monkeys can pull fully developed eyeballs out of their buttocks and shove them into their skull.  And there you have it.  A spontaneous process of evolutionary wonder.

Now information theory on the other hand is a little bit more difficult.  Time + Mutations = Chicken, Elephants, Giraffes, Lemurs, and Goats.  Why not?

But then you have to deal with the nature of mutations.  This is problematic because you need positive mutations that unlock or expand into new genetic information.  Of course mutations cause things like deformities and cancer.  So assuming it's possible you need more time, and even if the mutation creates something new, it has to be useful, and it has to be introduced into the reproductive system of the parent(s).  Why?  Well if a fly develops a third wing, it won't be able to fly properly, and it will be more likely to be picked off by a predator.  Additionally it has to be passed along through the reproductive system so the offspring can carry the same trait.  If you manage to get the new species you have to cross your fingers that it isn't sterile.  And so on, and so on, and so on...

And this is just the beginning of why it's a waste of time to argue.  In a human life, there is not enough time to gather enough information to prove or disprove said processes and demonstrate it as a feasible explanation.

This sounds like "The truth is complicated so let's stop looking." Forgive me if I take a rockier road.

There's a simple way to do this if you don't want to expend the skull sweat necessary to pick up the basics. Nobel Prizes are awarded to the scientists that see further than their peers and overturn paradigms. Einstein picked up a couple Nobels for kicking the crap out of everybody's dearly held beliefs in physics. If this had happened in biology you'd be looking at a similar result. Instead you're watching Behe admit in court that the "scientific method" that he subscribes to isn't actually scientific. Anybody else could do the same, yet nobody has. Scientists have been working on evolution for over a century, and while several have won Nobels for refining the theory nobody has managed to refute it.

If you do want to expend the skull sweat then let me know. There's a plethora of evidence if you're willing to examine it impartially.

[Anomalocaris]

My side has the Creator of the universe and everything in it.

Two can play at this game.

My side made your creator give up his universe and now have him crawling on all 4s on a leash with a dildo up his almighty holy ass.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

I read this towards the end to get what we're you're at now with this (I'm not ready through 1000+ pages).

"Irreducible Complexity" has been around for awhile.  I remember reading Behe's book when it first hit the shelves. There's some good insight in it in regard to systems and how they work together.  However, you're not going to win an argument using it, because it has been around for awhile, so there are layers of arguments that attempt to prove it's not necessary, even if we can't observe them to say "yay" or "nay."

Of course monkeys can pull fully developed eyeballs out of their buttocks and shove them into their skull.  And there you have it.  A spontaneous process of evolutionary wonder.

Now information theory on the other hand is a little bit more difficult.  Time + Mutations = Chicken, Elephants, Giraffes, Lemurs, and Goats.  Why not?

But then you have to deal with the nature of mutations.  This is problematic because you need positive mutations that unlock or expand into new genetic information.  Of course mutations cause things like deformities and cancer.  So assuming it's possible you need more time, and even if the mutation creates something new, it has to be useful, and it has to be introduced into the reproductive system of the parent(s).  Why?  Well if a fly develops a third wing, it won't be able to fly properly, and it will be more likely to be picked off by a predator.  Additionally it has to be passed along through the reproductive system so the offspring can carry the same trait.  If you manage to get the new species you have to cross your fingers that it isn't sterile.  And so on, and so on, and so on...

And this is just the beginning of why it's a waste of time to argue.  In a human life, there is not enough time to gather enough information to prove or disprove said processes and demonstrate it as a feasible explanation.

This sounds like "The truth is complicated so let's stop looking." Forgive me if I take a rockier road.

There's a simple way to do this if you don't want to expend the skull sweat necessary to pick up the basics. Nobel Prizes are awarded to the scientists that see further than their peers and overturn paradigms. Einstein picked up a couple Nobels for kicking the crap out of everybody's dearly held beliefs in physics. If this had happened in biology you'd be looking at a similar result. Instead you're watching Behe admit in court that the "scientific method" that he subscribes to isn't actually scientific. Anybody else could do the same, yet nobody has. Scientists have been working on evolution for over a century, and while several have won Nobels for refining the theory nobody has managed to refute it.

If you do want to expend the skull sweat then let me know. There's a plethora of evidence if you're willing to examine it impartially.

Sounds like deceptive thinking on your part.  I never said to stop looking it up, but anybody who says it's not complicated would be full of something, because it is.  That's why "science" establishes information through steps, then we refine those steps, add additional steps, and draw new data to interpret.

Also, I don't have a problem with the term "evolution", but first we need to define what we mean by it, because there are multiple types/versions floating around.  If you don't do that, then you risk "bait and switch" tactics, and there you go with things becoming more complicated again.  Why? Because we didn't approach something with care.

Best thing is to speak for yourself, and ask if you're unsure, because I'm more than happy to clarify my position for you.

Now we can have a friendly discussion.  Cheers.

[Angrboda]

Systems failing at their current purpose as a consequence of removal of a part is not irreducible complexity.  Systems degrading by removal of a single part is a counter-example to the contention that the system is irreducibly complex.

You don't even understand what irreducible complexity is, much less what it would take to establish that something is irreducibly complex.

Wrong.  My definition matches the definition at the website below:

http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~rogers/evi...index.html

All you've shown is that Behe doesn't understand irreducible complexity either. The ambiguity inherent in his definition, and an appropriate disambiguation of that ambiguity reveals that Behe's definition here is simply wrong, a fact which has been pointed out by many people. All you are showing is that you don't know what you're talking about and are relying on representations that have already been shown to be in error.

I'll point out to you the following statements from your own source.

First, "As Darwin went on to point out, a single function may be served by several organs, and a single organ may have several functions at the same time or at different times. This allows selection to construct organs that exhibit irreducible complexity." This is simply bollocks. The whole point of the concept of irreducible complexity is that such systems cannot be approached through stepwise selection. To say that a system which can be approached through stepwise reflection is irreducibly complex is oxymoronic because then it is not either irreducible, nor does it align with the way the concept of irreducible complexity has been used by design theorists to attempt to prove the necessity of design. Behe, your source, and design proponents are simply being inconsistent in their terms and arguments.

And finally, the following:

The idea has been used many times in the years since Darwin, especially with reference to the vertebrate eye. The first person to use the eye in this context seems to have been Charles Pritchard, the schoolmaster who taught mathematics and botany to Darwin's sons. (In later years, Pritchard went on to a distinguished career in astronomy.) Pritchard put the argument like this:

I cannot understand how, by any series of accidental variations, so complicated a structure as the eye could have been successively improved. The chances of any accidental variation in such an instrument being an improvement are small indeed. Suppose, for instance, one of the surfaces of the crystalline lens of the eye of a creature, possessing a crystalline and a cornea, to be accidentally altered, then I say, that unless the form of the other surface is simultaneously altered, in one only way out of the millions of possible ways, the eye would not be optically improved. An alteration also in the two surfaces of the crystalline lens, whether accidental or otherwise, would involve a definite alteration the the form of the cornea, or in the distance of its surface from the centre of the crystalline lens, in order that the eye may be optically better. All these alterations must be simultaneous and definite in amount, and these definite amounts must coexist in obedience to an extremely complicated law. To my apprehansion then, that so complex an instrument as an eye should undergo a succession of millions of improvements, by means of a succession of millions of accidental alterations, is not less improbable, than if all the letters of the "Origin of Species" were placed in a box, and on being shaken and poured out millions on millions of times, they should at last come out together in the order in which they occur in that fascinating and, in general, highly philosophical work. (Pritchard, Charles. 1866. The Continuity of the Schemes of Nature and Revelation, p 33.)

Although Pritchard did not use the term, he is claiming here that eyes are irreducibly complex and therefore cannot evolve by natural selection.

This argument is less persuasive than it may seem at first. First, it is not all that hard to imagine how eyes might have evolved by natural selection. On pp pp 39-42 of my book, The Evidence for Evolution, I describe a sequence of small, individually-adaptive steps, which leads from a simple eyespot to the complex, camera-like, vertebrate eye. The ideas there are not mine, but go back to Darwin. Although this argument shows that eyes might plausibly evolve, it does not show that they actually did evolve. This, however, is a hypothesis that can be tested using modern evidence on the molecular constituents of eyes (see pp 42-48 of my book). This evidence supports the view that eyes evolved by natural selection.

This history illustrates an important general point. Pritchard was wrong to claim (in effect) that eyes are irreducibly complex. Yet this claim was persuasive to many people for over a century, until modern molecular data showed that Darwin had been right all along. In the end, it turned out that Pritchard's conviction rested on nothing more than a failure of imagination.

Is there a more reliable way to use the principle of irreducible complexity? The answer seems to be no. All such arguments begin with the claim that some organ is irreducibly complex. Such claims are inevitably justified by arguing, as Pritchard did, that change in any single component of the system is bound to be harmful. Yet the example of the eye shows that this is not enough. Such systems can evolve by natural selection. There is no reason to find such an argument convincing, even when no one can imagine the sequence of evolutionary steps involved.

It is conceivable that irreducible complexity is a real phenomenon--that there do exist organs that cannot evolve by small, individually-adaptive steps. The trouble is that we have no way to recognize them. It is not enough to show that the organ cannot function with one or more parts removed. For this reason, there is no valid way to employ the argument from irreducible complexity.

So, even if your claimed definition of irreducible complexity were valid (it's not), it would be useless as an argument for intelligent design because by defining it as you, Behe, and the quoted author have defined it, irreducible complexity doesn't show that a system could not have evolved through natural means, and even more, you can't even show that a system is irreducibly complex in that sense to begin with. So the definition you have provided fails in not just one, but two ways. You've been successfully cock-blocked!

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@CDF

Still waiting on an answer to this.

Based on the fossil record, it does not appear that there were small changes adding to huge changes for humans or animals.  The intermediates do not exist.  See the article I posted in a prior post above.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

[Gwaithmir]

My side has the Creator of the universe and everything in it.

Yeah, and I'm King Isildur.

[Angrboda]

I read this towards the end to get what we're you're at now with this (I'm not ready through 1000+ pages).

"Irreducible Complexity" has been around for awhile. I remember reading Behe's book when it first hit the shelves. There's some good insight in it in regard to systems and how they work together. However, you're not going to win an argument using it, because it has been around for awhile, so there are layers of arguments that attempt to prove it's not necessary, even if we can't observe them to say "yay" or "nay."

Of course monkeys can pull fully developed eyeballs out of their buttocks and shove them into their skull. And there you have it. A spontaneous process of evolutionary wonder.

Now information theory on the other hand is a little bit more difficult. Time + Mutations = Chicken, Elephants, Giraffes, Lemurs, and Goats. Why not?

But then you have to deal with the nature of mutations. This is problematic because you need positive mutations that unlock or expand into new genetic information. Of course mutations cause things like deformities and cancer. So assuming it's possible you need more time, and even if the mutation creates something new, it has to be useful, and it has to be introduced into the reproductive system of the parent(s). Why? Well if a fly develops a third wing, it won't be able to fly properly, and it will be more likely to be picked off by a predator. Additionally it has to be passed along through the reproductive system so the offspring can carry the same trait. If you manage to get the new species you have to cross your fingers that it isn't sterile. And so on, and so on, and so on...

And this is just the beginning of why it's a waste of time to argue. In a human life, there is not enough time to gather enough information to prove or disprove said processes and demonstrate it as a feasible explanation.

Bahahahaha! We have a new contestant! Move over, Everena, you've been replaced!