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Humanaut
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02 Aug 2014, 11:30 am

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
The famous atheist Richard Dawkins...

Richard Dawkins is an agnostic.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfk7tW429E4[/youtube]



TheBicyclingGuitarist
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02 Aug 2014, 11:36 am

Cool. I am glad Dawkins has the honesty to admit he is not sure whether or not there is a God. Of course he would say that the God of the Biblical literalists either doesn't exist or is a prankster to plant so much evidence. I have usually heard him referred to as an atheist. I stand corrected. Show me EVIDENCE I am wrong about ANYTHING and I will admit I am wrong (as long as the evidence is valid enough to convince me). I have met many people in discussions of this subject who are unwilling to consider or even look at the actual evidence.

I would have a LOT more respect for young earth creationists if, instead of ignoring, denying or distorting the evidence, they would admit that all the evidence points to a young earth and biological evolution but they choose to believe otherwise because of religious reasons. Now THAT would be a strong sign of FAITH. I only speak out because these well-meaning but badly misinformed people keep trying to sabotage the science education of American public schools, dumbing down everybody else's children besides their own.

What they do to their own children constitutes child abuse so far as I am concerned, but not badly enough for me to speak out about it because of the issue of religious freedom (the freedom to believe whatever batshit crazy ideas you want to believe). But when they try to push their insanity, FORCE their insanity onto everyone, that's when they have gone too far and I feel I have to speak out for the good of our country, our species and our planet.


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02 Aug 2014, 7:25 pm

Janissy wrote:
LoveNotHate wrote:

"Thus, we are still at a philosophical impasse concerning the question of the determinism or indeterminism of evolution" [see source]
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4544/1/ ... ticism.pdf

So, let's all agree that no one knows, and evolutionary theory does not know, and Prometheus premise of deterministic evolution is possible, well ... at least the first two right?, OK friends. Bye :) Feel free to hammer me if desired.

.


You did find a good ending reference. It shows to me that the problem here is actually a semantic one. You are assuming that the terms "deterministic", "biased" and "directional" all imply that an outside intelligent force was a necessary cause of the direction/bias. That an intelligent force set biology on a pre-determined path. But that's not what determinism means.



Exactly. I read most of the actual study and nowhere do they define deterministic to mean evolution as a whole is deterministic, read the the final paragraph carefully
"If the patterns that we observed in the vulva system are found more generally, then most of develop-mental system drift is driven by deterministic and not stochastic processes"

They most certainly are not using the term to say that Evolution is deterministic, they are instead suggesting that once a form has evolved changes are driven by laws governed by the structure itself, in this case the vulva of slightly diverged roundworms, this is not the same as saying all of evolution is driven by a set of laws. You should also note that this is ONE study that has not yet been replicated, let alone tried in other in different Taxa.

So yes your premise that aliens started life still has no evidence, and the most parsimonious hypothesis is the highly improbable random coming together of molecules under ideal conditions. But remember when I say highly improbable we are also using it in context of literally astronomical numbers of opportunities for the event to occur. And just to be clear science does not say life was created this way, given what we know the best hypothesis SUGGESTS it.

But thanks for finding an interesting article.


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02 Aug 2014, 10:54 pm

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
Cool. I am glad Dawkins has the honesty to admit he is not sure whether or not there is a God. Of course he would say that the God of the Biblical literalists either doesn't exist or is a prankster to plant so much evidence. I have usually heard him referred to as an atheist. I stand corrected. Show me EVIDENCE I am wrong about ANYTHING and I will admit I am wrong (as long as the evidence is valid enough to convince me). I have met many people in discussions of this subject who are unwilling to consider or even look at the actual evidence.


I think most atheists are also agnostics. They go about their life as if there is no God (atheist), but they don't claim 100% certainty (agnostic). Richard Dawkins once said that on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 is certainty there is a God, and 7 is the certainty that there is no God, he would "only" be a 6.9.
I think most people are agnostic in the end, even when they lean overwhelmingly to one side.



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03 Aug 2014, 7:19 am

DentArthurDent wrote:
Evolution is deterministic, they are instead suggesting that [i]once a form has evolved changes are driven by laws governed by the structure itself, in this case the vulva of slightly diverged roundworms, this is not the same as saying all of evolution is driven by a set of laws. You should also note that this is ONE study that has not yet been replicated, let alone tried in other in different Taxa.


You made a directed comment on the other thread about this to me, so we should put my part in this thread to bed. I only cited it because of the accusation that deterministic evolution is "nonsense".

I agree with everything you said here. The research states that the changes are not "purely stochastic" so like you said it is not entirely driven by determinism. However, I never claimed it was. I never claimed 99% of the things people assert I claimed. I don't think I ever claimed anything actually. I just defended that it was not "nonsense".

I pointed out that science has a "life-created-by-aliens" hypothesis, and we see research into deterministic evolution. Combining those references then I think "nonsense" is overreaching. It got muddled because I responded to many people that pursued different angles of inquiry and the insults from everyone did not help. But hopefully everyone had fun.



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03 Aug 2014, 7:32 am

LNH you are misunderstanding the use of deterministic as being fundamentally causal, In this case it is clear (at least to my understanding) that the research has nothing to do with the possibility that evolution has a primary causal direction, it instead is suggesting that once a particular path has been followed by evolutionary biology then localized natural laws may come into play.

From my reading of this research, it has absolutely nothing to do with the "Prometheus hypothesis". And therefore you still have not provided a single. solitary piece of supporting evidence.


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03 Aug 2014, 11:47 am

*sigh*

"The misunderstanding" is not that. The "misunderstanding" is that prior I spent time on a biology site that discussed Prometheus , where it was stated that deterministic evolution was contentious among researchers, so what a surprise I find WP members claim it is "nonsense", and throw in insults for too boot for suggesting such "nonsense". What is it that WP members know that researchers do not ? Well, they sure aren't telling. None of the detractors would substantiate why deterministic evolution is "nonsense".

Forget the tunnel vision of nitpicking, and nitpicking, either one has knowledge of deterministic evolution, or not. My perspective is that most or all the people here know very little about it - even the ones who think they know something about evolutionary theory. The last document I posted would seem to be a big underscore of that. How can it be nonsense in view of the last document posted ?

The nitpicking is absurd, as I stated several times, the research was just showing evidence that the concept was known not to be
nonsense, which of course it appears to do. I stated the research might be "junk science" and totally bogus. So who cares if it makes any sense. I did not use it that way. Call the research witchcraft if you want, but at least answer the fundamental question. Don't nitpick triviality. People are trying to argue trivialities of "it is not the same thing" , and they miss the whole picture that it is the concept that I cited the research for.

What in your experience with microbiology makes you believe that you know something that is contentious among researchers, and you know it so well that anything challenging your view must be nonsense? Will you be the first to substantiate why it is nonsense ?

Determinstic evolution is the whole point of Prometheus (as I stated in my second post on this thread when questioned - that the only difference is the deterministic aspect of evolution - 'pre-determined evolution'). This is why it is pointed out that humans ultimately end up looking like xenomorphs (i.e., evolution was not purely random).



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03 Aug 2014, 12:31 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJaxBT52u0[/youtube]Muahahahhahahha!! !! Eat that Creationists!! :twisted: A living transitional species a fish that cannot breath water but walks on land.


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03 Aug 2014, 5:55 pm

LoveNotHate wrote:
Forget the tunnel vision of nitpicking, and nitpicking, either one has knowledge of deterministic evolution, or not. My perspective is that most or all the people here know very little about it - even the ones who think they know something about evolutionary theory. The last document I posted would seem to be a big underscore of that. How can it be nonsense in view of the last document posted ?


For pities sake, and for the last time, you are misreading the conclusion, nothing in that study suggests what you think it does.

I ask you this, if a reputable study was published which showed evolution to be fundamentally causal, that showed it had purposeful direction, and demonstrated that there was indeed evidence for a creationist hypothesis. Are you really suggesting that this news would gradually filter out of sci fi forums!! !! It would be breaking news world wide, we would all be hearing about it, church bells would be ringing, mullahs would be calling the faithful to prayer, but no, it is you and a handful of the faithful that are burdened with the task of informing the masses.

You claim to have knowledge of something that from several hours of searching on the internet would appear to not exist, your only evidence is not evidence at all, give it up, you are making yourself look extremely foolish


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04 Aug 2014, 12:25 am

In my second post on this thread I asserted that pre-determined evolution is the distinction between the Prometheus's premise, and the scientific theory of evolution. This is why the aliens are called "engineers" (i.e., they engineer species). I was told repeatedly that deterministic evolution is nonsense. So, far no one has established why the concept of deterministic evolution is nonsense. That is the fundamental question to Prometheus, of whether evolution can be made to happened deterministically (i.e., "engineered").

I will ask again, can you substantiate why deterministic evolution is nonsense when I have found that it is contentious among researchers ?

Note: Planetary scientist Kevin Hand of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was a science adviser to Prometheus,

"Without spoiling the movie for those who haven't seen it, one idea central to the movie was the notion of aliens "seeding" life on Earth. "We talked about that a lot," including the idea of "conducting experiments with microbes on other worlds and what happens when experiments go 'wrong,' " Hand says. For similar reasons, NASA and Russia's space agencies have carefully sterilized past missions to Mars, fearing just this kind of contamination.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/sci ... 55476010/1



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04 Aug 2014, 12:59 am

LoveNotHate wrote:

I will ask again, can you substantiate why deterministic evolution is nonsense when I have found that it is contentious among researchers ?


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

You have supplied no evidence and I am not about to try and substantiate a negative.


There is a massive difference between microbes coming to earth via meteorites and aliens deliberately seeding the planet with microbes engineered to evolve into particular species.

Design has absolutely NO evidence and you have shown none. The only evidence you have shown is that of your own ignorance and gullibility on the subject.

I'm am now finished with this discussion, you have proven yourself to be either unable to grasp fairly simple concepts or that obstinate that nothing will make you see reason.


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04 Aug 2014, 5:37 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
deterministically (i.e., "engineered").


That right there is the semantic problem I wrote about earlier. You think that deterministic evolution means evolution that was engineered/designed/steered down a path consciously. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT!! ! It just means going down a particular path once that path has been established by previous life.



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04 Aug 2014, 7:09 am

Janissy wrote:
LoveNotHate wrote:
deterministically (i.e., "engineered").

That right there is the semantic problem I wrote about earlier. You think that deterministic evolution means evolution that was engineered/designed/steered down a path consciously. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT!! ! It just means going down a particular path once that path has been established by previous life.


Right, however, it does not exclude pre-design. If you go back to my first post I presented the premise of Prometheus, and made no assertion that I had proof of the premise. I heard a lot of arguments, people are stating their opinion without facts as to why pre-determined evolution is nonsense. On my second post, I stated that it is consistent with evolution, except for the pre-determined aspect.

We do see some local evidence of evolutionary biasing ...

1. Genetic determination appears to be well established (i.e., genetics bias outcome).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_determinism

2. Natural Selection is an abstraction of the phenomena of DNA seeking "preferential" other DNA (i.e., a biased outcome)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

3. Cell fate determination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_fate_determination

And questions about non-local evolutionary biasing ...

1. Are DNA mutations really random?
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. ... y-random-/

Note: I am not even citing the arguments that PHD scientist creationists make that DNA is not randomly formed.

All I have heard is that "no evidence" means nonsense. However,

I showed before, on wikipedia, it is reported that ...

"There is still no "standard model" of the origin of life".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Some science conjecture, err .. hypothesis purports alien-created-life. See source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Primitive extraterrestrial life

Why isn't science nonsense for not having evidence ?



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04 Aug 2014, 8:03 am

By definition, there?s no way to study scientifically anything outside of every possible human experience (including experience obtained using any kind of sophisticated equipment), so the question about the existence of a conscious entity outside or universe who created or engineered it, but who does not currently interact with it in any way which would allow us to deduce consequences testable by experiment, is not a scientific one.

There?s nothing special about evolution in this regard. An omniscient being who created our universe would have chosen the laws of nature and would know from the beginning exactly what would happen when everything within this universe followed them, during its whole history. Unfalsifiable hypotheses about such a creator are not science, and science doesn?t need to deal with them. The observable consequences of the laws of nature are the same whether they were engineered by this kind of entity or not, and they?re no more or less deterministic in either case. We can only speculate about anything that might exist outside our universe?assuming we even agree what that means?unless somehow it becomes possible to experiment with it.


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04 Aug 2014, 9:08 am

Just because evolution doesn't mesh with biblical stories doesn't mean that there is not God. The bible is a human record and mythology. It has nothing to do with God. Natural laws and evolution are God's work. Expressing them in scientific terminology to gain greater understanding of our environment brings us closer to God, not farther from.



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04 Aug 2014, 5:50 pm

Ann2011 wrote:
Just because evolution doesn't mesh with biblical stories doesn't mean that there is not God. The bible is a human record and mythology. It has nothing to do with God. Natural laws and evolution are God's work. Expressing them in scientific terminology to gain greater understanding of our environment brings us closer to God, not farther from.

It does mean that the Biblical God doesn't exist. If you have some other concept of it, I would ask why you thought so.