"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

Sierra 117

I'll review your findings. I'm one of the top ten findings-reviewers on boards.

endacl

Sierra 117 wrote: »

I'll review your findings. I'm one of the top ten findings-reviewers on boards.

Yeah? Based on what evidence??

Bannasidhe

endacl wrote: »

I may be able to contribute. Co-author?

Now, where could we find some peers to review our findings...?

Shall we make it a cross-disciplinary opus on the evidence of human Willful Ignorance and/or stupidity Hard-of-Thinking?

Peer review shouldn't be a problem...

doctoremma

mickrock wrote: »

It unlikely that any organ could have developed in a piecemeal fashion.

Actually, I agree. As would many here, I suspect.

However, "unlikely" does not lead to "impossible"; that logic is flawed.

One in a million things happen all the time. Every combination of lottery numbers is equally likely (or unlikely). Suggesting that drawing 1/2/3/4/5/6 is unlikely is fair. However, if you repeatedly draw and discount those that don't lead to the numbers 1/2/3/4/5/6, you will eventually achieve an end result of 1/2/3/4/5/6.

seamus

doctoremma wrote: »

However, if you repeatedly draw and discount those that don't lead to the numbers 1/2/3/4/5/6, you will eventually achieve an end result of 1/2/3/4/5/6.

And of course if you continue to do this even for 1,000 years, you will then have a table full of draws which resulted in 1/2/3/4/5/6 and that result will appear mundane, common even.

dlofnep

Mickrock - Care to answer a few questions, since you're very loose on substance in your posts?

• Why do humans have a Coccyx and what is it's function?
• Why do humans and all other members of Haplorhini (A group of primates which includes humans) share the exact same pseudogene - GLO?
• Can you tell me which members of the Homo genus are 'man', and which are not.
• Can you give me a scientific description of the term 'kind'.
• Can you now compare and contrast that description against the term 'species'.

I'll be waiting.

Dades

There are two types of people that don't accept evolution: those that don't understand it, and those that don't want to.

Of course it's possible to be both.

Beruthiel

Dades wrote: »

Of course it's possible to be both.

It is inconceivable to me that someone would want to remain in that state.

endacl

Beruthiel wrote: »

It is inconceivable to me that someone would want to remain in that state.

Said the first amphibian...

Sarky

A quick Google was inspired by mickrock's amusing assertion that random changes can't produce anything new. Here's a handy little listing I found of various ways in which science has used the process of evolution for its own purposes. They used genetic algorithms, essentially little computer programs or electronic circuits that change randomly over several generations, with some selective pressure based on what we want to get out of it. Thanks to the power of natural selection, we know know the best way to construct antennae and load-bearing trusses, we know the shape to make a concert hall for the best acoustics, and so very much more.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genalg/genalg.html#examples

Evolution: It works, bitches.

Zombrex

mickrock wrote: »

I've already justified it by pointing out that Darwinian evolution is illogical and the evidence is flimsy.

You stated that evolution takes place.

Please explain the non-Darwinian process by which biological evolution takes place, including (if you have it to hand) the evidence supporting this process.

mickrock

dlofnep wrote: »

Mickrock - Care to answer a few questions, since you're very loose on substance in your posts?

• Why do humans have a Coccyx and what is it's function?
• Why do humans and all other members of Haplorhini (A group of primates which includes humans) share the exact same pseudogene - GLO?
• Can you tell me which members of the Homo genus are 'man', and which are not.
• Can you give me a scientific description of the term 'kind'.
• Can you now compare and contrast that description against the term 'species'.

1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. No
4. No
5. No

What's your point?

Bannasidhe

mickrock wrote: »

1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. No
4. No
5. No

What's your point?

You have made dlofnep's point. Well done. Please accept this invisible star.

mickrock

Sarky wrote: »

A quick Google was inspired by mickrock's amusing assertion that random changes can't produce anything new. Here's a handy little listing I found of various ways in which science has used the process of evolution for its own purposes. They used genetic algorithms, essentially little computer programs or electronic circuits that change randomly over several generations, with some selective pressure based on what we want to get out of it. Thanks to the power of natural selection, we know know the best way to construct antennae and load-bearing trusses, we know the shape to make a concert hall for the best acoustics, and so very much more.

If you have a goal or target then it doesn't mimic Darwinian evolution.

robindch

Sarky wrote: »

They used genetic algorithms, essentially little computer programs or electronic circuits that change randomly over several generations, with some selective pressure based on what we want to get out of it.

Unsurprisingly, creationists don't accept that this is evolution or that it's parallel to evolution.

Instead, creationists will claim that since the evolutionary framework (the electronics) has been designed by humans, therefore, the evolution of electronic circuits etc is evidence for ID, not evolution. Or that since there was a goal, that the goal was intentional, hence the process was "intelligently directed" and therefore, not evolution.

And requoting from a few years back: I think it's in the introduction to Volume One of Bill Hamilton's Narrow Roads of Gene Land that Hamilton mentioned that as he got older, he began to suspect that a significant portion of the population suffered from a cognitive impairment which rendered them incapable of ever being able to understand evolution, regardless of how simply it was explained to them.

doctoremma

mickrock wrote: »

1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. No
4. No
5. No

What's your point?

It would have been relatively easy to answer the first with just a guess. If you think about what term Americans use for the coccyx, it's obvious.

But that's not the point. Are you happy with these answers? Happy not to know? Despite them being presented to you as potential confounders of your belief system, you chose to not even Google.

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

If you have a goal or target then it doesn't mimic Darwinian evolution.

^^^ I rest my case.

Creationists, and many others too, seem to have intractable problems differentiating between an unintentional goal and an intentional one.

It's the teleological fallacy which itself, appears to derive from an oversensitive sense of agency detection. The only way around that is awareness of the fallacy, awareness of the misfiring sense and perhaps training.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. No
4. No
5. No

What's your point?

Dilemma. If you could answer Dlofnep's questions, you couldn't honestly ask what his point is. And this thread would be a lot shorter.

There are none so blind...

kylith

Dades wrote: »

There are two types of people that don't accept evolution: those that don't understand it, and those that don't want to.

Of course it's possible to be both.

Beruthiel wrote: »

It is inconceivable to me that someone would want to remain in that state.

Me too. The amount of stuff I don't understand drives me mental. I don't understand how someone can be happy not knowing everything about everything.

mickrock wrote: »

If you have a goal or target then it doesn't mimic Darwinian evolution.

Isn't 'survival' the "goal" of Darwinian evolution?

endacl

kylith wrote: »

Isn't 'survival' the "goal" of Darwinian evolution?

Of the individual? Probably not. That's the goal of the individual.
Of the gene? Probably to the point of almost, but not quite, definitely. To the best of our understanding at this point.*










*as always, open to correction. McRockian evolution anybody?

mickrock

robindch wrote: »

Creationists, and many others too, seem to have intractable problems differentiating between an unintentional goal and an intentional one.

An unintentional goal is an oxymoron.

doctoremma

kylith wrote: »

Isn't 'survival' the "goal" of Darwinian evolution?

More likely "reproduction". At any cost. Survival or not.

See the lowly male mantis, headless yet all the more vigorous for it, such is his desperation to impregnate the female.

Sarky

mickrock wrote: »

If you have a goal or target then it doesn't mimic Darwinian evolution.

It does. With the antenna for example, it was a selective pressure that just happened to be one NASA found useful. The programs mutated blindly and without direction in an environment of "a more efficient antenna design is better equipped to survive". And so the algorithms mutated and interbred and chopped and changed, and eventually a design emerged that was way more efficient than anything the engineers at NASA could have designed on their own.

If they had been looking for an antenna that only picked up a specific frequency, the design would have evolved to do that. If the design had been looking for antennae that were less than 10 inches long and spiral shaped, the design would have evolved into a short spiral. That it was a goal set by engineers doesn't matter. The point is that if a selective pressure is applied to a population, it evolves to adapt to that pressure, whether it's an oxygen-rich environment or a requirement to pick up long-wave radio. Evolution happens just like that.

You may not agree, but that doesn't make you right.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

An unintentional goal is an oxymoron.

Like these? Don't know about the 'oxy' part...

endacl

doctoremma wrote: »

More likely "reproduction". At any cost. Survival or not.

See the lowly male human, legless yet all the more vigorous for it, such is his desperation to impregnate the female.

Works for Temple Bar too.

kylith

doctoremma wrote: »

More likely "reproduction". At any cost. Survival or not.

OK. Survive, reproduce. Sounds like a decent goal to me.

mickrock

endacl wrote: »

Dilemma. If you could answer Dlofnep's questions, you couldn't honestly ask what his point is. And this thread would be a lot shorter.

There are none so blind...

Would you or anyone else care to enlighten me on the point of dlofnep's little quiz?

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

An unintentional goal is an oxymoron.

In evolution, there are no such things as "goals". There are just things that happen to do certain jobs with a greater or lesser degree of efficiency.

You're the one who believe that these constitute (a) "goals" and you're also the one that believe that these can (a) only be (c) "intentional".

Each of (a), (b) and (c) in the preceding is a massive and very faulty assumption on your part.

oldrnwisr

mickrock wrote: »

Would you or anyone else care to enlighten me on the point of dlofnep's little quiz?

I'll give it a shot.

In an earlier post you made this comment:

mickrock wrote: »

I can't think of any evidence for Darwinian evolution.

which shows that your whole argument is based on ignorance of the topic at hand.

Moreover, your previous comments in this thread have demonstrated that you are also arguing for a false dilemma, that if evolution is wrong then it must have been directed/guided by an intelligence.

The point of dlofnep's questions (IMO) is that not only can you not show why the evolutionary explanation is wrong, neither can you offer any alternative explanation of these observations in a way which fits the available evidence.

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

Would you or anyone else care to enlighten me on the point of dlofnep's little quiz?

To establish whether you have any interest in learning something about what you so clearly know little or nothing about.

On the available evidence, it seems not, though we'd be interested and happy to learn otherwise.