Missouri puts prayers back in skool...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

Why bother? The issue isn't the point, the argument is the goal, and there is nothing at the end but a silent sidestep to another issue without care for resolution. You're pissing into the wind.

[Svartalf]

People will die, theory verified

[Clinton Huxley]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

Why bother? The issue isn't the point, the argument is the goal, and there is nothing at the end but a silent sidestep to another issue without care for resolution. You're pissing into the wind.

Oh, I know, I know. I wasn't planning on getting dragged into a long argument, I'll leave that to CES.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

Why bother? The issue isn't the point, the argument is the goal, and there is nothing at the end but a silent sidestep to another issue without care for resolution. You're pissing into the wind.

Oh, I know, I know. I wasn't planning on getting dragged into a long argument, I'll leave that to CES.

We should have a forum titled "Walls of Text", so I can put it on ignore.

[Clinton Huxley]

The Wailing Wall Of Text where the verbose come to pray.....

[JimC]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

JimC will be struck down by lightning after saying "Fuck off, god, and take Seth with you"

[Clinton Huxley]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

JimC will be struck down by lightning after saying "Fuck off, god, and take Seth with you"

Too high a price to pay...

Seth and his "Just So" stories.....

[JimC]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".

JimC will be struck down by lightning after saying "Fuck off, god, and take Seth with you"

Too high a price to pay...

Seth and his "Just So" stories.....

I'm a brave little sod, and willing to take the risk...

Fuck off, Pascal!

[Clinton Huxley]

Jim"Danger"C

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Wailing Wall Of Text where the verbose come to pray.....

Sounds like a plan.

[Coito ergo sum]

But the scientific controversy over whether an intelligent designer exists, used to exist, and either did or did not interfere in natural evolution sometime in the deep past is a perfectly valid scientific question that has no religious overtones other than those imposed upon it by either Atheists or religionists as a part of a larger political and legal agenda.

When an intelligent design theory that is actually a theory and not a hypothesis, vague notion or wild speculation is put forward by a person or group without a larger political and/or legal agenda, then there will be a scientific controversy.

Until then, there is no real scientific controversy.

Here's a theory: Sometime in the deep past, an intelligent designer intervened in evolution on this planet to guide living organisms down specific evolutionary pathways. Additionally, 65 or so million years ago, that same designer decided that dinosaurs were not proceeding down the pathway towards intelligence as the designer intended, so it perturbed an asteroid, causing it to hit near Yucatan, thereby causing the dinosaurs to become extinct and giving mammals their shot at evolving intelligence.

Since I have zero religious, legal or political agenda in mind, it's now a "real scientific controversy."

Until you have evidence for it, it's not a scientific theory, except in the peculiar usage of theoretical physics. Things that people just sort of speculate about are not theories to be taught in schools.

It would be acceptable if you were proposing theoretical physics and you had actual physics to show us (math), but you don't. So what you have, again, is speculation. That's not a scientific theory and that isn't theoretical physics.

Just to be quick and brief about this -- math is what you're missing when you compare ideas like String and M theory and such with your speculation. String theory, for example, isn't proven by empirical evidence, but there is math that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstrin ... athematics

Well, here's some math: The statistical probability of intelligent life in the universe as of today is 100 percent. There is no reason to believe that this probability does not apply to other universes, or this universe at other times.

I rest my case.

Here's some more math: The statistical probability of intelligent life designing living organisms by engineering DNA is 100 percent. There is no reason to believe that this probability cannot apply to intelligence in other universes, or in this universe at other times and places.

Ditto. Look at the math in the link for string and M theory.

Your kind of sophistry here is not theoretical physics. It's like saying "statistical probability of organisms coming about without any evident design, 100%. There is no reason to believe that this probability cannot apply to other universes.

Big deal? What kind of theory or theoretical physics is this? Answer: it isn't. It's not EVEN a theory. It's not EVEN theoretical physics.

Here's another bit of information: No human being has ever seen a bacterial lancet evolve into a bacterial flagellum. All of the claims in that regard are based on pure speculation supported only by the notion that some of the same protein building blocks appearing in both mechanisms means that one evolved into the other through random mutation.

This is incorrect. Although, this, I will give you, is at least a valid "criticism." It has no relevance to whether ID should be taught in schools, because even if your criticism turned out to be correct, it would not mean that there was an intelligent designer. Disproof of evolutionary theory or demonstration that evolutionary theory is not proved is not itself an argument for ID.

But it's just as likely that a designer used intelligence and some of the same protein building blocks to construct the two different mechanisms.

Show your work, please.

Hint: Just because you advance two options, that doesn't mean either one is just as likely as the other.

The only scientific objection to this is that it is not "parsimonious," and that the evolutionary model is more "elegant" and "simple." But this is just an irrational conceit of scientists and evolutionary THEORY that insists that a more complex answer cannot be the true answer.

That isn't the only scientific objection to it. The scientific objection to it is that all you've done is make an assertion, without evidence, and you have no theory at all. Evolutionary theory is, of course, a theory based on evidence: (1) fossil evidence, (2) homologies, (3) genetics, (4) distribution in time and space, etc.

I come back to BT corn again and again, and I repeat the example I've used many times of the future biologist (of whatever physical description) looking at the genes of BT corn and discovering a gene sequence that makes the plant resistant to the effects of glyophosate. Absent knowledge of Monsanto's efforts, this future biologist might easily make the fundamental mistake of assuming the "parsimonious" answer to the question "how did these genes get there" and wrongly make the assumption that the plant naturally evolved this resistance because glyophosate was somehow endemic in its habitat as it evolved. But that parsimonious answer would be completely wrong, because BT corn was genetically engineered by an intelligent designer, Monsanto's chemists and biologists.

Assuming same arguendo, so what? All that says is that one life form can manipulate the genes of another life form. This says nothing about the viability of evolutionary theory, and the viability of evolutionary theory says nothing about the viability of ID. ID still isn't a theory. Nobody has any evidence for it, and there is no theoretical physics behind it.

Therefore, my version of "ID," which I call "OLE" or "Origin of Life on Earth" is a theory that uses knowledge that already exists about living organisms and a rational inference that an intelligent designer could have been responsible for one, some, or many changes in the evolution of living organisms on earth, and might just as easily have been responsible for "seeding" earth with primitive cells in the first place.

Except that you don't have a theory. You have an assertion. Speculation.

That such a designer is not "necessary" according to evolutionary theory, and even if such cells could occur through "naturalistic" evolutionary processes without intelligent intervention does not mean that all organisms did so or that there was never an intelligent designer involved in the evolution of life on earth.

Of course it doesn't mean that. Even if current evolutionary theory were absolutely true, correct, and complete in all its aspects, even THAT would not mean "that there was never an intelligent designer involved..." You still don't have a "theory." You have an assertion. Mere speculation.

Yes -- there might have been an intelligent designer, and he may or may not have created a process of biological evolution. There just isn't a scientific theory for it because there is no evidence for it. And, there is no theoretical physics behind it, your nonsense probability syllogisms notwithstanding.

The conceit of evolutionary theory is that it assumes, a priori, that if some other mechanism like intelligent design is not "necessary," that it cannot therefore have been the actual mechanism of organic change. This is just bull-headed denial of logical fact purveyed by those who simply cannot accept the notion that life on earth might be the result of deliberate intelligent design.

Evolutionary theory makes no assumption, nor is any such assumption necessary for evolutionary theory. While it is true that a designer is not "necessary" for evolution and evolutionary theory does not take any designer into account (because there is no evidence for any such involvement), it is certainly "possible" that an intelligent designer created the universe as it is, including the process of biological evolution.

Nobody says life on Earth COULDN"T have gotten here because of some intelligent involvement. What they say is that there isn't any evidence for it, and there is no scientific theory for it. Of course it could have. Even Richard Dawkins has said so openly.

But it could be, in whole or only in part. That much is proven by the facts we have before us. Whether we will ever be able to verify that such design occurred is open to question, but what's not debatable is that intelligent design of life on earth is both possible and practical, given an intelligence only slightly more advanced than our own, and the necessary tools at some time in the deep past.

And, nobody says it wasn't possible. It's just not a scientific theory. Lots of things are possible.

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

It does not comprise a valid scientific theory, nor does it compete with the theory of evolution.

It isn't due any consideration in the classroom, because it has no evidence for it. Having no evidence for it, it is not a scientific theory. When you publish a paper on it, and it becomes a well-accepted theory, then raise it. But, idle speculation based on "we know life exists on Earth, therefore if there are other universes then there is no reason to think that life also couldn't exist there, therefore intelligent design," or "life exists on Earth -- humans have genetically modified plants and animals -- therefore some other being could have genetically modified plants and animals giving rise tot hem on Earth," are not scientific theories. They are hypotheses, at best.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Did Seth use the Fallacy of Small Numbers somewhere back there?

[Clinton Huxley]

Was reading something about dolphin embryos the other day. They start to grow leg buds, as the gene for legs are still present from their terrestrial ancestors but then the leg buds get re-absorbed. Not very intelligent but just the kind of fudge you'd expect to see from evolution.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Was reading something about dolphin embryos the other day. They start to grow leg buds, as the gene for legs are still present from their terrestrial ancestors but then the leg buds get re-absorbed. Not very intelligent but just the kind of fudge you'd expect to see from evolution.

You can find kludge in just about any genome. It's one of the surest signs on non-design. Or perhaps design by a drooling idiot.

[Clinton Huxley]

Prometheus is not a documentary, by the way.....