attached mail follows:
In a message dated 9/20/00 3:45:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Bertvan@aol.com
writes:
<< >>> seems to me that without being able to document the history of a
>>>proposedly IC structure/pathway, declaring it IC and thus designed is a
>>>proclamation of ignorance.
Bertvan;
>>It seems to me a proclamation of ignorance would be an improvement over
>>declaring it was designed by "random mutation and natural selection"
without
>>being able to suggest how that might have been accomplished.
Huxter:
>I guess you just don't see what I'm getting at. Who claimed RM&NS
'designed'
>anything? The only people that seem to think RM&NS are all evolution has
is
>anti-evolutionists. There is, after all, evidence for selection and drift.
>Would you like to see some, or would you just reject/ignore it?
Bertvan:
Hey, if you don't think RM&NS 'designed' anything, we are in complete
agreement.
If you want to substitute drift, I don't see anything there except more
chance variation. No one is questioning that drift and selection
contribute
to those changes in organisms which don't involve added complexity. If
there
is more to Darwinism than "chance variation plus selection", no one has yet
spelled out very clearly.
+++++++++++++
Another creationist baggage-addition - 'added complexity'. Gene duplication
I guess does not meet your rigorous scientific standards. Do you have any
examples of a 'Designer' adding complexity in nature? And please do not say
genetic engineering - I am asking about your ethereal 'Designer' here... In
the end, I guess you simply don't understand exactly what 'chance variation
plus selction' means. If anybody in the anti-evolution - make that,
'anti-Darwinism' - camp has any actual evidence for how ID operates in
Nature, I haven't heard it. I am told that 'ID IS the mechanism', and I am
told that that is all they need to say. Fine. Then all I should have to say
is that evolution IS the mechanism. But that doesn't quite fly, does it?
+++++++++++++
Huxter:
>o back to the point that you couldn't grasp -
Bertvan:
Darwinists will forever be known for their charm.
++++++++++
For abiout the 20th time, I am not a 'Darwinist'. I know you feel that it
makes it easy to gain sympathy by calling anyone that doesn't rely on some
unknown superbeing as a 'Darwinist', but it is just nonsense - especially
since you would never answer my question when I asked you what a Darwinist
is...
Oh - and anti-Darwinists will never be known for dealing wuith evidence of
questions honestly and directly.
+++++++++++++
Huxter:
>ID advocates are making ignorance-based proclamations when they invoke some
>sort of probability BS because they do not know the history of what they
are
>determining the probability of. By taking an extant protein/gene and
>declaring design because this extant protein/gene could not have arisen
as-is
>by 'random chance' (they have the math to prove it, after all) they are
>forgetting that they are ignorant of the protein/gene's history, and so are
>simply making proclamations of ignorance. Maybe I stated it incorrectly,
but
>declaring something to have been designed based on some statistical
gibberish
>cries of ignorance - at least to those that see the baselessness of the
>proclamation.
Bertvan:
Can proteins mutate in only certain ways? Are they alive? Do they have a
choice about how they mutate? (Some limited choice seems to be a property
of
all life.) Does knowing the history of a protein tell you the probability of
whether it will mutate by chance - or whether it will mutate according to
some innate plan or design?
+++++++++++++++=
Can your metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Knowing the history of the protein/gene
in question would tell one whether or not is popped into existence as-is. I
know of no actuial evolutionists that believe or theorize such a thing.
Apparently you do - Who are they?
But now we see the next fall-back position - even if we know the history of a
protein/gene, and we can demonstrate that it evolved from some simpler
assemblage, the IDer will simply take another step back - "yeah, but, how do
you know it wasn't Designed to happen that way?" Nice emotional and
religious rhetoric -
got anything of substance?
++++++++++++++
Does science know the history of many proteins?
Does Darwinism know any reason why proteins shouldn't mutate according to
the
same, plain, old-fashioned "chance" familiar to the rest of us? Is
declaring
something to be undesigned less ignorant than calling it designed?
+++++++++++++++
Yes it is. Why? Because evolutionists do not claim to be able to say
exactly how some extant protein/gene came to be. That is anathema to the
religionist/absolutist, to whom not knowing is scary. Easier to declare
'Design' and feel satisfied than actually try to find out whether or not such
is the case, and cast apersions on those 'Darwinists' who don't buy the
Superbeing excuse.
Again - What is your definition of Darwinism? What is a Darwinist? Can I
refer to you as a Johnsonist? A follower of Johnsonism? Or is it Dembskism?
I guess you don't want to see any evidence for selection opr drift - why
bother, right? You would just say natural processes were designed anyway....
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
>>
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