Re: CSI, GAs, etc.

From: DNAunion@aol.com
Date: Mon Oct 16 2000 - 05:12:56 EDT

  • Next message: DNAunion@aol.com: "Re: ID *does* require a designer! (but it does not need to identify who or wh..."

    […]

    >FMAJ: Of course science has a naturalistic "bias" but that does not mean
    that it eliminates ID. Unless you now conflates ID with supernatural.

    DNAunion: Angle for it - go ahead, use you dirty little bag of tricks: imply
    - imply - imply! You know damned well that I don't conflate ID with
    supernatural and that it is "you guys" that do. Nice underhanded tactic
    though. Pretty typical for you by now.

    […]

    >DNAunion: It is fine for naturalists to state as scientific fact - to
    school children, college students, and those exposed to pop-science media -
    that life arose on Earth by purely natural means: yet they have no idea which
    of the dozens of potential pathways - none of which have been supported
    empirically - was the supposed actual historical one.

    >FMAJ: And therefore science is not presenting any of these pathways as the
    "correct one".

    DNAunion: What a completely stupid reply. You accept that it is fine to
    peddle the overall claim even though neither it, nor many/most of its
    subparts, has been validated: as long as they don't claim which particual one
    it was? Is that the best argument you can put up?

    >FMAJ: Does ID have a pathway to present ? I doubt it.

    DNAunion: Why do *WE* need one? Why not just allow "us" to state in
    scientific journals that life was designed, without our needing evidence to
    support our claim: that would keep the playing field level. But of course
    this is not allowed - the built-in double standard, favoring purely-natural
    processes, rules science.

    >FMAJ: If ID wishes to add its own pathways then they are free to do so.
    Actually they have already done so in the form of panspermia.

    DNAunion: Nope, that's wrong: as I said, you don't know anything about OOL
    research, do you. Panspermia proposes that life arises by purely natural
    means: it is Directed Panspermia that would be the form that allows
    intelligence into the picture.

    >DNAunion: or do you claim that OOL researchers give alien design and divine
    design consideration each time before eliminating them as plausible
    explanations. (Even "natural" alternatives like panspermia and directed
    panspermia are eliminated for the most part: abiogenesis here on Earth is the
    default accepted position).

    >FMAJ: Based again on the probabilities of the events and the supporting
    evidence or lack thereof.

    > DNAunion: Although I could ask many question, I will limit myself to just
    one: Could you explain to me how the appearance of two RNA replicases - close
    enough in space and time to find each other - is highly probable under
    plausible prebiotic conditions?

    >FMAJ: Non sequitor.

    DNAunion: There's your inability to address real questions, and your
    attempts to divert everyone from your ignorance with a counter charge of "non
    sequitur" (PS: learn to spell it).

    >FMAJ: Are you saying that this is the only accepted pathway?

    DNAunion: The RNA World scenario is one of the most popular - but you
    wouldn't know that because you don't know a damned thing about OOL research.
    Every time I ask you a question about it, you dodge it - and imply that I
    have done something wrong in the process. Nice tactics - poor preparedeness.

    >FMAJ: Nope, the origin of life argument is not based on elimination of all
    other hypotheses.

    > DNAunion: Yes, as I have been stating for some time now, purely-natural OOL
    is given approval not because it has been scientifically validated, but
    because it is purely-natural: as the current definition of science demands.
    It is the ground rules themselves that establish purely-natural OOL as "fact"
    - not research.

    >FMAJ: Are you now saying that ID is not all natural?

    DNAunion: ID is not purely-natural in the same sense that the design and
    creation of computers is not purely natural.

    >FMAJ: That's interesting. So science should address the non-natural?

    DNAunion: Yet another of your underhanded tricks - sleight of pen. You went
    from ID being "not all natural" to ID being "non-natural". Sorry chump, I
    caught it.

    >FMAJ: How do you intend science does this?

    DNAunion: Gee, I guess by your standards that science must remain silent on
    mans' walking on the moon because it was "non-natural" - it required
    intelligent input to achieve. So are you claiming that man never set foot on
    the Moon, or that science can tell us nothing about this event?

    >FMAJ: Also OOL is not given approval because it is purely-natural, there
    are many scenarios.

    DNAunion: Of which only 1 - *at most* - can be correct. So although we know
    that the vast majority *must* be wrong - and have *no* indication that any
    one of them is correct - it is still valid to accept it as scientific fact.

    >FMAJ: What is accepted is that science can only deal in natural
    explanations.

    DNAunion: SETI (hopes to) invoke intelligent design - are they not
    scientists? Archeologists invoke intelligent design - are they not
    scientists? Why can't intelligent design of life be likewise accepted as a
    valid, potential scientific explanation?

    […]

    >FMAJ: Okay, just this time then: Dembski claims infallibility of his filter.

    > DNAunion: Got a long unedited quote to support this?

    >FMAJ: And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even though the
    Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is,
    I argue, a reliable criterion for detecting design. The Explanatory Filter is
    a net.
    Things that are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer
    that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to design. But
    given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility
    Of our own ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem
    cannot be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the net
    does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are
    designed.

    I argue that the explantory filter is a reliable criterion for detecting
    design. Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully
    avoids false positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes
    design, it does so correctly.

    Let us now see why this is the case. I offer two arguments. The first is a
    straightforward inductive argument: in every instance where the Explanatory
    Filter attributes design, and where the underlying causal story is known, it
    turns out design actually is present; therefore, design actually is present
    whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design.

    My second argument for showing that the Explanatory Filter is a reliable
    criterion for detecting design may now be summarized as follows: the
    Explanatory Filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design because it
    coincides with how we recognize intelligent causation generally. In general,
    to recognize intelligent causation we must observe a choice among competing
    possibilities, note which possibilities were not chosen, and then be able to
    specify the possibility that was chosen. "

    DNAunion: Non sequitur and irrelevant. In addition, you are using
    equivocation. You have to show that you are using the same definition of
    intelligent design as I am :-)

     (I sure hope you spent a lot of time typing that out so that we are now even
    on askin for material from the other person, then ignoring it when it is
    supplied).

    […]

    >FMAJ: Not to mention your unsupported claim of "biopoesis as scientific
    fact" Any references to support this?

    > DNAunion: I have only one that I have a flagged in my notes - if you read a
    lot of OOL material, you will see what I am talking about. Here is the one
    quote I mentioned:

    "These experimental results and the findings that considerably higher
    concentrations of REE [Rare Earth Elements] might have been dissolved in the
    primitive sea water (Bowen, 1966; Cloud, 1968), suggest that accumulation of
    phosphate monoester compounds, such as AMP and GMP, the concentrations of
    which in the primitive sea were expected to be sufficiently high to produce
    nucleic acids in the later process of chemical evolution, might have been
    impossible. Therefore, the origin of life as a consequence of chemical
    evolution might also have been impossible. HOWEVER, LIFE ON EARTH DEVELOPED
    VIA CHEMICAL EVOLUTION."" (Misuhiko Akaboshi, et. al., Inhibition of Rare
    Earth Catalytic Activity by Proteins, Origins of Life and Evolution of the
    Biosphere, Vol 30, No 1. Feb 2000, p 25)

    >FMAJ: More context please.

    DNAunion: Sure, find Kluwer Academic Publishers on the web and subscribe to
    "Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere". When you get the issue I
    quoted from, just start reading at the page I referenced.

    >DNAunion: Despite what looked like damning conditions, the authors firmly
    stated - and the statement made it past any peer-review - that life on Earth
    arose by chemical evolution.

    >FMAJ: I'd have to see the full context.

    DNAunion: Sure, find Kluwer Academic Publishers on the web and subscribe to
    "Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere". When you get the issue I
    quoted from, just start reading at the page I referenced.

    >DNAunion: So we can't accept it until it is fully proven? But the
    purely-natural origin of life is elevated to scientific fact on flimsy and
    scant evidence?

    >FMAJ: Strawman again. I never made such an assertion.

    > DNAunion: Nice ad hom. (Here we go again!)

    >FMAJ:Still confused about the meaning of ad hominem. Please show that I made
    such an assertion or admit that you used a strawman. Crying ad hominem is not
    going to help you since it's a fallacious argument

    DNAunion: Still confused about the meaning of straw man, I see. Please show
    that I made a strawman argument or admit that I made no ad hom. Crying straw
    man is not going to help you since your charge is incorrect.

    >FMAJ: But ID has made some claims of certainty, these need to be supported.
     
    > DNAunion: Double standard. You demand that ID support its claims, but that
    naturalists (such as OOL researchers) don't have to.

    >FMAJ: Misrepresentation of statement plus false assertion. Please show that
    I demand that naturalists do not support their claims.

    DNAunion: Misrepresentation of my statements and false assertion - show me
    where I said that you "demand that naturalist do not support their claims".

    >FMAJ: Shame on you dear DNA.

    DNAunion: Look faggot, I already warned you about using the word *dear* when
    referring to me as the first time it was used even more directly as a term of
    affection. Keep your homosexual tendencies to yourself - your now continuing
    hints of such advances are not welcomed by me.

    [… and FMAJ finishes off with…? Can anybody guess? Come on , it's not
    that hard. Yes, you got it - he parrots Wesley Elsberry once again].



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