Isn't all religion a matter of opinion?

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ron webb wrote: It means exactly that.  The article you quoted even says so, and I bolded the phrase so I'm not sure how you missed it.  Or are you backing away from your own source again?

Actually, I just realized that I made a typo.  What I meant to say is that even if the theory was falsified, it does not necessarily mean that the flagellum was still not designed.  In other words, even if the theory was scientifically invalidated, it could still be true but we just could not prove it scientifically.

ron webb wrote: I agree, you can't prove it scientifically, because it's not a proper theory.  That's what I've been trying to tell you.

 

That would be true if intelligent design was falsified.  That is what was the point of the article.  It was arguing that intelligent design is a "proper theory" because it can be tested and is falsifiable.  It then stated that even if the theory was scientifically falsified, it could still be true but we just wouldn't know it.

ron webb wrote: Yes, that's what I've been claiming all this time.   We just don't know.  Neither of us.

But I am not agreeing with you.  I was merely saying that the point of the article was that if the theory was falsified, it could still be true but we could not prove it using science.  But, as far as I can see, the theory has not been falsified, despite the best efforts of atheist scientists and their dogmatism.

ron webb wrote: The only point you have wrong above is that "the means by which this could have happened has been falsified."  That is impossible because just like the creationists we don't know the means by which this could have happened.  We don't have an adequate explanation either.  We're still looking for a viable theory, a natural process, a mechanism by which the first lifeform could have evolved.

Not at all.  If we can detect design in life, that is evidence for the theory.  In order to falsify the theory, you have to prove that the means of detecting design is false.  The issue is how you detect design, not the processes involved in the design itself.  For example, if you look at the Statue of Liberty, you can detect design, though you may not necessarily know the "process" by which it was designed (e.g. what tools were used). 

ron webb wrote: Why can't you get it through your head?  I'm not trying to prove that intelligent design is false!

Calm down, Ron.  Relax!  Don't pop a vein!

Now, even if you are not "trying to prove" that ID is false, you certainly oppose it as a viable theory and blindly accept the various chance hypotheses that are being offered by like-minded individuals in the scientific community.   

ron webb wrote: The "general process" for creating RNA in a lab requires lab equipment.  I don't know the process, and I don't suppose you do either, but for instance a lab technician might use a centrifuge to concentrate and isolate proteins.  What would God have used for a centrifuge?  And if He's not using a centrifuge, what does it even mean to say that He is following the same process?

I am referring to the chemical reactions required to synthesize RNA.  Those are the fundamental "processes" that allow for RNA synthesis.  I don't think God needs a lab to perform those reactions. 

ron webb wrote: It means, among other things, that we don't even have a clear definition for "life".  Is a self-replicating RNA molecule "life"?  I'm not sure.  Are viruses alive?  It's still an open question.

I would say that RNA is not a "living" entity.  Neither are prions, even though they are infectious agents.

A virus?  Yes, it's difficult to determine whether it is a "living" entity, but viruses aside, we know that cells are living things.  Cells make up the basic unit of life.  All organisms, whether bacteria, plants , fungi or humans, are made-up of cells.  All are living entities.  With this in mind, I would not describe life as "vague".

ron webb wrote: But we're still looking, while you guys don't even try.  You think that "it's a miracle!" is an explanation.  It's not.  It's an admission that you don't have an explanation, and an excuse to go making up fairy stories instead of trying to figure out what actually happened.

What a load of crock!  You guys are "still looking" to prove an a priori assumption.  You need/want life to have started by chance, so you parade theory after theory, no matter how preposterous, to try to explain how life came about by chance.  It's like saying that you believe in the Loch Ness monster, and then you look for proof of its existence.  And when you fail over and over again, you just keep "looking". 

ron webb wrote: The difference is that the Loch Ness monster does not exist, whereas we know that the first living cell must have come into being somehow and somewhere.  So we keep proposing theories, and testing them, as science does.

You can't prove that the Loch Ness monster does not exist.  Remember: you can't prove a negative hypothesis.  So, as far as we are concerned, the Loch Ness monster could actually exist.  Of course, no one would buy this line of argumentation.  So, why would we believe that life started by chance, even though all the evidence presented so far shows that chance had no chance?!

ron webb wrote: Your source goes on to quote from Barr�s The Human Nervous System as follows: "The vesicles are derived from the caudal eminence, a mass of pluripotent cells located dorsal to the developing coccyx." So strictly speaking the caudal eminence is not the coccyx/tailbone/tail.  It is located "dorsal" (i.e. behind, as seen from the front) to them.  Yes, the caudal eminence provides vesicles which form the spine.  No, that doesn't exlain why the Designer would extend the spine well past where the legs are forming.

But what it does "explain" is that the caudal eminence is not "vestigial" as atheists have tried to claim.  It has an important function in embryonic development.

ron webb wrote: I think you're missing the point of that reminder, which is that surgical removal of the coccyx has impacts beyond the coccyx itself, not that the coccyx per se has any vital function.  The muscles, tendons and ligaments attach to the coccyx because it's there.  If it weren't there, they could just as efficiently attach directly to the pelvis.

Regardless of what would happen if it "wasn't there", the fact is that it is "there" and it serves as an attachment site for muscles, tendons and ligaments.  Therefore, it has a function.  A "vestigial" structure has no function.  In other words, it is "useless".  The coccyx, while certainly not the most important part of the body, is certainly not "useless". 

ron webb wrote: I had a bit of a chuckle when I read that.  First of all, if you are putting any significant amount of weight on your tailbone when you sit, then you have terrible posture.  Second, and once again., the coccyx is only a weight-bearing structure because it's there, and you're sitting on it. That doesn't mean it was "intelligently designed" to bear weight -- on the contrary, it's a very poor structure for that purpose.  Chronic improper posture which puts too much weight on the coccyx can cause pain.

 

Oh, Dr. Ron has it all figured out, huh?  Oh wait, no he doesn't!

Regardless of your musings, the fact remains that the coccyx, though clearly not vital for survival, still has functions.  First, you claimed that human embryos have a "tail".  When that didn't work out, you then claimed that the coccyx was "vestigial", which would mean that it has no function and is essentially "useless".  Well, guess what?  It does have functions!

ron webb wrote: Unlikely, or impossible?  You keep bouncing back and forth between the two positions as if they were the same, but they are not.

You really are getting desperate, aren't you?  It seems semantics is your last line of defense. 

The chance hypothesis becomes more and more "unlikely" as the evidence piles up.  I think it has reached the point of critical mass and is about to implode.  So yes, it is essentially "impossible".  However, speaking probabilistically, if something has even a 1 in a trillion trillion chance (or some other ridiculously large number), it is technically not "impossible", though common sense would tell us that it is.  But this is simply a matter of semantics.


Edited by islamispeace - 23 October 2014 at 7:32am

ron webb wrote: (Here we go again!) I'm not trying to disprove it.  I'm trying to show that you can't prove it.  And you can claim "strong evidence" as much as you want, but the fact is that there is no evidence, for or against the hypothesis.  Your only argument is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, which is a classic fallacy.

And you can claim that "there is no evidence" all you want, but the fact is that there is such evidence.  Your denial does not change that.

ron webb wrote: Actually, the article itself contradicts this: "How does one test and discredit Behe's claims? Describe a realistic, continuously functional Darwinian pathway from simple ancestor to present motor. The flagellum might still be designed, but Behe's means of detecting such design would have been falsified." So even if we show how the flagellum might have evolved naturally, Behe can still claim that it was designed.  That's because intelligent design is just a hypothesis, not rooted in any physical process.  You need a theory, an actual mechanism by which the Designer might have been created a flagellum, in order to make the theory testable.  You know, like the actual mechanisms you (rightfully) demand of evolutionists before we can claim to have proven abiogeneis.

The article states that a scientific theory has to be falsifiable.  It then demonstrates that intelligent design is one such theory.  What it is saying is that if the "the means of detecting" design in life is falsified, then intelligent design would be falsified as well, but it does not necessarily mean that the flagellum might still have been designed.  It is just that we would not be able to prove it scientifically.  It's like saying that life might still have arisen due to chance, even though the means by which this could have happened has been falsified, and we just don't know, which is what you have been claiming all this time about the origin of life. 

ron webb wrote: Not must have evolved -- might have evolved.  As a matter of fact, we're pretty darn confident, because evolution has explained so much already; but I wouldn't say that it must have evolved according to a particular theory, without being able to test that theory.

 

Oh really?  "We're pretty darn confident", huh?  Even though so much of the theory's initial assumptions, such as vestigial organs (see below for a refutation of your appeal to the coccyx), have been disproven? 

ron webb wrote: At least we have a theory.  See, this is where intelligent design has an advantage over real science.  In order to make meaningful progress, science needs to formulate an actual theory, so that its strengths and weaknesses can be tested.  On the other hand, intelligent design feels no need to put forth a coherent theory of exactly how it works.  The most it will do is make assertions like "we think the flagellum is irreducibly complex"; but (as Jonathan Witt admits) even if such a statement is shown to be untrue, that won't shake Witt's belief that it was designed.

Hilarious, given that we have seen so much evidence that contradicts the atheistic worldview, which clearly has not shaken your belief that life that came from nowhere.  Poof!

What is even more hilarious is your claim that "at least we have a theory".  So, just because "we have a theory", it somehow means that intelligent design is automatically false? 

ron webb wrote: But you don't even know the "general" processes of intelligent design.  There was no life, the Intelligent Designer waved his magic wand (no wait, that would be a process!), and -- poof! -- suddenly life appeared.  That's not science.  That's magic.

No, that's you committing a straw man.  I said before that just because God designed life does not mean that natural processes (which obviously we created by Him as well) were not involved.  For example, if the RNA world hypothesis is correct, and we know that RNA can be designed in the lab using complex chemical reactions, that shows us the "general processes" that God could have used to create RNA as well.

ron webb wrote: In case you haven't noticed, life is vague and complicated.  That's the point.  It's not as simple as saying it's either John or Alice, and disproving one is tantamount to proving the other.

 

Huh?  Life is "vague"?  It certainly is complicated, which is why saying that it is one big cosmic accident is absurd, but "vague"?  What does that mean?

ron webb wrote: You seriously think that if the police can't disprove that Alice did it, they will never even consider whether John did it?

The police usually consider the most likely suspect first.  But yes, they could certainly investigate multiple suspects simultaneously.  But if Alice was the prime suspect, then the police would tend to concentrate on her.

ron webb wrote: Except that there are lots of "chance theories", as you call them.  You can never hope to disprove all of them because we can't even enumerate all of them.

Well, what would you call them?

And yes, there are lots of these preposterous theories, and one after the other, they have been discredited.  See, the problem is that atheists simply keep proposing new theories to make up for the lack of evidence for previous theories.  They are just trying to compensate for repeated failures at proving their dogmatic worldview. 

It's like saying that the Loch Ness monster is a plesiosaur.  But when evidence is presented to discredit this view, the believers in the monster simply say that it could be some other pre-historic animal, even though no concrete evidence has ever been presented, aside from a hoax here and there, kind of like the evolutionist hoaxes.

ron webb wrote: To paraphrase Shakespeare, "a tail by any other name would be just as vestigial." Call it whatever you like, but it is morphologically identical with a tail, it is the same structure that becomes the tail of every other vertebrate animal, and it is the structure that becomes the "tailbone" in humans.  There is no reason for it to exist in humans.  Both the "caudal eminence" and the tailbone are vestigial.

 

To actually quote Shakespear, "I say there is no darkness but ignorance".

Again you show that you are just reciting dogma.  It amazes me that people like you just repeat this nonsense like mindless drones instead of actually doing some research.

The so-called "tailbone in humans", otherwise known as the coccyx, is also not "vestigial", as we shall see shortly.  But first, let me once again quote the previous source to show that the caudal eminence is also not "vestigial":

"So what is the caudal eminence? It is a neurological structure that is necessary for the development of the spinal cord and many other caudal structures."

Now, let's consider the coccyx.  Is it "vestigial"?  NO!  According to medical sources, it actually serves several functions:

"In humans, the coccyx serves important functions, including as an attachment site for various muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Physicians and patients should remember the importance of these attachments when considering surgical removal of the coccyx."

And furthermore:

"The coccyx serves somewhat as a weight-bearing structure when a person is seated, thus completing the tripod of weight bearing composed of the coccyx and the bilateral ischium. The ischial weight-bearing surfaces are, more specifically, at the ischial tuberosities and inferior rami of the ischium."

So what other "vestigial" structures can you find for us?  Gills perhaps?

ron webb wrote: FYI, the hypothesis that Mars has life is still plausible.  We've had Mars rovers looking for life for years now, but they haven't explored every crevice and every underground cavern on the planet.  Mars is big place with a diverse environment.  I'd agree that on the whole it's not looking very hospitable for life, but we cannot say that suitable conditions do not exist anywhere.

As we learn more about Mars, it is becoming more and more likely that there is no life there, even bacterial life (it actually would not surprise me if bacterial life was eventually found).  Of course, that has not stopped conspiracy theorists from spotting things like "cannons" and "faces" on the surface of Mars! 

ron webb wrote: The same could be said for the early Earth, not incidentally -- with the added complication that we cannot explore the early Earth.  Which is just one more reason why it's fatuous to confidently assert that the conditions life needed to evolve did not exist anywhere.

We have a ton of evidence about the early earth, which calls into question the chance hypothesis/hypotheses.  And the more we learn, the more unlikely chance becomes.    

Similarly, we have a ton of evidence about Mars, which calls into question that it has life or had life at one point.  The more we learn, the more unlikely it becomes.


Edited by islamispeace - 20 October 2014 at 11:24am

islamicity:

You can say it as many times as you want, but the fact is that merely suggesting that there could have been "pre-cellular" life is a worthless argument.  The evidence we do have suggests that life was and always has been cellular in nature.

No !


Airmano


Edited by airmano - 19 October 2014 at 12:10am