In other words: "Looks like God did it, but we don't want to describe God because we really don't know."
I'd be less charitable. It's more like, "Looks like God did it, but we don't want to say that because we got laughed out of the classroom last time, so we're saying the same thing as before, but more vaguely."
That's funny. By that same definition evolution should not be taught either because it is not scientific. Being scientific means also that it can be reproduced.
I agree, Genesis is not science - but you can use it as a hypothesis, and once you do, then you can start doing science. For example, the Bible gives a rough idea how long ago Creation occurred (there are genealogies listed that we can extrapolate from). If you start with the hypothesis that the earth is 6,000 years old, then you can look for evidence that supports your hypothesis. Now we're getting into the realm of science.
And that's just fine, as long as nobody starts appealing to miracles when the evidence contradicts the hypothesis. Once you start doing that, you're back playing the "not science" game.
Great, part of the scientific method for a theory includes a prediction for proving the theory can not only describe observation but predict future observations. So where is the predictions of what evolution will create next?
No specific predictions, any more than mathematicians can predict which side of a die will come up next. They can make predictions, though. General predictions include what's likely to happen if you dump some bacteria into certain substrates, but more specifically, common descent predicts the types of genetic markers that will be found when sequencing genomes.
The teacher should present all the relevant information he or she can during the time provided with the students.
You seem to believe that a high school teacher is some sort of researcher whose job it is to generate new theories and bring untested hypotheses into the classroom. There's a place for research and debate, and it's usually done by scientists in the field and not by...well...children. How keen would you be on a history teacher teaching his cutting edge new theory on how the War of 1812 never happened or a health teacher talking about the benefits of the all eggplant diet?
At some point, there has to be some vetting of the information students are taught to ensure that it's up to at least some minimal academic standards. The ID crowd is keen on getting directly into schools because they know that they can't meet those standards.
But, how can critical thought be taught if controversial topics are forbidden by law, and only one vetted and approved position is ever taught?
Controversial topics aren't forbidden by law. Within the field of biology, evolutionary theory isn't controversial.
Personally, I'd be fine with ID being brought up, but as an example of something that doesn't pass scientific muster. If it's brought up as a legitimate scientific position, you're defeating the point of teaching science. That part goes back to the point made earlier: What's the point of science class? Sure, kids learning evolutionary theory is a good thing, but more importantly, they should learn what science is and how to distinguish it from other forms of reasoning. Putting ID into the mix as a form of real science defeats that fundamental goal more than it damages the teaching of evolutionary theory.
Teaching kids it's OK to appeal to magic in science is like teaching kids that it's OK to divide by zero in order to get your proofs to work out in math class.
An Acorn has programmed into it all the needed instructions on how to make an oak tree.
One wonders how it would be possible to satisfy your demand for an example of a self-assembling complex system if you assert that any such system has information pre-loaded into it. What observation might negate the pre-loading hypothesis?
So give me an example of a complex man created system, that was not designed but came about by the same probabilistic processes that you think also brought life into existence. So yes, all structure, whether man made or natural contains information and exquisite balances. Salt crystals or snow flakes are made of atoms that arrange themselves according to the characteristics of the underlying atomic structure and forces. These energy levels and underlying structures are not a probabilistic, random accidents.
And it becomes clear now that whatever definition of information you're using, it has nothing to do with the second law of thermodynamics. So you've invented your own version of information theory and you're surprised when prevailing scientific theories don't conform to it. I'm just not sure what to say about that.
There are many fundamental relationships in nature that are essential to life. The electromagnetic force holds the electrons to the nucleus and the atoms to each other. If this were a little smaller, the atoms could not combine to form molecules since the latter would fall apart too readily. A larger force would prevent atoms from "sharing" their electrons in order to form molecules. Either way, there could be no life.
So if the laws of physics were completely different and it rained mercury and life ran on molecules based on francium, what would that say about the necessary existence or non-existence of a creator?
That shows the how, but not really the full on why. What is the advantage? or is it simply a loss of function due to prolonged exposure to citrus?
To simplify things a bit, genes are sort of a "use 'em or lose 'em" proposition. If you really need a particular chunk of DNA, a mutation that changes how it works is likely to cause you not to reproduce. The mutation will probably not be passed on, and on the whole, that piece of DNA will remain intact.
If you're getting all of the vitamin C you need, a mutation that tweaks the DNA that allowed you to synthesize vitamin C is unlikely to cause you any trouble at all. Over time, the probability of a piece of DNA that the environment doesn't select for remaining intact decreases as there's no real selective pressure to prevent it.
This is a phenomenon that turns out to be really useful to evolutionary biologists when applied to DNA that doesn't code for anything (not that it codes for something and that something isn't used--it codes for no proteins at all). If a segment of DNA doesn't code for anything, it stands to reason that it will change over time due to mutations. If you compare two homologous segments of non-coding DNA in two different organisms, it's possible to estimate how long ago their gene pools diverged based on how many differences mutations have introduced.
There is the law of information, in that matter and energy alone don't generate information. The third and vital ingredient to any system, whether alive or not, is thought and planning.
The law of information? You mean a law that exists only in your imagination? I can see how if you invent a law that explicitly states that something isn't possible that it would be had to convince you otherwise, but no such law exists.
Why, then, is it NOT sensible to generalize from complex systems that are human designed and act as though a rule that applies to the minority of systems definitely applies to the majority?
So, life is designed because all complex things are designed and all complex things are designed because some complex things are designed?
This is an effect of the second LAW of thermodynamics. To reverse this natural process, that affects living and non-living things requires two things. 1- A certain amount of energy. 2- Thought and planning.
And here's the rub. Fractal wrongness due to a misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law says absolutely nothing about intelligence. It has everything to say about energy. I would love to see you rigorously apply the second law to evolution and DNA. I believe that you've made up your own version of the second law and dubbed it "the law of information" and you're using that to argue information theory. No dice. Two questions:
1) How does an acorn becoming an oak tree not violate the second law of thermodynamics?
2) If you answered with some hand wavy "intelligence is magic and it allows us us to violate the second law" then answer how it applies to this: A bucket of salt water sits in the sun. Over time, the water evaporates and leaves salt crystals behind. A state of localized lower entropy has occurred. How did it happen without intelligence?
Energy alone is not enough. There is no probabilistic process, applying any amount of energy, that will restore your room to the order it had, the last time you finished cleaning it up. You think about where to put your stuff, what to keep and what to toss.
Given an appropriate selection landscape, any number of complex results can arise from random inputs. Evolutionary computing has shown this time and time again. In fact, if I remember correctly, you support the idea that the geological column was sorted by a catastrophic flood. Exactly how does hydrodynamic sorting not violate the principle that you're trying to assert?
ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion.
Actually, evolutionary theory is controversial because of what some religious people see as its implications. ID has no meaningful evidence supporting it (or even any meaningful claims to make), so that's not the reason it's controversial. It's controversial because as it stands, it requires doing away with the requirements of evidence in science and allowing any hocus pocus to count as a hypothesis, and because it's nothing more than rebranding creationism in yet another attempt to get it taught in schools. How does one do science when magic is an allowable explanation?
Say it's between Obama and McCain. Nader, along with many other third parties and independent candidates, is also running. The claim is "a vote for Nader is a vote for McCain".
True, i's simplistic. I'd rephrase it, "A vote for Nader is skipping an opportunity to prevent policies that you disagree with."
No one but Gore is to blame for Gore not being able to get enough votes.
I agree that Gore did a terrible job of managing his campaign. How in the world did he let anybody take the environmentalist vote from him? That being said, there's an old saying that begins, "You can lead a horse to water..." If the Nader voters in Florida honestly thought that they were furthering their interests and beliefs by voting Nader, I don't know what to say. Maybe blaming them is like blaming toddlers for putting dangerous things in their mouths.
That conventional wisdom is just flat out wrong. That's why I constantly harp on trade only always occurring because that which is received is valued MORE than that which is given away in exchange. Both parties are by definition immediately better off wealthier from the transaction.
No, it's not wrong (see, I can assert things loudly too...). Nobody is claiming that trade is making people immediately less well off by any definition. I'm simply pointing out that "immediately better off" is not the sole measure of whether a transaction should be made.
No, it's extremely illuminating because it establishes the epistemological and scientific basis, the reason for which any and all trade of any and all things occurs.
And it's step one in freshman microeconomics, but it's not the end of the story.
All things have value only because extrinsic human actors subjectively value those things; it's a false error to claim there is any such thing as objective unchanging intrinsic value for anything.
I have no idea who has asserted that anything has objective unchanging intrinsic value.
In a free market, trade increases the net wealth of society even if the exact same goods exist in the world after the trades as exist before the trades. From this, we *prove* the restriction of free trade in every instance leads to a net less wealthier society, *causes* poverty.
That's true in most cases, but I think that somebody missed his game theory lectures. There are any number of examples of games in which the individually optimal transaction ends up not being optimal in the end. Any trade scenario that maps to a prisoner's dilemma is a simple example. In those cases, a restriction on the types of transactions can keep the market out of a less than optimal equilibrium--and lest you panic at the use of the word "optimal" and point out that wherever you go, there you are, "optimal" and "suboptimal" are both measured by the criteria the players use, not an outside observer.
It's an epistemological error to believe risks can be "accurately evaluated" when they are solely subjectively evaluated. They are by definition always "accurate". You cannot "inaccurately" prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream.
You seem to think that when I suggest that an alternate decision might result in a "better" outcome that I'm using my definition of "better" rather than the player's definition. That would be an error. I'm not, though. For example, if player X is engaged in trade and his goal is to maximize the amount of gold he has at the end of 10 years, it's perfectly reasonable to say that he made a bad choice if I can show that the choice leads him to end up with less gold than he could have. External or objective measures of value don't factor into it. We're measuring the quality of his evaluation based on his own criteria. In that sense, he can make a wrong decision, and I would suggest that any analysis that suggests otherwise essentially renders all of economics pointless. When I say, "You can't afford that," I'm saying, "Your analysis of the transaction is wrong based on the goals you're trying to achieve. When you become aware of the information you're lacking, you will wish that you hadn't made that deal."
Nations don't import nor export. Only individuals import and export.
Since we're being rigorous on definitions, individuals trade. And you can draw a circle around any group of individuals and measure the volume of trade activity. You might even do it around... a nation. To use one of the physics analogies you're so fond of, that's like saying that only atoms have momentum and that objects made of atoms don't.
It's *impossible* to import "more than is good for you" as it is simultaneously impossible to export "more than is good for you".
Not surprisingly, we have a definition of complexity that's defined by examples and intuition rather than any sort of objectively measurable quantity.
Nobody and nothing can "evolve" a Cessna into a 747 without the input of thought and energy. Neither can a bird evolve from a bee by probabilistic means over lots of time.
Here's the question, though: Why not? By your definition, I suspect that living things make up the vast majority of complex systems on this planet. Why, then, is it sensible to generalize from complex systems that are human designed and act as though a rule that applies to the minority of systems definitely applies to the majority? There's no physical law that I'm aware of that says anything like what you're saying, so I'm forced to believe that this is likely a matter of taking folk wisdom and "common sense" and elevating it to physical law without justification.
At least he's not attempting to say "yeah, I'll do that, no problem."
Exactly what is he attempting to say? Which of his proposals are likely to actually happen if he's elected? Your complaint about Obama seems doubly true for Nader, so the question is, what is he bringing to the table aside from the ability to split the vote enough to elect somebody whose policies he completely opposes?
I'd like to be a democrat, but none of them seem to have anything worthwhile to say until after they lose the election. The current crop is a little better, but as someone pointed out earlier, Obama is quite happy to make charismatic speeches about how he's going to work together with Republicans to change the world. That's nice, but how does he propose to get Republicans to support things that they are obviously very much against (the child health care bill recently is an example)? I think it's naive.
Because when I think, "Enlightened policies that we can convince the Republicans to get on board with" I think Nader.
The biggest, loudest, hardest lobbying opponents were not religious people but liquor store owners. The reason? They don't want to have compete with 24 hour grocery stores and the like. They're very happy having the smallest range of opening hours they can arrange.
Well, it's good to know that consumer choice is being limited in order to stifle competition and maximize profits and not to cater to arbitrary religious nonsense. Price gouging is something I can get behind. At least it's something with objectively measurable consequences.
For instance, though I don't care about church, I like the fact that there is a quiet time on Sunday morning during which stores are closed. Helps me enjoy my waffles.
I didn't realize that I was interrupting your waffle consumption on my way to the liquor store. You should have said something.
Kind-- A group of people or things having similar characteristics.
In biology, kind and species are mostly, but not always congruent and are often used interchangeably. Any given species will always be of the same kind. However not all kinds are always considered to be of the same species. Species are defined to be limited to being able to exchange genes and capable of interbreeding. Organisms within a kind are very similar in many key aspects, but may not be able to interbreed.
So it's "like a species, but different." That sounds like a completely fuzzy and empty definition that you can shift around as you please. I will freely admit, then, that we never have and never will observe evolution that crosses "kinds" as you define them since the term is essentially meaningless. I will, however, say that you'll never observe two animals of the same sort in the same place at the same time. Ask me what a "sort" is for more details.
Yes but we can measure these movements TODAY, whereas we cannot observe the changes needed to evolve a fruit fly into a bee. Science is about what is observable today, not what somebody conjectured may have happened by the magic of time, millions of years ago.
You've completely missed the point of the analogy. We can measure small movements in the mountain today. We've never seen the entire mountain raised from nothing. We can measure small movements in genetics today. We've never observed large, long term ones. By your definition of good science, the commonly accepted geological explanation for mountain ranges and a host of other geological features is fanciful garbage and no more scientific than asserting that the flying spaghetti monster did it. An epistemology that doesn't allow for any extrapolation is rather narrow, wouldn't you say?
That's right. Can you give an example where anything moves from simple to complex without the input of energy and though to direct that energy?
Define "complex" in a quantifiable way and that shouldn't be a problem. Shannon? Kolmogorov? Chaitin? Something else? My suspicion is that you're essentially inventing laws of nature that don't actually exist, and you're able to do so because a lack of definitional specificity lets you push the goalposts all over the place. I've heard information theory arguments of all sorts on this topic and so far, they've all been fuzzy crap.
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At some point, there has to be some vetting of the information students are taught to ensure that it's up to at least some minimal academic standards. The ID crowd is keen on getting directly into schools because they know that they can't meet those standards.
Personally, I'd be fine with ID being brought up, but as an example of something that doesn't pass scientific muster. If it's brought up as a legitimate scientific position, you're defeating the point of teaching science. That part goes back to the point made earlier: What's the point of science class? Sure, kids learning evolutionary theory is a good thing, but more importantly, they should learn what science is and how to distinguish it from other forms of reasoning. Putting ID into the mix as a form of real science defeats that fundamental goal more than it damages the teaching of evolutionary theory.
Teaching kids it's OK to appeal to magic in science is like teaching kids that it's OK to divide by zero in order to get your proofs to work out in math class.
One wonders how it would be possible to satisfy your demand for an example of a self-assembling complex system if you assert that any such system has information pre-loaded into it. What observation might negate the pre-loading hypothesis?
And it becomes clear now that whatever definition of information you're using, it has nothing to do with the second law of thermodynamics. So you've invented your own version of information theory and you're surprised when prevailing scientific theories don't conform to it. I'm just not sure what to say about that.
So if the laws of physics were completely different and it rained mercury and life ran on molecules based on francium, what would that say about the necessary existence or non-existence of a creator?
If you're getting all of the vitamin C you need, a mutation that tweaks the DNA that allowed you to synthesize vitamin C is unlikely to cause you any trouble at all. Over time, the probability of a piece of DNA that the environment doesn't select for remaining intact decreases as there's no real selective pressure to prevent it.
This is a phenomenon that turns out to be really useful to evolutionary biologists when applied to DNA that doesn't code for anything (not that it codes for something and that something isn't used--it codes for no proteins at all). If a segment of DNA doesn't code for anything, it stands to reason that it will change over time due to mutations. If you compare two homologous segments of non-coding DNA in two different organisms, it's possible to estimate how long ago their gene pools diverged based on how many differences mutations have introduced.
So, life is designed because all complex things are designed and all complex things are designed because some complex things are designed?
And here's the rub. Fractal wrongness due to a misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law says absolutely nothing about intelligence. It has everything to say about energy. I would love to see you rigorously apply the second law to evolution and DNA. I believe that you've made up your own version of the second law and dubbed it "the law of information" and you're using that to argue information theory. No dice. Two questions:
1) How does an acorn becoming an oak tree not violate the second law of thermodynamics?
2) If you answered with some hand wavy "intelligence is magic and it allows us us to violate the second law" then answer how it applies to this: A bucket of salt water sits in the sun. Over time, the water evaporates and leaves salt crystals behind. A state of localized lower entropy has occurred. How did it happen without intelligence?
Given an appropriate selection landscape, any number of complex results can arise from random inputs. Evolutionary computing has shown this time and time again. In fact, if I remember correctly, you support the idea that the geological column was sorted by a catastrophic flood. Exactly how does hydrodynamic sorting not violate the principle that you're trying to assert?
No, it's not wrong (see, I can assert things loudly too...). Nobody is claiming that trade is making people immediately less well off by any definition. I'm simply pointing out that "immediately better off" is not the sole measure of whether a transaction should be made.
And it's step one in freshman microeconomics, but it's not the end of the story.
I have no idea who has asserted that anything has objective unchanging intrinsic value.
That's true in most cases, but I think that somebody missed his game theory lectures. There are any number of examples of games in which the individually optimal transaction ends up not being optimal in the end. Any trade scenario that maps to a prisoner's dilemma is a simple example. In those cases, a restriction on the types of transactions can keep the market out of a less than optimal equilibrium--and lest you panic at the use of the word "optimal" and point out that wherever you go, there you are, "optimal" and "suboptimal" are both measured by the criteria the players use, not an outside observer.
You seem to think that when I suggest that an alternate decision might result in a "better" outcome that I'm using my definition of "better" rather than the player's definition. That would be an error. I'm not, though. For example, if player X is engaged in trade and his goal is to maximize the amount of gold he has at the end of 10 years, it's perfectly reasonable to say that he made a bad choice if I can show that the choice leads him to end up with less gold than he could have. External or objective measures of value don't factor into it. We're measuring the quality of his evaluation based on his own criteria. In that sense, he can make a wrong decision, and I would suggest that any analysis that suggests otherwise essentially renders all of economics pointless. When I say, "You can't afford that," I'm saying, "Your analysis of the transaction is wrong based on the goals you're trying to achieve. When you become aware of the information you're lacking, you will wish that you hadn't made that deal."
Since we're being rigorous on definitions, individuals trade. And you can draw a circle around any group of individuals and measure the volume of trade activity. You might even do it around... a nation. To use one of the physics analogies you're so fond of, that's like saying that only atoms have momentum and that objects made of atoms don't.
Here's the question, though: Why not? By your definition, I suspect that living things make up the vast majority of complex systems on this planet. Why, then, is it sensible to generalize from complex systems that are human designed and act as though a rule that applies to the minority of systems definitely applies to the majority? There's no physical law that I'm aware of that says anything like what you're saying, so I'm forced to believe that this is likely a matter of taking folk wisdom and "common sense" and elevating it to physical law without justification.
You've completely missed the point of the analogy. We can measure small movements in the mountain today. We've never seen the entire mountain raised from nothing. We can measure small movements in genetics today. We've never observed large, long term ones. By your definition of good science, the commonly accepted geological explanation for mountain ranges and a host of other geological features is fanciful garbage and no more scientific than asserting that the flying spaghetti monster did it. An epistemology that doesn't allow for any extrapolation is rather narrow, wouldn't you say?