Boy howdy, wasn't that a long-winded way of saying "I'm not really an engineer".
BTW, I'm a great admirer of the self-taught, and I think people's claims should be judged on the basis of those claims rather than on their credentials (cf. my comments on Hoyle). But I'm not a big fan of people who try to misrepresent their credentials to their readers. You could have easily stated your field of experience concisely and accurately without labelling yourself as an engineer. Alas, the reason I asked is that creationists have a very bad habit of exactly that kind of misrepresentation.
Lessee if there's anything else in there worth replying too...
> That said, I feel it is necessary to point out that the abbreviation "IEEE" stands for -- you guessed it -- "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers." Hopefully, this meets your proof criteria and saves me the pain of listing every instution that offers Electronics Engineering degrees. You should really get out more.
That's interesting, because I've known and associated with lots of engineers in school, at work, and even at home (my dad is an electrical engineer, as are many others in his social circle), and I have never heard anyone describe themself as "an electronics engineer". I suppose that's because all these were real engineers (PEs) rather than people who worked with electronics and had "engineer" as an inappropriate part of their job title. (Did you know that in some places it is against the law to call yourself "engineer" if you are not a certified and registered PE?)
> Since I have never heard of anyone that has never heard of an electronics engineer or a dgree in said same, perhaps you should give your credentials, inventions, claims to fame, ad nauseum. Frankly, now I'm now a little suspicious of you. So many evolutionists exaggerate their credentials...
I make no claim to any credentials; let the reader judge my words on their value.
Oh, wait. I do occasionally claim to have a bit of experience in some area or another, such as in another branch of this thread where I just mentioned that I know a bit about genetic algorithms. But even there, please evaluate my words rather than my undocumented claims of experience.
> To address the matter at hand, bacterial and human reproduction alike, the observation is that life only comes from life, never from non-life.
No one claims that life is coming from non-life today; it only had to happen once. (And if it did start to happen today, the proto-neo-life would probably be consumed at the bottom of the food chain before developing into anything more complex than an amino acid, if it even got that far.)
> This key aspect of evolution has never been observed in a way that conforms to any present or past evolutionary theory, and not even in a way that doesn't conform (other than one that involves intelligent creation component). The basic claim of modern evolutionists is that life evolved from non-life
For the (n+1)th time, the theory of evolution does not say anything about abiogenesis.
And where does the "intelligent creation component" come in, other than as pure speculation? Which component was the intelligent creation component, and what does intelligent creation involve? (Is there any such thing as non-intelligent creation to contrast it with?)
> And for the record my posts have repeatedly said that belief in evolution and belief in creation were both acts of faith. Neither are provable in a research laboratory, and nothing written here has changed my mind that evolution is still a theory in very much in crisis.
Well, you might convince your classmates at Sunday School, but you certainly aren't going to convince anyone that has even a rudimentary familiarity with the subject matter.
> No, you have not demonstrated anything. 10^50 is such a low probability that it is dismissed as being so remote as to never happen in nature unassisted by intelligence.
That claim is simply false, as is easily demonstrated by shuffling a deck of cards.
How many times must we point out that you know nothing about this subject matter, before you stop pontificating on it?
> Argue with Hoyle and Wickramasinge if you think they erred.
I'll be happy to, if they show up here spouting nonsense that I am capable of detecting.
> To disprove a theory, one simply needs to point out a case in which that theory is false. Behe does this, Hoyle does this, and do many others.
No, I have already explained to you where Behe and Hoyle went wrong, and you have simply chosen to ignore facts that don't support your religious beliefs.
> To prove a theory is right, the mechanism must be described and then shown to be correct experimentally, otherwise it remains a theory, no matter how uncomfortable that is for its proponents. This is the scientific method.
Again, you reveal that you know nothing about what science is and how it works.
[From your second reply:]
> > Yeah, and that's why scientists don't take Hoyle seriously when he starts trying to support his belief in panspermia.
> Here's a website that shows support for panspermia. : http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm . I like the NASA ones, myself. They'll be happy to know you do not consider them to be "serious scientists".
If you would go back and read carefully you'd see that my comments were about Hoyle's asinine probability argument, not about panspermia and other people who study it. The only reason I mentioned panspermia is that it would have been incorrect if I had left the impression that scientists laugh at everything Hoyle said, so I had to narrow it down. And it was to panspermia rather than creationism, because AFAIK Hoyle didn't have much truck with creationism, and only offered the bogus argument in support of panspermia. I have no problem with panspermia, so long as someone can support it with good evidence rather than asinine creationist-style probability arguments.
[From your third reply:]
> > No one is claiming that any of that stuff comes into existence by pure chance, any more than scientists claim that biological structures and processes are the result of pure chance. The theory of evoltion is about a mechanism.
> Okay, so if not by pure chance, then by what mechanisim?
So you're dismissing the theory of evolution and don't even know what it says? The primary mechanism is a feedback loop involving random mutations filtered by natural selection. Secondary mechanisms include sexual selection, genetic drift, and maybe some others.
The primary mechanism is readily illustrated by genetic algorithms, which work by the same method. Google should find you some free code you can download and play with until you understand it, or should find you lots of books and papers on the topic if you prefer a more theoretical approach. (If you have trouble finding something let me know, because I have just a wee bit more than passing familiarity with the subject.)
> Please describe the mechanism on how life began from non-life
As I mentioned earlier, that is the study of abiogenesis and not evolution, and the mechanism is not yet known.
> and describe its proof via experimentation, lest you start sounding like creationist.
Again, you have a pseudo-scientist's conception of how science works. Do you deny that fusion powers the sun because astrophysicists have not set up a sun in a laboratory to demonstrate it? What about hurricanes - must we create one in the lab before we can say we know what causes them?
> While it may be true that Behe, et al. believe that life can evolve from life, they clearly believe that it cannot sponateously create itself from non-life.
Perhaps you can cite something where they claim that? You were totally unaware that they subscribed to the theory of evolution until we pointed it out to you.
> No one has said in these posts what is responsible for Behe's Irreducible Complexity theory solving problem.
I have clearly explained the major flaws in Behe's argument.
> Nor has anyone corrected the probabilities offered
I have shown that your numbers are irrelevant, whether correct or not.
> nor addressed that the quotes I have given include proper citations from distinguished scientists and respected works and journals.
I addressed that as well.
> Just replies of sophomoric counter-positions lacking true substance.
Pointing out that you don't have an argument is about as substantial as the case requires.
> As for sticking to "scientific mainstream" you seem to mean sticking only to those writings and authors that agree with you. Well, I choose the path of Galileo, a man who pursued what he himself believed was right, and specifically avoided conforming to populist viewpoints (i.e., "mainstream") simply to "get along". Now, of course, you will no doubt point out that he strayed from religionists, which is true, but the motivation of the religionists of his day was not the defense of scriptural truths per se, but rather to avoid upsetting the status quo. In this, you share the same dogmatic "go along to get along or we'll ruin you" position as the 16th century Catholic church.
You have absolutely no clue how much controversy goes on in science, nor how that controversy is exercised. If you know a scientist's name it is almost certainly because that scientist revolutionized some field or sub-field of science without getting ostracized.
However, you are performing one very useful service, by showing the lurkers that the typical evolution denier doesn't even understand what the theory of evolution is, let alone the arguments various people offer for or against it.
> They have trucks that are in US hands that are biological weapons factories. The rest of the world wouldn't beleive the US (they say we planted it etc.) so the US dosen't really give a fuck about showing evidence any more.
You seem unaware that our own military and intelligence organizations have concluded that those vehicles (trailers, actually) are not weapons factories. Unless you consider the gas that lifts a weather balloon to be a weapon.
Even the Bush Administration has given up on the WMD excuse; I don't think I've heard them bring it up for weeks now. They have instead switched over to emphasizing the misrepresentations of terrorist connections and the entirely bogus humanitarian argument.
> The fact that the missle (more specificly the engines) could go beyond the range even if it had to be modified made it against the UN regulations WMD or not.
That's an absurd claim. My car would fly beyond that range if sufficiently modified.
> They could carry a payload of WMD. (Chemical and biological) So that's two violations.
So could any missle, or my car for that matter. Simple matter is, the UN did not deny them the use of missiles and no one has found any evidence for WMDs, warheads for delivering them, or factories for building either.
> But I'm not going to sit here and name them.
Just as well not, since your first two items were pulled out of your ass.
> Do you really think that we should have let him stay in power?
If the only other option was unilateral intervention, yes. Even from the selfish POV, I think we have done ourself irreparable harm, including but not limited to greatly swelling the ranks of those who would commit terrorism against us. From a broader humanitarian POV I suspect (but don't know) that we have killed more Iraqis and caused far more suffering than even Saddam would have during the same period... and unfortunately the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet. I haven't heard any updates, but as of mid summer the firms that consult businesses on intelligence issues were warning their customers of a 50/50 chance of armed rebellion breaking out in Iraq. And so far as I can see, violence is actually on the increase and spreading to regions that were quiet earlier, while the provision of basic human services such as clean water are actually gettin worse due to the sabotage. Even after upping the economic ante last night the Bush Administration isn't taking this situation nearly seriously enough.
> Or are you just one of those "America is the giant devil, capitalism will be the end of us all people?"
America is an institution, or alternatively a collection of people, so devils don't enter in to it. But our agents can and have done wrong in the past, and I don't subscribe to the old doctrine of "my country, right or wrong". I want my country to do right, only.
> The WMD had been made a long time ago and stockpiled.
No one denies that they had a program and its end products before 1991. Their use of gas against the Kurds and Iranians is documented history (though sadly no one complained about it at the time), and of course the UN inspectors found and made them destroy lots of stuff during the 90s. But that's completely irrelevant now; there is growing evidence that their program and arsenal were destroyed before the warmongers started harping on it as an excuse for invading, and that the intelligence communities of both the US and the UK did not support the WMD claims that the politicians used to scare their citizens into supporting the war. No amount of hair-splitting will make those facts go away, and since the political exaggerations led to many deaths, injuries, human suffering, and incredible expenses that our society cannot afford right now, no small number of people think those politicians should be held accountable for it. They should count themselves lucky if they merely lose their jobs in the next electiohn rather than going on trial for crimes against humanity.
> There has to some dogma to science. Off the top of my head, I think you have to assume, blindly, that your perceptions of the world/universe are accurate. Otherwise, any observations you make are questionable - and anything built from them are equally questionable.
Not really... if our perceptions don't reflect reality, then science becomes the study of the regularities of perception rather than the regularities of reality... We can conveniently leave that sort of handwringing to the pop philosophers.
Since the problem you raise is absolutely unavoidable, the only pragmatic choices are to ignore it or to resort to nihilism. And you can't investigate the universe from a nihilist perspective (by definition), so ignoring the possibility of a disjunct between "reality" and perceived reality becomes a pragmatic necessity for trying to understand any kind of science at all, not a dogma.
Notice that the same pragmatism applies in to everything we do, not just to science. When you go to take a pee do you worry that you're really peeing on the floor rather than into the toilet bowl, despite all appearences, and thus deliberately pee on the floor in hopes of improving your odds of "really" peeing in the toilet bowl? Of course not. You simply can't manage life if you try to second-guess the reality of everything.
Whenever you hear people trying to equate science with some religious dogma, think out what's really happening. There's a popular perception of science as being airy stuff, but in reality it's about as pragmatic an endeavor as the human mind can come up with.
> However, I would argue that we do not know how most parts of the human body work. If we did, we could, for instance, stop aging and death, or accomplish still more mundane things like cure diseases such as AIDS without effort.
Does not follow. For example, we know how internal combustion engines work, but we can't cure the ills of friction, imperfect fuel efficiency, waste heat, and noise.
> Now, as coincidence would have it, I am an electronics engineer.
"electronics engineer"? I've never heard of that profession. Would you mind giving your exact degree and the name of the granting institution? (No offense; I only ask because creationists are so prone to inflating their credentials, and I've somehow managed to spend quite a few years association with technical people and reading technical publications, and have never, ever seen anyone described as "an electronics engineer". Frankly, I don't think any such profession exists, but here's your chance to prove me wrong; I've already stated my dedication to the rule of evidence.)
> If evolution were "fact", then it would be possible to reproduce the process experimentally.
We see the process every time a bacterium cleaves or a baby is born. I suppose you actually want to reproduce the evolution from a fish to a human, but no, your claim of reproducibility is not correct for that. There's lots of stuff we know but can't reproduce, such as hurricanes and plate techtonics.
Why don't you just admit that you don't have a clue about science, let alone biological evolution, and quit wasting the bandwidth.
> Do you know anything about the history of science? If you did, you will know that science is often proven time and again to be inaccurate, and things are revised. Look at "spontaneous generation" (barnacle geese) and phrenology.
Neither the belief in spontaneous generation nor phrenology were the product of science. Spontaneous generation was an ancient belief about where maggots and mice come from, and phrenology was the ignorant conception of a German physician, neither derived from nor supported by scientific enquiry.
> To stop terrorism, of course, as Saddam Hussein was a major source of it.
The sad irony is that the only terrorists operating out of Iraq were the Ansar al Islam, which arose in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region under the no-fly zone, and could not have existed without American bombers to hold Saddam in check. (FYI, terrorists hated Saddam almost as bad as they hate us.)
> Anti-imperialism was also a goal too, given Saddam's track record of attacking neighboring countries with the goal of annexing them.
Novel concept: combat imperialism by overthrowing other governments and setting up your own in their place. I suppose we should applaud the Romans for fighting imperialism in their many wars with the Parthians, Sassinids, and various Hellenistic empires.
> (he still claimed Kuwait as his own land, and still was committed to the goal of conquest of Israel and extermination of the Israelis).
He certainly wasn't making much progress at those goals, was he. If we're going to deploy force against big-talking fuckwits, Saddam is far from the only person who needed to worry about it. Yet somehow I'm missing all the others in the news...
Moot point, since most of it is still in the ground or else spilling into a big burning puddle where a pipeline used to be.
> i for one am sick of listening to you spineless jackasses try to justify not supporting this war and trying to save face by making up motives for us.
Quit your republican fantasizing. I didn't support the war, don't support it now, and am proud of both facts. I don't feel the slightest need to save face, except when I tell people I'm an American. (But I can easily save face by pointing out that I voted against Bush in both the primary and the general election, so I can save face without making anything up.)
But apparently a lot of people who did support it feel a need to save face, since they're making up yarns about humanitarian intentions to cover the glaring absence of the WMDs and terrorist connections that were used to justify it.
> They owe us for their liberation and all. I would recommend cheap oil. They have so much of it and all. In fact, it's the second largest known oil reserve and is mostly untapped. I'm sure Haliburton could help them get it out of the ground and everything. Come on Iraq... play ball!
Wasn't that part of the spin the Administration offered when trying to convince us the invasion was a good idea and wouldn't be very expensive?
Americans love doing good deeds... so long as they don't have to pay taxes for it.
> The idea that Behe says that evolution as it exists is at best incomplete is itself sufficient to undermine the current basis of the theory of evolution.
No, as I clearly stated in my post, Behe merely shows that a strawman version of evolution is "incomplete". This does nothing whatsover to undermine the actual theory of evolution.
> If Behe is right, that evolution is not responsible for the creation of life, then what might that be?
No scientist believes evolution is responsible for the "creation" of life; evolution merely explains the diversification of life. The study of its origins is called abiogenesis, and the mechanism of abiogenesis is still an open question.
> Here is a bit of scientific and mathematical fact. It is a fact that protiens used by living organisms are comprised of very complex molecules. Now, the odds of forming even the simplest protien by pure chance is 10^113
Assuming your numbers are correct, what has that got to do with evolution? Evolution does not claim that protiens are formed by pure chance. Are you going to type in a long argument against a theory you know nothing about?
> For sure, mathemeticians draw the line of impossibility at 10^50.
No, mathematicians define impossibility as p=0. A probability of 1 in 10^50 is merely a low probability.
> Of course, there are some 2,000 protiens that serve as enzymes, which are absolutely required for sustaining life.
How do you know what the absolute minimum of protiens for sustaining life is? If you have a good argument for this you should rush it to publication before someone else does.
> What are the chances they came together even once in all time? You guessed it: 10^40,000, which is to say, a number rather larger than what it takes for mathematical impossibility.
So you think you can disprove evolution by applying made-up numbers and a bogus mathematical claim to a stawman version of the theory of evolution?
Maybe you should pause and give a little thought to why scientists don't take evolution deniers seriously.
> Thus, despite any other conjecture, it has been proven to be mathematically impossible for life to have come about by random chemical action.
Proven? Enumerate you axioms and convince us that they are accurate descriptions of the universe. Then we can talk about whether your proof is correct.
> In his work Evolution from Space, Sir Fred Hoyle concluded that this is an "outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." He added, "If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated [spontaneously] on Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court." Evolution from Space, p.24
Yeah, and that's why scientists don't take Hoyle seriously when he starts trying to support his belief in panspermia.
> Furthermore, Francis Hitching wrote "Protiens depend on DNA for their formation. But DNA cannot form without pre-existing protien." (The Neck of the Giraffe, Francis Hitching, p.66) This leaves a paradox rasied by chemist Richard Dickerson in the Sept '78 Scientific American, pg. 73: "Which came first," the protien or the DNA? He asserts: "The answer must be, 'They developed in parallel.'" So the answer to the age-old question, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?", according to this logic is -- drumroll, please -- : Neither! They arrived simultaneously! There, problem solved!...clever...very clever.
So are you going to give an argument that they didn't develop in parallel, or just rely on schoolboy rhetoric to convince the audience that something's wrong with evolution?
> Your assertion that it is okay to say that evolution is correct for the most complex things in the universe but tak
> Yes, I am well aware of and agree with the tenets of science. It's too bad that those tenets are subverted so often by those who espouse them. It makes for slow progress when you have to wait for a generation to die off... especially when that generation is pushing their flawed ideas on a young and gullible new generation in a very authoritarian manner.
Does it actually happen often enough that we need to wring our hands over it?
> > In the absence of proof or evidence, isn't once conclusion just as tenable as the other?
> No. There's no proof that the Tooth Fairy exists either. There's no proof that she doesn't. Which makes more sense: believe that the Fairy exists or doesn't?
Well, yes, believing in The Tooth Fairy makes exactly as much sense as believing in God, or maybe a little more if you have a hangup about the vast claims most people make about their brand of god, but I was trying to be polite and let readers grok that for themselves.
> That's the problem with so many claims today, whether it's for God or Nessie or extra-terrestrials or psychic healing -- they all want the burden of proof to be switched. Rather than prove that their claims are valid, they challenge the world to prove that it is not then scream and kick and cry when no one takes them seriously.
Yes, that's exactly the rhetoric they deploy. And in practice I tend to go with you, i.e. not believe in some existence claim unless given some reason to believe it.
But there are epistemological problems with making strong claims of the sort, "I see no evidence for x, therefore x does not exist", so I was espousing what I deem to be the "correct" view of the problem of divine existence, rather than my own pragmatic approach to this class of problem.
It certainly doesn't make any sense to sacrifice your freedom, time, and money to an unevidenced deity.
> he notes that SF readers today seem to prefer the Tolkienesque fantasies of some forgotten past, rather than the forward-looking works of science and space travel that used to dominate the genre.
Ah, so he longs for the days of some forgotten past...
> > Unlike religionists, the only time scientists get stuffy when someone questions their data is when that someone has made no effort to understand the process, and is speaking from a position of obvious fallacy.
> I have to take extreme exception with this. Scientists are human and as such can be extremely biased and unaccepting of new ideas in the face of mountains of scientific evidence against their beliefs. In my field, I see this all the time.
Yes, but what distinguishes science from religion is that evidence is the ultimate authority in science, so that when new evidence comes in it will eventually prevail over the dogmatists... even if human frailty means some dogmatists have to die of old age before it does prevail.
That's far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than what religion has to offer as a mechanism for getting the facts straight. People who equate science with religion are either ignorant or dishonest.
> and yet, scientists like you dismiss the Existance of God without nary a thought.
Perhaps you're unaware that many scientists - perhaps most US scientists - believe in God? Including many who subscribe to that most pernicious of scientific theories, the theory of evolution?
In fact, some post to talk.origins. You can go over there and ask them about their beliefs if yo'd like.
> you cant have it both ways... but I am 100% sure that nobody has proof that God does not exist.
Nor evidence. But nobody has proof (or evidence) that a god does exist, either.
In the absence of proof or evidence, isn't once conclusion just as tenable as the other?
> This WMD flap reminds me of a religious debate. There is no evidence that they exist, and we now have complete access to anything we need there to find evidence. WMD's are just a Republican article of faith.
Heh. After Howard Dean started running anti-Bush ads in the Bush Heartland a few weeks ago, you can bet that the Republicans are trying harder to find a sexual misadventure in his background than to find WMDs in Iraq.
> Since you want to get all technical and stuff the inspectors did find items and weapons prohibited by the UN. Remember the Al-Samud and Al-Hussien missles? I beleive it was the Al-Hussien that violated that UN by being able to reach more then 200Km (or something of that nature.) The UN ordered them destroyed and the Iraq's started destroying them at the rate of like 1 per day (they had something like 109 of them.)
The Iraqis claimed that they would only exceed that limit when not burdened with their guidance systems and warheads, and were never given a fair hearing on it - demolitions started immediately.
Also, FWIW, tactical missiles aren't WMDs.
Moreover, notice that the Iraqis let the demolitions proceed rather than kicking the inspectors out. It's really a stretch to vilify them in this matter.
> That was just one of the violations.
More please?
> I for one as a U.S. Citizen think that our Intelligence did get fucked up, Hussien was a smart man and people aren't giving him enough credit. I'd bet $100 that half the intelligence we got was from fake defectors that he planted.
I certainly wouldn't bet against you on that.
> And if you ask me, it's better to be safe then sorry.
That introduces a nasty slippery-slope problem. Should we also invade India and Pakistan to defuse any risk there? Israel? The UK?
Is there a principled place to draw the line between "safe" and "unsafe", to avoid a slide into violent paranoia? And how many innocent people should we be willing to kill on what boils down to a gamble?
> They didn't destroy them either, they just shipped em of to Syria. They didn't use them during the war because of the propaganda but out by the US.
That's certainly legitimate speculation, but is there any evidence for it? Satellite photos of convoys of trucks headed west?
And did they keep the weapons but destroy all the factories?
> I don't know about the U.S, but the Hutton Enquiry here in the U.K has certainly turned up a fair amount of evidence that the U.K intelligence agencies were not happy with the claims being made by Blair.
The US intelligent agencies haven't been very suportive either. I remember back before the shooting started when Peter Jennings would cover the Administration's claims about WMD, alQ ties, etc., he would often follow with an aside that someone in the intelligence community said the supporting evidence wasn't really there.
We live in a world where we think of the military and the intelligence agencies as being deceitful manipulators of fact and circumstance, but in this situation it looks like they were the straight-shooters and it was the politicians who were mendacious.
BTW, I don't profess to know whether GWB deliberately mislead us or whether he merely foolishly surrounded himself with mendacious advisors... not that it makes much difference to national security and world peace.
> The case for creation completely embraces the notion that the universe began in a "Big Bang" or similar act of creation.
That's why there isn't a case for creation: the arbitrary will of and omnipotent being is compatible with anything, and is therefore lies outside the realm of things that can be studied on the basis of evidence.
> There are many renowned and respected scientists that use the scientific method to disprove the theory of evolution.
Actually there are aren't that many at all, as Project Steve jokingly calls to your attention.
> One such theory is called the "Irreducible Complexity Theory." It argues that living organisms are so complex that they cannot have a singular chemical starting point, but rather come to a point where the intracacies are so interdependent that it becomes a mathematical impossibility for them to form spontaneously.
Actually the major proponent of IC, Michael Behe, thoroughly accepts biological evolution and the common descent of the species. He merely claims that there are some specific biological structures/procesess that could not have arisen by evolution, concluding that something else must have been at work in addition to evolution. Unfortunately for him and his followers, his claims rely on some assumptions that aren't actually a part of the theory of evolution, so the best he can claim is that his strawman version of evolution didn't result in the biological structures/processes that he has called attention to. No evolutionary biologists would dispute that! (More than you could want possibly want to read about all this can be found at the talk.origins archive).
> Which leads to a point: Evolution is still a theory and remains unproved.
Yeah, that's kind of the way science works. Proof, as they say, is for mathematicians, beverages, and gunpowder. The empirical sciences don't have such a luxury. (Perhaps you've heard of "atomic theory", "theory of gravitation", "electromagnatic theory", and a bunch of other scientific discoveries with similar names?)
> The irony is that no one would argue that a laptop computer ever came into existence on its own, out of the random swirlings of sand and oil (an evolutionist's view), but in the next breath argue that in the case of humans and all other life, which is inarguably inifinitely more complex, did come into existance that way.
The intersting thing is that the theory of evolution doesn't say that humans came into existence out of random swirlings of sand and oil. The whole point of a theory is to describe the mechanism that explains why seemingly improbable things happen regularly in the universe. Atomic theory explains why we get the - Wow! - integer ratios between the amount of reactants consumed when we mix chemicals (an amazing improbability if you're unaware of the mechanism), and biological evolution explains why we get the wonderful diversity of life we have out of a mindless universe.
> This pertains to the main article because "fossils" only prove prior existence of something. They do not prove how those things came into existence. Such a conclusion is an imaginative leap.
Fossils are a phonomenon with a curiously non-random distribution, and that demands an explanation. The theory of evolution is the best explanation anyone has ever set forward for it. You're welcome to try going it one better, if you wish.
> (As an aside, if fossil hunters had found the proof they needed to unequivocally support evolution, they would not still be looking for "it".)
Paleontologists don't hunt fossils in search of "proof" of evolution; they search for them in order to fill out the details of biological history.
> Religionists always get the bad rap of being closed-minded, but I think that parent
Slashdot Mirror
> One definition of engineer is...
[snip mucho apolgetics]
Boy howdy, wasn't that a long-winded way of saying "I'm not really an engineer".
BTW, I'm a great admirer of the self-taught, and I think people's claims should be judged on the basis of those claims rather than on their credentials (cf. my comments on Hoyle). But I'm not a big fan of people who try to misrepresent their credentials to their readers. You could have easily stated your field of experience concisely and accurately without labelling yourself as an engineer. Alas, the reason I asked is that creationists have a very bad habit of exactly that kind of misrepresentation.
Lessee if there's anything else in there worth replying too...
> That said, I feel it is necessary to point out that the abbreviation "IEEE" stands for -- you guessed it -- "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers." Hopefully, this meets your proof criteria and saves me the pain of listing every instution that offers Electronics Engineering degrees. You should really get out more.
That's interesting, because I've known and associated with lots of engineers in school, at work, and even at home (my dad is an electrical engineer, as are many others in his social circle), and I have never heard anyone describe themself as "an electronics engineer". I suppose that's because all these were real engineers (PEs) rather than people who worked with electronics and had "engineer" as an inappropriate part of their job title. (Did you know that in some places it is against the law to call yourself "engineer" if you are not a certified and registered PE?)
> Since I have never heard of anyone that has never heard of an electronics engineer or a dgree in said same, perhaps you should give your credentials, inventions, claims to fame, ad nauseum. Frankly, now I'm now a little suspicious of you. So many evolutionists exaggerate their credentials...
I make no claim to any credentials; let the reader judge my words on their value.
Oh, wait. I do occasionally claim to have a bit of experience in some area or another, such as in another branch of this thread where I just mentioned that I know a bit about genetic algorithms. But even there, please evaluate my words rather than my undocumented claims of experience.
> To address the matter at hand, bacterial and human reproduction alike, the observation is that life only comes from life, never from non-life.
No one claims that life is coming from non-life today; it only had to happen once. (And if it did start to happen today, the proto-neo-life would probably be consumed at the bottom of the food chain before developing into anything more complex than an amino acid, if it even got that far.)
> This key aspect of evolution has never been observed in a way that conforms to any present or past evolutionary theory, and not even in a way that doesn't conform (other than one that involves intelligent creation component). The basic claim of modern evolutionists is that life evolved from non-life
For the (n+1)th time, the theory of evolution does not say anything about abiogenesis.
And where does the "intelligent creation component" come in, other than as pure speculation? Which component was the intelligent creation component, and what does intelligent creation involve? (Is there any such thing as non-intelligent creation to contrast it with?)
> And for the record my posts have repeatedly said that belief in evolution and belief in creation were both acts of faith. Neither are provable in a research laboratory, and nothing written here has changed my mind that evolution is still a theory in very much in crisis.
Well, you might convince your classmates at Sunday School, but you certainly aren't going to convince anyone that has even a rudimentary familiarity with the subject matter.
> No, you have not demonstrated anything. 10^50 is such a low probability that it is dismissed as being so remote as to never happen in nature unassisted by intelligence.
That claim is simply false, as is easily demonstrated by shuffling a deck of cards.
How many times must we point out that you know nothing about this subject matter, before you stop pontificating on it?
> Argue with Hoyle and Wickramasinge if you think they erred.
I'll be happy to, if they show up here spouting nonsense that I am capable of detecting.
> To disprove a theory, one simply needs to point out a case in which that theory is false. Behe does this, Hoyle does this, and do many others.
No, I have already explained to you where Behe and Hoyle went wrong, and you have simply chosen to ignore facts that don't support your religious beliefs.
> To prove a theory is right, the mechanism must be described and then shown to be correct experimentally, otherwise it remains a theory, no matter how uncomfortable that is for its proponents. This is the scientific method.
Again, you reveal that you know nothing about what science is and how it works.
[From your second reply:]
> > Yeah, and that's why scientists don't take Hoyle seriously when he starts trying to support his belief in panspermia.
> Here's a website that shows support for panspermia. : http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm . I like the NASA ones, myself. They'll be happy to know you do not consider them to be "serious scientists".
If you would go back and read carefully you'd see that my comments were about Hoyle's asinine probability argument, not about panspermia and other people who study it. The only reason I mentioned panspermia is that it would have been incorrect if I had left the impression that scientists laugh at everything Hoyle said, so I had to narrow it down. And it was to panspermia rather than creationism, because AFAIK Hoyle didn't have much truck with creationism, and only offered the bogus argument in support of panspermia. I have no problem with panspermia, so long as someone can support it with good evidence rather than asinine creationist-style probability arguments.
[From your third reply:]
> > No one is claiming that any of that stuff comes into existence by pure chance, any more than scientists claim that biological structures and processes are the result of pure chance. The theory of evoltion is about a mechanism.
> Okay, so if not by pure chance, then by what mechanisim?
So you're dismissing the theory of evolution and don't even know what it says? The primary mechanism is a feedback loop involving random mutations filtered by natural selection. Secondary mechanisms include sexual selection, genetic drift, and maybe some others.
The primary mechanism is readily illustrated by genetic algorithms, which work by the same method. Google should find you some free code you can download and play with until you understand it, or should find you lots of books and papers on the topic if you prefer a more theoretical approach. (If you have trouble finding something let me know, because I have just a wee bit more than passing familiarity with the subject.)
> Please describe the mechanism on how life began from non-life
As I mentioned earlier, that is the study of abiogenesis and not evolution, and the mechanism is not yet known.
> and describe its proof via experimentation, lest you start sounding like creationist.
Again, you have a pseudo-scientist's conception of how science works. Do you deny that fusion powers the sun because astrophysicists have not set up a sun in a laboratory to demonstrate it? What about hurricanes - must we create one in the lab before we can say we know what causes them?
> Behe's conclusions are recent and unchallenged.
Get a clue, man. Behe's conclusions have been thoroughly debunked.
> While it may be true that Behe, et al. believe that life can evolve from life, they clearly believe that it cannot sponateously create itself from non-life.
Perhaps you can cite something where they claim that? You were totally unaware that they subscribed to the theory of evolution until we pointed it out to you.
> No one has said in these posts what is responsible for Behe's Irreducible Complexity theory solving problem.
I have clearly explained the major flaws in Behe's argument.
> Nor has anyone corrected the probabilities offered
I have shown that your numbers are irrelevant, whether correct or not.
> nor addressed that the quotes I have given include proper citations from distinguished scientists and respected works and journals.
I addressed that as well.
> Just replies of sophomoric counter-positions lacking true substance.
Pointing out that you don't have an argument is about as substantial as the case requires.
> As for sticking to "scientific mainstream" you seem to mean sticking only to those writings and authors that agree with you. Well, I choose the path of Galileo, a man who pursued what he himself believed was right, and specifically avoided conforming to populist viewpoints (i.e., "mainstream") simply to "get along". Now, of course, you will no doubt point out that he strayed from religionists, which is true, but the motivation of the religionists of his day was not the defense of scriptural truths per se, but rather to avoid upsetting the status quo. In this, you share the same dogmatic "go along to get along or we'll ruin you" position as the 16th century Catholic church.
You have absolutely no clue how much controversy goes on in science, nor how that controversy is exercised. If you know a scientist's name it is almost certainly because that scientist revolutionized some field or sub-field of science without getting ostracized.
However, you are performing one very useful service, by showing the lurkers that the typical evolution denier doesn't even understand what the theory of evolution is, let alone the arguments various people offer for or against it.
> I don't know where to start..
With good reason.
> They have trucks that are in US hands that are biological weapons factories. The rest of the world wouldn't beleive the US (they say we planted it etc.) so the US dosen't really give a fuck about showing evidence any more.
You seem unaware that our own military and intelligence organizations have concluded that those vehicles (trailers, actually) are not weapons factories. Unless you consider the gas that lifts a weather balloon to be a weapon.
Even the Bush Administration has given up on the WMD excuse; I don't think I've heard them bring it up for weeks now. They have instead switched over to emphasizing the misrepresentations of terrorist connections and the entirely bogus humanitarian argument.
> The fact that the missle (more specificly the engines) could go beyond the range even if it had to be modified made it against the UN regulations WMD or not.
That's an absurd claim. My car would fly beyond that range if sufficiently modified.
> They could carry a payload of WMD. (Chemical and biological) So that's two violations.
So could any missle, or my car for that matter. Simple matter is, the UN did not deny them the use of missiles and no one has found any evidence for WMDs, warheads for delivering them, or factories for building either.
> But I'm not going to sit here and name them.
Just as well not, since your first two items were pulled out of your ass.
> Do you really think that we should have let him stay in power?
If the only other option was unilateral intervention, yes. Even from the selfish POV, I think we have done ourself irreparable harm, including but not limited to greatly swelling the ranks of those who would commit terrorism against us. From a broader humanitarian POV I suspect (but don't know) that we have killed more Iraqis and caused far more suffering than even Saddam would have during the same period... and unfortunately the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet. I haven't heard any updates, but as of mid summer the firms that consult businesses on intelligence issues were warning their customers of a 50/50 chance of armed rebellion breaking out in Iraq. And so far as I can see, violence is actually on the increase and spreading to regions that were quiet earlier, while the provision of basic human services such as clean water are actually gettin worse due to the sabotage. Even after upping the economic ante last night the Bush Administration isn't taking this situation nearly seriously enough.
> Or are you just one of those "America is the giant devil, capitalism will be the end of us all people?"
America is an institution, or alternatively a collection of people, so devils don't enter in to it. But our agents can and have done wrong in the past, and I don't subscribe to the old doctrine of "my country, right or wrong". I want my country to do right, only.
> The WMD had been made a long time ago and stockpiled.
No one denies that they had a program and its end products before 1991. Their use of gas against the Kurds and Iranians is documented history (though sadly no one complained about it at the time), and of course the UN inspectors found and made them destroy lots of stuff during the 90s. But that's completely irrelevant now; there is growing evidence that their program and arsenal were destroyed before the warmongers started harping on it as an excuse for invading, and that the intelligence communities of both the US and the UK did not support the WMD claims that the politicians used to scare their citizens into supporting the war. No amount of hair-splitting will make those facts go away, and since the political exaggerations led to many deaths, injuries, human suffering, and incredible expenses that our society cannot afford right now, no small number of people think those politicians should be held accountable for it. They should count themselves lucky if they merely lose their jobs in the next electiohn rather than going on trial for crimes against humanity.
> >
> There has to some dogma to science. Off the top of my head, I think you have to assume, blindly, that your perceptions of the world/universe are accurate. Otherwise, any observations you make are questionable - and anything built from them are equally questionable.
Not really... if our perceptions don't reflect reality, then science becomes the study of the regularities of perception rather than the regularities of reality... We can conveniently leave that sort of handwringing to the pop philosophers.
Since the problem you raise is absolutely unavoidable, the only pragmatic choices are to ignore it or to resort to nihilism. And you can't investigate the universe from a nihilist perspective (by definition), so ignoring the possibility of a disjunct between "reality" and perceived reality becomes a pragmatic necessity for trying to understand any kind of science at all, not a dogma.
Notice that the same pragmatism applies in to everything we do, not just to science. When you go to take a pee do you worry that you're really peeing on the floor rather than into the toilet bowl, despite all appearences, and thus deliberately pee on the floor in hopes of improving your odds of "really" peeing in the toilet bowl? Of course not. You simply can't manage life if you try to second-guess the reality of everything.
Whenever you hear people trying to equate science with some religious dogma, think out what's really happening. There's a popular perception of science as being airy stuff, but in reality it's about as pragmatic an endeavor as the human mind can come up with.
> However, I would argue that we do not know how most parts of the human body work. If we did, we could, for instance, stop aging and death, or accomplish still more mundane things like cure diseases such as AIDS without effort.
Does not follow. For example, we know how internal combustion engines work, but we can't cure the ills of friction, imperfect fuel efficiency, waste heat, and noise.
> Now, as coincidence would have it, I am an electronics engineer.
"electronics engineer"? I've never heard of that profession. Would you mind giving your exact degree and the name of the granting institution? (No offense; I only ask because creationists are so prone to inflating their credentials, and I've somehow managed to spend quite a few years association with technical people and reading technical publications, and have never, ever seen anyone described as "an electronics engineer". Frankly, I don't think any such profession exists, but here's your chance to prove me wrong; I've already stated my dedication to the rule of evidence.)
> If evolution were "fact", then it would be possible to reproduce the process experimentally.
We see the process every time a bacterium cleaves or a baby is born. I suppose you actually want to reproduce the evolution from a fish to a human, but no, your claim of reproducibility is not correct for that. There's lots of stuff we know but can't reproduce, such as hurricanes and plate techtonics.
Why don't you just admit that you don't have a clue about science, let alone biological evolution, and quit wasting the bandwidth.
> Do you know anything about the history of science? If you did, you will know that science is often proven time and again to be inaccurate, and things are revised. Look at "spontaneous generation" (barnacle geese) and phrenology.
Neither the belief in spontaneous generation nor phrenology were the product of science. Spontaneous generation was an ancient belief about where maggots and mice come from, and phrenology was the ignorant conception of a German physician, neither derived from nor supported by scientific enquiry.
> i dont care if he knew bin laden. the mass murder was enough for me to support kickin saddam out.
Shouldn't we have invaded the Congo first?
> To stop terrorism, of course, as Saddam Hussein was a major source of it.
The sad irony is that the only terrorists operating out of Iraq were the Ansar al Islam, which arose in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region under the no-fly zone, and could not have existed without American bombers to hold Saddam in check. (FYI, terrorists hated Saddam almost as bad as they hate us.)
> Anti-imperialism was also a goal too, given Saddam's track record of attacking neighboring countries with the goal of annexing them.
Novel concept: combat imperialism by overthrowing other governments and setting up your own in their place. I suppose we should applaud the Romans for fighting imperialism in their many wars with the Parthians, Sassinids, and various Hellenistic empires.
> (he still claimed Kuwait as his own land, and still was committed to the goal of conquest of Israel and extermination of the Israelis).
He certainly wasn't making much progress at those goals, was he. If we're going to deploy force against big-talking fuckwits, Saddam is far from the only person who needed to worry about it. Yet somehow I'm missing all the others in the news...
> Why would the US administration be strongly opposed to US imperialism ?
I think he meant to say "opposed to competing imperialism".
> what oil have we taken?
Moot point, since most of it is still in the ground or else spilling into a big burning puddle where a pipeline used to be.
> i for one am sick of listening to you spineless jackasses try to justify not supporting this war and trying to save face by making up motives for us.
Quit your republican fantasizing. I didn't support the war, don't support it now, and am proud of both facts. I don't feel the slightest need to save face, except when I tell people I'm an American. (But I can easily save face by pointing out that I voted against Bush in both the primary and the general election, so I can save face without making anything up.)
But apparently a lot of people who did support it feel a need to save face, since they're making up yarns about humanitarian intentions to cover the glaring absence of the WMDs and terrorist connections that were used to justify it.
> They owe us for their liberation and all. I would recommend cheap oil. They have so much of it and all. In fact, it's the second largest known oil reserve and is mostly untapped. I'm sure Haliburton could help them get it out of the ground and everything. Come on Iraq... play ball!
Wasn't that part of the spin the Administration offered when trying to convince us the invasion was a good idea and wouldn't be very expensive?
Americans love doing good deeds... so long as they don't have to pay taxes for it.
> The idea that Behe says that evolution as it exists is at best incomplete is itself sufficient to undermine the current basis of the theory of evolution.
...clever...very clever.
No, as I clearly stated in my post, Behe merely shows that a strawman version of evolution is "incomplete". This does nothing whatsover to undermine the actual theory of evolution.
> If Behe is right, that evolution is not responsible for the creation of life, then what might that be?
No scientist believes evolution is responsible for the "creation" of life; evolution merely explains the diversification of life. The study of its origins is called abiogenesis, and the mechanism of abiogenesis is still an open question.
> Here is a bit of scientific and mathematical fact. It is a fact that protiens used by living organisms are comprised of very complex molecules. Now, the odds of forming even the simplest protien by pure chance is 10^113
Assuming your numbers are correct, what has that got to do with evolution? Evolution does not claim that protiens are formed by pure chance. Are you going to type in a long argument against a theory you know nothing about?
> For sure, mathemeticians draw the line of impossibility at 10^50.
No, mathematicians define impossibility as p=0. A probability of 1 in 10^50 is merely a low probability.
> Of course, there are some 2,000 protiens that serve as enzymes, which are absolutely required for sustaining life.
How do you know what the absolute minimum of protiens for sustaining life is? If you have a good argument for this you should rush it to publication before someone else does.
> What are the chances they came together even once in all time? You guessed it: 10^40,000, which is to say, a number rather larger than what it takes for mathematical impossibility.
So you think you can disprove evolution by applying made-up numbers and a bogus mathematical claim to a stawman version of the theory of evolution?
Maybe you should pause and give a little thought to why scientists don't take evolution deniers seriously.
> Thus, despite any other conjecture, it has been proven to be mathematically impossible for life to have come about by random chemical action.
Proven? Enumerate you axioms and convince us that they are accurate descriptions of the universe. Then we can talk about whether your proof is correct.
> In his work Evolution from Space, Sir Fred Hoyle concluded that this is an "outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." He added, "If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated [spontaneously] on Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court." Evolution from Space, p.24
Yeah, and that's why scientists don't take Hoyle seriously when he starts trying to support his belief in panspermia.
> Furthermore, Francis Hitching wrote "Protiens depend on DNA for their formation. But DNA cannot form without pre-existing protien." (The Neck of the Giraffe, Francis Hitching, p.66) This leaves a paradox rasied by chemist Richard Dickerson in the Sept '78 Scientific American, pg. 73: "Which came first," the protien or the DNA? He asserts: "The answer must be, 'They developed in parallel.'" So the answer to the age-old question, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?", according to this logic is -- drumroll, please -- : Neither! They arrived simultaneously! There, problem solved!
So are you going to give an argument that they didn't develop in parallel, or just rely on schoolboy rhetoric to convince the audience that something's wrong with evolution?
> Your assertion that it is okay to say that evolution is correct for the most complex things in the universe but tak
> Yes, I am well aware of and agree with the tenets of science. It's too bad that those tenets are subverted so often by those who espouse them. It makes for slow progress when you have to wait for a generation to die off... especially when that generation is pushing their flawed ideas on a young and gullible new generation in a very authoritarian manner.
Does it actually happen often enough that we need to wring our hands over it?
> > In the absence of proof or evidence, isn't once conclusion just as tenable as the other?
> No. There's no proof that the Tooth Fairy exists either. There's no proof that she doesn't. Which makes more sense: believe that the Fairy exists or doesn't?
Well, yes, believing in The Tooth Fairy makes exactly as much sense as believing in God, or maybe a little more if you have a hangup about the vast claims most people make about their brand of god, but I was trying to be polite and let readers grok that for themselves.
> That's the problem with so many claims today, whether it's for God or Nessie or extra-terrestrials or psychic healing -- they all want the burden of proof to be switched. Rather than prove that their claims are valid, they challenge the world to prove that it is not then scream and kick and cry when no one takes them seriously.
Yes, that's exactly the rhetoric they deploy. And in practice I tend to go with you, i.e. not believe in some existence claim unless given some reason to believe it.
But there are epistemological problems with making strong claims of the sort, "I see no evidence for x, therefore x does not exist", so I was espousing what I deem to be the "correct" view of the problem of divine existence, rather than my own pragmatic approach to this class of problem.
It certainly doesn't make any sense to sacrifice your freedom, time, and money to an unevidenced deity.
> he notes that SF readers today seem to prefer the Tolkienesque fantasies of some forgotten past, rather than the forward-looking works of science and space travel that used to dominate the genre.
Ah, so he longs for the days of some forgotten past...
> Or as I have often put it, science is a religion. It attempts to explain our world and justify our actions based on that explanation.
Science isn't in the business of justifying our actions.
> > Unlike religionists, the only time scientists get stuffy when someone questions their data is when that someone has made no effort to understand the process, and is speaking from a position of obvious fallacy.
> I have to take extreme exception with this. Scientists are human and as such can be extremely biased and unaccepting of new ideas in the face of mountains of scientific evidence against their beliefs. In my field, I see this all the time.
Yes, but what distinguishes science from religion is that evidence is the ultimate authority in science, so that when new evidence comes in it will eventually prevail over the dogmatists... even if human frailty means some dogmatists have to die of old age before it does prevail.
That's far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than what religion has to offer as a mechanism for getting the facts straight. People who equate science with religion are either ignorant or dishonest.
> and yet, scientists like you dismiss the Existance of God without nary a thought.
Perhaps you're unaware that many scientists - perhaps most US scientists - believe in God? Including many who subscribe to that most pernicious of scientific theories, the theory of evolution?
In fact, some post to talk.origins. You can go over there and ask them about their beliefs if yo'd like.
> you cant have it both ways... but I am 100% sure that nobody has proof that God does not exist.
Nor evidence. But nobody has proof (or evidence) that a god does exist, either.
In the absence of proof or evidence, isn't once conclusion just as tenable as the other?
> This WMD flap reminds me of a religious debate. There is no evidence that they exist, and we now have complete access to anything we need there to find evidence. WMD's are just a Republican article of faith.
Heh. After Howard Dean started running anti-Bush ads in the Bush Heartland a few weeks ago, you can bet that the Republicans are trying harder to find a sexual misadventure in his background than to find WMDs in Iraq.
> Since you want to get all technical and stuff the inspectors did find items and weapons prohibited by the UN. Remember the Al-Samud and Al-Hussien missles? I beleive it was the Al-Hussien that violated that UN by being able to reach more then 200Km (or something of that nature.) The UN ordered them destroyed and the Iraq's started destroying them at the rate of like 1 per day (they had something like 109 of them.)
The Iraqis claimed that they would only exceed that limit when not burdened with their guidance systems and warheads, and were never given a fair hearing on it - demolitions started immediately.
Also, FWIW, tactical missiles aren't WMDs.
Moreover, notice that the Iraqis let the demolitions proceed rather than kicking the inspectors out. It's really a stretch to vilify them in this matter.
> That was just one of the violations.
More please?
> I for one as a U.S. Citizen think that our Intelligence did get fucked up, Hussien was a smart man and people aren't giving him enough credit. I'd bet $100 that half the intelligence we got was from fake defectors that he planted.
I certainly wouldn't bet against you on that.
> And if you ask me, it's better to be safe then sorry.
That introduces a nasty slippery-slope problem. Should we also invade India and Pakistan to defuse any risk there? Israel? The UK?
Is there a principled place to draw the line between "safe" and "unsafe", to avoid a slide into violent paranoia? And how many innocent people should we be willing to kill on what boils down to a gamble?
> They didn't destroy them either, they just shipped em of to Syria. They didn't use them during the war because of the propaganda but out by the US.
That's certainly legitimate speculation, but is there any evidence for it? Satellite photos of convoys of trucks headed west?
And did they keep the weapons but destroy all the factories?
> I don't know about the U.S, but the Hutton Enquiry here in the U.K has certainly turned up a fair amount of evidence that the U.K intelligence agencies were not happy with the claims being made by Blair.
The US intelligent agencies haven't been very suportive either. I remember back before the shooting started when Peter Jennings would cover the Administration's claims about WMD, alQ ties, etc., he would often follow with an aside that someone in the intelligence community said the supporting evidence wasn't really there.
We live in a world where we think of the military and the intelligence agencies as being deceitful manipulators of fact and circumstance, but in this situation it looks like they were the straight-shooters and it was the politicians who were mendacious.
BTW, I don't profess to know whether GWB deliberately mislead us or whether he merely foolishly surrounded himself with mendacious advisors... not that it makes much difference to national security and world peace.
> The case for creation completely embraces the notion that the universe began in a "Big Bang" or similar act of creation.
That's why there isn't a case for creation: the arbitrary will of and omnipotent being is compatible with anything, and is therefore lies outside the realm of things that can be studied on the basis of evidence.
> There are many renowned and respected scientists that use the scientific method to disprove the theory of evolution.
Actually there are aren't that many at all, as Project Steve jokingly calls to your attention.
> One such theory is called the "Irreducible Complexity Theory." It argues that living organisms are so complex that they cannot have a singular chemical starting point, but rather come to a point where the intracacies are so interdependent that it becomes a mathematical impossibility for them to form spontaneously.
Actually the major proponent of IC, Michael Behe, thoroughly accepts biological evolution and the common descent of the species. He merely claims that there are some specific biological structures/procesess that could not have arisen by evolution, concluding that something else must have been at work in addition to evolution. Unfortunately for him and his followers, his claims rely on some assumptions that aren't actually a part of the theory of evolution, so the best he can claim is that his strawman version of evolution didn't result in the biological structures/processes that he has called attention to. No evolutionary biologists would dispute that! (More than you could want possibly want to read about all this can be found at the talk.origins archive).
> Which leads to a point: Evolution is still a theory and remains unproved.
Yeah, that's kind of the way science works. Proof, as they say, is for mathematicians, beverages, and gunpowder. The empirical sciences don't have such a luxury. (Perhaps you've heard of "atomic theory", "theory of gravitation", "electromagnatic theory", and a bunch of other scientific discoveries with similar names?)
> The irony is that no one would argue that a laptop computer ever came into existence on its own, out of the random swirlings of sand and oil (an evolutionist's view), but in the next breath argue that in the case of humans and all other life, which is inarguably inifinitely more complex, did come into existance that way.
The intersting thing is that the theory of evolution doesn't say that humans came into existence out of random swirlings of sand and oil. The whole point of a theory is to describe the mechanism that explains why seemingly improbable things happen regularly in the universe. Atomic theory explains why we get the - Wow! - integer ratios between the amount of reactants consumed when we mix chemicals (an amazing improbability if you're unaware of the mechanism), and biological evolution explains why we get the wonderful diversity of life we have out of a mindless universe.
> This pertains to the main article because "fossils" only prove prior existence of something. They do not prove how those things came into existence. Such a conclusion is an imaginative leap.
Fossils are a phonomenon with a curiously non-random distribution, and that demands an explanation. The theory of evolution is the best explanation anyone has ever set forward for it. You're welcome to try going it one better, if you wish.
> (As an aside, if fossil hunters had found the proof they needed to unequivocally support evolution, they would not still be looking for "it".)
Paleontologists don't hunt fossils in search of "proof" of evolution; they search for them in order to fill out the details of biological history.
> Religionists always get the bad rap of being closed-minded, but I think that parent
> Does the Google calculator convert between Philadelphia's and metric units for us non-Americans?
It's 1,000 milliPhillys.
> I hope this helps....
Well, it certainly helped your karma...