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Author Topic:   Biological Evidence Against Intelligent Design
traderdrew
Member (Idle past 5153 days)
Posts: 379
From: Palm Beach, Florida
Joined: 04-27-2009


Message 241 of 264 (546953)
02-15-2010 9:56 AM
Reply to: Message 240 by Percy
02-15-2010 8:48 AM


Re: Poor Philosophy
This is why creationists want science to abandon the methodological naturalism. That's not going to happen, for two reasons, one definitional, the other practical
I pretty much believe when you are posting to me you are not responding to me directly but you are posting to me and other people who might potentially disagree with you.
Contrast this to science as practiced by creationists, who are almost exclusively evangelical Christians. Wouldn't you agree that the creationist community is suffering from a bit of a lack of diversity?
Of course, Creationism is based on a literal interpretation of the bible and I would expect all Creationists to be Christians.
Just showing how abandoning methodological naturalism provides better answers for something, anything, even if it's just one example, will be very convincing.
I will not argue with a process that discovers things through repeatable and testable experimentation. I just think science excels in certain areas and it doesn't do as well in others.
One reason why I have been sticking around here is because I told everyone that I would explain why I am not a Creationist because I think "The Physics of Genesis" by Jim Thompson explains the book of Genesis better than Creationism does.

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deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 242 of 264 (547109)
02-16-2010 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by hooah212002
01-22-2010 2:24 PM


Re: Hopefully I'm on track here....
deerbreh writes:
One of my favorite examples is the flying buttresses above the eye teeth. Now if we were saber tooth tigers or even baboons, such support for the eye teeth would make some sense but for the wimpy little eyeteeth in the upper mouth of Homo sapiens such support makes no sense.
hooah writes:
What? You lost me on this one.
Slide your finger across your upper gums. You will feel a significant bulge above each eyetooth. These bulges are way out of proportion to the size of the eyeteeth. There is absolutely no reason to have such support for the eyeteeth in humans.

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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 243 of 264 (547112)
02-16-2010 12:27 PM
Reply to: Message 237 by traderdrew
02-14-2010 9:37 AM


The Bacterial Flagellum
Hi, Traderdrew.
traderdrew writes:
HGT is the only way I can see it could possibly be done.
HGT is a lot like panspermia. Basically, it is an attempt at answering the question, "What did X come from?" HGT and panspermia are equivalent answers in their separate fields: "X came from another (bacterium/planet)," which leaves us wondering how that other bacterium or planet came to possess X.
The problem is that HGT is less viable than natural selection. What good was one piece of the flagellum to a bacterium that didn't have any of the other pieces? How could that piece evolve to fill its function in the flagellum if none of the other pieces were there to fill the other functions?
The beauty of the Theory of Evolution is that it simultaneously explains the origin of the parts and their synergistic function, because the evolution of the individual parts is strongly influenced by the interaction between the parts, and the interaction between parts is strongly influenced by the evolution of the individual parts.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 244 by Percy, posted 02-16-2010 1:25 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 244 of 264 (547126)
02-16-2010 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by Blue Jay
02-16-2010 12:27 PM


Re: The Bacterial Flagellum
Bluejay writes:
The problem is that HGT is less viable than natural selection.
Since HGT isn't a selection mechanism, maybe you meant to compare HGT with other sources of random genetic change?
I'm not sure why we shouldn't consider HGT just another source of genetic variation, same as as point mutations, insertions, deletions, gene duplication, etc.
--Percy

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 Message 243 by Blue Jay, posted 02-16-2010 12:27 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
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Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 245 of 264 (547157)
02-16-2010 7:47 PM


What the hell is "HGT"?
I vaguely recall unsuccessfully back-searching for the meaning before.
OK, I now guess it is "horizontal gene transfer". I would be nice if someone would occasionally give the full wording for such things.
No replies needed.
Adminnemooseus

Replies to this message:
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deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 246 of 264 (547244)
02-17-2010 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 245 by Adminnemooseus
02-16-2010 7:47 PM


Re: What the hell is "HGT"?
Isn't horizontal gene transfer just a fancy name for SEX?
(Yes, I know that HGT likely usually refers to gene transfer without sex).

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Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by Taq, posted 02-17-2010 4:33 PM deerbreh has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 247 of 264 (547246)
02-17-2010 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by deerbreh
02-17-2010 4:04 PM


Re: What the hell is "HGT"?
Isn't horizontal gene transfer just a fancy name for SEX?
Passing genes from one generation to the next is VGT, or vertical genetic transfer. These terms come from the "tree of life" metaphor for the organization of species. Vertical transfer goes up the branch. Horizontal transfer occurs across the branches, between species.
In metazoans like us HGT occurs very rarely. This can include movement of DNA from your mitochondria into your nuclear genome (called numts) or by insertion of exogenous retroviruses resulting in endogenous retroviruses (called ERV's). But as you can already guess it is very difficult for DNA from say modern bears to make its way into the modern primate branch.
In bacteria it happens quite readily. In fact, "species" is a bit hazy for bacteria given that bacteria can easily conjugate (using sex pilli) between species. Also, bacteriophage (the bacterial version of retroviruses) can pull along chunks of host genome and insert it into other bacterial species. Because of HGT it is very difficult to resolve a single tree for all bacteria.

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deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 248 of 264 (547330)
02-18-2010 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 247 by Taq
02-17-2010 4:33 PM


Re: What the hell is "HGT"?
Ok I had my tongue firmly in my cheek.....
horizontal (lying down) + gene transfer = sex

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 249 of 264 (547340)
02-18-2010 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 248 by deerbreh
02-18-2010 9:21 AM


Re: What the hell is "HGT"?
all you had to do was throw a smiley in there to let us all know

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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 250 of 264 (547394)
02-18-2010 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 242 by deerbreh
02-16-2010 11:44 AM


Re: Hopefully I'm on track here....
Ahh. Right. I literally had a vision of something like this:
or this:
I thought you were being comedic.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl Sagan
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 251 of 264 (547461)
02-19-2010 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by Percy
02-16-2010 1:25 PM


Re: The Bacterial Flagellum
Hi, Percy.
Percy writes:
Bluejay writes:
The problem is that HGT is less viable than natural selection.
Since HGT isn't a selection mechanism, maybe you meant to compare HGT with other sources of random genetic change?
Ah, yes, you're right. Let me try it again:
The problem is that your HGT scenario is less viable than a basic evolutionary scenario. What good was one piece of the flagellum to a bacterium that didn't have any of the other pieces? How could that piece evolve to fill its function in the flagellum if none of the other pieces were there to fill the other functions? It makes more sense to say that they evolved their cooperative functions together, rather than that they evolved synergistic functions separately before they came together.
That's more like what I was trying to get at.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
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barbara
Member (Idle past 4801 days)
Posts: 167
Joined: 07-19-2010


Message 252 of 264 (586946)
10-15-2010 4:44 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by greyseal
01-22-2010 3:32 PM


Re: evidence against ID requires limits set on the designer
There is nothing natural that explains our existence, not yet anyway!

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Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 253 of 264 (586948)
10-15-2010 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by barbara
10-15-2010 4:44 PM


Re: evidence against ID requires limits set on the designer
There is nothing natural that explains our existence, not yet anyway!
Didn't anyone give you the talk about the birds and the bees?

This message is a reply to:
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Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2492 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 254 of 264 (586963)
10-15-2010 8:29 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by barbara
10-15-2010 4:44 PM


Re: evidence against ID requires limits set on the designer
There is nothing natural that explains our existence, not yet anyway!
Do you believe that lightning is magic? I doubt it.
Was there a time when religious people would have made the same argument you are making here about lightning?
Do you believe that rainbows are magic? I doubt it.
Was there a time when religious people would have made the same argument you are making here about rainbows?
Do you believe that volcanoes are magic? I doubt it.
Was there a time when religious people would have made the same argument you are making here about volcanoes.
I think you see where this list is going. So, let's flip the script.
Is there ANYTHING in the ENTIRE HISTORY of the world which has been prove to actually be caused exclusively by "magic"?
How about is there ANYTHING in the ENTIRE HISTORY of the world which was previously best explained by science which is not BETTER explained by "magic"?

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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 255 of 264 (586967)
10-15-2010 9:41 PM
Reply to: Message 254 by Nuggin
10-15-2010 8:29 PM


Re: evidence against ID requires limits set on the designer
I don't think that barbara is a creationist who wishes to explain things by magic. I think that she's got some odd ideas of her own.

This message is a reply to:
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