EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed - Science Under Attack

Can you explain why? If this is to do with the lack of credible intermediates between ordinary fish and flatfish, eg intermediate eye positioning, then recent discoveries on this will interest you. http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/07/Flatfish EyeThis kind of discovery is why I believe in evolution.Edited by Admin, : Shorten long link.

Sternberg said it was sent to three reviewers, who are still anonymous. There's no reason to believe he didn't. Many suspect that the reviewers were chosen specifically to accept the article without real review, or that there was not even a nominal review, but there's no extant evidence for those suspicions.There definitely was (and is) a rule that all articles are to be reviewed by two editors, and Sternberg definitely broke that rule. The journal's press release said:

quote:

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The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history.

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Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Ok, so my main point still stands. He broke a rule when having the paper published.As I said earlier, I can only go on what I've heard about the case on this forum.

And most of them had been discovered by biologists (evolutionists, natch) before the lawyer Phillip Johnson founded the ID movement. So that's not much of a prediction.Now, does the fact that some junk DNA really is junk contradict ID? Or is it not that sort of a prediction? You know, the sort by which one can test a hypothesis? The claim of the ID movement was that the flagellum would be completely useless if any parts were removed. This is not the same as predicting that it would be useful (as a TTSS) if parts were removed. It is kind of the complete opposite. Give an example of natural selection selecting for decreased fitness.

I don't have any problems with genetic algortihms. My issue is with a certain style of argument where someone asks a question which on the face of it is genuine but in fact refers to a specific fact or piece of research and whose essential purpose is just to catch the other party out.In this case I was talking about Parasomnium at [msg=1588,698] asks Smooth Operator ... Anyone who has followed the progress of genetic algorithms is likely to be familiar with an experiment which was publicised several years ago had just such a result, an algorithm for designing oscillators produced what was essentially a crude radio.traderdrew's question was somewhat similar in nature to this but at least had the advantage that it was posed in such way as to indicate that there was a sub-text to the queston.TTFN,WK

I'd still love to hear his reasoning for his claim of only a 2% chance of the patient being HIV positive.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, consider the problem as stated: Imagine 1000 women all in the same situation as this woman. Test them all. Then 999 of them will be uninfected and 1 will be infected.Of the 999, 5% will get a false positive result, which is 50 women (to the nearest whole number). Therefore (assuming that the woman who is infected doesn't get a false negative) 51 women will get a positive test result but only 1 will actually have HIV.Hence any particular woman being diagnosed as having HIV has only a 1 in 51 chance of being the 1 woman in the population who actually has HIV. This is ~ 2%.

But that analysis, while accurate, has no application to the hypothetical. The hypothetical involved one person taking one test and getting one result from a test that is 95% accurate.Apples and oranges.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

No, you get exactly the same answer. It's just that this way is easier for non-mathematicians to think about, because you're scaling up to a population size where you can think about whole numbers.What is statistically true of a thousand apples will be true of any one of those apples. If of the thousand apples, 356 are red, then any given apple has a 0.356 chance of being red --- and, if the thousand apples are a perfectly representative population, vice versa.Oranges don't come into it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes, if a population of 1000 has 356 positives, then each of them has a 0.356 chance of being positive. However, if one of that population is then tested with a test that has a 95% accuracy rate, that test result changes the odds for that individual. That's the purpose of the test, to find out if that particular individual is positive or not. To say that the odds of a positive remain the same after the test ignores the fact of the test.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

The odds don't remain the same. They go from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 51.But you don't get as much information as you'd like, because (in the event of a positive result) the chances that she did have the virus and you've detected it are swamped by the chances that she didn't have it and you've got a false positive.Look at it this way. Before we run the test, the odds are as follows:A: Probability that she does not have HIV and the test will show this = 0.999 0.95 = 0.94905B: Probability that she does have HIV but the test will show that she doesn't = 0.001 0.05 = 0.00005C: Probability that she does not have HIV but the test will show that she does = 0.999 0.05 = 0.04995D: Probability that she has HIV and the test will show this = 0.001 0.95 = 0.00095Now, if we do the test and it comes back positive, the information that this gives us is that she definitely fell into group C or D. But it does not change the relative likelihood of the two.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Please now, get back on-topic.If there's an off-topic theme you wish to pursue, find an appropriate topic or do a Proposed New Topic.Adminnemooseus

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If you go back and look at my post, you will see that I didn't say that the flatfish didn't evolve. I was well aware of that link you posted. You see, I do some homework. I wouldn't want to be invested in something if I thought it wasn't true.Rather I would pose questions such as these. What advantage would natural selection have to act on if one of the eyes was displaced but still on one side? I would theoretically believe that the first mutation would have occurred in a single fish. This being the case then, how do the descendants of the first mutant build upon that mutation without being wiped out or repressed by the genetics of normal fish as the genes get passed on? I can use Darwinian conjecture and speculation to help answer my second question. I believe I have a basic understanding of Darwinism. I can think from it. I wouldn't debate it but there would still be some doubt. How would it be a guarantee that the mutation wouldn't be lost?Indeed the flatfish is a unique creature. Contrary to what Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have stated in their books, I think it is a good design. I have observed them in the wild. They are quick and some of them utilize camouflage as they can change their pigments to a certain extent in order to blend in over various habitats. The designs of their mouths seems to have an advantage over skates as they can capture prey above them unlike a skate which would have to be on top of prey in order to capture it. The skate and the flatfish are somewhat apples and oranges and it would be relatively unfair to say that one design is superior to the other.

How can it be a unique creature, when there are several genera of flatfish. Unique means "one of a kind". It would only be a unique species if there was only one species of flatfish.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This will be my last post on this here. I noticed that the moderators wanted to keep this on the topic after I posted my information on the flatfish. An easy answer. What other vertebrate exhibits this sort of asymmetry?Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.