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Author | Topic: Meyer's Hopeless Monster | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
After all his denials that the identity of the designer was a consideration for ID, I'd love to see John Paul's reaction to this quote from the Raelian Movement's statement about the Meyer paper:
"The Raelian Movement would like to underscore that The Theory of Intelligent Design does not lead to a supernatural designer but to an extraterrestrial human civilization designer..." Of course, maybe Raelian Movement members aren't genuine IDists. --Percy
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5060 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Catmoose provided a link from which I extracted,
quote: Which made me wonder if in the cognition of origin of information if this rather than amount of info of/on taxogeny is the real problem (on either "side" of whatever is 'false'.)? When I made ALL THINGS ORDERED (my version of video format creationism/evolutionism trying to be fair to any 'side')I was very clear to indicate that my own ideas were DIFFERENT than ICR standards (which I was using as/for "talking" points"") and it IS the application of this false labeling that I have used here and elsewhere on the net to organize some of my responses. It also seems that because information is often taught biologically as being IN DNA that IF a creationist were to USE this notion (same thing as Price did with GEOLOGY in the past but interms of computers and society but not phones) to propose INTERVALS where information EXISTS and IS BOUND BY DNA then indeed one MIGHT NOT have said anything on taxonomy (see also old evolutionist issue of nonadaptive traits) but instead something indeterminant but real. Analyzing this gets very difficult and it quickly becomes easier to simply synthesize some understanding than being able to recover any sense. So perhaps the issue IS ONLY the simple QUESTIONING of NEODARWINISM. The difficulty is that THE QUESTION matters IF the probability is GIVEN but the ANSWER matters if the sample space is put in question. This is how it can be that a "Debate" on EVC continues despite the needed use of different probabilities by creationists but part of THIS problem is the higher learning needed to reach this kind of Statistical Discussion as is in some ID and yet I know by my own history that this WAS stifled. I dont think it was because I was more a creationist but because I simply thought the collateralization of taxogeny differently than my teachers. I tried to show that it is true that fringe biology (panbiogeography, phenomenological thermodynamics, neophenogenics, topobiology) ALL SUFFER becuase of the negative climate/atmosphere that this IS. Even willing it to be other will not work. My lover STILL calls me lovingly (after decades) despite the absurdity of such a personal call given the illegality involved. That however involved designs, purpose, 4 ways around painting and things that are not obviously part of the sociology that gave rise to the barrier.
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markoo Inactive Member |
There's a passage in Meyer's paper that I have a question about:
quote: I did read Elsberry's response in regards to Axe's citation here - interesting to say the least. But I still have a couple of questions: 1. What is cassette mutagenesis, and how does it differ from other mutagenesis techniques? 2. I seem to have come across an abstract or two that seems to show that cassette mutagenesis certainly has its limitations:
quote: Am I incorrect on my assessment? If I am correct, wouldn't Meyer's analysis also be on a limited scope here? 3. Anything else in this passage that might be a bit off or misleading? This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-03-2005 17:22 AM
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Nic Tamzek Inactive Member |
Howdy,
quote: Mutating a group of amino acids at once. E.g., in a 150 amino acid protein, you might mutated aas 1-10, then 11-20, then 21-30, etc. You might discover that positions 1-10 can be just about anything without destroying whatever function you are testing for, but that 11-20 are very important. This is useful for certain purposes (figuring out how the protein works) but is not very close to any evolutionary process. In evolution, the main process, point mutation, is 1 mutation at a time, and with this kind of small change you can end up changing many more amino acids than if you blast whole chunks of the protein with cassette mutagenesis. IDists of course prefer the cassette mutagenesis studies and ignore the others.
quote: Yes, although the fact that experimental mutation techniques can be biased is not the biggest problem with Meyer's usage of these kinds of studies. The biggest problems are: (1) Evolution usually doesn't mutate a whole bunch of aas at once (like cassette mutagenesis), typically it's one aa at a time. Selection eliminates the failures and keeps/allows the successes/neutrals. (2) The studies that Meyer cites take the "reverse" approach to estimating the density of "functional sequences" -- they take a functional protein, mess it up, and see how many mutants retain function. "Forward" studies, which take random sequences and test for function, get much higher numbers, as Axe (2004) explicitly concedes. (3) Axe (2004), at least, tests for one function, and a fairly specific mechanism for that function. This is a small target. Evolution, OTOH, "tests" for many functions at once, and cares not about mechanism, as long as it works. This is a much bigger target. (4) The origin of new genes is well understood and there are many papers on the topic, all of which Meyer ignored. (5) Lastly, cases of new functional proteins are known to have evolved from non-protein-coding sequences in recent history in the wild and in the lab (google on "nylonase evolution"). Therefore such things clearly are possible, and anyone who denies this just doesn't know what they're talking about. Unfortunately this conclusion must apply to Meyer, the editor Sternberg, and the reviewers Sternberg picked.
quote: Axe (2004) actually concluded that the range of density of functional sequences was between 1 in 10^53 (from a similar study) and 1 in 10^77 (from Axe's study). Meyer only cites the 1 in 10^77 figure, ignoring the uncertainty of about 1 million billion billion billion in the figure. There are numerous other points, e.g. Axe's actual opinion on protein evolution based on his study (he thinks it's quite possible), and the fact that according to Dembski something is supposed to have odds of 1 in 10^150 in order to actually have "CSI." Like the critique says, the mistakes are many and layered. But that's probably enough for now... This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-03-2005 17:15 AM
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Well, the WSJ: The Branding of a Heretic isn't open for replies, so I guess this is the best place to put it.
Jonathan Coddington (Research Scientist and Curator at the National Museum of Natural History, and Richard Sternberg's sponsor/supervisor as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian) has posted a response to Richard Sternberg's complaint of discrimination (see The Branding of a Heretic) at The Panda's Thumb in this comment in the Sternberg vs. Smithsonian thread.
quote:
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
As evidence of my perspicacity, I quote myself in full from Message 179 of this thread a few months ago:
Percy writes: Just as the cold fusion fiasco of Fleischman and Pons ruined their careers, Sternberg's ID fiasco will run his. I predict that Sternberg will not hold his current positions for more than another year. Those positions are:
He'll probably join Discovery Institute or one of the related theological institutions. I don't think this is an iffy prediction. Behe maintains his academic position by publishing legitimate scientific articles and by conducting himself with integrity and honesty in scientific arenas. He makes no secret of what he believes, but he's never tried to sneak his ID beliefs into his technical contributions. This is in stark contrast to Sternberg, who has really stuck his neck out professionally with his editorial misconduct and transparent defenses. We'll keep watch during the next year and see what happens to him. Sternberg is making a ridiculous attempt to paint a picture of religious discrimination. The reality is that he's being systematically ostracized for letting his religious views influence his scientific judgement. He abused his editorial authority by rigging the peer-review process, and in defending his misconduct he was less than forthcoming about his views. This is transparently obvious from his defense of the Meyer paper as good science, from his attempts to justify the Meyer paper as an appropriate topic for the BSOW proceedings, and from his defense of ID as a worthy area for scientific investigation. Naturally Sternberg's supervisors and colleagues are shocked and distrustful. It's one thing to disagree on scientific matters, but quite another to disagree on the nature of legitimate science. The transparently religious motivations of the ID movement are not overcome by the equally transparent denials. Sternberg is sorely confused if he believes that the same obfuscations and dissemblings that fool the public would work on the scientific community, and especially on those in his own fields. What's happening to him is the predictable outcome of violating the trust given scientists. --Percy
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Sternberg's position and privileges have not been curtailed in any way (according to Coddington). Perhaps his peers are not as chummy as they used to be, but chumminess is not guaranteed by the Constitution or any law of which I'm aware.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5060 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
As far as I can tell ID can only be science if
Kant's "permissibleness" be true and the next paragraph IDONT type exist.(Critique of the Teleological Judgement) "Here it is permissible for the archeologist of nature to derive from the surviving traces of its oldest revoutions, accoording to all its mechanism known or supposed by him, that great family of creatures (for so we represent them if the said thotoughgoing relationship is to have any ground). He can suppose the bosom of mother earth, as she passed out of her chaotic state (like a great animal), to have given birth in the beginning to creatures of less purposive form, that these again gave birth to others which formed themselves with greater adaptation to their place of birth and their relations to each other, until the womb becoming torpid and ossified, limited its births to definite species not further modifiable, and the manifoldness remained as it was at the end of the operation of that fruitful formative power. Only he must still in the end ascribe to this universal mother an organization purposive in respect of all these creatures; otherwise it would not be possible to think of the possibility of the purposive form of the products of the animal an vegtable kingdoms."p 208 Hafner Publishing Co. NEw YOrk. is univocally within a Darwinian individual. Evos only can doubt this as we have not seen evidence of a living creature taking physical advantage of its "mother" fossil form, ie has a Darwinian advantage by utilizing the "niche"(sic!) of its ancestors taphonomic death made solid geologically. Should we find this, man can construct the adaptibility ON PURPOSE for any comparable creature just as we should not make life just to take it. Adaptationism has NEVER hardened for this race as Gould proposed however. We dont have this data. It could exist in the creatures living in Rocks. And should life ever be found OFF EARTH, I would suspect even more that this could be found here." We individually at evc have seen more diversity than that. So somewhat amazingly I agree pretty much with captial PeRcY. I predict ID can not stand short of EVC and ALL OTHER websites like it NOT continuing. In other words we have *SOME* ground, we dont have the sky that goes with it. I pray it is our generations race that resolves this difference of opinion. Many evos proceed by not thinking on purpose. They should. Its easy to play defense that we. We have seen THAT since the 60s. Its a differnt game on offense. Computer forms should have given them the spur if the change did not already. I know that biologists' thought that by making an organicist teleomatic a new philosophy was supplied that need not fear being a state of ID where there is but this "pushing back" of said mother earth abstracted but it is not much materially to think that plants and animals are MORE seperated given the plethora of computer logic self replications being discussed WIHTOUT an older philosophy of science of the 18th century. We are stuck on the 19th but live in the 21st. The numbers dont match the letters. This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-03-2005 17:06 AM
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5060 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Meyer is on Janet's just now
—app_—‘ over the whole Sternberg thing. quote: This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-08-2005 14:41 AM
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
There were some letters to the editor responding to the WSJ Klinghoffer column: Intelligent Design Intrigues, but Is It Science?.
I'm not sure whether viewing this link requires a WSJ subscription. If others can't view it let me know and I'll post a copy of the page. --Percy
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9004 From: Canada Joined: |
Needs a subscription.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
It does require a subscription.
From my own reading around I've a strong suspicion that the WSJ article is highly misleading.
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Here's a link to a local copy: http:///DataDropsite/WSJ_ID_Letters.html
I used IE to create the copy, and I'm wondering if it is so complete that it even checks registration. Let me know if it's still not accessible and I'll post an image file instead. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
The page works perfectly well here.
The most significant letter is the one from the Smithsonian. I'd already seen it quoted on The Panda's Thumb - but it's nice to confirm the content for myself
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Janet Parshall archives previous programs of the week at . I've listened to the segment interviewing Steven Meyer and Bruce Chapman (president of Discovery Institute). Here are brief paraphrased excerpts:
Here's a link to the Behe NYT OpEd piece. You need to register, but it's free: Opinion | Design for Living - The New York Times --Percy
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