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Author Topic:   DNA sequence comparisons, a similar designer or heredity?
Parasomnium
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Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 14 of 26 (289499)
02-22-2006 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Faith
02-22-2006 12:28 AM


Failing analogy
crashfrog writes:
When you measure something three different ways and you get the same result each time, the proper conclusion is that you're actually measuring what you claim to be measuring, not that you're experiencing a coincidence or a hoax.
Faith writes:
Unless what you are measuring is, say, cupcakes, and you find that they are all composed of similar but different proportions of sugar and flour and eggs and baking powder, amazing coincidence, and then you also check the recipes by which they were made, and oh double amazing coincidence, there is the flour, the sugar, the eggs and the baking powder, and in VERY SPECIFIC QUANTITIES TOO, oh happy day.
I'm afraid the gospel choir can sit down again, because your analogy does not disprove Crashfrog's point. On the contrary, it is just another example of it.
Crashfrog's statement basically describes, in very general terms, a way of proving a certain claim by doing measurements in different ways, and understanding that if the different results independently confirm the claim, then that is evidence for it.
Your analogy, albeit more specific, is no different: it describes the process of proving the claim that certain cupcakes are made according to certain recipes. You do this by "measuring" cupcakes in two ways, one of which is an analysis of the actual cupcakes, the other an examination of the recipes. The results of both measurements point in the direction that this cupcake is made according to that recipe, & cetera.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Faith, posted 02-22-2006 12:28 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Faith, posted 02-22-2006 12:50 PM Parasomnium has not replied

  
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