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Author Topic:   EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed - Science Under Attack
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 300 of 438 (516920)
07-28-2009 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 299 by traderdrew
07-28-2009 8:41 AM


Severe biology failure
In order to get the amino acids that build proteins, each amino acid in DNA has to be expressed in chains of three called condons. So I would need a chain of at least (75x3) = 225 A,C,G,Ts represented by those illustrations above. (This doesn't count the start and stop information at the beginning of the chain and at the end.)
I'm not trying to have a go at you traderdrew but it is amazing how often these basic misunderstandings of molecular biology pop up in creationist/ID proponents arguments. You are not the first poster we have encountered who doesn't seem to know what DNA is actually composed of, what the difference between amino acids and nucleotides is or ,presumably given this confusion, what the central dogma of molecular biology is.
This example doesn't serve to illustrate anything other than that you are coming into this discussion without actually knowing anything about the biology involved.
The fact that you take an instructive tone with PaulK make your basic misunderstanding even more eggregious. You aren't just being wrong you are trying to correct people who DO actually understand the biology.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 299 by traderdrew, posted 07-28-2009 8:41 AM traderdrew has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 301 by traderdrew, posted 07-28-2009 9:42 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 304 of 438 (516946)
07-28-2009 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 301 by traderdrew
07-28-2009 9:42 AM


Re: Severe biology failure
If you really can refute what I state on a simple level
OK, basic biology for the ignorant and arrogant it is.
You say
Maybe your problem is that you don't know that each amino acid within DNA has no particular bonding affinities that attach to the sugar phosphate backbone of DNA.
This is not the case. DNA is composed of DeoxyriboNucleic Acids (where DNA comes from) not amino acids. The bonding affinities of the Purines (A and G) and Pyrimidines (T and C) are not based on their sugar phosphate backbone but the hydrogen bonding between complementary nucleotide elements, the purine and pyrimidine component of the DNA.
In order for you to have a functional protein, it has to have a tetiary structure or at least approximately 75 amino acids.
But you don't provide any reason why we should believe this. Is there a reference for this figure?
In order to get the amino acids that build proteins, each amino acid in DNA has to be expressed in chains of three called condons.
Again you repeat the mistake that DNA is composed of amino acids and also get the term codon wrong.
In order to get the amino acids that build proteins, each amino acid in DNA has to be expressed in chains of three called condons. So I would need a chain of at least (75x3) = 225 A,C,G,Ts represented by those illustrations above. (This doesn't count the start and stop information at the beginning of the chain and at the end.)
This is all very well, yes a 75 aa long protein require 225 nucleotides to encode it, but it is important to understand that it doesn't necessarily require 225 specific nucleotides. The correspondence between DNA/RNA codons and amino acids is degenerate. There are 64 distinct possible codons and only 20 amino acids. Even allowing for the 3 stop codons that still leaves at least 3 codons for each amino acid.
The main problem as PaulK pointed out is that you are trying to argue something that no ones disagrees with, i.e. 'DNA contains information', but you are doing it in such a way as to show you don't have a clue about the basics of biology and also missing the point that there are many methods of measuring genetic information. CSI as Dembski describes it is not a useful one. The paper Smooth Operator referenced in another thread produces a better attempt than Dembski to identify what they call 'functional information' which seems somewhat equivalent to CSI.
Bottom line? No one should be discussing bioinformatics who doesn't at least know what DNA is made of.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
Edited by Wounded King, : corrected quoting of wrong section from TDs post

This message is a reply to:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 314 of 438 (517078)
07-29-2009 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 312 by Perdition
07-29-2009 11:26 AM


Re: CSI and DNA
I think that traderdrew is making a totally nonsensical argument. That sort of thing is not really a test of rationality it is a test of being able to comprehend some quite non-intuitive statistics. I find it very hard to believe that the average IDer would be better able to answer his question than the average evolutionist.
That being said you are missing the point of his argument and setting yourself up for a 'gotcha'.
Ben Goldacre had a nice post over on Bad Science detailing how even tests with high specificity and sensitivity can be poor indicators in a population where a condition is very rare. Where this does not fit in with traderdrew's set up though is that you need to be testing a lot of people for this problem to arise. I'm not sure that the same issue applies in the case of just 1 person from the rare population coming in for testing, I'm not 100% sure though. In my defence I only did a foundation level course in statistics and that was almost 15 years ago.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. I hate this habit of setting people up for Gotcha's. Someone from the evolutionary side was just doing it talking about genetic algorithm's. Its a cheap tactic when creationists do it and it is a cheap tactic when people on the evolutionary side do it too.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 312 by Perdition, posted 07-29-2009 11:26 AM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 317 by Perdition, posted 07-29-2009 12:56 PM Wounded King has not replied
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 Message 330 by Richard Townsend, posted 07-30-2009 1:02 PM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 325 of 438 (517219)
07-30-2009 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 323 by Perdition
07-30-2009 10:41 AM


Sternberg redux
I'm not well versed on this case, but it appears that the reason he was fired and "intimidated" was because he didn't follow the rules of getting an article into the journal, not because of the content of the article.
Sternberg wasn't fired, he had already announced his resignation from the editorial position. The fact that he slipped this paper into the last edition he was in charge of may not be purely coincidental. He also wasn't fired from his other position as a Research associate at the Smithsonian.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 323 by Perdition, posted 07-30-2009 10:41 AM Perdition has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 335 of 438 (517271)
07-30-2009 5:50 PM
Reply to: Message 330 by Richard Townsend
07-30-2009 1:02 PM


Wildly off topic
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 ...
Do you mean by this that if the researcher sets up an evolutionary process to evolve, say, designs for electronic oscillators - so the constraint would be "make me an oscillator" - we should not expect it to evolve, for example, a radio receiver, correct?
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

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 361 of 438 (517890)
08-03-2009 6:43 AM
Reply to: Message 356 by traderdrew
08-02-2009 1:11 PM


TTSS, an open question?
Remember, if the TTSS devolved from the flagellum, then I am back to square one.
I hadn't been following this part of the argument but looking at the recent literature I think there is a good chance that both you and Perdition are wrong and that in fact the TTSS and the bacterial flagellum, rather than one being ancestral to the other, merely share a common ancestor (Gophna et al., 2003). The exact relationship still seems to be in doubt though (Macnab, 2004).
Macnab, 2004 writes:
This brings us back to the question of the evolutionary relationship between the flagellar export system and the virulence factor secretion system. Comparative phylogenetic analyses have been carried out on the two systems [70]. This study concludes that there is no intermingling, i.e., the two systems evolved separately. Thus, all FlhA proteins lie on one major branch from the root and all LcrD (the homologous or, more strictly, paralogous) proteins on the other. However, it is not easy to explain the substantial preservation of gene organization on this theory. Also, although the two systems are obviously related functionally, they are not identical, and it is perhaps reasonable to expect that orthologs within one system would resemble each other more closely than they resemble their paralogs in the other system.
As the above discussion indicates, there is much about the evolution of type III systems that remains mysterious.
For a more recent look at theories of flagellar evolution see Snyder et al. (2008), who similarly conclude ...
Snyder er al., 2008 writes:
unravelling the intricacies of flagellar structure, function and evolution is going to keep researchers busy for many years to come.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 356 by traderdrew, posted 08-02-2009 1:11 PM traderdrew has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 363 by traderdrew, posted 08-03-2009 11:10 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 370 of 438 (517962)
08-03-2009 2:36 PM
Reply to: Message 363 by traderdrew
08-03-2009 11:10 AM


Re: TTSS, an open question?
Common ancestry is a prediction of ID? In what way is it a prediction? Certainly it may not contradict ID but I fail to see how it necessarily follows from it as it does from an evolutionary theory predicated on diversification through changes in pre-existing organisms/systems.
IDers seem to treat anything permissible under ID, which can be a very broad scope indeed encompassing larger and larger swathes of traditional evolutionary theory, to be 'predictions' of it, even though no ID proponent thought to 'predict' them until they were discovered by mainstream biology researchers.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 363 by traderdrew, posted 08-03-2009 11:10 AM traderdrew has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 372 by traderdrew, posted 08-03-2009 2:48 PM Wounded King has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 374 of 438 (517972)
08-03-2009 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 371 by traderdrew
08-03-2009 2:43 PM


Re: Creation "science" again
If a highly intelligent alien created the first physical life and directed it to earth, then this is intelligent design. You just need to break free from the beliefs that you want to believe about ID in order to see this.
I think the problem is that using this scenario virtually everything written by all ID proponents would also need to be discarded. Why should there be any 'edge' to evolution in this scenario, how does it explain the existence of supposedly irreducibly complex systems that surely can't all have been present in the 'first physical life' on Earth. I assume you mean on Earth, otherwise your aliens are presumably non-physical life and that seems to be shading into the supernatural/religious side of things.
I think Behe's take on Crick is slightly disingenuous, it wasn't the 'undirected origin of life' that caused him problems but rather fitting it into the timeframe of the history of life on earth.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 371 by traderdrew, posted 08-03-2009 2:43 PM traderdrew has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 376 by traderdrew, posted 08-03-2009 4:18 PM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 379 of 438 (518005)
08-03-2009 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 376 by traderdrew
08-03-2009 4:18 PM


Re: Creation "science" again
So where would you draw lines?
Surely since you are the one propounding ID the question is where do you draw the line? A couple of pages ago you were saying that the edge of evolution according to Behe was around the level of phylum, now you are saying that immaterial aliens made bacteria to seed the earth. So where did all the phyla come from?
It sounds like you aren't drawing any lines but just searching around madly for anything that might come remotely into line with a belief in ID.
This is what critics of ID are talking about when they say there is no coherent theory of ID. Heck, several proponents of ID have said it isn't a theory at all, simply a challenge to evolution.
So why not start drawing some lines and telling us what you actually believe, otherwise how can we start telling you exactly how wrong you are?
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 404 of 438 (519255)
08-12-2009 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 397 by traderdrew
08-12-2009 1:22 PM


Re: Creation & ID
"Signature in the Cell" also briefly wrote about the work Jonathan Wells is doing on cancer.
Creationist/ID publications are about the only place you could find anything out about this. Apart from Wells highly speculative, non research based paper published in 2005 (Wells, 2005) in Rivista di Biologia, the National Enquirer of biology journals, nothing whatsoever has come of Well's fanciful 'Polar Ejection' model for cancer.
Also, when trying to distance oneself from the religious crazies a Moonie who is on the record saying he signed up to do a biology Ph.D. because his spiritual mentor told him to do so so he could challenge darwinism seems a funny choice, see his own words on the matter.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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 Message 414 by traderdrew, posted 08-13-2009 11:25 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 407 of 438 (519343)
08-13-2009 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 406 by traderdrew
08-13-2009 10:36 AM


What an explanation actually is
To falsify the ID explanation
You say this as if there actually is an ID explanation, which of course there isn't. Saying that something can't evolve by random mutation and natural selection isn't an explanation.
Can you give us some details of the ID explanation for the evolution of the bacterial flagellum?
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 406 by traderdrew, posted 08-13-2009 10:36 AM traderdrew has replied

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 419 of 438 (519369)
08-13-2009 11:57 AM
Reply to: Message 414 by traderdrew
08-13-2009 11:25 AM


Intelligent cancer
Why do doctors insist on using chemo and radiation (isolated treatments)?
Because they work.
Why does cancer come back more than 80% of the time after treatments?
Because failing to kill even 1 cancerous cell, or pre-cancerous cells, can allow it to reoccur.
I think they are stuck in the stupid Darwinian paradigm of random mutations as cause of cancer.
You mean the one that works and for which there is evidence?
Maybe if more of them started to think outside the Darwin's box and into the paradigm of intelligent design, then they might find some answers.
No one from the intelligent design camp seems to have had any luck so far, are they just stupid? Why would people switch from a system supported by evidence which has been shown to work to one without evidence which hasn't been shown to work, other than being mad of course.
Of course what I think is irrelevant according to Huntard.
On the basis of the post I am replying to I am beginning to agree with him.
Are you saying the intelligent designer is intelligently giving people cancer? You are seriously twisted in the head, or rather your designer is.
The evidence that mutations cause cancer is overwhelming. If you think you have a cunning method of predicting when a non-random cancer causing mutation is going to strike then I'm sure everyone would be interested. If you just kind of 'feel' they aren't random then you have nothing.
As far as I can see the things you post that are just plain wrong are the things you have lifted wholesale from ID sites/publications while the things you say that don't even make any sense are the ones you have worked out for yourself. As long as you are just regurgitating things you don't even understand from ID websites and failing to actually substantively engage anyone you are little more than a troll.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. That Sober paper!? The one from 'The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion', nice job on continuing to show us the non-religious nature of ID Traderdrew.
Seriously Drew, do some research which isn't just reading ID propaganda. Maybe study some basic biology.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 414 by traderdrew, posted 08-13-2009 11:25 AM traderdrew has replied

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 Message 420 by traderdrew, posted 08-13-2009 12:20 PM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 423 of 438 (519417)
08-13-2009 2:20 PM
Reply to: Message 420 by traderdrew
08-13-2009 12:20 PM


Re: Intelligent Design
How do you know? How do you know that complimentary holistic treatments wouldn't work better? Documentation would be required for persuasion.
Hmm, so you aren't a fundamentalist creationist IDer you're a nutball woomeister IDer.
As you say it would take considerable documentation, not to mention actual properly conducted research, to convince most medical professionals or researchers that complimentary holistic treatments work better than tried and tested therapies, and that evidence simply isn't there. You may believe that anecdotes from the 'Hippocrates Health Institute' constitute evidence, but then you believe that regurgitating half understood ID propaganda is a form of argument.
Check their website out and listen to their videos and we will see who is winning this argument between you and me.
If we compare their videos to all the published literature on successful cancer therapies developed by medical science then I suspect I am still going to be winning for a long time to come. I recommend you read some of the writings of Edzard Ernst, he is a professor of complementary medicine who previously worked in a homeopathic hospital and takes a scrupulously evidence based approach to testing various CAM therapies. This is a link to his freely available publications on pubmed central.
Just to check, vaccines - lifesaving development or Big Pharma produced toxic poison to turn our children into autistic zombies ?
Just think of what I could do if I took some courses in ID and biology.
You could probably teach bible studies since it is virtually only bible colleges that have courses in ID.
I really wanted to disprove a point that Theodoric made in that other thread. And that was I just go away when things aren't going my way.
Personally I don't see hanging around but not actually engaging substantively in the debate as an improvement, but thats just me.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 420 by traderdrew, posted 08-13-2009 12:20 PM traderdrew has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 429 by traderdrew, posted 08-15-2009 11:30 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 424 of 438 (519422)
08-13-2009 2:45 PM
Reply to: Message 422 by Huntard
08-13-2009 1:23 PM


My personal bugbear
I let this one pass before (actually I didn't but I lost the lengthy post I had composed when my browser crashed and couldn't be bothered doing it again), but this video misstates and overstates a number of element of the nylon bug story. Most of the problems seem to have come from his getting a lot of his information from the New Mexicans for Science and Reason site on this topic. They make a number of mistakes some of which I have discussed previously at Is the evidence concerning the Nylon bug being exaggerated.
The main dubious thing the video adds to this is his emphasis on duplication, except this is a plasmid! Gene duplication as a source of redundancy is a fairly pointless element in terms of plasmids as there are usually dozens of copies at least in each bacterium. So his emphasis on this seems highly peculiar.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : Just for Percy

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 435 of 438 (519626)
08-15-2009 1:37 PM
Reply to: Message 429 by traderdrew
08-15-2009 11:30 AM


Re: Intelligent Design
As far as I know, professions such as homeopathy and chiropractic are not part of intelligent design.
What is your point? That you were off topic going on about cancer being irreducibly complex and mainstream therapies being ineffective? You were the one saying the evidence supported your claims that holistic complementary therapies were better.
How about "phytonutrient cancer"? Click on the first study that you see.
I see Kim, et al., (2006) which is an in vitro study using a green tea derivative. Are you saying that aspirin, originally a willow bark derivative, is a complementary therapy?
I have no idea what your argument is supposed to have to do with ID. You certainly haven't shown that 'complimentary holistic treatments ... work better', if that is even relevant.
TTFN,
WK

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