Nature belongs to ID

Im taking a look at your conference and its speakersDr. Geoff Barnard - immunologist/immunochemist, This are the basics of what he saidmy answers 1: the procedure does not matter fact is in offspring of organisms be it of creatures that reproduce sexually or asexually are not perfect copies of their parents
2: It does not matter if you are fertile if you cant get a mate, survive to sexual maturityProf. Chris Shaw - Professor of Neurology All scientific claims called SCIENTIFIC THEORIES are based on scientific facts if they are not or a FACT does not fit THE THEORY CHANGES.Science provides humanity with certainty while religion provides confusion remember the dark ages no science no understanding of anything religion rules, witches are burned, you pray to get well when you are sick, people get locked up if they say things like the sun does not revolve around the earth, or the earth is not the center of the universe, no TV, no electricity, the horse is the fastest vehicle around runs on hay and water ....Dr. Jay Wesley Richards - analytic philosopher Thing is we really dont know what life needs to exist, apart from an energy source and "space".Life thrives in the most "inhospitable" places like inin the cold of the Arctic and Antarctic
in volcanic vents on land
in very dry places - Dry and hot, dry and cold
in hot volcanic vents of the deep ocean
in rock, deep inside the Earth -
in severe chemical environments harmful to most life-forms - acid, alkali and salt
in high-radiation environments, such as on the control rods of nuclear powerplants

You're right - my personal incredulity doesn't mean that it didn't happen. That is why I argue my case and I hope over time (and in this forum) to argue my case persuasively.My first argument is against the title of 'Naturalism' to explain a process that has little of anything to do with Nature. Nature does not develop life through accident - an egg is fertilised by a sperm and implants itself in the wall of the uterus where a complex process kicks in to develop the baby. The system is in place before the egg is fertilised. The baby is the result of the system - without a system there is no baby. If the idea of a system is too 'religious' for you, no problem. Like I said: for some the birth of a child is evidence of God, for others it's the wonder of Nature. Both sides are satisfied - I truly believe (and I hope to show) that there is an alternative explanation for the evolution that will be as credulous and wondrous as the birth of a baby. And does not require commitment to any religion.PS: You say mutation is not arbitrary, but that is the very definition of 'mutation' - accidents in DNA.Kind regards
VanessaEdited by Vanessa, : I forgot a few words that were necessary to understand my point

Hello JarYou say: "Sorry but belief in a god is a religion"Then my religion is Nature.

And nature also incorporates phenomena such as mutation, recombination, natural selection, sexual selection, lateral gene transfer, etc. These are natural. Supernatural things are not natural. God doing magic is not natural, natural selection is. Hence the name.Now, in the scientific method, when one has a theory based on known mechanisms that explains the phenomena, and the only alternate hypothesis is magical, then you (provisionally) conclude that the theory is correct. When you're reduced to saying: "Either the patient has measles, or invisible fairies are painting spots on his skin with tiny invisible brushes, ahahahaha", this is as much to say --- the patient has measles.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No argument here. I've certainly never claimed that life is anything more or less than an extremely complex series of interdependent self-sustaining chemical and physical reactions.Are you claiming, then, that the simple existence of ordered systems, like the laws of physics, is evidence supporting an Intelligent Designer? I don;t quite understand what you're saying here. How can "the evolution of life be as credulous as the birth of a baby?" Credulity is irrelevant. The demonstrable accuracy of a given hypothesis in comparison to alternative hypotheses is all that matters. Yet mutations obey the very constrained and predictable laws of chemistry, and so are not entirely random. To describe mutations as purely arbitrary events is to describe them inaccurately.Put another way - rolling dice may be somewhat random, but the result will always predictably be an integer between one and six. And the laws of probability are themselves consistent, as well.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean.Do you actually think there is some entity called "Nature"?

No, nor is it their biggest. The failure of ID is not down to its lack of spin, but to its lack of substance. When I'm reading their worthless arguments, I don't think: "They may have compounded gross factual errors with gormless errors of reasoning, but if only they hadn't described evolutionary biology as Naturalism I'd find their argument perfectly convincing."

Vanessa, why couldn't it be zeus? What about vishu? Why does it absolutely have to be your god?Would you be happy if tomorrow we find out that the designer behind ID is actually the flying spaghetti monster?

Mutation is pretty arbitrary the vast majority of the time.--Percy

There are multiple definitions of religion. Granted she may have in mind the same one as you, but you don't know that yet.--Percy

Hi FrakoAnother thing you could add about Professor Barnard's comments is that he doesn't seem to understand that what he's calling "chromosomal plasticity" is incredibly slow. He doesn't seem to understand that mutations, the ultimate source of his "chromosomal plasticity," occur at a rate of around 10^-8 per nucleotide per generation. That means that on average only one nucleotide out of a hundred million has been affected by mutation in each newly born organism. This is why relatively long-lived species like reptiles, birds and mammals take at least 10's of thousands of years to form new species, while short-lived species like bacteria that reproduce several times per hour can form new species in very short periods of time, certainly within a human lifetime.--Percy

Naturalism is the philosophy that "all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws." (from Answers.com). That pretty much sounds like nature.It sounds like you're here to test your arguments for ID, so you'll want to abandon untenable positions like this one as quickly as possible. Right on! --Percy

You can't really meaningfully compare the two, a bacterial species is defined completely differently to what the Biological Species Concept would lead us to consider a species.I'd also question your contention that long lived metazoans require 10s of thousands of years to produce new species because they have long generation times. Post-zygotic reproductive isolation can be established by changes in only 1 or 2 genes so there is no reason why it would take more than a few mutations to establish the necessary genetic variation for reproductive isolation. I'd suggest that the relevant issue is not so much generation time as population size, gene flow and genetic recombination/reassortment as a result of sexual reproduction.So I disagree both on the time scale and the purported explanation for it.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

I'm sorry but I cannot imagine or find any possible way that belief in a god or gods would not be a religion. If Vanessa has some way of showing that belief in a god is not a religion then it is up to Vanessa to provide the reasoning why belief in a god or gods is NOT a religion.

Hi Jar,Sorry for my message. I cannot now for the life of me reconstruct how I must have been interpreting Vanessa's post. Apologies, etc.--Percy