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Author Topic:   Booboocruise's Dissolvable Best Evidence
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 57 of 65 (39930)
05-13-2003 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by booboocruise
05-07-2003 1:03 AM


Re: GLO pseudogenes
You haven't been around in a week or so, so I'll keep this short since there's no guarantee you'll see this, plus your message drew lots of other responses.
Some of the responses raised questions about why God would have created in such a way. My view of God is that he is a deep mystery, and that not only is there no way to tell why He creates the way He does, it isn't even possible to tell what He created through miracle and what He allowed to happen naturally through the physical laws He put in place in the beginning. Therefore, the presence of identical broken genes in various primate species cannot be interpreted as evidence against God - it is simply one more of his mysteries.
But it important to recognize that you are not doing science when arguing that God rather than natural processes did something, at least not until you establish the existence and nature of God on an objectively scientific basis. In other words, you cannot resort to God as an actor on the scientific stage until you produce scientific evidence of God.
Hence, from a scientific perspective the presence of identical broken genes in primate species is evidence (not proof) of common descent. And from a faith-based perspective, whether they are present or absent makes no difference since God explains whatever we find. But a scientific approach is required if you're going to argue against the presence of evolution in science classrooms. Replacement of "evolution did it" with "God did it" wouldn't be accepted in our secular public schools.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by booboocruise, posted 05-07-2003 1:03 AM booboocruise has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Mammuthus, posted 05-13-2003 9:59 AM Percy has not replied
 Message 59 by wj, posted 05-13-2003 8:36 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 60 of 65 (40100)
05-14-2003 2:55 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by wj
05-13-2003 8:36 PM


Re: GLO pseudogenes
Hi wj,
I may have a different take on how the postulated IDer operates. For the IDer, taking life from its starting point to its ultimate destination is a mammoth puzzle, one with many twists and turns that yield non-obvious solutions. A possible scenario for the GLO gene fully consistent with an IDer is that the GLO gene was necessary to take life up to the point where a certain branch of primates that would eventually lead to us was possible. After that he didn't need the GLO gene anymore, and breaking it was far simpler than removing it. And it is possible that his future plans for us may call for reactivation of the GLO gene.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by wj, posted 05-13-2003 8:36 PM wj has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by wj, posted 05-14-2003 7:50 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 62 of 65 (40149)
05-14-2003 8:30 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by wj
05-14-2003 7:50 PM


Re: GLO pseudogenes
wj writes:
Percy, I think your post constitutes a "just so" story. It is completely unscientific in that the explanation can be condensed to "goddunit". Explanation is sacrificed for faith.
I agree. Perhaps there are distinctions or subtleties in the ID approach that I'm missing, but to me all of ID is a "just so" story invented to remove God from Creationism so as to make it acceptable in the classroom, so my suggestion about why the IDer might have broken the GLO gene seems consistent with the rest of it. Once you postulate an entity for which there is no evidence you can only imbue him with qualities for which there is also no evidence, which we both did. Hence, your speculations about why an IDer would not have broken the GLO gene seem no more valid to me than mine about why he would. Arguments from Occam's Razor can also be developed for my approach, for example, that assuming evolution has stopped for human beings and that the IDer is no longer evolving us introduces additional complexity. I don't even favor the perspective I suggested over yours - I was just pointing out other possibilities.
That link I pointed to over in the Are you a quack? thread (http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/BillInfo/Quack.html) covers the ID theory pretty well under the "No Deepening Evidence" heading. The amount of evidence for ID (zero) isn't increasing with time. All the IDists can do is rehash the same philosophical arguments about how the evidence for design is all around us.
You're right, this is mere thumb twiddling while we await resumption of Creationist participation, but it's still nice to have a rational discussion now and then.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by wj, posted 05-14-2003 7:50 PM wj has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Mammuthus, posted 05-15-2003 4:29 AM Percy has not replied

  
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