Denial of Evolution VII (2015)

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by davewhite04, Jan 5, 2015.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Hate to say it, but I can't disagree with the ban. FFS leopold.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Slim, which may be why it didn't happen. The invention of writing happened probably three different places independently (China, Sumeria, Mesoamerica), thousands of years apart. Once invented, it tended to spread rapidly and widely.

    Reading the description, we find that the documentary reviewer describes a Bronze Age burial artifact as indicating astronomical knowledge and therefore "civilization" emerging in Europe long before it had emerged in Greece or Egypt.

    Civilization, including very sophisticated astronomical knowledge, predates the Bronze Age in Europe by thousands of years.

    Uh, probably not. As with most other apparently irreducible complexities, it falls to applied attention: the first wheels were probably not used for transportation, but for things like pottery turning and milling and (as with the Incas in Peru) children's toys - and of course for military gear. Not all of these need axles, and it's possible (even likely) the axle came first in some of these applications. One of their earliest applications in transport was probably the chariot - a vehicle that needs no road.

    And in the early days of wheeled drayage the wheels themselves made the roads - we had a modern example in the pioneer crossing of the Great Plains of North America.

    My first guess at the origin of the wheel would be as a pulley or windlass, used for mechanical advantage in lifting or moving something by winding rope - water, a ship's rudder, stuff up a cliff. Second guess is smashing or grinding agricultural product - a rolling grindstone shaped to roll more easily.

    Suicide by cop. It happens.
     
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  5. Bells Staff Member

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    Mod Note

    Tali89, you were advised to take your issues with the staff to the appropriate forum. You refused to. And you kept trying to flame this thread and insult others. I issued you with an infraction for your attempts to flame this thread, and here you are again, insulting people and flaming the thread. To the point where you are demeaning yourself with infantile and insulting comments about another person's genitalia.

    Looking back at your posting history on this site, it seems this is all you do. Flame and insult the moderators. In just about every thread you post in.

    You have now been banned you for one day because you have accrued enough infraction points and that means the system automatically bans you, which means you have entered the ban cycle on this site. Please take the next 24 hours to review the role you wish to play on this site. Because the one you have currently employed is unacceptable.
     
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  7. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    Kidding right? Guess not... the amount of flaming i've had to deal with by at least 2 individuals, who just flame anybody elses posts too?both are now ignored so i cannot remember their names, that's exactly what the recipients of her posts could do perfectly well without robots. why do we have an ignore button? democracy and all...
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2015
  8. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

    If irreducible complexity can not be shown in biological systems, then I have doubts that there even is such a thing at all in the entire universe. In other words, the universe is capable of any configuration. All you need is a convincing story to theorize how it got that way. Note to other-than-evolutionists: don't waste your time arguing irreducible complexity. Apparently, in science, a good story will trump probability every time.
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    If you click on your name in the top right hand corner of the screen, then click on the people you are ignoring tab on the right hand side of your "page", you can see the names of the people you are ignoring, so it is easy to track down.

    Having read through this thread, I don't see people flaming you. I see people challenging you for your arguments and asking you to support it. That is not flaming.

    Flaming is when you aren't even bothering to discuss the subject matter of the thread and instead, for example, attack people and do so in a way to try to throw the thread off topic and try to garner a response to personal insults.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    There is certainly such a thing. A watch is an example of irreducible complexity; take out a few pieces and it doesn't work, at all. We can build such things because they do not have the requirement that they work without those pieces. Biology does have that requirement, which is why we don't see it in evolved biological systems.
    And some proof showing the theory in action helps, too.
    In science, experimental results, validation from the historical record and verifiable predictions win over a good reading of Genesis any day.
     
  11. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    I'll see your logic, and raise you a story....

    This "broken" watch is actually being used as a paperweight. Hence, it's 100% functioning!
     
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  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    To the person using it as a paperweight - yes, it is indeed serving as a paperweight. However, unless almost all the parts are there, it cannot function as a watch.
     
  13. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    I agree. However, this watch obviously found it's ecological niche. It doesn't matter that it seems to be missing some parts from our bias perspective.... it's surviving as a paperweight.
     
  14. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry Dave, but you have not defined what you mean by language. You have told me, I think, that you believe there are two kinds of language - spoken and written, but that does not provide a definition. I think it will be difficult to advance the discussion further until we have that definition in place. I am happy to use many different definitions, depending upon context: however I sense you feel quite strongly there is only one appropriate one. I would like to know what that is.

    I have no idea what you mean by this. Would you clarify please?

    I don't see why you would even consider evolution as a potential explanation. It is fairly obviously isn't. By two thousand years ago trade was extensive throughout the Old World. What would be difficult to explain would have been the failure of writing to spread between cultures and civilisations. Of course we can readily explain it, also, as a similar response to a similar set of problems by similar people in similar circumstances. Two fully plausible explanations, the truth probably a combination: neither evolution, nor divine intervention need to be invoked. Wouldn't you agree?
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, OK. It is not functioning, though, and to extend this to the biological perspective, it needs to be functioning to reproduce.

    (BTW to use the paperweight analogy, there are plenty of non-advantageous mutations born out there that served as food for a predator; being a snack was their ecological niche. But in terms of evolution the organism was a failure; it did not propagate its genome, so its genome is abandoned.)
     
  16. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    You're not thinking like an evolutionist.

    This paperweight is simply part of a larger system, such as a strand of DNA is part of an animal(or a bacterial flagellum is part of bacteria). Perhaps this "broken clock" is laying dormant as a recessive office accessory. Or better yet, this paperweight is actually serving a vital office function... specifically, it's keeping some important business documents from blowing out the open window. This will allow the business to continue normal operations, and potentially expand(reproduce).
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry (I think)

    OK. So some parts of organisms have important functions, and those functions allow them to reproduce. Even structures that no longer perform their original functions (like the pineal gland, once a light sensor, now repurposed as a sleep cycle regulator) might be kept around if they are useful enough.
     
  18. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    Excellent point Matthew. It appears as though you are right.
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    As mentioned above, I disagree. Stating cases where you see irreducible complexity is insufficient to claim that therefore there is no such thing in the entire universe. I gave one example, which is sufficient to disprove the above.
     
  20. Rav Valued Senior Member

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    It's rather pointless to go on like this since even if you manage to succeed in putting a proper shine on this analogy of yours you still wont have successfully reinstituted the irreducible complexity argument as the unassailable trump card that the creationist camp once touted it to be. In other words you really can't make any ground here and your time would be better spent back at the drawing board.
     
  21. matthew809 Registered Senior Member

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    I just read this sentence about 20 times and can't make heads or tails of it(which is weird because the sentence structure and grammar seem to be ok). Excellent strategy on your part. You knew I was getting tired, and that a confusing sentence would be all it takes to push me past the breaking point. Apparently my brain has forfeit.

    You won this battle, but I'll be back.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry I will try again.

    You have stated that there are many cases where you see irreducible complexity. I agree. That doesn't demonstrate that there is not "such a thing at all in the entire universe." (your words.)

    To go back to your analogy, yes, a watch with missing parts might be used as a paperweight. More likely it will be either fixed or thrown out. Thus in those cases, we see irreducible complexity in action.
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Allow me to reassure you, as your fears are ungrounded: Irreducible complexity can be shown most easily in cases in which a given structure has a pre-defined purpose, as would be bestowed by a creator or designer. Obviously some things in the universe have such purposes assigned to them by their creators (human built machinery, say). These things can be shown to be irreducibly complex quite easily - a hammer, for example, requires both a handle and a striking head and that the two be joined in one of only a few configurations. A hammer is irreducibly complex.

    Biological structures are not created by a designer with a purpose, thus have no purposes assigned to them in advance, and thus one would expect them to be very difficult if not impossible to find to be irreducibly complex. The extreme difficulty of finding irreducible complexity in the biological world is therefore not surprising or discouraging - that's the least likely place one would look. The fundamental theory of biology - Darwinian Evolution - specifically and by now quite thoroughly describes how biological systems arise from earlier reduced complexity. Research into the basic processes of biology, reproduction and growth and development and metabolism and homeostasis and so forth, all explicitly details the emergence and maintenance of complex systems from reduced, simpler origins. The entire field is devoted to describing emergent complexity from reduced and simpler origins.

    Biological systems are not the place to look for irreducible complexity.
     

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