cypress

It's all that ydoaP guys fault, he did it...

I'll carry his side forward, go ahead and address a couple of the points I made. I believe that in another post you claimed it was a demonstrable fact that evolution (natural processes explains all observed diversity) and common descent was true. Here I have put a couple of holes through your unsupported opinion. If it is the fact you claim it is, you should have no trouble pointing out my errors.

LALALALALALALA is not a reasonable point. 'SHOW ME A VIDEO OF A MONKEY EVOLVING INTO A HUMAN' is not only unreasonable, but shows complete ignorance of what evolution actually is.

Right that would be part of where he was in a tizzy.

Cypress, how about you go and remake the "skeptic" side.

The summary position:

Studies of historical proxies have established that the earth’s climate is not fixed. It has been both warmer and cooler in the recent past than the temperatures experienced during the period of past 200 years. There are numerous causes for climate variations. Changes in GHG concentrations are some of perhaps hundreds of influencers to climate changes. Climate science is unable to accurately predict the influence human sourced GHG may have on future climate. Models that fail to incorporate natural factors which historically drove past climate variation cannot be expected to accurately predict future climate variations. Several natural variations and data artifacts account for a majority of the warming trend that has occurred from 1850 – 2010 leaving substantially less warming to assign to human causes. It is not credible at this juncture to believe that human sourced GHG will drive future climate warming in the range of 2-6 degrees.

So you have no response to this?

Until you all worked him into a tizzy he had a handful of reasonable points, especially in his opening couple of posts.

Fine, I'll quote the post I linked to in my last post. Perhaps you'll read it this way.

 

 

I see there are a few creationist posters here from time to time. So here is a very small amount of the evidence for common ancestry with the rest of the apes:

Common ancestry is not inconsistent with teleological processes and therefore is not evidence for evolution (the idea that all observed diversity occurred by only natural processes). Common ancestry is an explanation for what we observe, evolution tries to explain how it occurred.

By examining ERVs, we can look at ancestral links between these populations. if we look at the presence of retroviruses within a population we can find when a particular group broke away from a different group due to the presence of the retroviruses within the group.

While it is true that recent retroviruses do appear in the genetic code, there is a question about how long they are likely to remain because non functional junk wastes cellular resources and is usually quickly removed. A major problem with the idea that our genome contains ancient disabled retroviruses is that modern molecular biology indicates that conserved portions of the genetic code are only conserved over long periods of time if they are functional. The obvious conclusion is that these presumed conserved portions that appear to be retroviruses are instead more likely noncoding functional instruction sets.

cabinintheforest asked for observable examples of evolutionary processes and Yoda offered this:

The corn field or the dog show.

The problem is that the corn field is an example of the power of teleological design processes of genetic engineers and the dog show is an example of the power of teleological artificial selection.

New cell functions like the digestion of nylon byproducts?

If you look you will find that this is an example of a single mutation to a single enzyme. When you set the bar low enough, the theory will easily clear it. A pole vaulter that claims he can vault 12 meters proves nothing if he demonstrates his claim by vaulting 2 meters. It is quite unimpressive.

Your example is a straw man argument unless you claim that evolution accomplishes all it does by generating a continuous string of these single step mutations. However if this is your claim then you will be able to provide an example of the multistep (4 or more) pathway I requested.

I thought that was the point. An improbable (but still possible) mutation occurred within the countless generations, gave benefit to the organism, and the mutation was soon present in the entire population. That's evolution.

This is a watered down version of evolution. It is adaptation of existing function to a modified environment but it is still not new form or even a step to a new organism. The original poster was very clear that evolution meant derivation of new forms. Your example is a straw man. because it is not an example of what I described.

Now, whether it happened fast enough is a different matter entirely, and I think it'd be hasty to make a judgment on one experiment on one species of bacteria in a single unchanging environment.

The changes cannot be separated from the rate because the theory of evolution claims to account for all diversity in geologic time. Your example is adaptation of existing function of a single stand alone enzyme rather than the multi-protein molecular machines I referred too and the multitude of companion systems that must be altered in conjunction with the components. Your example has the same problem that Yoda has.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I recently discovered that the No Free Lunch theorems don't apply to evolutionary searches. This renders a lot of our previous discussions (and your previous objections) irrelevant. Whoops. This leaves us back where we started, with no mathematical reason why evolutionary searches can't be faster than random searches.

I doubt you can prove that NFL does not apply to evolutionary searches, but it would not change the argument because thus far every successful evolutionary search offered has teleological components so you would first have to offer a search routine that does not make use of information imported by the designer

Otherwise, yes, I think your goals are more achievable (if still difficult to observe on timeframes less than decades). But unless you catch them on video, I doubt cabinintheforest will be impressed.

When you consider the small estimated total number of mammals that have ever existed in the relatively short time inferred from the fossil record along with the millions and millions of substantive molecular differences amongst all the present mammals as compared to the trillions of trillions of billions of bacteria and microscopic parasites in a single generation of these organisms and the scare few examples of one and two, and just the two or three known three step examples of adaptations and one begins to see how poorly supported the current theory really is.

All of these tests have been done. They are not thought experiments. Scientists have samples of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the lab. They've exposed them to antibiotics and watched resistance emerge over time, taking samples, observing things under the microscope.

 

Lenski watched citrate metabolism evolve in E. coli. He still has the samples of bacteria as they evolved the ability -- frozen samples of bacteria from before and after the transition. He has sequenced DNA.

 

What more do you want? A video of a tiny cell shaking its fist and shouting "I'll figure out this penicillin stuff, just you wait!"?

No this is incorrect. Lenski identified a two or three step mutation that led to over expression of an existing enzyme that allowed a for metabolism of citrate not in the presence of oxygen to provide for metabolism in the presence of oxygen. This kind of thing falls well within the limits of shear probability given the 30000 generations and countless millions of trillions of individual organisms involved in his experiment. Contrast this with the number of estimated generations and the relatively few individual organisms between the presumed common ancestor of humans and chimps and modern humans and the many thousands of differences far greater than this example.

Somebody needs to catch on camera an ape evolving into a human. Or a fish evolving into a land creature becuase that is what evolutionists believe. And i aint see any evidence for it. Infact i have never seen a specie evolve into a different specie... species simply do not evolve into different species. Get photo / real live footage of this evolution then i would support evolution, becuase it would be based on empirical evidence (science) but it can not be observed becuase it does not exist, it's just a theory.

Standards of evidence need to be reasonable. I must take into account what is realm of possibility. For example one cannot use a paradox to show that some act is impossible.

Examples of evidence in favor of evolution (the idea that new form and function leading to derivation of all observed biological diversity is derived from observed non-teleological natural processes in operation today) would be:

1. direct observation of a contiguous multistep evolutionary pathway leading to derivation of any of a number of molecular subcomponents identified as necessary for new cell functions. These include new functional protein tertiary structures, new protein-protein binding sites, new gene expression controls, new functional developmental controls, new cell functional controls and circuits, new protein inventory and transportation systems, etc.

2. New functional systems require functional, specified information in order to construct, and instantiate and manage the components and processes that allow them to function. Examples of non-teleological natural systems that generate new functional information at a rate consistent with the timeframe estimated by the geologic record would support the evolutionary claims.

If the current evolutionary is correct, there would be hundreds and thousands of examples of these kinds of observations. As it is there seem to be none. Fruit flies have been mutated every conceivable way by non-teleological means with only three results; A) normal fruit flies, B) deformed fruit flies, C) dead fruit flies. Observed processes appear to be quite proficient at disabling and removing function but incapable of routinely deriving novel function other than the occasional single and double step mutations predicted by probability. There seems to be a limit to what observed processes can accomplish.

I seem to recall you made this claim in another thread and then had to backtrack because you couldn't defend it.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/51175-natural-global-warming/

Hmm, the claim in that thread appears to be intact, though some of the causes have been attributed to data errors and artifacts as opposed to "natural causes". The discussion remains unfininished.

I guess it is easier to conclude that those who are abandoning the policies of the present administration and congressional leadership are mental rather than face the possibility that they no longer care for the liberalism or worse that they recognize the policies are a failure.

The summary position:

Studies of historical proxies have established that the earth’s climate is not fixed. It has been both warmer and cooler in the recent past than the temperatures experienced during the period of past 200 years. There are numerous causes for climate variations. Changes in GHG concentrations are some of perhaps hundreds of influencers to climate changes. Climate science is unable to accurately predict the influence human sourced GHG may have on future climate. Models that fail to incorporate natural factors which historically drove past climate variation cannot be expected to accurately predict future climate variations. Several natural variations and data artifacts account for a majority of the warming trend that has occurred from 1850 – 2010 leaving substantially less warming to assign to human causes. It is not credible at this juncture to believe that human sourced GHG will drive future climate warming in the range of 2-6 degrees.

I don't really have time to get drawn into a long drawn out back and forth on this sort of thing again, but I'll at least take a crack at this post.

 

That was stated in the OP: "best attempt I've ever seen"

So it is an opinion from a warmist. the picture is becoming clearer.

As someone who has spent many, many years on these forums debating these same tired points over and over again, I assure you it's a fairly accurate representation of the "skeptics" position.

You choose to judge the skeptic position based on tired argument from web forums over recent research. Good plan.

When you make claims like "arguments from studies", it's typically appropriate to cite said studies. That said, the scientific position is that there are radiative forcings other than anthropogenic greenhouse gases which are also responsible for the overall warming trend. It's just that those radiative forcings happen to be much less significant.

If only the earth's energy budget were so easy, and yet it is not. This article summarizes a number of recent papers to show that the all but about 0.2C of the warming trend from 1950 onward is attributed to causes other than GHG.

This paper looks at long term natural patterns in ocean oscillations and identifies natural causal factors. It corroborates the 0.2 C number from the other summary and from it one can identify a 0.4 C from the mid 1800's forward but increases in sun total energy flux accounts for over 0.2 of that 0.4 leaving less than 0.2 attributable to GHG since 1850.

You sure like to bandy around the term "cherry pick". Again, when you make a claim like this it would be good for you to pick a specific data set they included and make an argument as to why you believe it is cherry picked.

Actually it is the author of the summary you linked that seems to like cherries. The reconstructed hockey stick is a good example. This paper provides some insight into why it and the revised one is little more than a statistical mirage.

No, however no climate scientists in favor of the consensus position were consulted either:

That's a joke. RealClimate.com is a who's who of the warmist science movement. The writer has a very clear bias and does precious little to hide it. It is difficult for a warminst to represent the skeptic just as it is difficult for a skeptic to fairly represent the warmists argument.

Best by what measure? It is is poor representation of the skeptics argument. It cherry picks the skeptical response on many of these points and it does not address the better arguments from studies indicating recent measured and estimated climate warming trends have causes other than from human caused green house gases. It also often uses cherry picked derived data sets to represent the trends being described.

I doubt many if even any skeptics were consulted to articulate the arguments attributed to the skeptical viewpoint.

You mean using scatter graph and plotting absorbance values against the cv% values ? but the absorbance values are many and the CV% values only less.

 

for example

 

automatic pipette

about 6-7 absorbance readings and only 1 CV% value so how would i plot that ? so confused any ideas?

Ah, now I understand. Each of the two data series, one for the automatic pipette and one for the glass pipette could be plotted by run or other suitable descriptor based on the data point, each data point with the confidence interval indicating the uncertainty in that data measurement.

Something similar to this:

Similar to this.

I doubt that many take issue with presidential trips in general. The issue seems to be the excesses of arrangements and amenities associated with this trip relative to the current economic environment.

So what is the issue then? It seems that you understand it is an instruction manual of specific steps to be taken in performing a procedure. All that is left is to list all the tasks, place them in the correct order, check that the task list is complete and then add detail for each task so a lesser informed person can follow the task list and successfully perform the procedure.

I would think so. As I read the instructions the determinations would be the results set which I take to be the absorbance values. these would be put on a scatter plot against the confidence intervals.

I think it is generally unwise to defend the indefensible.

What I'm saying is that:

1) Information can be stored in a material form. (eg ink on paper)

2) In every existing example of information being stored, that information is stored directly or indirectly in a material form. To clarify this, information can be stored within other information (eg within the abstract concept of a Turing machine), but neither the abstract storage form nor the information it stores can exist without some material form to encode it.

3) By material form I mean something that contains energy, be it photons, electrons, atoms, or some other energy-containing form. This is because we seem to be talking about materialism (which includes energy), rather than a distinction between matter and energy.

 

Which of these do you disagree with, and why? In particular, can you give an example of information that is not stored materially?

I disagree with your persistent attempt to transform my post into something other than what it is and to try to entwine me in straw man arguments. If you would like to argue that generation and operation of the processes of storing and retrieving information from a memory medium is reducible to material, I will be happy to discuss it.

Ok, what do you have so far?

That's part of the equivocation Sisyphus was pointing out. "Memory/information storage is materialistic" and "memory/information storage is made of a material" are two very different statements. I don't see where anyone has claimed the latter, so denying that it's true misses the point.

Mr. Skeptic has attempted to shift the context from the former to the latter and persists with this attempt even in his most recent post. Sysiphus seems to have misapropriated the source of equivocation. For my part, I am not surprised that minds use material for various purposes on a regular basis and don't need Mr. Skeptic to tell us this. My point is that the processes cannot be reduced to material and therefore the questions the OP asked are religous/metaphysical and don't have scientific answers. Thus it seems that evolution does have religion.

No sysiphus, I first indicated there was no known material only process.

The argument went like this:

Mr Skeptic: Perhaps there was a process to copy memories.

cypress: You only think that because of an unreasonable faith in materialism.

Mr Skeptic: It's not faith and it's not that unreasonable, since everything we know of so far is materialistic. Like computer files.

cypress: I am speaking of the process by which the memory files are generated and moved. The files themselves as stored, have no meaning.

Let's not change the discussion to something it was not.

 

Ah yes. that would be, let me think, what would one call that ? Ah! Computer file.

It applies to any form of stored contextual information. A book is an example. So is a painting. Neither of those are computer files.

What evidence do you have that the systems are incompatible with each other in the first place? In fact, I believe that I saw a T.V. documentary showing Muslims sending minor non-British legal system issues to a Shariah court. However, I cannot find it at the moment.

One can easily cherry pick complex social structures to find isolated examples of compatibility, but do you dispute that there are certain aspects of shari'a law that are contradictory and therefore incompatible with our system of constitutional rights and representative democracy?

Additionally, I would be interested in evidence that Shariah or Judaism or Hinduism, each with their own distinctive cultures is doomed to failure in the West. IIRC, the Roman Empire, and others had a pretty pluralistic society with outposts all over Europe, the Mediterranean coast and North Africa. The British Commonwealth (more, or less, the former British Empire) are fairly pluralistic societies.

Each of these former societies failed as they previously existed due in part to the inability to remain socially united.

I think that this is a pretty disturbing issue to me. Firstly let's examine the wealth divide in Western countries, and this is a typical representation of what I have found:

 

In short, the wealthy have a very unequal majority of the wealth in America, and I suspect, in many Western countries.

Yes those who produce more have more to show for it. Productivity drives the economy and improves the standard of living for all. Production should be encouraged.

That being the case, they also have an unhealthy influence in Parliamentary affairs in this country, able to sponsor Members of Parliament or to dangle the carrot of directorships at the end of a political career. Members of Parliament are asked formally to declare interests as this snippet shows for a Committee although memories have been known to slip by our distinguished leaders:

A system that fails to acknowledge and prevent excesses is flawed. The wealthy are not to blame if the British system does not prevent them from undue influence.

Finally, the bottom line IMHO, is that Shariah law (I've stuck with this spelling so far, and it is too late to change now) is not coming to America or Britain. It is, and always will be the case, that immigrants in our nation will have to follow our laws.

If shari'a law does not come to America, or Britain it will only be because the society as a whole actively rejects the attempts to incorporate it.

These two quotes taken together seem to imply you think it is impossible to copy computer files.

A better approach would be to accept the two ideas independently, take them at face value and interpret them literally in context as they were intended.

You might not be able to copy a human mind because it might not be "reducible to material," but then computer files are also not "reducible to material." Since you obviously don't believe copying files is impossible, then you must mean this phrase in two different senses, and you are equivocating such that it is no longer clear what your actual point is, if anything.

Your argument is a straw man because you have changed the context. You neglected to use the phrases and meaning I used 1) the "process of storing information" using a computer, which has a very different meaning than "computer files" these two phrases are not interchangeable. 2) In referring to stored information I do not mean the file itself or I would have used that word. Instead it is more than the physical properties of the file and the molecular configuration of the storage media, rather it refers to the information conveyed by the low entropy memory configuration once interpreted for context and meaning.

Unfortunatly I don't have access to that Pennisi paper.

Perhaps you can address the issues I raised in my post. The paper largely serves to support the statements I attributed to others.

So then you admit that changing it makes new function. Degradation is of course new, unless it already existed somewhere perhaps? And in any case, I'm sure you're incredibly surprised that a small step away from a local maximum will usually result in reduced function, and think there is some deep meaning to this other than the obvious.

Not hardly.

Again, this is false. A small change can result in novel function. For example,

a small change of one amino acid in sGC is the difference between it being a sensor for oxygen or nitrogen. As you noted elsewhere, this can be seen as degraded function -- because the NO binds much more strongly but the O2 is far more plentiful, decreasing the binding affinity to oxygen turns it into an NO sensor. In this case this "degraded function" turns out to be the same as "new function", since now it functions as a sensor for NO. Very similar such proteins are used in different creatures, either for binding NO or O2.

http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v1/n1/full/nchembio704.html

There are several examples of a single mutation altering enzyme function and in previous conversations I have acknowledged this. Your example of an enzyme that does not participate in protein - protein binding is not an example of the kind I was describing. The challenge is to demonstrate that evolutionary processes generate all types of functional changes not just the simplest of changes.

Additionally, the authors did not let evolutionary processes generate the alteration, instead the researchers used a reverse engineering process to specifically design the alteration. The paper therefore establishes that it is possible to design one from the other, but it does not establish that evolutionary processes did the same.

Riboswitches, though not proteins, can perform a similar function. In the link are two such riboswitches, one for binding guanine and the other adenine. One single change is the key to their different specificity

http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=education_discussion/molecule_of_the_month/pdb130_1.html

If one looks one can find straw man arguments that represent exceptions to nearly any general rule. As you note, these are not proteins and these are not protein-protein binding sites. The majority of but not all molecular proteins are components of molecular machines made up of many proteins bound together.

How could a society founded on the principles of fallible and sinful men possibly compare to one founded on the principles of a loving and infinite God?

I don't see how it could. Which society are you implying is founded on the principles of a loving and infinite God?

My point was simply that democracy allows certain freedoms - for example, individual, political and economic freedoms. Freedom to worship on any manner you please is an individual freedom. If Muslims want Shariah, in a Western country, to be applicable to Muslims, let them have it, as long as it does not interfere with the freedom of others. At that point, the Shariah should be limited. The point was, that it seems far more mundane, banal and moderate than portrayed by our media.

Societies with mutually incompatible subcultures have a long and consistent history of failing. Why should a society promote a practice that historically fails?

I suspected that rigney was an ex-military man with strong convictions about following the Stars and Stripes to bring 'democratic capitalism' across the world. However, by forcing our systems on others, we are interfering with their individual liberty. The point has been made before. As far as military service, if our politicians were completely committed to the cause ideologically, then they would be willing to send their children abroad to fight the 'enemy'. Yes you are right, there is no reason why they should do so, but it demonstrates, once again, that it is the children of the poor who fight wars that the rich wage against each other.

Democracies enter into hostilities generally with support of a majority of the voting public, the politicians represent the entire voting public, not just the wealthy (if politicians represented only the wealthy, then the tax structure and redistribution of the wealth would look far different than it does). So we have the voting public sending those who volunteer to fight to wars. A very different picture than the one you paint.