Posts by JanH

No biologist has ever proposed that a cell, or a DNA molecule, originated by chance. What happened was that a very basic replicator molecule originated. Since we don't know how this looked like, we can't calculate its probability. Once replicators existed, chance doesn't come into it any more. Natural selection is, as the name implies, the opposite of chance.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

15

How The British Maximize Crime

by Nathan Natas in

jw
friends

discuss?

from the nra magazine, america's 1st freedom, october 2002 issue.

how the british maximize crime by paul craig roberts .

JanH

Amazing,

So, okay the murder rate is down, but the mugging rates are up ... how much better a life is that?

Well, let's put it like this: if a certain wacko in the DC area had been mugging nine people over two weaks instead of shooting them, how many headlines and how much fear would that have made?

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

15

How The British Maximize Crime

by Nathan Natas in

jw
friends

discuss?

from the nra magazine, america's 1st freedom, october 2002 issue.

how the british maximize crime by paul craig roberts .

JanH

I have seen similar claims from NRA elsewhere. Of course not backed up by statistics or facts, but with anecdotes.

Here's some facts.

Homicide rate selected cities (99-00; per 100,000 population):

London: 2.38

Paris: 2.85

Berlin 2.52

Oslo 1.51

Dallas 20.42

NYC 8.77

Washington DC 45.79

For countries (Avg homicide rate per 100K, 98-00):

England & Wales: 1.50

France: 1.68

Germany: 1.19

Norway: 0.93

USA: 5.87

I think this pretty much speaks for itself.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

155

Evolution or creation?

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

.

if i had to answer this i suppose i would say im not sure which one i believe, i have always wondered why the universe is so huge and always wondered what its role is and how it affects us.. im always fascinated when i look up at the sky and think to myself i feel so small in such a huge universe a sought of cold isolated feeling is what i experience and then i think, i wonder why this planet came to support life after all it was supposedly all happened by chance.. dont get me wrong im no scientist but i think i need more convincing regarding evolution.. can anyone help regarding these questions

JanH

Jim,

Who wrote about all this evolution stuff and passed it along! Seriously!

Life itself wrote it down. The history of evolution is indeed written inside every one of us, and all other living things, in billions of copies.

Since Darwin didn't have the faintest clue about genes and DNA, their discovery was a remarkable and independent confirmation of evolution.

In fact, those who discovered the DNA worked on the assumption that evolution, or common descent, was a fact. They had already demonstrated what DNA would look like, based on the fact of evolution, and they were proved right when they finally discovered how it worked. There simply is no reason for all living things having the same code if common descent wasn't true. Evolution at that time didn't really need more evidence, but sure got it.

Today, nobody can expect to be taken seriously when they talk about science if they don't accept that all living things share a common ancestor. It is the cornerstone of the whole science of biology.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

Edited by - JanH on 11 October 2002 18:4:54

155

Evolution or creation?

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

.

if i had to answer this i suppose i would say im not sure which one i believe, i have always wondered why the universe is so huge and always wondered what its role is and how it affects us.. im always fascinated when i look up at the sky and think to myself i feel so small in such a huge universe a sought of cold isolated feeling is what i experience and then i think, i wonder why this planet came to support life after all it was supposedly all happened by chance.. dont get me wrong im no scientist but i think i need more convincing regarding evolution.. can anyone help regarding these questions

JanH

Hereby nominating Pome for most ignorant comment of the day:

There earth is a closed system.

I suspect your PhD may be some years off, Pome

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

Edited by - JanH on 11 October 2002 8:29:35

155

Evolution or creation?

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

.

if i had to answer this i suppose i would say im not sure which one i believe, i have always wondered why the universe is so huge and always wondered what its role is and how it affects us.. im always fascinated when i look up at the sky and think to myself i feel so small in such a huge universe a sought of cold isolated feeling is what i experience and then i think, i wonder why this planet came to support life after all it was supposedly all happened by chance.. dont get me wrong im no scientist but i think i need more convincing regarding evolution.. can anyone help regarding these questions

JanH

Pome,

Dr. Jerry Bergman, a brilliant scientists

Thanks for the laugh. Wondered why he publishes his 'scientific' work in the ICR's little misquotation-filled pamphlet Impact instead of Nature? In the conspiracy theories of Jerry Bergman (insert alphabet soup here) it is of course a massive atheistic conspiracy that causes his brilliant work to be rejected by scientific journals, and him not getting any serious scientific position. Those who have read some of his tripe, however, tend to come to another conclusion.

That said, it is well known that there does exist good scientists who are still devoutly religious. They do, as one of them put it, check out their brains at the church door. When some very few of them reject evolution, they do it for religious reasons, not scientific.

And that is precisely why science is not about what Dr X or Professor Y said, but about the actual evidence presented. A Nobel laureate must like all other scientists substantiate his claims with facts and data. If a person makes a stupic claim, it is still stupid even if he has flouts an alphabet soup behind his name. And this is where creationism sorely lack any founding in fact whatsoever. It is precisely because evidence shows without a shade of reasonable doubt that evolution is a fact, that it is near-universally accepted in science.

And that is of course why you'd rather eat poison than actually dealing with the evidence. You have been provided with lots of references, which you have ignored. When you flatly state, as you did above, about mutations and gene recombination -- and even childbirth (!) -- that "NONE of it has been proven in a lab", anyone can see you're about as far out to lunch as you can get.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

155

Evolution or creation?

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

.

if i had to answer this i suppose i would say im not sure which one i believe, i have always wondered why the universe is so huge and always wondered what its role is and how it affects us.. im always fascinated when i look up at the sky and think to myself i feel so small in such a huge universe a sought of cold isolated feeling is what i experience and then i think, i wonder why this planet came to support life after all it was supposedly all happened by chance.. dont get me wrong im no scientist but i think i need more convincing regarding evolution.. can anyone help regarding these questions

JanH

Pome,

You claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics makes evolution impossible. Can you kindly explain this in clear terms? What exactly is impossible under this law? Mutations? Childbirth? Natural selection? Genetic recombination? Evolution is descent with modificiation, something easily observed in nature every day. What evolutionary process exactly is impossible under the second law of thermodynamics?

I find it interesting that you insist on knowing thermodynamics and physics better than the 72 Nobel Laureates who filed a Amicus Curiae Brief to the US Supreme Court in 1986, saying:

"The "scientific" arguments used to discredit evolution are often included as basic tenets of creation-science. See, e.g., Pro Family Forum materials at 13, Exhibit A-5 to Pfeffer Affidavit ("Ex. A-5") ("[t]he mathematical chance of random mutation and natural selection producing one kind from another is vanishingly small, so mutation and selection could not have produced progressive evolution," and "[t]he second law of thermodynamics says things generally go from order to disorder, so simple living kinds could not have evolved by mutation and selection into complex living kinds"). These arguments, however, are all badly flawed." [bold added]

Since you started appealing to authority: What do you know about physics that 29 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics do not know? Do you think the foremost scientists in the world have failed to grasp what you, who frequently say things that would flunk a high school level science course, understand?

Derek and Rem are right. You are merely demonstrating here that you know nothing about evolution specifically or science generally. Why be so stubborn as to refuse to get at least some knowledge of the subject you criticise?-

Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

Edited by - JanH on 11 October 2002 7:21:53

38

Noachian Flood c.2370 BCE

by badboy in

jw
friends

.

egypt;5 dynasty.

1st lagash dynasty;2500-2350. y is there no break in the 5th dynasty if a world-wide flood(tm) took place)?

JanH

Rich,

Now,There are flood legends worldwide,which talk of a global catastrophy,so is it not possible that these legends are in fact much older than both the Sumerian texts and the bible.

You seem to suggest that an oral tradition can survive in a recognizable form over periods from 8000 to (ghasp) 50,000 years.

I am sure you have played the whisper-game. A dozen or so people sit in a circle. The first whispers a story to the person sitting next to him or her, and that one whispers it to the next person, and so on until it reaches the final person. He or she will then retell the story to the whole group, to common amusement. Even a short chain of people distorts the simplest stories beyond recognition. Add the complexity of successive generations and long timespans, and I doubt that any story could ever survive as an oral tradition more than, say, a millennium.

Human memory is very fragile, as any man who has forgotten his wedding anniversary can tell you.

PS to add: There are techniques to counteract loss of historical memory. One is to make verses or songs. Another way is to indictrinate people to learn stories exactly by heart. The early Muslims learned that even this had its risks, and wrote down the Koran (with some changes!) after some decades.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

Edited by - JanH on 10 October 2002 20:37:13

9

Wollersheim v. Scientology: Implications for WTS?

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

wollersheim v. the church of scientology was a 22 year court case, finally settled in may of 2002 with the payment of $8.6 million by the church of scientology.

it raises interesting issues of freedom of religion, and how responsible cults must be for the results of their actions.

case history summary.. in 1980, lawrence wollersheim filed suit against the church of scientology of california (csc), claiming damages for intentional and negligent infliction of severe emotional distress.

JanH

Thanks for sharing this, expatbrit.

The Co$ is the Watchtower on steroids. I am sure you can find parallels, but really, I don't think JW Bible Studies and meetings can be compared to the vicious indoctrination methods of the scientologists. Neither do I think df'ing/shunning can be directly compared to dead agenting.

It could surely be interesting to see how courts will draw the line on this question. Californian courts have already drawn the line with the scientologists.

For more information about the Co$, check out Operation Clambake.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

Edited by - JanH on 10 October 2002 16:59:24