ninjaturtle

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Posts by ninjaturtle

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  19

  Darwinism's Sterility

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  behe on the flagellum, an irreducibly complex biological system that baffles scientists:.

  http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_brresp.htm.

  what has biochemistry found that must be explained?

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  ninjaturtle

  Behe on the flagellum, an irreducibly complex biological system that baffles scientists:

  http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_brresp.htm

  What has biochemistry found that must be explained? Machines--literally, machines made of molecules. Let's look at just one example. The flagellum is an outboard motor that many bacteria use to swim. It consists of a rotary propeller, motor, and stationary framework. Yet this short description can't do justice to the machine's full complexity. Writing of the flagellum in Cell, Lucy Shapiro of Stanford University marvels, "To carry out the feat of coordinating the ordered expression of about 50 genes, delivering the protein products of these genes to the construction site, and moving the correct parts to the upper floors while adhering to the design specification with a high degree of accuracy, the cell requires impressive organizational skills." Without any one of a number of parts, the flagellum does not merely work less efficiently; it does not work at all. Like a mousetrap it is irreducibly complex and therefore cannot have arisen gradually.

  The rotary nature of the flagellum has been recognized for about 25 years. During that time not a single paper has been published in the biochemical literature even attempting to show how such a machine might have developed by natural selection. Darwin's theory is completely barren when it comes to explaining the origin of the flagellum or any other complex biochemical system.

  The sterility of Darwinism indicates that it is the wrong framework for understanding the basis of life. As I argue in my book, an alternative hypothesis is both natural and obvious: systems such as the flagellum were intentionally designed by an intelligent agent. Just as in the everyday world we immediately conclude design when we see a complex, interactive system such as a mousetrap, there is no reason to withhold the same conclusion from interactive molecular systems. This conclusion may have theological implications that make some people uncomfortable; nonetheless it is the job of science to follow the data wherever they lead, no matter how disturbing.
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  5

  Natural Selection--Randomness

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i wish that you evolutionists would stop using language like.

  "nature is more resourceful than you are".

  nature (according to you) is not trying to accomplish anything and we humans are just an accident.. to me this seems improbable, and irreducible complexity just makes it more improbable.

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  ninjaturtle

  Simply put: I'm troubled by the patent absurdity of Darwinian evolution. My attacks on Darwinism are not motivated in the least by any desire to defend any superstitious story of our origins. I believe that it will soon be possible to demonstrate mathematically that Darwinian evolution is impossible.

  I do not object to your skepticism that such a proof will be produced. But I find obnoxious your closed minded attitude that such a project is absurd on some arbitrary a priori principles you are pleased to hold. Frankly, I can discern little difference in your attitudes towards Dembski and the Church's attitudes towards Galileo.

  I also have a hard time understanding why you consider evolutionary biologists, to be scientists. Evolutionary biologists seem to be for the most part quite inferior mathematicians. The mathematical description of evolution is primitive, fragmented, and contradictory. The field of evolutionary biology seems to be mostly a discipline of myth making to explain away the gapping holes in their theories and lull the atheists to sleep soundly at night.

  You call yourselves skeptics, but nothing could be further from the truth. A true skeptic questions conclusions, doubts premises, exposes assumptions. But you have allied yourself with an Intellectual Taliban rigidly enforcing a suffocating Orthodoxy of Thought. No longer will I call myself a skeptic, but rather I proclaim myself an Iconoclast.

  My purpose: To vigorously oppose the dogmatic pronouncements of a Scientific Priesthood; to smash the Icons of Materialism, Scientism, Darwinsm; to free Mankind's intellectual and spiritual adventure from the dead hand of a bankrupt 19th century philosophy!

  I am your worst nightmare!
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  5

  Natural Selection--Randomness

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i wish that you evolutionists would stop using language like.

  "nature is more resourceful than you are".

  nature (according to you) is not trying to accomplish anything and we humans are just an accident.. to me this seems improbable, and irreducible complexity just makes it more improbable.

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  ninjaturtle

  I wish that you evolutionists would stop using language like

  "Nature is more resourceful than you are"

  Nature (according to you) is not trying to accomplish anything and we humans are just an accident.

  To me this seems improbable, and irreducible complexity just makes it more improbable. If something is improbable enough, you might want to question whether it is true or not.
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  16

  Strong Anthropic Principal or. . .

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  explain that away, mr. scientist!.

  it has been widely noticed that various physical constants and parameters are just exactly those needed to permit life.

  some of these include the strength of gravity, the strength of the strong nuclear force, the density of the universe, etc.. [see, for instance, http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec25.html].

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  ninjaturtle

  A whole lot of plagiarism is going on within this thread. I think I'll leave it now.
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  16

  Strong Anthropic Principal or. . .

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  explain that away, mr. scientist!.

  it has been widely noticed that various physical constants and parameters are just exactly those needed to permit life.

  some of these include the strength of gravity, the strength of the strong nuclear force, the density of the universe, etc.. [see, for instance, http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec25.html].

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  ninjaturtle

  Well we are talking about things like stars not igniting, or no elements higher than lithium being formed, or no stable orbits being possible.

  But yes, you have raised a different objection, that intelligent life is easy to create. Do you believe that?

  Or do you say that's just the way it is? Well if so, that's not a very scientific attitude.

  <b>The six numbers lurk in the universe's smallest and largest structures. To select one from the small end: The nucleus of a helium atom weighs 99.3 percent as much as the two protons and the two neutrons that fuse to make it. The remaining .7 percent is released mainly as heat. So the fuel that powers the sun— the hydrogen gas at its core— converts .007 of its mass into energy when it fuses into helium. That number is a function of the strength of the force that "glues" together the parts of an atomic nucleus.

  So what? Consider this: If the number were only a mite smaller— .006 instead of .007— a proton could not bond to a neutron, and the universe would consist only of hydrogen. No chemistry, no life. And if it were slightly larger, just .008, fusion would be so ready and rapid that no hydrogen would have survived from the Big Bang.</b>

  http://www.discover.com/nov_00/featlife.html
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  16

  Strong Anthropic Principal or. . .

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  explain that away, mr. scientist!.

  it has been widely noticed that various physical constants and parameters are just exactly those needed to permit life.

  some of these include the strength of gravity, the strength of the strong nuclear force, the density of the universe, etc.. [see, for instance, http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec25.html].

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  ninjaturtle

  explain that away, Mr. Scientist!

  It has been widely noticed that various physical constants and parameters are just exactly those needed to permit life. Some of these include the strength of Gravity, the strength of the Strong Nuclear Force, the density of the universe, etc.

  [See, for instance, http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec25.html]

  In fact, it is so unlikely that life could exist in a randomly chosen Universe that many (including myself) think that these parameters must have been chosen by a supernatural Creator.

  Here are some alternative hypotheses and my comments:

  1. We are just extremely lucky. Here you have to assume that the probability that a Creator exists to be zero.

  2. String Theory will show that these constants and parameters are not arbitrary, but have to be what they are. String Theory is just a particular bit of mathematics which may end up describing the Universe perfectly, but we still will have a question about why this particular bit is the one the Universe happens to obey.

  3. There are actually many universes with different "laws of physics". We necessarily are in one which supports life. This seems to be the strongest argument. However, all of these other Universes are in principle undetectable. It can never bedemonstrated that they exist. The mathematics which supports such a theory has to be accepted just as much on Faith as a Christian accepts the Bible.
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  7

  Fantasy theories

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  evolutionists like to point out that there was 4 billion years for evolution to play with.. but consider http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010222/80/b5mxs.html.

  it looks like 90% of natural selection was wiped out and the random mutations had to start working with a much smaller base only 250 million years ago.

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  ninjaturtle

  BTW, I'm no creationist, and I don't have any third way version I'm trying to sell. I think there must be something which induces order and perhaps even teleology in the world.

  I heard that scientists studying the Sun in the 19th Century concluded it was due to burn out in 1950. They of course knew nothing of nuclear fusion. I think that there is some marvel that science knows nothing of, and that scientists are forced to announce results that will look pretty silly if we ever discover that marvel.
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  7

  Fantasy theories

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  evolutionists like to point out that there was 4 billion years for evolution to play with.. but consider http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010222/80/b5mxs.html.

  it looks like 90% of natural selection was wiped out and the random mutations had to start working with a much smaller base only 250 million years ago.

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  ninjaturtle

  I feel I have a reasonable grasp of the role of chance in evolution. The chromosomes have to mutate. To get from an amoeba to a human there have to be a lot of mutations (I am guessing). Insofar as there is no specific goal and the mutations are much more likely to make the amoeba less fit. Evolving from an amoeba into a man, or anything of comparable complexity, is really unlikely.

  Now it seems to me that these things can, in principle, be calculated and measured. Perhaps now that the human genome is mapped we can start measuring just how unlikely it is for an amoeba to evolve into a creature of human-like complexity and multiply this probability by the number of years.

  Question: If such a calculation were made and the probability turned out to be 10%, would you start to doubt evolution, how about .00001% ?

  Question: Is evolution falsifiable?
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  7

  Fantasy theories

  by ninjaturtle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  evolutionists like to point out that there was 4 billion years for evolution to play with.. but consider http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010222/80/b5mxs.html.

  it looks like 90% of natural selection was wiped out and the random mutations had to start working with a much smaller base only 250 million years ago.

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  ninjaturtle

  Evolutionists like to point out that there was 4 billion years for evolution to play with.

  But consider http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010222/80/b5mxs.html

  it looks like 90% of natural selection was wiped out and the random mutations had to start working with a much smaller base only 250 million years ago.
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  14

  Avoiding JWs

  by MoeJoJoJo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am so sick of being bothered by jws(we are inactive);every weekend we can count on someone from the hall stopping by either saturday or sunday.

  it makes me mad because i know they are counting time with me.

  a sister from the hall just called to see what is wrong, why we haven't been to meetings.

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  ninjaturtle

  If you got your lazy asses back to meetings, maybe you wouldn't have to worry about avoiding the brothers. Your only opportunity to worship your Creator directly is at meetings and you're missing out on it. What a darn shame.