Denial of Evolution VII (2015)

[davewhite04]

anyway, this is all stored in ROM.

I'm sure if people are deleting your posts, it's not ROM(Read Only Memory).

i promise you, the xbox couldn't tell you the difference between a dog and a cat. and never will unless a human tells it how

You need to broaden your horizons.

 

[davewhite04]

where did all this other stuff come from???

What "other" stuff precisely?

 

[Seattle]

Who taught them that it was a crime? Is this where you say, evolution says...

Evolution has nothing to do with how man acts.

 

[leopold]

An atom is not an element.

i disagree, the entire periodic table is a listing of the elements.

Regarding you seeing "intelligence" everywhere that's because everything that is man made (which is most of what is around us) did obviously involve man's intelligence.

this is why i consider computers an incorrect analogy.

Man didn't make a tree and to jump to the conclusion that a supernatural "God" did it is just ignorant.

i'm not arguing for a god.

Many religious people aren't very educated (and many are). Most creationists and all "young Earthers" are (very) ignorant.

i don't see how you can make that statement.
did you interview each and every one of them to find out?

don't forget, religious nuts are indeed the balls of god.

 

[davewhite04]

Evolution has nothing to do with how many acts.

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Seattle]

i disagree, the entire periodic table is a listing of the elements.

this is why i consider computers an incorrect analogy.

i'm not arguing for a god.

i don't see how you can make that statement.
did you interview each and every one of them to find out?

don't forget, religious nuts are indeed the balls of god.

The periodic table is a listing of elements but not of atoms.

All Young Earthers by definition are ignorant (of the facts) so I don't need to interview them all.

 

[leopold]

I'm sure if people are deleting your posts, it's not ROM(Read Only Memory).

uh, have i gotten off at the wrong stop?
what are you talking about with ". . . if people are deleting your posts . . ."?
if you are talking about the xbox then yes, deletable material would probably be stored on a HDD or in EAROM (electrically alterable ROM)

You need to broaden your horizons.

and you need to understand that while computers are indeed remarkable, they aren't "all that".
they are essentially as smart as a row of light switches.
hard to believe, isn't it.

 

[leopold]

What "other" stuff precisely?

i quoted your post 510, you can't see all that other stuff that is included?
my browser shows your post 510 to be a single line of words.
my post 515 shows that to be 15 lines of words and blank lines.
you can't see that?

 

[davewhite04]

uh, have i gotten off at the wrong stop?
what are you talking about with ". . . if people are deleting your posts . . ."?
if you are talking about the xbox then yes, deletable material would probably be stored on a HDD or in EAROM (electrically alterable ROM)

You accused the Staff of deleting your posts, don't you remember? It would be impossible for this forum to work if it was stored in ROM.

and you need to understand that while computers are indeed remarkable, they aren't "all that".
they are essentially as smart as a row of light switches.
hard to believe, isn't it.

I understand computers very well, I too have written millions of lines of code(I hope you left useful comments in your code Cris ), always build my own computer and deal with A.I on a daily basis, so do you. Spell check anyone?

 

[davewhite04]

i quoted your post 510, you can't see all that other stuff that is included?
my browser shows your post 510 to be a single line of words.
my post 515 shows that to be 15 lines of words and blank lines.
you can't see that?

You obviously quoted the wrong post.

 

[davewhite04]

Evolution has nothing to do with how man acts.

I agree, for now.

 

[Cris]

There is a big difference between a Pentium 4 and a caveman marking his kills. It is debatable who created the first computer, but it was created and didn't evolve from a caveman drawing.

Most people would agree that computers are extremely useful. If humans have the ability to create a computer why didn't an ancient Egyptian create one?

The answer is that it took a long series of other small discoveries and realizations over time about how the world operated to get to that stage. That evolutionary series of events had not reached an appropriate state at the time of ancient Egypt. The power and scope of computer abilities continue to advance over time, there is no end in sight.

No humans = No computers, simple as that.

But only within an evolutionary framework of moving from simplicity to increasing complexity. Man's intelligence is merely a component in that process and is not the initiator, or creator. We consistently build on what has gone before, making small incremental changes each time, we have never created anything complex from scratch - we are not creators, but merely a component in an ongoing evolutionary process regarding technology.

Man has been holding the hand of technology for a long time. Why did you get paid money for writing millions of lines of code if the computer could do it? At this point in time computers would be useless, and pointless if it weren't for man.

Man is not independent of his surroundings or the effects of discoveries over time. I wrote code because computers couldn't do it at that time. As time proceeded we now have programs that are code generators of other programs. Computers will at some point in the near future exceed human abilities and have already in many respects. Original creativity by computers is an inevitability, and human intelligence as part of computer evolution will become redundant.

An Xbox One is an example of evolution of technology. It learns your behavior and voice etc. and performs its chores. It does have limits however, at the moment.

The modern electronic computer began its evolution in the 1940s and has been doubling in power approximately every 12-18 months ever since and that trend doesn't appear to have an end in sight. If man was really a creator why doesn't he simply skip forward 50 years and create the computer that would be appropriate for that time? He can't since he is intimately tied to and is part of the evolutionary process of computer development progression.

God's are often quoted as being a creator as if something can be created, but we have absolutely no precedent or experience of anything complex of having ever been created from scratch. All we know from physics is that everything, matter/energy, is either converted or transformed from one type to another, and complexity always arises from preceding simplicity - evolutionary processes rule everything. And man did not create the computer, he is merely a synergistic component of its evolutionary development.

In essence there is no precedent for inventing a creator god or any need for one to exist. One could argue there had to be a beginning, but why? There cannot have been a beginning since if there was a time when nothing existed then there would have been nothing to start the beginning. And the invention of a god as the starter doesn't move the argument forward since that would require an explanation of how that god began.

 

[davewhite04]

Most people would agree that computers are extremely useful. If humans have the ability to create a computer why didn't an ancient Egyptian create one?

The answer is that it took a long series of other small discoveries and realizations over time about how the world operated to get to that stage. That evolutionary series of events had not reached an appropriate state at the time of ancient Egypt. The power and scope of computer abilities continue to advance over time, there is no end in sight.

But only within an evolutionary framework of moving from simplicity to increasing complexity. Man's intelligence is merely a component in that process and is not the initiator, or creator. We consistently build on what has gone before, making small incremental changes each time, we have never created anything complex from scratch - we are not creators, but merely a component in an ongoing evolutionary process regarding technology.

Man is not independent of his surroundings or the effects of discoveries over time. I wrote code because computers couldn't do it at that time. As time proceeded we now have programs that are code generators of other programs. Computers will at some point in the near future exceed human abilities and have already in many respects. Original creativity by computers is an inevitability, and human intelligence as part of computer evolution will become redundant.

The modern electronic computer began its evolution in the 1940s and has been doubling in power approximately every 12-18 months ever since and that trend doesn't appear to have an end in sight. If man was really a creator why doesn't he simply skip forward 50 years and create the computer that would be appropriate for that time? He can't since he is intimately tied to and is part of the evolutionary process of computer development progression.

God's are often quoted as being a creator as if something can be created, but we have absolutely no precedent or experience of anything complex of having ever been created from scratch. All we know from physics is that everything, matter/energy, is either converted or transformed from one type to another, and complexity always arises from preceding simplicity - evolutionary processes rule everything. And man did not create the computer, he is merely a synergistic component of its evolutionary development.

In essence there is no precedent for inventing a creator god or any need for one to exist. One could argue there had to be a beginning, but why? There cannot have been a beginning since if there was a time when nothing existed then there would have been nothing to start the beginning. And the invention of a god as the starter doesn't move the argument forward since that would require an explanation of how that god began.

I'll quote your whole post as it requires attention. It is one of the best posts I've read. I agree with most of what you say, the rest would result in a pointless debate as you've made your choice and you're a stubborn man, in a good way.

See Cris, Jesus didn't come for people like you(I bet you are a nice bloke, and generally don't break the law). He came for the people who were mindless rapists, murderers, even drug dealers.

 

[leopold]

You accused the Staff of deleting your posts, don't you remember? It would be impossible for this forum to work if it was stored in ROM.

have you been drinking with bells again?
talk about something coming out of left field.
i thought we left this about 4 or 5 pages ago.

I understand computers very well, I too have written millions of lines of code(I hope you left useful comments in your code Cris ), always build my own computer and deal with A.I on a daily basis, so do you. Spell check anyone?

then you must know that all a computer does is sit there, waiting for you to tell it what to do.
and it will be there a billion years from now STILL waiting.
running the same lines of code over, and over, and over, and . . . well, you get the picture.

 

[davewhite04]

have you been drinking with bells again?
talk about something coming out of left field.
i thought we left this about 4 or 5 pages ago.

I tend to remember what people say, and if they trip up I sometimes point it out.

then you must know that all a computer does is sit there, waiting for you to tell it what to do.
and it will be there a billion years from now STILL waiting.
running the same lines of code over, and over, and over, and . . . well, you get the picture.

Read what Cris explained in his last post, he says it as it is.

 

[Cris]

i believe the computer analogy to be incorrect when talking about biological evolution.
a man will walk out of a pond of goo before a computer would, my opinion.

The evolution of the computer is a manifestation of its available environmental contributors and resources - human intelligence is simply an available resource for its evolutionary progress. It is an excellent analogy to biological evolution that again only progresses depending on its available environmental resources and contributors. Given the correct raw resources, conditions and environment, life was always an inevitability.

Elements when combined or come into contact randomly through environmental forces, geology, wind, water, etc, generate a vast array of reactions and create powerful attractive and repulsive forces. A simple study of the periodic table looking at how element classes in a vertical row reveal similar and different properties gives the beginning student some wonderful insights to how chemistry and latter biological molecules form and react. Just the shape of some molecules with just very slight atomic differences generate vastly different results.

So day 1 chemistry 101 - take the explosive metal sodium and combine with the poisonous gas chlorine and the result is table salt. Who would have guessed that. It is so not obvious how so many elements and molecules react and combine to form amazing features and properties - that life is a result should not be a surprise, and isn't to the many who study such disciplines.

From these basic understandings and experiences comes the realization of how biological evolution of life is quite easily seen as inevitable.

i believe both examples are designed to adapt.
how else can they respond to random questions and random moves?

The chess machine was not designed to adapt. And was not a good example of machine intelligence. It simply used massive raw processing power to examine all possibilities to an end game and then reacted appropriately to any move given it - it simply picked the move it had already seen as a winning game it had already played out. To the uninitiated it appeared to be clever but really it was very crude. This was an illusion of machine intelligence and does not represent any type of breakthrough in true machine intelligence. It was really just a dumb machine but processing very fast.

Similarly the jeopardy machine "watson" took a similar approach, but this time used another powerful feature of computers - data storage and information retrieval. This again is a not a good example of intelligence only the illusion. The value might be that in the near future we could plug such a resource into a machine/human brain interface and have direct access to the excellent data storage and retrieval power offered.

The ability to deduce and predict based upon inadequate data is a strength of human intelligence that computers cannot do well yet. More importantly we can do it efficiently. The human brain uses just a few watts of power and remains relatively cool and is contained in a small container (our skull), whereas Watson was using kilowatts and produced massive heat and required a room to be housed.

 

[leopold]

The power and scope of computer abilities continue to advance over time, there is no end in sight.

i don't know if it still applies, but processing power used to follow moores law.
theoretically we could go all the way down to molecules.
at that point, the manufacturing process will probably change to a chemical base instead of a "photolithographic" one.

As time proceeded we now have programs that are code generators of other programs.

this, in combination with distributed computing, makes for a very interesting concept.
if computers ever figure out how to encrypt their code . . .

Computers will at some point in the near future exceed human abilities and have already in many respects.

computers beat humans with that behemoth that called itself eniac.

Original creativity by computers is an inevitability, and human intelligence as part of computer evolution will become redundant.

i can't see how computers can create anything.
the designs from my program are certainly unique, but the computer didn't create them.
they were created by a formula the program uses.
some of these designs i will never see again
fractals are another area where creativy might be assumed.
again, the computer is solving an equation.
anyway, it's a tantalizing question.

The modern electronic computer began its evolution in the 1940s and has been doubling in power approximately every 12-18 months ever since and that trend doesn't appear to have an end in sight.

yeah, that's it, moores law.
i didn't know if we hit the wall yet.
there HAS to be a molecular limit though, i don't think we can get any smaller than a molecule.
OTOH, we have the concept of optical computers.

 

[Cris]

yeah, that's it, moores law.
i didn't know if we hit the wall yet.
there HAS to be a molecular limit though, i don't think we can get any smaller than a molecule.
OTOH, we have the concept of optical computers.

Molecular limits aren't an issue since parallel processing fixed that. That's why new laptops/PCs etc all come now with multi-core processors - instead of a faster single processor you can get more power from having multiple slower processors. This ultimately leads to simpler and more efficient processing since instead of multiple apps time-sharing the same processor, the apps often have their own dedicated core to run on.

The human brain is an excellent example. It has some 100-200 billion neurons, where each neuron behaves like a small microprocessor, each taking multiple inputs and generating a single output. Neurons fire on average about 300Hz, which is very slow compared to modern computers, but 200 billion of them operating in parallel creates a total processing capacity of some 60,000 GHz - or about 30,000 times more powerful than the average laptop.

Quantum computing is the next leap forward with something of a departure from pure digital processing of bits to qubits and some degree of probabilistic computing. That coupled with massive parallel and multi-processing amounts to vastly more computing power than we have yet seen.

 

[James R]

From leopold's favorite article, here's Lewin's summary from 1980:

The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No. What is not so clear, however, is whether microevolution is totally decoupled from macroevolution. The two can more probably be seen as a continuum with a notable overlap.

The issues with which participants wrestled fell into three major areas: the tempo of evolution, the mode of evolutionary change, and the constraints on the physical form of new organisms.

Unfortunately, neither Lewin's explanation of the the various issues, nor his summary of the "conclusion" is very good in this article.

It is obvious that creationists like leopold would fall over themselves to quote-mine the first two sentences here, to imply that a group of evolutionary biologists thought that macroevolution cannot be explained by the theory of evolution. However, in so doing, these creationists ignore most of the rest of the article. And of course, when it comes to following what the actual disputed points were in the "three main areas" mentioned by Lewin in the above quote, creationists are all at sea because they don't understand or accept the unspoken assumptions behind the discussion.

Elsewhere in the article, there are clear statements that show that there were no creationists at this conference back in 1980. All those who took part in the conference were "evolutionists" before, during and after the discussions.

Lewin's assessment of what the "central question" of the conference was (as expressed above) is, in my opinion, not a good description. As written, it is confusing and unfortunately wide open to misinterpretation by those who have another agenda (like leopold).

leopold has challenged me to post the "conclusion of the conference". Like any scientific conference, no clear conclusion came out of it. Just ideas being tossed around and scientists debating the finer points of various topics. Lewin, in the above quote, came to his own conclusion about how best to describe "the central issue" and what the thrust of the arguments decided about that. But it's important to appreciate that Lewin's conclusions are only the opinion of one journalist covering the conference.

On the wider issue of whether any of this matters, the answer is clearly: no, it doesn't. This conference happened 30 years ago. None of the evolutionary biologists who took part became creationists as a result. The conference didn't conclude "well, that's it for evolution, then. Back to the drawing board!". Biology didn't stop in its tracks. What actually happened is that scientists kept working away as usual.

This 1980 conference did not tear down the theory of evolution. It was only one step in the ongoing process of refining our description and understanding of evolution. In the past 30 years, biology and genetics, based on evolutionary theory, has gone on in leaps and bounds.

Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of the theory of evolution.

 

[James R]

leopold:

go ahead, wield that ban hammer.
COMPLY OR DIE ! ! !
i was right, you ARE a commie.

I see you're insulting me. You'd do better to reply to what I've written. Otherwise, you make yourself look even more like a petulant child.

what's up james, does it hang in your craw that small changes do not accumulate?

Does it hang in your craw that you have to rely on one misquote from a 30 year old article to even start to support that contention? Is that why you're so angry?

huh?
james has the article right in front of his face.
the conclusion of this conference was stated on the very first page.
i've asked james twice already to post what it was, and he hasn't.

I responded to you request to post "the conclusion of the conference" earlier. Now that you say you want the first page, I've posted that just above. In short, I have replied to you in full.

Now, how about you show a modicum of intellectual honesty and post what you think the "conclusion of the conference" was, as described by your favorite article?

I've done my best. If you think I've got it wrong, then show me the "correct" conclusion.

If you can't do that, then you will shut up about this.

then the . . . has the gall to threaten me with a ban.

play the retard james.

There's another insult. This is a breach of sciforums site rules.

the conclusion is stated clearly along with ayalas quote.
they are 2 distinct things and both are presented in the article.

Where?

Post the quotes.

BTW, thanks for the link, it gives me a chance to prove i haven't been "pulling this for years"
most certainly not since 2007 like james said.
post 66 of your reference states such.

Actually, it looks like this particular creationist misquote and the related article were first mentioned on sciforums back in 2007, but not by you.

It looks like you first got the bee in your bonnet in 2012 or 2013 (although I might have missed some earlier threads).

So, let's say that you've been pulling this for at least 2 years, on and off. That's fair.

yes sir, ayala bitches and moans to everyone else EXCEPT to the party that published the "offending" quote.

Ayala obviously didn't think it was a big enough issue to bother contacting Science about.

there can be only one reason why science never "corrected" the ayala quote, deal with it.

Wrong!

There could be many possible reasons why Science never corrected it. The simplest is that they were never asked to. It only became a fringe issue when the creationists got onto it. Real scientists generally ignore creationist rubbish, particularly in peer reviewed journals.

i've asked him twice to post what the conclusion of the conference was, and he refuses.
then tells me not to tell lies and implies i will probably be banned.

Ironically, you're telling lies right here. I posted what I regard as some conclusions of the conference in response to your first demand that I post "the conclusion".

As for you, you apparently are keeping "the conclusion of the conference" a secret that only you know. Why is that? Why won't you tell us, leopold?

you see bells, i've read the article, i KNOW what the conclusion was, and so does james.

So, what was the conclusion? Tell us. And provide the quote(s).

this DOES NOT resolve this little situation surrounding this BOGUS retraction of ayalas.

Ayala didn't retract anything, let alone make a "bogus" retraction.

science is DIRECTLY responsible for the quote and ayala would have them by the balls legally if they didn't rectify the situation.

You're assuming that this issue is important to Ayala. It isn't. It's a non-issue for biology and evolution. Who cares if yet another creationist quote-mine is exposed? Not real science journals, that's for sure. They are for real science, not fringe creationist rubbish.

example:
you give someone a piece of paper that says "one plus one equals two".
you ask that person "what does that say?"
the "retard" replies with something other than what you asked for.

So, you correct the "retard" by posting the correct thing that you wanted. So why don't you, leopold?

you know, i have repeatedly asked james not to refer to me as a creationist
he does so with almost every post he makes to me.

You are a creationist. You don't believe that evolution happened. Therefore, all life must have been created by something. I don't much care too much whether you believe the "intelligent designer" was God or aliens or a green pixie from Milwaukee. You're a creationist because you believe in Creation and not evolution.

If the shoe fits ...

mia culpa my friends.
he usually gets called a cunt or hitler, i figured a change of pace was in order.
i think a better phrase would be frankenstein in a weenie outfit.

More insults, I see. This is a breach of our site rules, and will have to be dealt with.

exposing fraud in science isn't important?

What fraud are you talking about? Who are you accusing of scientific fraud? And where's the evidence that backs up your accusations?

the link i had no longer works, or i would.
direct from jstor servers.
like a dumbass, i didn't download the issue.
hey, ask james, i hear he has a copy.
it's probably not sourced from jstor though.

It's ok. You can access the article from the Wayback link you were given above. And so can everybody else.

just like the link i posted, some things have a habit of disappearing.

The article is available for download from Wayback for free. If you don't trust that, pay Science and download it from them.

frauds have surfaced before, and we all know it.

No we don't, because you've provided nothing that indicates fraud.

Do you have anything? If not, then post a retraction of your accusations.

i would bet a million dollars that a transcript was made of the conference.

Most scientific conferences don't have transcripts. Some modern conferences are videoed (rarely). Conferences usually publish proceedings that summarise the presentations.

i'll also bet that science has it.

No. Science publishes peer-reviewed articles.

this little dilemma throws into dispute almost every non confirmed "retraction" ever made on this subject.

Give us a few examples of other "retractions" you think are in dispute.

my honest opinion?
i wouldn't trust anything that didn't come directly from jstor servers.

Then buy the article direct from Science. That's the original source, not jstor.

um, my "precious" article came from jstor.
not from a personal site or from wayback or anywhere else.

I have a copy of the original article. The Wayback one is accurate. If you don't trust that, purchase the original from Science.