Denial of Evolution VII (2015)
- Thread starter davewhite04
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davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
I'm exclusively interested in human language.
My definition of language can be picked from any dictionary.
What I'm interested in is "why" we learnt to talk? Could it be evolution that inspired our imagination, or was there something else at work.
It is interesting to introduce "God" or "gods" because it seems that as soon as we could write we wrote about deities.
Then we have the "wheel" situation, which no doubt evolutionists will have some form of answer for, but how the hell did the written word pop up globally around the same time? What are the chances of that?
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
There were definitely more humans on earth, Cain bore children with a woman in the land of Nod.
leopold:
All I was really asking of you was that you post with honesty and integrity on this topic that means so much to you. Apparently, you regarded that as an unreasonable restriction on your posting. I realise that it's hard to admit you were wrong about something that you've been so strident about, but sometimes it's better to cut your losses. If eating humble pie isn't your thing, you could have called it quits, slunk away from that discussion and pretended it never happened.
We see this kind of thing time and again on sciforums. Somebody posts claims about something they really don't know very much about. They are, at first, merely corrected and informed by other posters. Instead of learning or admitting their initial ignorance, they dig in and try to defend the indefensible. Then comes the deluge, in which they are overloaded with rebuttals to their position. Their response is to deny, to try to change the subject, to go off on tangents or to try to restrict or redefine the discussion. When those tactics fail and the pressure builds, they decide that if they can't win the argument, they'll at least go out in a blaze of self-righteous glory. At that stage one or more moderators get involved (if they weren't already part of the discussion). And it's often all down hill from there.
You have made it quite clear that you will settle for nothing less than a permanent ban from sciforums. I have granted your request, despite the fact that I think you were angry and confused when you last posted. I hope you don't regret your decision later.
For completeness, I will respond to your last series of posts.
Look, I've already told you many times that Lewin's error in Science is no big deal. It most likely would have gone completely unnoticed had it not been for the creationists jumping on it and spreading it all over the interwebs.
Again, you accuse me of lying - about what I'm not sure. You may disagree with my assessments and/or opinions, but that doesn't make me a liar. A liar says things he knows are untrue.
What's with the "richard" comment? Is that like an insult where you really meant "dick" or something?
If it hadn't been that you've been pulling this bullshit for 3 years, then I might have been more patient with you. But you can't deny that you've had more than a fair run at this.
This left it wide open for you to find any evidence from any source (excepting the disputed Science source, naturally) where Ayala in his own words denied evolution. He never denied it in NAIG, as far as I am aware.
And there's that "retraction" thing again. Didn't you read the posts where I walked you through that?
Credentials aren't required to call Science a liar, by the way. Any fool can do that. I made no accusations that Lewin lied or that Science lied, or anybody else in this matter (except for you, leopold, about some matters).
This is tantamount to libel, you know, leopold. If NAIG or its authors cared about what you wrote, they could possibly sue you. But don't worry. I'm sure they don't care.
Goodbye leopold.
All I was really asking of you was that you post with honesty and integrity on this topic that means so much to you. Apparently, you regarded that as an unreasonable restriction on your posting. I realise that it's hard to admit you were wrong about something that you've been so strident about, but sometimes it's better to cut your losses. If eating humble pie isn't your thing, you could have called it quits, slunk away from that discussion and pretended it never happened.
We see this kind of thing time and again on sciforums. Somebody posts claims about something they really don't know very much about. They are, at first, merely corrected and informed by other posters. Instead of learning or admitting their initial ignorance, they dig in and try to defend the indefensible. Then comes the deluge, in which they are overloaded with rebuttals to their position. Their response is to deny, to try to change the subject, to go off on tangents or to try to restrict or redefine the discussion. When those tactics fail and the pressure builds, they decide that if they can't win the argument, they'll at least go out in a blaze of self-righteous glory. At that stage one or more moderators get involved (if they weren't already part of the discussion). And it's often all down hill from there.
You have made it quite clear that you will settle for nothing less than a permanent ban from sciforums. I have granted your request, despite the fact that I think you were angry and confused when you last posted. I hope you don't regret your decision later.
For completeness, I will respond to your last series of posts.
You never pointed out any fraud on my part. And I don't think you ever explained what you meant by saying that there was fraud over the whole Ayala/Science thing, either. It's easy to shout "fraud!", but it's empty unless you can produce evidence of it.
That's a silly thing to do, leopold. But I guess you weren't thinking straight.
This is a bit of a rant. Actually, this whole series of your posts is a bit of a rant, isn't it? By the looks of it, you're the only unglued one here.
Look, I've already told you many times that Lewin's error in Science is no big deal. It most likely would have gone completely unnoticed had it not been for the creationists jumping on it and spreading it all over the interwebs.
Again, you accuse me of lying - about what I'm not sure. You may disagree with my assessments and/or opinions, but that doesn't make me a liar. A liar says things he knows are untrue.
What's with the "richard" comment? Is that like an insult where you really meant "dick" or something?
On the contrary, I only wanted some honest discussion from you. Too much to ask, apparently.
I was pissed off for a number of reasons. What most got my goat about your approach to this matter, perhaps, was your blinkered approach. The spirit of intellectual enquiry says that honest pursuers of Truth should follow the evidence where it leads. Wilful blindness and denial is anti-intellectual. When people insist on sticking their heads in the sand as you did, it does annoy me. It's not just a matter of being wrong - that's no crime - it's actively closing your mind to alternative perspectives. I have very little tolerance, respect or time for people who do that. It goes against some of my personal core values.
If it hadn't been that you've been pulling this bullshit for 3 years, then I might have been more patient with you. But you can't deny that you've had more than a fair run at this.
This was option number 2 that I gave you: "Alternatively, it will also be acceptable if you can find any quote from a published source written by Ayala himself that states that Ayala thinks that evolution by natural selection is false."leopold said:
This left it wide open for you to find any evidence from any source (excepting the disputed Science source, naturally) where Ayala in his own words denied evolution. He never denied it in NAIG, as far as I am aware.
And there's that "retraction" thing again. Didn't you read the posts where I walked you through that?
You didn't fool anybody, leopold. You have no respect for Science, or for science. Your position on this is anti-intellectual.leopold said:
Credentials aren't required to call Science a liar, by the way. Any fool can do that. I made no accusations that Lewin lied or that Science lied, or anybody else in this matter (except for you, leopold, about some matters).
"We" want honest appraisal of all sources and evidence. That's what "we" want, don't "we", leopold? That is the spirit of intellectual curiosity and honesty.
And so we come to the insults - the last resort of those bereft of an argument.
I'll assume this is just anger rather than the blatant stupidity it appears to be. Obviously, I have told you over and over again that evolution does not stand or fall on one quote published 35 years ago. Given that this is my expressed opinion, you could not possibly conclude that your silly misquote could seriously perturb, let alone destroy any worldview of mine concerning evolution.
It's kind of like being attacked with a fluffy duster.
I'm not sure that the word "shill" means what you think it means.
This is tantamount to libel, you know, leopold. If NAIG or its authors cared about what you wrote, they could possibly sue you. But don't worry. I'm sure they don't care.
We can't have that, obviously. This is one reason why I have granted your request. Threats are one of the most serious breaches of our site rules.
Remember: you ultimately left because you were unwilling to have an honest and "serious" discussion.
Goodbye leopold.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Leopold: You have some interesting ideas and this
Leopold has used choice words, but banning him for defending his position is wrong.
Leopold has used choice words, but banning him for defending his position is wrong.
davewhite04,
Recall that ultimately leopold was banned because he asked to be banned.
Clearly you haven't followed the discussion. Please read through the entire thread. leopold wasn't banned for defending his position.
Recall that ultimately leopold was banned because he asked to be banned.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Not really. Leopold's "position" has been deliberately kept totally obscured. All he has been interested in talking about has been to reiterate his obsessional fixation over this alleged misreporting of some words, said or not said by one scientist, in a conference 30 years ago, in spite of the clarification made by the scientist himself. Leopold hinted that he thinks there is something wrong with the theory of evolution but has been impossible to pin down on WHAT he thinks is wrong with it and WHY.
He has preferred instead to do his best to create and maintain a cloud of suspicion and unspoken innuendo over what was said at this conference - thus casting doubt, of a nebulous kind, on the integrity of the whole science community involved with evolution, but avoiding taking any actual position on the science, or making any specific allegation that could be explored or rebutted.
That, it seems to me, is why he has been banned. I think myself it is an excellent reason for banning him.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Clearly...
Banning someone for defending his position would indeed be wrong. However:
-calling people dicks
-threatening to spam the forum with porn
-lying about what he had said in the past
-demanding a ban and threatening to misbehave until the ban was granted
are all excellent reasons to ban someone.
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
I have some interest in it and some knowledge of it, though it is not central to my interests. Thank you for responding, by the way.
I am confident that it can, however dictionaries have two limitations in relation to this discussion:
1. They offer multiple definitions.
2. These definitions are rarely ideal when dealing with a specialist subject.
So, I would really appreciate it if you would offer your own definition of language, or refer me to a specific definition in a specific dictionary. (The full version OED would be preferred, but I'll go with your wish.)
It is certainly an interesting question. I'm assuming that your quotation marks around why mean that you are asking "what pushed us in that direction", or something like that. Yes?
I'm not clear what you mean by "could it be that evolution inspired our imagination". It doesn't make sense to me. Evolution doesn't inspire, so you must be intending something else. Would you clarify that please?
Was it not on this thread that someone pointed out the first writing is all about commercial transactions. Of course writing followed many millenia after speech, so its quite possible that we were talking about gods so much we didn't need to write about them.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "wheel" situation. If you mean the invention of the wheel, I wouldn't expect evolutionists to have any answer for it since a wheel is a cultural artifact, and not subject to biological evolution.
How close in time is the emergence of written language? Since this is your singular interest you probably have more precise numbers in your mind than my own eclectic knowledge gathering can provide. It is wise not to underestimate the amount of communication between cultures, even in pre-historic times.
The wheel did not evolve, it was invented.
The wheel was useless without the axle, and without good flat roads.
Someone had to imagine them all working together, and then figure out how to make them.
Horses and oxen don't need roads, and they step over rocks and holes.
It was a huge leap of thought to believe that wheels would be superior.
And equally difficult I imagine to get someone to pay to try it out.
Irreducible complexity is used by some creationists as a proof that the bacterial flagellum is designed.
See http://www.newscientist.com/article...llum-is-irreducibly-complex.html#.VNJZbdKsURE
The wheel was useless without the axle, and without good flat roads.
Someone had to imagine them all working together, and then figure out how to make them.
Horses and oxen don't need roads, and they step over rocks and holes.
It was a huge leap of thought to believe that wheels would be superior.
And equally difficult I imagine to get someone to pay to try it out.
Irreducible complexity is used by some creationists as a proof that the bacterial flagellum is designed.
See http://www.newscientist.com/article...llum-is-irreducibly-complex.html#.VNJZbdKsURE
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From Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown University:
=====================
The assertion that cellular machines are irreducibly complex, and therefore provide proof of design, has not gone unnoticed by the scientific community. A number of detailed rebuttals have appeared in the literature, and many have pointed out the poor reasoning of recasting the classic argument from design in the modern language of biochemistry (Coyne 1996; Miller 1996; Depew 1998; Thornhill and Ussery 2000). I have suggested elsewhere that the scientific literature contains counter-examples to any assertion that evolution cannot explain biochemical complexity (Miller 1999, 147), and other workers have addressed the issue of how evolutionary mechanisms allow biological systems to increase in information content (Schneider 2000; Adami, Ofria, and Collier 2000).
The most powerful rebuttals to the flagellum story, however, have not come from direct attempts to answer the critics of evolution. Rather, they have emerged from the steady progress of scientific work on the genes and proteins associated with the flagellum and other cellular structures. Such studies have now established that the entire premise by which this molecular machine has been advanced as an argument against evolution is wrong – the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex. As we will see, the flagellum – the supreme example of the power of this new "science of design" – has failed its most basic scientific test. Remember the claim that "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional?" As the evidence has shown, nature is filled with examples of "precursors" to the flagellum that are indeed "missing a part," and yet are fully-functional. Functional enough, in some cases, to pose a serious threat to human life.
The Type -III Secretory Apparatus
. . .
The type III secretory system (TTSS), allows gram negative bacteria to translocate proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell (Heuck 1998). The TTSS does its dirty work using a handful of proteins from the base of the flagellum. From the evolutionary point of view, this relationship is hardly surprising. In fact, it's to be expected that the opportunism of evolutionary processes would mix and match proteins to produce new and novel functions. According to the doctrine of irreducible complexity, however, this should not be possible. If the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex, then removing just one part, let alone 10 or 15, should render what remains "by definition nonfunctional." Yet the TTSS is indeed fully-functional, even though it is missing most of the parts of the flagellum. The TTSS may be bad news for us, but for the bacteria that possess it, it is a truly valuable biochemical machine.
The existence of the TTSS in a wide variety of bacteria demonstrates that a small portion of the "irreducibly complex" flagellum can indeed carry out an important biological function. Since such a function is clearly favored by natural selection, the contention that the flagellum must be fully-assembled before any of its component parts can be useful is obviously incorrect. What this means is that the argument for intelligent design of the flagellum has failed. ========================
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Some great questions, I'm in the middle of cooking dinner for the family, but should be back online in about 4 hours, just in case you thought I was ignoring you.
I disagree with "the many", whoever "they" are.
It would be a mortal blow to the theory of evolution if creationists could find something that is provably irreducibly complex.
At the moment it is a creationism of the gaps, where they seize upon anything that science cannot yet explain.
Once something is explained they try to find something else.
This might interest you. I'm not sure if it is relevant, but I came across it today.
It suggests that the early earth was purple.
http://www.livescience.com/1398-early-earth-purple-study-suggests.html
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Agreed. The first person to note this was Darwin (see below) and it's been true ever since. Still nothing found that is irreducibly complex.
"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."
Also agreed. The process seems to be:
"Here is organ A! It is irreducibly complex. Therefore evolution is disproven!"
"Actually we found the precursors to A - A1, A2, A3 and A4 - and they all did something simpler which also helped the organism."
"Well, never mind that. Here is organ B! It is irreducibly complex. Therefore evolution is disproven!"
"Actually we found the precursors to B - B1, B2, B3 and B4 - and they all did something simpler which also helped the organism."
"Well, never mind that. Here is organ C! It is irreducibly complex. Therefore evolution is disproven!"
"Actually we found the precursors to C - C1, C2, C3 and C4 - and they all did something simpler which also helped the organism."
"Well, never mind that. Here is organ D! It is irreducibly complex. Therefore evolution is disproven!"
Etc.
There is a certain irony here, since I am female, and it is you who is arcing up at any constructive criticism providing by a woman. In otherwords, I'd say that this is a classic case of projection.
Your repeated cajoling of Leopold, combined with your haste to flex your authoritative muscles, reminds me of a self-proclaimed alpha male who has some deep seated insecurities. Instead of engaging in self-improvement, you seek to drag others down to your level. The question is, why? Was your mother too quick with the back of her hand? Did you have an absentee father? Are your genitalia smaller than average? I guess we'll never know, since narcissists are usually incapable of honest introspection. It's also telling that despite Leopold having willingly left the discussion and removed from the forum, you still feel the need to take a lengthy parting shot. You just can't stand not to have the last word, hey? I guess your male ego has suffered greatly from having women levy any sort of constructive criticism, that you just can't let anything go.
Sounds like you and Leopold would get along swimmingly.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
That is a good start point, I too have more interest in other areas, but want to learn much more about spoken language, even body language I might touch on.
True. Written language and spoken language.
You could say it like that, but language in our context(what I specified above) is so important, in fact essential to the rise of civilization. Words have given us the ability to simply discuss complex themes, such as astrophysics for example.
Evolution doesn't inspire and that's the conundrum.
I have found a decent source, which seems unbiased to discuss from, if you want to change the source be my guest.
The first written language(complex)
In all cases writing from a certain area followed many years, even centuries after speech. God or much more likely gods would of no doubt been discussed before writing too.
I simply used the wheel as an example of inspiration, not "evolution can't explain this!".
The first written words came about 5/6k years ago, it spread or "popped up" quite slowly to begin with, then when we get into A.D written accounts were popping up all over the place.
Divine intervention cannot be proven, evolution doesn't explain it and that is why it interests me.
Now this debate could easily drift off if we start talking about verbal communication would naturally = written communication given time. That cannot be proven, and I see the two as exclusive from one another at this point in time.
It's not my singular interest, thank God.
EDIT: A fascinating documentary about the sort of stuff i think about, it relates to this debate also: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/secrets-of-the-star-disc/
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davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
