If we thought we were ever under attack, we certainly are now!

[Bunyon]

That does not make any sence. The point is no one ever bothered to test if SH or EI were porducts of inteligent design. This fact is as obvous as the sun rising in the east. The only reason we even ask the question with DNA is becasue we have started out with certain presuposistions. DNA is, in every sense, a written lanquage, and lanquages only come about because of inteligence. But to turn the tables on you, every attempt at creating an experiment that could prove even the simplest coherent combining of nucleotides and ammeno acids has proven to be dismal failures. All our science says nucleotides and ammino acids can't form into anyting coherent in any soup, and our common sense tells us DNA and proteins are a product of inteligence, but science wont allow this obvous conclusion to be discussed therefore it is blind and biased. And bias is the death of science and its methods.

 

[npc]

You made a lot of poor analogies to things without the ability to self-replicate with mutations.

That does not make any sence. The point is no one ever bothered to test if SH or EI were porducts of inteligent design.

Yet various people starting with William Stukely spent time collecting evidence to support their ideas of who made it. ID doesn't bother with that whole "objective evidence" thing.

DNA is, in every sense, a written lanquage

Wrong. Language includes arbitrary connections between the symbol and the concept ("cat" means a cat only by convention, but the sequence AUG means methionine because of laws of chemistry).

But to turn the tables on you, every attempt at creating an experiment that could prove even the simplest coherent combining of nucleotides and ammeno acids has proven to be dismal failures.

Wrong. Polymers can be formed by dripping amino acid solutions onto hot sand, clay, or rock.

science wont allow this obvous conclusion to be discussed therefore it is blind and biased.

It's not going to be discussed because it doesn't use the scientific method. And it's only "obvous" before you start doing experiments, the same way that matter is obviously infinitely divisible.
Science has always been "biased" towards naturalistic explanations. That's what makes it separate from religion.


You also seem to be under the impression that undermining evolution supports YEC. It doesn't. Even if evolution were completely disproved, YEC would be supported by objective evidence no better than any other explanation for life.

 

[Bunyon]

I have not said anything about yec, only that DNA is obviously designed, for all the reason I have stated. No experiment has even come close to producing any meaningful sequences of DNA or Ammino acids. That is a fact. And it is even more complicated than that. You can't have one without the other. All the work that is done with DNA transcription and translations, is done by proteins, but all the info needed to make the protien is in the DNA. My analagie is simple. If you crawled into a remote, deep, dark cave and found true information etched into a rock, you would conclued without any doubts that an inteligence had been there. DNA and Protein are the ultimate in information. We can conclude the same thing for the same reasons, an inteligence has been involved in the ordering of our DNA. It could not happen without the input of an inteligent Being. No natural process can account for it. It is really that simply.

PS the fact that you would take the appearance of a macromolecule in a laboratory soup as giving any weight at all to the much more complicated postulation of nucleotides and ammino acids assembling themsleves into any meaningful sequence by a natural process, is evidence of how biased you are in this subject.

 

[npc]

You can't have one without the other. All the work that is done with DNA transcription and translations, is done by proteins, but all the info needed to make the protien is in the DNA.

That's why most scientists believe RNA preceded DNA.

My analagie is simple. If you crawled into a remote, deep, dark cave and found true information etched into a rock, you would conclued without any doubts that an inteligence had been there.

All your analogies fail because none of them were about information with the ability and sole purpose to self-replicate. With life, evolution provides an adequate designer.

PS the fact that you would take the appearance of a macromolecule in a laboratory soup as giving any weight at all to the much more complicated postulation of nucleotides and ammino acids assembling themsleves into any meaningful sequence by a natural process, is evidence of how biased you are in this subject.

I don't have an explanation for the formation of larger molecules. However, I'm not willing to simply decide "God must have done it" because at one point people believed the same things about rainbows and lightning.

 

[Bunyon]

"That's why most scientists believe RNA preceded DNA."--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That does not change anything.

"All your analogies fail because none of them were about information with the ability and sole purpose to self-replicate. With life, evolution provides an adequate designer."-------------------------------------------------------------------

Since science has not even gotten to first base in its attempt to prove this, it can only be an article of faith on your part.

Inteligent design does not go that far- to say God did it- or to identify the inteligence, just that an inteligence had to have been involved because natural processes can't explain it, just like no natural process can explain how a row of faces got placed on the beach on Easter Island all facing out to sea.

 

[npc]

That does not change anything.

It gets around the "DNA needs protein needs DNA", which I quoted, because some RNA is capable of self-replicating.

Since science has not even gotten to first base in its attempt to prove this, it can only be an article of faith on your part.

Theories never get proven; they're either disproven or supported by experiment. There's been plenty of opportunity for evolution to be disproven, and it hasn't so far.

Your analogies aren't getting any more convincing or relevant as you repeat them.

 

[Bunyon]

"It gets around the "DNA needs protein needs DNA", which I quoted, because some RNA is capable of self-replicating."=========================================================================

Yet RNA needs DNA or RNA, so it really does not get around anything.

"Theories never get proven; they're either disproven or supported by experiment. There's been plenty of opportunity for evolution to be disproven, and it hasn't so far."-----------------------------------------------------------------

Science can't disprove that I was Gangus Khan in a former life either. So I think the burden of proof lies on the therorist who puts forth the theory.

"Your analogies aren't getting any more convincing or relevant as you repeat them."-------------------------------------------------------

To a closed mind, nothing gets more convincing or relevant. Besides, the more we learn the more we see that evolution is not possible, it gets less convincing and less relevent no matter how often it is repeated.

 

[npc]

Yet RNA needs DNA or RNA, so it really does not get around anything.

How does RNA that can self-replicate not get around your claim of "DNA needs protein needs DNA"?

Science can't disprove that I was Gangus Khan in a former life either.

Poor analogy. That isn't a naturalistic theory and it can't be tested.

I think the burden of proof lies on the therorist who puts forth the theory.

Indeed it does. But let's be fair to other fields as well. Since physicists aren't comletely certain what causes lightning, we ought to be more skeptical of everything they say about electricity. Maybe Zeus is actually causing it!

To a closed mind, nothing gets more convincing or relevant.

I stated why your analogies are meaningless, you continued to use them, and that makes me closed-minded?

Besides, the more we learn the more we see that evolution is not possible, it gets less convincing and less relevent no matter how often it is repeated.

Who is "we"? Fundamentalist literalists, I suppose. Certainly not the scientific community.

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
If you believe you can't confirm the Sun rises in the East without first employing the Scientific Method, you have made a religion of science and its methods.

Hmmm, the sun doesn't rise in the East - the earth turns on its axis. We say the sun rises metaphorically now, but we used to mean it literally. Score one for science and Copernicus.

If science can't see the obvious because it has started out with the presuposistion that only that which can be subjected to experimentation is knowable, than science is blind and only the blind follow her.

Sometimes the "obvious" is an illusion.

 

[carpro]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
When we discovered easter Island and saw the statues we asked, "WHO made theses and why?". When we found stonehinge we asked, "Who made this and why". We never even considered that randome chance could have produced these things with obvious "design" in them.

The sequence and order found in DNA and in Portiens is just as specific and complex, in fact more complex than the order found in Stonehinge or in the Easter Island statues. When one takes a moment to educate oneslef about DNA and Proteins, one can only come to the same conclusion as one does about Stonehinge or Easter Island. Someone designed us! Any other postulation is absurd.

Good, easy to understand , and true analogy.

Thanks.

 

[Bunyon]

NPH, you have been fun to talk too.

"How does RNA that can self-replicate not get around your claim of "DNA needs protein needs DNA"?"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It does get around it my friend, but it does not get around the ultimate point. Self replicating RNA still needs a inteligence to design it. It can self replicate, but it can't self order from the individual nucleotides.

"I stated why your analogies are meaningless, you continued to use them, and that makes me closed-minded?"-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since they aren't meaningless, you must be closed minded.

"Who is "we"? Fundamentalist literalists, I suppose. Certainly not the scientific community."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even Crick of Watson and Crick has said there is no conceviable way that Nucleotides and ammino acids can self order in any kind of medium.

"Hmmm, the sun doesn't rise in the East - the earth turns on its axis. We say the sun rises metaphorically now, but we used to mean it literally. Score one for science and Copernicus."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daisy, do you have anything meaningful to say or are you just being a nit picker.

NPH, I did want to adress what you said about the A,T,C"S etc being a covention to represent something. Of course it is, but it actually represents a language. The A,B,C's are a convention also, yet they represent a lanquage. We can read DNA, We can determine the gene for isuline,because we can read it in the nucleotide sequence.

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
Daisy, do you have anything meaningful to say or are you just being a nit picker.

Bunyon, that is a major point, not nit-picking.

You said that one doesn't need science to tell that the sun rises in the East. For thousands of years, that was the prevailing thought until Copernicus with his tests, his observations, his calculations, his science determined that the earth rotated on its axis, that the earth revolved around the sun and the earth was not the center of the universe.

Your point, that what is "obvious" is right and true with no need for science, is demonstrably false on the very example that you yourself chose.

That's hardly nit-picking.

 

[Bunyon]

I think we all know that the Earth rotates and we aren't contradicting that fact by using a common phrase. Ususally what is obvious is juat that - obvious. Just because some folks have gotten some things wrong at times does not change that. Unless you are suggesting that the assumption that humans carved the statues on easter Island and placed them is not correct and may have some other natural explanation.

But there is NO evidence that Nucleotides and ammino acids can self assemble. So why do we act as if it is possible?

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
I think we all know that the Earth rotates and we aren't contradicting that fact by using a common phrase. Ususally what is obvious is juat that - obvious.

How is it obvious that the earth rotates and that the sun does not circle the earth? Yes, we know it now, but only thanks to science.

Just because some folks have gotten some things wrong at times does not change that.

Hey, this was your example and it was not trivial. You know very well that it wasn't simply "some folks", it was nearly everybody for at least thousands of years - until science came along in the form of Copernicus.

Unless you are suggesting that the assumption that humans carved the statues on easter Island and placed them is not correct and may have some other natural explanation.

The statues on Easter Island are similar to other statues which people have seen being made, the traditional stories of the Rapa Nui whose ancestors did the carving and similarity of ongoing Rapa Nui wood carvings - there was no reason to think otherwise.

But there is NO evidence that Nucleotides and ammino acids can self assemble. So why do we act as if it is possible?

That question is why ID is not science - instead of making hypotheses and testing for results, ID simply stops research with "can't be done, we've reached the end of the knowable".

From the brief reading I've done (my ignorance is near total on this subject), it seems that rather than there be NO evidence that the Nucleotides can self-assemble, the pathways and steps being well-known. De novo synthesis of purine Nucleotides is done in laboratories. Montmorillonite clay may be found to be the natural catalyst.

We could adopt the ID approach and stop looking any further and be content with what we do know and sttribute everything else to the complexity of the designer or we can continue to investigate via science.

 

[Bunyon]

"How is it obvious that the earth rotates and that the sun does not circle the earth? Yes, we know it now, but only thanks to science. "--------------------------------------------------------

You think you are not nit picking but you are. Everyone understands by point about the sun "riseing" you are just unecessarly complicating the conversation.

"De novo synthesis of purine Nucleotides is done in laboratories. Montmorillonite clay may be found to be the natural catalyst."---------------------------------------------------------------

The appearance of a purine nucleotide is light years from the constructon of a ordered, sequenced and fuctional DNA molecule. To make the leap from the natural formation of a nucleotide to the natural formattion of DNA or RNA, is like making a leap from Iron ore to a car, this shows you bias.

"We could adopt the ID approach and stop looking any further and be content with what we do know and sttribute everything else to the complexity of the designer or we can continue to investigate via science"--------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are saying if we accepted the obvious, we would look no further. I would think realizing the obvious aobut Easter Island made us more courious. We all know about it, don't we. Realizing that an inteligent being ordered our DNA should make us more courious and drive us to investigate further, well, unless of course we are afraid of what the answer might be?

 

[Eric B]

Still, the comparison to the sun in the east is significant, because people in another discussion I am having are claiming evolution is as much of a "Fact" as gravity!
Based on this, those who don't understand evolution and haven't done all the research (yet object to the rejection of design), are called "idiots" and "embarrassments" and that is at best! At worst, they are dishonest and deceitful, which is a charge being leveled at ID.

ID may claim "we have reached the end of what is knowable", but still, it is a far cry from dishonesty, unless evolution really is as obvious as gravity, and the "evidence" for it as absolute. I guess it's supposed to be if you do the research, but once again, that is not infallibly conclusive, and this is certainly not enough to make those judgments about people.

Also, does anyone know about this whole thing with Behe I keep seeing mentioned? He was supposed to have bombed so horribly at the court case, and found to have reviewed his own book and covered it up, and now his career is over, or whatever. Is there any truth to all of this? Or is it just the evolutionist slant?
I just can't stand to see a brother bashed the way they are doing (saying he has laost his marbles and all the st kind of stuff).

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
You think you are not nit picking but you are. Everyone understands by point about the sun "riseing" you are just unecessarly complicating the conversation.

No, you seem not to understand what a major step in science that was. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition for advocating heliocentrism. The religious leaders of the day dictated to scholars what view of the relationship of the heavens to earth they may hold based on a literal reading of the Bible.

You say it is "obvious" that the earth rotates just as before you stated that it was "obvious" that the sun rises. I ask again, how is it obvious that the earth rotates and the sun does not rise? Seriously, if you hadn't been taught that in school, would you have been able to figure it out on your own?

The appearance of a purine nucleotide is light years from the constructon of a ordered, sequenced and fuctional DNA molecule. To make the leap from the natural formation of a nucleotide to the natural formattion of DNA or RNA, is like making a leap from Iron ore to a car, this shows you bias.

Light years? More like millimeters. New instances of known nucleotides are formed all the time. In what way is the formation of nucleotides to the formation of RNA anything like iron ore to a car? As I mentioned before, I really don't know much about nucleotides except that they are synthesised de novo all the time. Molecular biologists synethesize RNA from nucleotides in vitro all the time.

Frankly I don't see how your iron ore-car/nucleotides-RNA analogy works at all. What part of the DNA process resembles smelting? Is upholstery a part of it? Do cars self-replicate? Please explain further.

You are saying if we accepted the obvious, we would look no further.

Partly, but more importantly that what may seem obvious may not be true.

I would think realizing the obvious aobut Easter Island made us more courious. We all know about it, don't we.

Do we? I believe that excavations and studies of the culture are still ongoing.

Realizing that an inteligent being ordered our DNA should make us more courious and drive us to investigate further, well, unless of course we are afraid of what the answer might be?

If your point is that a belief in God shouldn't interfere in the study of science, I concur.

 

[Bunyon]

About the Earth. It may not be obviouls to the ancients that the rotates, but it was obvious that the sun rises in the East and it does. I did not adress how obvious the reason are in my comments. Can we get of this tangent now?

Daisy, Daisy, Daisy LOL A scientist sythisising a DNA from nucleotides in the laboratory is just another example of inteligent design. The point is there is no evidence that nucleotides ever self assembled into a functional DNA strand in any medium. Just as Iron or has never self assembled into a car.

"Do we? I believe that excavations and studies of the culture are still ongoing."--------------------------------------------------------------

But no one has conducted a study to determine if an inteligence designed the statues on Easter Island. It is assumed because it is obvious. No one ever conducted a study to see if they were formed and place by natural means.

"If your point is that a belief in God shouldn't interfere in the study of science, I concur."-----------------------------------------------------

My point is and was that if science ignores ID simply because it is obvious that DNA was designed by an inteligence because they are afraid that it might give some credence to the existence of a higher being, than they have lost their objectivity. To ignore the obvious is to loose one's objectivity. And that is sciences downfall- loss of objectivity.

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
About the Earth. It may not be obviouls to the ancients that the rotates, but it was obvious that the sun rises in the East and it does.

No, Bunyon, the sun does NOT rise in the East - it only appears to do so. This is not trivial and it's not a tangent - this is the first example that you yourself used and it undermines your own argument that science is not needed to explain the "obvious". You should just admit that science is correct in this case and your common sense is mistaken.

I did not adress how obvious the reason are in my comments. Can we get of this tangent now?

No, not until you either explain how (meaning 'in what way', not 'to what degree') it is obvious that the earth rotates or until you admit that the example you used does not support your contention. Bluster won't do, Bunyon, nor will ridiculing me.

Daisy, Daisy, Daisy LOL A scientist sythisising a DNA from nucleotides in the laboratory is just another example of inteligent design.

Actually not, Bunyon. The scientist is not designing the DNA, in my example, he is replicating the natural process.

The point is there is no evidence that nucleotides ever self assembled into a functional DNA strand in any medium.

In this case, it is the DNA that is self-assembling out of many nucleotides; the nucleotides have self-assembled out of other stuff. I don't know if it has been observed self-replicating in the wild.

Just as Iron or has never self assembled into a car.

On the other hand, we have seen cars being assembled by workers - have we ever seen DNA being assembled by a supernatural Designer?

But no one has conducted a study to determine if an inteligence designed the statues on Easter Island. It is assumed because it is obvious. No one ever conducted a study to see if they were formed and place by natural means.

How do you know? I believe the "tests" they formed were simple - the Europeans asked the natives, "Who made these?". I'm pretty sure they (the monoliths not the islanders) were examined for telltale chisel marks and such to see if the original artists were more like the Chilean or the Polynesian known sculptures.

My point is and was that if science ignores ID simply because it is obvious that DNA was designed by an inteligence because they are afraid that it might give some credence to the existence of a higher being, than they have lost their objectivity.

How is it obvious that DNA was "designed by an intelligence"? Can such a thing be tested one way or another? If so, what would the test be?

Since ID posits that everything is designed, being designed loses its meaning - you can't distinguish the designed from the undesigned if everything is designed and nothing undesigned. The quality of having been designed loses any and all significance in the study of nature and science.

The existence of a "higher being" is simply outside of science.

To ignore the obvious is to loose one's objectivity.

Questioning and testing the "obvious" is not ignoring it - just as Copernicus tested that the sun and stars obviously circled around the earth.

And that is sciences downfall- loss of objectivity.

Science tests what can be tested, measures what can be measured. God cannot be measured or tested.

 

[LadyEagle]

Anyway, this is the 3-page warning: this thread will be closed no sooner than 4:00 a.m. ET by one of the moderators.

Lady Eagle,
Moderator