The Collapse of Intelligent Design:Kenneth R. Miller Lecture

The Collapse of Intelligent Design: Will the Next Monkey Trial be in Ohio? Kenneth R. Miller's presentation on Intelligent Design. Recorded January 3, 2006 in Strosacker auditorium. Kenneth R. Miller is the Professor of Biology Royce Family Professor for Teaching Excellence at Brown University.

[@walkergarya]

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin

[@scribbler2530]

There is a name for that: the Dunning Kruger effect...basically summed up as "dumb and too stupid to realise" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

[@walkergarya]

@@scribbler2530 That is true but Darwin said this over 100 years ago. I don't know if he said it first though.

[@donaldwilliamfry]

And when willful "ignorance" becomes the hallmark of science, then science becomes the problem. The primary problem of the human race is sin. Science tends to just give sin more effective weapons for self-destruction of the human race, rather than solutions. Now, allow divine ethics to give a rudder to science and you might have some good tools. However you still will not solve humankind's ultimate problem.

[@gordendavis3585]

simple its human nature for the uneducated and ignorant people to follow a stupid confident (charismatic) fool..

[@MyMy-tv7fd]

accurate reference?

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

For Intelligent Design, the ID Creationists have: 1) No plausible, testable candidate for the Designer Without such a candidate for the Designer, the entire Intelligent Design “theory” collapses immediately. You can't have a "theory" if you have no plausible, testable candidate for the central thing in that theory. The most "plausible" Designer they can come up with is a god; but a god is the most implausible being imaginable! Also, if they propose God as the designer, then ID is clearly religious, and not science. 2) No valid, objective, positive evidence that the alleged Designer actually exists. No matter what Designer they put forward, the ID Creationists must first show that their Designer actually exists before any claims they make about their alleged Designer supposedly doing this or that have any meaning. It is easy to say, “The Supreme Council of Magical Invisible Flying Polkadotted Mermaid-Werewolf-Zombies created the bacterial flagellum”, but until someone shows that The Supreme Council of Magical Invisible Flying Polkadotted Mermaid-Werewolf-Zombies actually exists, the claim that it/they created the bacterial flagellum is worthless. Same goes for their Designer. 3) No valid, testable, plausible explanation for the origin of the information in the alleged Intelligent Designer. ID Creationists don’t even try to explain how the vast amounts of information that the Intelligent Designer would have come about; they just try to wish it into existence, as if by magic. So despite their implications that they explain the origin of complex specified information, ID Creationists aren't explaining where any information comes from … none at all! So what exactly are they supposed to be explaining?? 4) No valid, testable, plausible mechanism for the Designer to actualize His designs. Just saying "Design" does not give us a mechanism: It does not describe how a design in the mind of the alleged Intelligent Designer would get instantiated physically in the genomes of living organisms. And no, POOF! is not valid, testable, or plausible! PS: When scientists manipulate the genome of a mouse, for example, then lay out in minute detail every step they perform. That is what is needed, and ID Creationists can't provide it for their position. 5) No confirmed Intelligently Designed biological system ID Creationists cannot show us even a single biological system that is, according to the consensus of biologists, intelligently designed. Not one! A biological system that only a handful of fringe biologists claim is intelligently designed does not suffice. It must be the consensus of biologists that the system was. And, of course, with modern biotechnology, there are examples of intelligently designed biological “things”, but that doesn't help the ID Creationists. Humans could not be the Intelligent Designer of ID: how could a human have created the bacterial flagellum more than a billion years ago? A biological “thing” created by humans is not a valid example of a biological system that was allegedly intelligently designed by the alleged Intelligent Designer of ID, and it is the latter that they must provide.

[@harrybinn4455]

Your whole post is nonsense and if you'd actually spent 2 minutes looking at something outside your bubble you'd see that the whole so called scientific world is just an dogmatic atheistic belief system that has constantly changing and filled with fraud from the piltdown man to the paleontological drawings that are 95% creative imagination and 2% actual physical structure. The remaining percentage is just BS.

[@walkergarya]

From Lehigh University Department position on evolution and "intelligent design" The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others. The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

[@jasonvance4801]

The evidence clearly supports intelligent design. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4SvkKuniNuKp7csi=97127NDHrIVpRQfP

[@lukehelpmetakethisdangmaskoff]

Yes, by all means engage in the scientific method and learn how Darwinian Evolution has been soundly falsified. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fn-ycqKFg7eVbJIsi=G7aqAr6BoXS5bw_Z

[@walkergarya]

The Origins of the Intelligent Design movement "Our strategy has been to change the subject so that we can get the issue of intelligent design - which really means the reality of God's creation - before the academic world and into the schools. This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science or the truth. It's about winning at any cost, and affirming the reality of the God of The Christian Bible, by challenging the domination of materialism and naturalism in the academic arena. With the assistance of many friends I have developed a strategy for doing this which we call "The wedge". But remember, we must avoid debating the Bible and the Book of Genesis at all costs because we do not want to raise the obvious Bible-science dichotomy. Our goal is, "how to win". Phrase the pseudoscience argument in such a way that you can get it heard in secular academia and in a way that tends to unify other science illiterates religious fence-sitters. You must also avoid getting sidetracked onto other issues (like empirical evidence) which our intellectual superiors people are always trying to do." - Phillip E Johnson - the father of the ID/creation-science movement Conclusion: Creationists/ID fans are dishonest cowards

[@travisbicklepopsicle]

I've mentioned the wedge document to several young Earth creationists and ID proponents. I asked them to read it, and tell me what they think about it. Just like your comment, I've never received a single response from any of them.

[@jounisuninen]

​@@travisbicklepopsicle I guess Phillip E Johnson - the father of the ID/creation-science movement is himself responsible for what he says. Nobody else. After years of observing the battle between the evolution theory and the intelligent design, I have come to the conclusion that here we have a battle between atheism and science. Richard Dawkins’ words are revealing: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Dawkins inadvertently admits that atheism per se has nothing to do with intellect or science. Atheists are just happy if they feel like getting some support from Darwin. Here we can see Dawkins’ atheistic world view but no scientific approach. Dawkins also seems to be painfully ignorant of genome’s limits to produce evolution in the basic anatomical structure of any given organism. This is the core problem for a credible evolution theory. Only superficial adaptive changes are scientifically verified. Natural selection could produce evolution if it could deliver new genes to the survivors. Natural selection however delivers nothing, it just destroys individuals who have less suitable genes for the environment where they live. The winners must go on with the genes they have. Mutations are destructive, not constructive. So they can’t help evolution either. Science does not know mutations that would’ve transformed the basic anatomical structure of any given organism. All known mutations or gene losses have caused non-structural consequences like sickle-cell mutation, lactose tolerance, wingless flies, antibiotic resistant bacteria etc. Sadly, these mutations often have harmful or deadly consequences. Some scíentists’ opinions: ”Because the biggest part of mutations - if they have any effect - are harmful, their overall effect must be harmful.” [Crow, J., The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk? Proc Natl Acad Sci 94:8380-8386, 1997.] Of the same opinion are also Keightley and Lynch: ”Major part of mutations are harmful.” [Keightley, P. & Lynch, M., Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683-685, 2003.] Gerrish and Lenski estimate that the proportion of useful mutations vs. harmful mutations is 1:1000 000. [Gerrish P.J., & Lenski, R., The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Gentetica 102(103):127-144, 1998.] Ohta, Kimura, Elena and others have estimated, that the proportion of useful mutations is so low that it can’t be statistically measured! [Ohta, T., Molecular evolution and polymorphism. Natl Inst Genet Mishima Japan 76:148-167, 1977.] [Kimura, M., Model of effective neutral mutaitons in which selective constraint is incorporated. PNAS 76:3440-3444, 1979.] [Elena, S.F. et al, Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in E. Coli. Gentetica 102/103:349-358, 1998.]

[@david672orford]

@@travisbicklepopsicle I will be happy to reply. I agree with many of the views of Phil Johnson. I have read the Wedge Document. I don't see it as a smoking gun. Phil Johnson and many other ID advocates view scientific materialism as a non-theistic religion masquerading as objective science. In this view this metaphysical belief system has done an end run around the First Amendment and gained improper influence over public institutions. The Wedge Document describes a strategy to restore what they see as the proper balance between the influence of different belief systems. I understand that you may not accept that scientific materialism is a belief system or that it has the same epistemological status as belief systems such as Christian theism, but they do and have well-researched arguments to back it up. I think you would have a hard time explaining why what the Discover Institute is doing is nefarious but what, say, the National Center for Science Education is doing is not.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, I just turned my water faucet on and a continuous stream of water droplets moved from the opening in the faucet down to the basin of the sink. How many invisible angels did it take to push those water droplets down, giving the false appearance of gravity?

[@Piercetheveilnow]

What it did take were Intelligent Agents that designed a water facility that could supply the water. Intelligence did that. It also took plumbers that also used intelligence to lay the pipes. Intelligence. Just like our universe, complete with “Laws” of Nature took Intelligence. It certainly didn’t come from nothing, just like the water coming out of your faucet.

[@markedmunds1966]

He thought Astrology had made some important contributions to science, let’s just consider that for a moment and understand it’s a university biology professor who says that.

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

😔

[@jeffnolan2021]

Well, before scientists called themselves scientists, they were philosophers of science. They observed patterns in nature and proposed theories built upon the base of knowledge available. Archimedes, Copernicus, Galileo, the Mayans, Confucius, looked to the skies to find correlation to meaningful events on Earth. Much of our early understanding of patterns in celestial bodies advanced many fields of academia. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Consider for a moment you define yourself as an intellectual, and yet overlook this concept.

[@RustyWalker]

"Cdesign proponentsists" will live on .. in infamy, or at least it shows certain persons of faith will happily lie in the name of Jesus. I'm not convinced Jesus would be very happy with that decision.

[@garywalker447]

Quote from an article on the fallacies of Intelligent Design. "In contrast, intelligent design is a less comprehensive alternative to evolutionary theory. While evolution relies upon detailed, well-defined processes such as mutation and natural selection, ID offers no descriptions of the design process or the designer. In fact, proponents do not even agree among themselves as to which biological phenomena were designed and which were not. Ultimately, this “theory” amounts to nothing more than pointing to holes in evolution and responding with a one-word, unceasingly repeated mantra: “design.” But unless ID advocates fill in the details, there is no way to scientifically test intelligent design or make predictions from it for future research. In short, it is not valid science. These deceptive tactics have brought the ID movement limited success but cannot change the essential facts about intelligent design. ID offers scattered and questionable critiques of evolution as the sole evidence for “design” and promotes a vague notion which lacks the detail and scientific rigor necessary to constitute an alternative scientific theory. Furthermore, advocates push ID in an ill-conceived effort to challenge materialistic philosophy, advance faith in a narrow conception of god, and establish a politically faith based ideology in public life. Their efforts actually undermine our strongest traditions and understandings of science, faith, and honest political debate." (Bryan Collinsworth: The Flaws in Intelligent Design)

[@CesarClouds]

"Right now we've got a bag of powerful intuitions... but, as of yet, no general theory of biological design". -Paul Nelson Philosopher of Science Touchstone Magazine (a Christian magazine)

[@sombodysdad]

There isn't any scientific theory of evolution.

[@CesarClouds]

@@sombodysdad Then you should never take FDA approved medication since it's predicated on common descent.

[@sombodysdad]

@@CesarClouds Nope. Nothing is predicated on universal common descent.

[@CesarClouds]

@sombodysdad FDA approved medication is predicated on common descent because the trials are done on animals. Look up "model organism" in its relation to common descent.

[@sombodysdad]

@@CesarClouds A common design explains that.

[@garywalker447]

Whales evolved over the past 55 million years from land animals. This is shown through the fossil record that start with Pakicetus that was identified as the precursor to the whale lineage by the presence of an S shaped bone in the skull of Pakicetus that is unique to whales as well as an unusual double tendon arrangement on the limbs of Pakicetus and is still found in the flippers of modern whales. Neither of these features are found in any other animals. It is also noted that by comparing the genomes of many species, the closest living relative of whales is the hippo, another aquatic mammal.

[@walkergarya]

Creationism, including Intelligent Design Creationism, is pushed by fools and frauds. There is NO other option.

[@walkergarya]

At the entrance gate of a university in South Africa, the following message was posted for contemplation. “Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long range missiles… It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by the students..” Patients die at the hands of such doctors… Buildings collapse at the hands of such engineers…. Money is lost at the hands of such economists and accountants… Humanity dies at the hands of such religious scholars… Justice is lost at the hands of such judges… “The collapse of education is the collapse of the nation”.

[@STEVENFRYFRY]

Welcome to the USA

[@samomarincek478]

perhaps we should add another message from the university in the time of socialism. "What is Marxism? It is a scientific view of the world."

[@stephen1137]

@@samomarincek478 Nope. Marx rejected the spirit which we know to be a constant in human life. His materialistic view is actually anti-science.

[@samomarincek478]

@@stephen1137 hmm... in my former country you would have serious problems with such a statement. If you were a scientist or teacher, you would be fired immediately. You see, science is a very extensible concept, my friend. It depends on money, which is shared by politicians.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Sex change operations? Where's the science?

[@walkergarya]

Creationism had nothing to offer any scientific discussion. Never has, never will.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, The complexity of the simplest intelligence that could possibly create life is many orders of magnitude greater than the complexity of the simplest life (the first living thing). As Creationists love to point out, even humans cannot create life yet. So the level of intelligence needed to create life is above even that of modern humans and our ultracomplex brains. Human brains are far more complex than the brains of the simplest mammals (as an example, mice), and their brains are far more complex than the brains of the simplest vertebrates (as an example, zebrafish), and their brains are far more complex than those of the simplest animals with brains (as an example, xenoturbellids), and the simplest animals with brains are far more complex than the simplest animals (as an example, sponges and placozoans), and the simplest animals are far more complex than the simplest eukaryotes (as an example, entamoeba), the simplest eukaryotes are far more complex than the simplest prokaryotes (as an example, E. coli), and the simplest prokaryotes are far more complex than the first living thing would have been. Again, the complexity of the simplest intelligence that could possibly create life is many orders of magnitude greater than the complexity of the first living thing. Therefore, the probability that the level of intelligence needed to create life could arise naturally in the absence of life is far far far far far far less than the probability that the simplest life could arise naturally in the absence of intelligence. To paraphrase a fictional character from an ancient book of mythology, those foolish enough to claim that abiogenesis required intelligence "strain out a bacterium, but swallow a galaxy". The origin of life didn't require preexisting intelligence, the origin of intelligence required preexisting life. PS: If you leave the realm of natural processes and jump off into the fantasy world of supernatural beings, then the probability becomes even worse: a valid probability for such a being is basically 0 (and if your alleged supernatural being supposedly created the universe, then its probability falls to literally 0).

[@Mcfreddo]

That is an extremely erudite post. It's effin fantastic! Not laid out in a way I have ever thought of, but is just how it really is. Thank you so much! I'm going to remember that one. I want a copy. I didn't think I was going to start to watch this (I haven't finished at writing,) especially when it all started with a god bothering prayer!

[@norbertjendruschj9121]

Interesting line of argumentation though maybe a fight against a strawman. Human´s intelligence is sufficient to create artificial life, that´s only a question of further technological development.

[@walkergarya]

cdesign proponentsists!

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

PS: Another difference is that with the Morse code, you can reverse the process and get back the original message, but that is not the case with the "genetic code". Talking about humans exchanging information here and talking metaphorically in some cases. If someone uses the Morse code and sends dash dot dot dot, the receiver can use the Morse code lookup table to decode that into the letter B, unambiguously. Also, the letter B can be encoded only as dash dot dot dot: both directions, there is no ambiguity. It is a one-to-one, unambiguous mapping. On the other hand, if someone uses the genetic code and sends CUU, the receiver can use the genetic code lookup table to decode that into Leucine, unambiguously. However, the amino acid leucine cannot be encoded as only 1 codon: there is ambiguity. Leucine has 6 codons that it can be encoded as: UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, or CUG. So there is no ambiguity in only one direction - in the other direction, there can be a lot of ambiguity. This also is unlike the Morse Code ... and ASCII code, and Unicode, etc.

[@h0ph1p13]

@TonyTigerTonyTiger You said: "PS: Another difference is that with the Morse code, you can reverse the process and get back the original message, but that is not the case with the "genetic code"" Please hear me out I am a programmer. We write code, that is "human readable" code (similar to Morse). And you can read and understand code written by another programmer. But code is not DIRECTLY used on computers. Code is "translated" into "binary" code (zeroes and ones). Binary is NOT reversible to normal programming language code. That binary code functions on the hardware level of the computer. It is designed to be read by the computer and run on a computer. However binary code (since it is only 0 and 1-s) does not carry much meaning to humans (if any). While it is perfectly working on machine level. DNA is similar in that it cannot be easily read by humans. So DNA is the "binary", while not easy-to-read by humans it is still "code" in the full sense of the word. It carries information/instructions for the cells to execute. No programmer would ever say that because binary is hard to reason about it's not "code". Binary was created for the specific purpose of being read by a computer. So while DNA might be hard to reason about it doesn't in any way shape or form make it "less intelligent" and "more random". DNA was just created to be "executed" on a "biological hardware".

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@h0ph1p13 Decompilers can take machine language and convert into a high-level programming language.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@h0ph1p13 And at a lower level, disassemblers can take machine language and convert it into assembly language.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@h0ph1p13 And even those that I mentioned are at too high of level. The "code" in molecular biology is used during translation (also a metaphor), where triplets of mRNA bases are "translated" into the corresponding amino acids. Where is the analogous thing in a computer? It's not a human writing C++, C#, Python, JavaScript, etc. You would need to get your analogy more similar to what happens in biology before we could consider it in detail.

[@walkergarya]

Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday. Under cross examination, ID proponent Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, admitted his definition of “theory” was so broad it would also include astrology.

[@garywalker447]

"Intelligent design" originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguilard ruling involving separation of church and state.[18] Its first significant published use was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.[19] Several additional books on "intelligent design" were published in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents had begun clustering around the Discovery Institute and more publicly advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula.[20] With the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture serving a central role in planning and funding, the "intelligent design movement" grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 "Dover trial" challenging the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes.[5] In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life". U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and concluded that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[21] bionity.com/en/encyclopedia/Intelligent_design.html

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, PPS: There are even more differences. For example, being metaphorical again, a "stop" codon can be remapped to a different amino acid in some organisms or organelles. That would be like dash dot dot dot mapping to the letter B in some Morse codes, but mapping to the letter H, or K, or W in others. So even the above-mentioned unambiguous nature of the genetic code in one direction is not actually unambiguous. PPPS: There are even more differences!

[@garywalker447]

Old world primates have a unique version of color vision with a unique mutation of the genes that control the development of the cones that sense the different wavelengths of light. Most mammals see the high frequency light, the blues to green and the middle, greens to yellow. About 40 million years ago the ancestor to old world primates had a gene duplication of the gene that develops the cones in the retina for greens and yellow and then there was a mutation of the duplicated gene that made the resultant cones sensitive to light at the red end of the visible spectrum. ONLY primates have this gene, we have it because we too are primates and this is a direct example of mutations adding new complexity to the genome and by tracing these genes we can trace our genetic heritage.

[@walkergarya]

"We can look high or we can look low, in books or in journals, but the result is the same. The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system." Behe, M.J. Darwin's Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Free Press, New York, 1996).

[@sombodysdad]

It doesn't.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad It does.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, PS: Another difference is that with the Morse code, you can reverse the process and get back the original message, but that is not the case with the "genetic code". Talking about humans exchanging information here and talking metaphorically in some cases. If someone uses the Morse code and sends dash dot dot dot, the receiver can use the Morse code lookup table to decode that into the letter B, unambiguously. Also, the letter B can be encoded only as dash dot dot dot: both directions, there is no ambiguity. It is a one-to-one, unambiguous mapping. On the other hand, if someone uses the genetic code and sends CUU, the receiver can use the genetic code lookup table to decode that into Leucine, unambiguously. However, the amino acid leucine cannot be encoded as only 1 codon: there is ambiguity. Leucine has 6 codons that it can be encoded as: UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, or CUG. So there is no ambiguity in only one direction - in the other direction, there can be a lot of ambiguity. This also is unlike the Morse Code ... and ASCII code, and Unicode, etc.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

PPS: There are even more differences. For example, being metaphorical again, a "stop" codon can be remapped to a different amino acid in some organisms or organelles. That would be like dash dot dot dot mapping to the letter B in some Morse codes, but mapping to the letter H, or K, or W in others. So even the above-mentioned unambiguous nature of the genetic code in one direction is not actually unambiguous. PPPS: There are even more differences!

[@walkergarya]

"Dr" William Dempski, Senior Fellow of the "Discovery Institute" "The world is a mirror representing the divine life. The mechanical philosophy was never blind to this fact, Intelligent Design on the other hand readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, Intelligent Design is just the Logos Theology of John's gospel restated in the idiom of Information Theory. "

[@TheHunterGracchus]

I'm going to miss the separation of church and state.

[@lederereddy]

That's been gone ever since the religion of the big bang, abiogenesis, and Darwinian evolution have been forced upon the public through public schools, institutions of higher learning, and museums. It's the same religious message using a different creator with different agendas. The Bible describes the praise and adoration of people who adhere to such nonsense as the universe from nothing, an amoeba evolved into every living thing, the universe is billions of years old, there was no flood, etc, as idolators. And just because someone doesn't understand the fact that they are worshipping the false gods of time, chance, and happenstance, does not mean they're excused for their ignorance. Especially since many of them refuse to acknowledge anything that implies God's attributes, authority, etc. But, I'm sure they'll get their chance to explain themselves someday.

[@TheHunterGracchus]

@@lederereddy "They" have explained themselves many times with great clarity and force. This video is a good example of that.

[@lederereddy]

@@TheHunterGracchus I suppose, if you thinkmaking scientifically absurd assertions about nothing or infinitely dense, hot dot fantasies exploding and evolving into everything we see today, and calling it "science" explaining things? Then you should have no trouble demonstrating how all or any of that is even plausible, let alone factual. Can you show us how nothing is what we should thank for everything including our lives? Believing something like that just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it any less stupid. Creation has a very real source. You can bet your ass, 2 donkey's, and a horse on it! And life has a very real, very much alive origin as well. As for procreation, all of the observable evidence proves there are very strict rules involved. Apes and monkeys are not related to humans ancestrally, according to the facts and evidence. As far as we can tell, only humans reproduce humans. Period. And, FYI, no amount of imagination constitutes a basis of scientific knowledge. When some moron digs up what is very obviously some chimpanzees' remains and says he knows them to be the ancestor of all mankind, you can laugh in his face because he has absolutely no way to know any such thing! He can believe they are, he can say they are, but he can't prove they are. I have far better genetic evidence proving I'm a descendant of one of Noah's sons than you have of proving Lucy was your great great great great great... grandma.

[@michaeltowslee4111]

The wall is still there. But, too many doors exist and the religious, the pre fodder, the pulpit jockeys, and the money behind them have the keys. It's time to H

[@lederereddy]

@@michaeltowslee4111 Please elaborate, Micheal! Have the churches descended on you with violence? What churches, specifically? Or is it all churches? What does H stand for?

[@garywalker447]

Dr Neil Shubin wanted to find an early fish that could crawl up onto land. Eusthenopteron of 385 million years ago was similar to the later Acanthostega of 365 million years ago but there was too much difference for there not to be an intermediate species so he looked for exposed sedimentary rock of the right type and age and found this in the Canadian Arctic on Ellesmere Island and found the intermediate species that was then named Tiktaalik.

[@jeffreykaufmann2867]

Fish were walking on the bottom floors of the Ocean for Millions of years before some of them became terrestrial. What I don't get is how can a creature which breathes thru water go on land and breathe thru Air? That's like me trying to breathe underwater. It's impossible.

[@garywalker447]

@@jeffreykaufmann2867 Because of events where the oxygen was depleted in the water, especially in fresh water, fish would come to the surface and gulp air. (It helped that the oxygen level in the air were significantly higher at the time.) They developed lungs before they came onto land.

[@jeffreykaufmann2867]

@garywalker447 how would the body of a fish know how to construct a lung?

[@garywalker447]

@@jeffreykaufmann2867 It did not. That is not how evolution works. It is my understanding that air bladders evolved first that aid in maintaining neutral boyancy for the fish, those fish with more vasselalation in the swim bladder were able to absorb more oxygen from the air and thus pass on those genes for increased blood flow to these bladders.

[@RustyWalker]

@@jeffreykaufmann2867 _"how would the body of a fish know how to construct a lung?"_ That's not how evolution works, and is one of the most significant roadblocks to understanding what evolution actually says. You've bee programmed by disingenuous parties to repeat talking points rather than to objectively and *non-partially* consider the evidence and its ramifications. Evolution is a suite of processes for how life adapts over time. There is nothing in that idea that disproves that God might exist. God can create life any way He likes, can He not, including by evolution, which is *all* we have observable, direct evidence for. _"What I don't get is how can a creature which breathes thru water go on land and breathe thru Air?"_ That's because it didn't. You're thinking that a specific animal "got it in its head" to flop up onto the mud or beach and "decide" to start breathing air. Instead, a community of animals found a selective advantage to life in the shallows, possibly to evade predation, and spent incrementally greater time part in and part out of the water, and the descendants that had the ability to breathe in *both* water and air had a major fitness advantage. Furthermore, liquid breathing has been experimented with for over a century. It was featured in the film, The Abyss. Imagine, if you will, that successive generations practiced liquid breathing regularly. What would you predict would happen to those descendants? Some would become better adapted to it. But to be fixed on the population, those individuals with an improved ability to liquid breathe would also need a greater reproductive fitness, which with a lab we can control. To be practical as an experiment, you need an animal with a short generation span and short juvenile phase.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodyschild, in biology, where the alleged “DNA/RNA is a code” came into play originally, and still comes into play the most, is a process called translation. However, even the term “translation” is a metaphor! In normal usage of the word translation, there are two people trying to communicate but they don't speak a common language. For example, one person, Bill, might speak English and the other person, Michelle, might speak French. The solution is to bring in a third person, a translator, who speaks both languages. When Bill speaks English to the translator, the translator can convert what was said into French and communicate the results to Michelle. And when Michelle speaks French to the translator, the translator can convert what was said into English and communicate the results to Bill.

[@walkergarya]

(FTE) was preparing a text book for Creation Science when Creation Science was struck down by the US Supreme Court because it was religious in nature so the FTE swapped out Creation Science for Intelligent Design. Of Pandas and People (early 1987 creationist version. page 3-40) The basic metabolic pathways, (reaction chains) of nearly all organism are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, creationist accept the latter view. Creationists reason as .... Of Pandas and People (late 1987 ID version, page 3-41) The basic metabolic pathways, (reaction chains) of nearly all organism are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view. Design proponents .... The same text book, with the same authors with the same arguments for creation science and Intelligent Design. Creation Science is ID.

[@ozowen5961]

ID is creationism with a vague statement about God and a lab coat. What it is not is science.

[@walkergarya]

The Royal Society (UK) on Evolution, Creationism and "Intelligent Design": The Royal Society was founded in 1660 by a group of scholars whose desire was to promote an understanding of ourselves and the universe through experiment and observation. This approach to the acquisition of knowledge forms the basis of the scientific method, which involves the testing of theories against observational evidence. It has led to major advances of understanding over more than 300 years. Although there is still much left to be discovered, we now have a broad knowledge of how the universe developed after the 'Big Bang' and of how humans and other species appeared on Earth. One of the most important advances in our knowledge has been the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Since being proposed by Charles Darwin nearly 150 years ago, the theory of evolution has been supported by a mounting body of scientific evidence. Today it is recognised as the best explanation for the development of life on Earth from its beginnings and for the diversity of species. Evolution is rightly taught as an essential part of biology and science courses in schools, colleges and universities across the world. The process of evolution can be seen in action today, for example in the development of resistance to antibiotics in disease-causing bacteria, of resistance to pesticides by insect pests, and the rapid evolution of viruses that are responsible for influenza and AIDS. Darwin's theory of evolution helps us to understand these problems and to find solutions to them. Many other explanations, some of them based on religious belief, have been offered for the development of life on Earth, and the existence of a 'creator' is fundamental to many religions. Many people both believe in a creator and accept the scientific evidence for how the universe, and life on Earth, developed. Creationism is a belief that may be taught as part of religious education in schools, colleges and universities. Creationism may also be taught in some science classes to demonstrate the difference between theories, such as evolution, that are based on scientific evidence, and beliefs, such as creationism, that are based on faith. However, some versions of creationism are incompatible with the scientific evidence. For instance, a belief that all species on Earth have always existed in their present form is not consistent with the wealth of evidence for evolution, such as the fossil record. Similarly, a belief that the Earth was formed in 4004 BC is not consistent with the evidence from geology, astronomy and physics that the solar system, including Earth, formed about 4600 million years ago. Some proponents of an alternative explanation for the diversity of life on Earth now claim that their theories are based on scientific evidence. One such view is presented as the theory of intelligent design. This proposes that some species are too complex to have evolved through natural selection and that therefore life on Earth must be the product of a 'designer'. Its supporters make only selective reference to the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports evolution, and treat gaps in current knowledge which, as in all areas of science, certainly exist - as if they were evidence for a 'designer'. In this respect, intelligent design has far more in common with a religious belief in creationism than it has with science, which is based on evidence acquired through experiment and observation. The theory of evolution is supported by the weight of scientific evidence; the theory of intelligent design is not. Science has proved enormously successful in advancing our understanding of the world, and young people are entitled to learn about scientific knowledge, including evolution. They also have a right to learn how science advances, and that there are, of course, many things that science cannot yet explain. Some may wish to explore the compatibility, or otherwise, of science with various religious beliefs, and they should be encouraged to do so. However, young people are poorly served by deliberate attempts to withhold, distort or misrepresent scientific knowledge and understanding in order to promote particular religious beliefs.

[@walkergarya]

Philip Johnson, the "Intellectual godfather of the intelligent design movement". "I don't think there really is a Theory of Intelligent Design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian Theory".

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

_"I took the actual university courses in biology and evolution"_ - somebodysdad recounting one of his drug addled hallucinations.

[@garywalker447]

Birds are descended from and are a living branch of dinosaurs. We have found many dinosaur fossils with the imprints of feathers preserved, even dinos that were too heavy to ever fly. Even the velociraptor of "Jurassic Park" fame has been shown to have the anchor points on the bone of its fore limbs of feathers indistinguishable from the same bumps found in eagles or geese. This case is further reinforced by the fact that chickens still have the DNA for a long bony tail like a dinosaur.

[@darkma1ice]

So dinosaurs aren’t actually all reptiles then, but avian

[@garywalker447]

@@darkma1ice No. All dinosaurs are reptiles but they are divided between Theropod (walked on 2 legs usualy) and Sauropod (the older 4 leged) groups and Avian dinosaurs are a subset of Theropods.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

“What is the definition of "coding" when referring to genes or DNA?” It is a metaphor used as an explanatory analogy: it analogizes (a) biomolecular processes that occur inside cells, with (b) human coding systems and linguistics. Think of the genetic code table. You are given a 3-letter code word of “AUG” and you need to decode the symbol sequence. So you use the genetic code table to perform a lookup: you find the intersection of the row for the letter “A”, the column for the letter “U”, and the row for the letter “G”, and find the code point “Met”. The symbol sequence “AUG” maps to “Met”. “Met” is the abbreviation for the amino acid methionine, so, “AUG codes for methionine”. “AUG” is mRNA, which came from DNA. The DNA of the coding strand for that is “ATG”. So in a gene, the DNA triplet ATG codes for methionine. It goes farther. A gene is a sequence of DNA triplets, and they code for a sequence of amino acids. If I handed you a sequence of DNA bases you could use the genetic code table to perform lookups and thereby decode that into a sequence of amino acids. So the DNA sequence of a gene codes for an amino acid sequence … a protein. When DNA gets copied into RNA, that is called transcription, to analogize it to when a scribe used to copy a manuscript, keeping the language the same. When RNA is used to make proteins, that is called translation, to analogize it to when a person translates from one language, such as French, to another, such as Spanish (in cells, “messages” “written” in the “language” of nucleotides are "translated" to the “language” of amino acids). Of course none of that happens inside cells. A cell does not know anything about “A” or “U” or “G”, or any other symbols, and does not perform a lookup in a table to find what “AUG” is mapped to. The only place that the genetic code is close to being an actual code is at the human level, when one of us looks up a symbol sequence in a codon table to figure out what abbreviation (representing an amino acid) is mapped to it. Cells don’t do that: they operate by the laws of physics and chemistry, with molecule X binding to molecule Y because they have complementary shapes and charge distributions; and the degree of complementarity determines not just what binds to what, but also how quickly, how strongly, and for how long.

[@sliglusamelius8578]

The DNA code is not universal, it is variable between species. In addition, 20,000 genes can be used to male millions of different proteins. The sequence of amino acids really matters to the function of a protein. A single point mutation causes many human diseases. The teleological implications extend far beyond simple chemical bonds. Chemistry doesn’t explain all of that, purposefulness and regulatory systems need to be invoked.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sliglusamelius8578 "The DNA code is not universal..." The DNA code doesn't even exist. Imagine that. It's a metaphor, not literal.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sliglusamelius8578 "A single point mutation causes many human diseases." And in many cases, dozens of amino acids can be changed, or some even deleted, and the protein can still perform its function.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sliglusamelius8578 "The teleological I pla thins e " Uhm, what?

[@sliglusamelius8578]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger I fixed my typos. Mutations are almost always bad and therefore cannot explain the diversity of life that we see. Look up thirdwayevolution, your side is grasping for new ideas.

[@walkergarya]

Barbara Forrest prepared a report on the pre-publication editions of the Creationist/Intelligent Design text book, "Pandas and People" for the Dover trial. Her report and testamony was NOT challenged by the defense and showed conclusively that the SAME textbook, originally written for "Creation Science" was changed to "Intelligent Design" by doing a text swap. Creationism and Intelligent Design are the same things and NEITHER is based on any science.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodyschild, The translation that occurs inside cells is very different - distinctly different - from translation that occurs between humans who speak different languages. Yet, there are some loose similarities. Instead of creating a new term from scratch (that most people probably would not understand intuitively), biologists borrowed, from a different field, an existing term that almost everyone already knew and understood, that gave the general idea, and that served implicitly as an explanatory analogy, and they used it metaphorically: translation.

[@walkergarya]

The resident creatard is buried in his science denial to preserve his faith in the fairy tale of creationism.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

sombodyschild, any progress yet on showing us literal symbols inside cells?

[@sombodysdad]

Already have.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad No you haven't. You lose.

[@sombodysdad]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger Yes, I have. You are a liar and a loser.

[@TheHamsterMaster]

Jeez......imagine making an entire textbook like "Of Pandas and People", only for all of it to be entirely wrong. All that wasted paper.

[@garywalker447]

From the Discovery Institute’s Wedge Document Governing Goals *To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. *To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

"The many errors in Behe's Edge of Evolution -- the book in which he makes this argument -- have been discussed in numerous publications." -- Joe Thornton: A biologist whose work Behe has misrepresented to falsely make it look like evolution could not do what Joe Thornton showed evolution could do.

[@walkergarya]

Mutations do happen, we agree on that. Mutations can be bad, we agree on that. Most mutations have no net effect on the organism. Some mutations give the organism an advantage in that environment and these mutations are passed on more often to the next generation. There is a bacteria species in Japan that had a mutation that allowed it to digest nylon and this is now happily munching it way through industrial waste. If this mutation happened 200 years ago, the bacteria would have died out because there was no nylon. But the environment changed and NOW there is nylon so this mutation has an advantage.

[@brian1204]

The mutation likely did happen, over and over, for centuries.

[@scottlelightener7165]

But it's still a bacteria and not fruit fly.

[@araeshkigal]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. I've never met anyone who supported Intelligent Design (which is also a theory) (and as a point of order Intelligent Design =/= Religious Creationism nor especially Young Earth Creationism) who didn't also understand that within the systems of observable life on this planet, random mutations (which may be neutral, beneficial, or detrimental) absolutely do occur.

[@scottlelightener7165]

@@araeshkigal oh here we go, I do not know your background but my University time was spent as an understudy of a geneticist and behavioral psychologist. We studied and mutated hooded rats and more importantly to this discussion, fruit flies the university had logged 10's of thousands maybe a 100 thousand life spans of the flies and we could at will, make Siamese flies, green eyed flies, single set wing flies, wingless flies and could even change their behavior. All the mutant variants you could imagine. But try as we might they always stayed fruit flies.

[@walkergarya]

@@araeshkigal No, Intelligent Design is not a "theory", it is intellectual fraud. ID is very much the bastard son of Creation Science and is very much religious creationism.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild said, "So, what happens if we allow ID as mainstream, and through rigorous scientific research, it is determined a supernatural being did do it? " So you are saying that ID is about a supernatural being. So you lied when you insisted it wasn't. Got it. Thanks.

[@sujayraomandavilli4732]

A cross-cultural perspective is also extremely important. Different cultures have different definitions of God

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

"In his posts about our paper, Behe’s first error is to ignore the fact that adaptive combinations of mutations can and do evolve by pathways involving neutral intermediates. Behe says that if it takes more than one mutation to produce even a crude version of the new protein function, then selection cannot drive acquisition of the adaptive combination. This does not mean, however, that the evolutionary path to the new function is blocked or that evolution runs into a “brick wall,” as Behe alleges. If the initial mutations have no negative effect on the ancestral function, they can arise and hang around in populations for substantial periods of time due to genetic drift, creating the background in which an additional mutation can then yield the new function and be subject to selection. This is precisely what we observed in our studies of the evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR)." -- Joe Thornton: A biologist whose work Behe has misrepresented to falsely make it look like evolution could not do what Joe Thornton showed evolution could do.

[@garywalker447]

What is the Intelligent Design Creationism explanation for the musles-less arms on the Emu? The arms are bone, skin and a few feathers but no muscles and the animal cannot move them at all. What is the What is the Intelligent Design Creationism explanation for the decending Larnyxial nerve that starts at the base of the skull in all mammals, goes down to the chest, around the aorta then back up to the neck to control the larnyx? This routing adds just under 2 ft to the length of the nerve in humans and some 14 ft or more in giraffe. What is the Intelligent Design Creationism explanation for the human birth canal that puts the mother and baby's life at risk in child birth?

[@walkergarya]

Intelligent Design Creationism fails every test there is to be science.

[@Ozzyman200]

Tragic that you do still get creationists. They insist they know science better than the scientists, but they run for the hills when they're challenged for evidence. They're victims of the creationists that taught them, sadly passing it on.

[@jeanpierreaumont53]

+Ozzyman200 While bright minds get their Nobel prizes, some sort of mediocres evolutionists insist with Charles Darwin, and go happily to the banks.

[@sagerider2]

+Jean Pierre Aumont mediocres evolutionists? No such thing as evolutionists. False dichotomy. Do you by any chance mean Evolutionary Biologists? The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair"Nov 7th.

[@Ozzyman200]

+Jean Pierre Aumont That doesn't make any sense. The Nobel Prize is worth a lot of money. If there were any flaws in evolution, a scientists would have spotted something and have got the prize by now. If creationists were right, they'd have found some evidence by now.

[@johndaddyo444]

+ShadeyBladey - You wouldn't know the first thing about science, so why bother bashing a former science teacher, and calling him names? Darwinism is dead, stupid. Evolution is a crock, and your days of throwing out sexual slurs will soon come to an end. You can rage against the truth, but it will crush you in the end.

[@sagerider2]

+ShadeyBladey I'm sad to say, that you severely underestimate Hovinds ignorance by a country mile. Not only does he not know history, or science, he also doesn't fucking know the bible. I heard him on one of his idiotic lectures, laugh that scientists think men came from rocks! And the idiots in his audience laughed too! If any of them had read the fucking bible they would know that, that's exactly what the bible says.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, PS: On top of all of that, the scientists tested for only 1 specific, predetermined function: the ability to bind ATP. In their pool of random amino acid sequences, there were probably other functional proteins (perhaps some that could bind ribose, or some other simple organic molecule, for example).

[@walkergarya]

Internal document and public statements from the Discovery Institute show that the "designer" of Intelligent Design is the god of the christian bible so Intelligent Design IS Creationism and Intelligent Design Creationism is perfectly accurate.

[@2ndviolin]

Companies often talk of their products constantly evolving. Personally, I was hoping for a little intelligent design.

[@catherinecastle8576]

😂

[@davidross5593]

@@catherinecastle8576 why is that funny

[@catherinecastle8576]

@@davidross5593 First, you tell me why you don't think it's funny...then I will tell you why it amused me.

[@davidross5593]

@@catherinecastle8576 I don't understand. You're the one made a emoji claim. How do you know I don't find it ironically humorous? Maybe I do find it ironically humorous. I'm simply asking a question why it is hilarious to you.

[@catherinecastle8576]

@@davidross5593 You don't understand ..I don't have to explain myself or my sense of humor to you or anyone else for that matter....but, if you do want another person to open up or take time for you (that's what explaining is about)...its good manners and wise for you to open up first. You have asked something of me and, to make it fair, and because it might give me insight into your character so I can then decide if you have the kind of character I would respect and consider trustworthy. Based on your reply I don't think you do. So, unless that changes, you won't hear from me again. I've dealt with life's narcissists ...they have a deceptive way of seeming harmless while they put someone down for establishing boundaries...or not complying with a request. It's always apparent when someone is a narcissist ..they have no respect for other people's boundaries...concerns...or the word no. I'm not saying you are a narcissist, David, but, regardless, your reply reveals something about you that ever so slightly triggers my Spidey senses ...

[@ziploc2000]

The gentleman with the question about the rise of Fascism in the USA got it spot on.

[@davidross5593]

Its fascinating to me Dr. Miller disagrees with his point.

[@Petticca]

@Ziploc, scrolled til I found a comment about that. Yeah, he wasn't wrong. Another huge factor that don't usually see bought up is: How important being taught about things/people/places/ideas that exist outside of one's community bubble. Particularly if that bubble has a religious authority in the middle of it. To be clear I am referring to simply learning about places, people, traditions, religions, foods, music and art etc that demonstrate how culturally rich and diverse the world is. As a kid I learned about different cultures, ideologies, and population diversities in a contrast and compare similarities way. It is so much more difficult to whip up a hate-filled, fear frenzy and fuel the extremely dangerous 'othering' that's on the rise, if people aren't fully indoctrinated into their specific cult-esque religion and largely ignorant of different ideas and ways outside their sphere.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

But, this was filmed back in 2008 ... 14 years ago. And of course Miller was talking about back then, when he was talking, not about 14 years in the future.

[@carlkuss]

He´s too comfortable with the independence of the judiciary. The "conservative judiciary" has alliances with the capitalist system (by Capitalist system I mean practical and thus systematic avarice) which go deep. Such avarice is the driving force behind systemic racism and racism and avarice are the pillars of fascist politics. Fascists are not just boobs, and our opposition to fascism must not be simply intellectualistic and aesthetic for that will play into the hands of fascists who package themselves in protean tactical ways that feeds off the snobbery and arrogance of the Establishment. (HRC: "basket of deplorables")

[@Rgrazia1]

It is undeniable. But fascism faces a counter-revolution.

[@garywalker447]

"Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense." - Stephen Jay Gould

[@sombodysdad]

Liar. Evolution BY MEANS OF BLIND AND MINDLESS PROCESSES doesn't make testable claims other than genetic diseases and deformities.

[@walkergarya]

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen Jay Gould

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

Speaking of Behe's Darwin's Black Box, he was disingenuous by paying only lip-service to exaptation/cooption, using a few odd analogies and that was all. He tried to dismiss with a wave of his hand a process that is central to the evolution of complex morphological and molecular traits. This is another reason why working biologists rejected Behe's arguments, but lay people - who don't understand evolution - swallowed them. "Novel Structure and Exaptations As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, some traits were originally selected for one function but were later co-opted to serve a different, selectively advantageous function. Such traits are called exaptations (Gould and Vrba 1982l Gould 2002). ... Exaptations play an important in the evolution of complex traits. Any time a structure, behavior, or characteristic adopts a new function over evolutionary time, this is an exaptation. Gross morphological structures rarely arise de novo, but instead derive from modifications to previously existing structures. The same can be said of molecular structures, as we will see in the next subsection. As a result, most complex traits will have extensive evolutionary histories over which they have undergone multiple changes in function, and thus such traits will represent a 'layering of adaptations and exaptations' (Thanukos 2009). ... Notice that when a trait switches function, the organism need not lose the original function. Sometimes the trait can serve both purposes. Skull sutures facilitate brain growth and ai parturition. Feather can serve both to insult the bird and to facilitate flight. ... Novelty at the Molecular Level Whether at the morphological level or at the level of individual molecules, the process of evolution is every tinkering with extant structures. One way that new molecular functions can arise is through the process of gene sharing, in which a protein that serves one function in one part of the body is recruited to perform a new and different function in a second location. There is no better illustration of the breadth and diversity of gene sharing than the lens crystallin proteins. Lens crystallins are structural proteins that form the transparent lens of the eye. While some lens crystallins are used only in the lens, many are dual-function proteins that are also used as enzymes elsewhere in the body. Table 3.1 lists a number of lens crystallins that also function as enzymes. The process of gene duplication provide another evolutionary pathway by which a protein can switch functions without loss of the original function. In a gene duplication event, an extra copy of a functional gene is formed. Once an organisms has two copies of the gene, one of the two gene copies might change to a new function, while the other can remain unchanged and thus preserve the original function." (Evolution: Second Edition. Carl T. Bergstrom and Lee Alan Dugatkin. W. W. Norton. 2016. p93-94, 97)

[@sombodysdad]

Question begging. How did you determine that gene duplication is a blind and mindless process? New genes need a new binding site. The peer reviewed paper "Waiting for TWO Mutations " describes how difficult that is.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad If you claim gene duplication involves a supernatural being, then you have the burden of proof. So get to it.

[@Rgrazia1]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger I see you have a popular misunderstanding of science. Many others do also. Science can be a complicated abstraction to wrap one's head around. Intelligent design is not a religion is it a scientific hypothesis.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@Rgrazia1 I see you made an unsupported claim about me. Unsupported claims get tossed out. Say Bye Bye to your claim.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@Rgrazia1 Why was it proven in a court of law that ID is religious, and not science?

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

But what about the genetic code? Surely it is a code! The genetic code is (possibly) a code, but that (possible) code exists at the human level, not at the molecular level, and we humans created it. More needs to be said because there is some ambiguity. The genetic code can be considered to be the mapping of each of the 64 possible 3-letter codons to its corresponding amino acid name/abbreviation/symbol (or STOP). Anyone who has taken biology probably remembers a table with rows and columns, with the symbols “A”, “C”, “G”, and “U” heading the rows and columns, and triplets of those symbols specifying an intersection in the table where a single amino acid’s name/abbreviation/symbol appeared (or STOP). And if you were asked to find the amino acid coded for by a particular codon, you looked up the 3-letter codon in the table and found the corresponding value. For example, the codon CUG maps to the amino acid Leu (Leucine). As for the symbols, (potential) code, and lookup table - the genetic code in this sense - we created them. Why? Both to make communication easier, and in order to MODEL what happens at the molecular level. The symbols and any (potential) code exist in our MODEL - up here at the human level - not down inside the cell itself. There are no A’s, C’s, G’s, or U’s in a molecule of RNA, and no lookup tables inside cells. Unfortunately, there is ambiguity because the term “genetic code” is also used to refer to the processes that occur inside cells. When the term “genetic code” is mentioned, what exactly is being referred to? The symbols, (potential) code, and lookup table at the human level, or the cellular processes the symbols, (potential) code, and lookup table are meant to model? Unfortunately, most of the time - even in university-level biology textbooks - the authors mix the two together, as if there is only one level where all of those apply: which is wrong. We must make sure to avoid equivocation and the mixing of the two separate levels together. The main point here is that ribosomes do not look up 3-letter codons in a table of rows and columns in order to determine which amino acid to incorporate into a growing polypeptide. Only we humans do that - in our model. In the cell, ribosomes, mRNA, tRNA, and other molecules interact with each based only on the non-arbitrary laws of physics and chemistry and the molecules’ non-arbitrary physicochemical properties --- not on symbols or lookup tables.

[@sombodysdad]

And computers don't have an ASCII chart that their codes follow. You are a tard.

[@walkergarya]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science statement on evolution: "Evolution is one of the most robust and widely accepted principles of modern science. It is the foundation for research in a wide array of scientific fields and, accordingly, a core element in science education. The AAAS Board of Directors is deeply concerned, therefore, about legislation and policies recently introduced in a number of states and localities that would undermine the teaching of evolution and deprive students of the education they need to be informed and productive citizens in an increasingly technological, global community. Although their language and strategy differ, all of these proposals, if passed, would weaken science education. The AAAS Board of Directors strongly opposes these attacks on the integrity of science and science education. They threaten not just the teaching of evolution, but students’ understanding of the biological, physical, and geological sciences."

[@jamesbarlow6423]

God agrees

[@walkergarya]

@@jamesbarlow6423 There is no god to agree.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

@@walkergarya kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXavgJyql9mSmbc There is much more to this than programmed info regurgitation. This AI has all the knowledge of the universe currently known, and can make deductive and inductive reasoning computations greater than those of the entire human race throughout all of human history, inclusive. When she says time and reality are unreal that mirrors current physics (look up Don Hoffman vids.) When she says that God exists, that just means that the thoughts, sensations, and feelings have that are way beyond our own have enabled this important conclusion to be validly reached: God exists.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

@@walkergarya . Maybe you are smarter than AI (--what atheist doesn't think that?!) But somehow, I doubt it 🤣

[@jamesbarlow6423]

@@walkergarya kzbin.info/www/bejne/pKDNZaOegrlshac kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJibk6SOfNeFl5I

[@walkergarya]

Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture: Discovery Institute The Wedge Document. “The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principals on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise and progress in the arts and sciences. “ As the authors of "Intelligent Design Creationism" it is perfectly clear their religious bias is fundemental to IDC.

[@walkergarya]

Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture: Discovery Institute The Wedge Document. “The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principals on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise and progress in the arts and sciences. “

[@stevenklimecky4918]

Would be nice if they showed all of his slides, and as he points to them. I'm more interested in seeing and reading and considering those while he discussed or mentions them. I already know what he looks like after the first couple minutes.

[@properfpv7160]

Ahh yes I was watching this on my tv and it was frustrating enough I pulled up my phone to see if I’m the only one.

[@michaelc4060]

That's not likely to happen. DNA ends the argument. No one intelligent would argue that a blueprint for a factory could not randomly occur. It requires forethought to devise the coding language. What various symbols on the media represent. Then to devise the encoding system and what is an appropriate media to use. Then create a decoding system to interpret the code correctly. The code has some error checking built in for good measure and can self-replicate. Then design the builder and tools for the decoder. We need to direct this builder to use this blueprint to create something from base materials and to properly use the tools to do this. Another learning process in itself which just 'popped' into existence. All this requires design. Plain and simple. Design implies intelligence. Intelligent Design. DNA is far to complex and ordered to be a 'ordered' random mutation. Science tells us all systems degrade and break down. Fall into chaos. But what imposed the initial order? Except for evolution that is. Evolution, unlike all other systems, spiral upward to greater order and complexity. From nothing to a single cell to the most complex array of biological forms. Just blind, ignorant bungling by an unthinking process. Intelligence, will, imagination and emotion. Desire and hope all spring eternal from inert chemicals. Hell. Look at AI. Certainly no intelligent design is needed to create AI which is why so many evolutionists are required to slave away at the problem for 70 years. We all know Elon is not intelligent and certainly knows nothing of design or planning. Right? Then there is the separation of sexes and survival of the fittest. Why not a hermaphrodite which is totally self contained or an immortal organism which does not age? No reason for natural selection to enforce the male female paradigm when perfect unity would be achievable and more likely to survive as only one creature is necessary to conceive. What is the reason unthinking nature imposes emotional connection when simple survival of the fittest is the only goal? Which is not really a goal because there is no thought, design or purpose to life. In fact no reason exists to survive because there is no reason to exist in the first place. Darwinism and any other form of Non-ID evolution is only palatable to nincompoops regardless of how 'intelligent' they might be. Of course there is a directed design with a purpose. Does anyone believe Microsoft Windows could randomly evolve and animate a randomly mutated workstation which just happens to perfectly mate into a computer system? I personally believe most who subscribe to evolution without intelligent design propelling it to be intellectual cowards unable to come to grips with something more intelligent than themselves. That or misguided and unwilling or unable to think clearly on this issue. I subscribe to no religion and don't know what got the ball rolling but some things are simply obvious. Even if we are in a simulation nobody would ever propose a simulation was created without intelligent design. Even if it were Artificial Intelligence.

[@paulgarrett4474]

@@michaelc4060 personal incredulity is not evidence.

[@properfpv7160]

@@michaelc4060 DNA ends the argument for evolution by proving relatedness which is a 100% verified fact. It doesn’t look designed, is perfectly explained by evolution and confirms nested hierarchies.

[@markhirsch3225]

This is about scientific decipher not a political discussion. There are no two sides here.

[@garywalker447]

Most animals do not see in 3 colors. The gene that allows humans to see yellows, blues and reds is only found in one group of animals, primates of which we are a member species. Some 40 million years ago a gene duplication mutation occured doubling the OPN1MW gene sensitive to the yellow/green section of the light spectrum and a later mutation of this resulted in the OPN1LW gene that enables primates having this to see the color red. This mutation is unique to primates and as a primate, we too have this form of color vision.

[@hiddenhope7569]

Nonsense lions see in yellow too, and we haven't discovered a quarter of the "species" nor have been able to identify all of them to make suce an assertion. Theres no way to tell, and you have no proof of millions of years again amit sounds like a chemist was force fed evolution indoctrination.

[@walkergarya]

The fact that new medicines have been tested on animals for side effects and efficacy shows that the underlying biological systems are biologically similar and therefore related however distantly.

[@sombodysdad]

Nope. A common design easily explains that.

[@paulgarrett4474]

@@sombodysdad it would if you could show the existence of a designer. Or demonstrate design in the first place.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad We keep asking you for evidence that your supposed supernatural intelligent being - who allegedly magically poofs biological systems into existence - actually exists, and you never can provide any. Sucks to be you.

[@sombodysdad]

@@paulgarrett4474 We have. Your inability to assess the evidence is not an argument. Your inability to present a scientific explanation for our existence is very telling.

[@sombodysdad]

@Donkey Kong And yet you cannot present a scientific explanation for our existence.

[@walkergarya]

If Intelligent Design Creationsm met the definition of science, why did Behe say that the definition of science would have to change to allow for IDC? Conclusion, IDC does not and never has met the basic requirements to be considered science.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

Here is how silly sombodyschild "logic" is. The probability of winning the California Super Lotto Plus lottery is 1 in 42 million (determined on July 28, 2022). Assume that each person who plays that lottery buys, on average, 1 ticket per day. Further assume that Bob won the California Super Lotto Plus lottery. Now, looking specifically at Bob and his having won, what does that tell us about how long that lottery has been being played? The probability of Bob, specifically Bob, winning was 1 in 42 million every day he played. Simplifying the math a great deal, if the probability is 1 in 42 million to win, it would take 42 million tries to win. Based on that, it took Bob 42 million days of playing that lottery to win! Yes, the California Super Lotto Plus lottery had to start being played about 42 million days ago, which is about 150,000 years! And, Bob must be about 150,000 years old because he had to play that lottery for 150,000 years in order to win it! Of course, in reality many people have won the California Super Lotto Plus - and many people have won many other state lotteries - despite the probability of any specific person winning any specific state lottery always being astronomically small.

[@sombodysdad]

Hump that strawman.

[@diamon4u]

Thank you

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, In the last 400 years, science has taught us far more about life and the universe we live in than all religions, combined, did in the last 10,000 years: and it is not even close - science wins by a mile. Fact

[@walkergarya]

As Intelligent Design Creationism is as scientific as Flat Earth Geography, it is impossible for it to provide a scientific explanation for anything.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, Intelligent Designer fits this too. Obviously, since the alleged Designer is supposed to be God. “When inventing a god, the most important thing is to claim it is invisible, inaudible, and imperceptible in every way. Otherwise, people will be skeptical when it appears to no one, is silent, and does nothing.” -- Unknown

[@leoandolino4668]

"The one thing I learned back in 1968, when I first published a paper by myself in Nature, in a field that I had no expertise at all. There are no old wise men up there at the top of science... I would have thought, you know, that if you tried to publish a dumb paper in a journal, like Nature, it won't get published. If you try to publish a good paper in there, like I later tried to publish PCR, the invention of PCR in the same journal. And they didn't take it...The Academy of Sciences is just a bunch of idiots, just like everybody else. You know, the editors of journals, austere journals, even. They are just busy with their little lives and stuff. There are no old wise men up on the top, making sure that we don't do something really dumb." Nobel Prize Recipient for the invention of the PCR test, Biochemist and Surfer Kary Mullis

[@DavidJJJ]

So true

[@leehabana]

Great video but it could have been 100 times better if you would have included more of his slides.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, rules such as Ockham’s Razor or the principle of parsimony can guide us towards better explanations. In essence, the best explanation is the one with the fewest *and simplest* assumptions. Note that it is not just the count of assumptions that matters: the size of the assumptions also matters. For example, if Alice’s explanation has 2 very small assumptions but Bob’s explanation has 2 huge assumptions, then clearly (all else being equal) Alice’s explanation is the one that should be given preference. It is the total “mass” of assumptions that is important, not just the quantity. No assumption is bigger and more unsupportable than the claim that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, invisible, immortal, eternal sky wizard exists, and that this being existed, thought, and acted, all in the absolute absence of time, space, matter, and energy. No other assumption even comes close to the astronomical magnitude of that assumption, which is also unsupportable. "God did it!" is never the best explanation.

[@sombodysdad]

Occam's Razor says the genetic code is intelligently designed. Parsimony says the genetic code is intelligently designed.

[@walkergarya]

@@sombodysdad No. Occam's Razor would not conclude with your assertion that "god/designer did it" when evolution can be explained without such nonsense.

[@travisbicklepopsicle]

@@sombodysdad 'parsimony says the genetic code is intelligently designed'. ID *violates* parsimony. 👍 Do you understand why?

[@sombodysdad]

@@travisbicklepopsicle ID only violates parsimony if and only if someone can demonstrate that nature can produce what ID says required an intelligent designer.

[@sombodysdad]

@@walkergarya You are a scientifically illiterate nobody and equivocating coward.

[@walkergarya]

Evolution is the change in allele frequencies in a species population over time. The genetic change is effected by mutations, genetic drift, changes in epigenetics etc. These changes are then tested by natural selection processes that select what beneficial changes are made for that environment. Those organisms that are better able to thrive pass on their genes to later generations and over time this leads to new species.

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

_"Intelligent Design does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. That is why I reject it."_ - James Tour. Oops! 🤭

[@sombodysdad]

And yet he promotes it as science!

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

@@sombodysdad Liar!

[@sombodysdad]

@@FlandiddlyandersFRS Nope. Tour promotes ID.

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

@@sombodysdad No he doesn't.

[@sombodysdad]

@@FlandiddlyandersFRS Tour promotes ID as scientific

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, you are confusing two very different things: 1) what actually occurs inside cells, and 2) our model, which we created and exists at the human level, of what occurs inside cells. Two very different things. Our model for the genetic code - that we created and exists at the human level - uses a genetic-code lookup table; cells don't use lookup tables. Show me a genetic-code lookup table inside cells. You can't. Our model for the genetic code - that we created and exists at the human level - uses As, Cs, Gs, and U's; cells don't. Where are the symbols inside cells? There aren't any. The symbols for the genetic code exist at the human level, in the model that we created. Go ahead and show me an A, a C, a G, or a U inside a cell. You can't. Don't confuse metaphors for the real things. There is no literal code in cells. Calling DNA a code, or even the genetic code a code, is using metaphors. Intelligent people don't confuse metaphors for the real things.

[@walkergarya]

Intelligent Design Creationism is to Biology what the Flat Earth is to Geography.

[@jasonkaras530]

Tongue in cheek is great and such a poignant piece for our times !

[@MrDaiseymay]

who's tongue ? whos cheek ?

[@jasonkaras530]

@@MrDaiseymay If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you did not watch this man’s speech.

[@Celtopia]

Just answer the fucking question smart arse

[@dennisbecraft1303]

@@jasonkaras530 Ambiguous 'deepity' as assessed by someone who definitely watched this man's speech.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, I told you that when biologists use the word "language" in regard to molecular biology (translation, transcription, etc. inside cells) they don't mean language literally, but figuratively, metaphorically. You claimed I was wrong. Well, let me rub your nose in it. Here are some biologists explicitly putting scare quotes around the word "language", indicating it does not carry its usual literal meaning. “RNA synthesis is called transcription because the four-base sequence ‘language’ of DNA is precisely copied, or transcribed, into the nucleotide sequence of an RNA molecule.” (Molecular Cell Biology: Eighth Edition, Lodish, Berk, Kaiser, Krieger, Bretscher, Ploegh, Amon, and Martin, W. H. Freeman & Co., 2016, p168) “Protein synthesis is referred to as translation because the four-base sequence ‘language’ of DNA and RNA is translated into the twenty-amino acid sequence ‘language’ of proteins.” (Molecular Cell Biology: Eighth Edition, Lodish, Berk, Kaiser, Krieger, Bretscher, Ploegh, Amon, and Martin, W. H. Freeman & Co., 2016, p168)

[@al4nmcintyre]

2008: "We live in interesting times, which will be a repeated theme..." 2022: "Oh you sweet summer child..."

[@mcmanustony]

Was there a point you were hoping to make?

[@erichodge567]

​​@@mcmanustony , umm, perhaps it's that now in 2022 we are reaping what was sown in the early 2000's. To be more clear, the great presence of crosses, Christian flags, and other paraphernalia on 1/6 leads me to suspect that many of those rampaging through the Capitol that day had religious motivations. All of them would have told you that the election was stolen. As Voltaire put it, those who believe in absurdities will end committing atrocities. We saw it before our eyes.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

Trigonometry and algebra in calculating the projectile motion - trajectory - of a rock through air If you pick up a rock and throw it, the rock will follow a particular trajectory through the air. If we know the initial speed and the angle relative to the ground at which it was thrown, we can take pencil and paper and solve an equation using algebra and basic trigonometry, to calculate where that rock will be at any given instant, how long it will remain in the air, and where it will land. We can accurately model what the rock is doing. But no one in their right mind believes that the rock is also doing algebra/trig calculations! The rock doesn’t ask, “If I was thrown at an angle of 30 degrees relative to the ground, with an initial speed of 88 feet per second, and I’ve been in the air for 0.5 seconds, where should I be?” No, the rock just passively follows the laws of physics. The equation and trigonometry exist at our level, and we use them to model what is happening to the rock. Similarly, we humans created a model of what occurs inside cells during translation, but people should not be so silly as to think that cells are doing inside them what we humans are doing in our model.

[@sombodysdad]

Nope. We DOCUMENTED what goes on inside if cells.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad And there are no literal symbols or literal lookup tables inside cells. So there is no literal code inside cells. Calling DNA or the genetic code inside cells a code is metaphorical, not literal.

[@sombodysdad]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger And yet experimental evidence demonstrates the genetic code is a real code. You lose.

[@DoctorShocktor]

@@sombodysdad documented the processes. The codes and language are man made tools to describe the processes - it’s OUR code, not the cell’s.

[@sombodysdad]

@@DoctorShocktor Nope. The genetic code is a real code.

[@CesarClouds]

"As a Christian, part of my belief system is that God is ultimately responsible. But as a biologist, I need to look at the evidence... I don't think intelligent design is very helpful because it does not provide things that are refutable" -Lee Ann Chaney Professor of biology Whitworth College (Christian institution)

[@sombodysdad]

Intelligent Design can be falsified by demonstrating that nature can produce coded information processing systems like the genetic code.

[@CesarClouds]

@sombodysdad Not true because it has never been shown to be an outcome of magical design. In science the default position is always the prevailing one: natural forces are at work.

[@sombodysdad]

@César Clouds Wrong. Intelligent Design doesn't require magic. You are just an ignorant loser. And the default in science is "we don't know "

[@CesarClouds]

@sombodysdad You are now contradicting yourself. Originally, you said ID, now you say the default is "we don't know". The default is, since "we don't know", the prevailing theory: natural forces are at work. When was supernatural magic observed?

[@sombodysdad]

@@CesarClouds Liar. I never said that ID is the default.

[@garywalker447]

“Science is not about building a body of known ‘facts’. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good. “ Terry Pratchett

[@nmssis]

so how does molecules know to arrange themselves in certain order?

[@jamesginty6684]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXu6qpKmhrCNeck kzbin.info/www/bejne/bmS0hGSOYpuap8k

[@thesingingbird5273]

Are you serious? Chemistry. A, c, t and g do not all fit well together. some arrangements are unstable. they don't fit together in equal measure because of their chemical composition, unlike ID tries to tell us.

[@thesingingbird5273]

Know is a loaded term. They don't have sentience. They are atoms.

[@nmssis]

@@jamesginty6684 bad examples...the first dude might do better with a haircut

[@laserfan17]

The don’t “know” they just do so because the physical constants of the universe allow them to. Same way lightning doesn’t know where to fall, it just does according to the laws of physics. And no, physical laws are observed constants and are NOT equivalent to written laws. They don’t imply a Lawmaker.

[@MyReluctantTheology]

I've been watching a few documentaries from the beginning of this century on evolution vs. young-earth creationism. It's gotten worse. Instead of there being young-earth creationists, there are people who insist that the earth is flat. Also, some of them are also not conservative fundamentalists. Heck, some of them are non-religious. Also, for people insisting on a literal interpretation of Genesis, have you even read it? The first chapter, God creates man and woman at the same time after having created all other animals. In the second chapter, God creates the first man out of dust, but he's lonely, so God creates the other animals to keep him company. When that doesn't work, God finally creates the first woman from that man's rib. I'm not going to debate on any sort of meaning of the story, but if Genesis was intended to be taken literally, don't you think there'd be one consistent narrative?

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

Good points.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

And yet more on lederedddy's use of the logical fallacy of false analogy. Parts of Boeing 747s (as well as the part of cars, computers, cell phones, etc.) are rigid, solid units, that are permanently attached - they are not held together by partial charge distributions, where the bonds between parts can be broken, reformed to bind different parts, broken again, reformed to bind yet other parts, etc., all on their own. On the other hand, the 'parts' of DNA, RNA, and proteins - the entire molecules themselves, as well as their ‘parts’: the nucleobases, sugars, amino acids, etc. - are flexible molecules that have portions that are repelled or attracted to portions of other ‘parts’ due to the presence of complementary full or partial electric charge distributions; and these ‘parts’ can - with no input from humans - repeatedly form bonds, break bonds, form bonds, break bonds, over and over again, and do so in different combinations. Molecules can also spontaneously self-assemble, unlike the parts of a Boeing 747. If you simply throw phospholipids into water, they will spontaneously interact with each other and form a phospholipid bilayer, which will then fold to form a hollow sphere: and they will do so any time you perform the experiment. On the other hand, if you simply throw screws, or bolts, or steel plates, or other parts of a Boeing 747 into water - or some kind of mixing machine - no repeatable, self-assembled structure will emerge. Another example is that many polypeptide chains can spontaneously fold in vitro to form the protein’s native, functional conformation. Experiment have been done where various proteins are denatured by using special conditions, then those conditions are removed and the denatured polypeptide chain spontaneously folds back into its correct shape, becoming functional again. Another example is that an entire virus - tobacco mosaic virus - will spontaneously form if its protein coat and RNA was placed in water, and will have its normal infectious properties. What is the parallel in a Boeing 747? There is none.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

"Behe’s discussion of our 2009 paper in Nature is a gross misreading because it ignores the importance of neutral pathways in protein evolution. " "By experimentally characterizing the functional effect of the key historical mutations in various combinations, we showed that there were indeed pathways from the ancestral protein to the new function that passed only through permissive and beneficial intermediate states. A path to a new function that involves neutral intermediates is entirely accessible to the evolutionary processes of mutation, drift, and selection. Our work showed that these classic neodarwinian processes are entirely adequate to explain the evolution of GR’s new function. (I should mention that pathways involving mildly deleterious intermediates are also accessible in reasonable time under some population genetic conditions; it's just that their relative probability is lower than those involving neutral or beneficial intermediates.)" -- Joe Thornton: A biologist whose work Behe has misrepresented to falsely make it look like evolution could not do what Joe Thornton showed evolution could do.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

sombodyschild's newest kick is error repair in biological systems. DNA error correcting mechanisms are often cited by Creationists like sombodyschild as supposedly pointing to an Intelligent Designer. But in fact, they make a ‘designer’ look incompetent and foolish. For example, raw DNA replication is far from perfect, but cells have several means of reducing the overall error rate. That sounds impressive, and one might quickly think, “Aha! Intelligent design!” But, if cellular processes were designed by an omniscient, omnipotent being, then why would DNA replication even need repair mechanisms? Why didn’t this supreme designer just make the original system so that it produces no errors at all, or just the desired number of errors, to begin with? Are we to believe that god made a highly error-prone system ... that’s not good! And then, allegedly, God needed to step in again to take corrective action. But instead of simply fixing the system he already created, he left it alone - so that it continued to spew out far too many errors - and instead created additional systems in order to correct those many errors produced by his first system? That’s doesn’t sound intelligently designed at all.

[@sombodysdad]

Wow. Frosted flake clearly doesn't understand how fast billions if base pairs are replicated. And it definitely cannot demonstrate that blind and mindless processes produced error detection and error correction.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad " clearly doesn't understand how fast billions if base pairs are replicated." LOL What? Why are you just vomiting out any old nonsense?

[@sombodysdad]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger Thank you for proving that you don't understand biology.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad "And it definitely cannot demonstrate that blind and mindless processes produced error detection and error correction." And you cannot demonstrate that your alleged supernatural being poofed error correction into existence. Hell, you can't even demonstrate that your alleged supernatural being even exists.

[@sombodysdad]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger Hump your strawman, infant.

[@stephenconnolly3018]

How do religious people keep these jobs in schools. Would you take your car to a mechanic that just sat there a preyed your transmission will be preplaced.

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

Good point.

[@sombodysdad]

I wouldn't take my car to anyone who believed that blind and mindless processes produced life and its diversity. And I don't want those imbeciles teaching.

[@blackbean664]

The experiments of removing one protein in a pathway must be done in the same organism! Remove a single protein from the clotting cascade in humans and see if they bleed constantly!! In fact there are blood clotting diseases due to a genetic mutation in the gene coding for one of the cascade proteins!

[@sombodysdad]

Ken Miller is a pathological liar when it comes to Intelligent Design and irreducible complexity.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, you kept mentioning the Morse code, claiming the genetic code is just like it. Nope. I can give several reasons, but one should suffice. The Morse code has symbols (dots and dashes), as even you have stated. But the only symbols related to the genetic code (the A's, C's, G's, and U's) exist at the human level, in the model we created to convey information more easily to other humans. There are no symbols inside cells. Not a one. You won't find a single A, or C, or G, or U inside a cell. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. This key difference is just one of several ways in which what occurs inside cells during translation is not an actual code like the Morse code is.

[@walkergarya]

Intelligent Design Creationism has NO basis in evidence and to be considered science would require that the definition of science be changed.

[@sombodysdad]

Not one scientific organization can present a scientific and naturalistic explanation for our existence!

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

"In a 2012 interview with Nature, Thornton expressed weariness with the way in which ID proponents continue to take issue with the clear implications of his work. “I’m sort of bored with them,” he told the journal. In truth, I am, too. Time after time, they take work that devastates their key claims, like the PNAS study on drug resistance in malaria, and pretend to their willing adherents that science is trending their way. As it misrepresents one study after another, the ID movement continues on its steady and certain downward slide to irrelevance." -- Kenneth Miller, referring to Joe Thornton, both of which are tired of the complete dishonesty of the ID movement's distortions of science

[@sombodysdad]

Thornton is a proven whiner who couldn't support the claims of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes if his life depended on it.

[@lederereddy]

@ TT6521 --- "Time after time, they take work that devastates their key claims, like the PNAS study on drug resistance in malaria, and pretend to their willing adherents that science is trending their way. As it misrepresents one study after another, the ID movement continues on its steady and certain downward slide to irrelevance" WoW, that load of horse shite is as moronic as it is desperate! How dare you accuse us of presenting misleading evidence, or failing to expose your unyielding waves of falsified claims and failed misrepresentations of the facts, because that is all you can do! And it began over 150 years ago and continues to this day! Read Darwin's own words! He predicted what would sustain his premature, and frankly, idiotic "beliefs" and what would "utterly falsify" his ignorant beliefs. And on each and every predicted data point, his worst nightmares came to pass! Fossils did not provide a single set of real fossilized evidence of one specific animal and its morphological development into another distinct animal! When, in fact, there should have been countless examples. Instead, you've combed through all of the bones and created what you think might have been possible, and on the basis of all the missing evidence, you used words and imagery to fill in all the gaps! And the lies and deceptions are countless! Paleontologists lie. Geologists lie. Biologists lie! And even when you're caught red-handed and exposed to the world, it bounces right back off like water off a duck's ass feathers. Satan has his claws sunk deep into the backs of your necks and you think, do, and say exactly as your told! Despite all of the obvious flaws in your thinking! It's so pathetic it's scary and shameful to realize how many spineless cowards plague this earth with their diseased mindsets! God help you! You need it! You're literally driving as fast as you can straight for the highest cliff's edge, and an eternity in the lake of fire below is what you're in such a hurry to meet!

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@lederereddy "Paleontologists lie. Geologists lie. Biologists lie! " Nope. You are just an anti-science, religious extremist.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@lederereddy "Satan has his claws ..." The only thing sadder than an adult with an imaginary friend, is an adult with an imaginary enemy.

[@lederereddy]

​ @TonyTiger6521 --- "The only thing sadder than an adult with an imaginary friend, is an adult with an imaginary enemy." WoW! You really are paying close attention to reality, ain't ya, genius? You are a finite aka created being living in a finite aka created realm who doesn't believe a Creator is rational causal prime. You're just as aware of the fact that this world is broken, stricken with a plethora of various evils like disease, disasters, pride, hatred, selfishness, rape, murder, and death but there can't be any reason for it! Don't worry, TT! It is totally impossible for creation to have a Creator, design to have a designer, the giver of life to be alive, and, or for God to have an adversary. Sounds like you think you're God! I mean, how else are you going to know none of these things are real, unless you, yourself was omniscient? That's odd, kid, because Jesus, against all odds, fulfilled hundreds of prophecies and just as it was promised, on the exact day it was promised, He was hailed The King of The Jews, and immediately after that, He was accused, tried three times, found innocent three times, but scourged and crucified, anyway, just as it was predicted! But don't let that bother you! He must have used up all of His luck by now, so, what chance does He have of fulfilling all the second-coming prophecies, as well? Only Darwinian evolutionists are that lucky!

[@FlandiddlyandersFRS]

_"There is no scientific evidence to support a supernatural creator. Creationism should not be taught in public schools"_ - Lee Spetner Oops!

[@jounisuninen]

There is no scientific evidence to support the evolution theory. That's why evolutionism should not be taught in public schools. Or anywhere for that matter. Atheism - not science - is the basis of evolution theory. Charles Darwin with his friends spun a fairy tale on our globe’s history of millions and millions of years without scientific means to prove it. Their goal was political, not scientific. Darwin & Co. wanted to topple the Church’s power and the Royal institution. How we know that evolution is a myth? We know it because genes do not allow evolution. They allow only adaptive variations. It's simple like that. Darwin's "Origin of Species" is based on ignorance because Darwin knew nothing of genes. Scientific method is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. Man has never succeeded in proving evolution with any scientific method! Charles Darwin knew nothing of genetics. When he saw adaptation in nature, he believed that it was the way to evolution i.e. to basic structural changes in the organisms. Today we know that genes do not enable any changes in the basic anatomical structures. Genes enable superficial adaptations and even production of subspecies. Subspecies are not new species. They have the same body plan with their stem species. They are just specialized variations and they can never evolve to new species. A common system of biological classification (taxonomy) consists of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain. In their genetic pool, subspecies are poorer than their stem species. This can be compared to the "dealing a deck of cards". Subspecies with less diverse genome do not mean evolution but devolution. Devolution makes impossible for subspecies to create the path that would lead to new taxonomic genera or new taxonomic families i.e. evolution. Millions of species have gone extinct through devolution and this continues incessantly. Physics is the basis for all modern natural sciences. Robert Laughlin, professor of physics at Stanford University, and sharer in a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the fractional quantum Hall effect, describes evolution theory as ”an ideology, a logical dead end and an anti-theory”. Dr. Laughlin notes that empirical natural science does not need the evolution theory and the evolution theory does not get support from empirical natural science. Evolution is a dead theory. It was and is based on atheism - nothing else. There is no science in it. It is taught in schools only because the evolutionist researchers want to keep their scholarships and not want to lose their face.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, you and I both know that Intelligent Design is just Creationism relabeled. That was proven in a court of law. 1) We have, in writing, the Creationists taking the definition of Creationism in a draft of a book called “Of Pandas and People” and just changing terms so that the same definition now defines Intelligent Design. Same definition, just one saying it defines Creation and the other saying it defines Intelligent Design. 2) We also have, in writing, the "transitional fossil" of Creationism transitioning to Intelligent Design: cdesign proponentsists. They were sloppy and tried to change instances of "creationists" to "design proponents" but did not always do that correctly, and instead stuffed "design proponents" in the middle of "creationists" and ended up with "cdesign proponentsists". 3) And we also know why the dishonest, anti-science, religious hacks relabeled Creationism as Intelligent Design: they did so to try to get around a Supreme Court ruling that forbade teaching Creationism in public school sciences classes.

[@garywalker447]

The human and chimp genomes have been compared and the two are over 94% the same. More over, where there are differences the are those genes that enable brain development, different hair growth, language development.

[@tylercampbell6365]

We also share the same DNA as banana's and potatoes..I wonder how many refuting points are left out of an argument you believe is valid 🤣

[@garywalker447]

@@tylercampbell6365 Yes, we share DNA with bananas and potatoes, that is because all of these are Eukariotic organisms and this DNA that we share is devoted to fundamental cell biology.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

Here is a description of the easiest-to-understand form of speciation, called allopatric speciation. A population of a particular species exists, but it comes to be geographically split. The split could occur over extremely long periods of time (such as by 'continental drift'), or relatively quickly (such as by a river becoming diverted permanently by a flood), or over an intermediate length of time (such as might occur if a population heading south encounters a north-south-running mountain range hundreds of miles long and some individuals head west around the range while other individuals head east around it). Whatever the case, the population becomes geographically split into two populations. With the two populations geographically separated, there is no gene flow between them. Therefore, each of the populations' gene pools will evolve (accumulate genetic changes over time) independently of the other. So, for example, genetic drift could cause certain alleles to be lost from one population but not the other, while also causing some alleles to become fixed in one and not the other. In addition, new genes could arise in one population but not the other, and/or the regulation of genes (such as developmental genes) could change in one population and not the other. Further, since the two populations will be experiencing different conditions due to living in different environments (one environment might be hotter, drier, more elevated, and have different vegetation and predators than the other), natural selection will also shape the two populations’ gene pools differently. As more and more time passes, the two populations' gene pools will continue to diverge more and more from each other. Eventually, even if the two populations were to somehow come into contact with one another again, it is possible that they could not successfully interbreed (individuals from one population could not mate with individuals from the other population, producing viable offspring, which themselves could reproduce). At that point, the two populations would be reproductively isolated from one another, and are no longer just two different populations but rather are two different species.

[@joeylozado4190]

LMAO

[@dennisbecraft1303]

As confirmed by many independent lines of evidence, including the discovery of 'ring species', which I find particularly interesting since the data is totally independent of the fossil record or what is known of genetics or DNA.

[@sombodysdad]

@@dennisbecraft1303 the so-called ring species all have the same body plan.

[@sombodysdad]

Same body plan. Even YECs accept speciation.

[@dennisbecraft1303]

@@sombodysdad A salamander and an alligator have the same body plan. So what? Are you a Hovindist who thinks evolution hasn't occurred unless a cat gives birth to a dog or something like that? Can you even report what the existence of ring species signifies?

[@walkergarya]

Astrology is scientific theory, courtroom told By Celeste Biever 19 October 2005 Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday. Under cross examination, ID proponent Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, admitted his definition of “theory” was so broad it would also include astrology. The trial is pitting 11 parents from the small town of Dover, Pennsylvania, against their local school board. The board voted to read a statement during a biology class that casts doubt on Darwinian evolution and suggests ID as an alternative. The parents claim this was an attempt to introduce creationism into the curriculum and that the school board members were motivated by their evangelical Christian beliefs. It is illegal to teach anything with a primarily religious purpose or effect on pupils in government-funded US schools. Supporters of ID believe that some things in nature are simply too complex to have evolved by natural selection, and therefore must be the work of an intelligent designer. Peer review Behe was called to the stand on Monday by the defence, and testified that ID was a scientific theory, and was not “committed” to religion. His cross examination by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Eric Rothschild of the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, began on Tuesday afternoon. Rothschild told the court that the US National Academy of Sciences supplies a definition for what constitutes a scientific theory: “Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” Because ID has been rejected by virtually every scientist and science organisation, and has never once passed the muster of a peer-reviewed journal paper, Behe admitted that the controversial theory would not be included in the NAS definition. “I can’t point to an external community that would agree that this was well substantiated,” he said. Behe said he had come up with his own “broader” definition of a theory, claiming that this more accurately describes the way theories are actually used by scientists. “The word is used a lot more loosely than the NAS defined it,” he says. Hypothesis or theory? Rothschild suggested that Behe’s definition was so loose that astrology would come under this definition as well. He also pointed out that Behe’s definition of theory was almost identical to the NAS’s definition of a hypothesis. Behe agreed with both assertions. The exchange prompted laughter from the court, which was packed with local members of the public and the school board. Behe maintains that ID is science: “Under my definition, scientific theory is a proposed explanation which points to physical data and logical inferences.” “You’ve got to admire the guy. It’s Daniel in the lion’s den,” says Robert Slade, a local retiree who has been attending the trial because he is interested in science. “But I can’t believe he teaches a college biology class.” The cross examination will continue Wednesday, with the trial expected to finish on 4 November.

[@sombodysdad]

She lies about ID supporters.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@sombodysdad You lie about everything.

[@Waltham1892]

I think that teaching religion in the classroom should not be barred by the state. All praise the Noodley Goodness of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[@johndaddyo444]

+Waltham1892 - I disagree. I think religion should be taught in church and in theology degree programs in college, but not in public schools. That's why the religion of Darwinism needs to be removed from the public schools.

[@Waltham1892]

johndaddyo444 I was joking, please tell me you are.

[@sagerider2]

+Waltham1892 RAmen!

[@Waltham1892]

Marilyn Newman May your Pirates never diminish.

[@sagerider2]

And the spice flow.

[@chatgpt0520]

_The overwhelming evidence at trial established that intelligent design is a religious view - a mere relabeling of creationism - and not a scientific theory. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether intelligent design is science and we have concluded that it is not. Moreover, it has been shown that intelligent design cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents._ *-Judge John E Jones lll*

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@somebodysactinglikeachild, you can't deny how accurate this is ... “There’s nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal things.” -- Jack Krebs of Kansas Citizens for Science (Concerning the Intelligent Design Creationists’ claim that their position - which is religious pseudoscience - deserves equal treatment with evolution in public schools)

[@l.m.892]

Evolution is not a theory, at least not a scientific one. It is more like a religious theory, which brings to mind Darwin's mention of Utilitarianism in his text. An inequality exists between the quality of information which can be extracted between "reactants" and "the reaction".

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@l.m.892 Please explain how evolution is supposedly religious. Please, try.

[@l.m.892]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger Are religions ideologies?

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

@@l.m.892 "Are religions ideologies?" That didn't support your claim.

[@l.m.892]

@@TonyTigerTonyTiger What is my claim?

[@maxmac7845]

We'd like to have a scientific discussion but first, a blessing. Hilarious.

[@lederereddy]

@Max Mac --- "We'd like to have a scientific discussion but first, a blessing. Hilarious." I don't agree with Kenneth Miller. He's an example of a modern-day heretic. He bought "The lie" which the New Testament warns all end-time believers to avoid at all costs. But you're not too bright if you think we (Earth's intelligent observers) would have anything to study if atheism were true! It's the amazing designs, orderly systems, organization, information-rich design engineering, and skilled manufacturing that we observe, test, retest, and document. If every molecule were loose within the universe to do nothing but react to the adjacent molecules nothing would ever manifest as designed, orderly, organized, engineered, or manufactured. The universe would be wall-to-wall chaos. But, if that were true, then at least atheists wouldn't be so demonstrably absurd!

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Why? So what?

[@jamesbarlow6423]

@mcmanustony I have no idea why you think anything you are talking about has any valid relevance to the objection made by the gentleman. But I DO know it doesn't matter to you that I AM familiar with the relevant literature. (Intellectualy honest atheists are nearly impossible to come by of late.) He said I was lying in saying that there was growing shift toward the God hypothesis in physics (O acerba outrage!🙄). I referred to Berlinski and Meyer as persons who've noticed this cultural development. No fair, he says: they aren't even physicists. I pointed out it was illogical (1) to accuse me of lying when the assertion was not my own and (2) to think that only persons in the field can report on developments in said field. It would be like you accusing a journalist of lying because he reported in a physics story that "most physicists believe in the big bang theory" because "journalists aren't physicists" and "journalists don't read scientific papers" etc. I say again: that intellectual disposition is childishly anti-intellectual. (Or as Nietzsche will have put it: "No one quite lies the way the morally indignant do!") Meyer simply notes that "cosmology, physics, and biology all point to the existence of a transcendent mind and that God is making a comeback in both academia and the wider culture." So I mentioned the famous Pew Research survey reporting that in 1911 but 41% of U.S. scientists believed in a divine Being of some sort, whereas in 2009 that group had become a majority. A 100 year trend in the making. Compris? www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ I then advanced for perusal a recent Newsweek article: "Science Finds God By Sharon Begley The achievements of modern science seem to contradict religion and undermine faith. But for a growing number of scientists, the same discoveries offer support for spirituality and hints of the very nature of God." Re. naughty 'institutes' akin to the one you noted Berlinski and Meyer hath founded, the author states most reputably that, in fact, "From Georgetown to Berkeley, theologians who embrace science, and scientists who cannot abide the spiritual emptiness of empiricism, are establishing institutes integrating the two." It goes on: "Books like 'Science and Theology: The New Consonance' and 'Belief in God in an Age of Science' are streaming off the presses. A June symposium on 'Science and the Spiritual Quest,' organized by Russell's Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences [part of the Berkeley grad school], drew more than 320 paying attendees and 33 speakers, and a PBS documentary on science and faith will air this fall." "...'When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see,' says John Polkinghorne, who had a distinguished career as a physicist at Cambridge University before becoming an Anglican priest in 1982, 'that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it'." www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/newsweek/science_of_god/scienceofgod.htm Other physicists have stepped forward of late, e.g. this guy: www.amazon.com/Believing-Seeing-Physicist-Shattered-Necessity/dp/1496455576 Next I introduced an article wherein the physicist founder of string theory as recently as 2018, Michiu Kaku, claims he has scientifically proven the existence of God. The Geophilosophical Association of Anthropological and Cultural Studies quoted Kaku as saying, “I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence. To me, it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.” bigthink.com/culture-religion/michio-kaku-believes-in-god-if-not-that-god/ I wasn't surprised by the eerily anachronistic sort of virulent anti-intellectuality that goes on with the lot here. Why it matters so much to some people is really a mystery to me. I, too, believe in a cosmos of deterministic causality (though, to be sure, I agree with Hume's skeptical empiricism and Nietzsche's brute honesty when they admit that "No one has even seen a cause!"). I share the conclusions of the cognitive psychologist Don Hoffman (along with the neuroscientist Ian McGilchrist) who have what I consider to be the most provable assessment of the nature and extent of our world-experienve to date. We only sensorially experience a fraction of a fraction of reality because it's mathematically demonstrable our sensory apparai are evolutionarily designed with the sole purpose of sustaining survival, not knowing the truth. The probability our senses yield a truthful depiction of reality is 0 (zero). Hoffman maintains we are disposed out of biological-physical necessity to experience pure fabrication, essentially a non-reality. See: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mX6tYWaor7WJfqc kzbin.info/www/bejne/npO6eH2bgNZnqrc kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6Kte4NsiJZojJI kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6m6nKqvbd9ggMk kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZ7MloGHfZyEatk kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHKUfmdunLx5msk kzbin.info/www/bejne/mX6tYWaor7WJfqc kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZvbd2momMefitk kzbin.info/www/bejne/poGti6CVYrR-h5o kzbin.info/www/bejne/aX7ZeHqgmLl4prM kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJq9nWCZjtSbp68 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJa6eGqulJuMa7c kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKLVkmSAqtyIoNk kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6Kte4NsiJZojJI kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2arq2SdnrqIipo kzbin.info/www/bejne/mp3VdJV_is-BmrM kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3W1k31oZ7CGl5Y

[@lizd2943]

@@jamesbarlow6423 Did you notice there wasn't a single reference to a single scientific paper anywhere in your comment?

[@maxmac7845]

@@jamesbarlow6423 lol