Page 8 of 8 FirstFirst ... 45678
Results 141 to 160 of 160

Thread: Test of Faith

  1. #141
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by andystyle View Post
    I look forward to seeing my name in the minutes' apologies.

    My answer to the question isn't on this thread, but we have sparred over similar ground before. Or, putting it another way, the answers from other Christians on this thread are sufficiently in line with my own that I don't feel the need to re-iterate.
    Actually, if you saw any answers to my question, I'd be grateful if you pointed them out. I've not seen anyone set out or explain what the criteria he or she uses to construct the fabric of their faith.

    I suspect it's because they don't know what the criteria were - it all happened by osmosis at a level of which they may not have been aware. Explanation isn't available, only rationalisation.

    How about that Britney Spears?

  2. #142
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    It isn't the libraries you need to sue but your drug dealer.
    Personal abuse again. Are you sinking to

    Can you really not follow the argument that intelligent design could be the source of an ecosystem when we are already making inroads into understanding and manipulating DNA?

    alleging I am taking drugs?

    and you still have not posted your "acceptable" definition of sociopathy.

  3. #143
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    Personal abuse again. Are you sinking to
    It was intended to be tongue in cheek. If you really were offended, I apologise.
    Can you really not follow the argument that intelligent design could be the source of an ecosystem when we are already making inroads into understanding and manipulating DNA?
    Er - no. Intelligent design isn't a meaningful explanation of anything because implicit in its premises is the acceptance that it is not necessary to explain the 'intelligence' which did the designing. Well, if you don't care what designed the designer, then why bother what designed the original phenomenon?
    alleging I am taking drugs?
    See above.
    and you still have not posted your "acceptable" definition of sociopathy.
    No, but I have said that you can consult any reputable dictionary to find out what sociopathy is.
    The issue is that your earlier posts seemed to elide the distinction between anti-social and sociopathic behaviour; furthermore, it seemed to include behaviour which was considered socially acceptable - rape during war, for example - as sociopathic. (Of course today we generally consider rape during war as being extremely unaccepable, but this probably wasn't the case until a few hundred years ago.) I think that you might be interested to learn more about what sociopathy is.

  4. #144
    Registered User andystyle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Glesgae!
    Posts
    582
    Rep Power
    9

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    How about that Britney Spears?
    Turning into an aircraft carrier, was it?

  5. #145
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by andystyle View Post
    Turning into an aircraft carrier, was it?
    I'm losing my grip on reality.

    I thought you posted something about aircraft carriers in response to a comment about Britney Spears...

    Hopefully I'll be better after a good night's sleep.

  6. #146
    Registered User andystyle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Glesgae!
    Posts
    582
    Rep Power
    9

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I'm losing my grip on reality.

    I thought you posted something about aircraft carriers in response to a comment about Britney Spears...

    Hopefully I'll be better after a good night's sleep.
    I'd link the thread that the above conversation took place in (Britney turning into a carrier, I believe) if I could be bothered. But I'm not. So I won't. Jet-lagged!

  7. #147
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    ...Er - no. Intelligent design isn't a meaningful explanation of anything because implicit in its premises is the acceptance that it is not necessary to explain the 'intelligence' which did the designing. Well, if you don't care what designed the designer, then why bother what designed the original phenomenon?...
    Professor Flew allegedly believes that the rate of development of species was too rapid to be explained by the "Blind watchmaker" chance process. If he is right and "intelligent design" is behind our ecosystem and it would be interesting to know if the intelligent designer was what many call "God", or whether it was an alien intelligence at our level a long time ago.
    Personally I would guess at DNA being the result of lots of advances and steps back, collecting more and more genes that have been switched off.
    In times of environmental stress genetic damage is likely, and the "switch off" genes are as susceptible as any other.
    Whether there by intelligent design or by random processes surges in evolution due to switch of genes being destroyed are much more likely than the chance of a useful gene being acquired. By acquiring useful genes for later DNA could be considered to have "learned", one of the elements of intelligence, and to be able to modify its behaviour according to stimuli, another characteristic.
    If an intelligent designer was seeding a planet to terraform it one possibility would be to build a long string of DNA with higher functions present but switched off and the only active genes being there to produce simple but rugged single cell plants and microbes. Genetic damage to it would tend towards producing known superior DNA. Evolution would occur much faster than random processes.
    This is all speculation, but some "simple" organisms have DNA strings much larger than seems necessary compared to much more complex organisms. "Intelligent design" does not necessarily mean "God".

  8. #148
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    {snip post}
    Altogether now, class.

    EVOLUTION IS NOT repeat NOT
    A FUNCTION OF CHANCE.

  9. #149
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    Professor Flew allegedly believes that the rate of development of species was too rapid to be explained by the "Blind watchmaker" chance process. If he is right and "intelligent design" is behind our ecosystem and it would be interesting to know if the intelligent designer was what many call "God", or whether it was an alien intelligence at our level a long time ago.
    What do you mean by 'blind watchmaker process'? The phrase could apply either to evolution or to design.

    As for the time involved:
    From an essay by Richard Dawkins, talking about a computer program experiment into how long it would take to evolve an eye.
    "...they chose pessimistic values for the coefficient of variation (that is, for how much variation there typically is in the population) and the intensity of selection (the amount of survival advantage improved eyesight confers). They even went so far as to assume that any new generation differed in only one part of the eye at a time: simultaneous changes in different parts of the eye, which would have greatly speeded up evolution, were outlawed. But even with these conservative assumptions, the time taken to evolve a fish eye from flat skin was minuscule: fewer than 400,000 generations. For the kinds of small animals we are talking about, we can assume one generation per year, so it seems that it would take less than half a million years to evolve a good camera eye. "
    Personally I would guess at DNA being the result of lots of advances and steps back, collecting more and more genes that have been switched off.
    In times of environmental stress genetic damage is likely, and the "switch off" genes are as susceptible as any other.
    Whether there by intelligent design or by random processes surges in evolution due to switch of genes being destroyed are much more likely than the chance of a useful gene being acquired. By acquiring useful genes for later DNA could be considered to have "learned", one of the elements of intelligence, and to be able to modify its behaviour according to stimuli, another characteristic.
    You see, I try to follow your posts, I really do. But you don't write carefully enough (or I'm stupid, answers on a postcard please). The result is that I can't follow what you mean: I have to make too many guesses and/or assumptions so that I don't know whether I have actually received your message. I thought I was doing OK here until I read the bit about DNA being able to modify its behaviour. I have no idea, and I did try to comprehend, how it can be meaningful to say DNA has 'behaviour'. So I'm left clutching at straws.
    If an intelligent designer was seeding a planet to terraform it one possibility would be to build a long string of DNA with higher functions present but switched off and the only active genes being there to produce simple but rugged single cell plants and microbes. Genetic damage to it would tend towards producing known superior DNA. Evolution would occur much faster than random processes.
    This is all speculation, but some "simple" organisms have DNA strings much larger than seems necessary compared to much more complex organisms. "Intelligent design" does not necessarily mean "God".
    Why do we have to posit somebody trying to develop life on our planet? It's not in keeping with the principle of parsimony. If it is postulated that earth was 'seeded' by aliens (a great s-f conceit, incidentally, leading to some great stories over the years, not least 2001 - the book not the film) we then have to start asking how life developed on the alien planet, leaving us with the same questions to ask all over again.
    Plus, there is still no evidence whatsoever of intelligent life anywhere else in the universe, so the parsimony principle is broken in at least two ways.

  10. #150
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by andystyle View Post
    I'd link the thread that the above conversation took place in (Britney turning into a carrier, I believe) if I could be bothered. But I'm not. So I won't. Jet-lagged!
    When you have the time, old chap.

  11. #151
    Papa Smurf
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Planet Scathe
    Posts
    12,528
    Blog Entries
    6
    Rep Power
    18

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Why do we have to posit somebody trying to develop life on our planet? It's not in keeping with the principle of parsimony. If it is postulated that earth was 'seeded' by aliens (a great s-f conceit, incidentally, leading to some great stories over the years, not least 2001 - the book not the film)
    There was a Star Trek episode, DS9 i believe, where "clues" in DNA in several alien races pointed toward a particular place in the galaxy and a message. There was a big race to get there. Then the message, also hidden in the dna of course, was played. It was left by an ancient alien race who had seeded humanoid life in the galaxy. Of course, the different races present, didn't believe it and/or care and still want to kill each other.

    Which just goes to show - children are ungrateful.

    of course...

    The truth is probably far weirder, the opening scenes from "Men in Black" probably hit the nail on the head

  12. #152
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    .... I thought I was doing OK here until I read the bit about DNA being able to modify its behaviour. I have no idea, and I did try to comprehend, how it can be meaningful to say DNA has 'behaviour'. So I'm left clutching at straws.
    DNA "behaves" by dividing. Its normal behaviour is to replicate itself. Its "behaviour" when something damages it is to replicate itsef with a mutation. Usually these mutations will not aid its survival chances, but if they do then they are moor likely to be replicated. Just as we react to pain and damage DNA, in effect does the same thing.

    Why do we have to posit somebody trying to develop life on our planet? It's not in keeping with the principle of parsimony. If it is postulated that earth was 'seeded' by aliens (a great s-f conceit, incidentally, leading to some great stories over the years, not least 2001 - the book not the film) we then have to start asking how life developed on the alien planet, leaving us with the same questions to ask all over again.
    If we are asking how did life evolve we do not have to ask the same questions again. Only if we ask how did it evolve here do we have to consider the highly unlikely possibility of seeding.
    If life evolved here on the "blind watchmaker" principle it is already evident from our primitive understanding of science that an "intelligent watchmaker" is possible. Given our colonising tendencies it is not unlikely that mankind will one day embark on such a program. My guess is that "Blind watchmaker" is still the way to bet for life on our planet.
    Plus, there is still no evidence whatsoever of intelligent life anywhere else in the universe, so the parsimony principle is broken in at least two ways.
    We have weapons of mass destruction and a belligerent nature. If evolution produces the same results whereever it happens then, just because there is no evidence of intelligent life now does not mean that does not exist, or never existed.

    And when we had destroyed our world,
    we went to the stars.
    There we met an alien race.
    Like us, but not like us.
    Refugees,
    coming the other way.
    poem, Croydon Advertiser 1970's
    .

  13. #153
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    DNA "behaves" by dividing. Its normal behaviour is to replicate itself. Its "behaviour" when something damages it is to replicate itsef with a mutation. Usually these mutations will not aid its survival chances, but if they do then they are moor likely to be replicated. Just as we react to pain and damage DNA, in effect does the same thing.
    Oh, gosh, where to start?

    'behaviour', in biological terms, is something that can be modified. DNA cannot modify what it does - it's just a molecule, FCOL! You don't describe salt dissolving in water as salt's 'behaviour'; that's simply what happens.

    DNA doesn't replicate itself. It relies on other molecules - specifically, RNA and others - to replicate it. Although 'being replicated' is, I suppose, DNA's raison d'etre.

    Most damaged DNA is replicated without replicating the damage - this is due to the error-checing procedures which have evolved (more faithful than any CRC systems developed in computer software). Some, and badly, damaged DNA may replicate the error. The vast majority of such errors are fatal to the organism and therefore the 'damaged' DNA simply perishes.

    Only a very, very few mutations actually go on to produce changes in the organism that are passed on to future generations.

    I watched Battle of the bulge yesterday. (Bear with me on this.) At one point, a bunch of SS tank crews sing the HorstWessellied. I was watching a bit where there were three, side by side, and I was suddenly struck by their very different jaw structures (probably because with the SS there are overtones of 'racial purity'). One had a bit of a DC jaw (David Coulthard), another had a fairly ordinary one, and the third had a jawline which was almost a straight line from his ear to his chin - slightly curved. (Like a guardsman's helmet strap.)

    This is what evolution (according to the standard model) works on - slight variation in the population. When there an ecological niche arises - e.g. the population is divided by a river, or either side of a glacier which becomes impassable - slightly different evolution pressures on the two populations can lead to the variations in the populations moving in slightly different directions. If this goes on long and far enough, the two populations may eventually be unable to interbreed - we have two new species (or one original and one new, depending.)

    Take a hypothetical fresh-water fish: some of the fish will be able to tolerate slightly warmer water. They will meet with less competition if they feed in warmer water than if they feed with all the other fish. Eventually, you may end up with two species of fish, closely related, but with one occupying colder waters and the other occupying warmer.

    The slightly faster members of an antelope population will be more likely to avoid leopards than the others. This will always remain true, so that the average of the population will become faster and faster. No mutation is required.

    At what point does the land dwelling mammal with ungainly limbs finally return to the water and begin evolving into whales? Does that require any mutations? Or does it just happen by gradual change? Mostly, evolution favours the latter.

  14. #154
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    poem, Croydon Advertiser 1970's
    The bathos in those four words!! That deserves some rep!

  15. #155
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Oh, gosh, where to start?

    'behaviour', in biological terms, is something that can be modified. DNA cannot modify what it does - it's just a molecule, FCOL! You don't describe salt dissolving in water as salt's 'behaviour'; that's simply what happens.
    Scientists do talk about chemical behaviour - what happens when -


    DNA doesn't replicate itself. It relies on other molecules - specifically, RNA and others - to replicate it. Although 'being replicated' is, I suppose, DNA's raison d'etre.
    Granted - I was trying to cut corners, trying not to write a book, and trying to avoid RNA.

    It seems to me that RNA production must be influenced by the environment in which an organism finds itself. My guess is that evolution would develop the mechanisms by which RNA is produced and by which it influences DNA replication to bias which DNA strands get replicated. My theory is that RNA is the eyes, or at least the white stick, of the not so blind watchmaker.

  16. #156
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    Scientists do talk about chemical behaviour - what happens when
    Granted, but we are having a biology/evolution discussion, in which 'behaviour' means something very different. In such circumstances your use of the word was confusing, to say the least.
    It seems to me that RNA production must be influenced by the environment in which an organism finds itself. My guess is that evolution would develop the mechanisms by which RNA is produced and by which it influences DNA replication to bias which DNA strands get replicated. My theory is that RNA is the eyes, or at least the white stick, of the not so blind watchmaker.
    Again, the standard model of evolution assumes that RNA preceded DNA (I dimly remember that some organisms have only RNA...) but that DNA rapidly replaced it as the primary source of cellular information as soon as it - um, by mutation, presumably - came into existence.
    Cellular machinery is unbelievably complicated. Regulatory chemicals will trigger the action of RNA and other catalysts into reading DNA strands (the DNA remains in the nucleus at all times, whereas the RNA and especially messenger RNA can travel about within the cell) in order to produce other molecules, proteins and so forth, which may have a feedback influence (directly or indirectly) on further RNA and DNA activity.
    This doesn't even get started on the role of DNA in cell reproduction (which I haven't studied yet).

  17. #157
    Registered User SteveK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Cairns, Australia
    Posts
    365
    Rep Power
    9

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Er - no. Intelligent design isn't a meaningful explanation of anything because implicit in its premises is the acceptance that it is not necessary to explain the 'intelligence' which did the designing. Well, if you don't care what designed the designer, then why bother what designed the original phenomenon?
    Please accept my apologies if someone has mentioned this earlier, but I don't think anyone has highlighted that there is an third way:

    Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
    Flying Spaghetti Monster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Intelligent Design (in my opinion) is dubious when compared with conventional scientific theory; it purports to have some basis in fact, but the gaps make it wholly unsuitable to propose as an alternative theory. I'm not aware that it can be asserted with any authority that Intelligent Design is more accurate than a flying spaghetti monster with noodly appendages altering how things develop?

    However I'm inclined to view those who believe in Creation without any major problems; it's clearly separated from scientific thought and there is no attempt to cloud the issue. It's a convenient way for some people to understand why we are here, and doesn't purport to be anything else.

  18. #158
    Registered User stewart38's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Ambrosden it gets
    Posts
    7,480
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post


    The slightly faster members of an antelope population will be more likely to avoid leopards than the others. This will always remain true, so that the average of the population will become faster and faster. No mutation is required.
    True but the leopard would have to mutate to and get faster and faster to keep up or go hungry or find another food source, maybe man ?

    Where is the 'cap' ? Leopards I assume have been chasing antelope for millions of years and i assume all antelope wish they could run faster.

  19. #159
    Papa Smurf
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Planet Scathe
    Posts
    12,528
    Blog Entries
    6
    Rep Power
    18

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    True but the leopard would have to mutate to and get faster and faster to keep up or go hungry or find another food source, maybe man ?
    thunder...THUNDER...THUNDERCATS...HOOOOO



  20. #160
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Test of Faith

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    True but the leopard would have to mutate to and get faster and faster to keep up or go hungry or find another food source, maybe man ?

    Where is the 'cap' ? Leopards I assume have been chasing antelope for millions of years and i assume all antelope wish they could run faster.
    Why, that's a jolly good point!

    This type of situation is referred to, in Dawkin's books, as an evolutionary arms race. (I don't know if he coined the phrase.)

    In practice. of course, there are many variables which interfere. The leopard can only get so much faster before the law of diminishing returns sets in and the small gains in speed won't result in significantly more food. Plus, the cost of increased speed is hypothetically incorporated into the equation: the antelope will need to eat more food if it is going to run faster, and at some point the cost - of keeping high toned acceleration and running muscles hanging around 100% of the time on the off-chance that they might be useful in escaping from a leopard - exceeds the value.

    But in practice, neither leopards nor tigers nor lions nor any other predator gets their food from prime examples of their prey. The ones that get eaten are, ovewhelmingly, the small, sick, young and sub-normal animals. No leopard chases after the alpha male antelope - it chases the one with a sprained ankle or a mild respiratory infection, the one that can't run quite so quickly. (The other antelopes rapidly realise that one of their number is afflicted and will immediately run in another direction, to put distance between themselves and it, and to draw it to the leopard's attention.) So this also puts an upper limit on the leopard's requirement to improve its hunting proficiency. It only has to be better than the worst prey animal, not the best!

    Of course, there is the possibility that the occasionaly leopard will get a mutated gene. The most likely possibility is that it won't help - what would the gene be 'for'? More muscle fibres? Then we also need a mutation in different genes to produce the additional blood vessels and the higher capacity heart to feed them! Quicker-reacting muscle fibres? Now we need additional capacity to get rid of the waste products of muscle activity - lactose, for example - otherwise they will quickly go into cramp. Etc. etc. It's gradual improvement, gradual change which produces the more efficent animal.

    These changes happen over time scales that prevent us - generally - from observing them. However, the pepper moth is one that can be used to provide proof.

    The generally white moths gradually became darker and darker as foliage and plants in central england became black from the industrial revolution. As the Clean Air Act began to bite, more and more lighter coloured moths were seen in the population. IIRC geneticists have found that the gene for darker colouring was present in the moth all along; evolutionary pressure simply meant that the gene (which perhaps was recessive?) was expressed more and more as the lighter coloured moths were picked off by predators. Then later, as the advantage of being darker disappeared, the dominant gene began to reassert itself. Presumably, if the blackening of the environment had continued, the dominant gene may have died out altogether, or been semi-permanently switched off.

    Fascinatin', innit?

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. RNIB Eye Test Action Day
    By Isis in forum Chit Chat
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 12th-September-2007, 02:06 PM
  2. Personality Test - Which one are you?
    By Magic Hans in forum Chit Chat
    Replies: 26
    Last Post: 17th-June-2007, 04:53 PM
  3. Intelligence test!
    By Katie Kicks Ass in forum Fun and Games
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 7th-December-2006, 09:08 AM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •