Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dave Hawkins · 06-23-2007, 01:34 PM

I will not stop "misusing" Crow. To me it is annoying that you accuse me of misusing him, because I am most definitely not drawing unwarranted conclusions. I am happy to drop the subject on this thread, however, and get back to pyramids and the Flood.

Dave Hawkins · 06-23-2007, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pappy Jack

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

What conclusions, specifically, do you object to? The only ones I even care about are ... of which, I think Dean already agrees with 3 of these points. Let's not fight about more items than is necessary.

Dave, if these 5 points are the only ones that are relevant in your/Smyth's 'advanced scientific knowledge of the non-Egyptian Great Pyramid-builders' theory, then I am happy to deal only with these.
1. No. See Dean's post.
2. No. See preceding discussions in this thread about this.
3. Yes, but so what? Any society which uses astronomy to establish its calendar will realize that something like this is going on by simple observation.
4. No. See Dean's post.
5. Yes, but again, so what? The Egyptians weighed things and measured things.
And regardless of the yes/no answers above, I do not accept that the Great Pyramid architects hid these values in its measurements. 'Finding' them therein is nothing more than an exercise in number-crunching to produce a desired result.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pappy Jack

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

So we disagree on our ancestors being superior genetically ... oh well ...

Returning to the Flood and the Great Pyramid ... Pappy Jack ... Can you explain WHY you reject my points 1, 2, & 4?
I might give in on the anomalistic year b/c I haven't seen Davidson's justification for the trapezoid-ness. But his analysis seems very straightforward for the other two year values. What does the discussion in this thread about PI have to do with refuting Smyth's contention that the builders knew a very precise value for it? I fail to see your logic there. And finally, where have you refuted the geodesic inferences? I missed that too.

Dave, you continue to miss the point.

Any great mass of data derived from measuring (more or less accurately) the dimensions of any great structure, can be manipulated and/or fudged to produce correlations of one sort or another without those correlations being part of a secret message from the architects to later generations about their 'advanced scientific knowledge', cf. Martin Gardner's simple demonstration with the Washington Monument that I referred you to earlier. And this is the point: Smyth (and everyone else who went down the same route) manipulates, fudges or just downright misrepresents the data to produce the results they want.

We can revisit the incorporation of the value of pi in the Great Pyramid if you like, but as you steadfastly refused to acknowledge the reasons that were explained to you at length in the Flood Debate Commentary thread at richarddawkins for its appearance in deconstructions of the Pyramid's dimensions (and Mike's explanation was overwhelmingly convincing, even if you find the implications of using a circular measuring device incomprehensible), this would just seem to be a waste of bandwidth.

Sorry, but you cannot dismiss the precise value of PI built into the GP, and the length of the solar and sidereal years in the base circuits, and the built in value of the precession of the equinoxes, and the polar diameter of the earth, and the 25" cubit discovered by Newton, etc. And you cannot dismiss the almost perfect preservation of the Pyramid inch in the British inch. Pappy Jack ... do you realize if ONE parameter--length of any side, height, or anything else was off--and they are off with all the other pyramids ... that these scientific values would disappear? Has it not occurred to you that Petrie himself understood all this and bought Smyth's theories until one thing happened--he failed to account for the hollowing in of the sides. That's all it took. One thing and the whole thing crumped for Petrie. Now if Martin Gardner has something relevant, I'm happy to look at it. But I don't think he does. And what was this 'overwhelmingly convincing' argument of Mike's. I missed that.

Constant Mews · 06-23-2007, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Voxrat, CK and Eric ... It appears to me that you are engaging in wishful thinking. It seems that you, like Crow, have a pre-commitment to the evolutionary view of the Origin of Species, thus you cannot allow yourself to accept the clear message of the data presented to you by Crow, Kondrashov and others. Crow is as clear as can be both with his "stone age" statement and his "bomb" statement. He makes it quite clear that if we didn't have modern medicine to keep us alive, we'd be in worse shape than our ancestors.

This is factually incorrect; Crow is pointing out that since we are no longer selecting out certain characteristics, we have issues that they did not have. This does NOT imply that our ancestors were genetically perfect; it merely indicates that we are under less selection pressure.

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It blows my mind that you cannot see this ... but then it blows my mind that you think the global flood is myth.

The reason you have so much trouble with this, Dave, is that you fail to understand the distinction between empirical evidence and speculation. All you have ever offered, in your numerous factually incorrect posts, is speculation. Your inability to deal with the hard math and mechanics of evolution, biology, geology, history, cosmology, and indeed every single field of science is based primarily on that problem.

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I (and Dr. Sanford) will continue to spread this message to an ever-widening audience because it is the truth. You've had your opportunity to show me why I'm wrong, and you have not done so. It's high time that people get informed.

Let us be very clear here, Dave. You are offering speculation unsupported by evidence. You are not offering actual evidence or any convincing hypotheses. Any intelligent person will be able to distinguish between the two. You will note that when the general forum was asked whether you had managed to convince anyone of your position, you lost - 148 to 1.

You lost, Dave. The consensus of the posters, both here and at ATBC and RD is that you are not convincing; that you are making no case; that your 'preaching' - because that is essentially what you are indulging in - is utterly ineffectual.

What is the point of attempting to 'spread the message' when it can be quite easily demonstrating that you are failing completely? What kind of intelligence is displayed by your continuing to bash your head against the brick wall of logic, fact, and sanity?

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BTW ... someone asked how I knew that Sanford rejected his evolutionary views because of data like this ... the answer is right in his book Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome (or via: amazon.co.uk).

I have borrowed the book from a colleague. You are completely wrong. Sanford converted in the midst of his divorce, and this is a very poor attempt at apologetics. Had you actually read the book, you would have found this out for yourself.

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If you purchase only ONE creationist book in your entire life ... this is the one I would recommend. Sanford is a top notch geneticist and he is now a YEC because of the data in his own specialized field. Sounds a lot like Tipler (though Tipler's not a YEC).

Your propaganda is both bad form and against policy.

Stop preaching and try dealing with the actual facts and data.

VoxRat · 06-23-2007, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Voxrat, CK and Eric ... It appears to me that you are engaging in wishful thinking. It seems that you, like Crow, have a pre-commitment to the evolutionary view of the Origin of Species, thus you cannot allow yourself to accept the clear message of the data presented to you by Crow, Kondrashov and others. Crow is as clear as can be both with his "stone age" statement and his "bomb" statement. He makes it quite clear that if we didn't have modern medicine to keep us alive, we'd be in worse shape than our ancestors. It blows my mind that you cannot see this

The problem is your mind was blown long before this came up.

What makes you think I don't know "if we didn't have modern medicine to keep us alive, we'd be in worse shape than our ancestors"? Whatever made you jump to that conclusion? Criminy! My vision problems (probably genetic) would have prevented my genes from getting passed on, if it weren't for opticians. That's called selection. It has nothing to do with the Bible, or Adam, or Noah.

AND you misrepresented Russell. Gonna cop to that plea? Or are you contending he would agree with your characterization of his thoughts on the causes of extinction?

ck1 · 06-23-2007, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Voxrat, CK and Eric ... It appears to me that you are engaging in wishful thinking. It seems that you, like Crow, have a pre-commitment to the evolutionary view of the Origin of Species, thus you cannot allow yourself to accept the clear message of the data presented to you by Crow, Kondrashov and others. Crow is as clear as can be both with his "stone age" statement and his "bomb" statement. He makes it quite clear that if we didn't have modern medicine to keep us alive, we'd be in worse shape than our ancestors.

- If you think our arguments agree with Crow's, then why are you using him to support your opposing POV?

- This Crow paper is not a research paper - it is essentially a transcript of a lecture given to a general audience of scientists. As such it presents no new work and no new data.

- We all agree that Crow is warning that modern medicine IS LIKELY TO result in accumulation of more deleterious mutations and that this process PROBABLY began a hundred or so years ago with the advent of modern medicine. You, on the other hand, have been using this paper to support your oddball idea that humans have been accumulating deleterious mutations for as long as there have been humans. This paper provides NO support for that idea. And you have misinterpreted his "bomb" and "stone age" statements completely - note that he says it is our "descendants" who would have problems competing in a stone age environment (after more generations of modern medicine and sanitation).

Read the paper again. Of all the papers in biological sciences you have cited in your arguments over the last year, this one is the easiest for a nonexpert to understand.

Constant Mews · 06-23-2007, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pappy Jack

Dave, if these 5 points are the only ones that are relevant in your/Smyth's 'advanced scientific knowledge of the non-Egyptian Great Pyramid-builders' theory, then I am happy to deal only with these.
1. No. See Dean's post.
2. No. See preceding discussions in this thread about this.
3. Yes, but so what? Any society which uses astronomy to establish its calendar will realize that something like this is going on by simple observation.
4. No. See Dean's post.
5. Yes, but again, so what? The Egyptians weighed things and measured things.
And regardless of the yes/no answers above, I do not accept that the Great Pyramid architects hid these values in its measurements. 'Finding' them therein is nothing more than an exercise in number-crunching to produce a desired result.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pappy Jack

Dave, you continue to miss the point.

Any great mass of data derived from measuring (more or less accurately) the dimensions of any great structure, can be manipulated and/or fudged to produce correlations of one sort or another without those correlations being part of a secret message from the architects to later generations about their 'advanced scientific knowledge', cf. Martin Gardner's simple demonstration with the Washington Monument that I referred you to earlier. And this is the point: Smyth (and everyone else who went down the same route) manipulates, fudges or just downright misrepresents the data to produce the results they want.

We can revisit the incorporation of the value of pi in the Great Pyramid if you like, but as you steadfastly refused to acknowledge the reasons that were explained to you at length in the Flood Debate Commentary thread at richarddawkins for its appearance in deconstructions of the Pyramid's dimensions (and Mike's explanation was overwhelmingly convincing, even if you find the implications of using a circular measuring device incomprehensible), this would just seem to be a waste of bandwidth.

Sorry, but you cannot dismiss the precise value of PI built into the GP, and the length of the solar and sidereal years in the base circuits, and the built in value of the precession of the equinoxes, and the polar diameter of the earth, and the 25" cubit discovered by Newton, etc. And you cannot dismiss the almost perfect preservation of the Pyramid inch in the British inch. Pappy Jack ... do you realize if ONE parameter--length of any side, height, or anything else was off--and they are off with all the other pyramids ... that these scientific values would disappear? Has it not occurred to you that Petrie himself understood all this and bought Smyth's theories until one thing happened--he failed to account for the hollowing in of the sides. That's all it took. One thing and the whole thing crumped for Petrie. Now if Martin Gardner has something relevant, I'm happy to look at it. But I don't think he does. And what was this 'overwhelmingly convincing' argument of Mike's. I missed that.

Dave, you are aware that all four sides of the pyramid are different lengths? That the original capstone is missing and the actual height sheer speculation? That Smythe's data is not supported or validated by Petrie - a far more conscientious researcher?

Deal with the facts, Dave - stop attempting to side-track by repeating nonsense that folks such as Dean have already demonstrated are false.

Learn to deal with the facts, Dave. If you learn to do nothing else in your life, someday deal with at least one, single fact.

Constant Mews · 06-23-2007, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

I will not stop "misusing" Crow. To me it is annoying that you accuse me of misusing him, because I am most definitely not drawing unwarranted conclusions. I am happy to drop the subject on this thread, however, and get back to pyramids and the Flood.

You have blatantly and continuously misused and misunderstood Crow. It is impossible to conclude from his comments that our ancestors were genetically superior and you wish to do. I challenge you to actually demonstrate your chain of logic here for consideration.

The reason the Crow problem is relevant is because it is a symptom of your inability to actually deal with real data.

ericmurphy · 06-23-2007, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Voxrat, CK and Eric ... It appears to me that you are engaging in wishful thinking. It seems that you, like Crow, have a pre-commitment to the evolutionary view of the Origin of Species, thus you cannot allow yourself to accept the clear message of the data presented to you by Crow, Kondrashov and others.

It's got nothing to do with being wedded to an evolutionary worldview, Dave. It's got to do with figuring out what the hell the guy is talking about. Crow is not talking about "deteriorating genomes," and no matter how you try to misrepresent what he's saying, that's not going to change.

Quote:

Crow is as clear as can be both with his "stone age" statement and his "bomb" statement. He makes it quite clear that if we didn't have modern medicine to keep us alive, we'd be in worse shape than our ancestors.

No. Totally wrong. What he is saying, if you only had the wit to apprehend it, is that modern medicine is interfering with the ability of natural selection to prune deleterious mutations from the gene pool. People who would have been at a major reproductive disadvantage ten thousand years ago are not anymore. It's as simple as that. Crow doesn't even imply that humans have a higher mutation rate now than we did ten thousand or a hundred thousand years ago.

Quote:

ONCLUSION: However efficient natural selection was in eliminating harmful mutations in the past, it is no longer so in much of the world. In the wealthy nations, natural selection for differential mortality is greatly reduced. A newborn infant now has a large probability of surviving past the reproducing years. There are fertility differences, to be sure, but they are clearly not distributed in such a way as to eliminate mutations efficiently. Except for pre-natal mortality, natural selection for effective mutation removal has been greatly reduced.

It seems clear that for the past few centuries harmful mutations have been accumulating. Why don't we notice this? If we are like Drosophila, the decrease in viability from mutation accumulation is some 1 or 2% per generation. This is more than compensated for by much more rapid environmental improvements, which are keeping well ahead of any decreased efficiency of selection. How long can we keep this up? Perhaps for a long time, but only if there remains a social order that permits steady environmental improvements. If war or famine force our descendants to return to a stone-age life they will have to contend with all the problems that their stone-age ancestors had plus mutations that have accumulated in the meantime.

We have seen that quasi-truncation selection can efficiently remove harmful mutations, and the average fitness reduction can be made quite small. This, plus environmental improvements, means that average survival and fertility are only slightly impaired by mutation. Yet, those 80 mutations in a fly and whatever the number is in the human species must surely have deleterious effects that don't show up in a life table (or as effects on fitness). How many headaches, stomach upsets, depressed periods, and such things that make life less pleasant, but don't reduce viability or fertility, would be eliminated if our mutation rate had been lower? I suspect the number is substantial.

If the human mutation rate were to drop to zero, we would probably not notice it except for the absence of some of the most loathsome dominant diseases. Loss of variability would not be a problem for a very long time. The genetic variance in the population is enough to satisfy the dreams of even the most wild-eyed eugenist. If we could reduce the mutation rate to zero (without important side effects, of course) I would be for it. If some centuries in the future new mutations are needed, we shall certainly know how to produce them.

I do regard mutation accumulation as a problem. It is something like the population bomb, but it has a much longer fuse. We can expect molecular techniques to increase greatly the chance of early detection of mutations with large effects. But there is less reason for optimism about the ability to deal with the much more numerous mutations with very mild effects. But this is a problem with a long time scale; the characteristic time is some 50-100 generations, which cautions us against advocating any precipitate action. We can take time to learn more.
Meanwhile, we have more immediate problems: global warming, loss of habitat, water depletion, food shortages, war, terrorism, and especially increase of the world population. If we don't somehow reduce the global birth rate to a sustainable level commensurate with economic viability, we won't have the luxury of worrying about the mutation problem.

The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk?
James F. Crow
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
Vol. 94, pp. 8380-8386, August 1997

(emphasis mine)

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It blows my mind that you cannot see this

We don't see this because it's not there. You think you see it because your mind has been polluted with such irrational religious notions as the Fall and the Curse.

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... but then it blows my mind that you think the global flood is myth.

Why does it blow your mind, Dave? We've given you over a year to provide evidence for your "flood," and you've produced nothing. You had over 60,000 words in a "formal" debate at RD.net, and you produced nothing. You have demonstrated, all by yourself, that there was no flood.

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I (and Dr. Sanford) will continue to spread this message to an ever-widening audience because it is the truth. You've had your opportunity to show me why I'm wrong, and you have not done so. It's high time that people get informed.

We've shown you exactly why you're wrong. That you cannot, or will not, admit that this is the case is your problem, not ours.

ericmurphy · 06-23-2007, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

I will not stop "misusing" Crow. To me it is annoying that you accuse me of misusing him, because I am most definitely not drawing unwarranted conclusions. I am happy to drop the subject on this thread, however, and get back to pyramids and the Flood.

Interesting: you admit that you will not stop misusing Crow. Nice to know you at least realize you're doing it, even if you refuse to stop.

Doesn't it ever give you pause, Dave, when three, or five, or nine, or a dozen people all have the same interpretation of something that is 180° removed from your interpretation of it, especially when some of the people who are disagreeing with you are (like ck1) credentialed scientists who actually have expertise in the area (genetics) under discussion?

I guess not.

Sven · 06-23-2007, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

I will not stop "misusing" Crow. To me it is annoying that you accuse me of misusing him, because I am most definitely not drawing unwarranted conclusions. I am happy to drop the subject on this thread, however, and get back to pyramids and the Flood.

You can always email him and ask him if you "use" him correctly.

I even dug up his Email adress here: jfcrow@wisc.edu

Hey, here is an easy oppurtunity to prove all us bad, bad, bad atheists wrong! Will you try, or are you actually not convinced enough of your position to do so?

BTW, I agree with all the others that you misrepresent him. I have problems to understand how you can continue to do this, apparently you simply don't understand the difference between having deleterious mutations and passing them on. :huh:

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06-23-2007, 01:34 PM	#301
Dave Hawkins Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Missouri Posts: 2,375	I will not stop "misusing" Crow. To me it is annoying that you accuse me of misusing him, because I am most definitely not drawing unwarranted conclusions. I am happy to drop the subject on this thread, however, and get back to pyramids and the Flood.

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