Principia

I'm just trying to keep up with the ID personalities. This one doesn't seem to be a pseudonym, and he seems pretty verbose and persistent about defending ID. Also, he's a Mike Gene copy-cat. I am curious, because he's posting at ISCID, ARN, and AE.

Has anyone else met him before?

pangloss

Have I ever....

Not only is he a Mike Gene-wannabe/copycat, he simply will not EVER concede error. No matter what.

A mere sampling form my archives:

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Really? You'd better tell Dembski! One should wonder then why Gene wrote:

“It may also be possible that many of these similarities are a function of rampant lateral transfer that may be associated with origin events.”

And what is an ‘origin event’ if not speciation? Or do you really think that ‘origin events’ ala Gene means the creation ex nihilo of a biological entity as-is by some designer?

But tell us about the known and knowable designers that gave us ribosomes and bacterial flagella. This should be most interesting.I do. But I have to wonder why you try to run away from your own distortions so often. Lets look at what REALLY transpired:

The origin of life bit is from the king of smoke, Nelson, from earlier in the thread:

Silly me – I forgot that nelson likes to pretend that his own words no longer exist when they come back to bite his arse… But what do we get from Nelson now?

“So you don't know what "evidence of evolution is not evidence of it's mechanism" means?”

What better way to avoid your own gaffes than to simply omit them from the discussion and pretend you were talking about something else!Spin baby spin! My question was irrelevant to what Jack had asked – two separate phenomena, I know its hard for you. Here is what Jack wrote:

“ The previous post (by lucas)was an attempt to support the concept of common ancestry but I see no evidence to confirm that the historical data used to support common ancestry was the result of random mutations and natural selection.”

I asked:

“Did you see anything to support the concept of 'Intelligent Design'?”

A fairly simple, straightforward question which deserved a simple, straightforward answer. And what do I get? Multi-paragraph quotes of Gene and Thomas. I know that the fact that I asked a NEW question based on Jack’s response to lucas is a foreign concept to you, but the fact remains that my question was irrelevant to the content of the papers lucas referred to as far as you favorite ‘RM&NS’ goes – I asked if there was any evidence for ID in the papers, since Jack saw none for ‘RM&NS’.
Actually, it is a good question. I ask it myself. What DOES intelligent design have to do with descent? It appears that it has nothing to do with it – since the only things the designer appears to have designed are ribosomes and bacterial flagella. After that it must be all natural processes. If so, one has to wonder why IDCists bristle at the thought of natural processes driving speciation. Perhaps I should modify my question to Jack:

If the papers presented by lucas say nothing of the mechanism of speciation, what alternative explanation do you have for the data based on a teleological perspective?

It shall be interesting to see how rapidly Nelson deletes that question.You mean that you believe that it is IC. You must also presuppose that the system arose as-is because you believe that the function being performed is required and that any evolutionary precursors must have been functional. But these are all assumptions, if not presuppositions which have yet to be established.Yet we know how the human intelligent agency operates. How does/did the intelligence behind bacterial flagella operate? And you MUST know, since you said above that the designers of such things act in known and knowable ways (contrary to what Dembski believes). If only SETI were involved in finding the designer of the bacterial flagella…LOL!!!
Are you so blinded by your need to prop yourself up that you can’t see what is really written and why? Amazing…. I mentioned Tooth Fairies as an example of how silly Jack’s extrapolation was – he claimed that because Dawkins mentioned ‘design’ in the subtitle of one of his books that it must have scientific merit and I asked if the existence of the Tooth Fairy would have merit had IT been mentioned rather than design. I see that is too much for you.I don’t think anyone has ever said something ‘looks like it evolved.’ Something may very well look like it was not designed, but that is just common sense. We infer evolution based on a number of things, and as far as I know one of them is not if something ‘looks’ evolved. I enjoyed your last (barely decipherable) sentence – I can just imagine someone saying that about lightning coming from the gods a few centuries ago…But I thought you knew that selection isn’t random? Huh…Like I said…Really? Maybe you can lay out the empirical methods that were used to find design in bacterial flagella.Was your question: “Why do I make a fool of myself so often?”
Here, lets look at what I responded to:
So I simply asked a question based on your extraordinary claims. Is that so wrong? Or is it just wrong when you leave out context and try to make it appear as though you were talking about something else?
Again, a context issue. You wrote:
“I know.”
In response to:
“How does something ‘look evolved’? Does Thomas give an example? Clearly, she accepts evolution at some level, so she must know.”
I must assume, as that is the only place the question about ‘knowing’ something is asked. So you claimed that you do know how something looks evolved. Well, tell me!
But I’m curious – how does the suspicion of design in flagella and ribosomes cause you to infer ID in the origin of life? And if you only see a designer at the origin of life, why do you so frequently argue against common ancestry and descent via natural means? It makes no sense at all.You assume that life is the product of design because you assume design is a ‘true’ concept.I’m confused? Hmmm… Lets see:
In response to my question about how something looks designed, you wrote:

“These concepts [identifying design] helped in delineating what evolved from what, what is the last common ancestor of what, was the original state etc. “

So how, exactly, am I confused when I write :

“All you did was say that when the data indicates descent, the IDCist can claim to use the ID approach to see which evolved from which. That is not what I asked.”

My statement above follows directly from your statement.
What would I say if you said that it only looked like apes and humans shared a common ancestor? I’d say that you have never opened a relevant scientific journal. That or your preferred designer went to great pains to try to fool us.Guess you’ve never heard of the Neutral theory… Of course, you are assuming that the precursors performed the same function that the extant structure does (I guess)… Any evidence for this?I don’t know, I don’t work for SETI. I’ll have to ask a SETI scientist what their evidence is for a non-earthly intelligence designing and building bacterial flagella.I suspect it will be a long wait – unless of course you go the Behe-Dembski-Wells-Johnson route and bypass peer-review….So if the ‘evidence’ indicates the descent of related structures, you accept it, but if no evidence is presently in existence right now for the descent of some other things you infer design…. I gotcha….Oh, I see…Right – there are contrived statistical ‘filters’ and lots of incredulity.Like Dembski? Johnson? Wells? Oh, right – if only I would use the right terminology it would all make sense. Funny thing is – they call themselves IDers, too….Because I’ve read the works of your Dr.Behe and I realize that the study of things biological using engineering principles does not mean that the things being studied were also engineered. That is like saying that lightning is the product of intelligent design because human intelligence designed and built the things used to study it.Your record is skipping. Again I ask how does something look like it evolved? You said above the evidence indicated evolution – here again you are saying that looks are enough. So, what does something that evolved look like? You say ‘the evidence suggests design.’ But in another thread you stated implicitly and explicitly that suggestions are not enough, that things must be demonstrated. So which is it?You did not show that the first was false. Indeed – it is one of ‘Julie Thomas’’ main criteria! So you say that the hypothesis of design is testable? How shall we test the hypothesis that the flagellum was designed?Actually, it is exactly the ‘logic’ you’ve been using on this forum from day 1.Do you really think that archaeologists infer that civilization X lived here because they used a teleological approach when they found some pottery and deduced that the pottery was the product of ‘Intelligent Design’?Again a context issue. Lets take a look:

YOU WROTE:
“This is different from Scott's position. Where no matter where the evidence goes, it evolved anyway.”

I replied:
“Funny - that is in reality Dembski's position .”

You of course had to protect your hero with a fact filled and irrefutable retort:
“Actually no, this is not Dembski's position.”

Isn’t it?
Well, these are not directly related to the issue at hand, but are interestingnonetheless. Among the ID ‘research ‘ avenues that an acceptance of design will offer are these gems:

*****Ethical Problem -- Is the design morally right?

*****Aesthetics Problem -- Is the design beautiful?

*****Intentionality Problem -- What was the intention of the designer
in producing a given designed object?

Ah, yes – I cannot wait to hear about the scientific studies into the morality of the design of the appendix…

But these are relevant:

“Thus a supernatural action that moves particles or creates new ones
is beyond the power of science to disprove because one can always
claim that the system under consideration was not isolated.

There is no logical contradiction here. Nor is there necessarily a
god-of-the-gaps problem here. It's certainly conceivable that a
supernatural agent could act in the world by moving particles so that
the resulting discontinuity in the chain of physical causality could
never be removed by appealing to purely physical forces. The "gaps"
in the god-of-the-gaps objection are meant to denote gaps of
ignorance about underlying physical mechanisms. But there's no reason
to think that all gaps must give way to ordinary physical
explanations once we know enough about the underlying physical
mechanisms. The mechanisms may simply not exist. Some gaps might
constitute ontic discontinuities in the chain of physical causes and
thus remain forever beyond the capacity of physical mechanisms.”

“But what if the designer is not in the business of moving particles
but of imparting information? In that case nature moves its own
particles, but an intelligence nonetheless guides the arrangement
which those particles take.”

“It's at this point that critics of design throw up their hands in
disgust and charge that design theorists are merely evading the issue
of how a designer introduces design into the world. From the design
theorists perspective, however, there is no evasion here. Rather
there is a failure of imagination on the part of the critic (and this
is not meant as a compliment).[ad hominem]”
- so it takes IMAGINATION to be a design advocate!

Jack used quotes from the same essay.

And here [http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9602/dembski.html]

“When the Explanatory Filter fails to detect design in a thing, can we be sure no
intelligent cause underlies it? The answer to this question is No. For determining
that something is not designed, the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion.
False negatives are a problem for the Explanatory Filter. This problem of false
negatives, however, is endemic to detecting intelligent causes. One difficulty is
that intelligent causes can mimic law and chance, thereby rendering their actions
indistinguishable from these unintelligent causes. It takes an intelligent cause to
know an intelligent cause, but if we don't know enough, we'll miss it.”

So the designer might have just designed in such a way as to make it look like natural processes were at work…. Silly designer – we can see through you!An ‘unembodied intelligence’ (ala Dembski) is natural? What ‘natural’ intelligence did you have in mind for the design of bacterial flagella and the like?If you say so. Of course, as I already pointed out above, it is stupid to claim that archaeologists use ‘intelligent design’ in their work – we KNOW that humans: made pottery; constructed buildings and other abodes; left artifacts indicative of their presence. It is not necessary – or even indicated – that some contrived ‘filter’ be used to figger’ out whether a pottery shard was made by humans that we know made such things or some ‘intelligence’ was behind it. Hoping that your confidence will outweigh your distortion tactics?You never give up, do you? Are there references for LGT producing ‘similarities’ during ‘origin events’ in mammalian evolution? Here is the entire context of the Gene quote – I will put in bold the important claims that you conveniently ignored/omitted. I will first paste the Gene quote only with highlights, then I will post my original response to Jack’s posting of this Gene quote. Here is where Nelson’s snipping style makes his responses way off base:

“As for this argument you cite, I do think it is a very strong argument for evolution, although it may only be evolvoid. Nevertheless, most of these examples argue for common descent merely among classes. That is, this type of analysis fails if mammals are compared to non-mammals*. The common explanation for this is that it has been too long since mammals and non-mammals shared a common ancestor, thus those non-functioning sequences decay completely. But that's kind of ad hoc. We really need lots of genomic data and that will be some time a coming. It may also be possible that many of these similarities are a function of rampant lateral transfer that may be associated with origin events. It's also possible that mutations may not always be truly random.”

Now here is my original response, modified for readability:
Gene:
As for this argument you cite, I do think it is a very strong argument for evolution, although it may only be evolvoid. Nevertheless, most of these examples argue for common descent merely among classes. That is, this type of analysis fails if mammals are compared to non-mammals.

Scott:
And yet Gene has not shown this to be so, has he? I know he has stated this in several different forms, and that ARN denizens take him at face value, but I searched the ARN archives and have not seen him produce one shred of documentation for this claim.

Gene:
We really need lots of genomic data and that will be some time a coming. It may also be possible that many of these similarities are a function of rampant lateral transfer that may be associated with origin events.

Scott:
References? None. But Gene said it, so it MUST be so... Of course, what we see is that ever-popular creationist misconception as to what molecular studies actually examine – I’m surprised the ‘well-read’ Gene made this sophomoric blunder – here’s a hint: ‘similarities’ ain’t it.


I think a couple of things should have been clear:
1. Gene referred to a type of analysis – molecular phylogenetics. Though this was not explicitly stated in his quote, it should have been clear considering his later statements about genomic data and such.
2. He claimed that these analyses break down when comparing (his example) mammals to non-mammals. For this he provided no documentation; for this I later wrote : “References?”
3. Gene (and Nelson) do not grasp the ‘meat’ of the methodologies involved, or he would not argue about ‘similarities.’
4. Gene feels that the ‘problems’ in molecular phylogenetic studies involving mammals and non-mammals may be due to lateral gene transfer during ‘origin events’ (speciation).

So, even if we accept Nelson’s interpretation of my ‘question’, neither Gene nor Nelson have provided documentation that LGT occurs in higher organisms – indeed, Nelson has gone to great pains to show only that it occurs – something which I did not and do not doubt anyway – and that it occurs in prokaryotes. Thanks pal!ROTFLMAO! 1. More of that incoherent sentence structure that we’ve all come to recognize – now, everybody makes typos and uses the wrong word here or ther, or when in a hurray make some oddly-worded phrases, but your above statement looks like a three-year old wrote it!
2. The ‘Gene postulate’ that I referred to was that LGT may have confused mammal/non-mammal molecular studies – your refs clearly only apply to prokaryotes.
3. Again with the ‘similarities’! You can believe that molecular phylogeneitcs rests on ‘similarities’ if you must – but all that will do is continue to confuse your understanding of it .Yes – for the fabled mammal/non-mammal molecular studies and for LGT occurring in mammals. Here – lets look at the title of the Doolittle paper:
“Lateral Gene Transfer, Genome Surveys, and the Phylogeny of Prokaryotes”
Unless you have some references for this occurring in higher eukaryotes during origin events, I’m afraid that you are just way off base again.Well, I already have learned a lot – I’ve learned that neither you nor your hero Gene know much about molecular phylogenetics. I’ve learned that it is more important for you to prop up your heroes and your ideology than it is to know what you are arguing about. I’ve learned that you don’t know the true thoughts of the ID movement’s leaders. I’ve learned that the most common anti-Darwinian debate tactic is to misrepresent your opponent and try to ‘win’ by volume.

Did I miss anything?



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A thread not involving me:

http://www.kcfs.org/forums/Forum15/HTML/000012.html

theyeti

Why?

Principia

Seems like everybody else is doing it... Actually, I was wondering if Alonso was just another one of those publishing IDiots who isn't as prominent as Dembski et al. (e.g. someone like Cornelius G. Hunter at ISCID).

pangloss, thanks for the heads up. It looks like MG is building his own groupie: Jack, Nelson, nobody... the list is growing.

theyeti

Hmm, I get a "no topics posted" from that link. I guess everyone else isn't doing it.

I guess I just get turned off with obsessing about other people's personalities, that's all. IDists are not interesting enough to make it worth knowing anything about them other than the arguments they espouse. And I don't really think it's fair to take pot-shots at people who are not here to defend themselves. If you really want to know more about Nelson Alonzo, my suggestion is simply to ask him. Or if you're really a glutton for punishment, try debating him.

theyeti

Principia

Ok, so that section of the board is a little dead (actually, so is much of the rest of AE at the moment, eh?). You have to view "from the beginning" in the pull-down to see the posts.
Right. And I don't see how one can know much about anyone else through the Internet medium. I guess I meant the arguments when I said "personalities." So MG has a "front-loading" personality; Douglas has a "YEC" personality; Jazz has a "panspermia" personality, etc. ad nauseam. One reason I keep track is because there is just such a diversity of ID arguments that it's easier for me to sort them out according to the particular tack each IDiot takes. Oh come on. You called Dembski a dipshit here the other day. What's the diff? In any case, you're jumping the gun here. I have (yet) to take pot shots at Nelson.
My interest in an IDiot is proportional to how popular and vocal he is. Nelson is just a blip on my radar at the moment... nothing more. And I've learned my lesson about not debating IDiots whose arguments I don't know.

theyeti

Yes, but those are nothing more than links to those people's articles. And moreover, these are nationally recognized IDists, not just some guy who posts on the internet. I don't see the comparison.

Fair enough, but I wouldn't call these "personalities". If all you wanted to know is what kind of ID Nelson espouses, it seems to me that it would have been easier just to look through his posts.

I think the diff is pretty obvious. Dembski is a nationally recognized figure who has written numerous books and articles, and is at the center of a prominent political movement. Nelson is just some kid who posts on the internet. Public figures, by virtue of their status, have to expect harsher criticism than the average joe. And for what it's worth, my "dipshit" comment was inappropriate; I get worked up sometimes.

But pangloss did. Anytime you post a thread about a specific person and refer to them as "IDiots", you're kind of declaring open season. This may not have been intentional, but it's what happens when you focus on people over arguments. I'm just trying to keep things civil, that's all.

theyeti

Principia

Yeah, so this was the info that I was requesting. I read a post at ISCID where Nelson said he was "back." It suggested to me that he was a long time Internet ID debater, and I was just wondering what his take is on it. What pangloss provided, imo, was within reason.
Point taken. To be practical and realistic, there is no way a webforum is immune to personal criticisms and uncivil behavior... short of extremely heavy-handed moderation. But then who wants that? As for Nelson being just the "average joe," I have to say that we should be a little more critical than that. Mike Gene promised in some article, for instance, that he's got a book on the go, once the conditions for him to out himself is right. Anyone of these people seems to me to have aspirations to be the next ID public proponent. In any case, I was under the impression that Nelson was already in the limelight, and that I just haven't heard of him.
In ID, it's hard not to focus on the particular person, when it comes to discussions, just because of the diversity of the views. What works on Douglas, may not work on MG, for instance. In any case, the "ad hominem" argument has been overplayed, imo. People have become so sensitized that the original meaning of the term is lost.

But, fine. In view of civility, I ask the mods to go ahead and close down this thread. I got what I asked for.

pz

It sounds like you're winding down, so I can't quite see why the thread should be closed, unless someone is planning to work themselves up into a froth over this. I'd rather not exercise my vast powers unless it's really necessary.

pangloss

I provided the archived exchange and my "commentary" to demonstrate what type of argumentation Nelson employs.

I think it pretty obvious from his argumentation style that my assessment is rather spot-on.