Are there actually creationists who are scientists?

articulett said:
Saying Behe lies is not the same as calling Behe a liar.
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:rolleyes:



Nice diversion for avoiding the fact that you called scientists liars while pulling every semantic trick in the book to keep Behe as being one.
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Anyone with interest can go back and read what I actually said. It was apparently too subtle for articulett.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
What I specifically object to in your above post is the idea of there being an approved word list. I do not agree. I think there are ways of facilitating communication and ways of throwing up road blocks.
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Certainly. I think I understand what you are saying, and to reasonable people, it applies.

If one were inclined to do so, one could analyse the way mijo, or I, or you or anyone else, discussed things in these threads, and objective observers could rate how successful we have been in presenting our ideas. In other words, when discussing the concepts did we "facilitate communication" or did we "throw up road blocks".

The question is how we react to someone who is "throwing up road blocks". Do we assume that he is a basically good person who might not be familiar with commonly accepted manners of speech within a certain community, or do we assume that he is lying in order to obscure some hidden meaning? If we do the latter, we are being unreasonable.

Read on.

IIRC the technical use of the word "random" was introduced into these discussions not by Mijo but by Walter Wayne (I seem to recall someone else pushing the idea too but can't remember who).
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If I recall correctly, it was introduced by Meadmaker, in my thread "I'm Reading the God Delusion".

And the reason it was introduced was that when I read Dawkins' discussion of the word in Chapter 4, I thought he was overly insistent on avoiding the use of the word "random" or "chance" in describing evolution. Knowing the technical meaning of the words, I knew that it could very definitely be described as "random", and it could be said that we evolved by chance, and I found it curious, then and now, that he be so insistent on the word not being used.

It seemed to me that he couldn't justify his assertions, so he said them more emphatically. It struck me as odd, and I commented on it.

In my humble opinion, Dawkins was not "facilitating communication", but was "throwing up road blocks". He seemed to be insisting that his description was the only appropriate description and that unles you used his terms, you were creating a problem. That's what I referred to as an "approved word list".

I have said that the use of the word "random" was appropriate in some cases and not in others. Mijo, meanwhile, has spelled out what he is saying in explicit detail. Why he continues to insist on saying it that way is something that could be debated, and is almost certainly related to the "major personality conflict" you referenced. However, one thing that is absolutely clear to me is that, whatever reason he has, it is not because he is lieing.

Anyone who continues to insist that he is lieing, when he clearly is not, ought to apologize.
 
Meadmaker said:
Certainly. I think I understand what you are saying, and to reasonable people, it applies.

If one were inclined to do so, one could analyse the way mijo, or I, or you or anyone else, discussed things in these threads, and objective observers could rate how successful we have been in presenting our ideas. In other words, when discussing the concepts did we "facilitate communication" or did we "throw up road blocks".

The question is how we react to someone who is "throwing up road blocks". Do we assume that he is a basically good person who might not be familiar with commonly accepted manners of speech within a certain community, or do we assume that he is lying in order to obscure some hidden meaning? If we do the latter, we are being unreasonable.
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Agreed.


If I recall correctly, it was introduced by Meadmaker, in my thread "I'm Reading the God Delusion".
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Oops, sorry, didn't mean to steal your thunder. Walter Wayne brought it up specifically to me, so I remembered him being first.

And the reason it was introduced was that when I read Dawkins' discussion of the word in Chapter 4, I thought he was overly insistent on avoiding the use of the word "random" or "chance" in describing evolution. Knowing the technical meaning of the words, I knew that it could very definitely be described as "random", and it could be said that we evolved by chance, and I found it curious, then and now, that he be so insistent on the word not being used.

It seemed to me that he couldn't justify his assertions, so he said them more emphatically. It struck me as odd, and I commented on it.

In my humble opinion, Dawkins was not "facilitating communication", but was "throwing up road blocks". He seemed to be insisting that his description was the only appropriate description and that unles you used his terms, you were creating a problem. That's what I referred to as an "approved word list".
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Aah, OK. With that I agree. I also strongly disagree with Dawkins' characterization of natural selection as "the opposite of random". While I think I know what he means, he is being very imprecise and using rhetoric to push an agenda. That is fine for a popular book, but it doesn't pass muster if we look at it critically.

I have said that the use of the word "random" was appropriate in some cases and not in others. Mijo, meanwhile, has spelled out what he is saying in explicit detail. Why he continues to insist on saying it that way is something that could be debated, and is almost certainly related to the "major personality conflict" you referenced. However, one thing that is absolutely clear to me is that, whatever reason he has, it is not because he is lieing.

Anyone who continues to insist that he is lieing, when he clearly is not, ought to apologize.
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Oh, no, I don't think Mijo is lying at all. I think he has been abused since he started posting here. I don't care if he or anyone else is a creationist or not. Arguments should always live and die on their own merit.

I simply disagree with what he seems to imply about the definition of "non-random". I don't think "non-random" means "the opposite of random" -- part of why I disagree with Dawkins in that one statement. I think it means something else, which leads to the paradoxical statement that evolution (the whole process) is both random and non-random (which, since the non-random part doesn't trim the probabilities to one, leaves evolution as technically random).

Can't we all just bury the hatchet and let this one pass?
 
As the other thread seems to have died, here's my contribution:

jimbob said:
I dilsike the use of nonrandom, aminly as (to me) it implies a predefined direction to the evolution of features, as against a progressive optimisation for a particular environment.

This leads some (more reasonable, but scientifically illiterate) believers to think that the creator could have "known" that humanity, or something like humanity was inevitable from the initial conditions on Earth when it was created.

Optimisation is inevitable, the type of optimisation is not.

That is my main objection, and my most fundamental philosophical objection.

I actually would argue that the fundamental method of selection for any particular trait is probabilistic with respect to the trait, it is more than just the only way to model selection. With this one can actually work out how likely something is to spread.

The probabilistic nature of natural selection is also the biggest difference from artificial selection, where the selection efficiency is closer to 100% and not 1%. As the selection efficiency is in the low percentages, I would argue that this is important; if it were in ~80%+ it wouldn't matter whether it were random or nonrandom.

With the positive feedback loops of evolving species altering the ecology of their predators/prey/competitors, especially after extinction events, I would argue that the environment is random too.

Maybe nobody else has come across the type of believer that I mentioned above, but many English, Anglican Bishops* seem to fit into this category, another was my RE teacher at school.


*I don't know of many others, but I think that the C of E has made England very secular...
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Of course in natural selection there is no explicit goal, unlike in artificial selection.
 
I don't know about you, but I have nobody on ignore (just been reading the story of Oddessus and the Cyclops to my son...)
 
Jimbob said:
I dilsike the use of nonrandom, aminly as (to me) it implies a predefined direction to the evolution of features, as against a progressive optimisation for a particular environment.

{snip}
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You know, Jimbob, that is a much better of way of stating it than I have. Som much better, in fact, that now I think I'm going to have to put you on ignore.:D
 
jimbob said:
I don't know about you, but I have nobody on ignore (just been reading the story of Oddessus and the Cyclops to my son...)
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I don't either. Personally I'd remove the feature. It's the forum equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears when certain people speak during a face-to-face group conversation. Very childish.

Apart from that it looks daft when someone posts almost exactly the same thing as a previous person has done in a thread.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
I simply disagree with what he seems to imply about the definition of "non-random". I don't think "non-random" means "the opposite of random" -- part of why I disagree with Dawkins in that one statement. I think it means something else, which leads to the paradoxical statement that evolution (the whole process) is both random and non-random (which, since the non-random part doesn't trim the probabilities to one, leaves evolution as technically random).
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I agree with most of what you say here. However, I dislike saying that evolution is technically random. Technically so often implies a weak agreement, it is random but only barely, so to speak.

Some examples thrown around are bad analogies at best. Some of the properties of the biological system act so as to exagerate the randomness. Heredity and the dynamic intertwining of many species, each influencing the other, makes into a very complex system. Humans are not only the product of an unbroken line back to bacteria, but also of the lines of those species that influenced our ancestors (predators, prey, parasites ...). Break that link and we aren't here.

It is basically impossible to rerun trials of "earth" to find out what the probability of a similar species coming about is, but given what you know of evolution do you believe that what you see around is a more than likely outcome of evolution, even in a general sense? Unlike the path of a baseball on a pitch, where a specific central point can be predicted, is it not reasonable to belief that the possible outcomes of evolution are much more diverse and with more deviation than something you would call "technically" random.

Walt
 
I think that when it comes to randomness, what we are dealing with is a preference in terms, not correctness in terms. Except when dealing with very limited and specified purposes, there is no "right" or "wrong" answer. In fact, the only way the answer could truly be "right" or "wrong" would be to inist vehemently that one is "right". If you are absolutely certain that one of them is "right", then, in my humble opinion, you are wrong (and there's no need for quotes on that last word.)

That's my recent soapbox, I suppose. Don't be so absolutely certain about your own opinions, especially if that leads you to conclusions about other people. The range of beliefs on this issue is not simply black or white, scientist or creationist. There's plenty of variation. Furthermore, there are lots of people, on both sides of that divide, who hold beliefs adamantly, but who will be proven wrong when the evidence finally comes in. Despite that, that doesn't mean they are fools right now, and it sure as heck doesn't mean they are lying.

Ichneumonwasp,

Good post.
 
I agree Meadmaker... it's all about terms. When it comes to facts like Evolution--clarity is important. And the part of evolution that people have the hardest time understanding (and so must be included in the best explanations) is how the seeming "design" appears from the randomness. Behe goes out of his way to obfuscate that understanding. Because the truth is, understanding it, makes god unnecessary...even unlikely and cruel and slow and wasteful.

Opinion terms have a wide range of interpretations and room for semantic spin. But fact words should be as clear and precise as possible. Random is not really that type of word as mentioned again and again...especially since creations associate it with the tornado in a junkyard building a 747. Why is evolution not like that? Why are creationists so bent on describing evolution as though it is like that?

Evolution looks directed because, like the internet, it's just build on what comes before-- we never see the trillions of failed experiements...just the stead tweaking of the successes and the exponential multiplication therein. It's simple. Most every biologist can describe it rather simply. Behe goes out of his way to infer. that they cannot--that there's these huge gaps and it's all so improbable that someone must be behind it in some way.
 
Walter Wayne said:
It is basically impossible to rerun trials of "earth" to find out what the probability of a similar species coming about is, but given what you know of evolution do you believe that what you see around is a more than likely outcome of evolution, even in a general sense? Unlike the path of a baseball on a pitch, where a specific central point can be predicted, is it not reasonable to belief that the possible outcomes of evolution are much more diverse and with more deviation than something you would call "technically" random.

Walt
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Of course there is no way that we could predict that we would fall out of the evolutionary process. We are too ignorant. But it is also not fair to compare the evolutionary process to the throw of a baseball as a direct analogy because there are so many constraints on the throw when we have a good pitcher. I used that analogy only as illustrative of what the word "non-random" means when we use it in ordinary speech.

Evolution is incredibly complex. The precise outcomes (meaning the actual oganisms that fall out) are not easily predictable simply because we lack so much knowledge. The fact that organisms will be adapted to their environments, however, is very predictable -- our prediction ability therefore depends on what our perspective is.

When I said that evolution is technically random I meant that evolution is random when we use the technical definition of the word "random". Evolution is not random when we use other definitions of the word -- such as completely chaotic (tornado in a junkyard scenario). But using the technical sense of the word "random" doesn't really tell us all that much about the process. It tells us a lot about our ignorance, but I am no more enlightened about the process of evolution if I label it "random" in a technical sense or not.

You may be concerned seeing the word technically in front of the word random and think it implies "only barely", but this would be the case only if you take what I said completely out of context. The entire thrust of those several posts was different from what you are suggesting that I might have meant. This should be evidence enough that words are so ambiguous that we should be very careful when using highly charged words. "random" in this discussion is clearly a very highly charged word.

I do praise you, however, for asking for clarification rather than directly accusing me of trying to slip one past.
 
I seem to recall predicting on another thread in the distant past that using the word 'random' was bound to lead to a lack of semantic clarity...

I want my $1m now. Thanks.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Would you care to explain how you you feel that comment you made in response to my question about the difference between woo and religion translate to a "claim of special privileges"?
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No, I don't think I'll bother. You would have come across a lot smarter if you had just called me stupid for not understanding you. As it is, I'm starting to eye that ignore button after all.
 
Meadmaker said:
He is proposing stochastic. Nothing more. Nothing less. The specific phrase (let's see if I get it right. I'm not going to look it up, but I've read it often enough) is "of or being described by a probability distribution function."

He is proposing absolutely nothing more, nor less, than that. Can evolution be described with probability distribution functions? Yes. Can natural selection be described with probability distribution functions? Yes. There it is. Done.

No implications. No philosophy. No religion, creationism, design. No nothing. That's it.
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And no doubt you can also see the flaws in presenting the above as a "theory", since it is so broad as to be meaningless. A mutation on a bump on a piece of DNA can be called random, and if related to the odds of being caused by a stray cosmic ray, or atom of radon, then it could be described with a probability distribution function. However its effects at a level where it affects an organism cannot be described that way, because there are too many other factors involved, and we don't know all of them.

Articulet has said as much and I attempted to earlier and I haven't seen anyone opposing that principle, so I presume we agree.

Time to move on I think.
 
Elind said:
And no doubt you can also see the flaws in presenting the above as a "theory", since it is so broad as to be meaningless.
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One could debate how useful the description is. Let us put ourselves in the place of someone who doesn't like the term, or who thinks that it does not describe anything very well.

I can think of two possible reactions such a person might have.

1. He could say, "Well, fine, but it's useless terminology. It overlooks some very important aspects of the theory which are essential to comprehension of evolution.

or,

2. He could say, "That's absolutely meaningless and it is the sort of thing people say when they are trying to discredit evolution. I think you're a creationist."

The latter approach is unreasonable.

I would respond to cyborg in a similar manner. Yes, the word "random" leads to a lack of semantic clarity. On the other hand, any attempt to summarize evolution in one sentence, or even a few sentences, will inevitably lack semantic clarity. The question of interest to me is why one semantically unclear summary is deemed acceptable, while a different semantically unclear summary is viewed with suspicion.
 
cyborg said:
I seem to recall predicting on another thread in the distant past that using the word 'random' was bound to lead to a lack of semantic clarity...

I want my $1m now. Thanks.
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I'll have it forwarded as soon as creationists publish in respected peer review journals regard their "intelligent designer"... I'll be sending it via vibes which will use energy to alter the electronic data in your checking account per the laws of "thinking-about-something-makes-it-true"
 
Elind said:
And no doubt you can also see the flaws in presenting the above as a "theory", since it is so broad as to be meaningless. A mutation on a bump on a piece of DNA can be called random, and if related to the odds of being caused by a stray cosmic ray, or atom of radon, then it could be described with a probability distribution function. However its effects at a level where it affects an organism cannot be described that way, because there are too many other factors involved, and we don't know all of them.

Articulet has said as much and I attempted to earlier and I haven't seen anyone opposing that principle, so I presume we agree.

Time to move on I think.
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Before we move on.

I would say that mutation is random with a more-or-less uniform distribution, whilst natural selection is probabilistic and the number of reproducing offspring would probably follow a poission disribution. Different traits, by altering the probabilities of survival would affect the distribution's lambda.

With this you can begin to make predictions about how likely mutations are to spread.

For example: if a population is stable, the lambda for number of reproducing offspring per parent is one. If decreasing, lambda is less than one, and conversely for increasing populations.

Is the above so broad as to be meaningless?

Jim
 
articulett said:
I'll have it forwarded as soon as creationists publish in respected peer review journals regard their "intelligent designer"... I'll be sending it via vibes which will use energy to alter the electronic data in your checking account per the laws of "thinking-about-something-makes-it-true"
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Damn, you said "respected". I was going to say that they are peers of each other, so any claim published by one of them in an ID rag could count as "peer reviewed" if the editor was an ID proponent....
 
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