Are there actually creationists who are scientists?

jimbob said:
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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Yep... I know how they work-- heck, they get a letter published in the letters to the editor section of a respected mag., and they claim they were published in peer review.

Lying for Jebus.
 
articulett said:
Well, obviously... it's because it's what Jesus would do.
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Come on! Are you really saying that Jesus is a lying piece of crap?

Oh... you know, I think the Bible would justify that point of view. Never mind...
 
JoeEllison said:
Come on! Are you really saying that Jesus is a lying piece of crap?

Oh... you know, I think the Bible would justify that point of view. Never mind...
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I'm just saying that it's hard to tell the mentally ill, form the liars, from the myths, from the delusional-- they all sound the same, you know.
 
Elind said:
The question is, which sentence, if we are limited to one, best approximates the truth as could be explained in the volumes that follow?
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That is indeed an interesting question, but it isn't the one that I asked.


As for that question, I suppose it would depend on what volumes were to follow. If it were in chapter 1 of a book entitled "Numerical Simulation of Evolutionary Processes", I think you might have a different one sentence summary than in a book entitled "Introduction to the Theory of Evolution".
 
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Elind said:
The question is, which sentence, if we are limited to one, best approximates the truth as could be explained in the volumes that follow?
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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, where lambda is heavily influenced by the reproductive (dis)advantage of any trait.

Admittedly a long sentance and lacking some pith(Anyone else familiar with the game "Chedder Gorge" on ISIHAC (home of "Mornington Crescent" - no rule 11 for me please...)
 
jimbob said:
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
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No, it sounds sensible, more than what I've seen so far. However without wanting to start this all over again, I suspect there is a difference in meaning and concepts between mutations and evolution, and you mention the word "traits", just to keep us alert.
 
Fair enough, I should have discussed "traits" and "alterations in traits". And that offspring are generally similar to-but slightly different from their parents.

You don't need genetics for a simple appreciation of the beuty and simplisity of the theory. (Darwin didn't, and Mendelian genetics is sufficient for a lot more). I would argue that it is only when you wish to investigate how traits are formed, and not their effects, that you need genetics.

The idea of evolution is brilliant, simple, elegant, and understandable with a C19th level of knowledge.
 
Meadmaker said:
That is indeed an interesting question, but it isn't the one that I asked.


As for that question, I suppose it would depend on what volumes were to follow. If it were in chapter 1 of a book entitled "Numerical Simulation of Evolutionary Processes", I think you might have a different one sentence summary than in a book entitled "Introduction to the Theory of Evolution".
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I would simply say that numerical simulations are interesting, but the theory of evolution is not based on same. We are discussing the latter.
 
Elind said:
I would simply say that numerical simulations are interesting, but the theory of evolution is not based on same. We are discussing the latter.
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So the numerical models of evolution bear no relation to the actual process of evolution?
 
Elind said:
I would simply say that numerical simulations are interesting, but the theory of evolution is not based on same. We are discussing the latter.
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You might be discussing the latter, and the latter exclusively, but there's no need to assume that anyone discussing the topic of evolution is interested in exactly the same thing you might be interested in.

I also suspect that people who are doing numerical simulations of evolutionary processes would be surprised to discover that their work is unrelated to the theory of evolution.
 
Meadmaker said:
You might be discussing the latter, and the latter exclusively, but there's no need to assume that anyone discussing the topic of evolution is interested in exactly the same thing you might be interested in.

I also suspect that people who are doing numerical simulations of evolutionary processes would be surprised to discover that their work is unrelated to the theory of evolution.
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Like Kleinman?
 
mijopaalmc said:
So the numerical models of evolution bear no relation to the actual process of evolution?
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How the hell should I know? You could invent one, I could invent one, any creationist could invent one, any debater here could invent one.

Means nothing except to the extent that scientific peer review eventually determine that it is useful, accurate, or not.

You add nothing of value to the issue; and I am beginning to wonder what it is.
 
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Meadmaker said:
I was thinking more of the people who wrote ev, and similar programs.
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Yes. And none of them say "evolution IS random"-- they all seem to understand the deterministic aspects of natural selection. The creationists use such modeling as kleinman does to pretend that it's all random and "impossible"-- as mijo does too. When such models are used by peer reviewed scientists, it tends to be to facilitate understanding of the process. When creationists hijack such knowledge it's used to infer that evolution is improbable without help from an outside source.
 
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Meadmaker said:
You might be discussing the latter, and the latter exclusively, but there's no need to assume that anyone discussing the topic of evolution is interested in exactly the same thing you might be interested in.

I also suspect that people who are doing numerical simulations of evolutionary processes would be surprised to discover that their work is unrelated to the theory of evolution.
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Get real. You are just trying to perpetuate this thread; and I'm being suckered, admittedly.

Say you want to talk about theoretical simulations and their validity or how they supposedly validate ID, and I walk. I'm not qualified to debate that, and from what I've heard here, neither is anybody else present. (Where the heck is Paul A. anyway?)

I thought we were talking about the red herrings that IDers and their earlier evolved cousins like to present.

If you have a different topic, my apologies for misunderstanding.

Time to look at new topics I think.
 
articulett said:
The creationists use such modeling as kleinman does to pretend that it's all random and "impossible"-- as mijo does too.
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And that is a bald faced lie. I never said that evolution being random made it impossible. (Elind, this is what I mean by deliberate misrepresentation.)

In fact, I have been careful to note that the effect of long term sampling on a population is convergence. In other word, repeated rounds of selection that favor a specific trait will result in the frequency of the trait increasing in the population. This can be seen in the behavior of stochastic processes known as multitype Galton-Watson processes and multitype Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes.

I would appreciate it if you would stop lying about what I have said or I will report you to the moderators.
 
Elind said:
I thought we were talking about the red herrings that IDers and their earlier evolved cousins like to present.

If you have a different topic, my apologies for misunderstanding.
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Apology accepted.

What I, personally, am trying to talk about, and what I have been trying to talk about since I first raised the topic back in April in my original thread, is why, when presented with a perspective that isn't the most common perspective, many people have a reaction that that perspective must be some sort of red herring presented in order to promote some hidden agenda, generally assumed to be part of the enemy's agenda. In this case, the enemy is IDers and their earlier evolved cousins.
 
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