Annoying creationists

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Are you actually running out of memory? You can bump up the amount of memory available to a Java program with a command line option. For example, "java -Xmx 500M myProgram" (that would give you 500M of heap space.)

At this point my limitations are RAM (1 gig) and time.

~~ Paul

 

[delphi_ote]

At this point my limitations are RAM (1 gig) and time.

~~ Paul

Since he's such a great scientist, I naturally assumed kleinman was trying to reproduce your "controversial" results. He seems to enjoy giving me computer science advice so much, I thought I'd return the favor.

 

[articulett]

I don't understand the macroevolution argument.

Creationoids define species by inter-fertility: if they can mate, they're the same species.

They define macroevolution as creation of new species; that is, animals that can't mate with their parent's species.

They accept microevolution as a fact; genes can change over time.

So: why do they think most genes on the DNA strand can change over time, but some - the ones that control fertility - cannot? What mechanism selects those particular genes for perfect copy, while allowing others to be corrupted?

Do they think God put a plastic change-guard over that stretch of DNA, but not the rest?

I just don't get the mechanism by which they think this happens. At the DNA copying level, it's all genes. The copy machine doesn't know what its copying. How could it gaurantee fidelity for some pages and not others?

Maybe they think it's like the Holy Bible; if you sit down to copy a book, then you might make scribing errors; but if you sit down to copy the Book, then God will guide your pen and make sure it comes out perfect.

No wonder God never puts in a personal appearence - if he's personally watching over every transcription of a reproductive gene for every creature on Earth, he's going to be awfully busy.

Indeed. Macro-evolution is a term used strictly by creationists. As though separate species were made in a poof. I doubt any separating of species happened in one moment. Much of the mutations involving speciation are on the X chromosome--I'm not trying to imply god is a pervert or anything...but if he's the one in charge, why the fondness for X?

The problem with intelligent design (as if there were only one) is that it is useless. It has no facts in support of it; it goes nowhere; it doesn't tell us anything or how to take the next steps to discovery. Nothing in science is discovered with the assumption that god must have played a hand in it. Intelligent Design just says, "god did it; humans will never understand how". Such thinking is designed to keep people giving praise, allegiance, and money to their clergy and the politicians who endorse god. Invisible immeasurable entities (and forces) have always been invoked by humans to explain that which they don't understand. And as science discovers more, these entities fade or lose their powers or are defined more loosely. It all boils down to--"how dare you question the Mighty Oz?" Doesn't it? Hammy and Thai and kleinman never present evidence for a competing theory in their many thousands of posts and always resort to ad hominen attacks and eye rolling emoticons (or platitudes of self-aggrandizement that they seem to think are deep followed by a wink in hammy's case) because what else is there?

And I always wonder why. Why do they keep hammering at this notion to an audience that repeatedly fines them ignorant and unwilling to absorb even the most careful and detailed explanations asked for. Why don't they understand that "gaps" in understanding are not answered by "magic", god, or anything supernatural because positing such, pretty much puts a stop to all discovery and potential understanding on a topic.

Haven't most of those who accept evolution also believed in god and souls at some time. It's not like we are unfamiliar with the thinking. And it's not like gods, demons, and the like haven't been used throughout mankind and in every religion to give people at least the impression that they understood something and then could control it by sacrificing virgins, doing rain dances etc.

Why is logic so impenetrable...they read everything mentally erasing all that challenges their view and then play semantic games when they think they have a notion that implies a gap where they can insert god. How is it that they can see eons of people who believed in false invisible entities (Scientology, Zeus, Muslim extremists, etc.) and stil not question themselves?
Is it an ego thing? Believing they're in on a "higher truth" makes them feel superior and makes them feel like they have a blissful eternity guaranteed? Or is it fear that facts might be the tool of the devil? And why do they keep at it here...if they convince a skeptic, does they think that gives their claims more credibility or gives them heaven bonus points or something.

I mean, I'm glad they come. They do amuse. Sometimes I'm really in the mood to eviscerate hubris and those who promote the idea that faith is good for something. And it isn't polite to do that in real life. But when one posts tripe at a skeptic's forum with self important garbage and continued assaults on people he might actually learn something from--then lambasting is warranted.

I never cease to be amazed that such people are surprised that their wisdom is not welcomed and they take offense when asked for evidence. Religion sure does a number on some people. But they always fall for the bait (Paul's thread title in this case)--

Intelligent design IS good for something afterall. Amusing skeptics. And the strange tenacity with which some people will cling to some beliefs.

 

[John Hewitt]

I am a bit puzzled about the title of this thread. Is the word "annoying" used as an adjective to indicate that members of the creationists community are in some way annoying as people; alternatively, is the objective of these postings to annoy those people?

Paul was using it as an adjective. Read his first post.

Yes, I did actually look at the first post but the incidence of sarcasm suggests that "annoying" has often been used as an active verb during the subsequent thread.

It seems to me that evolutionary theorists might try being a little more humble - they too preach and, like preachers everywhere, expect rewards in the form of payment and acknowledged status in return.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Feel free to give examples of evolutionary theorists preaching. There is a difference between clarifying actual scientific theory, teaching the theory and preaching.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes, I did actually look at the first post but the incidence of sarcasm suggests that "annoying" has often been used as an active verb during the subsequent thread.

Yes, Kleinman uses it as a gerund quite often, as in "I enjoy annoying evolutionarians."

It seems to me that evolutionary theorists might try being a little more humble - they too preach and, like preachers everywhere, expect rewards in the form of payment and acknowledged status in return.

Whatever. All we want is for Kleinman to present his case in a bit more depth.

~~ Paul

 

[delphi_ote]

It seems to me that evolutionary theorists might try being a little more humble - they too preach and, like preachers everywhere, expect rewards in the form of payment and acknowledged status in return.

You seem to be the only preaching right now.

 

[joobz]

Yes, I did actually look at the first post but the incidence of sarcasm suggests that "annoying" has often been used as an active verb during the subsequent thread.

It seems to me that evolutionary theorists might try being a little more humble - they too preach and, like preachers everywhere, expect rewards in the form of payment and acknowledged status in return.

The only thing preachy here has been our crazy insistence on using facts and truth. That can get a little irritating to those who wish to avoid reality.

Kleinman, any luck figuring out your thermodynamic model of a kinetic problem?

 

[articulett]

Feel free to give examples of evolutionary theorists preaching. There is a difference between clarifying actual scientific theory, teaching the theory and preaching.

Agreed. I think they bend over backwards to explain every little detail again and again to people who are dishonestly ask questions that they really do not what the answer too. They have a vested interest in not understanding the answer...because, then, in their mind, "intelligent design" must be true. In science you don't really concede points that aren't valid to avoid hurting peoples' feelings. There isn't a middle ground between fact and conjecture. You don't forward a claim by merely pointing to murky areas in another claim and calling it evidence that some unexplainable immeasurable invisible entity must be at the heart of the conundrum.

What is the good of "intelligent design" belief. Do believers feel it makes them more moral? That god is testing them? Can they use it to illuminate anything else. Do they want scientists to go looking for "evidence" of god in the genome? Does the theory make them feel more special? Does it explain anything or can it be used to predict anything or to determine anything of importance. Can we tell what the common ancestor of certain life forms are--and how far back that common ancestor lived? Because we can do that with evolution--

What is kleinman's theory good for. We can say, well since we'll never live long enough to see one large species turn into another in our lifetime, we are going to have to accept that god did it and start trying to kiss his invisible ass?

It's a go-nowhere theory that explains nothing and useful for nothing except making some people feel morally superior I suppose--or maybe it just is a security blanket so they can keep their favorite pet delusion safe from the facts.

But it just seems so ignorant. The god thing is one thing--but to make yourself incapable of learning one of the most profound if not the most profound scientific discoveries of all time is sad. Science will never disprove your gods--though it is true, that there is less and less belief of god in the scientific community--but to lie to yourself and others and say that evolution is a theory in trouble is crazy and absolutely at odds with all the evidence.

Evolution is not only undoubtedly true, but it is the tool that has swung the doors of biology wide open leading to vast amounts of understanding including the mapping of multiple genomes. That is a miracle no "intelligent designer" ever helped with or mentioned in any writing attributed to him. If nothing else, this oversight should cause some of you anti-evolutionists a momentary pause.

Not all sides of an issue have equal merit.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Paul’s Java version of ev has greater memory limitations than Dr Schneider’s original Pascal version of the program. If you want to run populations greater than 10^9, you will need an operating system and language that can address arrays of this size or larger.

Are you actually running out of memory? You can bump up the amount of memory available to a Java program with a command line option. For example, "java -Xmx 500M myProgram" (that would give you 500M of heap space.)

The java console reports a memory error when you either increase G or population to much. The pascal version of ev also allows for cases to be done in a series of steps which the java version doesn’t allow which enables me to run the larger cases.

Paul can answer your questions about the memory issues and I am sure they can be overcome if you have sufficient hardware and operating system and language that can use the hardware.

I am a bit puzzled about the title of this thread. Is the word "annoying" used as an adjective to indicate that members of the creationists community are in some way annoying as people; alternatively, is the objective of these postings to annoy those people?

You have to ask Paul why he chose this as the title of the thread. I think what is annoying these evolutionists is that I am using an evolutionist mathematical model to argue against their own theory. Adequate thinks I am an abuser of computer models.

What’s the matter? Are you afraid that running larger cases with ev will show how ridiculous the theory of evolution is? I think it is smart for evolutionarians to say away from mathematics, it really messes up their stories.

Yes, that's the problem. It has nothing to do with the work involved. The work involved is trivial. Say, why don't you do it and show us up for the fools we are?

You evolutionarians have a way of contradicting yourselves from one sentence to the next. This has nothing to do with you now having some understanding of what the model predicts and what these larger cases will show. You are probably wondering why you got involved with the ev project in the first place.

At this point my limitations are RAM (1 gig) and time.

Since he's such a great scientist, I naturally assumed kleinman was trying to reproduce your "controversial" results. He seems to enjoy giving me computer science advice so much, I thought I'd return the favor.

Lay off the sterno Delphi, there are no "controversial" results that Paul has generated that I haven’t. There are results from the Pascal version of ev that I have obtained which Paul can not duplicate with his Java version of ev. There is one case that Paul can run using the Pascal executable that I sent him which has a population of 2 meg. He hasn’t shown interest in running the case.

Yes, I did actually look at the first post but the incidence of sarcasm suggests that "annoying" has often been used as an active verb during the subsequent thread.

Yes, Kleinman uses it as a gerund quite often, as in "I enjoy annoying evolutionarians."

If you were scientists, you would consider the data that I am presenting from your own model that contradicts your own theory. Instead, you get annoyed. I enjoy annoying evolutionarians with data from their own computer models. They deserve it when they push off this superficial and sloppy mathematical analysis and try to call it science.

It seems to me that evolutionary theorists might try being a little more humble - they too preach and, like preachers everywhere, expect rewards in the form of payment and acknowledged status in return.

Whatever. All we want is for Kleinman to present his case in a bit more depth.

Paul, where do you want me to start? I’ve set the goal posts and they haven’t changed since my first post on the Evolutionisdead forum. You have some idea what happens in the ev model when you use known, measured mutation rates. Consider what happens to Dr Schneider’s computation of the evolution of a human genome in a billion years when you simply use a realistic mutation rate. Consider all the cases you have run with increasing genome lengths. You have finally gotten extrapolated values for realistic genome lengths that are close to the original values I posted months ago on the Evolutionisdead forum. Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium takes away two important parameters for convergence in ev, time and population size. The only issue of the three I have raised about the mathematical behavior of ev where there is still some question is the effects of population. Every population series I have run appear to be approaching an asymptote at less than 100,000 population. If these series are not approaching an asymptote then the slope of the curve is becoming very small. Your curve fit extrapolations are useless for predicting the behavior of the model with populations of 10^15. These points need to be computed by ev to see if there is anything that can be salvaged from this computer model that would support the theory of evolution.

What is it that I have done with your computer model that you are having difficulty understanding? I have only done what Dr Schneider suggested in his publication:

Variations of the program could be used to investigate how population size, genome length, number of sites, size of recognition regions, mutation rate, selective pressure, overlapping sites and other factors affect the evolution.

I followed Dr Schneider’s suggestion and have managed to annoy a lot of evolutionists with the results from his program.

 

[thaiboxerken]

You've annoyed people about evolution the same way 4yr old kids annoy adults with plea ansd whines about how Santa Clause is real. There is no substance to your posts, just sniveling garbage that is the same as a child says "I know Santa is real, my mommy told me so."

 

[delphi_ote]

The java console reports a memory error when you either increase G or population to much.

Let me guess. It tells you it's out of heap space, and you didn't even bother to read the post to which you were replying, right?

Paul can answer your questions about the memory issues and I am sure they can be overcome if you have sufficient hardware and operating system and language that can use the hardware.[/SIZE][/FONT]

There aren't "memory issues" here. There's a practical upper bound on certain parameters dictated by hardware limitations, not flaws in the simulation software. The operating system and language have nothing to do with this, as I've already told you.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You evolutionarians have a way of contradicting yourselves from one sentence to the next. This has nothing to do with you now having some understanding of what the model predicts and what these larger cases will show. You are probably wondering why you got involved with the ev project in the first place.

Thanks for the armchair psychoanalysis. You did realize this was sarcastic, right?

Yes, that's the problem. It has nothing to do with the work involved. The work involved is trivial. Say, why don't you do it and show us up for the fools we are?

Lay off the sterno Delphi, there are no "controversial" results that Paul has generated that I haven’t. There are results from the Pascal version of ev that I have obtained which Paul can not duplicate with his Java version of ev. There is one case that Paul can run using the Pascal executable that I sent him which has a population of 2 meg. He hasn’t shown interest in running the case.

I believe I said I would run it when I had a week with nothing better to do.

Paul, where do you want me to start? I’ve set the goal posts and they haven’t changed since my first post on the Evolutionisdead forum.

For crying out loud! We want you to present the mathematical proof that macroevolution, whatever the hell that is, is impossible due to some constraint that you apparently feel you've gotten from Ev. You could start by defining macroevolution. If you want to use the one at Wikipedia, then we can stop this charade right now.

What is it that I have done with your computer model that you are having difficulty understanding? I have only done what Dr Schneider suggested in his publication:

You've done nothing!

Look, here's an idea. Why don't you write just the abstract for the paper that you would publish on this issue? We can critique it, under the assumption that, unlike here in this forum, you will actually take the critique to heart and improve the abstract accordingly.

~~ Paul

 

[joobz]

Look, here's an idea. Why don't you write just the abstract for the paper that you would publish on this issue? We can critique it, under the assumption that, unlike here in this forum, you will actually take the critique to heart and improve the abstract accordingly.

~~ Paul

I'll Write it for him:
Abstract: Thermodynamically, evolution and ev takes to long. So, god did it. The end. Stop asking questions. It's mathematical!!!!

 

[Dr Adequate]

The java console reports a memory error when you either increase G or population to much. The pascal version of ev also allows for cases to be done in a series of steps which the java version doesn’t allow which enables me to run the larger cases.

Paul can answer your questions about the memory issues and I am sure they can be overcome if you have sufficient hardware and operating system and language that can use the hardware.

You have to ask Paul why he chose this as the title of the thread. I think what is annoying these evolutionists is that I am using an evolutionist mathematical model to argue against their own theory. Adequate thinks I am an abuser of computer models.

You evolutionarians have a way of contradicting yourselves from one sentence to the next. This has nothing to do with you now having some understanding of what the model predicts and what these larger cases will show. You are probably wondering why you got involved with the ev project in the first place.

Lay off the sterno Delphi, there are no "controversial" results that Paul has generated that I haven’t. There are results from the Pascal version of ev that I have obtained which Paul can not duplicate with his Java version of ev. There is one case that Paul can run using the Pascal executable that I sent him which has a population of 2 meg. He hasn’t shown interest in running the case.

If you were scientists, you would consider the data that I am presenting from your own model that contradicts your own theory. Instead, you get annoyed. I enjoy annoying evolutionarians with data from their own computer models. They deserve it when they push off this superficial and sloppy mathematical analysis and try to call it science.

Paul, where do you want me to start? I’ve set the goal posts and they haven’t changed since my first post on the Evolutionisdead forum. You have some idea what happens in the ev model when you use known, measured mutation rates. Consider what happens to Dr Schneider’s computation of the evolution of a human genome in a billion years when you simply use a realistic mutation rate. Consider all the cases you have run with increasing genome lengths. You have finally gotten extrapolated values for realistic genome lengths that are close to the original values I posted months ago on the Evolutionisdead forum. Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium takes away two important parameters for convergence in ev, time and population size. The only issue of the three I have raised about the mathematical behavior of ev where there is still some question is the effects of population. Every population series I have run appear to be approaching an asymptote at less than 100,000 population. If these series are not approaching an asymptote then the slope of the curve is becoming very small. Your curve fit extrapolations are useless for predicting the behavior of the model with populations of 10^15. These points need to be computed by ev to see if there is anything that can be salvaged from this computer model that would support the theory of evolution.

What is it that I have done with your computer model that you are having difficulty understanding? I have only done what Dr Schneider suggested in his publication:

I followed Dr Schneider’s suggestion and have managed to annoy a lot of evolutionists with the results from his program.

So, you don't have any new lies.

There's the lie about Gould, there's the denial, in the face of all the evidence, that population size is significant, there's the claim that the mathematical model that you can't understand is "sloppy" --- by the way, do learn what an asypmtote is --- and, above all, the idiotic claim that your irrelevant data contradict the theory of evolution.

We've already pointed out why this is all a steaming load of crap. You need some new lies.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Look, here's an idea. Why don't you write just the abstract for the paper that you would publish on this issue? We can critique it, under the assumption that, unlike here in this forum, you will actually take the critique to heart and improve the abstract accordingly.

Why on earth would we assume that?

 

[T'ai Chi]

Macro-evolution is a term used strictly by creationists.

I've read that term in biology books as well as in popular evolutionist writings.

Much of the mutations involving speciation are on the X chromosome--I'm not trying to imply god is a pervert or anything...but if he's the one in charge, why the fondness for X?

'Much of the mutations involving speciation are on the X chromosome--I'm not trying to evolution is a perversion or anything...but if it is in charge, why the fondness for X?'

It has no facts in support of it;

Except logic- that we know complicated things are often designed by intelligences.

Nothing in science is discovered with the assumption that god must have played a hand in it.

Except people like Newton, who used their belief in God as motivation for studying His design.

Intelligent Design just says, "god did it; humans will never understand how".

"Articulett"-strawman Intelligent Design just says: "god did it; humans will never understand how". Real Intelligent Design just says 'can we infer real design or not?'. It is about 'if design', and not necessarily about god(s) as the designer(s).

Hammy and Thai and kleinman never present evidence for a competing theory in their many thousands of posts and always resort to ad hominen attacks

I'm just asking questions here, exploring philosophy. You are free to present your evidence, of course. You can start by giving a complete detailed Darwinian pathway of anything.

Why don't they understand that "gaps" in understanding are not answered by "magic", god, or anything supernatural because positing such, pretty much puts a stop to all discovery and potential understanding on a topic.

Except in Newton's case, and in many others', who used their belief as motivation to explore their god's design.

But when one posts tripe at a skeptic's forum with self important garbage and continued assaults on people he might actually learn something from--then lambasting is warranted.

So I take it you'll look forward to getting lambasted?

But they always fall for the bait (Paul's thread title in this case)--

Actually, that was quite obvious, and obviously dishonest, as it sets up from the start that anyone who has any questions, even scientific ones, about Darwinian evolutoion = Creationist, which is false.

Paul could be the one to be said to be arguing an ID stance, since one can say that his intelligently designed program apparently created information.

Intelligent design IS good for something afterall. Amusing skeptics.

All 'skeptic' means is that there one has doubt in at least one area, not some homogeneous club as you'd like it to be. For example, Antony Flew, who is a skeptic, and a leading atheist for many, many years, has reportedly shifted to the design view.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I've read that term in biology books as well as in popular evolutionist writings.

Where the distinction between macro and microevolution is just the time it takes.

Except logic- that we know complicated things are often designed by intelligences.

We know that complicated things are often made plastic.

Some of us also know some logic, as well.

"Articulett"-strawman Intelligent Design just says: "god did it; humans will never understand how". Real Intelligent Design just says 'can we infer real design or not?'.

No, Intelligent Design consists of pretending that the answer to that question is "yes".

Paul could be the one to be said to be arguing an ID stance

But only by someone who was lying, stupid, or insane.

since one can say that his intelligently designed program apparently created information.

And one cannot say that the information was intelligently designed.

All 'skeptic' means is that there one has doubt in at least one area, not some homogeneous club as you'd like it to be. For example, Antony Flew, who is a skeptic, and a leading atheist for many, many years, has reportedly shifted to the design view.

... by throwing critical thinking out of the window. Hence, he is not a skeptic.

 

[joobz]

Except logic- that we know complicated things are often designed by intelligences.



Except people like Newton, who used their belief in God as motivation for studying His design.

You seem to be recycling your arguments (or refining, depending on your view point). Allow me to reiterate my last comment made on another thread.

On one end, you are claiming indirect evidence for god by claiming there are natural laws that would require a law maker. You state that this is a logical conclusion.

Then you state that these "Natural laws" are only our simple human understandings and approximations of reality. This is true.

But then how can you claim that your initial argument isn't just a semantic game when you acknowledge that our use of the term "Natural laws" is purely a human construction to aide our understanding?

You invoke scientists with faith as a defense. But these scientists never used god to avoid a hard question. their discoveries had no direct relationship with their faith.

Your actions are to define god and or find god through science. And all anyone has said is that god isn't needed for any of these theories. I'm not against a faith in god. I just think trying to work him into any theory of the world is forced and unnatural.

 

[Dr Adequate]

If all Newton came up with was: "I don't know what keeps the planets in their orbits, therefore God is pushing them. We know that things that move are often being pushed, so that's logic" --- then his name would have been justly forgotten by now.