Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

Yes, but ( :-P), it's sometimes good to have the opportunity to read a real good synthesis, when yourself had not the time or etc., to read all this.

Plus, style matters, and your unique angle and way of thinking matters. At the end of the day, almost everything has been said in some way already. But your latest article, MI, proves yet again how fruitful it is to add your own spin, synthesize the material in your own way. This was one heck of a funny piece man, and I personally found it more devastating to Darwinism than yet another break-down of the science!
 
Plus, style matters, and your unique angle and way of thinking matters. At the end of the day, almost everything has been said in some way already. But your latest article, MI, proves yet again how fruitful it is to add your own spin, synthesize the material in your own way. This was one heck of a funny piece man, and I personally found it more devastating to Darwinism than yet another break-down of the science!
Agreed. There are plenty of well-written ID books out there, but none of them are very funny or engaging in the way this latest article of yours is, MI. How about you just continue with your articles as you planned. Then, after you're done, you and we can always look back at them and consider combining them into an anthology of sorts?
 

I found very interesting how he explains that there is far more information in carbohydrate assembly than in DNA assembly. He's referring to polycarbohydrate appendages (glycans) in the lipid bilayer of our cells that are essential for cell regulation. These "antennas" are quite something! The number of possibilities of assembly at this level is such a gigantic number, that he has to give practical examples so the public could understand the implications of the number of possibilities. Pretty good talk!

 
And it's helpful to have a synthesis that doesn't creep behind the "god hypothesis."
Now that's true. It's pretty annoying reading all this stuff and watching presentations and getting to the last chapter or last two minutes where suddenly Jesus and the Bible pop up and I'm like, what the hell, you sounded perfectly smart until now! I always feel like it's a different person, suddenly talking nonsense. It's so weird. And it also often prevents me from linking the stuff to other people unless I add something like "you have to ignore the Jesus stuff at the end". (Case in point: the video Gaby just referred to. 98% of it brilliant, then some false prophet bible mumbo jumbo...)

Agreed. There are plenty of well-written ID books out there, but none of them are very funny or engaging in the way this latest article of yours is, MI. How about you just continue with your articles as you planned. Then, after you're done, you and we can always look back at them and consider combining them into an anthology of sorts?
Well, if you guys think it's a good idea, I'll consider it. A book sounds like a lot of work, and I'll have less time soon, when I start working again, but I'll keep writing articles and we'll see what comes out of it. It would have to be a long-term project, but I suppose it's doable. (Assuming you would have a plan because obviously I don't know shit about writing and releasing books.)

It's nice to see people actually like the style. I was trying to be more serious and 'professional' for the first two, since I wasn't sure how my usual style would be received, but sarcasm certainly suits me better. Plus it's more fun writing it. So if you think this sort of unique approach - more fun, less Jesus - is worth it, then we'll see. Thanks for the input & glad you're all enjoying this.
 
I think the problem for most people, is, what to believe if Darwin is not true. I think that is what keeps them on the Darwin train. The arguments for the most part, are either you believe in Darwin's evolution, or you believe in a creator God(s) ie Religion. I think that is the problem you are up against. If you take away Darwin, then what? I have encountered that in my own conversations with people. The answer you will get oftentimes is, 'Well I am certainly not going to believe that the Earth is 4000 years old.'

Not many people I know are capable of deconstructing Darwin for that reason. People want comfortable things, even if they are not true.

That being said, I still think it is productive to write about write about the Darwin fallacy, as there will always be some that are ready for that kind of information.
 
My third article is up: Evolution - A Modern Fairy Tale -- Sott.net

I've added links to all three on my profile page here on the forum, and I'll be adding more as they come, so you can find the links there if you need. I have three more written and more to come, probably.

The absurdity of evolution is more obvious to me every day. I can now understand why the Cs said "There is no evolution as you are thinking." Evolution and what mutations really do are two different things, on a completely different level. It's like mechanical tweaking versus magic. There really is no evolution at all. Nothing evolves into something else. Each species just adapts to its own environment, and if there's a "change in species", it's only because somebody arbitrarily decided to call the adapted form a new species, but there are no new genes, just variations in sizes and colours.

Behe said the cutoff for what mutations can do was at the level of family, but since this demarcation is rather arbitrary and even he himself found exceptions, it's probably not the best way to think about it. My theory is that the cutoff is simply at new genes. I'm not aware of any examples of new genes arising by random mutation, and I don't think it's possible, so I think the "edge of evolution" is there. It's also a clear, simple, and logical line. Mutating existing genes - yes; making new ones - no.


I finished The Bone Peddlers a while ago. The first half shows how just about every fossil of supposed human predecessors, from Lucy to Neanderthals, is controversial at best.
The second half is what's really interesting, though. He talks about Ingo Swan and remote viewing, Rupert Sheldrake and his theories, and all kinds of metaphysical stuff and how materialism just doesn't work and what it means for evolution. What I really liked was the part where he suggests that the consciousness of incarnated souls could change the genetics of the body, and maybe in only a few generations. The whole book was really interesting, and especially the second half. It can be read on archive.org.

I also finished Foresight by Marcos Eberlin. It's an easy read, listing all kinds of interesting examples of things in nature that seem to require foresight and can't be explained by step-by-step random processes, from the cell membrane to protein folding to planthoppers' gears.

Here's a bit of his summary at the end:


It's rather ironic that what's at the core of this EvolutionIsTrue™ propaganda is basically a "religious" view - the materialist religion. They ignore science in the name of dogmaterialism, which is basically what they accuse ID of. It's all so stupid that it's really bizarre how it could have survived for 160 years.
Faced with things like this, I am a small child watching with wide-eyed amazement, the amazing and wonderful things that adults do.

Amazing is fun !, and your articles are amazing:thup:.
 
Agreed. There are plenty of well-written ID books out there, but none of them are very funny or engaging in the way this latest article of yours is, MI. How about you just continue with your articles as you planned. Then, after you're done, you and we can always look back at them and consider combining them into an anthology of sorts?

Agreed. Stove's Fairytales is funny too, but in a very acerbic, even acid fashion. Your approach was more playful, and geared itself to the intelligent, but lay public, without piling on the science. I mean, even simple molecular illustrations make some folks' eyes glaze over. A whole collection of essays might really make a dent with them. Carry on!
 
Well, if you guys think it's a good idea, I'll consider it. A book sounds like a lot of work, and I'll have less time soon, when I start working again, but I'll keep writing articles and we'll see what comes out of it. It would have to be a long-term project, but I suppose it's doable. (Assuming you would have a plan because obviously I don't know shit about writing and releasing books.)
I think you just need to write the articles, so you can keep doing what you're doing instead of thinking about it as something different. I think they can assemble your articles into a book and publish it.
 
Now that's true. It's pretty annoying reading all this stuff and watching presentations and getting to the last chapter or last two minutes where suddenly Jesus and the Bible pop up and I'm like, what the hell, you sounded perfectly smart until now! I always feel like it's a different person, suddenly talking nonsense. It's so weird. And it also often prevents me from linking the stuff to other people unless I add something like "you have to ignore the Jesus stuff at the end". (Case in point: the video Gaby just referred to. 98% of it brilliant, then some false prophet bible mumbo jumbo...)

Exactly. So, maybe you can make it clear at some point that the same scientific attitude that deconstructs Darwinism ought to be applied to the questions about "designers" and that perhaps parameters of science ought to be expanded for that purpose.

That was part of what was behind The Wave. I was saying, "see, we have all this weird stuff going on, so there is SOMETHING behind it, but I don't think we ought to just fall into the "old time religion" here. We need to study this stuff with our best minds instead of just brushing it off as impossible, unscientific, or nutcases, and try to formulate what the heck is going on and what could be behind it."
 
MI, just read your latest article properly as it was in my todo list for few days. Amazing piece of writing and gets the point across succinctly. The joke on Sarah Palin is my fav amongst others - more like devolution if intelligence if you ask me :rotfl::rotfl:.Reminded me of the quote from Blackadder TV show, “There are amoeba on Saturn who could boil a better egg than you.”
Keep it up and looking forward to more. :headbanger::headbanger:
 
I found very interesting how he explains that there is far more information in carbohydrate assembly than in DNA assembly. He's referring to polycarbohydrate appendages (glycans) in the lipid bilayer of our cells that are essential for cell regulation. These "antennas" are quite something!

I figured I would post a couple of his slides, so we can keep them in mind in this thread:

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Even though James Tour does go biblical in the end for a couple of minutes, the rest is fascinating. He criticizes the OoL research with the sarcasm and humor of someone who has authored 680 scientific publications, and thus knows how incredibly difficult it is to synthesize the components of a living cell with all its intricacies. As he makes it clear, its never been done, and scientists are not even remotely close.
 

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