Sandbox (1)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

1,772 thoughts on “Sandbox (1)”

  2. I don’t know if anyone will be able to see this, but if you are a logged in, registered user and click on the little speech bubble on the dashboard bar, you’ll get a list of comments awaiting moderation.  You’ll also see this warning message:

    Akismet has detected a problem. Some comments have not yet been checked for spam by Akismet. They have been temporarily held for moderation. Please check your Akismet configuration and contact your web host if problems persist.

    This suggests that either Akismet is unreachable, possibly due to the recent storm, or that bit rot has set in and we need to summon Lizzie back somehow.

    If you can’t see this, please ignore it.
     

  5. That’s wierd! Comments seem to be going through again. Has somebody been by and fixed things without saying Hi?

  6. petrushka,

    I thought of you when I saw this today:  http://www.nature.com/news/proteins-made-to-order-1.11767

    That’s still pretty far from determining functionality without doing the actual chemistry, but I suspect that IDCists will be happily quote mining from that paper shortly.
     

  8. Hmmm…..

    My guess is that industrial protein design will still require doing the chemistry. 

  13. Toronto: So just to be sure I have it right, you do not believe in a literal Noah’s Ark story as portrayed in the Bible.

    //——————————

    Mung: I don’t even know what that question means.

    Do i think the entire account was made up, as in fiction?

    No.

    What’s your evidence that Jesus wasn’t raised form the dead?

    Do you deny the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth?

    It makes no sense to have a resurrection of someone who is making the “ultimate sacrifice”.

    If I was asked to give my life for mankind, but in reality I would be resurrected after three days and rule the universe for eternity, I would volunteer for the job.

    Only if Jesus were truly killed off forever would his sacrifice make sense, so no, being raised/rescued from the dead doesn’t make sense, particularly if he knew that was going to happen beforehand.

    Whether Jesus was actually ever alive doesn’t change the importance of the story, but I’m going to say that the Bible’s version of him is not literally true.

     

     

  14. Joe:

    “Mt Everest did not exist in the pre-flood world. All the mountains and ocean basins were created during the flood year. That is if you actually know the flood story. “

    “Not quite. The ocean’s basins weren’t as deep as they are now and water would have been circulating under the continents. There it would get warmed up and when it came out it would help keep the earth nice and warm. “

    “And I will say there is more evidence for the Ark story than there is for your position.”

    Hilarious! Hand-wave away those inconvenient mountains and oceans, build an Everest or two with a year’s worth of tidal energy from a water body that wasn’t in fact all that deep – including the Rockies, say, built largely from 20,000ft or more of seabed strata? All entombed organisms neatly preserved in apparent evolutionary sequence, radio-isotopes decayed in the appropriate scientist-fooling pattern?

    10% of the earth’s sedimentary rock is limestone – mostly fossil shells, coral skeletons, tests etc. How did such a supersaturated body of not-very-deep water hold all that Ca/Mg, let alone the organisms that incorporated it? How did the atmosphere support that much CO2 before it was locked in the sediment? Do some sums. You accuse evolution of ‘just-so’ stories, but your own are quite eye-wateringly ad hoc. Testify at Dover ll. Please.

  15. Over the years that I have watched them I would say that the “arguments” of the ID/creationists have never approached anything that could be called sane.  There has always been an element of desperate attempts at one-upmanship in them.  They have to win at all costs.

    It got even worse when they were taunting scientists for public debates back in the 1970s through the 1990s; and their taunts today still contain that note of desperation for a public ride on the back of a high-profile scientist.

    I think their “arguments” seem to be getting worse, however.  They have resorted to making up “scientific explanations” for the stories in their holy book and, when anyone asks for the evidence supporting those “explanations,” they claim it is in their bible.

    The most likely explanation for this appears to be their accumulation of packaged arguments against science and evolution that have been prepared and churned out by propaganda mills like AiG, the ICR, and the DI over the last 40 years.  Camp followers of ID/creationism can now keep files and files of ready-to-fling crap close at hand; and they can copy/paste it without having a clue what it means or without having to think.  All they have to do is dump huge boatloads of it on anyone they want to overwhelm.  That seems to be their standard tactic these days; and it is certainly evident over at UD.

    However, that new tactic has simply rendered their general lack of even a high school education in science even more obvious; and I would add that even their dear leaders with “PhDs” don’t comprehend science at the high school level.  They are just better at faking it with the appearance of more erudition.  Nevertheless it is still crap.

     

     

  16. Rich said: You’re right Alan. I was just fascinated by Joe’s YEcism and attempted defense that the flood was a historic event.

    If this is the same Joe that was ejected from this blog, I seem to remember that he is the one that thinks all melted things are called water. Thus, as I recall, according to him, all compounds and elements have different names depending on whether or not they are in a solid, liquid, or gaseous state. He apparently thinks that water can be called water only in the liquid state. He doesn’t appear to know that water can exist in several phases.

    Mercury is a liquid at room temperature; but it is still called mercury, not water. It is also called mercury in its solid and gaseous phases. The same goes for lead, copper, iron, air, and other compounds and elements.

    Children in middle school learn about the phases of matter and that the compound name refers to the compound while the various states of solid, liquid, or gaseous don’t need to have different names. That any of them do have different names is simply a matter of history for those compounds or elements.

    So, for example, one can go to a chemistry or physics handbook and find tables of compounds and elements along with properties such as their melting and vaporization points. Some those tables use the chemical compound formula and others use a common name.

    There are tables for sea water showing melting points for various salinities, for example. The tables are not called “ice at various salinities.”

    I don’t know anything about this Joe character other than the foul-mouthed trail he left here; but it appears that he never got past middle school in his education, if even that. His only method of “arguing” is to call people names and swear a lot. That’s pretty childish.

    This is another way we can tell that most ID/creationists – YEC’s in particular – do not have high school levels of understanding of science. They always run away from the most elementary concepts in science and attempt to portray themselves as experts by copy/pasting material they can’t vet or understand.

  17. Joe responded to your piece about ‘flood physics’ by arguing your opinion is worthless (or words to that effect! 🙂 ) because you think water can melt! I do wonder what the UD tsars make of him. They can’t think he’s doing them any favours?

  18. LOL! 🙂

     

    The pages over at UD are taking a long time to load and aren’t turning out to be worth the wait; so I gave up a couple of months ago trying to follow the conversations over there.

    I don’t know if this Joe character is just a persona or if he is really that dumb.  Either way, he wears thin pretty quickly; like a foul-mouthed doll that has only two or three strings of insults and epithets for each pull of the string.

  19. Well … unlikely to be a persona (far too much effort keeping that up just for funzies) so …

    Essence of Joe is distilled at his blog, Intelligent Reasoning, away from the restraining leash of UD civility rules. Many delight in aggravating him, and he seems only too eager to oblige.

  20. Sheesh; what an emotional and psychological mess!

    He doesn’t seem to be aware either.

    I can see why UD might like him; he is openly what the UD people try to hide about themselves.

  21. KF: And the 4,000+ comments pro and con in the several threads triggered since Sept give the lie to the well-poisoning talking point that no serious exchange of ideas can be had at UD.

    Mung: Yes, they not only lie to others, also they lie to themselves.

    Martyrs for the cause of Darwinism. How utterly pathetic.

    Mung – you are entirely free to post here at TSZ, but choose not do do so. Virtually no-one here is able to post at UD. Where’s the lie in that? A discussion of sorts has taken place, but one could hardly big-up UD as some bastion of frank exchange. 

    ‘Dissenters’ were chucked from UD as being “not worth talking to”. Since when y’all have talked about little else. But of necessity (due to bannings on this side, and the fact that hardly any of you venture out of the snug confines) via this megaphone-across-a-canyon model, which certainly strikes me as rather pathetic.

  22. One might say that  the 4000+ posts made at UD in response to people currently banned from UD give the lie to the claim that those banned are incapable of serious discussion.

  25. Nick Matzke has just alerted Panda’s Thumb to Jerry Coyne’s “A Marshall McLuhan Moment with Creationist Paul Nelson”; and the people over at UD are frantically trying to word-game it all away.

    This incident alone illustrates the futility of trying to carry on discussions with ID/creationists. The fear and loathing of science is so deep into the ID/creationist subculture – and in the hot house “philosophizing” at UD – that they routinely latch onto and embrace every scrap of junk science and pseudo-philosophy in order to appear erudite, intellectual, and morally refined critics of science.

    Yet they rigorously avoid learning any science even as they demonize the science community and project their own seething attitudes and hatreds onto scientists.

    It makes for good study and profiling; but it doesn’t do much for discussion and interaction.

  26. Hey, thanks for pointing out Jerry Coyne’s new thread.

    I had to laugh at the first paragraph of YECcer Paul Nelson’s email to Jerry:

    Dear Jerry,
    I’m sending this email.  I’d post this in the comments of the new Shapiro thread, but I’m now persona non grata at WEIT. [JAC note: he’s never been banned; he just feels unwelcome.] 

    Nelson can’t even get past his second sentence without demonstrating his cowardice in the face of open dialogue, so typical of IDers and creobots.  

    Yep, you got it: fear and loathing of science.

     

  27. This incident alone illustrates the futility of trying to carry on discussions with ID/creationists.

    I am beginning to think you’re right! The UD response is a classic of desperate re-spin.

  28. We have an example right her. I posted two creationist responses to the McLaughlin paper, and we have Mung’s interpretation.

    They all argue that McLaughlin supports creationism or ID. 

  29. I’d like to request that no one post on the new Mung thread until he has had a chance to make his case. If I were presented with this opportunity I would like a day or so to write an essay.

  30. You are indeed an optimist. 🙂

    But, no problem; I have already profiled him – it took all of about 5 minutes a couple of days ago – and I have no interest in any of his games.

  31. A note to Mung:

    If you can write up a decent statement for that thread, I can move that to the main post text. Include a new title if you want that changed. And I think I can set you as the author, though I’m not sure what abilities that gives you.

    A note to others: JoeG has posted his own version of this on his blog.

  32. I can save you guys some trouble by quoting Joe’s argument:

    3- There is plenty of evidence for design starting with the fact there isn’t any suppoting evidence for materialism and evolutionism

  33. Then there’s Paul Nelson’s contribution: 

     Mutations that disrupt body plan formation are inevitably deleterious.

    It would appear somewhat superfluous to say that disruptive mutations are inevitably deleterious.

  34. sez neil rickert: “I think I can set [Mung] as the author, though I’m not sure what abilities that gives [Mung].”
    Are you sure that would be wise? Two words: Chris Doyle.

  35. Are you sure that would be wise? Two words: Chris Doyle.

    Chris Doyle had author privileges for the site.  I was not suggesting that.  Mung currently has only contributor privileges, which I would not change.

    As an administrator, I am able to edit the post.  One of the options is to change the author.  A list shows up, giving all members that I can assign as author.  And Mung appears in that list.  I have not tested this (by clicking the “update” button), so I am not sure it would work.  If that works, then Mung would show as the author of that one post, even though he does not have author privileges.  I’m not sure, but I think he could not delete the full already published threads.

    Here’s a wordpress explanation of user roles:

    It is not completely clear what abilities a contributor member would have for a thread to which he had been set as author.

  37. Cubist:

    Are you sure that would be wise? Two words: Chris Doyle

    I agree with Neil and Petrushka. We can’t prejudge people’s actions on what others have done. Also author privileges only allow a post author to moderate his own thread to some extent.

    Originally, Lizzie set up the site so that all members were author status by default. I don’t think the sky will fall in if we allow author status to anyone that requests it.

    So mung has author status now. Also, I have no idea why petrushka is not an author, so, (s)he is now. I hope petrushka can find time to put something together, maybe even something on the rarity of unknown protein sequences. 🙂

  38. They all argue that McLaughlin supports creationism or ID

    Anyone else sense a Marshall McLuhan moment in the offing?

  39. A personal statement from Rama Ragnanathan on his CV

    Biological systems self-assemble under physiological conditions and can display functional properties that rival or exceed the performance of many man-made systems. For example, proteins fold spontaneously into well-ordered three-dimensional structures that exhibit the capacity for specific molecular recognition, catalysis of complex chemical reactions, signal transmission, and allosteric regulation. At a larger spatial scale, networks of proteins assemble in cells to form well-ordered signaling systems that provide for complex, non-linear signal processing capabilities. Because we assume that such properties require great precision in the design of systems, one view is to regard proteins and cells as finely tuned machines that are somehow exactly arranged for mediating their selected function. However, other aspects seem less consistent with this view. For example, biological systems are thought to be robust to random perturbation; that is, they display tolerance to removal or alteration of many system components. In addition, they are plastic; that is, they maintain the ability to adapt to changing selection pressures by allowing specific variation of a few system components to alter function profoundly. This curious mixture of robustness to random perturbation and yet sensitivity to specific perturbation suggests that despite the appearance of precise construction throughout, strong functional heterogeneity exists in the design of evolved systems. That is, some parts and connections are much more important than others.

    Inspired by these ideas, our main goals are (1) to systematically map the pattern of interactions between the components that make up biological systems, (2) to mechanistically understand the operation of these systems, and (3) to define the evolutionary principles that generate these (and not other) architectures. In other words, we wish to understand what nature has built, how it works, and why it is built the way it is. In principle, such understanding would provide powerful rules for the rational engineering and control of biological systems, and would begin to explain how they are even possible through the random algorithmic process that we call evolution.

  40. sez alan fox: “We can’t prejudge people’s actions on what others have done.”
    I’m judging Mung’s actions on what Mung has done. Mung’s approach to intellectual discourse is pretty clearly that of a typical Creationist; thus, I think it’s only prudent to consider the possibility if Mung is given editing-type powers, he will, similarly, abuse those powers in the same way a typical Creationist would abuse them. It’s all well and good to give people the benefit of the doubt… but in Mung’s case, what ‘doubt’ is there for him to be given the benefit of?
    Of course, the above is only my personal opinion, and nobody else is required to agree with me, or even give a tenth of a tinker’s damn what I say. Should Mung be granted editing-type powers, it will be interesting to see what he does with said powers.

  41. Should Mung be granted editing-type powers, it will be interesting to see what he does with said powers.

    He would, at most, have powers in threads where he is the author. If you are concerned about that, then take occasional backups of any such threads. For example, if your system allows printing to a pdf file, then you could occasionally generate pdf files of the thread(s) of concern.

    I’m not at all sure that he will even start his own thread.

  42. test

    Can’t seem to post anywhere else

    To be specific, I can’t post to the Paul Nelson thread.

  43. I am not able to see a problem. I did a test post to the Nelson thread. That was successful, though I am probably the wrong person to test that. I can’t see any problem with your user settings. Your IP is not on the banned list.

    There is nothing in the moderation queue, and nothing showing as spam.

  45. Oh shoot! I hope this isn’t my fault. 

    I changed your status to author. Can you access the dashboard?

  46. Penguin Colony is back up and seems to be functional. Updating resets defaults that make it non-viewable. 

  49. Alan,

    I see the following message at the top of each page:

    You have activated a Bronze WP Symposium feature, but you have not entered your Activation Code. You can get your Activation Code on the Membership page on the WP Symposium website.

    It appears that the symposium plugin has both free and paid features, and that if you activate one of the paid features it requires an activation code that costs $40 per year. Perhaps Lizzie activated the feature and paid for it more than a year ago, or maybe you inadvertently activated it when trying to get the Penguin Colony back up.

  50. On William J Murray’s thread over at UD, they are still trying to determine if there is any quantitative way of distinguishing an artifact (intelligently designed structure) from a naturally occurring structure.

    Despite all the comments over there, we haven’t heard from Murray about what – on an intelligence scale of, say, amoeba to human – is required to make such a distinction.

    If we allow that he is talking about humans, what specific forms of knowledge are required to make such distinctions?

    What knowledge is required to distinguish between a cubic structure made of ping pong balls and a cubic structure made of sodium chloride molecules?

    What specific knowledge is required to distinguish between a crystalline solid and amino acids?

    What specific knowledge is required to distinguish between a battle ship and amino acids?

    What specific knowledge is required to distinguish between amino acids and proteins?

    Where along the chain of complexity of atomic/molecular assemblies do we distinguish between a natural assembly and an artifact? Just where does that transition occur?

    Later in that same thread, kairosfocus comes to the rescue with a calculation. Can kairosfocus’ calculation to show that a particular stone has FSCO/I also be used to show that the planet Saturn has FSCO/I?

    Where did Saturn’s FSCO/I come from? What mechanisms produced it?

    Whether one has a “Sequence Probability Calculator” or whether one does essentially the same calculation but goes on to take the negative of the logarithm to base 2 of that calculation, what does that prove?

    What does that prove even if the logarithm to base 2 comes out greater than 500? If I take enough sample points by taking many probabilities of increasingly finer details, raising them to various powers and multiply them together, and taking the log to base 2, can I make anything into an artifact?

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