Science Thread (now with 100% less religion)
The old science thread seems to have gotten locked, not sure what the rules are but I thought we could try again.
Prett
You can disprove this with just a random number generator and selection criteria. Well obviously not you given you made that argument in the first place.
More to the point, there's overwhelming evidence that processes like nuclear decay are fundamentally completely random by any meaningful definition of the word "random."
Also using the word "accident" in this way lagtit is doing is just obviously a bit of deliberate sophistry. If told you I flipped a coin and said "It came up heads three times by chance," you wouldn't think much of that. If I said "It came up heads three times by accident," you'd think I was a bit of a moron.
Literally his whole argument is conflating "accident" with "random chance" and smuggling in the pejorative connotations of the word "accident."
Well, there is.We (humans) developed milk digestion in adulthood genetically very recently (less than 10k years ago), in Scandinavia or near there, which is why populations nearby almost always have that genetical capability, while in Asia (and native Americans and Australians) they mostly don't.I don't know what else than a 100% genetical acquired trait that not all humans sha
Excellent examples of micro-evolution. Thanks for sharing.
Note to self: Trolly is still a perv.
is doing is just obviously a bit of deliberate sophistry.
Your you please share with the class an example of sophistry that is not deliberate?
If told you I flipped a coin and said "It came up heads three times by chance," you wouldn't think much of that. If I said "It came up heads three times by accident," you'd think I was a bit of a moron.
Literally his whole argument is conflating "accident" with "random chance" and smuggling in the pejorative connotations of the word "accident."
I'm using accident in the sense of unplanned or unintended or unintentional. I probably should have instead used the more technical term, fortuitous.
As in, "Is the universe planned or fortuitous?"
Unfortunately, the word fortuitous is often used as a synonym for fortunate these days.
Numbers are a made up human concept, random isn't.Random is just a definition of something that exists, if something is random then its next state cannot be predicted given it's current state.You might believe random doesn't exist (ie you believe in perfect material determinism) but try to follow through the corollaries of that.If all states of nature can be predicted given the
I agree that "randomness" is a real thing if what one means by it is "unpredictable." (Or, at the very least 'unpredictable' by people.)
I never claimed otherwise.
I did (and still do) claim that random numbers do not exist in nature.
This is a terrible analogy. The two are not related at all except by your idea of complexity. It should go without saying that evolution involves a process known as natural selection, and this process does not act on rock.
I can see why you are confused about this topic if you believe these two things have anything in common at all besides the fact that they are complex.
I, of course, agree that real evolution (.e. Microevolution) includes the natural selection process.
I would like to explain why my Mt. Rushmore analogy is a splendid one:
All sides (I think) would agree with the following two propositions:
1. Life has not always existed on Earth.
2. Life currently does exist on Earth.
There are several theories about how we got from #1 to #2.
Here are three:
A. Abiogenesis. (that is, somehow non-life became life)
B. Panspermia: Life somehow got to Earth from somewhere else in the galaxy.
C. Special Creation: A living God created life on Earth.
The Mt. Rushmore analogy is a splendid way (in my completely non-biased opinion) to illustrate the absurdity of abiogenesis.
Somehow non-living matter (e.g. rocks) became complex living things (e.g. geologists). Even though in Realityland (i.e. The Real World) nobody has ever created life from non-life on purpose in a laboratory, let alone seen it happen all by itself by undirected "nature."
#RealityBasedScience
Has anyone looked into this report that we are gaining ice again?
I assume its nonsense but was hoping someone here would do the work for me
edit: alright, **** it.
Headline
Antarctica gains ice for first time in decades, reversing trend of mass loss, study finds
Links to this study
which states this
The results indicate that the AIS contribution to GMSL (global mean sea level) rise peaked at 5.99±0.43 mm in February 2020, followed by a mass gain period lasting over three years, ultimately resulting in a total GMSL contribution of 5.10±0.52 mm by the end of 2023.
But uh, as the headline notes....
Moreover, the AIS experienced substantial mass loss during the 2011–2020 period, with a rate of 142.06±56.12 Gt a−1, mainly due to intensified mass loss in the West AIS and the WL-QML region of the EAIS. Further analysis shows that the mass loss rate of the four glacier basins in the WL-QML region during the 2011–2020 period increased by 47.64±8.14 Gt a−1 compared with the 2002–2010 period, with expanded areas of mass loss spreading inland.
Confirmed nonsense
I'm using accident in the sense of unplanned or unintended or unintentional. I probably should have instead used the more technical term, fortuitous.
You're using "accident" in a way that flat-out doesn't make sense, as my coin toss example showed. Saying that life evolving via random mutation and natural selection has different connotations from saying it happened "by accident."
The Mt. Rushmore analogy is a splendid way (in my completely non-biased opinion) to illustrate the absurdity of abiogenesis.
No one thinks rocks are subject to natural selection or genetic variation, so your analogy doesn't work at all.
Even though in Realityland (i.e. The Real World) nobody has ever created life from non-life on purpose in a laboratory, let alone seen it happen all by itself by undirected "nature."
No one has ever seen God create life in Realityland either, so this argument gets you nowhere.
You're using "accident" in a way that flat-out doesn't make sense, as my coin toss example showed. Saying that life evolving via random mutation and natural selection has different connotations from saying it happened "by accident."
The coin-toss example was yours not mine. And since tossing a coin is a purposeful act, it wouldn't make sense to call tossing three heads an "accident."
No one thinks rocks are subject to natural selection or genetic variation, so your analogy doesn't work at all.
Right. Which means purveyors of abiogenesis need to account for how we got from non-living things to living things that allow natural selection to take place at all.
No one has ever seen God create life in Realityland either, so this argument gets you nowhere.
It does get me somewhere: Both Evolutionism and Creationism are religious, not scientific, claims.
Right. Which means purveyors of abiogenesis need to account for how we got from non-living things to living things that allow natural selection to take place at all.
Are you not aware that it does account for that? If so, which part specifically do you take issue with?
It does get me somewhere: Both Evolutionism and Creationism are religious, not scientific, claims.
LOL no.
That is indeed why I called it "my coin toss example." Thanks for following along!
And since tossing a coin is a purposeful act, it wouldn't make sense to call tossing three heads an "accident."
The outcome of the coin toss isn't a purposeful act. It's a result of random chance. But it's not an "accident." No one uses the word accident that way.
Also, evolution isn't a purposeful act either, yet you referred to it earlier as an accident!
Right. Which means purveyors of abiogenesis need to account for how we got from non-living things to living things that allow natural selection to take place at all.
Now you're deliberately conflating evolution with abiogenesis. Also, no one is "purveying" abiogenesis. That's just more sophistry.
It does get me somewhere: Both Evolutionism and Creationism are religious, not scientific, claims.
Also, just not true on its face.
Abiogenesis is technically thought of as an evolutionary process, but a separate one from the one that is usually considered to be referred to by the term. It is important to note that the theory of evolution does not at all require abiogenesis to be true, so it is indeed a red herring to the conversation.
You can put me in the category of people who think this is a terrible analogy. It's akin to arguing that abiogenesis is impossible because waves at the beach never create elaborate, 20 ft sandcastles with turrets. It's true that waves never create 20 ft sandcastles with turrets, but if you watch waves at the beach, the explanation for why that never happens is pretty obvious. (As an aside, if you think that natural forces never create anything that looks like the product of intelligent design, images of the Yonaguni Monument are going to blow your mind.)
The Mt Rushmore analogy is terrible because the processes of grinding, sculpting snd breaking rocks into faces is pretty well understood. You can calculate how long it would take for wind and rain to produce Mt Rushmore snd it would be much much longer than the age of the universe. Nobody has produced a similar calculation for dna or self replicating molecules. Experiments show the exact opposite, it’s pretty easy to get amino acids and other components of life very quickly by mixing chemicals. Even many evolution deniers could understand why the Mt Rushmore analogy is terrible.
The Mt Rushmore analogy is terrible because the processes of grinding, sculpting snd breaking rocks into faces is pretty well understood. You can calculate how long it would take for wind and rain to produce Mt Rushmore snd it would be much much longer than the age of the universe. Nobody has produced a similar calculation for dna or self replicating molecules. Experiments sh
I'm far from convinced that the bolded is correct, or that the bolded is the biggest problem with the analogy. If we searched for veins of silver on a billion duplicate earths, we would never find any natually occurring silver in the ground that looked like a mint condition silver dollar. And that isn't just because of statistical improbability. It's because the natural processes of earth are not capable of producing pockets of silver that are indistinguishable from silver dollars.
evolution is just a part of survival of the fitest. Surivival of the fitest is trivial and requires no evidence. Randomness is necessarily irrelevent and the only fundamental unanswered question is why anything happens.
I'm not even sure what the argument was supposed to be. "Mt. Rushmore exists, therefore life could not have evolved?"
You're wrong trolly.
Three times in one short post. well done.
I'm not even sure what the argument was supposed to be. "Mt. Rushmore exists, therefore life could not have evolved?"
The argument presumably is the following:
"If non-directed natural processes can produce something as astonishing, improbable, and organized as organic life, then surely they would have produced something inorganic that was similarly astonishing, improbable, and organized. But we don't see a naturally occurring Mt. Rushmore. Therefore, we can infer creative design."
Or put another way:
"We can all agree as a matter of pure statistics that it would be incredibly improbable for natural forces to create something as intricate and seemingly man-made as Mt. Rushmore. We don't see a Mt. Rushmore. Therefore we can reject other theories that would require a similarly improbable thing to have occurred even one time over hundreds of billions of iterations."
No matter how you frame the analogy, the argument is a huge logic fail.
Arguments in favor of creative design eventually devolve to, "You scientists don't have a impenetrable explanation for how life arose on earth. And you can't definitely disprove creative design. Therefore I choose to believe in creative design."
It's purely faith-based.
Well, I guess I'm now convinced that God made Mt. Rushmore.
But guys, the eye, the eye! Also, toasters. They make a lot of Jesus portraits.
necessarily irrellevent. It can't possibly make any difference
You'll have to do a tiny bit of thinking to get there, sorry
