@S. Schiller: You claim the same tools can be used …

Comment on “Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design by Gene Fortner.

@S. Schiller:

You claim the same tools can be used so that there is no difference. But here is why there will always be a difference if you want to listen. Your communications about identifying artefacts from intelligence always seem to be “Just-So Stories”, consistent Rudyard Kipling’s works for little children. What one needs to do is too responded in a way that a true scientific investigation would address the process of identifying potential artifacts.

One of the driving factors behind the SETI project is the belief that finding life beyond Earth will prove that since life has evolved elsewhere, it must have evolved here on Earth.

Talk about “JUST SO STORIES”.

The DRAKE equation is not science it is wishful thinking, faith in a bankrupt hypothesis.

“the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science.”

Michael Crichton

If an apparently non-random pattern (which might possibly have some unknown meaning) is proof of an intelligent source, one must also believe that the clearly non-random patterns in the DNA molecule (which certainly do have some meaning) are proof of an intelligent source.
Let’s state the same thing slightly differently. Suppose SETI discovers a non-terrestrial radio signal that contains information. That will be considered to be irrefutable evidence of an intelligent source because it could not possibly have been randomly generated. It logically follows that a DNA molecule containing information could not have been randomly generated, and must be irrefutable evidence of an intelligent source.

Gene Fortner Also Commented

“Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design
Sean,

True but some try to use snowflakes as the appearance of design.

The ability to detect design is God given.

Send a couple of 10 year olds through a field looking for artifacts, they will come back with arrowheads, broken pieces of pottery, nails, ……


“Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design
@pauluc:

Paul,

FYI,

Here is what I am suggesting;

The billions in government grant $$$$$ that has created what Eisenhower feared; “we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”.

Because of that we must

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”

As far as the bias at the academic level it is well documented. But then you wouldn’t know that.


“Blindingly Obvious Artifacts” of Intelligent Design
@pauluc:

Paul,

The ability to determine design is God given as is the ability to communicate via spoken and written word.

Intelligent Design is a bit more than pattern recognition. You might come out of your ivory tower and design and implement a pattern recognition system.

An end to the madness?
The fifth edition of the DSM psychiatric manual may be the last.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/an_end_to_the_madness

he Economist weighs in on broken peer review

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong

Peer review is failing to ensure data quality, finds a study … The analysis, led by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), found that about one-third of papers submitted to five physical-chemistry journals between 2003 and 2013 contained erroneous or incomplete data, which can make it hard to replicate findings and can lead to poor regulatory decisions. Peer review does not have the capacity to evaluate the current flood of data, say co-authors Michael Frenkel and Robert Chirico, chemists at NIST in Boulder, Colorado. “The rate of errors is an elephant in the room,” says Frenkel. – See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/is_nothing_sacr077661.html#sthash.MtyxsniL.dpuf


Recent Comments by Gene Fortner

The Creative Potential of Randomness and Chaos?
Bill,

A scientist starts with data, the proposes a hypothesis to explain that data. A creation scientists uses the scientific method to test the validity of the Bible.

So far the Bible is way ahead of secular scientist attempts to explain the universe.

Neo-Darwinism is dead.

Here are some of the attemps to replace it.

They too will fail

In Search of “Evolution 3.0”
There are eight contenders for the next incarnation of the theory of evolution.
I have heard and read that the theory of evolution is a “theory in crisis.” But the research path I’ve been on has led me to flip-flop on that notion depending on what I was reading at the time. However, very recently, I think I have come to settle on the “theory in crisis” side of the fence. It has always been my contention that, by far, the best refutations against the theory come from evolutionists themselves. By “best” I mean ones likely to be taken seriously by those who adhere to the tenets of evolutionary theory. This is because no matter how scientifically sound an argument is, if it comes from a source with the slightest religious or Intelligent Design affiliation, it is automatically discredited on that basis.
That being said, the ongoing search for the theory’s replacement, in my opinion, offers some of the most powerful evidence against the theory. It appears that the recent developments in microbiology and genetics have been at work silently in the background (i.e. with limited public exposure). I’ve just read through Stephen Meyer’s refutation of evolution in Darwin’s Doubt. It is very compelling scientific evidence. The result of this silent work is now manifesting itself in a search for a replacement for neo-Darwinian evolution.
The surfacing theories that I am currently aware of are:
1. Context-driven Actualization of Potential (CAP)
2. Self-organization
3. Natural Genetic Engineering
4. Neo-Lamarckism
5. Symbiogenesis
6. Evolutionary Developmental Biology
7. Neutral Evolution
8. Facilitated Variation
The fact that all of these new theories are surfacing

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v17i11f.htm

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v17i12f.htm

.

@Bill Sorensen:


Louie Bishop Testifies, Again, about His Experience at La Sierra University
@Professor Kent: Prof,
The 2nd law applies to the universe, including open and closed systems.
Notice how sunlight (UV) degrades paint/skin/…


The Creative Potential of Randomness and Chaos?
@Pauluc:

Paul,

What you need to do to refute Dominic Stratham’s hypothesis is to come up with a hypothesis that matches the data better than his.

His hypothesis matches the data much better than current just so stories and it makes sense.

Your attempt to refute his hypothesis was a lazy man’s attempt at an apopeal to authority.

FYI,

Engineers are much harder to fool because they design things.

Academia only has to come up with a story that matches the current dogma’s premise.

PS: A few hundred years ago, the consensus was against Galileo.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@pauluc: Bacteria did have the digestive function before nylon was invented. The fact that they could not digest nylon before nylon was invented is simply because there wasn’t any nylon to digest.
New evidence shows that the ability was due to plasmids [e.g. K. Kato, et al., ‘A plasmid encoding enzymes for nylon oligomer degradation: Nucleotide sequence analysis of pOAD2’, Microbiology (Reading) 141(10):2585–2590, 1995.] In fact, more than one species of bacteria have the ability, residing on plasmids. This suggests that the information probably already existed, and was just passed between different types of bacteria.
All that would be needed to enable an enzyme to digest nylon is a mutation causing loss of specificity in a proteolytic (protein-degrading) enzyme. This may seem surprising—how would a loss of information create a new ability? Answer: enzymes are usually tuned very precisely to only one type of molecule (the substrate). Loss of information would reduce the effectiveness of its primary function, but would enable it to degrade other substrates, too. Since both nylon and proteins are broken down by breaking amide linkages, a change in a proteolytic enzyme could also allow it to work on nylon. If this process were continued, the result would be a general enzyme with a weakly catalytic effect on the hydrolysis of too many chemicals to be useful where much selectivity is required. To put it into perspective, acids and alkalis also catalyze many hydrolysis reactions, but they also lack specificity. Indeed, an inhibitor of a protein degrading enzyme also inhibits the action of the nylon degrading enzyme.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@george:

George,

Why can’t you prove the universe wasn’t designed?