Divine inventions: The Ribosome

[SpaceYeti]

"Ooooh, look at meeee, I'm so enlightened that I don't watch Family Guy! I'm better than other people!"

Listen, dude, if you weren't being such an asshole, people would take you more seriously. I mean, if you don't like a show, cool, whatever. You don't have to like anything you don't want to. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to just up and choose what you do and do not enjoy. However, you're going to get farther in conversations by not insinuating that you're downright better than other people who do like things you don't. Especially when it's just a comedy show.

You either find it funny or don't. It's not responsible for making people dumb, as you seem to think it is. Get off your high horse. Nobody watches family guy to get enlightened, sure, but I'm sure you also take breaks from your search for truth, too. Or do you do nothing for entertainment? No mini-golf, no video games, no writing fiction, nothing except attaining understanding? I'm sure that's also beneath your vastly superior intellect.

I'm curious if your superior intellect gets the babes, or if your dismissal of the things babes enjoy as filth does. If I were a babe, I'd jump all over you, I tell you what. Your brain is so sexy when you call me stupid!

 

[Cherry Cola]

Animekitty,

The gross majority of the masses on planet earth are entirely tuned out of the higher frequency you are tuned into.

You can perceive it. (which necessarily means you already perceive the lower frequencies and transcended them). Most can't.

Its just the way it is for now on planet earth. Most of the earthlings who don't get it can't and never will. You probably already know that the degree to which any unperceptive earthling obstinately opposes truth as communicated by one who is tuned in to the higher frequencies is directly proportional to their continuing inability/ incapacity to get it.

Plato's Cave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platos_cave

Might not be worth your time/ effort? (not to say this thread isn't awesome in its own right and the truths espoused herein weren't worthy of documenting and communicating).

One can't be taught until they have the desire to learn.

I like to imagine this post as having not do with believing in God for no good reason; instead, it should be about something awesome such as achieving the ultimate orgasm.

 

[Hawkeye]

As a source of enlightenment/ knowledge/ usefulness in anything mental or spiritual "'family' guy" requires as much need to make an exception to a generalization as I might consider the exception of eating my poop before I generally flush it down the toilet once per day.

There is splitting hairs (exception making) and then there is splitting hairs for the sake of splitting hairs. I'm not into the popular 'modern' mental activity of exceptionalizing everything to the point of sacrificing/ dispossessing one's own mind and body on the alter of ceaseless abstractions.

Order excludes over-exception making. Higher Order demands categorization and categorization demands generalizations. This is how exceptions gain their existence in the first place.

A world of exceptions less generalizations is completely ephemeral/ abstract. The balance must be in the favor of generalizations for a veritable existent possession of one's own mind and body.

And FWIW...if the 'family' guy video was 3 nanoseconds in length, I wouldn't submit myself to it if given my own free will. Any less than if I would consume 3 pathological mircoorganisms if given the invitation (eg staphylococcus aureus) instead of 3,000+.

Hilariously narrow-minded.

It has nothing to do with enlightenment... It's Family Guy.

You already proved that you lost out on knowledge by requesting someone go out of their way to keep you in the loop. On top of that, you made yourself look like an arse in the process. It was like you had no better quip to respond with.

Basically, you are talking a load of shite and it sounds like you have some form of superiority complex. I think you need to watch some Tom and Jerry and chill-the-fuck out.

Or not.

I couldn't care less. ^^

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Hilariously narrow-minded.

It has nothing to do with enlightenment... It's Family Guy.

You already proved that you lost out on knowledge by requesting someone go out of their way to keep you in the loop. On top of that, you made yourself look like an arse in the process. It was like you had no better quip to respond with.

Basically, you are talking a load of shite and it sounds like you have some form of superiority complex. I think you need to watch some Tom and Jerry and chill-the-fuck out.

Or not.

I couldn't care less. ^^

Tom and Jerry are fine by me. By all means...

 

[Cherry Cola]

As Punishment for your heinously abominable argument which has the bends; I hereby command you to listen to Muse, Keane, and Coldplay only. No Radiohead.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Tom and Jerry is boring.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Tom and Jerry is boring.

TV programming [mind programming] is (generally) boring, vapid and a worse than a waste of time.

For the longest time I haven't resonated with most people and one of the things I do not have in common is I don't watch TV. I don't even have service. Its unbelievable to me the amount of time and consciousness (and subconsciousness) most people allow their TV to put ideas in their heads.

If I was forced to watch TV programming the number of hours per day the average person does, I would definitely make sure to watch the least boring, least depraved, most interesting and useful stuff. Shows like how its made and such. Maybe tune in to a foreign language channel and pick up a third language and/or work on second language skills.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Bah, learn how to have fun. You don't need to learn something to be entertained.

 

[redbaron]

It is grasped by the mind easy.

Yes, a lot of things are grasped easily using deductive reasoning. I've heard many justifications from many different people, I'm interested in hearing yours though.

http://www.intpforum.com/showpost.php?p=387741&postcount=2

Thank you for clarifying.

It occurs to me that there's a problem in the way you're applying this brand of intuition. This concept is entirely philosophical, and is not an argument against the usefulness and accuracy of predictive models as they relate to science, or their ability to provide understanding of the world around us.

I think that it's fair to note as well that Bergson himself defined it on philosophical grounds. Not scientific ones. They weren't (and can't be) used to contest predictive models of reality.

I believe in intuition which should not derogatorily be referred to as "common sense"

I think it's important that I point out here that both what you're doing and what constitutes common sense are both cases of deductive reasoning and that you've been using a non-standard definition of intuition without clarification for majority of the thread.

It's not really derogatory.

In any case I'm not sure there's much further this discussion can go. I would like to talk more about some of the concepts that have been brought up so far, however we're kind of at a dead-end now.

 

[Black Rose]

I hope me and House are not the only ones who see the preponderance of what is a non classical process. Synergy of atoms make it appear that agency must be part of their very nature. They know what they are doing and are aware on some level.

http://youtu.be/5MfSYnItYvg

 

[redbaron]

I hope me and House are not the only ones who see the preponderance of what is a non classical process. Synergy of atoms make it appear that agency must be part of their very nature.

Honestly, no. It doesn't indicate agency and arguing this kind of point is a philosophical endeavour, not a scientific one.

Assuming superiority (preponderance) of an entirely deductive and philosophical method of understanding is quite bold. I'm curious as to what you think it's superior for. If it's making predictions about and explaining the world we live in, there's a lot to talk about.

 

[Black Rose]

Philosophy of science means science does not have all answers.

 

[GodOfOrder]

Can we go about this in a different way than just pointing at a complex thing, like a ribosome, and saying "Look there must be a creator"? Demonstrate the logical connection between complexity and design. You must do it with certainty, a priori, and demonstrate that it can not have been otherwise. If it helps, use another example that is not a ribosome, and work your way back there.

Also, did nobody find my little hypothetical helpful in breaking the connection between complexity and design?

Imagine all of the matter in the universe being jumbled up and reorganized in random combinations and permutations. There are only two things that can't exist; things which require more matter than the sum total available, and things which require types of matter that do not exist. By randomly shuffling all of it, anything can come out. That is everything from a Ford Explorer, to You, to a useless jumble of crap. All that matters in this case is the potentiality for a thing to be produced by this process. The probability of any given object to be generated is unimportant. (And if I do this an infinite number of times, I shall probably see each outcome at least once).

The point of my little hypothetical is a simple one. It proves that complexity implies nothing. A thing can exist simply because it can. Design is not required. Granted it is not at all an appropriate metaphor for the creation of life, it is just a little side point I thought was worth mentioning.

 

[Rook]

Philosophy of science means science does not have all answers.

Science has not yet FOUND all the answers.
Philosophy is this: Giving vague,unscientific explanations to things that have not yet been proved. Yes, there are things that science cannot prove (At least for now), such as what came before the singularity.
But it is pure folly to assume that if rational science cannot provide answers, speculative philosophy can. Irrationality, ye be confounded!

 

[Cherry Cola]

Synergy of atoms make it appear that agency must be part of their very nature. They know what they are doing and are aware on some level.

Why do you need god to explain this? They can as well be their own agents.

 

[Black Rose]

Why do you need god to explain this? They can as well be their own agents.

A cell is a society, within that society many roles must be played. It has a plan of construction. This plan is directed by a force. It is an intelligent force, guidedind the motion of the waves we are made of. It gives the orbitals its structure, the interconnectivity to communicate faster than light and backwards in time without paradoxes. To emanate from it is to not be separate. God is not an old man with a beard in the sky. God is the underlying sustainer. When looking at why we exist it should be known that materialism is a dead philosophy. Consciousness would not be here if it was true. Everything is fuzzy quantum foam, it is not solid and is synchronicity not causality. Events are happenings are thought. Thought is the essence of substance. If you follow what I'm saying as a whole and do not segment it you will comprehend what I am saying.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Yes materialism is dead. But that to has nought to do with this.

Why is the force intelligent? It is enough that the interactions of matter are complex enough to give rise to situations where darwinian principles get to do their work for long enough. There is no need a for a fundamental intelligence, it is enough that there is a fundamental force.

What is "god the sustainer" really, apart from the fact that things are sustained? Isn't that fact enough? Why add in a God to do the sustaining? It merely begs the question of who sustains god? Is god special in some fundamental way? Well why not just say that all is is special by virtue of its mere being then?

I know that God isn't some old man, and I'm not picturing God as that. The problem is that the more you let go of what typically is considered God the more obvious the lack of a necessity for the concept of one becomes.

Again I'm not seeing anything warranting the concept of God that has explanatory value at the same time.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

A cell is a society, within that society many roles must be played. It has a plan of construction. This plan is directed by a force. It is an intelligent force, guidedind the motion of the waves we are made of. It gives the orbitals its structure, the interconnectivity to communicate faster than light and backwards in time without paradoxes. To emanate from it is to not be separate. God is not an old man with a beard in the sky. God is the underlying sustainer. When looking at why we exist it should be known that materialism is a dead philosophy. Consciousness would not be here if it was true. Everything is fuzzy quantum foam, it is not solid and is synchronicity not causality. Events are happenings are thought. Thought is the essence of substance. If you follow what I'm saying as a whole and do not segment it you will comprehend what I am saying.

Well you certainly did answer the question, 'what is God'.

A fascinating/ deep/ provocative definition to be sure. I understand.

In this context, then, God = life.

 

[Black Rose]

The force is intelligent because with intelligence certain structures are possible to form that would not be. Sand cannot form into complex structures because it is not intelligent enough even with forces like erosion. The parts are not blind and if they come together then it is not by chance. Several videos are in this thread show things that come before Darwinian processes get involved. Also the fundamental force is not really fundamental but arbitrary when looking at the shapes of proteins. Again they are not blind but have interconnectivity guiding them. Where the intelligence come from is in the patterns of what could be a network of links between them. These links could be aware of all space. They would construct into higher forms to attain greater awareness.

We do not have to attach the word God to this phenomenon but if matter is dumb then nothing interesting happens I believe.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

...I know that God isn't some old man, and I'm not picturing God as that. The problem is that the more you let go of what typically is considered God the more obvious the of a necessity for the concept of one becomes...

For the general reader of this thread I submit an idea:

Just because the masses with an average IQ hovering around 90 on the best day, feel the compulsion to bundle the concept of 'god' into humanoid form aged 100+ years, give him a beard, their race, white hair, and a throne: doesn't mean that this is what those who can explain God to be...is or might be.

So let the stupid superstitious masses have their deaf/ dumb/ blind idols reflect their inevitable mental opacity.

But don't you fall for it and let their blindness infect your perception of reality and the infinite possibilities.

 

[Cherry Cola]

That was an attempt to deflect a strawman from Animekittys side.

This is exactly the same strawman.

The point was that: again I'm not seeing anything warranting the concept of God that has explanatory value at the same time.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

That was an attempt to deflect a strawman from Animekittys side.

This is exactly the same strawman.

 

[Black Rose]

I think I gave a reason for god in post 119.
God is the intelligence of everything.

 

[Hawkeye]

A cell is a society, within that society many roles must be played. It has a plan of construction. This plan is directed by a force. It is an intelligent force, guidedind the motion of the waves we are made of. It gives the orbitals its structure, the interconnectivity to communicate faster than light and backwards in time without paradoxes. To emanate from it is to not be separate. God is not an old man with a beard in the sky. God is the underlying sustainer. When looking at why we exist it should be known that materialism is a dead philosophy. Consciousness would not be here if it was true. Everything is fuzzy quantum foam, it is not solid and is synchronicity not causality. Events are happenings are thought. Thought is the essence of substance. If you follow what I'm saying as a whole and do not segment it you will comprehend what I am saying.

This use of intelligence is essentially the same as saying Cillit Bang is a smart cleaner that actively seeks out stains and removes them; It's faux intelligence.

 

[Black Rose]

This use of intelligence is essentially the same as saying Cillit Bang is a smart cleaner that actively seeks out stains and removes them; It's faux intelligence.

Without a person? That's one smart bottle.

 

[Hawkeye]

Without a person? That's one smart bottle.

That's how cleaning agents are advertised; as if they are intelligent fluids that know where all the stains are...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc1AG-MhD_A

 

[redbaron]

Science does not have all answers.

Seems like you're dodging inquiry now. Is this another general statement, or are you trying to imply something?

I think I gave a reason for god in post 119.
God is the intelligence of everything.

With statements like this?

Sand cannot form into complex structures because it is not intelligent enough even with forces like erosion.

This is the most ignorant statement yet posted in the entire thread. All this does is highlight that not only do you not understand the geological reasons why beaches form, you don't even care to look. It's wilful ignorance, and to be honest - wrong.

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/coastal-processes-and-beaches-26276621

From 2 minutes of searching for information on beach formation on google. If I search for another 10 minutes, I could find plenty of information relating to coastal geography and oceanography.

It occurred to me after I read this post as well, that you keep citing youtube videos to support your arguments. I'm curious if you've actually read the studies, and if not, take a minute to think about all of the information you're not considering.

Moving onto another problem with your statement: sand actually doesn't form complex structures. There's a lot of things that do, but the composition of sand is incredibly variable and sand itself is not a complex structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand

However if you'd said that calcium carbonate forms complex structures, you'd be correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate

Do me a favour, read all of these three links in their entirety. If you get to mathematics - search and study, and then replicate it yourself. The process will be enlightening.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Seems like you're dodging inquiry now. Is this another general statement, or are you trying to imply something?



With statements like this?



This is the most ignorant statement yet posted in the entire thread. All this does is highlight that not only do you not understand the geological reasons why beaches form, you don't even care to look. It's wilful ignorance, and to be honest - wrong.

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/coastal-processes-and-beaches-26276621

From 2 minutes of searching for information on beach formation on google. If I search for another 10 minutes, I could find plenty of information relating to coastal geography and oceanography.

It occurred to me after I read this post as well, that you keep citing youtube videos to support your arguments. I'm curious if you've actually read the studies, and if not, take a minute to think about all of the information you're not considering.

Moving onto another problem with your statement: sand actually doesn't form complex structures. There's a lot of things that do, but the composition of sand is incredibly variable and sand itself is not a complex structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand

However if you'd said that calcium carbonate forms complex structures, you'd be correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate

Do me a favour, read all of these three links in their entirety. If you get to mathematics - search and study, and then replicate it yourself. The process will be enlightening.

I don't think they are going to be capable of transcending the confines of their own mortal experience, animekitty.

Yet you keep giving them the chance. Why?

Platos cave I guess.

 

[Black Rose]

Seems like you're dodging inquiry now. Is this another general statement, or are you trying to imply something?

If you have no foundation by which to pose your claims why should it be that I am the one who needs to enlighten you, not that I mind. If science is not meant to find truth which you seem to relegate to the world of supposed inferiority (Philosophy) then I should not believe anything you say as it has nothing worth proper value. You have no knowledge and no proper conception of philosophy.

With statements like this?

This is the most ignorant statement yet posted in the entire thread. All this does is highlight that not only do you not understand the geological reasons why beaches form, you don't even care to look. It's wilful ignorance, and to be honest - wrong.

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/coastal-processes-and-beaches-26276621

From 2 minutes of searching for information on beach formation on google. If I search for another 10 minutes, I could find plenty of information relating to coastal geography and oceanography.

It occurred to me after I read this post as well, that you keep citing youtube videos to support your arguments. I'm curious if you've actually read the studies, and if not, take a minute to think about all of the information you're not considering.

Moving onto another problem with your statement: sand actually doesn't form complex structures. There's a lot of things that do, but the composition of sand is incredibly variable and sand itself is not a complex structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand

However if you'd said that calcium carbonate forms complex structures, you'd be correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate

Do me a favour, read all of these three links in their entirety. If you get to mathematics - search and study, and then replicate it yourself. The process will be enlightening.

I have made that statement without referring to the type of complexity but it is inferred by my other posts.

Cars do not violate the laws of thermodynamics yet without intelligence no cars are made by the so called laws.

So to with biology. You expect cars(biology) to rise from the primordial ooze unabated by matters ineptitude. This is akin to expecting the sphinx being sculpted by the wind with desert sand.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Can we go about this in a different way than just pointing at a complex thing, like a ribosome, and saying "Look there must be a creator"? Demonstrate the logical connection between complexity and design. You must do it with certainty, a priori, and demonstrate that it can not have been otherwise. If it helps, use another example that is not a ribosome, and work your way back there.

Also, did nobody find my little hypothetical helpful in breaking the connection between complexity and design?

Also, complexity doesn't imply design. Purpose implies design. More accurately, things being as simple as possible while still accomplishing their purpose imply design. Things with many purposes may be complex (modern smart-phones, for example), but they're the least amount of complex as the engineers who designed it could make it. A better example, perhaps, is a hammer. A hammer is just a weighted lever. Would it's purpose of hitting nails into wood be accomplished better if it were designed to have a bunch of extra doo-dads all over it? How about a hammer that's built on a pyramid instead of a lever, and each head has a staple gun in it, and there's a coffee maker on the inside of the pyramid? I'd argue that it's a really cool hammer, but it's not a very good hammer, because it's more complicated than it needs to be to get it's intended job done... to the point it's actually worse at it's intended job (and all the other jobs it can now do).

That's what always gets me about the complexity argument. Whether or not a thing is complex has nothing to do with identifying if it's designed. If it accomplishes some job (perhaps even many jobs), for some purpose, that's how you actually tell if it's designed. And that's not even the case, either, really. We know things are designed because we design them and make them, or are otherwise aware that we design and make them. You don't know watches or trucks are designed because they're complex, you know they're designed because we designed them (and thus necessarily know what their purposes are).

We did not create the universe, and it has no apparent purpose.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Cars do not violate the laws of thermodynamics yet without intelligence no cars are made by the so called laws.

So to with biology. You expect cars(biology) to rise from the primordial ooze unabated by matters ineptitude. This is akin to expecting the sphinx being sculpted by the wind with desert sand.

You don't understand abiogenesis and/or thermodynamics. I mean, I could say that leavened bread breaks the law of conservation of mass and energy because it gets bigger, but I don't say that because I know better. It's that simple; You don't know what you're talking about. If you did, you could tell us why abiogenesis breaks the laws of thermodynamics. You've either not made the attempt so far, or you've constructed a very poor straw man. Can you explain it, or are you talking about things you don't understand? Either explain it, or admit ignorance. Put up or shut up.

 

[SpaceYeti]

For the general reader of this thread I submit an idea:

Just because the masses with an average IQ hovering around 90 on the best day, feel the compulsion to bundle the concept of 'god' into humanoid form aged 100+ years, give him a beard, their race, white hair, and a throne: doesn't mean that this is what those who can explain God to be...is or might be.

So let the stupid superstitious masses have their deaf/ dumb/ blind idols reflect their inevitable mental opacity.

But don't you fall for it and let their blindness infect your perception of reality and the infinite possibilities.

Dude, average IQ is 100. Average IQ is defined as 100. Instead of insulting people, how about you accept the challenge and actually define the concept of God you're using? How is anyone supposed to know what your personal belief about a God is if you don't tell them?

Also, being smart doesn't mean you know everything and everyone else should listen and shut up. I get the impression you recently took an IQ test and got a high score. Being smart =/= being correct. Get off your high horse and start using reason with us. Even if you are smarter than us, you're not actually helping the way things are going now.

 

[Black Rose]

@SpaceYeti

If you have a deficient intellectually I'm sorry but I not going to hold your hand any more.
It is not what it represent to others that I even said what you imply.
Please somebody help Yeti. I don't know how he thinks I'm (not even wrong).

 

[SpaceYeti]

You haven't been holding my hand, you can't even find my hand!

... Does the name "Ture" mean anything to you?

 

[Black Rose]

Ture
Web definitions
Ninerism, resulting from great anger after being instantly killed when victory was imminent. Only worsened by the fact that it was done by the leader of a rival guild.

I don't feel that way at all. This has nothing to do with wining or losing. I'm just alone on this thread.

 

[Polaris]

You aren't losing. What you are doing though is attempting to reach out to others by sharing your state of understanding as you experience it at the moment.

Science is philosophical at its core; but departs from philosophical speculation through the scientific process.

You are attempting to unify the two; and this does not sit well with the more scientifically minded, particularly people who have spent a lifetime studying science in depth.

Some scientist even share the views that you hold; however these are views that are shared between individuals in confidentiality; it does not benefit the scientific process itself unless we are talking about ethical applications.

Enlightened views will only appeal to those who are open to it, one cannot force such views, just like scientist don't force truths. This is simply because the scientific process is of such a nature that any temporary theory based on scientific evidence (and here I speak of evidence as a strong statistical correlation.....not absolute truth) is subject to continual scrutiny and testing (as long as funding lasts) until new evidence proves otherwise. It is a transient process. A good scientist will ask questions and never become attached to their own research, for exactly those reasons.

Spirituality does not fit into this process; it is highly personal/subjective.

 

[SpaceYeti]

I don't feel that way at all. This has nothing to do with wining or losing. I'm just alone on this thread.

No, it's a name. Someone who used to pass herself off as a spiritual guru, who always tried to "teach" me... but could barely even put English sentences together, let alone justify spiritual beliefs through it.

 

[Cherry Cola]

No answer provided as expected, as of yet God is quite the empty term here.

 

[redbaron]

If you have no foundation by which to pose your claims why should it be that I am the one who needs to enlighten you, not that I mind. You have no knowledge and no proper conception of philosophy.

I don't ask you questions because I want you to enlighten me. I ask them to get you (and any other readers) to critically examine the way in which you're applying your thought processes, and to understand the limits and potential traps of relying on purely deductive reasoning.

The thing is, you started this thread and have continued this thread basing your arguments off preordained premises. The fact that you're unable to conceive something doesn't imply anything beyond the fact that you can't conceive it.

If science is not meant to find truth which you seem to relegate to the world of supposed inferiority (Philosophy) then I should not believe anything you say as it has nothing worth proper value.

Science is designed to build knowledge through predictive models. Predictive models that define parameters for this knowledge to be testable and explanatory.

I never said philosophy was inferior. In fact I've never said anything was inferior. The only person in the thread who has implied superiority of one methodology over another - is you, when you claimed that:

The preponderance (superiority) of what is a non classical process.

I've never implied that philosophy is inferior to science. They can't even be compared in the way you're trying to compare them. That is: trying to ascribe metaphysical properties to the physical observations of science.

In fact, to further that point, it's not even about philosophy as a whole - it's criticisms based on metaphysical and philosophical grounds.

On science:

A difference between natural and supernatural explanations should be made, and that science should be restricted methodologically to natural explanations. That the restriction is merely methodological (rather than ontological) means that science should not consider supernatural explanations itself, but should not claim them to be wrong either. Instead, supernatural explanations should be left a matter of personal belief outside the scope of science.

If you ever interpreted from my writing that I believe philosophy is inferior to science, you've misinterpreted. I apologize in the event that my message was unclear.

It's not that I even think metaphysical philosophies are inferior, they're simply irrelevant to science.

So to with biology. You expect cars(biology) to rise from the primordial ooze unabated by matters ineptitude.

What do cars have to do with biology? Where has anyone said that they expect cars to rise from primordial ooze?

Actually, it doesn't even matter if a scientist said it: he or she was simply wrong. So even if you found one of the world's leading biologists making this claim, it wouldn't even matter - because it doesn't matter what anyone thinks is the case. It matters what is observable and testable with reproducible results.

This happened to Einstein himself. He proposed A LOT of theories that ended up being debunked, to which he subsequently accepted they were wrong and moved on.

Really, all this does is highlight that you have no idea what you're talking about here. I don't know of any theory being held as likely in the eyes of scientists, that talks about cars coming from primordial ooze.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Dude, average IQ is 100. Average IQ is defined as 100. ...

I probably should have qualified my statement better. In the context within what I was trying to say, I was necessarily excluding those with ~95 and above. If the world's population as a whole were to be averaged it likely wouldn't be much above 95...and if you took out the 100+ crowd...well, yes the biomass of the earth is 90 and below. Hint: the average IQ of 100 is ONLY FOR CAUCASIANS. For example, subsaharan IQ, if I remember right, hovers around 70. And there are 1 billion Africans on planet earth (and growing exponentially). <--thems the facts. This truth is Heretical these days (oh so modern and enlightened LOL) but thems the facts. Don't go blaming me for what god, nature or something in between has designed. Take it up with the man upstairs and/or Darwin.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

I don't feel that way at all. This has nothing to do with wining or losing. I'm just alone on this thread.

No, you are not.

 

[Polaris]

^^Suddenly conveniently basing your argument on facts, whereas before you dismissed factual based science as narrow-minded; hmm, curious.

What about the possibility that these sub-Saharan people may be intelligent in other ways that are not by Western definition of intelligence? Put your average white middle-class person in the sub-Saharan area for ten days by themselves, we'll see how they would survive. If Africans grew up in Europe or America under the same socio-economic standards as other white middle-class people, would they still score below average?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Another thing that deserves mentioning is that we don't know to what degree IQ depends on social context versus genes. Greg's painting up a picture that isn't accurate, albeit without being factually incorrect it isn't much better.

 

[Hawkeye]

This is slowly turning into the O'Reilly Factor

 

[Cherry Cola]

Just as Spaceyeti said and I too said: we need a clear definition of what God is, so far there's been nothing but the same old "God is what makes what is be and keeps it so" which means nothing other than that we do not have a complete understanding of the world around us, and links to articles on Ki and other stuff. How the introduction of a God helps us to understand the world has also been omitted. Thus far all that has been ascribed to God can just as well be ascribed to the cosmos itself without any loss thereby.

Instead we get strawman of picturing an old man in the sky; something no one is doing, followed; thereafter, by statements such as "science does not have all the answers", which (again)I bet no one disagrees with either; rather it is just not relevant.

Edit: Animekitty, the above being said I get the sense that the way you view the mechanics of the universe really isn't all that different from the way I do, it'd be interesting to hear more of it.

 

[JimJambones]

Back to the original topic, sometimes it is better to look at what does not exist instead of what exists in the long chain of molecules that constitute life. On the macroscopic, organismal level, extant organisms are the clearest signs of their survival, obviously. Now what we don't see are the huge varations that not only exists between species, but between individuals of the same species that have ceased to exist, leaving behind clues such as fossils or preserved cellular material. These are only a small fraction of the variation that have ever existed. That means that we have huge gaps in knowledge and much evolutionary theory will remain as theory and not as a law because it is impossible to observe all of the transitional organisms that have left us the ones that exist today.

The same can be said about the evolution of the cell. We presume to know that all of the existing cells that exist today derive from a common cellular ancestor. This is impossible to prove, but if we compared thousands of genomes from random cells across all five of the animal kingdom we would expect to find that all of these cells have descended from a single, ancestral cell. However, what we do not see are the myriads of ways the molecules combined and interacted before the first self-replicating cell appeared. There we likely an abundance of early proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, etc that had no functional purpose as far as life goes combining and recombining in various ways until the right combination yielded the precursors to life. All other precursors either didn't survive or became incorporated into other existing processes. That is what makes life seem far from random, but it was the random interaction of elements that led to the random interaction of certain classes of molecules, which led to first molecular evolution, then cellular, and then organismal evolution. The ribosome is unique in that it transcribes RNA into a protein. This seems remarkable to us(at least to me), but what we don't see in cells are all of the other ribosomal like molecules that did not survive to the present day. Now, to get to ribosomal like proteins there would have been variations of pre-ribosomal proteins that combined in varying ways, one of which was to resemble something akin to what see today as a ribosome. The idea of a ribosomes appearing instantaneously is absurd. It was a results of an innumerous assortment of molecular processes that led to a molecule that has survived the test of time. The same can be said of other organelles. Many of them probably existed independently of current function within a cell. Perhaps some derived from cellular processes once the cell was well established, or became incorporated into the cell as remnants of preexisting cells or molecules, or by other unknown processes. Once a cell was established(there may even have been other unrelated cells that did not survive), evolution as we are familiar with began.

 

[Cherry Cola]

And if a god did it, then said god has to be at least as complex as what he did, so what about God? How does God function? How did God do it? Where did God come from in the first place?

Since no one of these questions are answerable there's no point in assuming a God, for doing so is just making an ungraspable scenario slightly more clouded.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Bah, learn how to have fun. You don't need to learn something to be entertained.

or: you don't have to be bored to learn something.

 

[SpaceYeti]

or: you don't have to be bored to learn something.

Both are true.

 

[SpaceYeti]

^^Suddenly conveniently basing your argument on facts, whereas before you dismissed factual based science as narrow-minded; hmm, curious.

What about the possibility that these sub-Saharan people may be intelligent in other ways that are not by Western definition of intelligence? Put your average white middle-class person in the sub-Saharan area for ten days by themselves, we'll see how they would survive. If Africans grew up in Europe or America under the same socio-economic standards as other white middle-class people, would they still score below average?

Or how about the fact that the scores obtained are used to calculate the new average, and thus the whole "Sure, but these people have a lower/higher than average IQ" is only showing a window from a break-down of how the average is determined, and has no practical value unless you're a psychologist who works with IQ related material. Further, this is a red herring. Supply a definition for "god" so that we know WTF you're talking about, or we're never going to know what you're talking about. It's that simple.