Why'd you go ahead and repeat questions I already answered, complete with strawmen I already pointed out? This is trolling, nothing more.

Rumraket wrote:

OK you guys.

You've spent a lot of good electrons failing to answer ANY of the points raised.

Let's just take one.

How did a bat precursor (for which you have no evidence whatsoever)

Molecular phylogenetics and Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction. Look it up.

No, you look it up and bring it here let's all have a look.

Rumraket wrote:Why'd you go ahead and repeat questions I already answered, complete with strawmen I already pointed out? This is trolling, nothing more.

If you have manged to get it out of the water, link me to your post where you did. But you didn't - so Ican't take your trolling remark very seriously.

asyncritus wrote:OK you guys.
You've spent a lot of good electrons failing to answer ANY of the points raised.

Since you have failed to address any of the answers I and several others gave you, that's an empty claim.

asyncritus wrote:Let's just take one.

No, let's see you address the points and answers presented by me and several others in the last few days.

asyncritus wrote:How did a bat precursor (for which you have no evidence whatsoever)

Again, your childish hand-waving won't magically make the available evidence disappear.

asyncritus wrote:obtain the most advanced echolocation system on the planet? And learn how to use it?

Has already been answered, your continued denial speaks much to your honesty.

asyncritus wrote:Please forego the insults now you've got them out of your systems,

What do you excpect when you keep dodging challenges and lying about a lack of anwsers and at the same time whining that people don't address your questions?

asyncritus wrote:and answer the question. Scientifically, of course.

Why don't you read the responses to your questions, actually address them, instead of dismissing them out of hand and then see if you have any questions left. Scientifically of course.

asyncritus wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

OK you guys.

You've spent a lot of good electrons failing to answer ANY of the points raised.

Let's just take one.

How did a bat precursor (for which you have no evidence whatsoever)

Molecular phylogenetics and Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction. Look it up.

No, you look it up and bring it here let's all have a look.

I can't be bothered undertaking your reeducation personally. Go do some legwork or shut your cave. Noone's interested in this trolling behavior, not least because you can't even fathom the quote-function yet. How fucking hard can it be?

asyncritus wrote:
The papers you guys have quoted are so full of irrelevancies, tripe and guesswork it's hard to credit it.

Since you have failed to show how they are irrelevant or trite, this is just more of your already apparent disingenuous hand waving.

asyncritus wrote:I've shown quite clearly how poor the effort was to attempt to change the reptile respiratory to the bird's, which is completely backward. How did you gainsay the argument I put forward? You couldn't.

No, you made a bunch of straw-man comments and arguments of incredulity on this point.
No logically sound arguments nor evidentially supported claims.

asyncritus wrote:When are you going to abandon the theory?

When you, or far more likely someone who actually understands it and has done the research can provide logically sound arguments or evidentially supported claims that refute the theory.

asyncritus wrote:
You managed to get that fish on to dry land yet?

Yes, despite your dislike for the explanation.

asyncritus wrote:What about your 13-year old adviser? Any pearls of wisdom? No? Has he/she got a goldfish? Tell 'em to experiment on the fish. Drop it on the carpet, and let's see if it grows lungs, legs or even wings - who knows with this evolution thingy?

I'll get you a Nobel if it does.

More childish ad-hominem attacks.

asyncritus wrote:

Rumraket wrote:Why'd you go ahead and repeat questions I already answered, complete with strawmen I already pointed out? This is trolling, nothing more.

If you have manged to get it out of the water, link me to your post where you did. But you didn't - so Ican't take your trolling remark very seriously.

Right, my trolling?

You've offered nothing but vacuous denial so far. Not a single argument, not a single fact. Just denial and blind assertions.

Here's your entire participation in this thread so far:

I don't believe it. It's impossible. You guys are ridiculous.

Well done asyncritus, it must be very taxing for you and probably requires you to collect the entire might of your intellect to argue like this(oh and how mighty it must be). Noone but you could do it, I'm sure. Fuck me we're getting our collective asses handed to us here, we just have no reponse for this method of argumentation. Simply denying the arguments of the opposition, while dogmatically restating your own as established fact proves you're right.

Hahaha.. what a joke.

asyncritus wrote:

Rumraket wrote:Why'd you go ahead and repeat questions I already answered, complete with strawmen I already pointed out? This is trolling, nothing more.

If you have manged to get it out of the water, link me to your post where you did. But you didn't - so Ican't take your trolling remark very seriously.

Why should he if you are going to dismiss it out of hand any way?

asyncritus wrote:You managed to get that fish on to dry land yet?

What about your 13-year old adviser? Any pearls of wisdom? No? Has he/she got a goldfish? Tell 'em to experiment on the fish. Drop it on the carpet, and let's see if it grows lungs, legs or even wings - who knows with this evolution thingy?

I'll get you a Nobel if it does.

Nobel prizes for specific aspects of evolution have already been handed out (link).

You think you're smart enough to be able to disprove it?
... I'll get you a Nobel if you do.

I was just doing a google on Asyncritus' book when I stumbled apon this horror.
http://chestinfectionsymptoms.info/a-frog-s-lungs-how-they-work.html

The Stanford 25

“The Map is not the Territory.”
—Alfred Korzybski

Welcome to the Stanford 25 website. Remember, this site is NOT the Stanford 25; it is only a map to a territory, one that must be explored in person! The Stanford 25 consists of hands-on sessions in small groups—you can’t substitute for that, and we don’t try to. This site simply provides a place where our students and residents can go to remind themselves of what they learned, or are about to learn in a hands-on session.

Why the Stanford 25?

We recognized that after a med school physical diagnosis course, there is little emphasis on these skills in the 3rd and 4th years of medical school or in an internal medicine residency.
In the absence of a high-stakes clinical bedside final exam (as opposed to a high-stakes multiple choice exam), there is little impetus for people to learn and master bedside skills—truth is, you can be board certified in internal medicine and no one has really ascertained that your technique in doing an ankle reflex allows you to accurately say a reflex is truly absent. (You will be surprised how most ‘absent’ reflexes become ‘present’ when you learn good technique.) Does it matter? It does to us.
In observing students and residents perform physical diagnosis maneuvers at the bedside, we observe that though they know the theory, their technique may prevent them from eliciting the sign reliably.
We find a real hunger among our residents in internal medicine to sharpen their skills at the bedside.
Many diseases (almost all of dermatology for instance) are diagnosed by bedside exam. In neurology for example, even if the CT and MRI reveals a lot to you, only your exam can tell you what the functional consequence is in terms of motor or sensory loss or cognitive deficit.
For evidence-based medicine fans, a cautionary note here: we are not trying to prove anything, but we do want to be sure that when people write in the chart “reflexes intact” or “cranial nerves intact” or “S1 and S2 heard, no m or g” that it is not a form of fiction, but represents an accurate observation.

What are the goals of a Stanford 25 hands-on teaching session?

Actually explore the territory, not just study the map.
Demonstrate one or more of the 25 technique dependent physical diagnosis maneuvers, then have the residents perform, demonstrate, perfect and show us how they teach.
Add to the repertoire of bedside skills a resident has so that they feel at home and have plenty to observe, demonstrate, and teach.
Create an appreciation for technique and thereby inspire them to add more skills to their repertoire.
Create a culture (yes, it’s happening here) where we collect physical signs, alert others to patients with findings that are instructive, celebrate simple diagnoses that came from listening to a history well, and looking for and finding a critical physical finding.

Before you send us letters asking why X or Y was not included in our Stanford 25 (and we have received many such letters) please remember:

This is not a David Letterman TOP 25.
Instead, it simply represents 25 things we wanted to focus on. We could have easily made this the Stanford 50 or Stanford 200.
Yes, we could easily have substituted a different 25 things for the ones we chose.
If we left out your favorite organ or test, please don’t take it personally.

They use asyncs incredibly stupid ideas. This is a creationist web site disguised as a Stanford web site. They use imagery that makes it look, at a glance, like it is produced by Stanford. It is not. I'm sure this is fraud or illegal use of Stanford logos.

Async, you are bumbling on about instincts as if behaviour has nothing to do with the physical brain and its chemistry.

There is mind boggling simple evidence that behaviour is firmly biological, drugs. You may introduce many different chemicals into a living organism and that results in changes of behaviour.

Your DNA determines what chemistry and what arrangement of neurons your body develops and is directly responsible for both reflexes and instinctive behaviour. Changes in genes produce changes in reflexes and instinct just as much as changes in body form.

asyncritus wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Purely by chance, this story is in the news today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17855194

Researchers have spotted a group of 53 cells within pigeons' brains that respond to the direction and strength of the Earth's magnetic field.

But of course, Asyncritus doesn't believe that because he can't understand it, so it just simply can't be true. Actually, God directs every little bird to arrive at its destination. Awwww.

I'm sure you've got 53 cells somewhere - but you don't manage to fly 7,800 miles from Argentina to Capistrano and arrive there on the same date every year, do you?

Can you understand that little (???!!!!) fact? And have you any explanation for it? No don't tell me - blind, moronic evolution did it!!!!!! Ha hah hahhhhhh!!! You guys have gotta be kidding, right?

Fucking hell Asyncritus - you're a broken record.

You had this navigation explained to you before.

Further, your puerile notion of Yahweh installing the programming into the Platonic bird's brain is utterly absurd given the fact that the continents move. I spanked you on this before - are you back for another round of spankage?

It's not 'evolution' that did it. It's evolution by natural selection - the retention of alleles in a population that favour particular environmental strategies. Given the amount of time you spend blathering about this on the internet, it would be useful if you one day went and learned the basics of what you're 'criticising'.

asyncritus wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

asyncritus wrote:OK you guys.

There are hundreds of billions of traits you could randomly pick and demand an explanation for, with undefined specificity. The general answer has been given to you so many fucking times it's absurd.

Where? Where? Where? Tell me, pleeeeez!

It's natural selection operating on genes.

End of story.

And that's it huh? Woweee!

So the imaginary bat precursor, with the imaginary echolocations system somewhere in its genes, got acted on by natural selection which couldn't do any selecting because the character wasn't yet manifested, and BINGO! the most advanced echolocating system on the planet appeared.

You must have an awful lot of faith in your natural selection god! As I said, evolution is the creation myth of our time, packed full of just-so stories.

The problem is that when people go to the trouble of researching, finding papers, and then presenting them here... all you do is say you don't believe it, ignore the papers and continue blathering on about how no one can convince you therefore god.

Now either go find a new axe to grind or do some basic reading on the subject.

The papers you guys have quoted are so full of irrelevancies, tripe and guesswork it's hard to credit it. I've shown quite clearly how poor the effort was to attempt to change the reptile respiratory to the bird's, which is completely backward. How did you gainsay the argument I put forward? You couldn't.

When are you going to abandon the theory?

Ze Pot - it's insulting the kettle.... think of the children!

GUESSWORK?

This coming from the guy who thinks an unknown, unknowable magical being that created the universe goes and patches the software in every bird's brain so they can navigate an ever-changing world.

You appear to consider other animals to be automatons, following their programming. Go look up homing pigeons. How does that work huh? Does God pop down and help pigeon fanciers by rerouting the pigeon's brain to set a new home location?

Legs - you aint got any to stand on.

asyncritus wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

asyncritus wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Purely by chance, this story is in the news today:

I'm sure you've got 53 cells somewhere - but you don't manage to fly 7,800 miles from Argentina to Capistrano and arrive there on the same date every year, do you?

Can you understand that little (???!!!!) fact? And have you any explanation for it? No don't tell me - blind, moronic evolution did it!!!!!! Ha hah hahhhhhh!!! You guys have gotta be kidding, right?

I notice a distinct lack of arguments in your post, but a couple of blind assertions and appeals to personal incredulity.

You know you're arguing entirely from a position of logical fallacies, right? Just checking.

You managed to get that fish on to dry land yet?

What about your 13-year old adviser? Any pearls of wisdom? No? Has he/she got a goldfish? Tell 'em to experiment on the fish. Drop it on the carpet, and let's see if it grows lungs, legs or even wings - who knows with this evolution thingy?

I'll get you a Nobel if it does.

Duh... try and keep up with modern science. And when I say 'modern', I mean scientific comprehension post A.D.

As Hack posted earlier, there's precisely nothing new in all this from Asyncritus; it's exactly the same arguments from ignorance and incredulity that he was using years ago:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 6&t=109119

There was another epic fail thread too, but I can't locate that at the moment. It's precisely the same arguments, same style, and same type of response to people's rebuttals. It's really just a complete rehash of the smackdown received years ago. My guess is that he'd conveniently forgotten it, or in true chess-playing pigeon style, thought his arguments then were so great he could just reuse them now.

Here's a summary of your collective refutations. I think it's fair, but feel free to say it isn't.

1 No science except the production of the ancient: mutations and natural selection! As if that could get a swallow 7,800 miles from Argentina to California on the very same date every year!. I've yet to see any science in that explanation. Perhaps you could show me where it is.

Remember, repeating a mantra ( ooohhhhh-mmmmmm 'mutation and natural selection' ) isn't science.

2 'childish hand waving' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

3 'Answers already given' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

4 'Has already been answered' -- no science there, as far as I can tell.

5 'Strawman comments' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

6 'Fish not on dry land' - no answer there, as far as I can tell.

7 Why should he - when you're going to dismiss' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

8 'Incredibly stupid ideas' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

9 'Drugs in an organism affects its behaviour' - They would, wouldn't they? How that answers the question I cannot tell.

10 DNA is responsible for reflexes and instinctive behaviour - that may be possible, but has yet to be established. But there remains the little problem: how does DNA do this? After all, it's merely a chemical, and chemicals don't behave instinctively either.

11'You've had navigation explained' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

12 'Homing pigeons' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

13 'Try and keep up with modern science' - - no science there, as far as I can tell.

As a collection of scientists producing scientific answers to well-observed scientific facts, I think you leave a lot to be desired.

Much improvement is needed. Can do better.

Spearthrower wrote:
Further, your puerile notion of Yahweh installing the programming into the Platonic bird's brain is utterly absurd given the fact that the continents move. I spanked you on this before - are you back for another round of spankage?

You got a better explanation? Oh yeah - OOHHHMMMM 'mutations and natural selection'. Have I got that right?

It's not 'evolution' that did it. It's evolution by natural selection

I see - it's not evolution that did it, it's evolution by natural selection. What's the diff?

Now please tell me: what evolution by natural selection did in getting the Pacific Golden Plovers to fly across 2,800 miles of Pacific ocean without a stopping point in sight. Remember, if they were 1 degree off course, the whole species would have perished, because they ALL make the flight. Natural selection would have finished them off.

And you've got the other little problem. The parents leave them behind, and the young make the 2,800 mile flight with no guides. Oh yeah, I forgot, they probably got the 53 little grey cells sensitive to the earth's magnetic field to guide them. How's that for a scientific explanation?

If you can't see that's all crap, I don't know what to tell you.

But you have another problem. How did the behaviour arise? And how did it get into the genome in the first place? Ah yes, OOOO-HHHHMMMMMM.... here it comes:

- the retention of alleles in a population that favour particular environmental strategies.

I'm asking you how the behaviour got there into the said alleles in the first place. Any ideas, papers, or whatever?

Given the amount of time you spend blathering about this on the internet, it would be useful if you one day went and learned the basics of what you're 'criticising'.

There's nothing to learn ST. I've looked, and it's hopeless. But show me where, and I'll listen. Can't say fairer than that, can I?

But I'll listen with my brain switched on, if that's OK with you.

DNA is responsible for reflexes and instinctive behaviour - that may be possible, but has yet to be established. But there remains the little problem: how does DNA do this? After all, it's merely a chemical, and chemicals don't behave instinctively either.

Wrong.

To quote Katz and Harris-Warwick,"The evolution of neuronal circuits underlying species-specific behavior", Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Volume 9, Issue 5, 1 October 1999, Pages 628–633

Changes in receptor type or distribution can lead to marked changes in behavior. A particularly striking example
of this is seen in two species of voles that differ in their affiliative behavior. The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster)
forms monogamous pair bonds, whereas the montane vole (Microtus montanus) is solitary and does not show a preference
for former mates. Two peptide transmitters, oxytocin in the female and vasopressin in the male, are responsible
for the pair-bonding behavior in prairie voles [81]. The pattern of oxytocin and vasopressin immunoreactivity in the
brains of the two species does not differ substantially, but the distribution of their receptors does [82,83•].
Furthermore, the gene for the vasopressin receptor differs in its 5¢-flanking region but not in the coding region [84••].
This difference may determine which regions of the brain express the receptor. A transgenic mouse expressing the
prairie vole vasopressin receptor gene shows a pattern of vasopressin receptor expression that is similar to that seen in the prairie vole, and increased affiliative behavior in response to vasopressin, also reminiscent of prairie voles
[84••]. This work demonstrates that the localization of receptors that underlie differences in behavior can be
accomplished easily through mutations in the promoter regions of particular genes.

In other words; the introduction of an identical coding gene with a regulatory region polymorphism resulted in variant expression patterns of the vasopressin receptor and resulted in marked changes in complex social behaviour, in the process demonstrating how genes may determine behaviour and how variant behaviour may emerge from changes in genes, without it even being necessary for there to be coding changes.

The paper they mention in the aforementioned piece is this http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 766a0.html

Arginine vasopressin influences male reproductive and social behaviours in several vertebrate taxa1 through its actions at the V1a receptor in the brain. The neuroanatomical distribution of vasopressin V1a receptors varies greatly between species with different forms of social organization2,3. Here we show that centrally administered arginine vasopressin increases affiliative behaviour in the highly social, monogamous prairie vole, but not in the relatively asocial, promiscuous montane vole. Molecular analyses indicate that gene duplication and/or changes in promoter structure of the prairie vole receptor gene may contribute to the species differences in vasopressin-receptor expression. We further show that mice that are transgenic for the prairie vole receptor gene have a neuroanatomical pattern of receptor binding that is similar to that of the prairie vole, and exhibit increased affiliative behaviour after injection with arginine vasopressin. These data indicate that the pattern of V1a-receptor gene expression in the brain may be functionally associated with species-typical social behaviours in male vertebrates.

They demonstrated that the vasopressin coding region polymorphisms resulted in variations in affiliative behaviour. In other words; a genetic basis of a type of complex social behaviour, i.e, in DNA, has been identified, and secondly, it is known to do this by altering the distribution of vasopressin receptors in the brains of the species being contrasted here.

asyncritus wrote:Here's a summary of your collective refutations. I think it's fair, but feel free to say it isn't.

1 No science except the production of the ancient: mutations and natural selection! As if that could get a swallow 7,800 miles from Argentina to California on the very same date every year!. I've yet to see any science in that explanation. Perhaps you could show me where it is.

Once again, your response merely amounts to denial. "I don't believe it, it doesn't convince me, therefore it must be false". Yeah, that would be the appeal to personal incredulity, a logical fallacy.

So that's your 1st point you failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:Remember, repeating a mantra ( ooohhhhh-mmmmmm 'mutation and natural selection' ) isn't science.

Is that why the "mantra" hasn't been used in the manner you portray it, even once?

Thats the 2nd point you've failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:2 'childish hand waving' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since this is only an accurate description of your posting behavior, an example of which we see here above, not an attempt at a scientific explanation.

That's the 3rd point you've failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:3 'Answers already given' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since this is an accurate description of events that took place: You were already given scientific answers, this is actually outright false.

So that's your 4th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:4 'Has already been answered' -- no science there, as far as I can tell.

Exactly as above.

So that's your 5'th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:5 'Strawman comments' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since you're using questions loaded with strawmen, the objection is entirely apposite in regards to this discussion. To answer your questions they have to be valid first. For your questions to be valid, they can't be loaded with strawmen.

So that's your 6th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:6 'Fish not on dry land' - no answer there, as far as I can tell.

This would be an outright strawman, actually, since that argument hasn't been made. What was said is that true fish don't have true legs, an entirely different statement.

That would be your 7th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:7 Why should he - when you're going to dismiss' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Given your posting behavior so far and the fact that you're dealing with other human beings who don't like being treated like shit and wasting their time, the comment is entirely proper and relevant. This also ties in nicely with the comment about childish handwaving and blindly asserting.

That would be your 7th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:8 'Incredibly stupid ideas' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since even the slightest contact with the litterature on proper evolutionary mechanisms demonstrates how your ideas are so utterly without merit or intellect, one can only describe them as such and conclude your motivations for being here aren't entirely honourable.

That would be your 8th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:9 'Drugs in an organism affects its behaviour' - They would, wouldn't they? How that answers the question I cannot tell.

Since the existence of instincts depends entirely on the ability to detect said instincts through the behaviors of organisms, and since drugs alters these behaviors, instincts must be subject to physical and chemical manipulation. Consequently, instincts must likely be physical and chemical by nature. Even if we assume instincts are immaterial, we stil have to contend with the observation that drugs(a physical and chemical influence) can alter them. Therefore we're justified in arguing that Natural selection can influence instincts too.

That would be your 9th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:10 DNA is responsible for reflexes and instinctive behaviour - that may be possible, but has yet to be established. But there remains the little problem: how does DNA do this? After all, it's merely a chemical, and chemicals don't behave instinctively either.

I think this is the first point you make that approaches a valid basis. The problem is that to simply state DNA is responsible for reflexes and instinctive behavior misses a lot of what goes on in between. DNA codes for the construction of biological organs and structures, the functions and behaviors of which instinctual behavior emerges. I think that would be a more correct statement, but even that could do with some elaboration.

asyncritus wrote:11'You've had navigation explained' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since you have, then it's science.

That would be your 11th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:12 'Homing pigeons' - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Besides being an extremely short caricature of a much larger argument, it's also false to claim that an explanation for how pigeons home in on something isn't scientific.

That would be your 12th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:13 'Try and keep up with modern science' - - no science there, as far as I can tell.

Since you're arguing entirely from a position of questions loaded with strawmen, caricatures and fallacies. To demand you actually engage proper scientific litterature before you start debating it is completely justified.

That would be your 13th point that failed to establish.

asyncritus wrote:As a collection of scientists producing scientific answers to well-observed scientific facts, I think you leave a lot to be desired.

Almost noone here has claimed to be scientists, and not everyone has claimed to be engaging the discussion with the purpose of serving as scientific educators in mind. I suspect a significant number of people just feel compelled to object when the see obvious flaws in your arguments and your behavior.

asyncritus wrote:Much improvement is needed. Can do better.

I agree. First and foremost I suggest you go and study some of the actual litterature on the mechanisms of evolution.

In conclusion:
You've failed in arguing your case. You don't have a case, you've got strawmen, loaded questions and childish trolling. Stop wasting yours and our time.