Spearthrower wrote:

More wibble, and especially ignorant wibble at that.

Take the time to contemplate what you've replied to, and then perhaps you might consider a different response.
I'll offer a hint - If the religions weren't there to offer their opinions, what, my good fellow, would you have to argue about?

You are too kind to forgive on this, the most holy of holy days, (and yet they do not understand why it is so special) for the Christians.
The problem with Christians is not so much in their misinformed dogma, but rather in their misunderstanding of the word Christ, as this misunderstanding warps their whole belief system.
You see they perceive the word Christ as a singular noun, rather than as a verb by which it was originally intended.
Thus the holiday, or holy day - Christ in Mass. Christ is a state of mind, a state of consciousness.

Templeton wrote:Spearthrower wrote:

More wibble, and especially ignorant wibble at that.

Take the time to contemplate what you've replied to, and then perhaps you might consider a different response.

Just because you find something inspiring, doesn't make it ubiquitously so. I find it dross; the scum floating on human enterprise.

Templeton wrote:I'll offer a hint - If the religions weren't there to offer their opinions, what, my good fellow, would you have to argue about?

Stuff with substance. There are plenty of factual things to consider without needing to resort to fiction.

Templeton wrote:You are too kind to forgive on this, the most holy of holy days, (and yet they do not understand why it is so special) for the Christians.

It's not holy - a dedication to the non-existent Yahweh - there's no such beastie. But it is a traditional time in Western culture of goodwill, which is open to all humanity regardless of their backwards beliefs in magic and monsters.

susu.exp wrote:

Atheistoclast wrote:One of the biggest problems associated with the theory of evolutionism is that it irrationally supposes that the highly specific gene sequences in DNA can be put together through a process of chance and necessity, namely random mutation and natural selection. It is a deeply flawed argument that has no theoretical or empirical basis whatsoever and yet is widely accepted.

Take a dart and throw it on a dartboard. The probability of hitting the place it hit was 0. Not just small, but 0. Still it happened and in fact, the probability for any particular place was 0. But it was certain that one of these almost impossible things would occur. In the case of sequences, we are looking at things that have higher probabilities than 0.

Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

And the mechanisms we do have ensure that the sequences we get tend to be functional. But that doesn´t imply that they are the only functional ones...

michael^3 wrote:

susu.exp wrote:

Atheistoclast wrote:One of the biggest problems associated with the theory of evolutionism is that it irrationally supposes that the highly specific gene sequences in DNA can be put together through a process of chance and necessity, namely random mutation and natural selection. It is a deeply flawed argument that has no theoretical or empirical basis whatsoever and yet is widely accepted.

Take a dart and throw it on a dartboard. The probability of hitting the place it hit was 0. Not just small, but 0. Still it happened and in fact, the probability for any particular place was 0. But it was certain that one of these almost impossible things would occur. In the case of sequences, we are looking at things that have higher probabilities than 0.

Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

And the mechanisms we do have ensure that the sequences we get tend to be functional. But that doesn´t imply that they are the only functional ones...

Methinks you might not have grasped what you replied to.

Spearthrower wrote:

michael^3 wrote:

susu.exp wrote:Take a dart and throw it on a dartboard. The probability of hitting the place it hit was 0. Not just small, but 0. Still it happened and in fact, the probability for any particular place was 0. But it was certain that one of these almost impossible things would occur. In the case of sequences, we are looking at things that have higher probabilities than 0.

Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

And the mechanisms we do have ensure that the sequences we get tend to be functional. But that doesn´t imply that they are the only functional ones...

Methinks you might not have grasped what you replied to.

you know, this mechanism which makes "anything" happen, why not call it "God" while you're at it?

michael^3 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

michael^3 wrote:

Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

Methinks you might not have grasped what you replied to.

you know, this mechanism which makes "anything" happen, why not call it "God" while you're at it?

I was right.

It is clear that Michael failed to read this.

susu.exp wrote:
I refer you to my post above and would ask you to rigorously define "extreme improbability". There are a lot of events with a probability of 0 that do occur and in fact it is certain that such events occur regularly. Does that not invalidate any position that holds that there is a probability p, so that we can rule out events with a probability <p?

michael^3 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

michael^3 wrote:

Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

Methinks you might not have grasped what you replied to.

you know, this mechanism which makes "anything" happen, why not call it "God" while you're at it?

Because we know it isn't god. It's called physics and chemistry.
To make it simple: you're looking at the end of a long series of events and calling that specific end "too improbable to have happened by chance". But really, one of them had to happen(because of the flow of time and the physical laws that govern matter, energy and their interactions), and they're all equally improbable. There is no good reason to suppose the specific events that lead to sequence X had to be guided into place by something from the outside, because if it wasn't sequence X, it would have been sequence Y instead.
Solutions exist to biochemical and physical problems in sequence space. Drift and Selection can find and fixate functional intermediaries in populations, and so it does, because drift and selection happens.

Texas sharpshooter fallacy, anyone?

Made of Stars wrote:Texas sharpshooter fallacy, anyone?

Essentially, yes. Or some variation of "one true sequence".

michael^3 wrote:Why, that's a great way to explain *anything*.

"So why did event A occur?"

"Well, SOMETHING had to happen, didn't it? It just happened to be event A, which had zero probability"

Let´s say X is a random variable with a uniform distribution on [0,1]. The probability that X is in [0,1] is 1, it´s in fact certain that X takes a value in that interval. On the other hand the probability that X=x is 0 for all x€[0,1]. While for X being in [a,b] it´s b-a. The reason for this is that while probabilities of countable disjoint unions of sets of outcomes (i.e. events) are the sums of the probabilities of the events, this does not hold for uncountable unions.
In short: If you want to make any argument from probability, you should be aware of the rudiments of probability theory...
There is a very large class of probability distributions, where it is certain that the outcome has a probability of 0. That large class includes things like the uniform distribution on an interval as above, but also gaussian distributions, exponential distributions (that govern when a nuclear decay occurs)...
That´s why nobody takes ideas like "lower probability bounds" seriously.

Atheistoclast wrote:One of the biggest problems associated with the theory of evolutionism is that it irrationally supposes that the highly specific gene sequences in DNA can be put together through a process of chance and necessity, namely random mutation and natural selection. It is a deeply flawed argument that has no theoretical or empirical basis whatsoever and yet is widely accepted.

In other words, you are again resorting to an argument from ignorance...and a nearly textbook example thereof.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

Atheistoclast wrote:One of the biggest problems associated with the theory of evolutionism...

I apologize for my ignorance, but what exactly is the theory of evolutionism. I've never heard of it.

Templeton wrote::coffee:

The term Evolutionism, while not being a word commonly used, if at all, none the less - only fools choose not to understand the intent of the term whether it's correct verbiage or not. These people have nothing to offer to the conversation other than contempt.

Apparently!

Spearthrower wrote:Myself and the other member who commented on this said that there is no 'theory of evolutionism', which was the wording in the OP.

That should have settled it, right? But wait a minute....

Templeton wrote:The facts are straight, one who argues against a misused word misses the point of the discussion, and weakens their contribution. If you wish to be taken seriously - you might consider a different approach. Flail away

Oops - still didn't get it!

Spearthrower wrote:I am not arguing against the usage of a word - can you actually read?

I quite clearly said that there is no such thing as 'the theory of evolutionism'. That is: there is no such theory.

If someone says that they are disproving the theory of relativationalism, should we just assume they are talking about relativity or expect them to specify what they are talking about?

Maybe he got it this time.

Still missing the point there Thrower - Cheers buddy, fight the good fight.

Templeton wrote:Still missing the point there Thrower - Cheers buddy, fight the good fight.

You can't miss something that's not there.

Spearthrower wrote:Maybe he got it this time.

A rash prediction, clearly.