Evidence of miracles.

[Astrid]

To be fair, the son of Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez is a famous geologist who was integral in finding the Ir anomaly at the KT boundary and further establishing the asteroid hypothesis for the extinction of the dinosaurs!

And the sons of Queen Elizabeth are, uh...

 

[Mountainmike]

I agree, no argument there. I take it that by 'arbitrarily simple'

Well, no. Irreducible complexity is complexity that cannot arise by stepwise modification.

1/ So after the first self evolving , self reproducing cell, there is a conjectured mechanism for onoing development.
(That is- once the minimum such cell is conjectured which cannot be arbitrarily simple)

2/ Before that, there can only be random chance meeting of non living chemicals. No designer , or chemist , just lucky accidents.

3/ Based on the structure of 1/ to be a credible hypothesis there needs to be a conjecture of 2/ what had to meet what, and at least some level of likelihood calculated that the meeting could happen in an energy gap, energy barrier or quantum likelihood sense.

4/ it would be so much more credible if there existed a set of intermediate cells to the minimum we know, found in nature or history. There are not.

I keep telling you , I don’t oppose the idea.

What is, is.
If it is proven it could happen, kudos to who did it.
But all there is is conjecture. No structure 1/ or proposed antecedents 2/. All there is is a set of plausibility arguments.

-I can walk from here to the western point of the U.K.
-I can walk across Iceland and Greenland.
- I can walk from eastern usa to west.
None of those walking steps show I can walk from here to California.
They are “ plausibility” arguments that I can, not evidence that I can.
In that case I cannot.
Fragments of the journey are not enough to show it is possible.

This discussion is not progressing. You think abiogenesis is several orders of likelihood better defined than I do, particularly at the critical step. What concerns me most is those here who dispute accepted definitions of life: defined by the scientific camp, not me!

Dawkins does not impress me at all. His logic on climbing mount improbable shows he has had little or no involvement in optimisation by hill climbing methods. But at least he is honest in saying he has “ no idea how life begun” . Which is about the size of it. But at least he accepts the basic definition of life that I presented.

 

[AV1611VET]

You think abiogenesis is several orders of likelihood better defined than I do, particularly at the critical step. What concerns me most is those here who dispute accepted definitions of life: defined by the scientific camp, not me!

Abiogenesis is circular.

Re: CHNO, it is organic because it has the potential to kick-start life, and it kick-started life because it is organic.

 

[Mountainmike]

Abiogenesis is circular.

Re: CHNO, it is organic because it has the potential to kick-start life, and it kick-started life because it is organic.

It is not the only thing that is circular in science.
Rocks are used to date fossils.
Fossils are used to date rocks.
Which is the Chicken. Which is the Egg?

 

[Astrid]

It is not the only thing that is circular in science.
Rocks are used to date fossils.
Fossils are used to date rocks.
Which is the Chicken. Which is the Egg?

You claim some inkling of understanding of
science and then drag out that moldy nonsense from
from deep- creationist site?

 

[Hans Blaster]

At least you have looked up some of the history.

Kudos for at least that.

I think we should BAN all apriori sceptics from any analysis because of their a priori beliefs don’t you? It provably screwed up the shroud dating- read the transcripts. Their beliefs always do get in the way.

Take the dean of Bialystok - who tried to override the professors on sokolka who declared it heart tissue, declaring it red bread mould. Problem was He had neither seen the samples nor the tissue sections and chemical tests. So apriori sceptics should not be let lose near religious objects. They are a disgrace to their professions.

So Now let us discuss the ONLY important factors.
1/ zugibe was a heart specialist.
2/ he was a pathologist used to looking at cardio damage.
3/ he did not know the origin of the sample so it could not have influenced his decision.
4/ he declared it traumatized cardiac tissue
5/ the tissue sections are there to see for others who want to verify.
6/ he refused to believe initially that it could have been held in vitro because white cells were proof of recent life.

That list is what matters,
The evidence is what matters

Instead of your pathetic attempts at discrediting people.

Mike: I frankly think that the information @partinobodycular provided is *quite* relevant to any assessment of the claims in that case. Dr. Zugibe is no outside, neutral, specialist, but rather someone who (apparently) has dedicated an enormous amount of his talents to studying the crucifixion from a medical stand point.

This is *exactly* why I cared about the broad aspects (geography, recursion, etc.) of these incidents before the specific details or individuals involved. Dr. Zugibe need not have even been deceptive for this to be false. It may only have been a case of motivated reasoning.

 

[AV1611VET]

You claim some inkling of understanding of
science and then drag out that moldy nonsense from from deep-creationist site?

Just because that "moldy nonsense" is on a creationist site, doesn't mean it's wrong.

(Or are you advocating "guilt by association"?)

 

[Hans Blaster]

Just because that "moldy nonsense" is on a creationist site, doesn't mean it's wrong.

Rocks are place in the geologic sequence by their fossils. The dating of the sequence is done by radiometric techniques. Even with out absolute dates from external (radiometric) sources, the sequencing could still be done by reference fossils. For example, fossil "B" is always found in layers below fossil "A" and above fossil "C", so you can clearly identify fossil "B" as being from later than fossil "C", etc. If you get a rock with a new fossil and that rock also contains fossil "B" you can also place it in the sequence. (These kinds of index fossils are only used for things that are unique and characteristic of certain layers.)

Putting dates on the layers containing "A" and "C" does allow you to know the range of dates for "B". This is how rock samples are sometimes dated when there are no available radioactive timers in the specific rock.

 

[Astrid]

Rocks are place in the geologic sequence by their fossils. The dating of the sequence is done by radiometric techniques. Even with out absolute dates from external (radiometric) sources, the sequencing could still be done by reference fossils. For example, fossil "B" is always found in layers below fossil "A" and above fossil "C", so you can clearly identify fossil "B" as being from later than fossil "C", etc. If you get a rock with a new fossil and that rock also contains fossil "B" you can also place it in the sequence. (These kinds of index fossils are only used for things that are unique and characteristic of certain layers.)

Putting dates on the layers containing "A" and "C" does allow you to know the range of dates for "B". This is how rock samples are sometimes dated when there are no available radioactive timers in the specific rock.

If that were real science you could say all of it in
one quip.

 

[Astrid]

It is not the only thing that is circular in science.
Rocks are used to date fossils.
Fossils are used to date rocks.
Which is the Chicken. Which is the Egg?

SO predictable who would " like" that.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Well, given that the Eucharist ALWAYS transsubstantiates it shouldn't just show up as organ tissue on ONE occasion.

AIUI, whether the eucharist transubstantiates at all depends on your flavour of Christianity. For some, it's purely symbolic.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

1/ So after the first self evolving , self reproducing cell, there is a conjectured mechanism for onoing development.
(That is- once the minimum such cell is conjectured which cannot be arbitrarily simple)

2/ Before that, there can only be random chance meeting of non living chemicals. No designer , or chemist , just lucky accidents.

Not really - chemistry itself is not random or 'lucky accidents' - I spent many dull school hours learning that. Further, as I said (why you no listen?), many abiogenesis hypotheses propose an indeterminate period of chemical evolution before anything like True Life™ emerged. I refer you to the references provided.

You think abiogenesis is several orders of likelihood better defined than I do, particularly at the critical step.

You're guessing. Let me tell you what I think - I think that the questions you have raised are all addressed, with varying degrees of plausibility, by the various abiogenesis hypotheses I have given links for. The people working in the field are well aware of the potential problems. Once more,, if you have specific criticisms of any particular hypothesis, please share them.

Dawkins does not impress me at all... But at least he accepts the basic definition of life that I presented.

There are many definitions of life, some more widely used or accepted in some fields than in others. It is a perennial definitional problem. The usual solution in discussions is to compromise and agree on a definition appropriate to the context.

 

[Astrid]

Not really - chemistry itself is not random or 'lucky accidents' - I spent many dull school hours learning that. Further, as I said (why you no listen?), many abiogenesis hypotheses propose an indeterminate period of chemical evolution before anything like True Life™ emerged. I refer you to the references provided.

You're guessing. Let me tell you what I think - I think that the questions you have raised are all addressed, with varying degrees of plausibility, by the various abiogenesis hypotheses I have given links for. The people working in the field are well aware of the potential problems. Once more,, if you have specific criticisms of any particular hypothesis, please share them.

There are many definitions of life, some more widely used or accepted in some fields than in others. It is a perennial definitional problem. The usual solution in discussions is to compromise and agree on a definition appropriate to the context.

As far as I know there is no definition of life that provides a
bright line distinction between life and non life.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Just because that "moldy nonsense" is on a creationist site, doesn't mean it's wrong.

(Or are you advocating "guilt by association"?)

If you put credentials -- someone's good name -- up as "evidence," make sure the name is, in fact, good.

 

[TLK Valentine]

As far as I know there is no definition of life that provides a
bright line distinction between life and non life.

I'm curious about a solid definition of "life." I've heard creationists and other assorted fundamentalists claim that rocks were "alive," but plants were not.

 

[Mountainmike]

It’s a pointless discussion but I will say it again:
His assessment and yours are demonstrably wrong.
Why?

1/ because zugibe didn’t know what the samples were or where they came from before pronouncing on them.
They could have been a road accident for all he knew.

2/ even regardless of that - the tissue sections are there for all to see, for all of the phenomena. So all can make a second opinion on them. Nobody has ever disputed the conclusions from the samples.

3/ Lawrence ( non believer pathologist ) came to the same view as zugibe. How do you deal with that?

There are simply too many scientists involved to attempt the usual unevidenced sceptic character assassination , on the basis of belief. This trope of belief is false. You want it to matter but it does not.

What matters is the science, and keeping integrity.

As counter argument I think all apriori sceptics should be banned from giving a view. There are plenty of cases of sceptics losing all discipline around religious objects. I give examples. The dean of bjalystock tried to overrule soubaniec as regards sokolka.

He Claimed the sample was yeast!! But in his case his case his beliefs did exclude him? Why? Because like this forum he tried to dismiss the phenomena without ever looking at a sample or the slides. The slides are out there that prove soubaniec was right, and the dean was wrong. He was a disgrace to science. If that dean had investigated first, then maybe his comments might have been useful, he didn’t. He is like this forum and skepdic! That dean is why tesoriero began to prefer forensic labs to universities that cannot be trusted.

Harry gove on the shroud misdating set research back 30 years because he let belief get in the way. He had the temerity to criticise and exclude Jackson of sturp for being a Christian. But he could never fault Jackson’s science. Even atheists got tarred with goves brush. Rogers and Schwortz were not Christian, but they were excluded for believing the shroud was real on the basis of science.
In short the only ones Gove approved of was anyone who would say the shroud was medieval! If you buy marinos book ( against your credo) you can see every nasty email and letter he wrote. They all needed sacking for fiddling the data for nature!

So if we eliminate believers and sceptics who then is left to take a view that doesn’t have a belief.?

What matters is the science, and leaving the results where others can comment, like zugibe. Like Lawrence. And a host of others you have never heard of. Like Barbara Engels a cardiologist who reviewed legnica.

Mike: I frankly think that the information @partinobodycular provided is *quite* relevant to any assessment of the claims in that case. Dr. Zugibe is no outside, neutral, specialist, but rather someone who (apparently) has dedicated an enormous amount of his talents to studying the crucifixion from a medical stand point.

This is *exactly* why I cared about the broad aspects (geography, recursion, etc.) of these incidents before the specific details or individuals involved. Dr. Zugibe need not have even been deceptive for this to be false. It may only have been a case of motivated reasoning.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm curious about a solid definition of "life." I've heard creationists and other assorted fundamentalists claim that rocks were "alive," but plants were not.

QV please:

At the level of chemistry & physics it's just a complex redox reaction sequence that extends the approach to thermal equilibrium by using low entropy energy sources.

At the cognitive level of agency, purposes, and goals (teleological), its function is to persist, which it accomplishes by evolution (via reproduction with heritable variation).

 

[Hans Blaster]

As counter argument think all apriori sceptics should be banned from giving a view. There are plenty of cases of sceptics losing all discipline around religious objects. I give examples. The dean of bjalystock tried to overrule soubaniec.

Mike: Have you ever considered that your style of communication is quite hard to follow?

Your posts are riddled with typos and spelling errors. (We all make them, but you client should be marking them some how. Your posts also contain a lot of idiosyncratic capitalization. (In the paragraph that follows this one you capitalized "Claimed" as the second word in a sentence.) A lot of the proper nouns (especially unfamiliar ones) are uncapitalized, so we can only assume that a word is the name of something.

Case in point "bjalystock": Google thinks this is "Bialystok" a city in NE Poland. It does have a university of the same name, so the reference to a "dean" makes some sort of sense. "soubaniec" *looks" plausibly like a Polish or west Slavic name, so that might fit.

When I search on Google all I get is "Skubaniec" which is a rather tasty looking Polish cake. When I add the proper name of city and search I do (finally) find a neurologist (I think) practicing his trade in that city. (Alas, no coffee/crumb cake-like desserts.) I'm not sure why the dean of the university (or med college whichever it was) would be trying to overrule a neurologist about forensic cardiac pathology, except perhaps just to say "Stay in you lane Soubaniec."

The connection between Soubaniec and the topic of the last few posts in this chain (an examination of a specific examiner of the Buenos Aires case) is unclear. You do not communicate *why* Soubaniec is connected so the inclusion in your reply to me was jarring. I certainly didn't know who he was (and only now have the vaguest notion: a Polish neurologist) nor why he was of any import to my post. (or your reply to my post in reply to your post in reply to @partinobodycular 's post about Zugibe.

One major problem with trying to understand you point is that you shift quickly and include lots of material that doesn't seem to be connected to the main point of your post. (If I drove my car the way you post, I'd need to replace my gear box every couple of years.)

We aren't all into this as much as you and just because you mentioned some otherwise obscure person or place 8 posts back doesn't mean we will recognize it.

You would do yourself and your case a great favor if you would read and apply appropriate edits before hitting "post". [Friendly note: in the last week or so many of your posts have included a lot of abbreviated phrases that would violate the CF rules. They don't allow the abbreviations either. I won't rat you out and I don't think any of your primary "opponents" on these threads will either. I don't want you to get a "time-out" because someone else is willing to use "other means" on you or is a prude.]

 

[Mountainmike]

My phone does all sorts of strange corrections.
Frankly? I know that most of what I write will get a facetious , not even thought out, response so I do not waste much time on it.

Had you looked at sokolka miracle ( poland) as I think I suggested several moons ago, you would have found the names of the researchers from Bialystock ( poland) They are there on the VERY first free resource I pointed to

Therealpresence.org . That shows me you never did me the courtesy of looking in the first place I suggested before you attempted to counter it!

My bad. Her name was professor sobaniec ( which just autocorrected to soubaniec who knows why) - full name sobaniec- lotowska , who with professor sulkowski analysed the samples.

You will need to break a rule of life and part with money to see the detail of the controversy that ensued. Basically the dean of the faculty tried to debunk it , having never even seen it. They also tried to sack and gag the pair for speaking out, and even for getting involved.

That’s how universities behave around religious objects. Universities lose all objectivity.

The false controversy is mentioned below . The slides and sections prove the dean was a sceptic nutcase. The slides are nothing like yeast, mould or bacteria. The usual tropes.

( last of several pages on it, I suggest you read them all)
shttp://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Sokolka3.pdf

I am now even less likely to post evidence. You did not even read the free stuff I linked , because if you had you would already know the answer , but you still seem to think you have a valid opinion?
What kind of science is that? Conclude first, look second?

Please! Study them!
Tixtla, sokolka, Buenos airies, legnica.
At very least read therealpresence.org for each one.
They are fascinating.
Various videos are around for Cochabamba bleeding statue too.
I think Ron has put “ blood of Christ 1” video online.

if you were in the U.K. I might even send you the book free.

On the last point, thanks for the heads up.

.

Mike: Have you ever considered that your style of communication is quite hard to follow?

Your posts are riddled with typos and spelling errors. (We all make them, but you client should be marking them some how. Your posts also contain a lot of idiosyncratic capitalization. (In the paragraph that follows this one you capitalized "Claimed" as the second word in a sentence.) A lot of the proper nouns (especially unfamiliar ones) are uncapitalized, so we can only assume that a word is the name of something.

Case in point "bjalystock": Google thinks this is "Bialystok" a city in NE Poland. It does have a university of the same name, so the reference to a "dean" makes some sort of sense. "soubaniec" *looks" plausibly like a Polish or west Slavic name, so that might fit.

When I search on Google all I get is "Skubaniec" which is a rather tasty looking Polish cake. When I add the proper name of city and search I do (finally) find a neurologist (I think) practicing his trade in that city. (Alas, no coffee/crumb cake-like desserts.) I'm not sure why the dean of the university (or med college whichever it was) would be trying to overrule a neurologist about forensic cardiac pathology, except perhaps just to say "Stay in you lane Soubaniec."

The connection between Soubaniec and the topic of the last few posts in this chain (an examination of a specific examiner of the Buenos Aires case) is unclear. You do not communicate *why* Soubaniec is connected so the inclusion in your reply to me was jarring. I certainly didn't know who he was (and only now have the vaguest notion: a Polish neurologist) nor why he was of any import to my post. (or your reply to my post in reply to your post in reply to @partinobodycular 's post about Zugibe.

One major problem with trying to understand you point is that you shift quickly and include lots of material that doesn't seem to be connected to the main point of your post. (If I drove my car the way you post, I'd need to replace my gear box every couple of years.)

We aren't all into this as much as you and just because you mentioned some otherwise obscure person or place 8 posts back doesn't mean we will recognize it.

You would do yourself and your case a great favor if you would read and apply appropriate edits before hitting "post". [Friendly note: in the last week or so many of your posts have included a lot of abbreviated phrases that would violate the CF rules. They don't allow the abbreviations either. I won't rat you out and I don't think any of your primary "opponents" on these threads will either. I don't want you to get a "time-out" because someone else is willing to use "other means" on you or is a prude.]

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

QV please:

That was a simplified description of life on Earth, not a definition of life.