Intelligent Design

[Linuxgal]

Not true. The nylon eating bacteria can still utilize their original food sources. They developed an enzyme that breaks down nylon manufacture by products.

And a good thing too, because both nylon and their original food sources are present. However, in my theoretical where I shift manufacturing from nylon to rayon or polyester, the nylon-eating bacteria would be carrying extra genetic baggage. Natural selection always matches an organism to its niche, and if the niche doesn't change, added complexity doesn't help. I don't need help from Clippy in Office 97 when Excel 4.0 runs just fine to do my budget.

 

[Zosimus]

Natural selection always matches an organism to its niche...

Please explain how natural selection matched the dodo to its niche.

 

[Linuxgal]

Please explain how natural selection matched the dodo to its niche.

The Dodo was hunted to extinction by man. The niche had changed due to the presence of human hunters. The Dodo therefore was not matched to its changing niche. If, however, a variety of Dodo emerged that able to evade the human predators, then I would say natural selection matched the Dodo to its niche. But I can't, because there's no more Dodos.

 

[Smidlee]

We can't see the Juan de Fuca plate slide under the North American plate, but we know it does from the geological record, in the same way that we know evolution occurs from the fossil record and DNA studies.

We know the horseshoe crab and many insects are a witness that evolution never happen according to the fossil record. We also know DNA is only one of the many layers of information found in a cell.

 

[Linuxgal]

We know the horseshoe crab and many insects are a witness that evolution never happen according to the fossil record.

How do "we" know that?

 

[Smidlee]

How do "we" know that?

By looking at their fossils.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207135801.htm

A 445 million year old fossil of horseshoe crab is an evolutionary god.

This is like finding a rabbit in a Precambrian rock which many evolutionist have claimed would falsify evolution.

 

[Linuxgal]

This is like finding a rabbit in a Precambrian rock which many evolutionist have claimed would falsify evolution.

If one guy finds a rabbit in a precam layer there's not really a problem until his finding is repeated by other researchers. After all, maybe it's a one-shot anomaly. This is how we figured out cold fusion was a joke.

 

[justlookinla]

If one guy finds a rabbit in a precam layer there's not really a problem until his finding is repeated by other researchers. After all, maybe it's a one-shot anomaly. This is how we figured out cold fusion was a joke.

Not really. One couldn't simply dismiss it as an anomaly.

 

[Linuxgal]

Not really. One couldn't simply dismiss it as an anomaly.

If that was true then we'd have to accept deliberate scams like Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man.

 

[justlookinla]

If that was true then we'd have to accept deliberate scams like Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man.

There was critical examination of the claims which resulted in their being identified as scams. If a rabbit is found in the precambrian layer, one couldn't just dismiss it, there would need to be critical examination.

 

[Linuxgal]

There was critical examination of the claims which resulted in their being identified as scams. If a rabbit is found in the precambrian layer, one couldn't just dismiss it, there would need to be critical examination.

...by other researchers, which is precisely why I said such a claim could be an anomaly until it was duplicated by others.

 

[justlookinla]

...by other researchers, which is precisely why I said such a claim could be an anomaly until it was duplicated by others.

It would be impossible to be duplicated as the cold fusion experiments. Two completely different scenarios.

 

[Linuxgal]

It would be impossible to be duplicated as the cold fusion experiments. Two completely different scenarios.

If a rabbit was found in a precam layer by one researcher, let us call him, oh, "Ken Ham", this would be greeted with skepticism until other researchers weighed in with their precam rabbits. That's just the way science rolls.

 

[justlookinla]

If a rabbit was found in a precam layer by one researcher, let us call him, oh, "Ken Ham", this would be greeted with skepticism until other researchers weighed in with their precam rabbits. That's just the way science rolls.

Let's say that a skeptic, a rabid anti-theist, let's call him "Richard Dawkins", would question the find. One could show the heavily biased anti-theist that the precambrian rabbit is a valid find by various pieces of evidence no matter if other precambrian rabbits were found or not. Again, this isn't a cold fusion scenario which you have introduced in error.

 

[Linuxgal]

Let's say that a skeptic, a rabid anti-theist, let's call him "Richard Dawkins", would question the find. One could show the heavily biased anti-theist that the precambrian rabbit is a valid find by various pieces of evidence no matter if other precambrian rabbits were found or not. Again, this isn't a cold fusion scenario which you have introduced in error.

Ah, no, that's not how science works. If I said I saw a supernova at a certain position in the sky, but unfortunately it faded back to invisibility before anyone else could check it out, I'd be laughed out of the journals.

 

[justlookinla]

Ah, no, that's not how science works. If I said I saw a supernova at a certain position in the sky, but unfortunately it faded back to invisibility before anyone else could check it out, I'd be laughed out of the journals.

And yet another failed analogy. This one is no better than your cold fusion one.

The precambrian rabbit doesn't "fade to invisibility".

 

[Linuxgal]

And yet another failed analogy. This one is no better than your cold fusion one.

The precambrian rabbit doesn't "fade to invisibility".

Not the rabbit per se, but the conditions of its discovery, which you hold to be valid despite being utterly unique and non-reproducible.

 

[justlookinla]

Not the rabbit per se, but the conditions of its discovery, which you hold to be valid despite being utterly unique and non-reproducible.

The conditions of it's discovery could of course be examined.

 

[Linuxgal]

The conditions of it's discovery could of course be examined.

Naturally, but the non-zero probability of a hoax would be eliminated if third-party researchers found their own pre-cam rabbits.

 

[justlookinla]

Naturally, but the non-zero probability of a hoax would be eliminated if third-party researchers found their own pre-cam rabbits.

Yet, the lack of finding other precambrian rabbits would not negate the existence of precambrian rabbits.