How are people like this getting elected?

[BonzaiDuck]

So you're not a nut if you believe random genetic copying errors w/ selection actually built the highly ordered biological machines we find in cells? Nevermind that there isn't a shred of observable evidence that mutation and selection could do such miraculous things, you're a nut if you don't believe it?

I think the notion of randomness is misunderstood. The usual context is random variation in a frequency distribution. It is still a manifestation of a sort of order.

Jack London -- the socialist in American literature -- had given attention to Darwin as a much-discussed topic of the day. And I think in one episode of a book, several canines were fighting over a piece of meat on an ice-floe. The strongest alpha simply slipped on the ice; the others tore him apart.

So that's an aspect of random variation -- an instance. over the longer period of time, the stronger dogs will win out. Perfectly good specimens may be casualties in the tar-pits.

That's just my take on this, because I don't believe today's discussion is very productive. I don't think Creationism goes anywhere at explaining things in a better way. It doesn't "explain more." It's not a provable theory in the scientific sense; it's a weak theory. And I think worrying about the established views simply shows the weak faith of the fundamentalist Faithful. If you have to cling to literalist interpretations of a book that is two-millennia-old in its newest parts, it shows pretty shaky Faith to begin with.

 

[buckshot24]

That's just my take on this, because I don't believe today's discussion is very productive. I don't think Creationism goes anywhere at explaining things in a better way. It doesn't "explain more." It's not a provable theory in the scientific sense; it's a weak theory. And I think worrying about the established views simply shows the weak faith of the fundamentalist Faithful. If you have to cling to literalist interpretations of a book that is two-millennia-old in its newest parts, it shows pretty shaky Faith to begin with.

Do you think genetic copying errors and selection can build the biological machines we find in cells? If so, why?

 

[Moonbeam]

So you're not a nut if you believe random genetic copying errors w/ selection actually built the highly ordered biological machines we find in cells? Nevermind that there isn't a shred of observable evidence that mutation and selection could do such miraculous things, you're a nut if you don't believe it?

The likely explanation IS that you are a nut in this case. Because to an I programmed rational mine, the theory of evolution is in first place as an explanation. The only exceptions is any statistical significance are people who save been previously brainwashed by. Religion. There, the need to rationalize
Takes presidency.

 

[buckshot24]

The likely explanation IS that you are a nut in this case. Because to an I programmed rational mine, the theory of evolution is in first place as an explanation. The only exceptions is any statistical significance are people who save been previously brainwashed by. Religion. There, the need to rationalize
Takes presidency.

I grew up believing in this theory so I'm not sure how I've been brainwashed. So how do genetic copying errors and selection build complex biological machines we find in cells? If I'm a "nut" for not believing this then this should be self evidently true.

 

[HomerJS]

Like a lot of red states, like Texas, it's still a mixed bag. Who was shot by Jerod Loughner? Who currently runs the University of California?

Stereotypes are just too easy. For me, I have personal reasons to deride Texas, now that I've discovered the troubles of my family's past generations going back to 1850. Did you ever hear of the "Polish Greys?"

Just go into a room of Democrats and say something bad about LBJ. You're going to ruin your evening.

Texas had -- in the recent past -- been center of a controversy surrounding history textbooks. You had locals saying they didn't want history textbooks that taught certain things. I strenuously object to that type of nonsense, but schools are local government institutions, with local constituencies -- like evangelicals.

It just goes on, and on and on . . .

As a Dem who has no problem with ceding to facts vs ideology I'll do it

LBJ was a flaming (what I call) functioning racist. As someone who grew up being taught LBJ was a hero for blacks, learned years later he was a mixed bag. Someone who almost called MLK the n-word to his face in the oval office signed some of the most significant legislation in the country's history that also benefitted blacks.

Sometimes pragmatism has to take over.

 

[Moonbeam]

I grew up believing in this theory so I'm not sure how I've been brainwashed. So how do genetic copying errors and selection build complex biological machines we find in cells? If I'm a "nut" for not believing this then this should be self evidently true.

Genetic drift. Tiny changes concentrate in isolated populations over eons of time creating populations of organisms that are slightly different. These slightly different populations have slight advantages in different environmental niches that advantage their chances of breeding. Add an incomprehensible long period of time for these operations to work and you get today's diversity. It is so simple and logically obvious that anybody can see it. The only reason you wouldn't is if you didn't want to.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

As a Dem who has no problem with ceding to facts vs ideology I'll do it

LBJ was a flaming (what I call) functioning racist. As someone who grew up being taught LBJ was a hero for blacks, learned years later he was a mixed bag. Someone who almost called MLK the n-word to his face in the oval office signed some of the most significant legislation in the country's history that also benefitted blacks.

Sometimes pragmatism has to take over.

The drawl, the ears that stick out, the "Mah fullow 'Muricans," Country Joe and the Fish, Gulf of Tonkin and anxiety about my II-S card -- it was all a turnoff to me. Of course there was the day Bobby was shot. Add that to my puerile naivete of youth and inexperience, I actually misdirected myself down a Republican corridor for several years.

A person has to go back and reexamine the history behind the news soaked up like a sponge and barely thought through, so your remarks are spot-on there.

But it goes deeper, to places people don't really want to discuss much anymore, with a book published by Barr McClellan: "Blood, Money and Power." The research "industry" about Dealey Plaza had a political charge to it from its earliest decades, and is filled with propaganda -- pointers in all directions of the compass. But more than anything, the propaganda comes from the Lone-Nut Advocacy, who all have conservative political ties.

I won't go into detail about how I assess this literature, but the thicker the book, the glossier the pages, the more numerous the footnotes -- the more suspicious one may become as to whether such a book has anything to offer. I have rules of thumb: for instance, if "Citizen X" is cited as a reliable government witness, I won't take the book seriously except for adding more facts, persons, events and other factors to a database.

The McClellan book was caught up in the last revision and addition to the Nigel Turner "Men Who Killed Kennedy" series. Ironically, this last revision contained explorations of "Citizen X" as well as the McClellan "LBJ" theory.

Immediately, before her death, Lady Bird was outraged by the Turner film. Gerald Ford (who had been on the Warren Commission and encouraged to write "Portrait of an Assassin" which was later simply regurgitated again in O'Reilly's "Killing Kennedy") got together with Jimmy Carter and Lady Bird, sued Turner, and banned the film from airing during the typical annual TV frenzy every November.

And ironically, it is even possible that Citizen X used McClellan's "culprit" Mac Wallace in the 6th floor TSBD.

If one is looking at a player near LBJ's level, one needs to visit chapter 10 of a certain unauthorized biography available free on the web with regard to a nickname: "Rubbers." Who is . . . "Mr. Rubbers" -- in Citizen X's books? A rich but low-level asset who probably doesn't even know precisely how he was used, and probably has a similarity with Pinochet for the onset of dementia in old age.

 

[WelshBloke]

How are people like this getting elected?

Because we let people make "intellectual" a bad thing.

 

[zinfamous]

Do you think genetic copying errors and selection can build the biological machines we find in cells? If so, why?

Of course I know this is how it works, more or less.

I see it every day in my work. Anyone can cite tens of thousands of articles and letters that show how this works.

Hi--I'm an evolutionary geneticist.

This dingbat in state congress isn't so much about who voted for her--it's about the other dingbats in her congress thinking she is qualified for this position--which she most certainly is not.

 

[Howard]

Nuttier than a fruitcake but I would take that over the kind of people that typically walk the halls of congress. The voters in her district must like her more than the opposition and that's what matters.

I ask myself the same question about most politicians that get elected. Her agenda is no more offensive that a typical liberal's.

Could you explain this further?

 

[kage69]

As a Dem who has no problem with ceding to facts vs ideology I'll do it

LBJ was a flaming (what I call) functioning racist. As someone who grew up being taught LBJ was a hero for blacks, learned years later he was a mixed bag. Someone who almost called MLK the n-word to his face in the oval office signed some of the most significant legislation in the country's history that also benefitted blacks.

Sometimes pragmatism has to take over.

He definitely saw black people differently than Hispanics.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

He definitely saw black people differently than Hispanics.

LBJ was probably a product of his time and his regional origin. You may remember old Senator Byrd (D) of West Virginia, who stood up and filibustered Bush's authorization for the Iraq War. Byrd had been a KKK member in his earlier life.

My family-- immigrants from Eastern Europe -- goes back to their arrival at Corpus Christi around 1850. My mother grew up in a small town of central Illinois. After my parents' marriage, they lived in north Texas for about two years. And Moms to this day remarks about how blacks were treated in Texas. Yet, despite her own convictions that people in her Illinois town had no racist views or that blacks were "treated well," she certainly had her share of subliminal bias.

Perhaps LBJ's downfall derived from his involvement with Billy Sol Estes, his association with Big Oil, and ultimately his health.

According to the former Canadian diplomat Peter Dale Scott, who involved himself in historical research and taught English at Berkeley, Johnson was under the influence of Lemay and other hawks of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he would've been under pressure from the oilmen. Howsoever this played out in detail, he issued NSAM 273 reversing Kennedy's NSAM 263 which initiated the latter's intention to withdraw from Vietnam. We've speculated in other threads as to whether the Gulf of Tonkin was a provocation by elements of the CIA.

The Democratic Party had fragmented into some four factions -- the McCarthy faction, a faction behind Johnson and Humphrey with labor backing, Catholics with Latinos and blacks who backed Robert Kennedy, and a southern faction which just broke off to support George Wallace.

And of course, Nixon had been waiting in the wings, bitter that JFK had "stolen that 1960 election," to extend the war so we could have "peace with honor."

For me, I often wish I'd gone to Chicago in 1968. I kept my head in the books. I went from hippie to yuppie, and I really didn't understand all this for several decades thereafter. Can you believe that I had Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers in a box of books in the trunk of my car, as I traveled west to east, through a summer park-service job and then on to DC -- and I didn't give myself a chance to read it for years?

Dummy! Dummy, dummy, dummy!

Those were not halcyon days. They were days -- years -- of confusion.

Let's see what happens to the GOP this year. Maybe it's their turn . . . . to crack up, that is.

 

[buckshot24]

Genetic drift. Tiny changes concentrate in isolated populations over eons of time creating populations of organisms that are slightly different. These slightly different populations have slight advantages in different environmental niches that advantage their chances of breeding. Add an incomprehensible long period of time for these operations to work and you get today's diversity. It is so simple and logically obvious that anybody can see it. The only reason you wouldn't is if you didn't want to.

Different doesn't mean building biological machines from genetic mistakes. This is the typical fairy tale one gives but this doesn't say anything whatsoever about these complex biological machines coming into existence by DNA not copying itself perfectly. Saying things change isn't enough.

 

[buckshot24]

Of course I know this is how it works, more or less.

I see it every day in my work. Anyone can cite tens of thousands of articles and letters that show how this works.

Hi--I'm an evolutionary geneticist.

Cool, how about one article?

 

[zinfamous]

Cool, how about one article?

You first. the ball is in your court, making a strange claim against a century plus of volumes of evidence and observed, tested, repeated data.

That's how this works.

Or, you could just keep walking up to the Formula One mechanics, as you do, tell them that they have no clue how their engines work, "because reasons," and they'll just keep ignoring you.

 

[buckshot24]

You first. the ball is in your court, making a strange claim against a century plus of volumes of evidence and observed, tested, repeated data.

That's how this works.

I see, you're bluffing.

Or, you could just keep walking up to the Formula One mechanics, as you do, tell them that they have no clue how their engines work, "because reasons," and they'll just keep ignoring you.

The mechanics simply need to show me how engines work for me to believe them. You're telling me that a bunch of time and genetic copying mistakes can make ridiculously complex machines. Show me how this works.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Cool, how about one article?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101_2.html

 

[zinfamous]

I see, you're bluffing.

no. But I see that you have nothing to offer. You are rejecting rational argument, and I won't bother with that.

This isn't a discussion until you actively engage it.

 

[buckshot24]

no. But I see that you have nothing to offer. You are rejecting rational argument, and I won't bother with that.

This isn't a discussion until you actively engage it.

You're claiming something and won't support it, what do you want me to do with that? How about you support your own assertion?

What do you want me to provide for you?

 

[zinfamous]

You're claiming something and won't support it, what do you want me to do with that? How about you support your own assertion?

What do you want me to provide for you?

I am claiming something that has been supported again and again and again. You are claiming something that rejects that. It is on you to refute accepted fact. Full stop. End of that argument.

I was going to post the links to Talk Origins like Cerpin did, but erased it and responded as I did.

Because I know you.

It isn't worth it.

You don't care about data. You ignore thousands of papers for the one paper that says "nuh uh!" and call that "argument."

This isn't a debate.

 

[buckshot24]

I am claiming something that has been supported again and again and again. You are claiming something that rejects that. It is on you to refute accepted fact. Full stop. End of that argument.

More bluster and bluffing. Why can't you post one itsy bitsy article showing how this works?

I was going to post the links to Talk Origins like Cerpin did, but erased it and responded as I did.

I have him on ignore and the fact that he quotes talk origins doesn't surprise me. They are complete hacks, just like him.

Because I know you.

It isn't worth it.

You don't care about data. You ignore thousands of papers for the one paper that says "nuh uh!" and call that "argument."

No data has been presented, you just say it is out there. I asked for an example and instead of posting you you bluff and bluster. Typical.

This isn't a debate.

Then quit posting to me about it. I don't care about your unsupported assertions.

 

[Moonbeam]

Different doesn't mean building biological machines from genetic mistakes. This is the typical fairy tale one gives but this doesn't say anything whatsoever about these complex biological machines coming into existence by DNA not copying itself perfectly. Saying things change isn't enough.

You simply lack the logical faculties to see the process for what it is and where it will lead, either because you lack scientific aptitude or because you are in some form of denial, most likely because of some religious belief. Genetic drift and a huge multiplicity of environs on Earth where life can exist, plus billions of years of tiny changes has lead to the wondrous varied life on this planet. The nature of sex and the genetic code makes this as obvious as the day is long. Evolution is way beyond theory, Evolution is fact. Your opinion to the contrary is of no importance.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

More bluster and bluffing. Why can't you post one itsy bitsy article showing how this works?
I have him on ignore and the fact that he quotes talk origins doesn't surprise me. They are complete hacks, just like him.
No data has been presented, you just say it is out there. I asked for an example and instead of posting you you bluff and bluster. Typical.
Then quit posting to me about it. I don't care about your unsupported assertions.

Everyone is already well-familiar with your irrational commitment to ignorance. You've already been shown the evidence you dishonestly claim does not exist.

Now you're nothing more than an object lesson on the core ignorance, dishonesty and delusion inherent in theistic religion. You're the one we point at and say, "See? That's what happens."

 

[buckshot24]

You simply lack the logical faculties to see the process for what it is and where it will lead, either because you lack scientific aptitude or because you are in some form of denial, most likely because of some religious belief. Genetic drift and a huge multiplicity of environs on Earth where life can exist, plus billions of years of tiny changes has lead to the wondrous varied life on this planet. The nature of sex and the genetic code makes this as obvious as the day is long. Evolution is way beyond theory, Evolution is fact. Your opinion to the contrary is of no importance.

Instead of commenting on me why don't you demonstrate that genetic copying errors and selection can build biological machines? Such an obvious fact should be trivially easy to demonstrate. None of your tripe is even an attempt at demonstrating the power of mutation and selection.

 

[Moonbeam]

Instead of commenting on me why don't you demonstrate that genetic copying errors and selection can build biological machines? Such an obvious fact should be trivially easy to demonstrate. None of your tripe is even an attempt at demonstrating the power of mutation and selection.

I comment on you because you ask me to demonstrate something to you. Your request is meaningless because you lack the capacity to validate such a demonstration. It would be like trying to prove to a machine it's a printer if it were out of ink.