Joshua Swamidass Conflates Methodological Naturalism with Metaphysical Naturalism

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Biologos' Joshua Swamidass has a blog post titled Why Methodological Naturalism? He says:

Mainstream science seeks “our best explanation of the world, without considering God.” This limiting clause,”without considering God,” is the rule of Methodological Naturalism (MN).

That's metaphysical naturalism that says that, not methodological naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism is dogma and as such cannot govern science. Science must be open and free.

Methodological naturalism just requires your claims to be physically testable. And seeing the design ID is talking about is physical and testable it meets the criteria.

Irreducible complexity can be observed, tested and that test can be repeated ad nauseum and it can be verified. That meets the standards of methodological naturalism.

Joshua Swamidass is just confused

A Molecular Code Turns Water into Ice?

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In a discussion about the genetic code being a real code, that included nature's inability to produce such codes I was told there is a molecular code that turns water into ice @ zero C.

And here I thought it was all just physics. The surreal event starts here with the question:

Is H2O a code?

I responded by saying that H2O is the symbol for the chemical formula of a water molecule. So yes, writing H2O is a code for a water molecule.  Turns out that wasn't what she was talking about:

I was talking about the molecule itself, not the symbol.

After checking several times to see if I read that correctly I said- The molecule is not a code. It doesn't fit the definition. Earlier I had linked to the wikipedia entry on codes so at least my dimwitted opponent would understand the context and to show the genetic code is a code in the same sense as human codes. She didn't read it.

Brace yourselves for the next part. The response to my saying the molecule is not a code was:

Really? So the fact that it crystallized at zero C is just magic? Or is their a built in molecular code?

BWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Physics be damned- it is either magic or a molecular code. Well, to this dolt physics is magic.

A molecular code kicks in @ zero C? What are the symbols and what do they represent? If only my ignorant opponent would have read the Wikipedia entry on codes. That would have amounted to its total education in the subject and she wouldn't have made such a stupid mistake.

Why Histone Octamers are a Problem for Junk DNA Enthusiaists

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Junk DNA is bein g discussed over on the skeptical zone. In the discussion Larry Moran made the claim that 90% of the human genome is junk and he could get a human to develop using just his chosen 10%. He says the junk has accumulated over the illions of generations since eukaryotes arose.

However there is a problem with that. The problem are the histone octamers used as spools which DNA is wound around to package it in the nucleus. Without the added 90% junk they wouldn't be required. But with all of that junk it wouldn't be possible to package it within the nucleus without the histone octamer spools.

So how did blind and mindless processes figure this out and create the spools to solve the problem? Whoops, the problem isn't just the spools, the spools are active as the DNA moves around them to get exposed and align with other sequences on other histone spools. How did blind and mindless processes pull that off?

Unfortunately Larry went away and didn't answer to this. What the hell was he going to say, anyway?

Challenge Issued- No One Accepts- Cowardice? You decide

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Back on January 17 a challenge was issued over on the skeptical zone:

I have a challenge for those who want me banned:

A debate on the merits of ID vs evolution by means of blind and mindless processes- see Coyne's description

For example my opponent will have to say how to test the claim that vision systems evolved by means of those blind and mindless processes and I will have to say how we determined vision systems were intelligently designed.

If I lose or cannot support ID I will leave. If you lose or cannot support your position, you leave

No one has taken up the challenge. I say it's due to cowardice because they know they cannot come close to meeting the challenge. And yet they insist they are the defenders of science.

I used to wonder how they can sleep at night but then I remembered that ignorance is bliss.

How NOT to Understand a Book

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Over on TSZ I am having a discussion with a clueless moron that goes by Robin. Robin actually said that he/ she didn't have to read a book to review it, he/she just had to read the (negative) reviews of it in order to understand what the book was about and if it had any merit. Read it here-

I said- You never read the book so your opinion is meaningless.

Enter Robin- This would be an example of KF’s favorite attack: an oil of adhominem soaked strawman.

Whether I’ve read the book does not invalidate any opinion and knowledge I gain from reading reviews of a book and criticisms of author. And since my argument is based on the fact that the book is not actually science, isn’t presented as peer-reviewed research in a scientific publication, and isn’t accepted by the scientific community as science, the actual content of the book is irrelevant to the point.

Plain and simple: it isn’t science; it’s special pleading by question begging.

 1- It is a fact that if you haven't read the book and only the negative reviews then your opinion of the book is meaningless. It's just desperation to try to argue otherwise
2- Reading only the negative reviews- negative reviews which have been totally rebutted- and using them to review a book is intellectual cowardice and yet Robin seems to be proud of it.
3- Everything in the book is based on science, including the original research of Gonzalez. Everything they wrote is based on scientific discoveries
4- The book did something that you said didn't exist- it argued for ID and against blind and mindless processes producing the earth/ moon and solar system
5- Anyone who thinks it is science saying our system is just the result of cosmic collisions being somehow just-so sorted out by gravity, is on a materialistic/ dogmatic agenda

Point 4, in case you didn't know, was why Robin could dismiss arguments against blind watchmaker evolution- after all we didn't argue against blind and mindless processes producing the earth/ moon and solar system. That's right- arguments against evolutionism are moot because we don't argue against any other aspect of methodological naturalism. That is not only wrong but another example of intellectual cowardice. And this butt-plug is proud of it.

It is sad when people won't even take the time to actually learn about the position they are arguing against.

Laurence A. Moran, Univ. of Toronto, is a liar and a coward

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Laurence A. "Larry" Moran is an embarrassment to humans. His method of debate is to try to intimidate, censor, lie, bluff and bluster. In a recent blog post about Axe and Meyer Larry spews the bullshit:

All of these "problems" have been addressed and refuted by many scientists over the past twenty years ...

If that was true then why did the evolutionists at the Kitzmiller trial have to lie, misrepresent and bluff their way through it? If they really had the evidence they would have presented it. Larry Moran is a fat liar.

Larry won't have anything to do with reality, though. In his little bitty mind I am sure blind watchmaker evolution is perfectly testable. However the real world says otherwise. I would love to get into a debate with Larry and have it at his university. That way all there can see what a lying loser and coward this ass-face really is.

Larry Moran- couldn't support blind watchmaker evolution if his life depended on it


added: James Shapiro calls Moran closed-minded- Shapiro skewers Moran

Too funny- not even evolutionists like Larry Moran

Joe Felsenstein and Patrick May- Very stupid or willfully ignorant

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Here we go again, this time evos want to remain willfully ignorant of the fact that functional sequence complexity and complex specified information (biology) are the same exact things. They get confused because the metrics for each are different. It's as if they think that two different phrases cannot be talking about the same thing and that because there are two slightly different metrics then they must be different things.

Dembski/ Meyer CSI (biology) is supposed to be a mathematical measure of functional information of the functional sequence complexity observed in protein family biosequences as well as their RNA and DNA antecedents

Durston et al posit their own mathematical measure of functional information, in units of Fits, of the functional sequence complexity observed in protein family biosequences has been designed and evaluated.

They are both measuring the same thing. If you have CSI (biology) it is because you have functional sequence complexity. And if you are measuring the FSC then you are measuring the CSI.

Neither Joe Felsenstein nor Patrick May can grasp that simple explanation. The stupid runs deep...

What makes a theory a scientific theory

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The TSZ denizens are totally confused. They throw around the word "theory" as if that alone adds weight to the argument. They will say that Darwin had a theory of evolution but when pressed they admit he didn't say how to test his claims scientifically. And that brings us to the title of this post- What makes a theory a scientific theory? Wikipedia has an agreed upon answer:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed, preferably using a written, pre-defined, protocol of observations and experiments.^[1][2] Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge.^[3]

A scientific theory must make testable claims and to a lesser degree there should be a way to falsify the claim.

Darwin said how to falsify his claims:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." [Darwin 1859, pg. 175].

And by doing so he said how to test them

If it could be demonstrated that all complex organs that ever existed,  could have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would be absolutely confirmed.

But that isn't the whole of it. Those slight modifications have to come about via happenstance genetic changes and then preserved. Chance is at the beating heart of Darwin's concept.

The point is even though Darwin said, in an off-hand way, how to, in a general sense, test his claims, he never provided the detail required by science. Darwin thought the evidence for the evolution of the eye was different complexities of eyes that existed. That isn't even for the evolution of the eye let alone evolution by natural selection.

The point is that no one since Darwin has figured out how vision systems could have arisen and evolved and been able to pack it down at the genetic level. And that is the whole problem with people trying to say that there is a scientific theory of evolution- if there is it sure as hell doesn't include the evolution of vision systems and macroevolution in general.

ID is falsifiable as one of ID's claims is:

3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.

And that means to falsify ID all one has to do is show that naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.

Basically it is saying that if evolutionists actually find a way to test their claims, test and confirm them, in a way that can be repeated, ID is falsified.

The criteria for inferring design in biology is, as Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, puts it in his book Darwin ' s Black Box:

"Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.”

It can also be found in the first two premises of the design hypothesis:

1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.

2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.

ATP synthase falls into the IC category. Anyone and everyone is welcome to test that claim.

And there is the difference. ID makes testable claims whereas evolutionism does not