Arete

This is incorrect. When applying the scientific method, one starts with an idea. That idea is then tested using observations of empirical data. If the data support the idea, it is upheld. If the data do not support the idea, it is rejected. The problem I see with your posts here is that you're putting forth ideas, but no data, or framework to test these ideas. As a result, your discussion technique is somewhat incoherent, and your ideas are scientifically invalid. If you could present each idea along with a framework to test them, and the data you either used or intend to use to do so, it would lead to more productive discussion.

68% Of American households do not have a gun. Of those that do have a gun, 30% keep them in locked storage. This leaves 22.7%of Americans who could conceivably use a gun for self defense. Additionally, only 0.8% of violent crime victims use a gun in self defense.

You still appear to missing the point. No one is denying that having a criminal record is positively correlated with the likelihood of being ahomicide victim - that issue is not in question. However, you still appear to be failing to recognize that the likelihood of having a "criminal past" is linked to a number of other issues. For e.g. If you are forced to rely on a public defender who has less than 10 minutes to prepare your case, you could have a 95% chance of accepting a plea bargain. As such, poverty is directly linked to the likelihood you will have criminal convictions, even if you haven't committed a crime. Ignoring such autocorrelation makes positions like: and dalliances on the moral high horse like: either astoundingly ignorant, or plain dishonest.

You're kind of proving my point here in that you don't seem to be able to comprehend a complex and nuanced argument. The whole sentence was: n.b. - the bold There is a correlation between socioeconomic stature and the likelihood of being a victim of a violent crime, and also between race and being murdered (just like between arrest history and being a victim of a violent crime). Mentioning these facts is not offensive. The fact these correlations exist, and the use of them to some how excuse the homicide rate as you did IS offensive. I presented the issue of poverty as it was an example of a flawed argument equivalent to your flawed point about arrest history and victimization rates. Just like prior arrest record - race, age, gender, marriage status of your parents, etc etc. all correlate with both perpetration and victimization of violent crime, and none of those issues occur in a vacuum. Statistically speaking, these factors are autocorrelated i.e. the effect of one is not isolated from the effect of another. Therefore a statement like: is at best ignorant, and at worst, callously dishonest. What causes someone to be more likely to commit, and be a victim of a violent crime is complex, and nuanced. Simplifying it to "most people who get murdered are criminals and therefore I don't care" is pretty much a ostrich impression.

Logical fallacy of avoiding the issue. Or alternatively, don't be poor - or possibly don't use autocorrelation and gross simplification to try and make a trite and ignorant argument. To make a general statement, it always seems like anti gun control arguments are founded on gross simplification - that we can separate people into criminals and responsible gun owners, and ignore all the complexities and nuances that make gun rights and controls a complex and nuanced discussion.

That's a somewhat misleading statement. In the above article, and reported by the NRA here is an increase in the number of background checks associated with gun purchases. This is then interpreted as an indicator of an absolute increase in the number of gun purchases. However, even if the correlation rings true, it is an indicator that more guns are being bought by a smaller pool of gun owners, as there is direct evidence that the number of households which own firearms has been on a long, steady decline. To summarize, the number of gun owners is declining, but the average number of guns each of them owns is increasing. Or to interpret the same evidence another way, fatalities are down, and so is the number of people who own guns.

I think the particularly ridiculous thing about that thread was that he was arguing for the irreducibility of the cell, without knowing the difference between a eukaryotic and a prokaryotic cell. When implored to, perhaps, learns some of the bare bones basics of the biology he was supposedly overthrowing, he instead sought out some copypasta baloney to spew forth - with absolutely no understanding of the content apart from it has some big biology words in it and seems congruent with his preconceptions. Dishonest on logical, intellectual and plain regular dishonesty grounds. Very frustrating, as we could play whack-a-mole with all the false examples of "irreducible" systems which seem to appear like hydra, but we miss the crux of the problem with the argument - it's fundamental premise is logically fallacious. As is the equation of abiogenesis with evolution, etc. In order to avoid going down such rabbit holes, I'd be happy for the standard "arguments" to be closed with a stock response.

Absolutely - apologies for the omission. I was trying to keep it simple for the OP. One project I've been sucked into as the informatics geek is looking at expression differences in lab stocks of certain cell lines following numerous serial passages. Turns out that the expression norms aren't so standard after long term adaptation to "identical" lab conditions in different labs, and you may have guessed which cell lines. John316 - you're touching on some really cool (IMHO) biology here. The evolution of gene expression, developmental biology and associated molecular pathways are fascinating. Nature has some pretty cool tricks up her sleeve if you have the patience to try and understand/untangle the mind boggling way she does things.... I really hope you stick around and do some independent research to lead you down some very interesting rabbit holes.

This is commendable - I am glad you are willing to consider new evidence as many people are not. Bravo. One text I think you would find highly interesting is a book by Prof. Franciso Ayala. Prof. Ayala was a student of Theodosius Dobzhansky, is a National Academy of Sicence Medal recipient, an AAAS member and professor of Biology at UC Irvine. He is also a former priest. His freely available book Am I a Monkey? Six Big Questions about Evolution provides explanations in plain English about evolutionary theory from the prospective of a theist. That said, I hope you can appreciate how frustrating it is for someone to make a statement like "The Cell is the best example of irreducibly complex. science can explain how it functions, but not why." without knowing if they are talking about prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells. The difference between the two is extremely basic biology - middle school level. To argue that something is irreducible with such exceedingly little knowledge about the topic area isn't entirely intellectually sound - it would be like someone arguing about scripture without knowing the bible has a new and an old testament. The difficulty here is that any comprehensive answer to your questions (plural) requires an understanding of multiple biological processes - and a science forum cannot teach you introductory biology. But to very succinctly answer the question in the simplest way possible (be aware that I'm about to use oversimplification to the point of technical incorrectness) : 1) The physical type (phenotype) is a result of an interaction between genes and the environment. Therefore the existence of underlying genes is required for the existence of any heritable, physical trait, although exposed to different environments, similar genes can produce divergent prototypes. The genome has many unexpressed genes, pseudogenes, noncoding regions, etc. Genes and even chromosomes can be duplicated, lost, rearranged etc. This means that there is a large arsenal of potential, but unrealized coding genes in any given genome. We all carry the raw genetic materials for evolution to produce many more phenotypes than we see in nature. 2) Organs don't just pop into existence from nothing. The initial evolution of say, the kidney was likely not much like an extant mammal's kidney. However, it is a misunderstanding that such a 'proto' kidney would need to be functional in order to become fixed in a population. The process of genetic drift can cause a neutral, and even sometimes deleterious trait to become fixed in a population. So it's not necessary for a mutation to benefit an organism for it to proliferate through a population. 3) Many organs appear to be encoded by genes which arose for a different function than the one they are currently selected to perform. Hope that helps. it's a little unclear how this fits in. It's rather unequivocal that regulatory genes control the expression of protein coding genes. This isn't a problem for the contemporary theory of evolution and fits very neatly with current biological science. Also it is a misnomer to say we don't understand the regulation of gene expression - we have a good understanding of how the fundamental process works. HOWEVER, understanding all the environmental, developmental and epigenetic parameters which can influence a particular given regulatory network can be exceedingly complicated - scientists can, and sometimes do spend their entire careers trying to understand how a single regulatory pathway works. Scale this up to the whole genome and it's clear there's a lot we don't understand. Another big however is that not understanding all these pathways does not logically lead one to conclude that they are irreducible. For e.g. some regulatory networks are extraordinarily redundant - meaning that while they are extremely complex and difficult to untangle, they are very, very reducible.

If that was not the purpose, I'm confused as to what you intended it to convey. Care to clarify? As Moontanman points out, it's sad and frustrating to see these questions as somehow pertinent to creation. They are all covered in basic biology classes, I would suggest reading the chapters on developmental biology, cell differentiation and gene expression in your introductory biology textbook of choice. Again, it's sad and frustrating how flawed this statement is. Which type of cell are we talking about here? A Eukaryotic cell is reducible in the sense we have strong evidence for the emergence of organelles, so are you talking about a prokaryotic cell? Gram negative or positive, because gram positive cell walls are simpler than gram negative. How about endosymbionts who have jettisoned much of their genomes? What about viruses and self replicating molecules? As you can see, the suggestion that "cells" cannot be reduced is observationally false, and even a modest understanding of biology would lead you to that conclusion. One reason arguments like irreducible complexity are often so trivially dismissed is that often, the people putting them forward don't even have a basic understanding of the science they are attempting to refute. Furthermore, the eye, which you use in your OP is a ridiculously bad example, as it is extremely reducible even on an extant level. We have multiple independently evolved vision organs, with complexity ranging from a simple photosensitive single cell, through to the variety of complex eyes we see across the tree of life. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/eye/ Try this basic review article. The vast, overwhelming, majority do not. Regardless of the examples you put forth as supposedly irreducible, the crux of the issue remains unresolved - the assertion that they are in fact irreducible relies on argument from ignorance, which is logically fallacious reasoning. Without some sort of acknowledgement of the central flaw in the logic of the proposal, no number of purported "examples" can help establish its validity.

Are you sure the social experiments are genuine scientific experiments and not youtube videos? A lot of the so called "social experiment" videos you see on the internet are staged and certainly not scientific.

A) The argument for irreducible complexity falls under the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignoratium - also known as the argument from ignorance. Put simply, just because you personally can't perceive that a part of the whole can't be under positive selection due to a functional utility, does not mean that such a functional utility, and therefore positive selection does not exist. B) A trait does not have to be functional, or under positive selection to become fixed in a population. Through genetic drift, neutral traits can become fixed in a population.Therefore, a trait does not need to have any benefit for an organism at all to evolve in a population - it only needs to not place individuals at a selective disadvantage. As such, irreducible complexity as an argument addresses an oversimplified caricature of evolution which is not representative of reality, and becomes something of a strawman argument. C) You've simply copied and pasted a list of organ systems from a pre-med textbook. It's a non-sequitur with regards to the argument of irreducible complexity. No one questions that organ systems exist and their existence does not support the notion that they are irreducible. I would say you need to produce evidence that they are irreducible, not just that they exist, but as irreducible complexity is a null hypothesis based on incredulity, its not possible, and thus not a scientifically acceptable argument.

I think it might be worth nipping some of the more intellectually dishonest tactics like wall of text copypasta in the bud - maybe even adding an addendum to the forum rules about it. Generally people who copy and paste huge posts of creationist material aren't interested in discussion, it's more of a soapboxing tactic and I personally think it's rude and not in the spirit of a discussion. Also, having a reference of refutation of some of the more tired arguments (e.g. irreducible complexity) and suggesting that if someone wants to make that argument, they need to bring something new to the table, or it's closed. It's a bit of careful line to tread to prevent outright preaching whilst simultaneously not alienating people who want to learn and discuss.

Agreed. But I'm not sure how having to relocate hundreds of millions of people would be considered an "upside" of climate change - I'd probably consider it a challenge presented by climate change we can act appropriately to mitigate. BTW there's anecdotal evidence that climate change induced migration has already begun

I disagree - when you take your personal experience of a subset of a group of people and use it to characterize the entire group using a hasty generalization, you're making a fallacious and prejudiced statement. I'd like to hope that if someone characterized any group of people as overly sensitive, presumptuous, arrogant and egotistical based on anecdotes, we'd take them to task, and I think the forum as a whole usually does a pretty good job of calling out discrimination of other groups.

1) I haven't mentioned my beliefs, so I'm not sure how this applies. 2) My beliefs are irrelevant. I would have taken you to task if you've made the same bigoted statements about Christians, Jews, black people, New Zealanders or people who like licorice. 3) You agreed to the forum rules when you made an account. If you feel they are "too sensitive", why did you agree? 1) I actually copied and pasted directly from the forum rules. The word "argument" is in the forum rules. 2) You appear to misunderstand the definition of argument - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument as you're actually making one here. In a logical and philosophical context, an "argument" is a series of statements intended to present reasoning for accepting a conclusion. You seem to be only defining it as a disagreement between two parties - which is not the definition employed in the rules here. 3) I, and the forum as a whole expect discussions to remain civil and avoid logical fallacies. I don't believe that has anything to do with science per se in so much as for them to remain valid and constructive. If you consider it close minded that I don't accept fallacious reasoning as valid, then I guess I'd have to unapologetically agree than under that definition, I am. 4) You realize we can all click a few times and read exactly what you posted right? You made sweeping generalizations about "your average" atheist. When I took exception you doubled down on it, stating "Stereotypes are often accurate".

As has been pointed out, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Here's a summary of impacts for New England: http://www.neaq.org/conservation_and_research/climate_change/climate_change_in_new_england.php Along with those nice fall days, it's predicted that there will be an increase in severe storms and heatwaves in the region. So I guess as long as those craftsmen don't mind sweltering summer temperatures, fall will be worth it. The bigger issues are things like the potential displacement of 112 million people in Bangladesh alone due to sea level rise. How many of those people would you be happy for your neighborhood to take in? Climate change is going to make it nicer where you live, right?

The issue is that the forum has rules. 1) Be Civil. Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited. Comments such as these: "your average atheist is that he's quite sensitive...your average atheist is very presumptuous...your average atheist becomes blatantly arrogant...atheists derive conclusions primarily based on ego.." Constitute a breach of that rule. Furthermore: 4) The use of logical fallacies to prove a point is prohibited. The use of fallacies undermines an argument, and the constant use of them is simply irritating. The same slurs are hasty generalizations and therefore logically fallacious. You may not be trying to convince anyone of anything, but the way you are choosing to express your thoughts and opinions is inappropriate here.

The problem is you made a number of sweeping generalizations about all atheists based on your anecdotal experience. When questioned, you doubled down on the fallacy with the spurious statement "Stereotypes are often accurate". You got a neg rep from me, not because I disagree that some atheists can be overbearing and prickly (because many can) it's because you've used an illogical argument to tar ALL atheists with the same brush, with nothing but anecdotes to back it up. If your argument had of been "Some of the more vocal proponents of atheism tend to be aggressive and condescending - here's some quotes..." you'd probably have met little disagreement. By making it about ALL atheists without any logical or evidential basis, you veered off the path of logical discourse into the wilderness of logically fallacious and baseless claims. It's no different to someone coming into the forum and saying "People who believe in God are generally bigots who can't think for themselves" and then doubling down on it when challenged. I'd neg rep that hypothetical poster too.

This forum is not the scientific community. As was clearly stated, peer review in science IS anonymous. Anonymity is a well recognized, fundamental part of the process of science. After this was established, therest of the thread is rather moot - unless the actual motive is to discuss your reputation points on sfn - which amount to internet points in a discussion forum that aren't actually worth anything.

To elaborate - it's easier to generate a stereotypical caricature of a group and shoot holes in your fabrication than actually address the attributes the group has in reality. It is also a lazy discussion style, logically fallacious, disingenuous and thoroughly unconvincing, however.

It's also a lot easier to combat a strawman than reality.