The Argument Clinic

[T_aquaticus]

@Meerkat_SK5

When you combine the 34 with the 47 respondents according to this much larger poll,

47 respondents is a valid poll of physicists? Seriously?

Can you also point to anywhere in the poll question where it says that ONLY consciousnesses are capable of collapsing wavefunctions?

@Meerkat_SK5

No, I did not quite say that. Instead, I said VGT is primarily a materialistic process that is primarily relying on the rules of classical physics and analogue information.

How is HGT not doing the same thing?

@Meerkat_SK5

So I grant that they are both materialistic processes, but one is relying on classical physics and bottom-up process, which includes matter and energy. The other one is using quantum physics and top-down processes.

How is passing DNA across a sex pili between two bacteria a top down process using quantum physics? How is it a top down quantum process when a bacteria takes in naked DNA from its surroundings?

@Meerkat_SK5

In the top-down approach, one starts with the big picture or a complete knowledge of the system and breaks it down into smaller segments. Then, the smaller segments are reassembled from scratch to represent the original big picture. Under HGT, information come first and then changes in material things are consciously pursued in accordance with that information.

So where does this happen in HGT???

We can watch a sex pili join two bacterial cells, and then DNA is passed between them. This DNA can be replicated as an extra chromosome in the bacteria, or it can insert into another chromosome due to homologous recombination. Where do you think consciousness is involved in this process? How is this different from passing on a whole genome to a new cell, or the merging of two haploid cells?

@Meerkat_SK5

It sounds like you are making a semantics argument for common descent that does not make any sense.

Do you consider Sudan cars to be the modified form of vehicles with four wheels that descended from a common vehicle ancestor?

Sedans don’t fall into a nested hierarchy.

Do you still not understand what a nested hierarchy is and why it is evidence for common ancestry?

@Meerkat_SK5

Like I said, God was the explanation for those nested hierarchies. However, it was not a viable scientific explanation until Owen’s theory came along, which invoked separate creation from archetypical laws of nature

Then how are humans able to design organisms that violate a nested hierarchy if it is a law of nature?

@Meerkat_SK5

Owen’s theory explained the gaps in the fossil record and nested hierarchies.

It doesn’t explain either.

First, how in the world do you determine where the gaps are in the fossil record? Why would you say that there is a gap between two specific species, but not two others? On top of that, how do you explain the fossils that DO fill those gaps, such as transitional hominid fossils? From where I sit, the only way that there would be gaps in the fossil record is if common ancestry is true. Only through common ancestry could we identify where future fossils should fit into the distribution of similarities and differences in species groups.

Separate creation of archetypes also does not explain the nested hierarchy because there is no reason why separately created archetypes would need to fit into a nested hierarchy.

[note: I branched this idea off into a new thread: How Does ID/Creationism Identify Gaps in the Fossil Record? ]

@Meerkat_SK5

I agree, but God is both human and divine. So we would expect God to be consistent with his nature by necessity.

Why would that nature include separately created species that just so happen to produce the same pattern of homologous and divergent features that common ancestry would produce?

@Meerkat_SK5

Fuz Rana will explain it better than me:

Why is ERV sequence necessary to trigger interferon production? What sequence in ERV specifically is required to trigger interferon, and how many ERV’s have this sequence?