Media alert!

You can listen to Coulter here claiming that solar and wind power do not create new energy, but nuclear power does! She’s such a brilliant scientist that Richard Dawkins is afraid to debate her, but she’s a little weak on advanced concepts like the conservation of energy.

Having been drawn introduced to Coulter via a seedy discussion on UD I am interested to hear this. Is there some way someone from the UK can listen via the Internet?

secondclass – Just to point out, Dawkins hasn’t been willing to debate Creationists since they got such a large showing even at Oxford, with well over 1/3 of the Oxford audience voting with the Creationists.

I agree that it is silly to think that Dawkins should debate Coulter, or that he even cares who she is, but I do find it odd that he refuses to actually engage in any public dialog with Creationists.

Coulter is just a publicity whore. She likes to sell books. Look for her to pick up some other cause once the book sales peter out.

She sure is laughing all the way to the bank.

LOL!

Tom Bethell (1976) Wrote:

“Darwin’s theory, I believe, is on the verge of collapse. […] Natural selection was quietly abandoned, even by his most ardent supporters, some years ago.”

[Tom Bethell (1976). “Darwin’s Mistake.” Harper’s Magazine, February 1976.]

There’s a lovely Southern saying for why Dawkins shouldn’t debate Coulter:

“Never debate an idiot. They drag you down to their level, and beat you with years of experience.”

Coulter is not a pundit, she is an attention-getter. She will not debate, and in all the times I’ve seen her on TV, she has not debated any issue. She will attack, using ad-hominem and emotional arguements. (Evil scientists and the ACLU taking away our religon is her latest thesis). Worse, no matter what the outcome, in the media follow-up, 30 second snippets will be extracted, making it look very balanced.

Laser –

I never suggested we should.

Re “Honestly, how do you even begin to debate with that?”

How about: 1. It’s perfectly logical - complex life comes from ancestors. 2. There’s no significant evidence against it. 3. There’s lots of places where contrary evidence should have been found if the theory were wrong.

If Dembski wants to tie himself and his “movement” to Coulter, then by all means let him. However, his quote could more appropriately be, “She will drag us into deeper levels of muck than even I ever imagined.”

Can I assume, then, that none of you have actually READ the book?

Actually, no.

But perhaps you have. Care to give a spirited defense?

Adam Ierymenko Wrote:

Coulter is just a publicity whore. She likes to sell books. Look for her to pick up some other cause once the book sales peter out.

She sure is laughing all the way to the bank.

That’s been my opinion of her for a while now. No wonder Dembski finds his views being “promoted” by her. I think he should be less enthused about the company ID keeps.

Yes, I read it and enjoyed it.

I don’t agree with everything she says, nor do I always like some of the hyperbole.

Nonetheless, she does a good job making her case. It’s a footnoted book, and many of the sources can be found in published material on the web. There were a couple of times I was reading the chapters on evolution and thought “No *WAY*!! She must be taking this out of context” and then I went and found the citation and realized she wasn’t.

She does a good job gathering materials to make her case that Darwinism is the liberal state religion…and of course I expect that much of this crowd is composed of its true believers, I am sure that the ‘contempt’ that Ann attributes to ‘Darwiniacs’ will undoubtedly be thrown in my direction.

But rather than reading ABOUT her book. Maybe some of you should try an exercise in intellectual honesty and read it…in context, read the footnotes, absorb what she’s saying, and ask yourself if there isn’t some truth to it? It’s called self-reflection. I try to read sites with which I disagree for that very purpose. It’s a very good habit to get into.

I’d love to read some refutations of her thesis about the history of evolution, but that would in fact require someone to actually read the book.…and not just pluck quotes from editorials.

Randy

Can I assume, then, that none of you have actually READ the book?

Nope. But since ID/creationists haven’t come up with any new “arguments against evolution” in 30-some years, I’m pretty sure that Coulter presents nothing — nothing at all whatsoever — that wasn’t already dragged out decades ago by ICR, and hasn’t already been killed somewhere in the T.O “index to creationist claims”.

Could you point out an original argument made by Coulter in her book? One that’s not already 30 years old?

Darwinism is the liberal state religion

Hang on their, young Jedi ——– I thought that ID/creationism was all about SCIENCE and didn’t have any religious agenda, purpose or goals. None at all. Not a shred. It’s just them lying atheist darwinists who say so.

Or were ID/creationists just lying to everyone, under oath, when they testified to that in court, several times … ?

Ann Coulter on embryonic stem cells: There are lots of leftovers when you abort 1.5 million babies a year. This is the next logical extension of the obsessive recycling mentality. “Hey, don’t just throw away that baby you just aborted. Don’t you know how full our landfills are getting? Let’s see if there’s some parts of it we can re-use for other things, like…I don’t know…stem cells?”

LOL. Someone should explain to her that all one can get from an aborted fetus are adult stem cells. What a kook.

Here’s a couple places on PT where I mentioned relativistic effects:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives[…]omment-80198

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives[…]omment-80214

I didn’t tend to mention them separately, though I did once, because both graviational and translational relativity affect spacecraft.

I was the one on a post within a week or so who argued that relativity has been accepted because of evidence, not because of “usefulness”. I could link to it, but would rather let that thread rest.

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

What a surprise, the idiot liar won’t print my first post on UD.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t want his egregious distortion to be exposed.

I suppose it all comes out ok in the end, though. Anyone who actually reads the link, and can think, will know that Dave is just slow, and incapable of reading anything that doesn’t fit his preconceptions. And that he’s a censor, especially of anything that would make him look bad (well, when written by others. He continually writes nonsense that makes himself look bad, but again, we don’t call him DaveTard for nothing).

Nothing new, of course, just the constant unchristian (at least as they’d identify “christian”) behavior of Dembski and those he puts in charge.

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

I’m not waiting for Dave’s slow responses, or his good manners, before getting a response out to him. Is he the most stupid person on the planet? How can anyone who claims to know science also state that gravity is the strongest force?

“The first experiment in a laboratory confirming relativistic effects of gravity fields was in 1959. Here’s a clue from old Dave, Glen. When you find you’ve dug yourself into a hole the first thing you should do is stop digging. Of course if you took that bit of advice you’d have to turn in your Darwinian chance worshipping paraphernalia and face reality head on. I don’t suppose that’s likely is it? -ds”

I did not, of course, claim that no relativistic effects of gravity can be seen in the lab. In fact LIGO is designed to detect gravity waves, though no unambiguous results have been reported yet. While mere detection of gravity waves is not a huge use of relativistic gravity effects in the laboratory, at least it would be something.

I would suggest that you quit trying to bury someone else into the holes you dig.

I would like to see some evidence for LABORATORY confirmation of relativistic effects of gravity fields from 1959.

“By the way, gravity is the strongest force in nature. It overwhelms the electromagnetic force to form neutron stars. It overwhelms the weak nuclear force to form quark stars. And finally, when it overwhelms the strong nuclear force, a black hole is formed. Thanks for playing.”

Of course this is one of the least informed comments that you have ever made. Even high school physics students often know better than that. Gravity IS cumulative, which is why relativistic effects of gravity appear around black holes and neutron stars, but it is the weakest of the four fundamental forces. These matters are explained further here:

http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/forces.htm

I mentioned finding the graviton in my post, because it is considered to be practically impossible to do.

Glen D http:tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Again, DaveTard shows his class, and his incapacity to deal with both what I had written and with his ignorance regarding the strength of forces.

“Keep digging that hole deeper, dummy. Pound-Rebka is no secret. “

Glen Wrote:

Fine, it’s an experiment indicating relativistic effects of gravity. Something I didn’t deny was possible or that ever happened.

So you avoid the real issue that I brought up, which is that the relativistic effects of gravity remain largely outside of laboratory effects, and resort to what you know how to do, put down others.

“It confirmed with 10% accuracy the relativistic prediction of time dilation in gravity fields in 1959. Pound-Snider in 1964 confirmed it to 1% accuracy. Links to the original articles which appeared in Physical Review can be found at the first link I left for you. I can spoonfeed this stuff to you if you’d stop making faces and spitting it out.”

Glen Wrote:

You’re like the Jesuit (sorry, RCs, but I’m just recounting the story, not claiming that it tells us anything about Jesuits like one of my teachers was) accused of killing nine men and a dog who triumphantly produces the dog alive.

You can’t find any denial of mine that there are experiments that confirm one aspect or another of relativistic gravity.

“Gravity is only weak in low mass regimes. In high mass regimes it overwhelms the other forces and becomes the strongest. What part of it overwhelming the electromagnetic force in neutron stars and the strong nuclear force in black holes didn’t you understand, Glen? -ds”

Glen Wrote:

First of all, I had not seen that post, which may not even have been up when I started to write. Secondly, gravity is the weakest force. That is how it is characterized in physics, while strong gravity fields are understood as cumulative. I was responding to your post, which indeed was terribly mistaken

Magnetic forces also become very strong when they are able to be condensed down to small spaces, such as in magnetars. Nevertheless, the electromagnetic forces have never been condensed down as much as gravitational forces have been.

It’s a shame that you try to cover up your egregious mistake by bringing up the cumulative effects of gravity. I had already alluded to the strength possible in high mass objects by mentioning how relativistic effects are typically studied astronomically, around neutron stars, massive galaxies, and the like.

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

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Continuing:

“Pointing fingers elsewhere is not an adequate response.”

Yes, that is right. You should deal with the evidence that seems to show speciation, transitions between vertebrate classes, and the like, before suggesting that these cannot occur through RM + NS. Pointing fingers, especially without understanding the issues, only confuses the matter. You should deal comprehensively with all of the data.

“The experiments done in on insects, fruit flies, etc., were not successful. If RM/NS were true for McEvo, you could reproduce it. You could morph flies all day long with new features that would survive.”

The experiments have been highly successful. No one is trying to show via experiment that evolution occurred through RM + NS, because that is not in doubt. It would be well for you to find out what the experiments are actually designed to study.

“Secondly, the overlooked question of why higher level organisms such as insects, fish, etc., in fact fight against mutations. This leads to more questoins which I’ve yet to see answered by the RM/NS answer. The regulatory process limits mutations. Why is there error correction, editing and splicing? Why are there dual pathways as backup systems?

“These are valid questions.”

Why is there a need for error correction, editing and splicing? In other words, why do you suppose that DNA mutates as readily as it does, and why it doesn’t mutate more rapidly? Essentially, DNA and its corrective mechanisms are exactly what is necessary for RM + NS to happen. Why is there sex? It seems to be nothing other than another adaptation to the evolution of organisms via RM + NS, since in many organisms it kicks in at exactly the time when change happens.

Why are there backup systems? How could there not be redundancy in evolving systems? They are both necessary for evolution to effect a quickly needed change under adaptive pressure, and they are to be expected from the evolution of different pathways under different circumstances.

And there is no evidence that organisms “fight against” mutations. Natural selection weeds out non-adaptive information.

Below, the dolts at UD show once again that they don’t understand the core of physics, the nature of evolutionary theory, or why gravity is such an excellent analogy with evolution. They can’t comprehend that relativity and QM are what prevent us from having an unexplained phenomenon in gravity, or “Goddidit” as the “explanation” for gravity. Likewise, they can’t comprehend that biological science would be meaningless with evolutionary explanations for the patterns that we see.

The analogy between testing the relatavistic effects of gravity in the lab being on par with testing macro-evolution in the lab is false on it’s premise. The relatavistic effects of gravity are peripheral to the core workings of gravity in general, not so with macro-evolution, it is THE core of the workings of evolution. False analogies shouldn’t be argued with, they should just be dismissed.

Mea culpa. You’re right of course. I was bored. -ds

Unsurprisingly, DaveTard reveals once again that he has virtually no knowledge of physics, or of “macroevolution”.

So despite the fact that DaveTard has decided that I will not be allowed to eviscerate his BS on UD, I will eviscerate the various morons here.

The relativistic effects of gravity are not in the least peripheral to the core workings of gravity in general, they are central to explaining gravity.

Actually, the analogy with “macroevolution” is rather exact, at least for the IDists who accept that descent with modification has happened. Newton described gravity, he did not delve into what gravity can be understood to be (I hate to write “what gravity is”, but in a way that’s what I mean).

Likewise, DaveTard is willing to concede the description of evolution at its most basic, but he refuses to acknowledge the explanation for evolution. He cannot concede to any respectable theory for evolutionary effects (namely, the one we have now), for he is wedded to a nonsense “explanation” that leaves himself as an engineer with a “mastery of biology”.

I know what the naive cretin who wrote that relativity is peripheral “to the workings of gravity” actually means, of course. He means that we can observe gravity to act without recourse to relativity. Of course this is true, just as we can look at Linnaean taxonomy to discern evolutionary patterns, and even a simpleton ought to recognize archaeopteryx as an intermediate between reptiles and birds.

Relativity deals with deep relationships between gravity and motion, helping to give us the “how” of gravity. QM may be an even more basic explanation, though. Actual theories of gravity do not say simply, “Gravity exists”. Evolutionary theory is also hardly content to say, “evolution happened”, rather we are intensely interested in how evolution occurs.

DaveTard agrees with the moron, as we knew he would.

[Slightly modified from a post I made on AtBC]

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

It’s probably worth including this, for the record, for lurkers, and even for UD folk trying to escape the censorship of DaveTard:

Aw, the retard has a quote:

“Curiously, in some ways gravity is also the strongest force in the universe. It always adds, never subtracts, and can build up until it overwhelms all other forces.”

John G. Cramer Professor of Physics Nuclear Physics Laboratory University of Washington

Cramer writes articles on cutting edge physics for Analog Magazine. He’s written 90 columns so far. I read all 90 hot off the press. He’s one of my favorite non-fiction authors.

Why yes, in some ways gravity is also the strongest force (actually, I couldn’t write even that in good conscience, but wouldn’t fault Cramer in context). Of course if you qualify it, it becomes a reasonable enough assertion.

The little geek busily reads pop science, neither understanding scientific terminology, nor why someone competent does qualify any claim that “gravity is the strongest force.” Well hey, he does read SciAm, so is competent to (mis)judge all and sundry science statements. I’m just sorry that SciAm, which is doing a pretty decent job in educating laymen, is given credit for DaveTard’s deluded fantasies.

The above is what I posted on AtBC. Richard T. Hughes added another worthy comment on AtBC (well, more than just this, but you know…), which I excerpt:

Update.. The article Davetard cites starts..

“Gravity is the weakest force in the universe.”

http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw89.html

Lenny Wrote:

Dude, you’re rolling in the mud with a pig.

And the pig likes it.

True, but an attack pig cannot always be ignored. I wrote “gravity is a weak force,” and despite the fact that every intelligent scientist says essentially the same thing, unless using significant qualifications, he’s still maintaining that his stupidity and viciousness are appropriate.

Even so, I suppose at some point one has to say, “Let the filthy be filthy still” (from Revelation). DaveTard will always be more filthy than we can be, even if we want to fight him using his own tactics.

Dembski seems to be attracting and using filth, from Coulter to DaveTard. Ressentiment is now all for him, and he has no limits.

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

I think it might be worth posting the following here. DaveScot tries to shore up his faulty remarks, only adding to the fact that he knows virtually nothing about physics:

In the beginning, according to the big bang theory, gravity was the ONLY force in the universe. The other three forces separated out from it as the universe expanded and cooled. In certain regimes (neutron stars, black holes) gravity continues to overwhelm the other 3 forces even today. And of course gravity is responsible for the overall structure and movement of matter in the universe. None of the other three forces determine the motions of planets, stars, and galaxies.

Calling gravity the weakest force only has meaning in certain regimes. In some circumstances it is the strongest.

There’s really nothing more to say beyond that. Those are the facts and they are not in dispute.

These comments may be seen here:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?bl[…]036727872778

Dave’s trying to shore up his earlier faulty commments using further incorrect claims. Gravity was never the “only force”, it was simply the first to separate out from the others. Another force existed, at times called the strongelectroweak force, which was made up of what would become the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force.

The other forces did not separate out from gravity, rather they separated from the strongelectroweak force.

It’s just more disinformation (though probably owing to ignorance instead of desire to misinform) from the one who wants to tell us about physics and evolution.

Besides that, DaveScot seems not to understand why gravity is termed “the weakest of the four fundamental forces.” It is called that because such a statement informs people about gravity’s strength relative to the other forces.

To call it “the weakest force” is not to suggest that gravity cannot add up to considerable strength. Likewise, when we call the strong nuclear force the “strongest of the fundamental forces” this does not imply that electromagnetism (or gravity) cannot overwhelm the strong nuclear force under certain situations, instead it points to, for instance, the greater strength of the proton’s SNF than its EMF.

It’s like someone said, “Neodymium magnets are stronger than ferrite magnets”, and DaveScot comes along and points out that a big ferrite magnet can be stronger than a small neodymium magnet (which are capable of the highest gauss for permanent magnets), and thus states that ferrite magnets are stronger than are neodymium magnets.

A question: If we were able to make a “neutron star” entirely out of protons, would gravity hold it together? Of course not. It wouldn’t because gravity is a much weaker force than is the additive strength of a huge number of protons in one place (when not neutralized by negative particles).

We don’t encounter very dense and massive clusters of protons for various reasons, one being that no force exists that can bring these together (the nuclear forces act at too short distance, while gravity is far too weak). Neutralization via electrons and other particles is a practical reason as well, but presumably we could shoot the electrons off at relativistic velocities, leaving almost only protons in a region of space (we could confine protons magnetically). But only electromagnetism is available to try to force them together (gravity being far too weak), and a magnet able to force protons to the density and mass of a neutron star would probably be so large as to collapse to a black hole.

I should point out once more that Dave’s erstwhile comments were in response to this:

Gravity is a weak force, which is why most of the observations must occur outside of the laboratory. Neutron stars, massive galaxies, and galaxy clusters are the objects through which many of the relativistic effects of gravity may be observed. Such masses do not fit conveniently into the laboratory.

That is to say, I had already alluded to the cumulative effect of gravity by bringing up neutron stars and other massive “objects” as places where relativistic effects of gravity may often be observed. So that Dave added nothing, except for his confusion over what the term “strongest force” means.

I wrote this to post on the blog linked above, but for some reason I the verification figures are not shown at this time, so I can’t post there now.

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm