Immunity: Gamma Delta T cells hunt with precision (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 19, 2018, 10:13 (1978 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have fixed beliefs, whereas I simply offer HYPOTHESES. As I can find no logic in your interpretation of evolution, I offer an alternative which depends on the concept of cellular intelligence (possibly God-given). You admit that the latter has a 50/50 chance of being correct. If there is a 50/50 chance, clearly there is no proof that your view is correct either, but you rigidly stick to it and therefore completely reject the opposite view. Double standards.

DAVID: Of course I have fixed beliefs. I'm on one side of the fence, and you are on both. Only you have a chance of being correct 100% of the time if the issue is ever proven.

It is you who have a chance of 100%, and a chance of 0%. I am 50% right and 50% wrong. But this does not alter the fact that by demanding proof of my 50% hypothesis and clinging to your own unproven 50% hypothesis, you are applying double standards.

Under “James is back” – which I’m afraid did not have me jumping up and down with excitement! - you made a very wise remark: “Fixed religious beliefs do not help in ascertaining accurate history.” Or accurate science.

dhw: I can only consider the pros and cons of all the hypotheses, theistic and atheistic, but because I find flaws in all of them, I remain without belief in any of them.

DAVID: A definition of a rigid agnostic.

Your use of the word “rigid” does not provide any defence of the flaws I keep pointing out.

DAVID: I never said superficial or flimsy.

dhw:[…] Here are your exact words: “I think your concept of complexity of the cell is superficial since you have not studied biochemistry. This is not meant to criticize you but to indicate that your theorizing is based on a flimsy basis of understanding of what is involved. I hope the Tour quote indicates that to you.” My theorizing, as you know perfectly well, has nothing to do with design but is based on the concept of cellular intelligence, which in turn is based entirely on the magnificent work of “my” scientists. If my concept of cellular intelligence is superficial and flimsy, that can only mean that their concept is superficial and flimsy.

DAVID: And I have told you they have made an interpretation of their work, which is not accepted by many current scientists. Their interpretation is not proof and only a possibility.

Already agreed a hundred times. I was responding to your claim (bolded) that you had never called the argument for cellular design superficial or flimsy. I trust you will now withdraw that description.

DAVID: Note they [ID-ers] have heretical ideas like evolution is really devolution. You made no comment.

QUOTE: "This famous evolutionary experiment proves that in deep time, even given a model population that is optimal for validating evolution , populations do not evolve – but instead devolve."

dhw: […] So humans devolved from bacteria, did they?

DAVID: Do you miss the point? The claim seems to be all the information was there from the beginning and evolution advances from subtraction.

dhw: I would suggest that multicellularity = addition, not subtraction. Why do you think their view is considered heretical?

DAVID: You misunderstand. Behe has a new book on it which I intend to read. Multicellularity is simply a larger organism than single cells. The subtraction, if it occurs, is in DNA, not phenotypes which appear from its work.

It is not “simply” larger. It involves cells being added to cells. You have called the “devolution” idea heretical. Why? Could it be because it goes against the conventional view that evolution is evolution and not devolution? And are you now saying that parts of bacterial DNA have been subtracted on the way to human DNA?