dhw ... sees no way chance can create the diversity of life ...
> 
> Try this:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100726222316.htm
> 
> Segmentation is the secret behind the extraordinary diversification of animals.
> 
> "The researchers found that the genes controlling segment formation during embryo development are almost the same in drosophila (an arthropod) and in annelid marine worms, on which they concentrated their studies. These similarities led them to conclude that the genes had been inherited from a common ancestor, which was itself segmented. It also appears that vertebrates inherited this characteristic from an ancestor they share with the arthopods and the annelids. This is what the researchers are now seeking to confirm.
> This work supports the idea that segmentation only appeared once in the history of evolution and that it led to the broad diversity of animal groups possessing it."-Segmentation appears among the fossils of the Cambrian Explosion. Those fossils have no precursors in the fossil record, however, and so far is a giant jump, not a gradual change in evolution. The segmentation pattern is very useful to create diversity, but the Cambrian fossils were very diverse to begin with, with segmentation appearing in several of the original organisms of the original 50 species of which 37 remain. I guess the authors should review their thoughts to some degree. It is a chicken and egg problem. Was there segmentation before the Cambrian? No. So we see several segmentations appearing separately in a 5-10 million year period. Did chance create all this in a short period, or could there be another reason? I wonder.

It's all just anecdote and fanciful speculation based on wish fulfilment.
> Nothing definite there at all.-The Lancet article was peer reviewed as were the American and British articles. and the Lancet article prospectively put NDE's into a classification table and then followed the survivors with the result that it was statistically significant that more complex NDE's were associated with quicker mortality as time passed. That is just one finding in the article.-Your interpretation of this material as 'wish fulfilment' represents your own wishes. These are not anecdotal medical stories, but observed patients.I've had the same reaction to this phenomenon as van Lommel and Michael Sabom, "Light & Death". We are all cardiologists dealing in sudden death. Since biologic evidence keeps changing, please follow this material.

MATT: The article was about the comparison of western science to native methods of gaining information. [...] Even if the reasoning might be a bit faulty, traditional cultures have apparently survived well by simply testing and applying immediately.
> 
> Thanks for this interesting post. I'm not sure one can say that in traditional cultures the useful information "comes down" any faster than science. Tradition needs a long time to establish itself, and useful information is usually the result of long years of experience. I read an article recently about the disastrous results of applying scientific western methods to cattle farming somewhere in East Africa. Stupidly I chucked it out, and I can't recall the details, but it was all connected with traditional nomadism and how the land (and hence cattle farming) has now been ruined by settlement and fixed pastures. One shouldn't romanticize indigenous cultures, but as you say, they survived and flourished for centuries before the European came on the scene, and the application of western norms and methods has destroyed many traditions and values which are irreplaceable. Having said that, I must own up to the fact that without western medicine, I would not have left West Africa alive!-Well the article used some kind of example that was good, but I'd have to go dig it up. -In regards to the traditional issue, it's been cropping up that some native methods of doing things were actually the correct ones in the first place. In South America, tribes would burn down a small section of forest, and then grow MANY kinds of crops in the area. By growing a variety, the tribes manage to have a better level of pest control (by avoiding monoculture) and they continuously rotate through areas to burn. Nowadays, big farms burn huge sections of rainforest, and agriculturally deplete the soil within two years. -I agree with you on western medicine, btw. And for the record the thought of returning to even a modern farm chills my spine with the thought of work, heh.


> On 7 February at 14.59, under "Identity", I quoted an article in The Guardian about a Belgian who had been in a coma for seven years, > 
>
> I haven't seen any follow-up to this article, but in yesterday's Guardian was another report on a different case which caused a sensation last November. But now one of the doctors treating him has recanted. Herewith the relevant paragraph:
>
> this article, along with all the recent revelations of misinformation, errors and cover-ups, serves as a timely reminder that open-mindedness needs to be balanced by an appropriate degree of scepticism.-Just a reminder that there is a situation where there is a 'real' person inside, but they simply cannot communicate except by blinking their eyes. It is called 'locked-in state'. So there are a variety of degrees. Assuming that a scan is telling the observer what the person 'might' be thinking is a huge leap of faith. Memories cover a large network in the brain, and so do religious experiences. Based on my reading I view scans as a very rough tool.

DT writes: "If chance doesn't work what is left? George's argument of endless time is not available." 
> 
> I'm not aware of ever arguing for endless time. And of course I have to keep emphasising that chance doesn't just work on its own but in conjunction with natural selection. 
> 
> I just don't accept DT's statistics, which argue that evolution by natural selection from chance variation is too improbable. But lets not go over all that again here.-I apologize for being facetious. 200-400 million years is rather short in the life of the Earth (4.5 billion years) for such a complex process as life to have arranged itself by chance. Natural selection starts after life appears. Darwin's evolution theory starts after life appears. I was discussing the appearance of organic life from inorganic startings.


> If chance doesn't work what is left? George's argument of endless time is not available. Life appeared in 200-400,000 years after the Earth cooled enough, and with what we know about extremeophiles, the time coujld be somewhat shorter. That time limit is part of the probabilidties.-
Brain half asleep this early AM. Note typos. Time limit for life 200-400 million years. Left out 3 zeros. Sorry. Must be accurate always. No errors or admit them immediately. Energy calories at breakfast got my brain going! Is the expression 'brain-fart' allowed? )


> Here's the deal I'm offered: 
> 
> a) choose design and have faith in a universal intelligence, the form of which is unknown and unknowable, the origin of which is inconceivable, and the presence of which is impossible to detect; b) choose chance, chuck your chemistry set in the Jacuzzi, and wait for a cry of "Eureka".
>
> Try arguing the opposite of what you believe. -I don't need to quote Dembski, that tricky monster, to offer what I believe. Everyone, even Dawkins, agrees that most of biology looks designed.
You have offered two options as a sourse of design: chance or design. If there is a third way I haven't seen or heard about it as a theory. It would have to be 'spontaneous generation' and that died an ingloroius death many eons ago.-We have an either/or choice. Chance requires probabilities. Matt doesn't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole and insists we must know everything, every last detail, about living biochemistry, and add all knowledge ab out 10^80 particles in the universe before we can calculate the propabilities of chance. there is no way I'll accept that. -There are all sorts of steps that have to be taken to even get to the necessary amino acids (20), all left-handed, nucleotides, all right-handed, while made from those 20 lefties. Only eight amino acids have arrived on Earth from the meteorites we have studied. How did the other 12 pop up? Or are we doing a Darwin: there are gaps in the record and we have'nt found those pesky missing rocks yet? How did RNA and DNA polymerize without enzymes, which are absolutely nesessary or the polymer reactions really will take forever, millions years for each tiny addition of a molecule? -And finally, if one has a supply of all the amino acids needed for one manufactured part on the shelf the probability of them coming together into something functional (i.e. the flagellum), has been calculated, and the only complaint I've seen is that an error was made (that is not admitted) but, surprisingly, when the error is accounted for, the odds remaining still negate chance.-If chance doesn't work what is left? George's argument of endless time is not available. Life appeared in 200-400,000 years after the Earth cooled enough, and with what we know about extremeophiles, the time coujld be somewhat shorter. That time limit is part of the probabilidties.-I'll stick with design from an amorphous universal intelligence. I cannot know more than that. Except, I've got intelligence! Where did that come from? Yes, out of my brain. So how do we account for consciousness? I don't know. But I'm happy to have it. It is an amazing emergent quality that I enjoy. And I see that convergence is everywhere in evolution. Convergence is built into the process. Many attempts at the same result. Intelligence started evolution and convergence produced mine. Now you have a brief summary of my religion.