Admiral Valdemar wrote:Aineo wrote:Discussion dealing with the speed of light:
Speed of Light
And the speed of light cannot change! Do you know why? Look up what the speed of light defines. You have no clue if you think changing this constant won't have repercussions, it's basic physics.
I am well aware of the repercussions when it is shown the speed of light is not constant. I may not be a “scientist” but I do have a basic understanding of physics.
As to ignoring DNA, which is a blueprint for building an organism, have you ever checked blueprints for buildings? You may find this a weak analogy but no matter if you are building a one-room shack or a 100-story skyscraper the basic plan is the same. Therefore similarities in DNA can also be used to demonstrate intelligent design.
That analogy was poor. Exactly how does that prove anything?
What does it prove? That DNA and blueprints have a similar function; the design and manufacture of similar objects with different functions.
Talk Origins wrote: Different forms also (it is claimed) come from the same designer, so similar forms are not evidence of a common designer. Evidence for a designer must begin by specifying (before the fact) what is expected from the designer. When do we expect similar forms, and when do we expect different forms? "Intelligent design" theory will not answer that. Evolution theory has made that prediction, and the pattern of similarities and differences that we observe accords with what evolution predicts.
Actually intelligent design does answer that question. Each “kind” has a specific function and purpose.
There are similarities that cannot rationally be attributed to design. For example, an endogenous retroviral element (ERV) is a retrovirus (a parasite) that has become part of the genome. There are several kinds of ERVs, and they can insert themselves at random locations. Humans and chimps have thousands of such ERVs in common -- the same type of ERV at the same location in the genome. [Lilith 2003]
Efficiency is simply and not complex. You are actually proving my point.
Actual known designers use similar forms for similar functions and different forms for different functions. In life, we often see different forms for similar functions (e.g. different designs for bird, bat, and pterodactyl wings) and similar forms for different functions (e.g. spider webs for trapping flying insects, reinforcing tunnels, protecting eggs, transferring sperm, ballooning, marking a trail, serving as a safety line after jumping to escape a threat, and detecting motion).
Again efficiency of design is demonstrated by the fact a “web” can have multiple uses that all come from a single organic system. The basic design of wings in all animals is similar with specific differences for specific purposes.
justforfun000, what is interesting about your link to the HIV causes AIDS site controversy is it can be used to question any scientific theory taught as fact. BTW, AIDS is not a disease. AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. No one dies of AIDS; they die of cancer, pneumonia, organ failure or some other opportunistic disease.
Yeah, that's like saying no one dies from a gunshot, they just die from loss of circulatory fluid. This is arguing semantics and nothing more.
But not everyone dies from gunshots, in fact a person can live with a bullet lodged in their body. The cause of death is actually destruction of an organ or loss of blood. The bullet is what caused the damage, not the reason for the death.
My brother’s death certificate listed his cause of death as liver failure. It does not mention he was being treated for cancer (KS) and other opportunistic diseases. My brother was never treated with antivirales. But then some people will discount this as personal experience and as anecdotal. This sites contention that people die as a result of the medications is both ludicrous and denies the fact that early victims of this pandemic were being treated for opportunistic diseases not the HIV virus. 60% of the early AIDS related deaths were due to Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP).
Now back on topic; science asks if something is true; science does not ask that something is true.
Fighting a virus is infinitely harder than fighting most of the ordinarily tame diseases that take the chance to infect an AIDS patient. There have been instances of common fungal activity in the brain case of some people, a fungus that would never grow on or in the body of even a weak immune system carrying person. The death certificate analogy is useful for smoking where the death certificate never says "died of smoking", but usually "died of lung cancer" etc.
The fungus that causes PCP is in the air we all breath. BTW, before you try to educate me on AIDS and PCP; I am an AIDS patient who has had PCP so I have taken the time to research both. Also PCP is far from a "tame disease". KS is a "tame disease" as long as it remains on the skin, but when it goes internal it is far from a "tame desease" and destroys any organ it attacks (usually the liver).
Although "smoking" contributes to heart disease and other human diseases "smoking" is not the cause of those diseases. Not all who suffer from emphysema smoke.
Causes of Emphysema
It is believed that emphysema often is a late effect of chronic infection or irritation of the bronchial tubes. These tubes, the bronchi, connect the windpipe with the lungs. The bronchi look like branches of a tree, with the branches becoming smaller and smaller until each one ends in a cluster of tiny air spaces in the lung. From these tiny spaces (alveoli) oxygen enters the blood when air is breathed in, and waste gas (carbon dioxide) is removed from the lungs by breathing out.
When the bronchi become irritated, some of the airways may be obstructed, trapping air in the lung beyond them. Or the walls of the tiny air spaces may tear, for various reasons. The small blood vessels in the walls disappear. Less contact between blood and air results.
If infection or irritation continues or is repeated for a long time and the stretching and destruction of the walls of the air spaces goes on, the lungs as a whole may become enlarged, at the same time becoming less efficient in exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. Enlarged lungs is what gives the disease its name, emphysema (which is a Greek word meaning "Inflation").
Cigarette smoking contributes to the destructive processes that end up as emphysema.[/b] http://www.lung.ca/diseases/emphysema.html
But then so does the air pollution in major cities, working in closed spaces filled with dust like coal mines, and etc.