Origins of SARS CoV-2 - split from: Covid-19 miscellany

[Metaphor]

Pointing out that the idea that a lab-leak origin of the SARS-CoV-2 is as unlikely as a flat earth is gaslighting does not constitute psychological manipulation of a person. It is an assertion devoid of personal implications. You just project them into it.

bilby did not 'point it out'. bilby asserted they had the same level of evidence and likelihood of being true. A flat earth has no chance of being true. A lab leak has some chance of being true. It is not devoid of personal implications. The reasonableness of the belief is the point of the assertion.

 

[Metaphor]

Where did you find words by either of us that might suggest that "a lab leak origin for SARS-Cov-2 is as likely as a flat earth". bilby, wrote:

I am not viscerally, emotionally invested in a flat Earth not being possible; Nor in the Moon landings being a hoax not being possible; Nor in vaccines not causing autism.

Not the same thing as your take of what he did write, is it?

As for me, I objected to your mistaken use of gaslighting while ignoring your erroneous take on what bilby actually wrote.

bilby's analogy is the implication: a lab leak is as likely as the other things he things he lists. Otherwise, his analogy is pointless. Nobody brought up the other things until bilby did. Nobody talked about believing a flat earth in this thread until bilby specifically and explicitly mentioned it as comparable to believing in the lab leak.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

There is a paper here that has at least some relevance, quoting part of it:

The second problem with Dembski’s application is that he only tests one particular
chance hypothesis and takes its rejection as evidence that all chance hypotheses can be
ruled out. In particular, the chance hypothesis he considers is based on a uniform distri-
bution or, in daily language, that the flagellum is assembled at random. Once more,
Dembski fails to apply his filter as he has described it. Remember that he should rule out
regularity before he goes on to compute probabilities. Granted, there is no known natural
law that would automatically assemble the flagellum but he also needs to rule out other
chance explanations. An evolutionary biologist would certainly argue that, according to
some plausible evolutionary scenario, the formation of the flagellum is an event of a
probability that is far from negligible. Dembski does not address this possibility but starts
directly at the final step of the filter.

There is an important point to be made here. The probability of an event depends on
what chance hypothesis, or probability distribution, that is operating. For a quick and
common example, consider the Shakespearean phrase TO BE OR NOT TO BE. If 13
letters are chosen at random, what is the probability to get this phrase? The everyday
meaning of ‘‘chance’’ and ‘‘at random’’ is that letters are chosen independently and that all
letters of the alphabet are equally likely to be chosen. However, in probability theory this is
merely one example of a chance hypothesis corresponding to what is know as a uniform
probability distribution. Using this distribution, it is very unlikely to get the phrase but
there are many other plausible probability distributions that confer different probabilities
on the phrase. For example, if letters are chosen according to their frequencies in the
English language, the phrase becomes more probable. If, in addition, a letter is chosen in
accordance with how likely it is to follow another letter, the phrase becomes even more
likely (in this case, letters are not chosen independently of each other). Any time a
probability distribution (and dependence structure) is specified, the probability of the
phrase can be computed, and can be anything between 0 and 1.

Let us return to the flagellum where Dembski considers only the uniform distribution,
thus assuming that all protein configurations are equally likely. This is yet another version
of the old creationist classic: a microscopic tornado in a protein junkyard (although
Dembski’s own allegory is to go on a random shopping spree for cake ingredients). In a
sense, Dembski achieves absolutely nothing as no evolutionary biologist would suggest a
model even remotely resembling Dembski’s shopping cart and would thus gladly agree to
rule out this particular chance hypothesis. But whereas the evolutionary biologist would
have in mind a more realistic chance scenario, Dembski rules out chance altogether. His
argument for doing so is discussed in a section of No Free Lunch where he states the need
for ‘‘sweeping the field of chance hypotheses.’’ Writes Dembski:

Design inferences therefore eliminate chance in the global sense of closing the door
to all relevant chance explanations. To be sure, this cannot be done with absolute
finality since there is always the possibility that some crucial probability distribution
was missed. Nonetheless, it is not enough for the design skeptic merely to note that
adding a new chance explanation to the mix can upset a design inference. Instead, the
design skeptic needs to explicitly propose a new chance explanation and argue for its
relevance for the case at hand.
No Free Lunch, p. 67–68​

Thus, once Dembski has ruled out a chance hypothesis of his choice, the burden of proof is
on the ‘‘design skeptic’’ who must suggest a relevant chance hypothesis and also compute
its probability. This is in stark contrast to Dembski’s argument for pure elimination in a
later section:

What’s more, a proposed solution may be so poor and unacceptable that it can rightly
be eliminated without proposing an alternative (e.g., the moon-is-made-of-cheese
hypothesis). It is not a requirement of logic that eliminating a hypothesis means
superseding it.
No Free Lunch, p. 102​

The inconsistency is striking. Design skeptics are required to make sure that a rejected
hypothesis is superseded; design proponents are not. Without doubt, most biologists would
consider Dembski’s shopping cart model ‘‘poor and unacceptable’’ and thus, appealing to
logic, could safely eliminate it and go on to more important activities.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Almost as easy as finding climatologists who deny anthropomorphic global warming.

Or even easier, but more likely equally so. In any case, that is not a good reply. Take a look at the exchange. I said:

While not conclusive, the lab leak hypothesis ( whether by a genetically engineered virus or one collected in the wild and then leaked) seems to be probable.

bilby replied:

Not to anyone who has studied virology, genetics or molecular biology, it doesn't.

So, a single person who has studied virology, genetics or molecular biology would suffice to show that this claim is false. My reply does that. Your reply only confirms so: the claim is false.

I did not claim that nobody who has studied virology and assigns a high probability to the lab leak hypothesis can be found. I claimed that it is almost as easy as finding a climatologist who denies anthropomorphic global warming.

You seem to have misread my post. Of course, I know that what you said. I also know what bilby said. My point stands, for the reasons given in the post. Your objection to my objection to bilby's claim misses the point.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

be

Almost as easy as finding climatologists who deny anthropomorphic global warming.

Or even easier, but more likely equally so. In any case, that is not a good reply. Take a look at the exchange. I said:

While not conclusive, the lab leak hypothesis ( whether by a genetically engineered virus or one collected in the wild and then leaked) seems to be probable.

bilby replied:

Not to anyone who has studied virology, genetics or molecular biology, it doesn't.

So, a single person who has studied virology, genetics or molecular biology would suffice to show that this claim is false. My reply does that. Your reply only confirms so: the claim is false.

"Not to anyone who..." is vernacular language. It's not a claim that literally not one single such person exists, merely that they are a trivial variation from the norm.

If you want to be pedantic, that's your choice; But you are unwise to expect or demand equal pedantry from others.

There are always exceptions in any sufficiently large group. Their existence is completely irrelevant to my point.

That's not pedantry, I understood your claim as you made it, and it was - still is - pretty disparaging in addition to false, to the answer was justified.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

Let's review.

1. From previous post to Bomb#20, one section you snipped that is relevant to my comment: "Mutations are non-random and a single event could explain the insertion rather than conceiving it as a series of independent events."
2. From previous post to Bomb#20, the second section you snipped but that is relevant to my other comment: "It is probably common in many other untested possible intermediate hosts on the planet. We have limited info on codon optimization relative to number of species on the planet. One alternative out of many alternatives most of which are unknown is Chinese hamster. Additionally, even if either of these is an intermediate host in the case of Chinese hamster or final host in the case of human, that doesn't necessarily connect to a gain of function experiment as opposed to recombination or evolution."
3. One of several relevant quotes in the critique of Intelligent Design I posted: "The second problem with Dembski’s application is that he only tests one particular chance hypothesis and takes its rejection as evidence that all chance hypotheses can be ruled out."

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The probability that the pandemic originated in a lab (whether by the virus being engineered in a lab, or else by the virus being collected from the wild but scaping from a lab) is higher than 0.5, on the basis of the evidence I've seen

Show your math.

I don't have any math to show, but I did not give a specific number, just >0.5, i.e., it's probable. That's a probabilistic assessment on the basis of the available information, like humans normally do all the time. For example, I reckon the probability that I will persuade bilby to change his assessment "The probability that Covid originated in a lab is vanishingly close to zero, and no sane and well informed person could conclude otherwise.", is less than 0.5. The probability that most Western experts will give the lab leak theory >0.5 by 2030 is also >0.5; the probability that most Chinese experts will publicly do so is close to 0, and the probability that they will actually do so is still <0.5. But I don't have math for any of that. I'm just making human probabilistic assessments on the basis of the available information, and using numbers just to give bounds that give a bit more of an idea than 'probable', 'improbable', etc.

Wait - you made a probabilistic assessment to >0.5 without using any math?
I mean, I get making intuitive assessments. Humans do that all the time. "I bet it won't," "I expect so," "I think it will," etc.
But you don't get to use statistical notation to do it, dude. That just raises questions about your competency, which is now rightly questioned.

Just stick with, "I've been convinced."

That is the sort of mistake that I explained in my reply to bilby. Of course, if I say that probably A will happen, I'm saying that I assign >0.5. It's the same. The advantage of giving upper or lower bounds with numbers is that we can state our assignment of probabilities conveying more information than, say 'very probably', or 'extremely probable'. Natural languages have very few words to distinguish between the different probabilistic assessments. But our minds can and do properly distinguish with much greater detail. Now, if one tries to give exact numbers, that has some further advantages but also the disadvantage that the language might be even more precise than what we can tell about our own intuitive assignments by introspection. Still, even then, one can give reasonable approximations. By the way, are you familiar with prediction markets?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

I did not take anything out of context. Rather, your ID argument was not just the previous arguments. It was an addition to them. You were saying B20 was making an ID argument, and you were saying that even though he had not (and has not yet ) considered your other points in reply to him. And I pointed out why he was not at all making an ID argument. The rest of your points could not turn it into that, even if correct.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The probability that the pandemic originated in a lab (whether by the virus being engineered in a lab, or else by the virus being collected from the wild but scaping from a lab) is higher than 0.5, on the basis of the evidence I've seen

Show your math.

I don't have any math to show, but I did not give a specific number, just >0.5, i.e., it's probable. That's a probabilistic assessment on the basis of the available information, like humans normally do all the time. For example, I reckon the probability that I will persuade bilby to change his assessment "The probability that Covid originated in a lab is vanishingly close to zero, and no sane and well informed person could conclude otherwise.", is less than 0.5. The probability that most Western experts will give the lab leak theory >0.5 by 2030 is also >0.5; the probability that most Chinese experts will publicly do so is close to 0, and the probability that they will actually do so is still <0.5. But I don't have math for any of that. I'm just making human probabilistic assessments on the basis of the available information, and using numbers just to give bounds that give a bit more of an idea than 'probable', 'improbable', etc.

If you don't have math you can't conclude > 0.5.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

I did not take anything out of context.

Yes, you did. Stop snipping.

Rather, your ID argument was not just the previous arguments.

I did not write it was JUST the previous arguments, but it was dependent upon them and B20's comment.

It was an addition to them.

It was dependent upon them in context. Please stop snipping and put the comment back into context by addressing the post in full.

You were saying B20 was making an ID argument, and you were saying that even though he had not (and has not yet ) considered your other points in reply to him. And I pointed out why he was not at all making an ID argument.

And I have pointed out how it is an ID-type argument and I would appreciate it if you stopped semantic quibbling out-of-context comments and address the post in full.

The rest of your points could not turn it into that, even if correct.

Please stop snipping and address the points in full in context, not out-of-context to include the ID-type flaw I have identified.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The probability that the pandemic originated in a lab (whether by the virus being engineered in a lab, or else by the virus being collected from the wild but scaping from a lab) is higher than 0.5, on the basis of the evidence I've seen

Show your math.

I don't have any math to show, but I did not give a specific number, just >0.5, i.e., it's probable. That's a probabilistic assessment on the basis of the available information, like humans normally do all the time. For example, I reckon the probability that I will persuade bilby to change his assessment "The probability that Covid originated in a lab is vanishingly close to zero, and no sane and well informed person could conclude otherwise.", is less than 0.5. The probability that most Western experts will give the lab leak theory >0.5 by 2030 is also >0.5; the probability that most Chinese experts will publicly do so is close to 0, and the probability that they will actually do so is still <0.5. But I don't have math for any of that. I'm just making human probabilistic assessments on the basis of the available information, and using numbers just to give bounds that give a bit more of an idea than 'probable', 'improbable', etc.

If you don't have math you can't conclude > 0.5.

Of course I can, just as I can conclude 'probably', since it's the same. But using upper or lower bounds is better in the sense in can express the intuitive assignment more accurately. Are you familiar with prediction markets by the way?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

I did not take anything out of context. Rather, your ID argument was not just the previous arguments. It was an addition to them. You were saying B20 was making an ID argument, and you were saying that even though he had not (and has not yet ) considered your other points in reply to him. And I pointed out why he was not at all making an ID argument. The rest of your points could not turn it into that, even if correct.

Please stop snipping.

Please stop saying I'm snipping. It's not true. I'm replying to parts of your post, properly. I don't have to reply to all of them, as long as I can make a proper case against the part I'm targeting. And I was doing just that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Okay, just as a for-example, the two arginines in SARS2's furin cleavage site -- the novel insertion that makes the virus infectious in humans -- are coded CGG-CGG. Back of the envelope, the odds against that happening by randomly flipping RNA bases would appear to be four hundred to one. There are six different three-base RNA sequences that all code for arginine, and CGG is the rarest code for arginine in coronaviruses, used for only five percent of the arginines in SARS2. That would seem to imply likely formation by recombination rather than by point mutation. This raises the question, where were those CGGs copied from? CGG-CGG is a sequence that hasn't been found in any other beta coronavirus. But CGG is a very common code for arginine in humans. For a scientist trying to create a cleavage site in order to perform a gain-of-function experiment of the sort we know the Wuhan lab was doing, putting in two CGGs would be a natural choice.

1 in 400 means nothing here because there are so many rolls of the dice (mutations).

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

I did not take anything out of context. Rather, your ID argument was not just the previous arguments. It was an addition to them. You were saying B20 was making an ID argument, and you were saying that even though he had not (and has not yet ) considered your other points in reply to him. And I pointed out why he was not at all making an ID argument. The rest of your points could not turn it into that, even if correct.

Please stop snipping.

Please stop saying I'm snipping. It's not true. I'm replying to parts of your post, properly. I don't have to reply to all of them, as long as I can make a proper case against the part I'm targeting. And I was doing just that.

Please do not take me out of context by snipping. Thanks.

Please address the points in full. Thanks.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Okay, just as a for-example, the two arginines in SARS2's furin cleavage site -- the novel insertion that makes the virus infectious in humans -- are coded CGG-CGG. Back of the envelope, the odds against that happening by randomly flipping RNA bases would appear to be four hundred to one. There are six different three-base RNA sequences that all code for arginine, and CGG is the rarest code for arginine in coronaviruses, used for only five percent of the arginines in SARS2. That would seem to imply likely formation by recombination rather than by point mutation. This raises the question, where were those CGGs copied from? CGG-CGG is a sequence that hasn't been found in any other beta coronavirus. But CGG is a very common code for arginine in humans. For a scientist trying to create a cleavage site in order to perform a gain-of-function experiment of the sort we know the Wuhan lab was doing, putting in two CGGs would be a natural choice.

1 in 400 means nothing here because there are so many rolls of the dice (mutations).

Indeed. Even in the paper most recently submitted (I think it was by repoman) to the thread the alleged insert of 12nt is conceived to be a single event from a human cancer gene and so in that case it would not be multiple events of 5% multipled by one another. That would mean that an alternative chance hypothesis not considered is one in which this type of single event happened in the wild. Plus, with the 5% multiplied by another 5%, it is assumed that each event is random reflecting previous frequency in the genome, but those incidents of previous codons are also non-random, possibly related to two factors, which type of species the virus was working against or what the function of the gene was, i.e. whether it was optimal or not to use the codon sequence. Finally, as pointed out, in an intermediate host, that could change to >>5% if that is the codon usage--who knows. So, this is precisely what I was writing, an example of only 1 chance hypothesis, knocking it down, and then declaring designed (or similarly probability of designed > .5).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Please do not take me out of context by snipping. Thanks.

Please do not keep falsely claiming that I take you out of context and snip. Even though you do not realize that your claim is false, you should. But since you insist, I will defend myself in greater detail.

1. In replying to a post in a forum, one does not have an obligation to reply to every single claim that is made. I replied to one of yours.


2. In your reply to B20, you made the following claim:

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

Note that you made the claim that B20 was making an intelligent design argument "through implication" - whatever that means. Note that I can properly address that and explained some of the obvious reasons why that claim is false independently of your other claims.

Note also that validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

So, here is one of the reasons why B20's argument is not at all like an ID argument: In an ID argument, the defender of the argument proposes the existence of some entity with properties P, Q, R, which involve at least some powers and dispositions. Then he goes on to say some of the features of our universe support the hypothesis that one such entity exists and further the hypothesis that such entity created our universe. In sophisticated ID arguments, usually it is true that some of the features of our universe increases the probability one should assign to the aforementioned hypotheses, even by a large factor. However, the prior of the existence of such entity is so low that it remains very improbable even after considering such evidence. On the other hand, in B20's argument, the existence of the virologists with the required powers and dispositions can be established (i.e., probability close to 1) independently of the properties of SARS2. This is a key difference, that is independent of the two other claims you made in your reply.


Now, I have spent a lot of time replying to your charges.

Please address the points in full. Thanks.

No, thanks.
Again, there is no moral obligation or rules obligation to do that. It would take too long for me to do the research that is needed to address the other points. I just showed that your claim about the ID argument is not true, regardless of how the two other points fare.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Since you insisted so much, here's one more point of yours:

It is probably common in many other untested possible intermediate hosts on the planet. We have limited info on codon optimization relative to number of species on the planet. One alternative out of many alternatives most of which are unknown is Chinese hamster. Additionally, even if either of these is an intermediate host in the case of Chinese hamster or final host in the case of human, that doesn't necessarily connect to a gain of function experiment as opposed to recombination or evolution.

And yet, that sort of copying has not happened in any other known beta coronavirus. So, that sort of copying would seem to be rare, if it happened. Additionally, no intermediate host has been found despite two years of searching with a lot of resources. Another hypothesis is that it was designed in that manner, by an entity that we know (with probability 1 for all intents and purposes) exists, and had the powers and very probably the dispositions to make such a virus.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

1. He is not doing that, as the evidence is vastly stronger for one than the other. Purely for example, I will mentioned one big difference - but they're so different that this is merely a small example -:

In order for the existence of the universe we observe to increase the probability of design by a creator with properties P, Q, R in a significant manner - so that the ID argument works in that sense -, P, Q, R need to be specified in ways that make the prior of the existence of such creator astronomically low - so much so that the hypothesis of creation by that kind of creator remains very improbable even after considering the ID evidence. On the other hand, the probability of existence of virologists with the power to manipulate viruses is almost 1 (1 for all intents and purposes). Now if we could properly assign probability almost 1 to the existence of an entity who has the power to create universes, often does it, and really likes the very features we find in ours before we make the ID argument, i.e., before we factor in the features of our universe, then those features may very well provide the bases for a good argument to the thesis that our universe was indeed created by one such being, that is barring other difficulties that might or might not be present. But we can't - again, we can establish the existence of virologists with the relevant powers and dispositions before considering the properties of the virus that B20 mentioned.

2. Validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

No.

I recommend you read the excerpt from the paper I posted to the thread. I also recommend that you do not snip the other sections of the post I made to Bomb#20 since the ID comment was in reference to dependency on those sections in light of the specific comment referred to later, i.e. don't snip or you won't get what I was talking about since you took it out of context.

Let's review.

1. From previous post to Bomb#20, one section you snipped that is relevant to my comment: "Mutations are non-random and a single event could explain the insertion rather than conceiving it as a series of independent events."
2. From previous post to Bomb#20, the second section you snipped but that is relevant to my other comment: "It is probably common in many other untested possible intermediate hosts on the planet. We have limited info on codon optimization relative to number of species on the planet. One alternative out of many alternatives most of which are unknown is Chinese hamster. Additionally, even if either of these is an intermediate host in the case of Chinese hamster or final host in the case of human, that doesn't necessarily connect to a gain of function experiment as opposed to recombination or evolution."
3. One of several relevant quotes in the critique of Intelligent Design I posted: "The second problem with Dembski’s application is that he only tests one particular chance hypothesis and takes its rejection as evidence that all chance hypotheses can be ruled out."

First, even if you were correct on counts 1.-3., that would not make B20's argument an ID argument, as you claimed. Rather, it would make it an argument with one of the problems of ID arguments, but - for the reasons I repeatedly explained - without another one of the problems of ID arguments. So, my challenge to your claim, explaining that B20 is not making an ID argument, still would remain correct.

Second, I did not "snip" anything. I quoted the part I intended to challenge. And I challenged it successfully. But given your annoying charges, now I tackled another one of your claims. Of course, you can still accuse me of sniping because it's the second section but it does not contain the first, and your (clearly mistaken) standard for "sniping" includes anything that challenges one of your claims but not all of them.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Please do not take me out of context by snipping. Thanks.

Please do not keep falsely claiming that I take you out of context and snip. Even though you do not realize that your claim is false, you should. But since you insist, I will defend myself in greater detail.

1. In replying to a post in a forum, one does not have an obligation to reply to every single claim that is made. I replied to one of yours.


2. In your reply to B20, you made the following claim:

You are making an intelligent design argument through implication. Do you really think ID is valid?

Note that you made the claim that B20 was making an intelligent design argument "through implication" - whatever that means.

So you did not understand what that meant.

Note that I can properly address that

You did not properly address what you did not understand.

and explained some of the obvious reasons why that claim is false independently of your other claims.

You are finding something not mentioned and arguing against it instead of what was meant in context.

Note also that validity is a property of deductive arguments. ID arguments are arguments in the sense of 'arguing a case', and may or may not contain faulty logic. Some may contain only correct logic - so, no invalid arguments involved -, and terribly bad priors.

So, here is one of the reasons why B20's argument is not at all like an ID argument: In an ID argument, the defender of the argument proposes the existence of some entity with properties P, Q, R, which involve at least some powers and dispositions. Then he goes on to say some of the features of our universe support the hypothesis that one such entity exists and further the hypothesis that such entity created our universe. In sophisticated ID arguments, usually it is true that some of the features of our universe increases the probability one should assign to the aforementioned hypotheses, even by a large factor. However, the prior of the existence of such entity is so low that it remains very improbable even after considering such evidence. On the other hand, in B20's argument, the existence of the virologists with the required powers and dispositions can be established (i.e., probability close to 1) independently of the properties of SARS2. This is a key difference, that is independent of the two other claims you made in your reply.

In biological context, I am obviously not discussing a non-existent scientist since scientists exist and further in context of the rest of my post I am obviously discussing ID vs evolution, the word "evolution" even being mentioned.

Now, I have spent a lot of time replying to your charges.

Please address the points in full. Thanks.

No, thanks.
Again, there is no moral obligation or rules obligation to do that. It would take too long for me to do the research that is needed to address the other points. I just showed that your claim about the ID argument is not true, regardless of how the two other points fare.

You are prioritizing no discussion of value, just prioritizing semantic quibbling.