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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

 
 
adeleg
 
  1  
Tue 30 Aug, 2005 09:56 pm
setanta wrote:
The "usual suspects" in this thread post in a wide variety of fora, on many topics. They also make friends online, and frequently arrange to meet in person. Their tastes and interests are patently catholic. However, this site is also frequently by the likes of Miss Elsie and Miss Adele, who arrive at this thread, and post only in this thread, and having quickly deployed ridicule of others, cry bloody murder when treated in like kind. Then Miss Adele indulges in special pleading for her superstition of choice. As with those who arrive here only to post in the political forum, or the religious forum, and display an obsession with a single message, it is difficult not to conclude that such members only object in coming here was to mercilessly flog their preferred dead horse.


Well forgive me for having disturbed your online bubble, setanta. I will eventually leave you to your nice, little forum world, where people form lifelong friendships, and where most people are of such a like mind that their posts are just pats on the back to the other participants.

Checked out all the forums on this site have you? My, that's dedicated of you. I arrived at this site to post a science question, not to join the debate on ID. I happened to stumble across this topic, found it interesting and joined in. I'm sorry if I have better things to do than to post on as many forums as I can get my hands on. Posting on this one is already taking valuable time out of my schedule. If having less time to waste online than you makes it seem like I am flogging my preferred dead horse, then you are obviously still so wrapped up in your internet world that you forget that there is much life to be had away from it.
0 Replies
 
adeleg
 
  1  
Tue 30 Aug, 2005 09:57 pm
setanta wrote:
JamesMorrison wrote:
For those that feel that Intelligence Design has merit:

What would be a good description of the designer involved? Would this designer exhibit Behe's concept of Irreducible Complexity? Would this entity be some simple force or, alternately, that which manifests intelligence composed of and informed by its own complex systems, perhaps themselves irreducible? What would be this designer's nature? What exactly is the right stuff of such a designer?

JM


Good luck . . . we've never gotten an answer so far . . .


Wrong setanta, I have been very open about who I think the designer is, ever since I got here. If you care to read back over the 40 or so pages that have come up since I arrived I'm sure you will find evidence for that and answers to the above questions. Once again you don't seem to have heard anything said.
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Setanta
 
  1  
Tue 30 Aug, 2005 11:06 pm
In fact, i never asked you, Miss Adele, for a definition of the designer, and because i don't in fact "waste" as much time online as you would like to contend, no i likely did not read any post addresed to someone other than me if i were at that time pressed for time. I asked Miss Elsie point blank for a description of the implicit designer, and she refused, and feigned laughter at the question.

You suggested that i read a certain Mr. Johnson's book. I checked it out, found out who the author is, found out what foundation published the work, and then stated that i might be willing to read it if it were available online, but that i wouldn't spend my money on it. You have sneered and ridiculed ever since. You have done so just above. You deserve no sympathy.
0 Replies
 
JamesMorrison
 
  1  
Tue 30 Aug, 2005 11:46 pm
adele_g

Nice to hear from you. I have specifically asked for a definition of a designer but would be happy to hear about any partial definition emanating from any A2K poster. My original query follows:
Quote:
"What would be a good description of the designer involved? Would this designer exhibit Behe's concept of Irreducible Complexity? Would this entity be some simple force or, alternately, that which manifests intelligence composed of and informed by its own complex systems, perhaps themselves irreducible? What would be this designer's nature? What exactly is the right stuff of such a designer?"


Although specific answers to my questions are desired they are not totally necessary. I have been trained in orthodox Presbyterianism but other views certainly abound and it is in these I am interested. My original faith has been subjected to the slings and arrows of the real world. Forget about M. Behe's concepts. What are yours?

Respectfully,
JM
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 12:38 am
Elsie_T wrote:
If you can't remember what I am referring to, I can provide you with more information on the topic.

I don't remember reading that post. Could you please link to it, or tell me what page it is on?
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Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 12:40 am
farmerman wrote:
Quote:
I'm not sure I can live on after this devastating assault on my style. But I'll try.
Your styles ok, nothing wrong, after all who am I to criticize? I just have problems with "priesthoods" no matter what sect or subject they confess.

Well, this priest hereby forgibes you for your blasphemy against him. Murphy bless you.
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Elsie T
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 02:47 am
Quote:
1.) The Stanley Miller Experiment: Miller in 1953 conducted an experiment by reproducing the atmosphere of early earth and he subsequently produced amino acids. The only problem here is, Miller chose a hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia and water vapor as the make up of the atmosphere, a combination which all scientists reject now. The current hypothesis is that the early atmosphere consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. An experiment using these chemicals produces not amino acids, but formaldehyde and cyanide (or embalming fluid!)

2) Ernst Haeckel's drawings of embryos: This biologist juxtaposed drawings of an embryonic fish, salamander, tortoise, chick, hog, calf, rabbit and human showing that they were all strikingly similar at early stages of development. Obviously this would show evidence of universal ancestry. Unfortunately, however, Haeckel actually used the same woodcut to print embryos from different classes because he was so confident of his theory that he didn't have to draw them separately. He was exposed in the 1860's for this fraud, however, these drawings apparently still appear in high school textbooks today. Haeckel also stacked the deck by choosing examples that happen to be more similar (ie. a salamander instead of a frog for the amphibian class). The other problem is that Haeckel misrepresented the stage of development- the embryos were at mid-point development (in which embryos tend to look similar anyway)- directly contrary to his claim that all embryos have universal ancestry evident from the earliest development.

3) Java Man is actually on the cover of the 1998 edition of 'The Origin of the Species'. Dutch scientist Eugene Dubois excavated on an Indonesian Island in 1891 found bones in the riverband which he dated back half a million years. He claimed that the find represented a stage in the development of modern man from a smaller brained ancestor (ie. "the missing link between apes and humans" Martin L. Lubenow, "Bones of Contention"; Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker, 1992, p 87) However, what is not so well known is that Java man consists of nothing more than a skullcap, femur, three teeth and a great deal of imagination. In other words, evolutionists created him more out of what he should look like if Darwinism were true.


There is also the Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man, and the Nebraska man, which, I believe are still represented in textbooks?

How has the scientific community responded to these challenges and has there been any consensus as to an outcome?
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 04:22 am
Elsie_T wrote:
1.) The Stanley Miller Experiment: Miller in 1953 conducted an experiment by reproducing the atmosphere of early earth and he subsequently produced amino acids. The only problem here is, Miller chose a hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia and water vapor as the make up of the atmosphere, a combination which all scientists reject now. The current hypothesis is that the early atmosphere consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. An experiment using these chemicals produces not amino acids, but formaldehyde and cyanide (or embalming fluid!)

Before the Stanley Miller experiment, there apparently was a widespread presumption. According to it, it was impossible in principle that amino acids could have been produced from inorganic matter in any chemical reaction that would occur without something intelligent in charge. Miller's experiment refuted that presumption. The observations made on re-running the experiment with an atmosphere of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor don't revise the refutation of this broad claim. Stanley Miller may also have made a more specific claim for all I know. (I haven't read his paper.) He may have claimed that his mechanism simulated the way amino acids actually emerged historically. If he did, the revised experiment you describe would refute that specific claim. But it wouldn't prove that abiogenesis is impossible, and it would say nothing about other possible ways in which abiogenesis could have happened. Indeed, several other pathways have been proposed in the meantime, and the most likely candidates today do not depend on any specific assumptions Miller implicitly made about the primeval soup's ingredients.

Elsie_T wrote:
2) Ernst Haeckel's drawings of embryos: [...] He was exposed in the 1860's for this fraud, however, these drawings apparently still appear in high school textbooks today.

I haven't carefully followed the history of what Haeckel did, so I don't know that he actually engaged in fraud. But for the sake of the argument, I'll assume that he did -- especially since talkorigins.org confirms your account. The next question, then, is how that affects our view of what actually happens. How does the picture change if you correct for the fraud and use photographs instead of drawings? As best I remember, photographs are what appeared in my high school textbooks, and they make the same point just as impressively. It is possible, of course, that Haeckel's drawings are still used because they are pretty or something. If so, that would prove that some editors of biology textbooks are lazy and sloppy, but not that the underlying observation about embryology is false.

Elsie_T wrote:
3) Java Man is actually on the cover of the 1998 edition of 'The Origin of the Species'. [...] However, what is not so well known is that Java man consists of nothing more than a skullcap, femur, three teeth and a great deal of imagination. In other words, evolutionists created him more out of what he should look like if Darwinism were true.

The Origin of Species isn't copyrighted anymore. Anyone can republish it and hundreds of people have, so there is no such thing as "the" 1998 edition. The fact that one out of several hundred editors made a stupid mistake is not troubling to me. I cannot comment too sepcifically on the substance because I am not familiar with the historic details about Java man. Two points though: For one, a common creationist claim about him is that he was a gibbon, while the standard scientific literature came to see him as a modern human fairly soon. (A similar but much more complete skeleton was discovered on Java in the 1930s.) Point one is that a scullcap, a femur and three teeth are enough to tell the difference between a human and a gibbon forensically. Second point: The story, as best I can make out, shows that darwinist excavators sometimes misattribute a fossil, and that the editors of darwinist books can be as lazy and careless as everybody else. It also shows that Java man, contrary to what Dubois said, was not a common ancestor of modern apes and modern humans. It does not show that modern apes and modern humans have no common ancestor.

Elsie_T wrote:
There is also the Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man, and the Nebraska man, which, I believe are still represented in textbooks?

I have not read every textbook in the world, so I'll restrain myself to talking about the one I was assigned in high school in the 1980s. As I remember it, Nebraska man was not mentioned, Piltdown man was mentioned as a fraud, and Neanderthal Man was discussed as a close relative of modern man, but one that had consistent systematic differences with our species. If I had to write a textbook, I would do nothing radically different.

Elsie_T wrote:
How has the scientific community responded to these challenges and has there been any consensus as to an outcome?

The answer varies from case to case, so I can't give you a one-size-fits-all reply. I'll just say that while talkorigins.org is not peer-reviewed, it usually gives a very accurate account of the scientific communities position on the subjects you brought up, if it has one. I warmly recommend searching it.
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Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 06:07 am
georgeob1 wrote:
Interesting point about the variable potential of genetic engineering. I agree that natural selection can be a very efficient process for optimization, but suggest that often the factors we wish to optimize for food production, or even decorative plants, do not generally coincide with the goals of nature. So much has been achieved in the pre genetic engineering hybridization of food crops and even recently in the development oif disease resistant and herbicide resistant food crops that I find this point of Thomas' a bit remarkable. Could you elaborate?

Well, in the specific incident I reported, the issue was the yield of photosynthesis -- ATP molecules produced per photon absorbed, or something like this. This is a feature for which natural selection has been optimizing for billions of years, so it was fairly obvious to a biologist -- but not necessarily to a physicist -- that there isn't much left for genetical engineers to optimize here. I agree, of course, that this argument is much weaker, and the case for genetic engineering much stronger, for features that humans have been wanting for a much shorter period of time. But even so, the engineering often amounts to re-installing features that had been in the wild type of the plant in question, but had been breeded out of the domesticated version. For example, quite a few agricultural plants used to have their own herbicides and lost them through selective breeding.
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Setanta
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 06:20 am
As i've already noted, its my experience that history texts for secondary schools contain egregious errors consistently. I rather suspect that those competent to judge in mathematics would have the same thing to say, as would English grammarians, etc. Knowing of the many silly errors in texts, i would hardly recommend, for example, that as there are errors present in an American history text for secondary schools, we ought then include Parson Weems' silly stories about Washington and the cherry tree, or his allegedly throwing a dollar completely across the Potomac (he was too thrifty for that, anyway).

How very silly to suggest that the presence of one alleged set of errors should somehow authorize knowingly advancing a second set.
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blatham
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 06:47 am
georgeob1 wrote:
Thomas wrote:

Does Canada have religion classes or something like it? I'm wondering where America's extreme polarization on this issue comes from. And I'm speculating that maybe American creationists are dwelling on the fact that metaphysics and the limits of science are worth teaching in school, but American schools have no straightforward framework for teaching it in. Maybe that's why Americans get the full program of creationist activism, while the rest of the world gets only "murmurings", as goodfielder puts it.


I believe Thomas' speculation above is exactly correct. It is far too easy and comforting to assume that "IDers" are necessarily stupid and unlettered. The assumption is not only wrong, but one likely to lead the smug and complacent self-appointed supporters of "science" to serious error.

The rhetorical battles here are usually fought exclusively on the specific ground of biological evolution, ignoring the fact that, in our school system, nothing at all is offered to put the science of biology and evolution in an accurate philosophical context. This leaves the consumers of public education with a de facto indoctrination of their children in a secular materialism that many do not accept and will not tolerate. That is quite obviously the central issue in the public debate, and attempts to deflect it exclusively to the matter of biological evolution lead only to endless dispute, as has amply been demonstrated on this thread.

Lola & Setanta have suggested that my focus on this aspect of things is a manifestation of my "one note" obsession with a supposed secular humanist conspiracy. I don't think there is a conspiracy afoot, but I do believe the manifestation of a world view currently fashionable among the self-appointed elites of the public policy world, combined with the growing proscriptive intrusiveness of government in the affairs of the people, has created this unhappy situation. We should recognize it for what it is and respect the determination of the people to resist government imposed indoctrination in such matters. I have little doubt that the adoption of some grounding of science in the philosophic or metaphysical context in which it properly resides, would defuse most of this conflict. I am equally certain that those same public policy elites would resist this ferociously. .



I'm badly behind here, but...

I think thomas' question points us in the wrong direction. It's probably more helpful to think of American schools not as causal in American religiosity and polarization but rather that American schools simply reflect that particular national religiosity and polarization. There are historical reasons for this (and for differences with Canada) and you might turn to Hofstadter for thorough explication, but I'm betting you won't. Protestant evangelical activism (of a relatively poorly educated and theologically unsophisticated sort) has played a role in US history of far greater significance and consequence than in Canada (or England or Europe).

A proponent of some theistic element in the universe does NOT have to be stupid, unthoughtful, or unlettered. There's a lot of sophisticated thought on this question going back even further than christian history. But very little of it has emerged from out of the American protestant tradition. Who here can even name an American protestant theologian of any stature? And if someone names, say, Plantinga, then what following can one point to? The reality of American religious thought sits us down in the company of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and others of the same sort, some better, such as Grapham, but many even less agreeable than those named.

The tradition has been anti-school/education in the main. The cliches and dichotomies we see in modern rhetoric (universities are elitist, feminine, non-practical, and probably destructive to the social good; the simple man is closer to god; etc) are found in American religious writing, ubiquitously, from the very beginning of the nation's history. Can any of us see a phenomenon like the "End Days" theology as popular or ascendant as it is in modern America happening in any other western country?
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blatham
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 06:57 am
thomas
Quote:
Based on this experience, I strongly suspect that most agnostics trust evolutionary biology for the same reason most evangelicals trust creationism: because the authorities they respect tell them to.


There is surely merit in this argument. And it is the reason why I would wish our school systems (US and Canada at least) to raise the demands they make on students as regards study on philosophy generally and epistemology specifically. At the level of the community or the local school, that a hard case to make convincing what with all the other tasks the schools have set for them, but it is certainly the way I'd design curricula if I was king.
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adeleg
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 07:13 am
setanta wrote:
You suggested that i read a certain Mr. Johnson's book. I checked it out, found out who the author is, found out what foundation published the work, and then stated that i might be willing to read it if it were available online, but that i wouldn't spend my money on it. You have sneered and ridiculed ever since. You have done so just above. You deserve no sympathy


Don't try to feign innocence setanta, I never suggested you read anything. I suggested that Lola read the book. You jumped in with this:

setanta wrote:
You just found it? You mean you just went to the IDer wellsprings and dug up something you think will seem to have scholarly credentials to underpin your silly arguments?


Correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds a lot like ridicule to me, and if my tone of writing to you ever since that has been less than jovial, perhaps you can understand why. I never picked a fight with you setanta, if anything, you picked one with me.

setanta wrote:
no i likely did not read any post addresed to someone other than me if i were at that time pressed for time


You know what, I don't think I ever intentionally engaged in conversation with you setanta. The only times I have replied to you have been when you comment on my posts to other people, and more recently your comments about me to other people.
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adeleg
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 07:15 am
James Morrison wrote:
adele_g

Nice to hear from you. I have specifically asked for a definition of a designer but would be happy to hear about any partial definition emanating from any A2K poster. My original query follows:

Quote:
"What would be a good description of the designer involved? Would this designer exhibit Behe's concept of Irreducible Complexity? Would this entity be some simple force or, alternately, that which manifests intelligence composed of and informed by its own complex systems, perhaps themselves irreducible? What would be this designer's nature? What exactly is the right stuff of such a designer?"


Although specific answers to my questions are desired they are not totally necessary. I have been trained in orthodox Presbyterianism but other views certainly abound and it is in these I am interested. My original faith has been subjected to the slings and arrows of the real world. Forget about M. Behe's concepts. What are yours?

Respectfully,
JM


JM,

Understand of course that what I tell you is wholly my own opinions on the matter. I do not claim to represent the ID community, in fact many ID'ers would disagree with me on many things. Forgive me if I say things you already know- having being trained in orthodox presbyterianism.

My description of the designer would be the God of the Bible. In order to be God, he would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere (omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent), eternal and perfect. (Being perfect does not mean that he has to do everything that we humans perceive to be right or just, because we cannot see the bigger picture. Instead it means that all of his decisions are for the greater good, whether we can see what that is or not.) He is unlimited by space or time because he is bodiless and eternal.

Being omnipotent, he can create things, yes, in whatever way he chooses. I believe the literal interpretation of the Bible that he created Earth in seven days, but many of my good friends believe that he chose to create the earth slowly by allowing evolutionary processes to occur. I don't know which of us is right, but I'm sure someday we'll know for sure.
I believe that God holds the workings of the universe in order, the laws of physics, our existence, the workings of the Earth and that it is only by his will that our existence is sustained.

It says in the Bible that he made us in his image, therefore I believe that he holds characteristics similar to that of humans. However humans are not perfect. In order for humans to have free choice, we must have equivalent desires to do evil as we have desires to do good, otherwise our free choice would be off-balance. So in order to create something for the greater good- free choice- evil also had to be created, or the choice wouldn't exist.

As for whether the designer would exhibit Behe's concept, I believe so. Due to my literal interpretation of the Bible, I don't believe that evolution is the way that life emerged, thus as the Creator formed each part of the cell's structures he would not have been inhibited by the need for each part to emerge one by one according to the theory of natural selection. So Behe's irreducibly complex components could easily have been created by the Creator.

adele_g
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 07:35 am
elsie wrote:
Quote:
There is also the Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man, and the Nebraska man, which, I believe are still represented in textbooks?


These questions don't inspire confidence in your familiarity with the science and research/hypotheses in human origins which you criticize.

Piltdown man has been understood to be (and acknowledged in textbooks to be) a hoax since about the mid 1950s. As is the case with thomas, I'd never heard of "Nebraska Man" at all and had to google it (some data here). Neanderthalensis is, for sure, a feature of modern human origins study and education but there is no reason is shouldn't be - as a distinct lineage of homo sapiens.
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Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 07:41 am
blatham wrote:
George, quoting me wrote:

Does Canada have religion classes or something like it?

I think thomas' question points us in the wrong direction.

Maybe it does, but you just reminded me that nobody seems to have answered it yet. Would you mind giving it a try?

blatham wrote:
It's probably more helpful to think of American schools not as causal in American religiosity and polarization but rather that American schools simply reflect that particular national religiosity and polarization.

I see the two propositions as describing a hen-and-egg cycle, rather than as mutually exclusive. One thing the study of evolution does to you is that you begin to see autocatalytic reactions everywhere, including in this case.

blatham wrote:
A proponent of some theistic element in the universe does NOT have to be stupid, unthoughtful, or unlettered. There's a lot of sophisticated thought on this question going back even further than christian history. But very little of it has emerged from out of the American protestant tradition. Who here can even name an American protestant theologian of any stature?


I admit I do not know them by their names, but to misquote Matthew 7:16, I do know them by their fruits. I observe that most Ivy League colleges on the East Coast were founded by some church for the main purpose of studying theology. Therefore I doubt that American Christians were intellectually impotent just because I don't know their names.

blatham wrote:
The tradition has been anti-school/education in the main. The cliches and dichotomies we see in modern rhetoric (universities are elitist, feminine, non-practical, and probably destructive to the social good; the simple man is closer to god; etc) are found in American religious writing, ubiquitously, from the very beginning of the nation's history.

Yes. And I have to confess that their anti-authoritarianism is one of the very few features that endear America's Evangelicals to me.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 08:38 am
Adele gave an honest answer to the definition of designer question. I would also appreciate positive or negative comments (from anyone) on the following statement:
In order for biological intelligent design theory to be considered science, there must first be an objective method that can significantly differentiate a designed organism from an organism that evolved through natural processes.
0 Replies
 
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 09:10 am
blatham wrote:
thomas
Quote:
Based on this experience, I strongly suspect that most agnostics trust evolutionary biology for the same reason most evangelicals trust creationism: because the authorities they respect tell them to.


There is surely merit in this argument.


If there is...it is so miniscule it is not worth considering.


Fact is, I suspect neither you nor Thomas knows how pervasive trust in evolutionary biology is in agnostics...which makes the conclusions about why "most" of them do.
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Thomas
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 09:22 am
Frank Apisa wrote:
Fact is, I suspect neither you nor Thomas knows how pervasive trust in evolutionary biology is in agnostics....

I don't. That's why I said: "I strongly suspect". There really is no weakness in admitting I don't know something, so I have no trouble doing it. But of course you wouldn't understand...
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Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Wed 31 Aug, 2005 09:29 am
Thomas wrote:
Frank Apisa wrote:
Fact is, I suspect neither you nor Thomas knows how pervasive trust in evolutionary biology is in agnostics....

I don't. That's why I said: "I strongly suspect". There really is no weakness in admitting I don't know something, so I have no trouble doing it. But of course you wouldn't understand...


I understand quite well, Thomas. And I also used the word "suspect."

But that particular bit of nonsense from you is garbage. It didn't add anything to your arguments...and was apparently offered only in the form of a gratuitous insult.

Bernie simply added to the nonsense with his comment.

I think both of you are so far off base...trying to get you back on would be worthless.
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