It is amazing to see how little a person will pick up despite taking part in these 'debates' for so long. Of course, when the person is Warren Bergerson (aka 'Lifeengineer') - retired actuary and expert on all things, even thiose he knows nothgin about - I guess it makes a little more sense.
Read this thread.
I don't think I need to add any commentary, for Bergerson's sheer stupidity speaks fior itself.
But I did like this claim:
"... A small genetic change may be correlated with a large morphological change, but there is absolutely no evidence the small genetic change can cause the change. If I change an order for Boeing 727 to a Boeing 747, there may be a huge morphological change, but that does not mean the change from a 2 to a 4 causes a massive change in the airplane. Biologists are well aware of extremely complex changes in assembly processes associated with even small morphological changes. The fact that they intentionally ignore the evidence for the complexity of the changes and substitute a completely silly fairytale tells far more about the nature and behavior of academic biology than it does about evolutionary changes. ..."
If you are unfamiliar with Bergerson's schtick - well, he has a couple of schticks, ranging from his claim to have "disproven Darwinism" by using actuarial math (it turns out he never actually did the math, he just "knew" what the outcome would be), to his belief in some 'life force' that actually controls molecular interactions.
But the schtick of the day is his belief - insistence - that any change to an organism, no matter how inconsequential, requires "millions of changes" in order to occur. He claims that because a change, say, in a developmental gene might cause a morphological change via a series of events (which he does not believe can actually occur despite being provided with exmples- of course because he claims that any published science that supports Darwinism is intentionally misleading and fraudulent), that each subsequent change also had to be 'designed', and so the change in, say, a limb requires millions of such chances, rather than the reality-based explanation that a change in a developmental regulatory gene produces a cascade of events that result in the change(s).
Wow...
Monday, February 05, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
The "logic" of the creationist computer technician
I came across this little exchange that I had written about a year or two ago and done nothing with.
It chronicles/summarizes the discussion between a poster at the ARN discussion board, "Nobody" (who also happens to be Moderator 6 on that board - known for his heavy-handed anti-evolutionist censorship - and who may actually be one Bruce Fast.
It is a very revealing exchange for a couple of reasons. One, it shows the extreme inflexibility and dogmatism of the creationist, and two, it demonstrates the shallowness with which non-scientist creationists think.
Cut and pasted from my original write up (NOTE* most of the links no longer work as ARN tends to re-tool its software every year or two and they change all their URLs, in my cynical view, in order to prevent people form searching/linking to the ridiculous claims made there by anti-evolutionists):
*****
Here, following exchange took place:
Nobody, quoting Albert Einstein:
But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding.
‘Pixie’ responds:
Very true
Nobody replies:
Does this mean you now see design in life?
A little background:
‘Nobody’, who is also ‘Moderator 6’ at that site, is a computer programmer of some sort whose claims to fame are as follows:
1. Apparently doing keyword searches in Science news outlets for terms like ‘unexpected’, 'surprised’, ‘machine’, ‘amazing’, etc., posting snippets from the articles he gets, bolding the terms, and rarely, if ever, providing any sort of commentary (a few examples). Apparently, Nobody thinks that if a science-related press release has the words ‘unexpected’, etc. in it, it is bad news for evolution. Entertainingly, the articles often explain just the opposite – but he is no biologist, and cannot understand that, and when this uncomfortable fact is explained to him, he ignores it and repeats slogans.
2. Insisting that DNA is just like computer code, and via absurd extrapolation, that DNA therefore is designed [by God]. He is utterly unyielding on this child-like belief, and even employs it ass a mantra/slogan (for which he was once chastised for using by a fellow creationist, see last post).
Anyway, it went on:
Pixie:
No. It means aspire towards truth and understanding.
Nobody:
Ah. That's what I thought. So, to make sure I understand your position, you aspire towards truth and understanding while simultaneously denying the design of life. Right?
Now, it starts to get revealing:
Pixie:
I suspect your position is based on the dogmatic assumption that life is designed, and therefore anyone aspiring to truth and understanding must necessarily also believe life is designed. I guess that because this is an article of faith you do not entertain the possibility that life was not designed. You are perhaps thinking that I am equally dogmatic in my insistence that there is no design. I think not (but feel free to look for posts that suggest otherwise). It always makes he laugh when I read IDists trumpeting about how they are being open-minded. See for example, Teleologcal Blog, with the byline "Detecting Design and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds". As your post shows, open minds are antithetical to the ID position.
A few of Nobody’s pals then tried to help him out. But Nobody came back to the fray:
Nobody:
Even some evolutionists have admitted there is design. I was just wondering, after your extended stay here, if you had finally reached that first step. I see you still haven't.
Humble, these folks are not…
Pixie is then accused of being “dogmatic.” Nobody’s defender is shot down:
Myrmecos:
The short exchange between Pixie and Nobody in the first three posts on this thread indicate that Pixie's interpretation is correct, and yours is not. Nobody's quip "this means you now see the design in life?", offered as if it were the necessary conclusion of truth and understanding, indicates that nobody is unwilling to see any non-design position as valid. Hence, his is the more dogmatic position.
After a few more exchanges, Myrmecos writes:
1. I'd be much more open to the designist position if they'd actually make a positive argument,
2. So, why isn't anyone doing it?
To which our hero Nobody replies:
1. Advanced programming only comes from an advanced programmer. Is that positive enough?
2. It's being done every day. The HGP spent billions of dollars trying to understand the programming of life. What they found out is the we have only scratched the surface.
Poor fellow. He tries so hard – and if you read the things he writes, he really really thinks he is right!
But Myrmecos has to spoil the party:
No, it's circular. You assume your conclusion ("life has a programmer") in your premise ("life shows programming").
Do you think Nobody will get it?
Nahhhhhh……..
It chronicles/summarizes the discussion between a poster at the ARN discussion board, "Nobody" (who also happens to be Moderator 6 on that board - known for his heavy-handed anti-evolutionist censorship - and who may actually be one Bruce Fast.
It is a very revealing exchange for a couple of reasons. One, it shows the extreme inflexibility and dogmatism of the creationist, and two, it demonstrates the shallowness with which non-scientist creationists think.
Cut and pasted from my original write up (NOTE* most of the links no longer work as ARN tends to re-tool its software every year or two and they change all their URLs, in my cynical view, in order to prevent people form searching/linking to the ridiculous claims made there by anti-evolutionists):
*****
Here, following exchange took place:
Nobody, quoting Albert Einstein:
But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding.
‘Pixie’ responds:
Very true
Nobody replies:
Does this mean you now see design in life?
A little background:
‘Nobody’, who is also ‘Moderator 6’ at that site, is a computer programmer of some sort whose claims to fame are as follows:
1. Apparently doing keyword searches in Science news outlets for terms like ‘unexpected’, 'surprised’, ‘machine’, ‘amazing’, etc., posting snippets from the articles he gets, bolding the terms, and rarely, if ever, providing any sort of commentary (a few examples). Apparently, Nobody thinks that if a science-related press release has the words ‘unexpected’, etc. in it, it is bad news for evolution. Entertainingly, the articles often explain just the opposite – but he is no biologist, and cannot understand that, and when this uncomfortable fact is explained to him, he ignores it and repeats slogans.
2. Insisting that DNA is just like computer code, and via absurd extrapolation, that DNA therefore is designed [by God]. He is utterly unyielding on this child-like belief, and even employs it ass a mantra/slogan (for which he was once chastised for using by a fellow creationist, see last post).
Anyway, it went on:
Pixie:
No. It means aspire towards truth and understanding.
Nobody:
Ah. That's what I thought. So, to make sure I understand your position, you aspire towards truth and understanding while simultaneously denying the design of life. Right?
Now, it starts to get revealing:
Pixie:
I suspect your position is based on the dogmatic assumption that life is designed, and therefore anyone aspiring to truth and understanding must necessarily also believe life is designed. I guess that because this is an article of faith you do not entertain the possibility that life was not designed. You are perhaps thinking that I am equally dogmatic in my insistence that there is no design. I think not (but feel free to look for posts that suggest otherwise). It always makes he laugh when I read IDists trumpeting about how they are being open-minded. See for example, Teleologcal Blog, with the byline "Detecting Design and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds". As your post shows, open minds are antithetical to the ID position.
A few of Nobody’s pals then tried to help him out. But Nobody came back to the fray:
Nobody:
Even some evolutionists have admitted there is design. I was just wondering, after your extended stay here, if you had finally reached that first step. I see you still haven't.
Humble, these folks are not…
Pixie is then accused of being “dogmatic.” Nobody’s defender is shot down:
Myrmecos:
The short exchange between Pixie and Nobody in the first three posts on this thread indicate that Pixie's interpretation is correct, and yours is not. Nobody's quip "this means you now see the design in life?", offered as if it were the necessary conclusion of truth and understanding, indicates that nobody is unwilling to see any non-design position as valid. Hence, his is the more dogmatic position.
After a few more exchanges, Myrmecos writes:
1. I'd be much more open to the designist position if they'd actually make a positive argument,
2. So, why isn't anyone doing it?
To which our hero Nobody replies:
1. Advanced programming only comes from an advanced programmer. Is that positive enough?
2. It's being done every day. The HGP spent billions of dollars trying to understand the programming of life. What they found out is the we have only scratched the surface.
Poor fellow. He tries so hard – and if you read the things he writes, he really really thinks he is right!
But Myrmecos has to spoil the party:
No, it's circular. You assume your conclusion ("life has a programmer") in your premise ("life shows programming").
Do you think Nobody will get it?
Nahhhhhh……..
Friday, January 26, 2007
Most ironic blog post title of the year
The award goes to:
Bill "Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski for his blog post titled -
When Arrogance and Stupidity Collide
Because I sort of thought arrogance and stupidity in combination are required of those taking part in the 'conversations' over at his blog and in all of his writings...
I mean, it seems pretty evidence if one actually reads any of the garbage those people write.
Bill "Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski for his blog post titled -
When Arrogance and Stupidity Collide
Because I sort of thought arrogance and stupidity in combination are required of those taking part in the 'conversations' over at his blog and in all of his writings...
I mean, it seems pretty evidence if one actually reads any of the garbage those people write.
Davescot (David Springer) - hardcore Marine... well, sort of... not really...
I'm not a psychiatrist. Nor a psychologist. I did take about 12 credits worth of psychology classes in college, but I still don't think I have any special insights into the psyches and mental activities of those around me.
But you don't need to be a psychiatrist to see superiority complexes in action. Nor do you need to be a mental health therapist to see a hint of the similar megalomania in someone. Nor do you need to have a college degree in anything to see utter, rank hypocrisy in someone, or to observe any number of logical fallacies being ignorantly trotted out in support of one's position. Luckily for us, you can see all of these unsavory characteristics in a single specimen. Heck, you can see all four in a single one of Davescot's (David Springer) blog posts.
Ed Brayton and his commenters at "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" do a great job at dismantling the sheer stupidity and the aforementioned neuroses/psychoses/antisocial behaviors, so I will not belabor the details. I will simply make a few comments.
For those of you who lack the stomach to trudge through the histrionics and soliphistic nonsense at UncommonDescent (like me), I will sum up DaveScot's post thusly:
In true Davescot fashion, after a couple of highly insightful and devastating comments directed at and showing Davescot's ignorance, all commments were deleted (see reference to Mike Dunford's post at 'Dispatches...' link above) and comments are no longer allowed for that post.
Here is what gets me - if Springer is telling the truth and he was in the Marines in the mid 1970s, he's been out for about 30 years. GET OVER IT. If the Corps is so 'beloved' to him, as he so frequently writes, why serve the minimum time? Why not stay in for life? I find it a bit disturbing that someone that served that long ago STILL refers to himself as a Marine. I served as an army paratrooper from 1984-1988. I am proud of my service, and as an associate professor at a military college, I am authorized to wear any ribbons/decorations I earned while I served and I do. But I do not run around referring to myself as a paratrooper. I do not declare that only those with military experience can voice opinions on military matters*.
And to reiterate - Springer had no combat experience, Jim Webb did. So why does Springer's opinions have more weight than a combat veteran's? Well, re-read the second paragraph above, and it will make sense.
The highly ironic side of this is that, as is pointed out in the 'Dispatches...' link above, Springer, who has no education, training, or experience in the biological sciences whatsoever (in fact, he claims that one can learn biology 'on their own' in their free time) sees no problem with his own pontifications on the subject.
That is because, of course, he cannot recognize his own shortcomings.
For more insight into Davescot's psyche and antics, try this.
Or this.
And keep in mind, this is the fella that Bill Dembski not once, but twice hand-picked to essentially run his blog for him.
I guess we should not be surprised - the DI crowd has also enlisted the services of the Public Relations firm that brought us the Swiftboating of John Kerry...
Also, for a sort of on-going commentary on the antics of Springer and Uncommon Descent denizens in general (starting with commentary on Springer's silly military experience post), see this.
*I have commented previously that I find it disturbing that there are those - almost exclusively conservative republicans - who advocate military action, such as invading Iraq and Iran (and Syria) yet have no intention of serving in the military themselves. But that is hardly the same thing as claiming that those without military experience should not even comment on issues pertianing to the military.
But you don't need to be a psychiatrist to see superiority complexes in action. Nor do you need to be a mental health therapist to see a hint of the similar megalomania in someone. Nor do you need to have a college degree in anything to see utter, rank hypocrisy in someone, or to observe any number of logical fallacies being ignorantly trotted out in support of one's position. Luckily for us, you can see all of these unsavory characteristics in a single specimen. Heck, you can see all four in a single one of Davescot's (David Springer) blog posts.
Ed Brayton and his commenters at "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" do a great job at dismantling the sheer stupidity and the aforementioned neuroses/psychoses/antisocial behaviors, so I will not belabor the details. I will simply make a few comments.
For those of you who lack the stomach to trudge through the histrionics and soliphistic nonsense at UncommonDescent (like me), I will sum up DaveScot's post thusly:
Jim Webb, freshman senator (who delivered the Democrastic response to the State of the Union address), Viet Nam combat Veteran (Marine Corps), is in no position to pass judgement on the "new" Bush policy in Iraq because he, Davescot, was a Marine (supposedly) without combat experience and he knows what is best in terms of combat. Further, he says that those without military experience should not comment on any of this stuff.
In true Davescot fashion, after a couple of highly insightful and devastating comments directed at and showing Davescot's ignorance, all commments were deleted (see reference to Mike Dunford's post at 'Dispatches...' link above) and comments are no longer allowed for that post.
Here is what gets me - if Springer is telling the truth and he was in the Marines in the mid 1970s, he's been out for about 30 years. GET OVER IT. If the Corps is so 'beloved' to him, as he so frequently writes, why serve the minimum time? Why not stay in for life? I find it a bit disturbing that someone that served that long ago STILL refers to himself as a Marine. I served as an army paratrooper from 1984-1988. I am proud of my service, and as an associate professor at a military college, I am authorized to wear any ribbons/decorations I earned while I served and I do. But I do not run around referring to myself as a paratrooper. I do not declare that only those with military experience can voice opinions on military matters*.
And to reiterate - Springer had no combat experience, Jim Webb did. So why does Springer's opinions have more weight than a combat veteran's? Well, re-read the second paragraph above, and it will make sense.
The highly ironic side of this is that, as is pointed out in the 'Dispatches...' link above, Springer, who has no education, training, or experience in the biological sciences whatsoever (in fact, he claims that one can learn biology 'on their own' in their free time) sees no problem with his own pontifications on the subject.
That is because, of course, he cannot recognize his own shortcomings.
For more insight into Davescot's psyche and antics, try this.
Or this.
And keep in mind, this is the fella that Bill Dembski not once, but twice hand-picked to essentially run his blog for him.
I guess we should not be surprised - the DI crowd has also enlisted the services of the Public Relations firm that brought us the Swiftboating of John Kerry...
Also, for a sort of on-going commentary on the antics of Springer and Uncommon Descent denizens in general (starting with commentary on Springer's silly military experience post), see this.
*I have commented previously that I find it disturbing that there are those - almost exclusively conservative republicans - who advocate military action, such as invading Iraq and Iran (and Syria) yet have no intention of serving in the military themselves. But that is hardly the same thing as claiming that those without military experience should not even comment on issues pertianing to the military.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Jon Wells' Spiritual Leader - conservative crook, right-wing propagandist
This is incredible...
Now THERE is a guy that deserves to be called Father...
Though best known as the founder of the Unification Church, Moon, now 86,
has long worked with right-wing political forces linked to organized crime and
international drug smuggling, including the Japanese yakuza gangs and South
American cocaine traffickers.
Now THERE is a guy that deserves to be called Father...
Why the need to embellish?
Over here, bachelor's prepared electronics engineer* creationist Joe G. engages in some standard creationist tactics - the one I document below its the tried and true embellishment of one's hero's credentials in an effort to make arguments based on their claims more impressive and irreproachable.
In a discussion on the nested hierarchy as seen in the phylogeny of living things, Joe writes:
What is he an authortiy in? An expert? Here is what Denton's own CV[1] says his areas of expertise are [I have left in only the description for his work in human genetics for to leave it as only a title would invite unwarranted embellishment and exteapolation from Denton acolytes]:
Cell Differentiation:The differentiation of the red blood cell
Pharmacology: The pharmacokinetics of amoxycillin and paracetamol
Human Genetics
I commenced working in the field of human genetics in 1984.[NOTE - his first book came out in 1986] My major research interest and aim since then has been to locate and identify the genes responsible for the various inherited retinal degenerations in man - a heterogeneous set of diseases which cause severe visual disability in 20 million people world wide. The two types of retinal degeneration which have been the main focus of my work have been the X linked and the autosomal recessive type of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). As a result of my efforts in this area, several new RP genes have been identified and this has added substantially to our knowledge of the genetics of retinal disease. Other genetic diseases I have studied include - autosomal dominant RP, X linked Megalocornea, Lebers Optic Atrophy, Blepharphimosis, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Since 1986, I have authored and co-authored over 50 papers in the field.
X linked retinitis pigmentosa
Autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa
Autosomal dominant RP, X linked Megalocornea, Lebers Optic Atrophy
Blepharophimosis, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Complex genetic mental disorders
Odd - I see nothing there regarding evolution, phylogenetics, etc.
What Joe G. has produced is what Jon Sarfati (ironically) likes to label the argumentum ad verecundiam, more commonly known as the argument from false authority.
Add to the fact that nothing in Denton's professional history qualifies him as an expert in any of the relevant material mentioned in the discussion at the linked blog (nor in anything he wrote about in his anti-Darwin books) is the fact that his book was thoroughly trashed by ACTUAL experts on the subjects he discusses, and in fact, his sections on phylogenetics were horribly naive and uninformed[2].
This is standard creationist antics. Embellishing the credentials of one of your propagandists and systematically denigrating the actual credentials of those with a contrary opinion.
[1]http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:baoLA8KHcyYJ:www.templeton.org/biochem-finetuning/papers/denton_cv.doc+Michael+Denton+CV&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7
[2] just one example: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/denton.html#ghiselin
*I only mention this because at one time, Joe G. was claiming that because he had a bachelors of science degree, he should be considered a scientist...
In a discussion on the nested hierarchy as seen in the phylogeny of living things, Joe writes:
OK wait- we have Zachriel, the non-authority, non-expert, and non-scientist saying:
[...]
And we have Dr Denton, authority, expert and scientist saying:
What is he an authortiy in? An expert? Here is what Denton's own CV[1] says his areas of expertise are [I have left in only the description for his work in human genetics for to leave it as only a title would invite unwarranted embellishment and exteapolation from Denton acolytes]:
Cell Differentiation:The differentiation of the red blood cell
Pharmacology: The pharmacokinetics of amoxycillin and paracetamol
Human Genetics
I commenced working in the field of human genetics in 1984.[NOTE - his first book came out in 1986] My major research interest and aim since then has been to locate and identify the genes responsible for the various inherited retinal degenerations in man - a heterogeneous set of diseases which cause severe visual disability in 20 million people world wide. The two types of retinal degeneration which have been the main focus of my work have been the X linked and the autosomal recessive type of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). As a result of my efforts in this area, several new RP genes have been identified and this has added substantially to our knowledge of the genetics of retinal disease. Other genetic diseases I have studied include - autosomal dominant RP, X linked Megalocornea, Lebers Optic Atrophy, Blepharphimosis, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Since 1986, I have authored and co-authored over 50 papers in the field.
X linked retinitis pigmentosa
Autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa
Autosomal dominant RP, X linked Megalocornea, Lebers Optic Atrophy
Blepharophimosis, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Complex genetic mental disorders
Odd - I see nothing there regarding evolution, phylogenetics, etc.
What Joe G. has produced is what Jon Sarfati (ironically) likes to label the argumentum ad verecundiam, more commonly known as the argument from false authority.
Add to the fact that nothing in Denton's professional history qualifies him as an expert in any of the relevant material mentioned in the discussion at the linked blog (nor in anything he wrote about in his anti-Darwin books) is the fact that his book was thoroughly trashed by ACTUAL experts on the subjects he discusses, and in fact, his sections on phylogenetics were horribly naive and uninformed[2].
This is standard creationist antics. Embellishing the credentials of one of your propagandists and systematically denigrating the actual credentials of those with a contrary opinion.
[1]http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:baoLA8KHcyYJ:www.templeton.org/biochem-finetuning/papers/denton_cv.doc+Michael+Denton+CV&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7
[2] just one example: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/denton.html#ghiselin
*I only mention this because at one time, Joe G. was claiming that because he had a bachelors of science degree, he should be considered a scientist...
Friday, January 05, 2007
"Designs'" crazy rant
‘Designs’ left this rather lengthy bit of histrionics in reply to another post. I have deleted it there, as it had little to do with the topic, and ‘Designs’ is no longer welcome to post here because of his spamming. But it is an interesting piece in that one can see the brainwashing that is apparently required in order for one to be an IDCreationist. One must apply false dichotomies, double standards, etc. It is really something to see. 'Designs' rant in a lovely lavender.
=====
*That will be news to Phil Johnson1 (“I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves”), Bill Dembski2 (“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," ), Jon Wells3 (“Father's [Rev. Moon] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism.”), and just about every pro-ID discussion board participant.*
*Fort starters, ID is not a theory. Even its ‘biggest’ advocates admit that4 (“…I cannot offer you today a fully articulated theory of biological design that does not yet exist," he [Paul Nelson]said.”).*
*Gee, why would we ever do that? See refs. 1-3.
*ID is, again, not a theory. Calling it so does not make it so, any more than referring to Bill Dembski as a ‘prominent mathematician’ makes him one5.
*Better to wildly extrapolate that because we have not seen a ‘microbe turn into a man’ that there is some mystical, unknown force driving these changes… Changes which, just coincidentally, it must be, leave their natural signatures in the genomes of living creatures…
*The above contains a number of dubious claims. First is the typical caricature of evolution held by those that are essentially ignorant of it or are motivated to misrepresent it indicating that it is ‘random.’ Certainly, part of it is random, but as one that is familiar with the basics of evolution (I am unsure what zealots like ‘Designs’ actually means by the term ‘Darwinism’) should know, the other part of it – selection - is non-random.
Second, the claim that there is no religion motivating the “pure ID theory folks” is totally bogus, first and foremost because there is not ID theory, second because even those that claim to be drawn to ID by ‘the science’ in public often let their little secrets go in less guarded moments [read any of the popular pro-ID discussion boards on the internet, and the religious motivations of those that pretend it is all about science soon become clear]. .
*Mathematical arguments? Of what possible relevance do those have? Do tell…*
*So, you are a paleontologist, too? You anti-evolutionists are amazing polymaths! Self-taught, too, I bet…*
*Even if the unsupported hyperbole that Designs spews were totally true, at best it indicates that ‘Darwinism’ – whatever that is supposed to mean – is incomplete, not ‘wrong.’ But Designs is too zealous to think rationally about these things.
*Yeah, yeah, you already posted this part of this rambling message in two or three other places, and your implication is dishonest – an eye-catchingly large number of the signatories of your much heralded list are NOT, in fact, from areas of biology at all. IN fact, there seems to be a rather large proportion of those with non-biology backgrounds.
*’Darwinian fundamentlism’? Say – that is a catchy phrase! Catchy because you already used this whole section of your rant in 2 other messages you spammed my blog with. You can’t even write blog replies that are original – what, do you have a cache of ready-made cut and pastes that you can cobble together and spam message boards with to make it appear as though you put a lot of time and effort into writing these citationless rants?
*Recall that this is the fellow that wrote:
ALL HAIL DARWIN OF THE GAPS!!
And
HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
*Ever heard of the argument from pseudoauthority?
*Oh boy… Here come the ‘analogies as evidence’…
*Did everybody catch the anti-evolutionist’s sleight of hand there?
Here it is:
DNA appeared to have have a quaternary bit format organized into bytes of threes … a computer code that stores a language…
Wow – we went from an appearance to an exactness! Now, DNA does not just look like computer code, it IS computer code! And we know that computer code is ‘designed’ by humans (an intelligence), therefore, via analogy and ignorance and nothing else, I, the great PhD. Cancer researcher, declare DNA to have been the product of Intelligence! But this has nothing to do with religion, of course…
Oh dear, all that sarcasm… It must be because I am desperate to protect my Darwinian Fundamentalism**…
*Oh, of course, for only a neutral investigator would write HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
* HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
Yeah, you’re about as objective a fellow as I have ever seen…
*Yeah, nobody at all is using any sort of evolution of that pesky ‘Darwinism’ in medical research… [6, 7, 8, 9] But hey – Designs, the PhD cancer researcher said it, so it must be true because he is objective and all that…
*Perhaps, with your extensive background in – what was it? - oh yes, p53 and cancer, you can explain to us all what a transitional species should look like. Surely, a researcher with your vast experience and knowledge can do this?
*Hmmmmm…. A cancer researcher that implies an undergraduate and graduate education in fossils? Hmmm… Something seems a bit fishy… Well, maybe not. As an undergraduate I took biology, cell biology, anatomy, etc., and we were told all about fossils and evolution throughout.. No, wait – neither was mentioned at all!
But then, when I was in graduate school, I did have that one class that force fed us all this stuff about fossils and evolution… Well, it was a physical anthropology class that I was taking for my minor, but still… I wonder what sorts of classes graduate students in molecular biology take that would tell poor Designs a bunch of lies about fossils. Here are a few molecular biology/biochemistry graduate curricula. See if you can find which classes would miseducate poor Designs:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/camb/curric.html
http://www.luhs.org/depts/molbio/curriculum.htm
http://www.mcb.oregonstate.edu/graduate/curriculum
http://www.chemistry.gatech.edu/graduate/courses/
and here is one in cancer biology:
http://www.cancerbiology.wisc.edu/curriculum/curriculum.html#phd
Methinks Designs is embellishing things a bit…
*So again, Designs,. Why not tell us all what a transitional species must look like? You appear to think you know.
**The next section in Designs rant referred to fossils. I am not a fossil expert, and do not want to take the time to look into each of Desings’ claims, which, by now, I have little reason to take at face value and every reason to be highly skeptical of. So, rather than go through the tedium of checking each fact, I am simply omitting most of Designs’ rant in this section. The complete original will be available if anyone really cares to see it.**
*Whales ARE mammals. Shouldn’t a PhD in the biomedical sciences know this?
*Hmm… So sometimes there is a fossil transition, even by your rigorous standards, but that doesn’t matter because the same data does not support “a gradual Darwinian evolution”? OK, I get it now…
*Facts like segmental and chromosome duplication, stuff like that?
*Yes, that DOES pose a problem for explaining why lots of phyla appear ‘fully formed’ in the Cambrian… Your intellectual gifts are truly amazing, Designs! (Remind me never to get cancer)
*Clearly then they were instantaneously crea- I mean, Designed!
*Yes, especially since every cubic inch of rock from every geological era has been examined.
*No predecessors would indicate…. Instantaneous crea- er, I mean, Design! So why no evidence of the designer and His methodology?
*How totally crazy! I mean, if evolution were true, these pre-birds musta’ been flying about without feathers! I mean, evolution is just crazy!
Dwarfism produces, among other things, an approximately 45-50% reduction in height. In ONE generation! According to Designs, this should have taken 5 million years! Clearly, dwarfism does not exist…
*Poor Designs – cannot even keep his mucked-up stories straight. The evidence indicates that it was a fin-to-limb transition, not a limb-to-fin. And, in fact, fossil evidence clearly shows extinct early fish with pectoral and even pelvic girdles whose limbs end in fins yet whose internal structure is quite like that of amphibians, reptiles, even mammals, especially the lineage that is thought to have ultimately lead to terrestrial vertebrates, the sarcopterygians12. You should stop getting your information for the DI and similar outfits. They are propaganda mills, you know.
*Wow – it is amazing how Designs can, without any evidence, without citations, with only one paragraph, demolish the “random mutation-natural selection theory of Darwin.” But its funny – Darwin had no knowledge of genetics, so how could he have come up with such a theory? That is just a nitpick I suppose…
*Say – evolution really must be false then!
*At the very least, this is extreme hyperbole. There are SOME section of so-called junk DNA that have been shown to possess regulatory and other function. But by no means has all such DNA been shown to be functional. In fact, if that were so, would not prokaryotes, with their penchant for losing DNA, be extinct by now?
*Well, that is not entirely true either16.
Neo-Darwinism, or whatever one wishes to call it, is, as I mentioned above, at the worst incomplete. Designs has offered nothing of substance to indicate than anyone should think otherwise. In fact, Designs offers nothing but unsupported, hard to believe rhetoric and a couple of outright false claims to prop up his position. In an earlier, similarly ranty reply, Designs had characterized the posts on this blog as ‘arrogant’ and ‘ignorant.’ Considering the arrogance and ignorance of Designs rant, I think my sarcasm-laden response – which, I might add, unlike Designs actually has citations! – is all that is warranted.
Tough cookies to Designs, who is welcome to produce a rational reply to this. I would hope that in the least it would contain a way to verify his claims of: being a cancer researcher and having taken graduate classes that taught about fossils and transitionals; contain supporting links/documentation for at least a few of the claims; etc. Hysterical tirades will be deleted.
***********************************************************************
1.http://www.coralridge.org/specialdocs/evolutiondebate.asp
2. http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49
3. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm
4. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650211770,00.html
5. http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/experts/shallit.pdf
6. http://www.chester.ac.uk/~sjlewis/DM/
7. http://darwinianmedicine.org/
8. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/dmorg/index.htm
9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pmc
10. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambstrat.html
11. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/precambrian.html
12. http://www.usm.maine.edu/bio/courses/bio205/sarcop_fins.jpg
13. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ksjj.html
14. http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=5&t=25&m=1#6
15. http://www.achondroplasia.co.uk/genetics.htm
16. http://jb.asm.org/cgi/content/full/186/15/4846?view=long&pmid=15262917
** Curious about the origin of the term ‘Darwinian Fundamentalism’, I did a quick Google search and came across the blog of one ‘Lawrence Seldon’ titled Darwinian Fundamentlism. It is the usual self-righteous underinformed propaganda that these people tend to spew, but I came across one little entry there that I thought I would comment on…
=====
A bit of clarification is needed in this forum about Creationism, Darwinism, and Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design (ID) scientists BELIEVE THAT EVOLUTION HAS PLAYED A ROLE IN THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE. Contrary to the ignorance portrayed by many evolutionists and the sloppiness of mainstream media, ID has nothing to do with religion.
*That will be news to Phil Johnson1 (“I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves”), Bill Dembski2 (“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," ), Jon Wells3 (“Father's [Rev. Moon] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism.”), and just about every pro-ID discussion board participant.*
The ID theory arose because some scientists were skeptical of the ability of Darwinian evolution to explain the complexity of molecular and biochemical processes.
*Fort starters, ID is not a theory. Even its ‘biggest’ advocates admit that4 (“…I cannot offer you today a fully articulated theory of biological design that does not yet exist," he [Paul Nelson]said.”).*
As I briefly describe below, they certainly had valid concerns. The main difference between Darwinists and IDs is that IDs don’t believe that random mutations and selection/environmental pressures can completely account for all the molecular complexities of life. This doesn’t mean that IDs believe that the supernatural is involved; just that there is something else that we don’t understand which is the driving force behind evolution. Some will try to discount the IDs by labeling them as Creationists or anti-evolutionaries.
*Gee, why would we ever do that? See refs. 1-3.
The ID theory is not creationist or anti-evolutionist.
*ID is, again, not a theory. Calling it so does not make it so, any more than referring to Bill Dembski as a ‘prominent mathematician’ makes him one5.
ID does agree that Darwinism can account for changes in bird beaks in response to environmental changes, bacterial drug resistance, and insect resistance to insecticides but disagree in how Darwinism wildly extrapolates these adaptations to account for macroevolution or origins of species and specified molecular complexities.
*Better to wildly extrapolate that because we have not seen a ‘microbe turn into a man’ that there is some mystical, unknown force driving these changes… Changes which, just coincidentally, it must be, leave their natural signatures in the genomes of living creatures…
Creationists tend to align themselves with ID because of its implications of an intelligent creating force, whereas atheists tend to align themselves with Darwinism because of its random, no-purpose, no-intelligence theory of life evolutions. You can deny it all you want, but there just “ain’t any religion” motivating the pure ID theory folks!
*The above contains a number of dubious claims. First is the typical caricature of evolution held by those that are essentially ignorant of it or are motivated to misrepresent it indicating that it is ‘random.’ Certainly, part of it is random, but as one that is familiar with the basics of evolution (I am unsure what zealots like ‘Designs’ actually means by the term ‘Darwinism’) should know, the other part of it – selection - is non-random.
Second, the claim that there is no religion motivating the “pure ID theory folks” is totally bogus, first and foremost because there is not ID theory, second because even those that claim to be drawn to ID by ‘the science’ in public often let their little secrets go in less guarded moments [read any of the popular pro-ID discussion boards on the internet, and the religious motivations of those that pretend it is all about science soon become clear]. .
There are plenty of mathematical and biochemical arguments that argue against the gradual Darwinism mechanism of evolution.
*Mathematical arguments? Of what possible relevance do those have? Do tell…*
The fossil record, as I very briefly discuss below, does not support a gradual evolutional transition of species.
*So, you are a paleontologist, too? You anti-evolutionists are amazing polymaths! Self-taught, too, I bet…*
As such, I cannot accept Darwinism as a theory that explains the diversity of molecular processes. There are too many inconsistencies and conflicts of Darwinism with molecular, biochemical, and fossil observations. There is something else that we don’t understand as yet that is the driving the force behind evolution. It is better to have no hypothesis to explain something than it is to have an incorrect or wrong
hypothesis (Darwinism).
*Even if the unsupported hyperbole that Designs spews were totally true, at best it indicates that ‘Darwinism’ – whatever that is supposed to mean – is incomplete, not ‘wrong.’ But Designs is too zealous to think rationally about these things.
There is a growing movement of scientists (now over 600; some of who are National Academy of Science members) who find Darwinism unsatisfactory as a theory to explain all aspects of the diversity of life. The list is at http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
It simply states that “We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random
mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful
examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged”. The list
will continue to grow as more scientists from all areas of biology begin to critically examine the Darwin theory to explain the complexity of life.
*Yeah, yeah, you already posted this part of this rambling message in two or three other places, and your implication is dishonest – an eye-catchingly large number of the signatories of your much heralded list are NOT, in fact, from areas of biology at all. IN fact, there seems to be a rather large proportion of those with non-biology backgrounds.
No longer will scientists who are dissatisfied with Darwinism remain subjectively complacent to repressive Darwinian Fundamentalism that,
*’Darwinian fundamentlism’? Say – that is a catchy phrase! Catchy because you already used this whole section of your rant in 2 other messages you spammed my blog with. You can’t even write blog replies that are original – what, do you have a cache of ready-made cut and pastes that you can cobble together and spam message boards with to make it appear as though you put a lot of time and effort into writing these citationless rants?
Darwinism has evolved from a scientific thought to a dangerous philosophy, which is so evident by the manner in which many Darwin believers react to any criticism of their evolutionary belief system. Darwinism must be true they proclaim, so they attempt to explain away any and all criticism using fragmentary data derived from a so-called transitional specie or some type of microevolution observation that is wildly extrapolated to a explain the origin of a macrostate.
*Recall that this is the fellow that wrote:
ALL HAIL DARWIN OF THE GAPS!!
And
HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
Who am I? I am a PhD molecular biologist/biochemist that studies cancer genetics and the role of mutations in the p53 tumor suppressor gene in the origins of cancer. I have been involved in cancer research for well over 25 years and have published over 50 manuscripts, book chapters, and review articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Oncogene, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences, to name a few. I have received both national and international competitive grant support including funding from the National Institutes of Health and the International Association for Cancer Research.
*Ever heard of the argument from pseudoauthority?
One day about 7 years ago while studying a cDNA sequence that I had PCR-cloned from a differential display library, I was struck by the similarities between DNA and computer code.
*Oh boy… Here come the ‘analogies as evidence’…
DNA appeared to have a quaternary bit format organized into bytes of threes that spelled out the language message decoded by the protein translational machinery. I remained quiet about my observations for a number of years but now know of other scientists that also had made similar observations. How could a computer code that stores a language arise from a primordial soup?
*Did everybody catch the anti-evolutionist’s sleight of hand there?
Here it is:
DNA appeared to have have a quaternary bit format organized into bytes of threes … a computer code that stores a language…
Wow – we went from an appearance to an exactness! Now, DNA does not just look like computer code, it IS computer code! And we know that computer code is ‘designed’ by humans (an intelligence), therefore, via analogy and ignorance and nothing else, I, the great PhD. Cancer researcher, declare DNA to have been the product of Intelligence! But this has nothing to do with religion, of course…
Oh dear, all that sarcasm… It must be because I am desperate to protect my Darwinian Fundamentalism**…
With all the recent interest in the ID movement and evolution controversies, I decided to begin reading and studying the arguments on both sides as a neutral investigator.
*Oh, of course, for only a neutral investigator would write HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
I could do this objectively since I have no personal or religious biases or interests toward ID or Darwinism. I don’t use any of these theories to advance my research in cancer genetics. I am a scientist that is curious about life’s origins and evolutions, and will go wherever the evidence takes me. However, I keep an open mind with the observations that are not limited to only the natural materialistic approach.
* HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
Yeah, you’re about as objective a fellow as I have ever seen…
Contrary to what many Darwin Fundamentalists might think, Darwinism has contributed little to my research. I don’t know of any of my colleagues in other medical research areas that are using Darwinism.
*Yeah, nobody at all is using any sort of evolution of that pesky ‘Darwinism’ in medical research… [6, 7, 8, 9] But hey – Designs, the PhD cancer researcher said it, so it must be true because he is objective and all that…
[snip irrelevant extension of how useless Darwinism is to his research]I began to re-evaluate evolution and Darwinism. I was amazed at the number of fossils but was shocked by the low corresponding number of fossil transitional species, even though there were hundreds of thousands of documented fossils.
*Perhaps, with your extensive background in – what was it? - oh yes, p53 and cancer, you can explain to us all what a transitional species should look like. Surely, a researcher with your vast experience and knowledge can do this?
Apparently, I was misled in my undergraduate and graduate studies to believe that transitions in the evolution of life forms had been neatly documented and that there were many examples of very clear transitional fossils.
*Hmmmmm…. A cancer researcher that implies an undergraduate and graduate education in fossils? Hmmm… Something seems a bit fishy… Well, maybe not. As an undergraduate I took biology, cell biology, anatomy, etc., and we were told all about fossils and evolution throughout.. No, wait – neither was mentioned at all!
But then, when I was in graduate school, I did have that one class that force fed us all this stuff about fossils and evolution… Well, it was a physical anthropology class that I was taking for my minor, but still… I wonder what sorts of classes graduate students in molecular biology take that would tell poor Designs a bunch of lies about fossils. Here are a few molecular biology/biochemistry graduate curricula. See if you can find which classes would miseducate poor Designs:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/camb/curric.html
http://www.luhs.org/depts/molbio/curriculum.htm
http://www.mcb.oregonstate.edu/graduate/curriculum
http://www.chemistry.gatech.edu/graduate/courses/
and here is one in cancer biology:
http://www.cancerbiology.wisc.edu/curriculum/curriculum.html#phd
Methinks Designs is embellishing things a bit…
What a disappointment it was to go back and actually look into the literature/data samples and observe how meager the evidence there is to support the gradual evolution hypothesis of Darwinism. With all the gadzillions of fossils that have been discovered, there should be transitional species all over the place. But this is certainly not the case, in contrast to the claims shouted by many Darwinists that there are many, many excellent and clear examples of clear transitional fossils.
*So again, Designs,. Why not tell us all what a transitional species must look like? You appear to think you know.
**The next section in Designs rant referred to fossils. I am not a fossil expert, and do not want to take the time to look into each of Desings’ claims, which, by now, I have little reason to take at face value and every reason to be highly skeptical of. So, rather than go through the tedium of checking each fact, I am simply omitting most of Designs’ rant in this section. The complete original will be available if anyone really cares to see it.**
[…]… perhaps a few examples of mammal to whale transition.
*Whales ARE mammals. Shouldn’t a PhD in the biomedical sciences know this?
In some instances, I would agree that there is a fossil transition but not in other cases. It can clearly be a subjective determination. As I point out in a very limited discussion below, the fossil data clearly does not support a gradual Darwinian evolution.
*Hmm… So sometimes there is a fossil transition, even by your rigorous standards, but that doesn’t matter because the same data does not support “a gradual Darwinian evolution”? OK, I get it now…
The Cambrian explosion is just one of many instances where many species and organ complexities suddenly appear.*Suddenly, as in 10s of millions of years10? Say, that IS sudden! And lets not forget the 10s of millions of years preceding the Cambrian11. Wow, Designs, I think your keen cancer-researcher insight and graduate classes on fossils just helped you destroy Darwinism!
It is difficult to imagine from a molecular point of view how so much DNA complexity information evolved in such a short period of time.
*Facts like segmental and chromosome duplication, stuff like that?
Arguments that try to account for the absence of gradual transition species in the Cambrian are a bunch hand-waving baloney! Put aside your Darwinist Fundamentalism and face the hard cold facts.*Well, with your in-depth, fact-filled and well cited analysis, I guess we have no choice but to accept your proclamation without skepticism!
The lack of ancestors in the Cambrian explosion is confounded by the fact that molecular studies of the DNA differences of various animals predict that the basic lineages of animals, including many of these phyla, split apart long before the Cambrian Period.
*Yes, that DOES pose a problem for explaining why lots of phyla appear ‘fully formed’ in the Cambrian… Your intellectual gifts are truly amazing, Designs! (Remind me never to get cancer)
Chordates (animals with a backbone) and starfish-type things (Echinoderms) supposedly diverged about 1 billion years ago. No explanations can satisfactorily account for the lack of transitional species.
*Clearly then they were instantaneously crea- I mean, Designed!
*But I thought you had graduate education in fossils? I would think that at the graduate level, some discussion of taphonomy would take place and why not everything gets fossilized might have been discussed. I guess not. Or maybe you were attending Jon Wells lectures that week or something…
[…]How can one argue that the size of the fossil makes it unpreservable? If the animals were there, they would have been preserved.
If the animals were preserved, they would have been found.
*Yes, especially since every cubic inch of rock from every geological era has been examined.
[…]
When you get to this point, why not consider the
possibility that as the evidence suggests, there were not predecessors? Perhaps
purely natural evolution isn’t the answer?
*No predecessors would indicate…. Instantaneous crea- er, I mean, Design! So why no evidence of the designer and His methodology?
*OK. What DATA were you shown that lead you to accept instantaneous design?
[…]I am a hard core experimentalist that begs “SHOW ME THE DATA”. There has been enough time and exploration to find the gradual transition fossils in the gaps.
Some evolutionary scenarios based upon the supposed bird-like-dinosaur-like fossils have claimed that they evolved feathers, hollow bones, and wings, before they actually flew!
*How totally crazy! I mean, if evolution were true, these pre-birds musta’ been flying about without feathers! I mean, evolution is just crazy!
[…]Regarding whale evolution, problems appear in the 10 to 80 feet size of the animals in the transition of protocetids to Basilosaurus cetoides. According to this scenario, it would require much more than 10 million years for an increase in size of this magnitude, and that is solely for the final 2 fossils in the transition. It has been calculated that, even in a rapidly evolving line, changes in size are usually on the order of only 1-10% per million years. It would appear that no matter what fossils we find, here is an example where the whale evolutionary transition clearly did not happen because it COULD not have happened--the time allowed for it is simply too*Amazing that there is no citation for this. You know, it is interesting. A single point mutation in the FGFR-3 gene can cause dwarfism in humans.
short.
Dwarfism produces, among other things, an approximately 45-50% reduction in height. In ONE generation! According to Designs, this should have taken 5 million years! Clearly, dwarfism does not exist…
[…] A very small number of fossils are purported to be the true “fish with legs”. Unfortunately, regardless of how much we speculate, there are no fossils of fish with legs. Only the Darwin Fundamentalist can envision that certain appendages such as fins may have at one time functioned as primordial legs.
*Poor Designs – cannot even keep his mucked-up stories straight. The evidence indicates that it was a fin-to-limb transition, not a limb-to-fin. And, in fact, fossil evidence clearly shows extinct early fish with pectoral and even pelvic girdles whose limbs end in fins yet whose internal structure is quite like that of amphibians, reptiles, even mammals, especially the lineage that is thought to have ultimately lead to terrestrial vertebrates, the sarcopterygians12. You should stop getting your information for the DI and similar outfits. They are propaganda mills, you know.
[…]The most recent so-called transitional species are in fact radical changes in design and structure that would have to require the co-evolution of nervous and circulation systems as well as incredible and astounding changes in molecular and biochemical processes. The increase in cellular complexities in the new so-called transitional species is enormous. The amount of time that would be needed to account for the explosion in complexities of these radical new life forms is just not available. The transitional species that we know of today are by no means “gradual”; they are in fact “radical”.*I always get a kick out of finding out that someone has misrepresented themselves. Designs is obviously not a cancer researcher, and clearly did not take and graduate classes in anything related to biology. Any biology major, especially one with a doctoral degree, should have a basic understanding of development and should realize that each individual body part/system does not require its own set of mutational/evolutionary changes to change form. The last anti-evolutionist I have seen employ such a nonsensical, uninformed rationale was technician Karl Crawford 13, 14, who once looked up ‘arm’ in Gray’s anatomy and posted on a discussion board a list of about 100 structures in the arm and declared that each one of them would have required multiple mutations in order to get a human arm from an ape arm therefore evolution is false. Designs’ argument here is about the same, just without a list. I have already mentioned the FRGFR-3 mutation causing dwarfism15. That is a SINGLE point mutation, yet it produces disproportionate limb length. That is – the nerves, blood vessels, bones, etc. are ALL altered by the one mutation. No multiple mutations, no ‘co-mutation.’ Designs just doesn’t know what he is talking about. And since he provides no way to check out his claims in the first place, there is no reason whatsoever to trust his hysterical rants to contain any truthful information at all.
None of the variations in body features seen in nature are evidence sufficient by themselves to prove that the beneficial mutation of genes is caused by natural, spontaneous, unintelligent causes, because the beneficial genes that step to the fore as a result of the process may have been present in an unobserved minority of the species before the selection process begins. The beneficial mutations may have been in the genome of some of the members of the species no matter how far back one can trace the creature through its ancestors. So much for the random mutation-natural selection theory of Darwin.
*Wow – it is amazing how Designs can, without any evidence, without citations, with only one paragraph, demolish the “random mutation-natural selection theory of Darwin.” But its funny – Darwin had no knowledge of genetics, so how could he have come up with such a theory? That is just a nitpick I suppose…
New revelations in gene structure and function as well as analyses of genomes sequences of organisms have cast more doubt than support for the Darwinist hypothesis. Complete genome sequences have revealed several complexities that Darwinian evolutionary theory did not anticipate or predict. First, there is a major role played by the transfer of genes from one species to another, as opposed to inheritance from ancestors.*And this is a problem for evolution how? Well, apparently it is because some anti-evolution gurus have said so. Like they do with just about every new discovery. And, say - did ID predict any of this?
Second, bacterial species do not evolve solely in a random fashion, but show a bias toward deletion of genetic material.
*Say – evolution really must be false then!
Third, the portions of the genome that do not code proteins (junk DNA) have a critical function
*At the very least, this is extreme hyperbole. There are SOME section of so-called junk DNA that have been shown to possess regulatory and other function. But by no means has all such DNA been shown to be functional. In fact, if that were so, would not prokaryotes, with their penchant for losing DNA, be extinct by now?
Fourth, the expression of genes is controlled by regulatory circuits that are as complicated and precisely arranged as the most sophisticated engineering or computer programs.*Well, another computer analogy! Color me convinced!
New revelations in the ability of bacteria to respond to environmental stress have also conflict with Darwinism. It appears that only certain regions of bacterial genomes undergo hypermutation in response to the control by sensoring devices in specific regions of the DNA. This is a big mystery and almost implies that the bacterial sensing and mutation adaptations are designed.
*Well, that is not entirely true either16.
*No fair! Designs never produced his mathematical arguments! I was so looking forward to them...
Darwinism is an inadequate theory to explain the complexity of molecular, biochemical and morphological life processes. It is better to have no theory to explain the evolution of life than an inadequate or wrong one.
Neo-Darwinism, or whatever one wishes to call it, is, as I mentioned above, at the worst incomplete. Designs has offered nothing of substance to indicate than anyone should think otherwise. In fact, Designs offers nothing but unsupported, hard to believe rhetoric and a couple of outright false claims to prop up his position. In an earlier, similarly ranty reply, Designs had characterized the posts on this blog as ‘arrogant’ and ‘ignorant.’ Considering the arrogance and ignorance of Designs rant, I think my sarcasm-laden response – which, I might add, unlike Designs actually has citations! – is all that is warranted.
Tough cookies to Designs, who is welcome to produce a rational reply to this. I would hope that in the least it would contain a way to verify his claims of: being a cancer researcher and having taken graduate classes that taught about fossils and transitionals; contain supporting links/documentation for at least a few of the claims; etc. Hysterical tirades will be deleted.
***********************************************************************
1.http://www.coralridge.org/specialdocs/evolutiondebate.asp
2. http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49
3. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm
4. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650211770,00.html
5. http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/experts/shallit.pdf
6. http://www.chester.ac.uk/~sjlewis/DM/
7. http://darwinianmedicine.org/
8. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/dmorg/index.htm
9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pmc
10. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambstrat.html
11. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/precambrian.html
12. http://www.usm.maine.edu/bio/courses/bio205/sarcop_fins.jpg
13. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ksjj.html
14. http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=5&t=25&m=1#6
15. http://www.achondroplasia.co.uk/genetics.htm
16. http://jb.asm.org/cgi/content/full/186/15/4846?view=long&pmid=15262917
** Curious about the origin of the term ‘Darwinian Fundamentalism’, I did a quick Google search and came across the blog of one ‘Lawrence Seldon’ titled Darwinian Fundamentlism. It is the usual self-righteous underinformed propaganda that these people tend to spew, but I came across one little entry there that I thought I would comment on…
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Sal Cordova just keeps sticking his foot in his mouth...
Many moons ago, Salvador Cordova, with BS in physics (music minor), was interviewed by writers from the scientific journal Nature. They were doing a story on the rise of creationism and its cloaked newer version, Intelligent Design. Cordova had been instrumental in establishing what are called 'IDEA' (Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness) clubs at a few universities. These clubs are basically an offshoot of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowships (they are not affiliated or associated with each other, rrather, I am commenting on the membership and discussions therein) that focus on the so-called creation-evolution debate and advopcate a pro-Intelligent Design alternative (the IDEA club at Cornell University , and presumably elsewhere, had requirements that its officers be bible-believing Christians. So much for 'just the science', eh? After much uproar, that requirement was removed...).
One of the mantras of the ID movement is that it is all about the science, not the religion. Cordova used to espouse this position emphatically. Yet, in his interview, he made it quite clear that the primary reason behind his ID advocacy was religion. This did not stop him from spamming numerous discussion boards and email groups with 'news' of his appearance in "the presigious journal Nature" (see here and here for but two of probably dozens of such examples).
But on to more recent Cordova effects.
It seems that Cordova attempted to address a post written by Ed Brayton regarding the true nature of the ID movement. Brayton had remarked that it seemed more intent upon 'converting' the uneducated masses than it did about engagingin scientific pursuits. Well, read how Cordova all but gave Brayton a cigar for being right about it all along... I suggest the reader follow the link to see the twisted 'logic' of a prolific ID advocate in action. Just a taste (note the simpleton's analogy-as-evidence that Cordova uses in bold):
Cordova:
Brayton replies:
Well said, Ed.
One of the mantras of the ID movement is that it is all about the science, not the religion. Cordova used to espouse this position emphatically. Yet, in his interview, he made it quite clear that the primary reason behind his ID advocacy was religion. This did not stop him from spamming numerous discussion boards and email groups with 'news' of his appearance in "the presigious journal Nature" (see here and here for but two of probably dozens of such examples).
But on to more recent Cordova effects.
It seems that Cordova attempted to address a post written by Ed Brayton regarding the true nature of the ID movement. Brayton had remarked that it seemed more intent upon 'converting' the uneducated masses than it did about engagingin scientific pursuits. Well, read how Cordova all but gave Brayton a cigar for being right about it all along... I suggest the reader follow the link to see the twisted 'logic' of a prolific ID advocate in action. Just a taste (note the simpleton's analogy-as-evidence that Cordova uses in bold):
Cordova:
The issues that come up are what empirical evidence exists and which framework gives a more adequate explanation. For example, I met a couple computer science students entering junior year who were Christians. I pointed out the cell is a computer with operating systems and software and compilers. I simply posed the question, "do you think Darwinian evolution can make that? You design computer systems, do you think Darwinian evolution can make something like a computer system?" They shook their heads and laughed that evolutionary biologists actually believe that Darwinian evolution can create such systems! And I can guarantee you there ain't an evolutionary biologist on the planet who can take first principles of information science and computer science and make a case that Darwinian evolution can account for these systems. Do you think someone like Richard Dawkins or PZ Myers will have any persuassive effect on these highly intelligent future citizens of society?
Brayton replies:
The fact that you, and the people you're talking to, actually find this analogy to be a persuasive argument that overthrows 150 years of productive scientific research in evolutionary biology only confirms my argument all the more. I'm sure that someone without any understanding of how such functional complexity can be built up through numerous evolutionary processes finds it a very compelling argument, but this is an artifiact of their ignorance, not of the validity of evolutionary theory.
Well said, Ed.
'Designs' - another IDcreationist agitator
UPDATE
I see that that paragon of virtue, 'Designs', spammed several posts with repeat messages. What a guy... ==========================================================
Incredible…
Just when I thought IDcreationists could not get much more dense…
Along comes this guy, 'Designs' (nice profile, and blog, eh? Hmmm... Wonder if he went to all that trouble just to leave those silly replies?).
He left a pair of rather silly, cookie-cutter replies to this post. It is the usual dreck from these people...
*One will note that ‘Designs’ did not bother to point out any of my supposed “arrogant and ignorant ramblings.” Typical IDcreationist rhetoric – full of bluster, devoid of content.
And 'Darwinian Fundamentalism'? Clever. Stupid, but clever...*
*Well, not really. The number of people with some sort of degree**, with a religious predisposition to reject non-miraculous creation, willing to append their name to some list, may be increasing, but most rational folks do not consider lawyers, high school teachers, etc., to be ‘scientists.’ And what is more, even those on these lists that can be considered scientists are making proclamations outside of their field of true expertise. As Phil Johnson, lawyer, HIV-denier, creationist, father of the ID movement says, commenting outside of one’s area of expertise makes one a layman in that area.*
*See what I mean?*
*How many are named Steve?*
You can see a list of just those scientists – ALL scientists, not lawyers, dentists, etc., like the Discovery List – with the name of Steve (or some derivative thereof) here. You will find that the scientist 'Steves' listed there, almost to a person, have fields of study directly or indirectly linked to the actual study of evolution. I wonder how many of the DI's list can that be said of?
*As worded, nearly anyone could sign that in good conscience. It is what this list is used for that turns off most people. I wonder if the folks on that list are skeptical of and urge careful examination of IDcreationism, as well?
Most likely, of course not.*
*YOU are a scientist? Frankly, I do not believe it. Not for one second. No actual scientist would write such clearly uninformed, silly bilge as you have been doing. Oh, wait – an IDcreationist with science credentials is not bound by any sort of integrity-driven logic. Look at the things Dembski, Behe, Wells, etc. write… (Dembski is not a scientist, by the way – in fact, he does not even appear to be much of a mathematician)*
*Creationist Lawyer Johnson could not have written such idiotic nonsense better…*
*Actually, such comments are the result of seeing people pontificating outside of their areas of actual knowledge, repeatedly; making numerous illogical and otherwise egregious scientific errors; producing out of context quotes to prop up their ideology; refusing to acknowledge their errors; etc. , and getting frustrated at having to deal with it on a daily basis.
Is it professional and scientific, in your esteemed view, ‘Designs’, to embellish one’s credentials to make one’s arguments appear to have more merit? To make Flash animations of your opponents, complete with flatulence noises? To engage in character assassination of those that rule against you in courts of law? And so on, and so on, and so on?
Not that it matters to an idiot that would write something like: *
You are no longer welcome to leave comments here. Take your infantile idiocy to someplace where it will fit in, like ARN or Telic Thoughts or Davey Springer’s den of simpletons.
**********************************************
** One will notice on the list Designs links, a rather disproportionate number of people whose backgrounds/specialties tend not to be in areas related to biology. Losts of engineers, mathematicians, etc. So I ask, WHO CARES what they think about it? Would they care what biologists think about engineering and the like? These lists that anti-evolutionists trot out are designed solely to impress those that do not know any better.
I see that that paragon of virtue, 'Designs', spammed several posts with repeat messages. What a guy... ==========================================================
Incredible…
Just when I thought IDcreationists could not get much more dense…
Along comes this guy, 'Designs' (nice profile, and blog, eh? Hmmm... Wonder if he went to all that trouble just to leave those silly replies?).
He left a pair of rather silly, cookie-cutter replies to this post. It is the usual dreck from these people...
‘Designs’:
From the arrogant and ignorant ramblings on this blog, I can understand why “stupid lay people” refuse to accept Darwinian Fundamentalism.
*One will note that ‘Designs’ did not bother to point out any of my supposed “arrogant and ignorant ramblings.” Typical IDcreationist rhetoric – full of bluster, devoid of content.
And 'Darwinian Fundamentalism'? Clever. Stupid, but clever...*
Besides, scientific evidence is whittling away at the validity of gradual Darwinian evolution. The number of scientists who are dissatisfied with the Darwinism hypothetical nonsense continues to increase.
*Well, not really. The number of people with some sort of degree**, with a religious predisposition to reject non-miraculous creation, willing to append their name to some list, may be increasing, but most rational folks do not consider lawyers, high school teachers, etc., to be ‘scientists.’ And what is more, even those on these lists that can be considered scientists are making proclamations outside of their field of true expertise. As Phil Johnson, lawyer, HIV-denier, creationist, father of the ID movement says, commenting outside of one’s area of expertise makes one a layman in that area.*
*Let’s see, ‘Designs,’ Darwin lived about 150 years ago – do you think his concerns (for which we are given no evidence of, by the way) – do you think anything might have changed since then? How long was the ‘Cambrian explosion’? Do you know? Do you care? What about the pre-Cambrian? Why do you not accept any evolutionary explanations? Do you think it was miraculo0us? Was it part of the creation event? If so, why no humans or modern mammal fossils there? If it was some non-supernatural designer (hate to spoil your party), how does that help your cause? How does it negate post-Cambrian evolution? You have no answers. You are just another uninformed, right-wing IDcreationist agitator.*Serious problems exist in the ability of the theory to account for the radical changes and appearances of life forms in such short time periods on the evolutionary scale. Explanations given by Darwinists for the Cambrian explosion cannot adequately account for the punctuated equilibriums and are just hand-waving non-empirical baloney. Darwin himself expressed grave concerns about his theory based on the Cambrian explosion.
ALL HAIL DARWIN OF THE GAPS!!
*See what I mean?*
Check out the growing movement of scientists (now over 600; some of who are National Academy of Science members) who find Darwinism unsatisfactory as a
theory to explain all aspects of the diversity of life. The list is at http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660.
*How many are named Steve?*
You can see a list of just those scientists – ALL scientists, not lawyers, dentists, etc., like the Discovery List – with the name of Steve (or some derivative thereof) here. You will find that the scientist 'Steves' listed there, almost to a person, have fields of study directly or indirectly linked to the actual study of evolution. I wonder how many of the DI's list can that be said of?
This document simply states that “We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged”.
*As worded, nearly anyone could sign that in good conscience. It is what this list is used for that turns off most people. I wonder if the folks on that list are skeptical of and urge careful examination of IDcreationism, as well?
Most likely, of course not.*
The number of scientists joining this list will continue to grow as more scientists, including myself, from all areas of biology critically examine the Darwin theory.
*YOU are a scientist? Frankly, I do not believe it. Not for one second. No actual scientist would write such clearly uninformed, silly bilge as you have been doing. Oh, wait – an IDcreationist with science credentials is not bound by any sort of integrity-driven logic. Look at the things Dembski, Behe, Wells, etc. write… (Dembski is not a scientist, by the way – in fact, he does not even appear to be much of a mathematician)*
No longer will scientists who are dissatisfied with Darwinism remain subjectively complacent to repressive Darwinian Fundamentalism, which is the single greatest threat to critical thought, reasoning, and the scientific method.
*Creationist Lawyer Johnson could not have written such idiotic nonsense better…*
Darwinism has evolved from science to a dangerous philosophy, as evident by the manner in which many Darwin believers, such those commenting in this blog, react to any criticism of their evolutionary belief system. The Darwin Fundies proclaim, “DARWINISM MUST BE TRUE!”, so they use sarcasm and other derogatory comments directed at Darwinian dissenters and skeptics in order to discredit them in an unprofessional and unscientific way.
*Actually, such comments are the result of seeing people pontificating outside of their areas of actual knowledge, repeatedly; making numerous illogical and otherwise egregious scientific errors; producing out of context quotes to prop up their ideology; refusing to acknowledge their errors; etc. , and getting frustrated at having to deal with it on a daily basis.
Is it professional and scientific, in your esteemed view, ‘Designs’, to embellish one’s credentials to make one’s arguments appear to have more merit? To make Flash animations of your opponents, complete with flatulence noises? To engage in character assassination of those that rule against you in courts of law? And so on, and so on, and so on?
Not that it matters to an idiot that would write something like: *
HEIL, DARWIN FUNDAMENTALISM!!
You are no longer welcome to leave comments here. Take your infantile idiocy to someplace where it will fit in, like ARN or Telic Thoughts or Davey Springer’s den of simpletons.
**********************************************
** One will notice on the list Designs links, a rather disproportionate number of people whose backgrounds/specialties tend not to be in areas related to biology. Losts of engineers, mathematicians, etc. So I ask, WHO CARES what they think about it? Would they care what biologists think about engineering and the like? These lists that anti-evolutionists trot out are designed solely to impress those that do not know any better.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Why do anti-'Darwinists' have such a hard time understanding science?
Even when they claim to be super-smart?
David Scott Springer, aka 'Davescot', a retired Dell computer programmer, has apparently convinced himself that because of his super-high IQ (he claims to have a 'certified' IQ "north of 150") and the facts that he has a couple of patents and, afterall, worked with computers, anything he thinks about non-computer things like, oh say, evolution, must be absolutely correct (for kicks, see this).
In reality, Springer, like all such folk, simply does not understand how little he actually understands about subjects that he has no training, education, or experience in. His claim that one can learn biology in their spare time notwithstanding, The FallibleFiend, who happens to be an engineer (see? they're not all bad... :) ), points out a major misinterpretation by Springer in a post he had written earlier in which he had claimed that a study showed that conserved gene elements in humans were most similar to the coelacanth.
That is not what the paper indicates, and Fiend points this out. He tried to point it out to Springer, also, but wouldn't you know it:
"My post never showed up - and there was never a retraction."
If you do not know, Springer's haunt is Bill "Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, a haven for creationist sycophants to drool at the feet of their hero Dembski and idiotic mumbo jumbo masquerading as 'deep thoughts' to be posted. It is also one of the most heavily "moderated" (censored) blogs on the topic, second only to those blogs on which the authors do not allow comments at all.
****
UPDATE
Apparently, the post has finally been allowed at UD. I have to wonder if it was because so many people pointed out the censorship angle that Springer flet compelled to put it up. No matter, Fallible says the reply Springer spewed was basically irrelevant. Like most things Springer writes.
David Scott Springer, aka 'Davescot', a retired Dell computer programmer, has apparently convinced himself that because of his super-high IQ (he claims to have a 'certified' IQ "north of 150") and the facts that he has a couple of patents and, afterall, worked with computers, anything he thinks about non-computer things like, oh say, evolution, must be absolutely correct (for kicks, see this).
In reality, Springer, like all such folk, simply does not understand how little he actually understands about subjects that he has no training, education, or experience in. His claim that one can learn biology in their spare time notwithstanding, The FallibleFiend, who happens to be an engineer (see? they're not all bad... :) ), points out a major misinterpretation by Springer in a post he had written earlier in which he had claimed that a study showed that conserved gene elements in humans were most similar to the coelacanth.
That is not what the paper indicates, and Fiend points this out. He tried to point it out to Springer, also, but wouldn't you know it:
"My post never showed up - and there was never a retraction."
If you do not know, Springer's haunt is Bill "Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, a haven for creationist sycophants to drool at the feet of their hero Dembski and idiotic mumbo jumbo masquerading as 'deep thoughts' to be posted. It is also one of the most heavily "moderated" (censored) blogs on the topic, second only to those blogs on which the authors do not allow comments at all.
****
UPDATE
Apparently, the post has finally been allowed at UD. I have to wonder if it was because so many people pointed out the censorship angle that Springer flet compelled to put it up. No matter, Fallible says the reply Springer spewed was basically irrelevant. Like most things Springer writes.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Bill "Ted Haggard of Information Theory" Dembski is truly delusional
I can't think of any other way to describe it.
There is a long history of his antics which could be described as being, at the very least, unwarranted, but within the last few weeks, he has really blown his top.
Now it turns out that he had written an email to Rishard Dawkins a few years ago, gloating about his implicit connections to power and well.... let's just see how things turned out for Billy:
thanks to Panda's Thumb
Well, let's see....
Senator Rick Santorum - the number 3 republican in Congress - lost his re-election bid
in fact, republicans, who are much more likely to be gullible and uninformed enough to buy into Intelligent Design, lost both houses of Congress
G.W. Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency
Dembski is no longer at Baylor
Faculty and Staff have written a letter protesting the consideration of having the Bush library there
Dembski is now a religion teacher at a small Baptist Seminary. He writes on a couple of heavily-censored blogs. He engages in sophomoric antics and has produced no new research in years.*
He relies on rhetoric and public relations ploys rather than producing anything viable that mioght convince skeptics of the validity of his claims.**
He continues to claim that 'Darwinism' will be dead in a few years and keeps writing how he is proud to have been a part of it. He resorts to denigrating the judge in the Dover case - a case that he was too intellectually cowardly to participate in - for finding the truth - that ID is religion.
He claims that his fart-noise flash animation has had an impact on 'young people' who will now not trust Judge Jones...
Like I said. Delusional.
And he is the most prolific, most "respected" leader of the Intelligent Design Creationism movement.
*I am being generous and considering, for the sake of argument, that his oft-refuted earlier gibberish had at least some legitimate research componant to it
** Just being generous, again.
There is a long history of his antics which could be described as being, at the very least, unwarranted, but within the last few weeks, he has really blown his top.
Now it turns out that he had written an email to Rishard Dawkins a few years ago, gloating about his implicit connections to power and well.... let's just see how things turned out for Billy:
X-Sender: [Dembski’s email at discovery.org] (Unverified) Date: Wed, 26 Nov
2003 21:11:27 -0600 To: Richard Dawkins [email]From: “William A. Dembski”
[email] Subject: President Bush Cc: “Eugenie C. Scott” [email], [Daniel Dennett
email], [Paul Gross email], [Barbara Forrest email]
Dear Prof. Dawkins,
I enjoyed this bit of fun in last week’s Guardian. It might interest you to know that Senator Rick Santorum, who is close to President Bush, endorsed my forthcoming book The Design Revolution. It might also interest you to know that President Bush lives in the same Texas county that I do (McLennan County – his home is about 35 miles from my home). It might futher interest you to know that my university, Baylor, today made a bid on the George W. Bush Presidential Library (for the news conference, go to www.baylortv.com).
Why might all this interest you? With the recommendations by Senator Santorum and others close to President Bush, I plan to pay him a visit at his home early next year and have a frank discussion with him about the future of science in the United States and the possibilities for public funding of intelligent design research. I expect
your remarks below will help me make my case.
Thanks for all you continue to do to advance the work of intelligent design. You are an instrument in the hands of Providence however much you rail against it.
With all good wishes,Bill Dembski
thanks to Panda's Thumb
Well, let's see....
Senator Rick Santorum - the number 3 republican in Congress - lost his re-election bid
in fact, republicans, who are much more likely to be gullible and uninformed enough to buy into Intelligent Design, lost both houses of Congress
G.W. Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency
Dembski is no longer at Baylor
Faculty and Staff have written a letter protesting the consideration of having the Bush library there
Dembski is now a religion teacher at a small Baptist Seminary. He writes on a couple of heavily-censored blogs. He engages in sophomoric antics and has produced no new research in years.*
He relies on rhetoric and public relations ploys rather than producing anything viable that mioght convince skeptics of the validity of his claims.**
He continues to claim that 'Darwinism' will be dead in a few years and keeps writing how he is proud to have been a part of it. He resorts to denigrating the judge in the Dover case - a case that he was too intellectually cowardly to participate in - for finding the truth - that ID is religion.
He claims that his fart-noise flash animation has had an impact on 'young people' who will now not trust Judge Jones...
Like I said. Delusional.
And he is the most prolific, most "respected" leader of the Intelligent Design Creationism movement.
*I am being generous and considering, for the sake of argument, that his oft-refuted earlier gibberish had at least some legitimate research componant to it
** Just being generous, again.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Climate change deniers - stupid or just dishonest?
Well, we all know the answer to that question when it comes to Oklahoma Republican James "Global Warming is a hoax and I have no gay relatives" Inhofe - both.
But what about these guys?
Read this little snippet from their paper and see if you can spot the illogic:
If you are not well versed in the sciences, a few pointers:
Anthropogenic means "man made." Humans have been producing measurable amounts of CO2 since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, so for about 200 years or so.
Geologic history refers to the entire length of time that the earth has been a planet, more or less. That amount of time is some 4.6 BILLION years.
The authors take the amount of CO2 degassed by the planet over the course of 4.6 billion years and directly compare it to the amount of CO2 produced by humans in the last couple hundred years and conclude that the amount humans produce is no big deal.
That is sort of like taking the record-breaking number of yards that Corey Dillon rushed in a single game (278) and claiming that it is no big deal when one compares it to all the yards rushed by all football players in all games since football was first played.
The rest of Khilyuk and Chilingar's paper is no less bad. A devastating response was written by W. Aeschbach-Hertig a few months later. His response ends with:
Indeed. Why the journal decided to publish such anti-global warming garbage is anybody's guess - to avoid a perceived bias? to give the naysayers 'equal time'? to avoid a ruckus over denying the paper?
Who knows. But what is certain is that it would appear that the best the climate change naysayers have to offer is biased dreck and truly junk science, as indicated by the legitimate science presented in the rebuttal.
But poor Jimmy Inhofe can't tell the difference.
*Thanks to Deltoid for writing about this fiasco in the first place.
But what about these guys?
Read this little snippet from their paper and see if you can spot the illogic:
Recalculating this amount into the total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission in grams of CO2, one obtains the estimate 1.003×10^18 g, which constitutes less than 0.00022% of the total CO2 amount naturally degassed from the mantle during geologic history. Comparing these figures, one can conclude that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission is negligible (indistinguishable) in any energy-matter transformation processes changing the Earth’s climate.
If you are not well versed in the sciences, a few pointers:
Anthropogenic means "man made." Humans have been producing measurable amounts of CO2 since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, so for about 200 years or so.
Geologic history refers to the entire length of time that the earth has been a planet, more or less. That amount of time is some 4.6 BILLION years.
The authors take the amount of CO2 degassed by the planet over the course of 4.6 billion years and directly compare it to the amount of CO2 produced by humans in the last couple hundred years and conclude that the amount humans produce is no big deal.
That is sort of like taking the record-breaking number of yards that Corey Dillon rushed in a single game (278) and claiming that it is no big deal when one compares it to all the yards rushed by all football players in all games since football was first played.
The rest of Khilyuk and Chilingar's paper is no less bad. A devastating response was written by W. Aeschbach-Hertig a few months later. His response ends with:
It is astonishing that the paper of Khilyuk and Chilingar (2006) (as well as Khilyuk and Chilingar 2004, for that matter) could pass the review process of a seemingly serious journal such as Environmental Geology. Such failures of this process, which is supposed to guarantee the quality of published literature, are likely to damage the
reputation of this journal.
Indeed. Why the journal decided to publish such anti-global warming garbage is anybody's guess - to avoid a perceived bias? to give the naysayers 'equal time'? to avoid a ruckus over denying the paper?
Who knows. But what is certain is that it would appear that the best the climate change naysayers have to offer is biased dreck and truly junk science, as indicated by the legitimate science presented in the rebuttal.
But poor Jimmy Inhofe can't tell the difference.
*Thanks to Deltoid for writing about this fiasco in the first place.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Poor, confused Looney
This guy is in over his head - WAYYYYY over his head - and he does not seem to realize it at all (that creationist/engineer arrogance at work).
Take this post of his for instance. The title says much:
"Why Darwinism remains hopelessly bound to Spontaneous Generation"
His 'answer' is the Miller-Urey experiments. He declares that because there is a question about it on the SAT II test, that this shows that it is "thus considered vital knowledge by the Darwinian community."
First, he never says what the "Darwinist community" is. But it appears to be his paranoid fantasy that some cabal of "Darwinists" is in charge of writing the SAT II exams and felt that the Miller-Urey experiments on the origin of life - which Looney foolishly refers to as 'spontaneous generation' - are of paramount importance in accepting 'Darwinism.'
Looney, like most creationists with limited knowledge of the relevant science, goes on to distort what the experiments were set up to do. Which is odd, since he provides a link to a Wikipedia article on the experiments. He claims, for example, that "Also, proteins formed from amino acids aren't sufficient to form life by themselves either. They need something more, like DNA and RNA." Which is all well and good, but, again, this has nothing to do with the Miller-Urey experiemtns, as the link Looney provides indicates:
But Looney the creationist cannot be bothered with details.
He also comments on my introducing him to the Salem hypothesis and what I call the Kruger-Dunning effect. Both of which he misinterprets, by the way.
Of the Salem hypothesis, Looney writes:
Again we see 'Darwinist', but we are never told what this is. Looney claims that he sees engineering as applied science and design, which I do, too. Applied science is not science per se. It is taking the hard lab/experimental work of scientists, boiling it down to its most useful form, and using it as a jumping-off point of sorts (and don't forget to mix in a bunch of trial and error).
And yet again we see that all-too-common conflation of human actiity (intelligent design) with Intelligent Design Creationism, as in 'the bacterial flagellum is so complex, it must have come form an Intelligent Designer.' I have asked Looney to clarify this illogical, simplistic analogy/conflation, and he has thus far refused to even reply.
Looney then distorts the Kruger-Dunning effect:
Not quite - it states that people with limited understanding of a particular subject lack the ability to know how poorly they understand that subject. It says nothing about intelligence. In fact, the term "intelligence" does not once appear in the article.
Looney may well be intelligent, but he is clearly pretty ignornat of science in general and especially the biological sciences. Problem is, he also happens to be a creationist with an engineering background, and thus believes himself able to comment authoritativley on the subjects. Problem is, he clearly does not understand as much about them as he thinks he does. He is a prime example of the Kruger-Dunning effect, another aspect of which is the inability of the overconfident to understand how little they understand of the subjects they know little about.
Take this post of his for instance. The title says much:
"Why Darwinism remains hopelessly bound to Spontaneous Generation"
His 'answer' is the Miller-Urey experiments. He declares that because there is a question about it on the SAT II test, that this shows that it is "thus considered vital knowledge by the Darwinian community."
First, he never says what the "Darwinist community" is. But it appears to be his paranoid fantasy that some cabal of "Darwinists" is in charge of writing the SAT II exams and felt that the Miller-Urey experiments on the origin of life - which Looney foolishly refers to as 'spontaneous generation' - are of paramount importance in accepting 'Darwinism.'
Looney, like most creationists with limited knowledge of the relevant science, goes on to distort what the experiments were set up to do. Which is odd, since he provides a link to a Wikipedia article on the experiments. He claims, for example, that "Also, proteins formed from amino acids aren't sufficient to form life by themselves either. They need something more, like DNA and RNA." Which is all well and good, but, again, this has nothing to do with the Miller-Urey experiemtns, as the link Looney provides indicates:
The molecules produced were simple organic molecules, far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first.
But Looney the creationist cannot be bothered with details.
He also comments on my introducing him to the Salem hypothesis and what I call the Kruger-Dunning effect. Both of which he misinterprets, by the way.
Of the Salem hypothesis, Looney writes:
The Darwinist will most likely attribute this to a deficiency in science. As the engineer views his discipline more as Applied Science + Design, we tend to take a dim view of this attitude. The other possibility is that engineers are more likely to have a proper respect for Design than scientists and prefer a unified world view with design near the center. The Darwinist must necessarily have a split world view where Intelligent Design is mandatory in high-tech, but impossible in biology. It is a bit schizophrenic.
Again we see 'Darwinist', but we are never told what this is. Looney claims that he sees engineering as applied science and design, which I do, too. Applied science is not science per se. It is taking the hard lab/experimental work of scientists, boiling it down to its most useful form, and using it as a jumping-off point of sorts (and don't forget to mix in a bunch of trial and error).
And yet again we see that all-too-common conflation of human actiity (intelligent design) with Intelligent Design Creationism, as in 'the bacterial flagellum is so complex, it must have come form an Intelligent Designer.' I have asked Looney to clarify this illogical, simplistic analogy/conflation, and he has thus far refused to even reply.
Looney then distorts the Kruger-Dunning effect:
This states that people of lower intelligence have a habit of making ignorant statements about the big things. If I recall correctly, Darwin didn't do too well in school ...
Not quite - it states that people with limited understanding of a particular subject lack the ability to know how poorly they understand that subject. It says nothing about intelligence. In fact, the term "intelligence" does not once appear in the article.
Looney may well be intelligent, but he is clearly pretty ignornat of science in general and especially the biological sciences. Problem is, he also happens to be a creationist with an engineering background, and thus believes himself able to comment authoritativley on the subjects. Problem is, he clearly does not understand as much about them as he thinks he does. He is a prime example of the Kruger-Dunning effect, another aspect of which is the inability of the overconfident to understand how little they understand of the subjects they know little about.
Wow - 'Looney' goes off the deep end...
I've been enjoying watching Looney flail and squirm and avoid addressing issues both here and at his own blog. But this - this is just too rich...
Emphasis mine. Wow....
Looney has made a couple more posts at his blog which are unintentionally hilarious, and I will deal with them in short order.
Smokey, much of the problem here is that Darwinists have projected the supernatural, intelligent design capabilities of God onto inanimate genetics.
Thus, you must attribute supernatural powers to genetics (while denying such), which I don't.This is why we have a problem with young engineers thinking that they will be able to do amazing things with GA. They are superstitious, unlike us more practical and worldly fundamentalists.
Emphasis mine. Wow....
Looney has made a couple more posts at his blog which are unintentionally hilarious, and I will deal with them in short order.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
classic comeback
Over on Loony's blog, Loony is busily engaging in the old anti-intellectualism we see so often form creationists. He makes a quip designed to deflate the scientific consensus on evolution, but Smokey makes a zinger of a comeback:
Loony:
"Groups of smart people routinely make incredibly dumb decisions."
Smokey:
But not as routinely as groups of dumb people do.
Glorious!
Loony:
"Groups of smart people routinely make incredibly dumb decisions."
Smokey:
But not as routinely as groups of dumb people do.
Glorious!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
'Looney' - another creationist engineer with all the answers
I recently was amused to see this comment:
here.
Which was odd, for it had no real bearing at all on the post being replied to.
Note a couple things:
- A 'dig' about the amount of money paid in each profession
- the requisite conflation of 'intelligent design' done by humans with the 'Intelligent Design' of the IDcreationism movement
- A 'dig' about how 'scientists' are not trained in ID and so 'look down on it'
Generally silly stuff, so I decided to check out the author.
It is one "Looney", a fundamentalist Christian engineer (what else!). I checked out his blog, and lo and behold - he has a post about how molecular biology has nothing to do with "Darwinism" .
He 'knows' this because he picked up a 13 year old textbook on genetics and molecular biology that did not mention Darwinism once. Wow! Clever stuff! Surely, only an engineer could make such an insightful conclusion! Wait - there is more...
Yeah, because us biologists is just so stupid. Why, we don't understand no kem-er-sty. I mean, we don't have any chemistry in our curricula. No physics, either. And math? Never heard of it. But engineers, why, they have all that stuff, not to mention the copious amounts of biology* they are required to study...
(* note - this is graduate level, and only for biomedical engineering)
And it goes on...
Of course. Just BS. Something made-up by propagandists. And of course the use of EASY TO UNDERSTAND 'intelligent design' analogies and metaphors to help explain those simple biology concepts. Seems to me that if biological concepts were so simplistic, we would be using biology analogies to help explain engineering concepts.
Doesn't work that way, though.
Buit wait - the intellectual coup de grace:
Wondderful! Yeah - biologists don't understand.... molecular biology.
Creationists can be humiliated, silenced, and put in their place all on their own - their intellectual dishonesty, their ignorance-based pseudocertainty, their willful ignorance, their outright fabrications and distortions - no, they do not need any help from us. That another creationist engineer doesn't understand a technical subdiscipline of the field of biology is no surprise. What is a surprise is that here is yet another creationist with an engineering background that exhibits nicely what I call the Kruger-Dunning effect (also, 'Loony' is yet another data point for the Salem hypothesis).
No wait - that is not a surprise either.
Just a reminder for you: Engineers are paid to do Intelligent Design, and scientists (who are paid considerably less) generally don't do intelligent design and they definitely aren't trained on ID or how it works. It should be no surprise that they look down on the field.
here.
Which was odd, for it had no real bearing at all on the post being replied to.
Note a couple things:
- A 'dig' about the amount of money paid in each profession
- the requisite conflation of 'intelligent design' done by humans with the 'Intelligent Design' of the IDcreationism movement
- A 'dig' about how 'scientists' are not trained in ID and so 'look down on it'
Generally silly stuff, so I decided to check out the author.
It is one "Looney", a fundamentalist Christian engineer (what else!). I checked out his blog, and lo and behold - he has a post about how molecular biology has nothing to do with "Darwinism" .
He 'knows' this because he picked up a 13 year old textbook on genetics and molecular biology that did not mention Darwinism once. Wow! Clever stuff! Surely, only an engineer could make such an insightful conclusion! Wait - there is more...
"It has a considerable Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry component which would make it intimidating for the large majority of biologists, but this subject is really foundational to understanding the molecular foundations of genetics"
Yeah, because us biologists is just so stupid. Why, we don't understand no kem-er-sty. I mean, we don't have any chemistry in our curricula. No physics, either. And math? Never heard of it. But engineers, why, they have all that stuff, not to mention the copious amounts of biology* they are required to study...
(* note - this is graduate level, and only for biomedical engineering)
And it goes on...
"As I suspected, the modern invoking of DNA and molecular biology in support of Darwinism was merely BS. To further support my contention, professor Schleif routinely invokes factories and computer information concepts (intelligently designed all) to help in understanding the basic concepts, whereas Darwinism is entirely absent."
Of course. Just BS. Something made-up by propagandists. And of course the use of EASY TO UNDERSTAND 'intelligent design' analogies and metaphors to help explain those simple biology concepts. Seems to me that if biological concepts were so simplistic, we would be using biology analogies to help explain engineering concepts.
Doesn't work that way, though.
Buit wait - the intellectual coup de grace:
"My hypothesis is that the field of molecular biology is simply not understood by the majority of biologists and thus pretty secure from rational debate by laymen. By claiming that this discipline (which they probably don't understand either) proves Darwinism and that Darwinism is vital to understanding molecular biology, the Creationists can be silenced, humiliated and put in their place by simply invoking superior knowledge. More malpractice?"
Wondderful! Yeah - biologists don't understand.... molecular biology.
Creationists can be humiliated, silenced, and put in their place all on their own - their intellectual dishonesty, their ignorance-based pseudocertainty, their willful ignorance, their outright fabrications and distortions - no, they do not need any help from us. That another creationist engineer doesn't understand a technical subdiscipline of the field of biology is no surprise. What is a surprise is that here is yet another creationist with an engineering background that exhibits nicely what I call the Kruger-Dunning effect (also, 'Loony' is yet another data point for the Salem hypothesis).
No wait - that is not a surprise either.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
More stupid biology claims by non-biologists
I had forgotten about this essay/article I had written some time ago, dealing with that paragon of ignorance-based arrogance, Warren Bergerson.
If you do not with to read it, at least read this statement:
"Whether you introduce 9 variations per life into a 9 letter message or a 30 million letter message the impact is the same. "
- Warren Bergerson
Bergerson - a retired actuary - cannot see the difference between a 100% change and a 0.00003% change. And he dares lecture others on THEIR lack of mathematical knowledge?
If you do not with to read it, at least read this statement:
"Whether you introduce 9 variations per life into a 9 letter message or a 30 million letter message the impact is the same. "
- Warren Bergerson
Bergerson - a retired actuary - cannot see the difference between a 100% change and a 0.00003% change. And he dares lecture others on THEIR lack of mathematical knowledge?
Thursday, November 02, 2006
'Intelligent Design' - the Cult of Personality
The Intelligent Design movement is this:
A religio-political movement spiffied up with the veneer of science.
And a rather thin veneer, at that. When one reads the writings of ID activists and layfolk, one hears primarily hero-worship. One reads how 'great' the folks associated with ID are; how 'heroic' and 'intelligent' the leaders of the movement are, blah blah blah. Their credentials and relative importance in science and culture are routinely embellished to the point of absurdity (referring to Bill Dembski, whose work has been trampled and belittled by mathematicians and sundry scientists alike, as "the Isaac Newton of Information Theory" is a personal favorite).
A few years ago, the 'leaders' of the ID movement seemed unstoppable - testifying before legislative bodies (not to mention state and local school boards), writing numerous well-selling books, presenting numerous well-attended lectures, producing innumerable ID-friendly websites, etc. The movement certainly fired up the grass-roots right-wing religious establishment and gained a lot of support, even planting seeds of doubt into the minds of some in academia and medicine.
Alas, times have changed. Their cards were played a long time ago - all their 'best' arguments - Irreducible Complexity, the 'explanatory filter', the 'impobability' arguments, the 'problems' with evolution - have been used up. They shot their wad, so to speak, early on and have spent the last several years steadfastly, stubbornly, and desperately clinging to these worn out, hackneyed, arguments ever since.
The writing is one the wall. Look at their most active 'official' web sites - ARN and Uncommon Descent. The ARN discussion boards at one time boasted hundreds of active members, including a few actual scientists posting in support of ID, and getting thousands of hits a day.
Lok at it today. There appear to be only about 10 active participants. There are about 5 scientists posting there, all none-too-friendly to ID, and the pro-ID folks posting there are all unabashed young earth creationists (which we are told ID is not about), with 2 possible exceptions - "jon_e" who is a minutiae mongering pain in the neck, and "lifeEngineer" Warren Bergerson, a megalomaniacal retired actuary who has convinced himself that only he and a handful of people in the entire world uinderstand what science is all about, despite the fact that he has never engaged in any scienctific endeavors and cannot actually name a single person that agrees with anythign he writes.
Uncommon Descent, Bill Dembski's blog, has become a laughingstock, with "moderators" that ban anyone that dares question the 'authority' of Saint Bill or disagree with the 'expert' moderators themselves.
A classic example of the apparent fact that ID is little more than a cult of personality can be seen in this post, "Why I’m paying $100 to hear Paul Nelson, November 16, 2006", by Salvador Cordova, founder of the IDEA club movement, who appears to have no job but to post at discussion boards sleazly and creepy accolades of his ID movement heros and, of course, silly pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo purportedly supportive of ID in some way.
Note how Cordova refers to his ID heros, and note how several posters join in the infatuitive 'crush' on these folks:
"Paul Nelson is such a cool and brilliant guy"
That reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George has a "nonsexual crush" on Elaine's new boyfriend, Tony, wherein Jerry comments to George, after George claims that Tony is such a 'cool guy', "Cool guy? What are you in 8th grade?"
Later in Cordova's adulation piece, after he lists the event attendees (and after explaining that it is an apologetics event - wait, I thought ID was not religious?), he engages in the usual embellishment of his heros:
"The conference has invited speakers who received PhD’s from respectable secular institutions ( 2 from Oxford, 1 for U Penn, 1 from U of Chicago, etc.). They are 22 highly regarded scholars in their field."
GilDodgen, a creationist engineer, comments:
"Paul Nelson is a cool and brilliant guy."
Of several of the other event speakers, he writes:
"He is a first-rate intellect and apologist...
He is brilliant and and insightful...
This is an all-star cast...."
And Cordova's post was only made yesterday - I am sure as the days go on, the adoration and hero-worhsip will only get worse.
The ID movement is stagnant. It has evolved from a reliopolitical movement into a parody of itself. Is has had to resort to hiring a public relations firm (the same one that handled the whole "Swiftboat Veterans..." propaganda campaign - what a coincidence, eh?) to help get its 'message' out, it has resorted to churning out 'attack' books published by right-wing propaganda outlet Regnery with titles such as "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwin and Intelligent Design" by failed scientist-wannabe Jon Wells, filled with errors and disinformation, and similarly titled books by the likes of right-wing 'journalist' Tom Bethell.
Where is the science? Where is their evidence? The fact they have to resort to public relations campaigns and disinformation, propaganda books should inform most rational people that they are floundering, and most folks that follow the 'debate' know that this is the case.
The problem lies with the average citizen, who does not understand the scientific issues, who is inclined to accept the pablum spewn by ID movement folks (because it plays to their religious motivations), and who will eagerly take what these folks claim at their word because they are 'good Christian folk.' And this is a big problem - so many of those people do simply trust that what they are told is absolutley true because the person telling them something is a 'Christian.' But he 'Christian' folks associated with the Intelligent Design movement and creationism are no so much wed to teling the truth as they are to spreading their Faith.
I give one classic example of this. It deals specifically with a young earth creationist, but such folks fill the ranks of the ID movement as well.
Steve Austin is a PhD. holding geologist. He also happens to be a young earth creationist who works for the Institute for Creation Research. He gives tours/lectures at their creation 'museum', and among the things he talks about is his "conversion" to YECism. As he tells it, he used to be an old-earth evolutionist (perhaps even an atheist). He then claims that he studied at Mt.St.Helens after the 1980 eruption, and the things he saw there convinced him that the earth could be young, and then he somehow made the great intellwectual leap from old-earth evolutionist to young earth creationist, claiming that it was the 'science' and his research that lead him to YECism. Hallelujah! Not so fast...
As it turns out, he had been writing YEC articles as a college student for as many as 4 years prior to the eruption at Mt.St.Helens under a pseudonym (Stuart Nevins).
When this is pointed out to creationists, they simply dismiss it. Apparently, the 'story' is more important than than the fact that they were lied to (a sad truism for many with a right-wing inclination*).
This is not an entirely uncommon theme in both creationist and ID writings.
We return to our hero, YEC ID cheerleader and hero-worshipper, Salvador Cordova. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a writer from the science journal Nature. The gist of the story was how the ID movement is basically creationism in disguise and its adherents are politically and religiously motived, not scientiifcally so. And the interview made it quite clear that Cordova wazs in it for religious, not scientific reasons.
Nevertheless, Cordova went on a spam-fest, posting a blurb about how ID proponant Salvador Cordova was in the prestigious journal Nature. He did not mention that his motivations were exposed and ID was shown to be a religio-political movement, oh no - those little facts were not mentione din his posts on multiple discussdion boards, newsgroups and blogs. And the hoped-for effect was apparent - pro-ID folks hailed it as a great victory, without bothering to read the actual interview. when the true outome fo the interview was explained, the pro-ID folks called it sour grapes and ignored the facts.
And this is the state of American discourse.
A religio-political movement spiffied up with the veneer of science.
And a rather thin veneer, at that. When one reads the writings of ID activists and layfolk, one hears primarily hero-worship. One reads how 'great' the folks associated with ID are; how 'heroic' and 'intelligent' the leaders of the movement are, blah blah blah. Their credentials and relative importance in science and culture are routinely embellished to the point of absurdity (referring to Bill Dembski, whose work has been trampled and belittled by mathematicians and sundry scientists alike, as "the Isaac Newton of Information Theory" is a personal favorite).
A few years ago, the 'leaders' of the ID movement seemed unstoppable - testifying before legislative bodies (not to mention state and local school boards), writing numerous well-selling books, presenting numerous well-attended lectures, producing innumerable ID-friendly websites, etc. The movement certainly fired up the grass-roots right-wing religious establishment and gained a lot of support, even planting seeds of doubt into the minds of some in academia and medicine.
Alas, times have changed. Their cards were played a long time ago - all their 'best' arguments - Irreducible Complexity, the 'explanatory filter', the 'impobability' arguments, the 'problems' with evolution - have been used up. They shot their wad, so to speak, early on and have spent the last several years steadfastly, stubbornly, and desperately clinging to these worn out, hackneyed, arguments ever since.
The writing is one the wall. Look at their most active 'official' web sites - ARN and Uncommon Descent. The ARN discussion boards at one time boasted hundreds of active members, including a few actual scientists posting in support of ID, and getting thousands of hits a day.
Lok at it today. There appear to be only about 10 active participants. There are about 5 scientists posting there, all none-too-friendly to ID, and the pro-ID folks posting there are all unabashed young earth creationists (which we are told ID is not about), with 2 possible exceptions - "jon_e" who is a minutiae mongering pain in the neck, and "lifeEngineer" Warren Bergerson, a megalomaniacal retired actuary who has convinced himself that only he and a handful of people in the entire world uinderstand what science is all about, despite the fact that he has never engaged in any scienctific endeavors and cannot actually name a single person that agrees with anythign he writes.
Uncommon Descent, Bill Dembski's blog, has become a laughingstock, with "moderators" that ban anyone that dares question the 'authority' of Saint Bill or disagree with the 'expert' moderators themselves.
A classic example of the apparent fact that ID is little more than a cult of personality can be seen in this post, "Why I’m paying $100 to hear Paul Nelson, November 16, 2006", by Salvador Cordova, founder of the IDEA club movement, who appears to have no job but to post at discussion boards sleazly and creepy accolades of his ID movement heros and, of course, silly pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo purportedly supportive of ID in some way.
Note how Cordova refers to his ID heros, and note how several posters join in the infatuitive 'crush' on these folks:
"Paul Nelson is such a cool and brilliant guy"
That reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George has a "nonsexual crush" on Elaine's new boyfriend, Tony, wherein Jerry comments to George, after George claims that Tony is such a 'cool guy', "Cool guy? What are you in 8th grade?"
Later in Cordova's adulation piece, after he lists the event attendees (and after explaining that it is an apologetics event - wait, I thought ID was not religious?), he engages in the usual embellishment of his heros:
"The conference has invited speakers who received PhD’s from respectable secular institutions ( 2 from Oxford, 1 for U Penn, 1 from U of Chicago, etc.). They are 22 highly regarded scholars in their field."
GilDodgen, a creationist engineer, comments:
"Paul Nelson is a cool and brilliant guy."
Of several of the other event speakers, he writes:
"He is a first-rate intellect and apologist...
He is brilliant and and insightful...
This is an all-star cast...."
And Cordova's post was only made yesterday - I am sure as the days go on, the adoration and hero-worhsip will only get worse.
The ID movement is stagnant. It has evolved from a reliopolitical movement into a parody of itself. Is has had to resort to hiring a public relations firm (the same one that handled the whole "Swiftboat Veterans..." propaganda campaign - what a coincidence, eh?) to help get its 'message' out, it has resorted to churning out 'attack' books published by right-wing propaganda outlet Regnery with titles such as "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwin and Intelligent Design" by failed scientist-wannabe Jon Wells, filled with errors and disinformation, and similarly titled books by the likes of right-wing 'journalist' Tom Bethell.
Where is the science? Where is their evidence? The fact they have to resort to public relations campaigns and disinformation, propaganda books should inform most rational people that they are floundering, and most folks that follow the 'debate' know that this is the case.
The problem lies with the average citizen, who does not understand the scientific issues, who is inclined to accept the pablum spewn by ID movement folks (because it plays to their religious motivations), and who will eagerly take what these folks claim at their word because they are 'good Christian folk.' And this is a big problem - so many of those people do simply trust that what they are told is absolutley true because the person telling them something is a 'Christian.' But he 'Christian' folks associated with the Intelligent Design movement and creationism are no so much wed to teling the truth as they are to spreading their Faith.
I give one classic example of this. It deals specifically with a young earth creationist, but such folks fill the ranks of the ID movement as well.
Steve Austin is a PhD. holding geologist. He also happens to be a young earth creationist who works for the Institute for Creation Research. He gives tours/lectures at their creation 'museum', and among the things he talks about is his "conversion" to YECism. As he tells it, he used to be an old-earth evolutionist (perhaps even an atheist). He then claims that he studied at Mt.St.Helens after the 1980 eruption, and the things he saw there convinced him that the earth could be young, and then he somehow made the great intellwectual leap from old-earth evolutionist to young earth creationist, claiming that it was the 'science' and his research that lead him to YECism. Hallelujah! Not so fast...
As it turns out, he had been writing YEC articles as a college student for as many as 4 years prior to the eruption at Mt.St.Helens under a pseudonym (Stuart Nevins).
When this is pointed out to creationists, they simply dismiss it. Apparently, the 'story' is more important than than the fact that they were lied to (a sad truism for many with a right-wing inclination*).
This is not an entirely uncommon theme in both creationist and ID writings.
We return to our hero, YEC ID cheerleader and hero-worshipper, Salvador Cordova. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a writer from the science journal Nature. The gist of the story was how the ID movement is basically creationism in disguise and its adherents are politically and religiously motived, not scientiifcally so. And the interview made it quite clear that Cordova wazs in it for religious, not scientific reasons.
Nevertheless, Cordova went on a spam-fest, posting a blurb about how ID proponant Salvador Cordova was in the prestigious journal Nature. He did not mention that his motivations were exposed and ID was shown to be a religio-political movement, oh no - those little facts were not mentione din his posts on multiple discussdion boards, newsgroups and blogs. And the hoped-for effect was apparent - pro-ID folks hailed it as a great victory, without bothering to read the actual interview. when the true outome fo the interview was explained, the pro-ID folks called it sour grapes and ignored the facts.
And this is the state of American discourse.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Whatever Happened to R. David Pogge?
Well, nothing.
Pogge (aka 'Do-While Jones') is the main author of the misinformed propaganda at the Science Against Evolution web site.
Pogge is an electrical engineer, and as nearly all electrical engineers that also happen to be creationists, Pogge considers himself an arbiter of the truth of all things scientifc. I have written about some of the more ridiculous things Pogge has written on topics such as gene duplication and the relevance of the % similarity between human and chimp DNA.
Since I began writing articles for this blog last January, I have emailed Pogge 3 or 4 times, informaing him that I had written about some of his articles and included links to them in my messages. I have never received a response of any kind.
Today, I checked out the Pogge propaganda site and (re)discovered the fact that Pogge writes up replies to many emails he receives. I looked through the archives there, and there is no mention of my articles debunking and exposing his silly claims (that I could find, anyway).
Better for him I suppose - it would be detrimental to let his more dimwitted readers know that his claims have been responsded to.
Pogge (aka 'Do-While Jones') is the main author of the misinformed propaganda at the Science Against Evolution web site.
Pogge is an electrical engineer, and as nearly all electrical engineers that also happen to be creationists, Pogge considers himself an arbiter of the truth of all things scientifc. I have written about some of the more ridiculous things Pogge has written on topics such as gene duplication and the relevance of the % similarity between human and chimp DNA.
Since I began writing articles for this blog last January, I have emailed Pogge 3 or 4 times, informaing him that I had written about some of his articles and included links to them in my messages. I have never received a response of any kind.
Today, I checked out the Pogge propaganda site and (re)discovered the fact that Pogge writes up replies to many emails he receives. I looked through the archives there, and there is no mention of my articles debunking and exposing his silly claims (that I could find, anyway).
Better for him I suppose - it would be detrimental to let his more dimwitted readers know that his claims have been responsded to.
Total eclipses occur, so evolution is false?
Amazingly, this is but one of the incredibly silly arguments put forth (in so many words) by Guillermo Gonzalez, co-author of the anthropic-principle-writ-large "Privileged Planet" (co-written by a philosopher/theologian, no less...), against "Darwinian evolution." What, precisely, eclipses have to do with biological evolution is anyone's guess, but creationists go to extreme and illogical lengths to try to tie nearly anything to their cause.
This article sums up some of Gonzalez's awe-based arguments.
Amazing...
This article sums up some of Gonzalez's awe-based arguments.
Amazing...
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