Creationists

[Youwerecreated]

if youmean this :it would in the end be far easier and more sensible to manufacture a complete man de novo, out of appropriately chosen raw materials, than to try to fashion into human form those pitiful relics which remained…

it is evident that the natural rate of mutation of man is so high, and his natural rate of reproduction so low, that not a great deal of margin is left for selection…

it becomes perfectly evident that the present number of children per couple cannot be great enough to allow selection to keep pace with a mutation rate of 0.1..if, to make matters worse, u should be anything like as high as 0.5…, our present reproductive practices would be utterly out of line with human requirements.

Hermann Muller quoted by John Sanford
Appendix 1, Genetic Entropy


so what! I can post a 1000 other geneticists that disagree..
also since this statement is hypothesis and no test have been done (that I know of ) to prove it or disprove it then it has no real world value.

this statement is also not fact:But that is the mutation rate you would have needed for your theory to fit the timeline evolutionist gave for life to evolve.

since life is here and did indeed evolve. the problem is your willfull ignorance of those facts.
as always you have no evidence to backup your bullshit!



almost forgot, your source: Nobel Prize winner HJ Muller, unwitting pioneer of genetic entropy theories | Uncommon Descent
is bias and not credible

Don't quote something you don't understand. I want you to shoot down in your own words what I said and don't try to bate and switch anymore or I will terminate this conversation.

Hey - speaking of John Sanford "quoting" Hermann Muller:


Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience - The Panda's Thumb

Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience

By Nick Matzke on February 27, 2012 12:27 PM| 150 Comments




Note: The Springer webpage for the book was taken down about 24 hours after this post; see update post.

It looks like some creationist engineers found a way to slither some ID/creationism into a major academic publisher, Springer. The major publishers have enough problems at the moment (e.g. see the Elsevier boycott), it seems like the last thing they should be doing is frittering away their credibility even further by uncritically publishing creationist work and giving it a veneer of respectability. The mega-publishers are expensive, are making money off of largely government-funded work provided to them for free, and then the public doesn’t even have access to it. The only thing they have going for them is quality control and credibility – if they give that away to cranks, there is no reason at all to support them.

(A note: even if you bought the ridiculous idea that ID isn’t creationism, they’ve got John Sanford, a straight-up young-earth creationist for goodness sakes, as an editor and presumably author!)

Here’s the summary:



Biological Information: New Perspectives

Series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 38

Marks II, R.J.; Behe, M.J.; Dembski, W.A.; Gordon, B.L.; Sanford, J.C. (Eds.)

2012, 2012, XII, 549 p.

Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-642-28453-3

Due: March 31, 2012 $179.00





About this book

Presents new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information

Demonstrates how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence

Written by leading experts in the field

In the spring of 2011, a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics. This volume presents new research by those invited to speak at the conference.

The contributors to this volume use their wide-ranging expertise in the area of biological information to bring fresh insights into the explanatory difficulties that biological information raises. Going beyond the conventional scientific wisdom, which attempts to explain biological information reductionistically via chemical, genetic, and natural selective determinants, the work represented here develops novel non-reductionist approaches to biological information, looking notably to telic and self-organizational processes.

Several clear themes emerged from these research papers: 1) Information is indispensable to our understanding of what life is. 2) Biological information is more than the material structures that embody it. 3) Conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life. By exploring new perspectives on biological information, this volume seeks to expand, encourage, and enrich research on the nature and origin of biological information.

Content Level “ Research

Keywords “ Biological Information - Computational Intelligence - Genetical Information - Neo-Darwinian Theory

Related subjects “ Artificial Intelligence - Computational Intelligence and Complexity - Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Table of contents

Dynamics of Charged Particulate Systems.- Biological Information and Genetic Theory.- Theoretical Molecular Biology.- Biological Information and Self-Organizational Complexity Theory.

Speaking of Sanford – if you didn’t know, he has a bizarre argument which only “makes sense” from a young-earth creationist perspective. The claim is basically that natural selection can’t remove enough bad mutations from the human population (he forgets about recombination and soft sweeps – whoops!), and therefore the human genome has been decaying rapidly ever since Adam and Eve (with perfect genomes, I guess) started breeding.

Do you think Springer commissioned any actual population geneticists to peer-review his work and his editing? Any actual biologists at mainstream institutions anywhere? Or was it creationist engineers peer-reviewing theologians masquerading as information theoreticians? Does the volume actually address any of the detailed and technical rebuttals of the favorite ID arguments? (key references summarized here) Wouldn’t this be a minimal requirement, even if a publisher like Springer decided to publish pseudoscientists on the everyone-deserves-to-be-heard-even-cranks theory, or whatever?

As for “a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information”, a few posts from attendees tell us what actually happened – the conference wasn’t advertised, mainstream scientists with relevant expertise were not invited to attend, and participants were told several times to suppress their apparently otherwise overwhelming tendency to bring in their religion and do fundamentalist apologetics like they do in most other venues. It was basically just another fake ID “conference” where the ID fans get together and convince each other that they are staging a scientific revolution, all the while ignoring the actual science on how new genetic “information” originates.

Here is one of the “diverse group of scientists” who attended and reported on the event – Sid Galloway BS, M.Div., who I gather is the Director of the Good Shepherd Initiative at GSI Home Page, which is devoted to “Education, Counseling, & Animal-Assisted Apologetics.” Here’s his summary of the meeting (or his talk?).

Baloney.

 

[Youwerecreated]

You go, boy!


Evolution is a Fact and a Theory

The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

Talk origins, I already warned you about this site earlier in the thread.

 

[Hollie]

Why are the atheist evolutionist worried about ID proponents ?

Because the creationist ministries have a track record of falsified claims.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Why are the atheist evolutionist worried about ID proponents ?

Because the creationist ministries have a track record of falsified claims.

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own, any who bring up the intelligence question.

 

[Hollie]

You go, boy!


Evolution is a Fact and a Theory

The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

Talk origins, I already warned you about this site earlier in the thread.

You're running scared. The site very effectively categorizes and catalogs the falsified claims, falsified "quotes" and religious bigotries that saddle the creationist claims.

That is in part what drives your attempt to sidestep addressing what was presented to you.

 

[Hollie]

Why are the atheist evolutionist worried about ID proponents ?

Because the creationist ministries have a track record of falsified claims.

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own who even bring up the intelligence question.

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

 

[Youwerecreated]

You go, boy!


Evolution is a Fact and a Theory

The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

Talk origins, I already warned you about this site earlier in the thread.

You're running scared. The site very effectively categorizes and catalogs the falsified claims, falsified "quotes" and religious bigotries that saddle the creationist claims.

That is in part what drives your attempt to sidestep addressing what was presented to you.

No, I exposed many of their lies in this very thread.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Because the creationist ministries have a track record of falsified claims.

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own who even bring up the intelligence question.

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

Really ? you have not yet

 

[Hollie]

Don't quote something you don't understand. I want you to shoot down in your own words what I said and don't try to bate and switch anymore or I will terminate this conversation.

Hey - speaking of John Sanford "quoting" Hermann Muller:


Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience - The Panda's Thumb

Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience

By Nick Matzke on February 27, 2012 12:27 PM| 150 Comments




Note: The Springer webpage for the book was taken down about 24 hours after this post; see update post.

It looks like some creationist engineers found a way to slither some ID/creationism into a major academic publisher, Springer. The major publishers have enough problems at the moment (e.g. see the Elsevier boycott), it seems like the last thing they should be doing is frittering away their credibility even further by uncritically publishing creationist work and giving it a veneer of respectability. The mega-publishers are expensive, are making money off of largely government-funded work provided to them for free, and then the public doesn’t even have access to it. The only thing they have going for them is quality control and credibility – if they give that away to cranks, there is no reason at all to support them.

(A note: even if you bought the ridiculous idea that ID isn’t creationism, they’ve got John Sanford, a straight-up young-earth creationist for goodness sakes, as an editor and presumably author!)

Here’s the summary:



Biological Information: New Perspectives

Series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 38

Marks II, R.J.; Behe, M.J.; Dembski, W.A.; Gordon, B.L.; Sanford, J.C. (Eds.)

2012, 2012, XII, 549 p.

Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-642-28453-3

Due: March 31, 2012 $179.00





About this book

Presents new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information

Demonstrates how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence

Written by leading experts in the field

In the spring of 2011, a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics. This volume presents new research by those invited to speak at the conference.

The contributors to this volume use their wide-ranging expertise in the area of biological information to bring fresh insights into the explanatory difficulties that biological information raises. Going beyond the conventional scientific wisdom, which attempts to explain biological information reductionistically via chemical, genetic, and natural selective determinants, the work represented here develops novel non-reductionist approaches to biological information, looking notably to telic and self-organizational processes.

Several clear themes emerged from these research papers: 1) Information is indispensable to our understanding of what life is. 2) Biological information is more than the material structures that embody it. 3) Conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life. By exploring new perspectives on biological information, this volume seeks to expand, encourage, and enrich research on the nature and origin of biological information.

Content Level “ Research

Keywords “ Biological Information - Computational Intelligence - Genetical Information - Neo-Darwinian Theory

Related subjects “ Artificial Intelligence - Computational Intelligence and Complexity - Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Table of contents

Dynamics of Charged Particulate Systems.- Biological Information and Genetic Theory.- Theoretical Molecular Biology.- Biological Information and Self-Organizational Complexity Theory.

Speaking of Sanford – if you didn’t know, he has a bizarre argument which only “makes sense” from a young-earth creationist perspective. The claim is basically that natural selection can’t remove enough bad mutations from the human population (he forgets about recombination and soft sweeps – whoops!), and therefore the human genome has been decaying rapidly ever since Adam and Eve (with perfect genomes, I guess) started breeding.

Do you think Springer commissioned any actual population geneticists to peer-review his work and his editing? Any actual biologists at mainstream institutions anywhere? Or was it creationist engineers peer-reviewing theologians masquerading as information theoreticians? Does the volume actually address any of the detailed and technical rebuttals of the favorite ID arguments? (key references summarized here) Wouldn’t this be a minimal requirement, even if a publisher like Springer decided to publish pseudoscientists on the everyone-deserves-to-be-heard-even-cranks theory, or whatever?

As for “a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information”, a few posts from attendees tell us what actually happened – the conference wasn’t advertised, mainstream scientists with relevant expertise were not invited to attend, and participants were told several times to suppress their apparently otherwise overwhelming tendency to bring in their religion and do fundamentalist apologetics like they do in most other venues. It was basically just another fake ID “conference” where the ID fans get together and convince each other that they are staging a scientific revolution, all the while ignoring the actual science on how new genetic “information” originates.

Here is one of the “diverse group of scientists” who attended and reported on the event – Sid Galloway BS, M.Div., who I gather is the Director of the Good Shepherd Initiative at GSI Home Page, which is devoted to “Education, Counseling, & Animal-Assisted Apologetics.” Here’s his summary of the meeting (or his talk?).

Baloney.

I've found through experience that confronting religious zealots with facts sends them into babbling, incoherent spasms.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Because the creationist ministries have a track record of falsified claims.

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own who even bring up the intelligence question.

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

So I guess since you won't listen to the debate nor see what was presented in expelled, you are just a propagandist.

You did not have enough time to watch and listen to what was presented because you posted to soon.

Maybe I should put you back on ignore.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Hey - speaking of John Sanford "quoting" Hermann Muller:


Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience - The Panda's Thumb

Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience

By Nick Matzke on February 27, 2012 12:27 PM| 150 Comments




Note: The Springer webpage for the book was taken down about 24 hours after this post; see update post.

It looks like some creationist engineers found a way to slither some ID/creationism into a major academic publisher, Springer. The major publishers have enough problems at the moment (e.g. see the Elsevier boycott), it seems like the last thing they should be doing is frittering away their credibility even further by uncritically publishing creationist work and giving it a veneer of respectability. The mega-publishers are expensive, are making money off of largely government-funded work provided to them for free, and then the public doesn’t even have access to it. The only thing they have going for them is quality control and credibility – if they give that away to cranks, there is no reason at all to support them.

(A note: even if you bought the ridiculous idea that ID isn’t creationism, they’ve got John Sanford, a straight-up young-earth creationist for goodness sakes, as an editor and presumably author!)

Here’s the summary:



Biological Information: New Perspectives

Series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 38

Marks II, R.J.; Behe, M.J.; Dembski, W.A.; Gordon, B.L.; Sanford, J.C. (Eds.)

2012, 2012, XII, 549 p.

Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-642-28453-3

Due: March 31, 2012 $179.00





About this book

Presents new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information

Demonstrates how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence

Written by leading experts in the field

In the spring of 2011, a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics. This volume presents new research by those invited to speak at the conference.

The contributors to this volume use their wide-ranging expertise in the area of biological information to bring fresh insights into the explanatory difficulties that biological information raises. Going beyond the conventional scientific wisdom, which attempts to explain biological information reductionistically via chemical, genetic, and natural selective determinants, the work represented here develops novel non-reductionist approaches to biological information, looking notably to telic and self-organizational processes.

Several clear themes emerged from these research papers: 1) Information is indispensable to our understanding of what life is. 2) Biological information is more than the material structures that embody it. 3) Conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life. By exploring new perspectives on biological information, this volume seeks to expand, encourage, and enrich research on the nature and origin of biological information.

Content Level “ Research

Keywords “ Biological Information - Computational Intelligence - Genetical Information - Neo-Darwinian Theory

Related subjects “ Artificial Intelligence - Computational Intelligence and Complexity - Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Table of contents

Dynamics of Charged Particulate Systems.- Biological Information and Genetic Theory.- Theoretical Molecular Biology.- Biological Information and Self-Organizational Complexity Theory.

Speaking of Sanford – if you didn’t know, he has a bizarre argument which only “makes sense” from a young-earth creationist perspective. The claim is basically that natural selection can’t remove enough bad mutations from the human population (he forgets about recombination and soft sweeps – whoops!), and therefore the human genome has been decaying rapidly ever since Adam and Eve (with perfect genomes, I guess) started breeding.

Do you think Springer commissioned any actual population geneticists to peer-review his work and his editing? Any actual biologists at mainstream institutions anywhere? Or was it creationist engineers peer-reviewing theologians masquerading as information theoreticians? Does the volume actually address any of the detailed and technical rebuttals of the favorite ID arguments? (key references summarized here) Wouldn’t this be a minimal requirement, even if a publisher like Springer decided to publish pseudoscientists on the everyone-deserves-to-be-heard-even-cranks theory, or whatever?

As for “a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information”, a few posts from attendees tell us what actually happened – the conference wasn’t advertised, mainstream scientists with relevant expertise were not invited to attend, and participants were told several times to suppress their apparently otherwise overwhelming tendency to bring in their religion and do fundamentalist apologetics like they do in most other venues. It was basically just another fake ID “conference” where the ID fans get together and convince each other that they are staging a scientific revolution, all the while ignoring the actual science on how new genetic “information” originates.

Here is one of the “diverse group of scientists” who attended and reported on the event – Sid Galloway BS, M.Div., who I gather is the Director of the Good Shepherd Initiative at GSI Home Page, which is devoted to “Education, Counseling, & Animal-Assisted Apologetics.” Here’s his summary of the meeting (or his talk?).

Baloney.

I've found through experience that confronting religious zealots with facts sends them into babbling, incoherent spasms.

The only one babbling is yourself.

 

[Youwerecreated]

I'm gonna put you back on ignore until you watch and listen and respond coherently.

 

[Hollie]

Talk origins, I already warned you about this site earlier in the thread.

You're running scared. The site very effectively categorizes and catalogs the falsified claims, falsified "quotes" and religious bigotries that saddle the creationist claims.

That is in part what drives your attempt to sidestep addressing what was presented to you.

No, I exposed many of their lies in this very thread.

Actually, no. You have promoted and furthered creationist ministry lies by emulating the tactics of cutting and pasting falsified "quotes" and promoting religion as science.

 

[Hollie]

I'm gonna put you back on ignore until you watch and listen and respond coherently.

I had a strong impression that when confronted with the facts of your false claims, you would use the cowardly tactic of running for cover.

Use this as a life lesson. If you're going to promote religion as science, your arguments will not meet the standards of proof science can meet. Also, be aware that the charlatans at the creationist ministries you worship are in as hopeless a position as you are. You were hoping that falsified "quotes" from Muller would bolster your hapless claims when in fact, Muller was a science promoting evilutionist who actually destroyed your falsified claims.

 

[Hollie]

Baloney.

I've found through experience that confronting religious zealots with facts sends them into babbling, incoherent spasms.

The only one babbling is yourself.

And your have made no attempt to refute the data I posted that dismantled your falsified "quotes".

 

[Hollie]

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own who even bring up the intelligence question.

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

So I guess since you won't listen to the debate nor see what was presented in expelled, you are just a propagandist.

You did not have enough time to watch and listen to what was presented because you posted to soon.

Maybe I should put you back on ignore.

How desperate are your tactics?

Your earlier falsified claims were exposed as frauds and your only tactic left is to scour the web for more silly creationist ministry infomercials.

 

[Hollie]

Hey - speaking of John Sanford "quoting" Hermann Muller:


Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience - The Panda's Thumb

Springer gets suckered by creationist pseudoscience

By Nick Matzke on February 27, 2012 12:27 PM| 150 Comments




Note: The Springer webpage for the book was taken down about 24 hours after this post; see update post.

It looks like some creationist engineers found a way to slither some ID/creationism into a major academic publisher, Springer. The major publishers have enough problems at the moment (e.g. see the Elsevier boycott), it seems like the last thing they should be doing is frittering away their credibility even further by uncritically publishing creationist work and giving it a veneer of respectability. The mega-publishers are expensive, are making money off of largely government-funded work provided to them for free, and then the public doesn’t even have access to it. The only thing they have going for them is quality control and credibility – if they give that away to cranks, there is no reason at all to support them.

(A note: even if you bought the ridiculous idea that ID isn’t creationism, they’ve got John Sanford, a straight-up young-earth creationist for goodness sakes, as an editor and presumably author!)

Here’s the summary:



Biological Information: New Perspectives

Series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 38

Marks II, R.J.; Behe, M.J.; Dembski, W.A.; Gordon, B.L.; Sanford, J.C. (Eds.)

2012, 2012, XII, 549 p.

Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-642-28453-3

Due: March 31, 2012 $179.00





About this book

Presents new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information

Demonstrates how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence

Written by leading experts in the field

In the spring of 2011, a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics. This volume presents new research by those invited to speak at the conference.

The contributors to this volume use their wide-ranging expertise in the area of biological information to bring fresh insights into the explanatory difficulties that biological information raises. Going beyond the conventional scientific wisdom, which attempts to explain biological information reductionistically via chemical, genetic, and natural selective determinants, the work represented here develops novel non-reductionist approaches to biological information, looking notably to telic and self-organizational processes.

Several clear themes emerged from these research papers: 1) Information is indispensable to our understanding of what life is. 2) Biological information is more than the material structures that embody it. 3) Conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life. By exploring new perspectives on biological information, this volume seeks to expand, encourage, and enrich research on the nature and origin of biological information.

Content Level “ Research

Keywords “ Biological Information - Computational Intelligence - Genetical Information - Neo-Darwinian Theory

Related subjects “ Artificial Intelligence - Computational Intelligence and Complexity - Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Table of contents

Dynamics of Charged Particulate Systems.- Biological Information and Genetic Theory.- Theoretical Molecular Biology.- Biological Information and Self-Organizational Complexity Theory.

Speaking of Sanford – if you didn’t know, he has a bizarre argument which only “makes sense” from a young-earth creationist perspective. The claim is basically that natural selection can’t remove enough bad mutations from the human population (he forgets about recombination and soft sweeps – whoops!), and therefore the human genome has been decaying rapidly ever since Adam and Eve (with perfect genomes, I guess) started breeding.

Do you think Springer commissioned any actual population geneticists to peer-review his work and his editing? Any actual biologists at mainstream institutions anywhere? Or was it creationist engineers peer-reviewing theologians masquerading as information theoreticians? Does the volume actually address any of the detailed and technical rebuttals of the favorite ID arguments? (key references summarized here) Wouldn’t this be a minimal requirement, even if a publisher like Springer decided to publish pseudoscientists on the everyone-deserves-to-be-heard-even-cranks theory, or whatever?

As for “a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information”, a few posts from attendees tell us what actually happened – the conference wasn’t advertised, mainstream scientists with relevant expertise were not invited to attend, and participants were told several times to suppress their apparently otherwise overwhelming tendency to bring in their religion and do fundamentalist apologetics like they do in most other venues. It was basically just another fake ID “conference” where the ID fans get together and convince each other that they are staging a scientific revolution, all the while ignoring the actual science on how new genetic “information” originates.

Here is one of the “diverse group of scientists” who attended and reported on the event – Sid Galloway BS, M.Div., who I gather is the Director of the Good Shepherd Initiative at GSI Home Page, which is devoted to “Education, Counseling, & Animal-Assisted Apologetics.” Here’s his summary of the meeting (or his talk?).

Baloney.

I've found through experience that confronting religious zealots with facts sends them into babbling, incoherent spasms.

Update on Springer “Biological Information: New Perspectives” Volume

By Nick Matzke on February 29, 2012 11:50 AM | 43 Comments

As those who have followed the comment thread on the previous post know, the link to the webpage for the forthcoming creationist/ID “Biological Information: New Perspectives” volume on the Springer website went dead yesterday, approximately 24 hours after the PT post went up. This may mean that the volume had already been identified as problematic, and the webpage was put up due to some oversight or failure to update a database.

Surprisingly for the ID movement, which normally cries “oppression” and “freedom of speech” at the first sight of criticism, there has been virtually no reaction so far. The only creationist reaction is from Todd Wood, who is a lone wolf in the creationist movement in several ways. David Klinghoffer at the Discovery Institute (DI) did put a post up at the DI Media Complaints Division soon after my post, but it was taken down before anyone saw it, except apparently for Google blog aggregators.

Since silence is odd when we’re talking about the ID movement, this invites speculation about what is going on. I had assumed, based on the fact that the editors of the volume were primarily DI fellows or close associates (Michael Behe, William Dembski, Bruce Gordon, Robert Marks, etc.), and the language of the abstract, that this meeting and volume were primarily the brainchild of the DI. However, by looking at the talk titles and googling them, and looking at the posts of those who reported on the meeting (e.g. from YEC David Coppedge, also here), we can see that the meeting had quite a bit of influence from straight-up proud young-earth creationists. Sanford-related talks about the alleged decay of the human genome are a dominant part of the meeting, although phrased in “genetic information” infobabble-speak. And the meeting was at Cornell, where Sanford is, and he may have been the main organizer.

If all of this is true, perhaps the whole project was primarily the brainchild of specifically young-earth creationists, rather than generic creationists of ID and non-ID varieties, and by using lots of infobabble the YECs were able to draw in a number of the big ID names into collaboration. This was then further massaged down to “telic processes” for presentation to Springer.

This would match up with the quietness of the DI, who would certainly know the danger of associating explicitly with a bunch of creationists of the Answers-in-Genesis and ICR type. The collaboration of people like Behe and Dembski might have even occurred without the DI knowing about it, as the meeting setup was done pretty quietly, although that seems pretty unlikely if someone like Bruce Gordon was involved.

Furthermore, John Sanford’s “genetic entropy” argument, if taken seriously, proves too much for ID creationists and old-earth creationists, even though Sanford’s Genetic Entropy book got endorsements from the likes of Behe. If Sanford is right, then no species could persist for more than a few thousand or tens of thousands of years, without miraculous intervention. That’s fine for YECs, but it would be a huge problem for old-earth creationism or for those in the ID movement who wish to pretend that ID is fine with universal common ancestry*, just as it would be for mainstream science. The fact that Behe endorsed Sanford’s book could just be evidence that he’s not terribly good at thinking consistently, which I guess we already knew.

However, all this is speculation. It could also be that lawsuit threats are being tossed around behind the scenes by the creationists, since this is now a favored tactic when a publisher retracts or criticizes some creo-friendly piece. I would suspect, though, that Springer has had to deal with this kind of thing before. Every field, e.g. medicine, vaccines, climate science, etc., has a small group of pseudoscientific detractors that can sometimes become quite organized and can target mainstream publications.

(*Note: Although virtually all major IDists except Behe deny common ancestry and many make vociferous arguments against common ancestry that they call ID arguments, since Kitzmiller some have tried to play this down, presumably to dodge the “creationist” accusation.

 

[UltimateReality]

Wrong.

Listen to this debate and you will get your answer.
Streaming Media - Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins


Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Watch Free Documentary Online

Evolutionist eat their own who even bring up the intelligence question.

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

So I guess since you won't listen to the debate nor see what was presented in expelled, you are just a propagandist.

You did not have enough time to watch and listen to what was presented because you posted to soon.

Maybe I should put you back on ignore.

Please do. Because now I have to see his/her in quotes.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Not wrong at all. Anyone can read through this thread and discover for themselves the falsified "quotes" you have posted in desperate attempts to press your religious agenda.

So I guess since you won't listen to the debate nor see what was presented in expelled, you are just a propagandist.

You did not have enough time to watch and listen to what was presented because you posted to soon.

Maybe I should put you back on ignore.

Please do. Because now I have to see his/her in quotes.

I did

 

[Hollie]

So I guess since you won't listen to the debate nor see what was presented in expelled, you are just a propagandist.

You did not have enough time to watch and listen to what was presented because you posted to soon.

Maybe I should put you back on ignore.

Please do. Because now I have to see his/her in quotes.

I did

Gee whiz. The creationist ministry stumblebums are left befuddled and at a loss for YouTube videos.