Creationists

[Hollie]

I don't think you understand TOE, I'm from Tennessee, and TOE is about characterisics of a mammal/animal, can improve, and originates that species are improving themselves over time. You got a better definition?

Maybe you are confusing the TOE with the TVA. I was born in Knoxville.

In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor.[1][2]

What this means is that current evolutionary thought teaches you came from an single cell organism, or maybe even a virus. Or as YWC likes to say, microbiologists came from microbes.

Start here to learn more...

Common descent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why don't you also the address the alternative as described by thre creationist ministries: that life appeared by supernatural means by methods employed by a supermagical god(s) about 6,000 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html?pagewanted=all


The Creation Museum

PETERSBURG, Ky. — The entrance gates here are topped with metallic Stegosauruses. The grounds include a giant tyrannosaur standing amid the trees, and a stone-lined lobby sports varied sauropods. It could be like any other natural history museum, luring families with the promise of immense fossils and dinosaur adventures.


But step a little farther into the entrance hall, and you come upon a pastoral scene undreamt of by any natural history museum. Two prehistoric children play near a burbling waterfall, thoroughly at home in the natural world. Dinosaurs cavort nearby, their animatronic mechanisms turning them into alluring companions, their gaping mouths seeming not threatening, but almost welcoming, as an Apatosaurus munches on leaves a few yards away.

What is this, then? A reproduction of a childhood fantasy in which dinosaurs are friends of inquisitive youngsters? The kind of fantasy that doesn’t care that human beings and these prefossilized thunder-lizards are usually thought to have been separated by millions of years? No, this really is meant to be more like one of those literal dioramas of the traditional natural history museum, an imagining of a real habitat, with plant life and landscape reproduced in meticulous detail.

 

[Hollie]

Oh sure, repeat my accusation back at me. No one else will notice how silly that looks. You have shown time and again how you twist the truth with your cut and pastes from the IHEU websites. You really should just stick to copying words from Lawrence Krauss website.

You're lashing out.

I can understand your frustration. Every time you and your cohort fundies have tried to force your religion into the school system, you've been thrown out in disgrace.

We will see who has the last laugh. You do realize you are living in satans world of course he doesn't want things about the creator taught.

Typical fundie rhetoric: "believe as I tell you to believe or my gods will send you to everlasting torment".

My take on your religious views and the views of the other fundie is that like many religious zealots, your preferred method of expressing your message of hate and intolerance is to use your beliefs like a sledge hammer or bloody truncheon to terrify people with threats of everlasting torment, pain and suffering absent their cowering in fear to your asserted gawds.

You remind me of the television power preachers and faith healers who stomp around on stage, holding their “holy text” above their heads and extolling “jay –zuss” to “burn the filthy unbelievers in the fires of Hades”.

I prefer to embrace critical thinking and the scientific methodology. By definition, adhering to these criteria means one must always assiduously test what one believes and support those beliefs in a demonstrable way. Is this corruptible? Sure, everything is. But just like the ideal of a free court of inquiry means all views have equal rights to being aired equates to an open and more tolerant nation, so does having disciplined but questioning statutes should compel people towards a more cooperative society.

 

[Hollie]

It is your religion. You swear by its tenants and doctrines to support your belief in an eternal universe.

Science is not religion.

That's why the courts have consistently thrown out fundie creationst babble from a school syllabus.

Sorry dear, the religion you cling to is not real science.

That makes no sense. You obviously despise science and have made every effort to denigrate science. I certainly wouldn't expect a fundie zealot to be able to form rational opinions on science matters.

 

[Hollie]

1. Abiogenesis
2. Chemical evolution
3. Dating methods
4. Trasitional fossils
5. Stephen Hawking's explanation of black holes
6. Age of the earth and the universe

Just to name a few.

YWC, don't forget the most supernatural theory of all!!! The multi-universe theory....ahhhh. A supernatural theory invented to counter the 38 finely tuned parameters that make life, even planets, possible in our universe. Okay Holly... 1, 2, 3 Go! Quick! Mention Huran Yahan and the ICR!!!

No need for me to mention your charlatans gods at the ICR.

These hacks have been refuted often enough.

It's just a shame that the two fundies are unable to accept science fact in lieu of creationist ministry falsehoods.

1. Abiogenesis
2. Chemical evolution
3. Dating methods
4. Trasitional fossils
5. Stephen Hawking's explanation of black holes
6. Age of the earth and the universe

The majority of the above have extensive factual support and testable methods for their verification.

I'm never surprised at just how deeply ignorant the fundies choose to be.

 

[Hollie]

This is the faith required for the TOE...

"This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” A faith that fills the ever-shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the organism with a potent meaninglessness capable of transforming everything else into an illusion is a faith that could benefit from some minimal grounding."

That is a complete fabrication of the Theory of Evolution. You are rather stereotypical in your lack of training in science and your inability to write intelligently about the subject.

As is the case with so much of the religious argumentation against science, the fundie creationists resort to lies and misrepresentation.

What is striking about the tactics of the Christian zealots is that they have lost all credibility in furthering evidence for supernaturalism and miracles and are left with only frantic attempts to discredit real science.

 

[Hollie]

Intelligent Design Creationism: Fraudulent Science, Bad Philosophy.

Intelligent Design Creationism: Fraudulent Science.

Introduction.

There are various forms of fake science, bad science, and perverted science. History has seen many come, and decline, but none ever seem to die. The ideas of flat earth, hollow earth, astrology, alchemy and perpetual motion have supporters even today. These are interesting examples of the human ability to hold to an idea even without supportive evidence, and even in the face of contrary evidence. They, however, pose little threat to science, which simply ignores them and goes about its work.

A newer pseudoscience arose, first called "creationism" or "creation science", which tried to impose the literal interpretation of Biblical accounts into science, and into the schools. This movement had considerable public support amongst fundamentalist Christians. Scientists generally ignored it as irrelevant to their work. In recent years a movement called "intelligent design" (ID) has been promoted by a handful of people who write books aimed at non-scientists. These authors claim that intelligent design is not a religious idea, but the public speeches of some of them reveal that their goal is to get "God back into science and into school classrooms". Creationists, having largely failed in their efforts, lend their support to intelligent design, as perhaps the best they can get—for now.

Creationism and intelligent design are not the same. Creationism arose from clearly religious motivations. For political reasons, its advocates found they could "sell" it better to non-fundamentalists if they downplayed the religious content and renamed it "creation-science". But its essential content and goals were the same. Most creationists held that the earth was no more than about 10,000 years old, that the fossil record was laid down during the Genesis flood, and that natural laws were vastly different before mankind's "fall" in the Garden of Eden. To further their campaign to get some of this into schools, the Biblical content was stripped away even more, and what was left was primarily an attack on evolution. Evolution of all kinds, whether cosmic or biological, is anathema to creationists.

Intelligent design strips away even more of the religious context, concentrating on the notion of an "intelligent designer" who supposedly created the universe, and perhaps intervenes in natural processes from time to time to create new species of plants and animals. ID claims that the evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer is found in the universe itself, and specifically in instances where natural laws "could not possibly" have brought about certain biological modifications through natural processes alone. Unlike creationism, intelligent design does not insist on an absurdly short age of the earth.

Scientists recognize that the so-called ID "theory" is not a scientific theory at all, and that its claims of supportive evidence from nature are contrived and easily shown to be invalid. But scientists now also realize they must not ignore this threat to scientific integrity, for it is part of an organized campaign with social and political goals and widespread grass roots support.

 

[UltimateReality]

I don't think you understand TOE, I'm from Tennessee, and TOE is about characterisics of a mammal/animal, can improve, and originates that species are improving themselves over time. You got a better definition?

Maybe you are confusing the TOE with the TVA. I was born in Knoxville.

In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor.[1][2]

What this means is that current evolutionary thought teaches you came from an single cell organism, or maybe even a virus. Or as YWC likes to say, microbiologists came from microbes.

Start here to learn more...

Common descent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why don't you also the address the alternative as described by thre creationist ministries: that life appeared by supernatural means by methods employed by a supermagical god(s) about 6,000 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html?pagewanted=all


The Creation Museum

PETERSBURG, Ky. — The entrance gates here are topped with metallic Stegosauruses. The grounds include a giant tyrannosaur standing amid the trees, and a stone-lined lobby sports varied sauropods. It could be like any other natural history museum, luring families with the promise of immense fossils and dinosaur adventures.


But step a little farther into the entrance hall, and you come upon a pastoral scene undreamt of by any natural history museum. Two prehistoric children play near a burbling waterfall, thoroughly at home in the natural world. Dinosaurs cavort nearby, their animatronic mechanisms turning them into alluring companions, their gaping mouths seeming not threatening, but almost welcoming, as an Apatosaurus munches on leaves a few yards away.

What is this, then? A reproduction of a childhood fantasy in which dinosaurs are friends of inquisitive youngsters? The kind of fantasy that doesn’t care that human beings and these prefossilized thunder-lizards are usually thought to have been separated by millions of years? No, this really is meant to be more like one of those literal dioramas of the traditional natural history museum, an imagining of a real habitat, with plant life and landscape reproduced in meticulous detail.

I've already exposed this technique of yours. You can try and pretend it didn't happen, but we won't be falling for your manipulations any more. Sorry.

 

[UltimateReality]

This is the faith required for the TOE...

"This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” A faith that fills the ever-shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the organism with a potent meaninglessness capable of transforming everything else into an illusion is a faith that could benefit from some minimal grounding."

That is a complete fabrication of the Theory of Evolution. You are rather stereotypical in your lack of training in science and your inability to write intelligently about the subject.

As is the case with so much of the religious argumentation against science, the fundie creationists resort to lies and misrepresentation.

What is striking about the tactics of the Christian zealots is that they have lost all credibility in furthering evidence for supernaturalism and miracles and are left with only frantic attempts to discredit real [ha, ha, ha, ha. Fell off my chair laughing] science.

Just attacks. No rebuttal. This reminds me of you stomping around on stage holding the atheist bible above your head shouting "this is real science because I say it is!!".

Holly, you don't actually read the posts do you? This is not my writing. It's a quote.

 

[UltimateReality]

No it wouldn't be a.. wait. for it... circular argument, because we are not talking about logical arguments here. We are talking about demonstrable proof about a claim. You asked about fitness, and I'm not quite sure why, first of all. This is not a topic or a term of contention among evolutionists, or anybody.

I am shocked by your statement!!! The whole TOE hinges on fitness keeping random, chance mutations! Ever heard the term "Survival of the Fittest"!?!?!? How can you show natural selection is real if you can't show traits that make a species more fit are kept??? Your statement this is not a topic of contention shows the relevance of my claim students are not educated regarding the problems facing the TOE. Mass brainwashing and dumbed, down public schools that don't teach critical thinking must be responsible!!

"Lewontin was not the only central figure in evolutionary biology who long ago recognized the difficulty of assessing the fitness, or adaptive value, of traits. In 1953, the paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson opined that “the fallibility of personal judgment as to the adaptive value of particular characters, most especially when these occur in animals quite unlike any now living, is notorious.”[16] And in 1975, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that no biologist “can judge reliably which ‘characters’ are useful, neutral, or harmful in a given species.”[17]

One evident reason for this pessimism is that we cannot isolate traits — or the mutations producing them — as if they were independent causal elements. Organism-environment relations present us with so much complexity, so many possible parameters to track, that, apart from obviously disabling cases, there is no way to pronounce on the significance of a mutation for an organism, let alone for a population or for the future of the species. To pose just one question within the sea of unknowns: even if a mutation could in one way or another be deemed harmful to the organism in its current environment, what if the organism used this element of disharmony as a spur either to reshape its environment or to alter its own behavior, thereby creating a distinctive and advantageous niche for itself and others of its kind?

To see the frailty of the fitness concept most clearly, look at actual attempts to explain why a given trait renders an animal more (or less) fit in its environment. For example, many biologists have commented on the giraffe’s long neck. A prominent theory, from Darwin on, has been that, in times of drought, a longer neck enabled the giraffe to browse nearer the tops of trees, beyond the reach of other animals. So any heritable changes leading to a longer neck were favored by natural selection, rendering the animal more fit and better able to survive during drought.

It sounds eminently reasonable, as such stories usually do. Problems arise only when we try to find evidence favoring this hypothesis over others. My colleague Craig Holdrege has summarized what he and others have found, including this: First, taller, longer-necked giraffes, being also heavier than their shorter ancestors, require more food, which counters the advantage of height. Second, the many browsing and grazing antelope species did not go extinct during droughts, “so even without growing taller the giraffe ancestor could have competed on even terms for those lower leaves.” Third, male giraffes are up to a meter taller than females. If the males would be disadvantaged by an inability to reach higher branches of the trees, why are not the females and young disadvantaged? Fourth, it turns out that females often feed “at belly height or below.” And in well-studied populations of east Africa, giraffes often feed at or below shoulder level during the dry season, while the rainy season sees them feeding from the higher branches — a seasonal pattern the exact opposite of the one suggested by the above hypothesis.[18]"

This begs the question: Is natural selection responsible for the Giraffes long neck? If we can't come up with document-able, observable evidence to support such a claim, how can we even begin to claim the TOE is even a valid theory, much less a fact?

Nice stories about necks and bird beaks are not science!!!

"In Lewontin’s summary: “What is required is an experimental program of unpacking ‘fitness.’ This involves determining experimentally how different genotypes juxtapose different aspects of the external world, how they alter that world and how those different environments that they construct affect their own biological processes and the biological processes of others.”[22] I doubt whether anyone has even pretended to do this unpacking in a way adequate to demonstrate the randomness of mutations relative to fitness".

The New Atlantis » Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness

Where in all of this babble, have you demonstrated that the concept of "fitness" is a point of contention, or one that needs to be demonstrated? It does not exist as something of itself, because it is merely a description of reality. That is all I was saying. It is a subjective qualifier about an objective reality, namely, that of certain quality that successful species contain.

Your bolded comment above is an outright admission the TOE is not real science. The whole theory collapses if you can't define what fittest is. More info in post 6855. Again, just because you refuse to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it driink.

 

[UltimateReality]

I'm good with that any depth of understanding that you need to seek in order to satisfy your mind is alright. But The Book says, God created Man from the Earth and then blew life into him. Could whatever reasoning you know allow for a self perfecting spirit? Do you have a cap on the universe?

Not even a snicker about my Tennessee Valley Authority joke??

 

[Hollie]

This is the faith required for the TOE...

"This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” A faith that fills the ever-shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the organism with a potent meaninglessness capable of transforming everything else into an illusion is a faith that could benefit from some minimal grounding."

That is a complete fabrication of the Theory of Evolution. You are rather stereotypical in your lack of training in science and your inability to write intelligently about the subject.

As is the case with so much of the religious argumentation against science, the fundie creationists resort to lies and misrepresentation.

What is striking about the tactics of the Christian zealots is that they have lost all credibility in furthering evidence for supernaturalism and miracles and are left with only frantic attempts to discredit real [ha, ha, ha, ha. Fell off my chair laughing] science.

Just attacks. No rebuttal. This reminds me of you stomping around on stage holding the atheist bible above your head shouting "this is real science because I say it is!!".

Holly, you don't actually read the posts do you? This is not my writing. It's a quote.

There is nothing in your silly comments to rebut.

Your hatred for science causes you to make nonsensical claims about science which you are totally clueless about. Your lack of a science vocabulary reveals the true poverty of your frantic attempts to vilify the science you don't understand.

It's actually pitiable to see you flailing away in your attempts to substitute religious fairytales in place of knowledge and education.

Learn some science and learn to hate less.

 

[Hollie]

I'm good with that any depth of understanding that you need to seek in order to satisfy your mind is alright. But The Book says, God created Man from the Earth and then blew life into him. Could whatever reasoning you know allow for a self perfecting spirit? Do you have a cap on the universe?

Not even a snicker about my Tennessee Valley Authority joke??

Just pity at your continued futile attempt to sidestep actually addressing the topics.

 

[Hollie]

I thought the following is instructive as it basically encapsulates the dishonest and biased program of the Christian creationist program.


AIG's Creation Science Fair - The Panda's Thumb

AIG’s Creation Science Fair

Answers in Genesis is gearing up for a science fair in February 2009 2010. The rules are here. Note that they are parasitic on the Intel Science and Engineering guidelines with two minor exceptions:

3, All projects should be clearly aligned with a biblical principle from a passage or verse.

The student should be able to explain why the verse or passage selected relates to their project. (Students should read the article “God and Natural Law” by Dr. Jason Lisle for an explanation of this concept.)

* Students should consider the context of the verse(s) they are using.

* The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic (e.g., Scripture does not directly address radio waves), but may simply relate the project to the Creator of the universe.

* Students should read the article “God and Natural Law.”

and

4. Students should be able, with a clear conscience, to sign the AiG Statement of Faith, which upholds the belief in the creation of the universe in six, twenty-four-hour days about 6,000 years ago by the Creator God as revealed in the Bible.

Translation of the “The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic” is “However my experiment came out, God did it.”

If it weren’t so hot and I weren’t so tired I’d get indignant. But mostly I’m sad: Those kids don’t have a chance. This is part of Ken Ham’s solution to the Already Gone problem he sees: The abandonment of fundamentalism by young people whose doubts start in middle school and high school. Ham’s solution is simple: Lie to them earlier and more often. Pity he isn’t self-aware enough to realize that those doubts begin to arise when kids learn that Ham and their pastor have been lying to them. And that’s the counter to the Hamster: Let ‘em know they’re being lied to in the plainest possible terms.

 

[UltimateReality]

That is a complete fabrication of the Theory of Evolution. You are rather stereotypical in your lack of training in science and your inability to write intelligently about the subject.

As is the case with so much of the religious argumentation against science, the fundie creationists resort to lies and misrepresentation.

What is striking about the tactics of the Christian zealots is that they have lost all credibility in furthering evidence for supernaturalism and miracles and are left with only frantic attempts to discredit real [ha, ha, ha, ha. Fell off my chair laughing] science.

Just attacks. No rebuttal. This reminds me of you stomping around on stage holding the atheist bible above your head shouting "this is real science because I say it is!!".

Holly, you don't actually read the posts do you? This is not my writing. It's a quote.

There is nothing in your silly comments to rebut.

Your hatred for science causes you to make nonsensical claims about science which you are totally clueless about. Your lack of a science vocabulary reveals the true poverty of your frantic attempts to vilify the science you don't understand.

It's actually pitiable to see you flailing away in your attempts to substitute religious fairytales in place of knowledge and education.

Learn some science and learn to hate less.

I tire of your repetitive dribble.

 

[UltimateReality]

I thought the following is instructive as it basically encapsulates the dishonest and biased program of the Christian creationist program.


AIG's Creation Science Fair - The Panda's Thumb

AIG’s Creation Science Fair

Answers in Genesis is gearing up for a science fair in February 2009 2010. The rules are here. Note that they are parasitic on the Intel Science and Engineering guidelines with two minor exceptions:

3, All projects should be clearly aligned with a biblical principle from a passage or verse.

The student should be able to explain why the verse or passage selected relates to their project. (Students should read the article “God and Natural Law” by Dr. Jason Lisle for an explanation of this concept.)

* Students should consider the context of the verse(s) they are using.

* The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic (e.g., Scripture does not directly address radio waves), but may simply relate the project to the Creator of the universe.

* Students should read the article “God and Natural Law.”

and

4. Students should be able, with a clear conscience, to sign the AiG Statement of Faith, which upholds the belief in the creation of the universe in six, twenty-four-hour days about 6,000 years ago by the Creator God as revealed in the Bible.

Translation of the “The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic” is “However my experiment came out, God did it.”

If it weren’t so hot and I weren’t so tired I’d get indignant. But mostly I’m sad: Those kids don’t have a chance. This is part of Ken Ham’s solution to the Already Gone problem he sees: The abandonment of fundamentalism by young people whose doubts start in middle school and high school. Ham’s solution is simple: Lie to them earlier and more often. Pity he isn’t self-aware enough to realize that those doubts begin to arise when kids learn that Ham and their pastor have been lying to them. And that’s the counter to the Hamster: Let ‘em know they’re being lied to in the plainest possible terms.

I think you are a secret follower of Huran Yahan. How do you reconcile your faith in Islam with your evolutionary views?

 

[Hollie]

Just attacks. No rebuttal. This reminds me of you stomping around on stage holding the atheist bible above your head shouting "this is real science because I say it is!!".

Holly, you don't actually read the posts do you? This is not my writing. It's a quote.

There is nothing in your silly comments to rebut.

Your hatred for science causes you to make nonsensical claims about science which you are totally clueless about. Your lack of a science vocabulary reveals the true poverty of your frantic attempts to vilify the science you don't understand.

It's actually pitiable to see you flailing away in your attempts to substitute religious fairytales in place of knowledge and education.

Learn some science and learn to hate less.

I tire of your repetitive dribble.

Who cares what you tire of?

Your arguments consist of nothing more than religious propaganda cloaked under the guise of religious creationism.

What is tiring is the nonsensical fundie zealot propaganda and science loathing agenda intended to promote your gods. You care nothing for facts or truth and you have no issue with shedding any and all integrity and credibility with falsified "quotes' and falsified science.

 

[Hollie]

I thought the following is instructive as it basically encapsulates the dishonest and biased program of the Christian creationist program.


AIG's Creation Science Fair - The Panda's Thumb

AIG’s Creation Science Fair

Answers in Genesis is gearing up for a science fair in February 2009 2010. The rules are here. Note that they are parasitic on the Intel Science and Engineering guidelines with two minor exceptions:

3, All projects should be clearly aligned with a biblical principle from a passage or verse.

The student should be able to explain why the verse or passage selected relates to their project. (Students should read the article “God and Natural Law” by Dr. Jason Lisle for an explanation of this concept.)

* Students should consider the context of the verse(s) they are using.

* The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic (e.g., Scripture does not directly address radio waves), but may simply relate the project to the Creator of the universe.

* Students should read the article “God and Natural Law.”

and

4. Students should be able, with a clear conscience, to sign the AiG Statement of Faith, which upholds the belief in the creation of the universe in six, twenty-four-hour days about 6,000 years ago by the Creator God as revealed in the Bible.

Translation of the “The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic” is “However my experiment came out, God did it.”

If it weren’t so hot and I weren’t so tired I’d get indignant. But mostly I’m sad: Those kids don’t have a chance. This is part of Ken Ham’s solution to the Already Gone problem he sees: The abandonment of fundamentalism by young people whose doubts start in middle school and high school. Ham’s solution is simple: Lie to them earlier and more often. Pity he isn’t self-aware enough to realize that those doubts begin to arise when kids learn that Ham and their pastor have been lying to them. And that’s the counter to the Hamster: Let ‘em know they’re being lied to in the plainest possible terms.

I think you are a secret follower of Huran Yahan. How do you reconcile your faith in Islam with your evolutionary views?

You're uncomfortable with the truth. You should be. The creationist agenda is drenched in lies and deceit.

You won't address the above because you can't. To expect you to understand such terms as truth, integrity and honesty is contrary to the Christian creationist agenda

 

[Hollie]

Paul McBride’s review of the Disco ‘Tute’s “Science and Human Origins”

Paul McBride's review of the Disco 'Tute's "Science and Human Origins" - The Panda's Thumb

“Science and Human Origins” (Amazon; Barnes&Noble) is a slim book recently published by the Disco ‘Tute’s house press. It’s by Ann Gauger and Douglas Axe, members of the Disco Tute’s Biologic Institute, along with Casey Luskin. The book is blurbed thusly:

In this provocative book, three scientists challenge the claim that undirected natural selection is capable of building a human being, critically assess fossil and genetic evidence that human beings share a common ancestor with apes, and debunk recent claims that the human race could not have started from an original couple.

In other words, down with common descent, and while we’re at it, a literal Adam and Eve could have been the ancestors of the whole human species. And by three scientists? Ah, yes, I momentarily forgot that Casey Luskin got a Master’s in Earth Science before he went off to law school and then got a job with the Disco ‘Tute, where he is now listed as “Research Coordinator” (and is there called an attorney rather than a scientist). Once again, one detects a touch of inflationary credentialism. Fortunately for me, I’m spared the chore of reading and critiquing the book. Paul McBride, a Ph.D. candidate in vertebrate macroecology/evolution in New Zealand who writes Still Monkeys, bit the bullet and did a chapter by chapter (all five chapters) review of the book. The book doesn’t come out looking good (is anyone surprised?). I’m going to shamelessly piggyback on McBride’s review. I’ll link to his individual chapter reviews, adding some commentary, below the fold.

Here are McBride’s individual chapter reviews: Chapter 1, in which Ann Gauger

… questions the certainty that evolutionary biologists have in the notion of common descent, with the broad claim that it is merely similarity, rather than relatedness, that we observe. She tells us that certainly humans and chimpanzees share a number of common features, but so do (and this is her example) Ford Tauruses and Mustangs. Yet the latter are designed, indicating that similarity cannot rule out design.

McBride has some fun with that specious analogy, as well as with her ‘random changes in computer programs break the programs’ claim. Someone over at the Disco ‘Tute should tell Gauger to read up on genetic programming. Chapter 2, in which Douglas Axe expands on Gauger’s Chapter 1, elaborating some arguments and finishing with the claim that unless we can identify each and every mutation between humans and our common ancestor with chimps, there’s room for a Designer. I dealt with that argument some time ago. Chapter 3, in which Casey Luskin argues that the hominin fossil record is too fragmentary to infer the descent of H. saps like himself from a common ancestor of him and chimps. (Notice how I restrained myself? ) Like all creationists, Casey has to draw the line between ancient humans (Homo) and earlier fossil (allegedly non-ancestral to humans) apes somewhere, and he draws it between H. habilis and H. erectus. (Recall that there’s considerable disagreement among creationists about just where that line ought to go. Casey is quite a bit deeper in the past than most.) In an update to that post, McBride draws attention to a recent paper plotting brain volume against age of hominin fossils, essentially duplicating material in two posts on that topic by Nick Matzke here and here nearly six years ago. In a recent post on Evolution News, Casey asserts

Hominin fossils generally fall into one of two groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the hype promoted by many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors.

Look at the graphs in McBride’s post and in Nick’s Thumb posts for data relevant to that claim. Nevertheless, Casey promises that he will be discussing the issue in coming weeks. Chapter 4, on junk DNA by (earth scientist and lawyer) Casey again, gets a two-part review, a prelude which makes pre-reading predictions about what Chapter 4 will claim, and then the review proper. Casey comes through, fulfilling several of McBride’s predictions, including conflating “junk” DNA and non-coding DNA, a pervasive ID creationist habit. I rather like McBride’s conclusion to this chapter review:

Luskin here has continued in the tradition of the other chapters in this book by ignoring all of the best arguments that run contrary to his, while making previously refuted arguments with biased evidence, pretty much in line with what I predicted before reading the chapter. He presents no positive case for a pervasively functional genome, and has only set out to cast doubt on the concept of junk DNA. Even in this, he has comprehensively failed. The book is called Science and Human Origins, but the science is threadbare, and treated unevenly and unfairly.

Finally, Chapter 5, by Gauger again, is the culmination of the book, and can be seen as a rationale for accepting a literal Adam and Eve, a two-person effective breeding population sometime in our ancestry. McBride writes

To convince us of the possiblity of a literal Adam and Eve, Ann Gauger presents to us doubt over whether a single published paper from the 1990s truly supports a large human population since speciation.

McBride has a good critique, and one thing he mentions is kind of funny. In this chapter, Gauger accepts that two human haplotypes are ancient, in the 4-6mya range. But, of course, up there in Chapter 3 Casey argued that the boundary between us (non-descended from apes) humans and those apes’ ancestors is between H. erectus and H. habilis, a split that occurred around 1.8mya. Gauger accepts a ‘human’ trait as originating with critters that are more ancient than Casey is willing to admit as ancestral to humans (or maybe Gauger’s Adam and Eve weren’t humans (tee hee)). In his conclusion McBride wrote:

I have been left wondering why the Discovery Institute, or intelligent design advocates in general, or biblical literalists feel a need to try and accommodate science when they have a belief in a supernatural entity capable of breaking natural laws. In the case of this book, it has left them needing to make all kinds of awkward criticisms of fields in which the authors clearly lack expertise. A lawyer is not the right guy to challenge the world’s palaeoanthropologists, nor the world’s geneticists. Certainly, he shouldn’t be trying to take them all on at once. It will end with him trying to smear the reputation of scientists rather than engaging with their ideas. Accusations that the entire field of palaeoanthropology is driven by personal disputes and that Francis Collins is a bad Christian are simply not compelling reading in a book that is putatively about scientific argument.

And the last paragraph:

Science and Human Origins has to be described first and foremost as being anti-evolution rather than pro-intelligent-design, or pro-science. If it offers solace to those seeking evidence against evolution for their faith, the solace should be as incomplete as the arguments made in the book.

Read all of McBride’s posts on this. He’s an articulate and knowledgeable guy.

 

[daws101]

If you actually understood what he said by your reasoning you would. You still don't get it ,many theories in science require faith to believe because there is no data supporting many of these theories just someones vivid imagination.

Do you understand what conjecture is ?

Why not tell us in detail what part of evolutionary science requires "faith"?

Why don't you tell us of a few theories in science which require faith?

Pretty much anything you believe that you have not personally witnessed, touch, tasted, smelled, takes faith. So this is a silly question. For example: when the news guy tells you there was a shooting at a Theatre, you take it on faith that it really happened since you were not there to witness it, and from the footage, can't be sure it too is not a Hollywood production.

first the difference between faith in science and faith in religion has been explained...
second. your example "theatre shooting" is erroneous as evidenced by this "can't be sure it too is not a Hollywood production." UR.
IT IS SUBJECTIVE AND HAS NO BASIS IN FACT.

 

[daws101]

another passel of creationist lies

another passel of creationist lies | bad astronomy | discover magazine

usually, when someone spouts creationist garbage, it’s because they’ve been misled. We have a case of this, in spades, in the evansville (indiana) courier press, where a highly deluded creationist has written an editorial so full of crap i’m tempted to call a septic cleaning crew.
To be clear, i think the author is just wrong, but he has clearly been heavily misled — some would say lied to — to by people from answers in genesis, a creationist (hahahahahah) think tank.


Check this out:
…then a little more than a year ago, we again were privileged to hear lectures by former evolutionist and atheist mike riddle and astrophysicist dr. Jason lisle.

To be clear: Mike riddle and jason lisle are from the evil, lying organization answers in genesis.
How can i assert this? Assuming the editorial writer is on the level…

riddle, a former microsoft trainer, spoke of the miller experiment, which produced amino acids inside a test tube. When oxygen was added, the experiment failed. Imagine, this key element to life prohibits any organic molecules from forming.

The miller-urey experiment put the contents of the earth’s original atmosphere (methane, ammonia, hydrogen, water — much like the present atmospheres of jupiter and saturn) into a chamber, and hit it with a spark representing lightning. Amino acids were produced. This shows that the building blocks of life were easy to produce in the primitive conditions on earth. As the idea goes, later, once life took hold, it evolved to produce oxygen (which can provide a lot more energy to the life process). Oxygen is highly corrosive, and so that changed everything. Eventually, in the adapt-or-die conditions, life adapted to use the gas. But before it did, oxygen was essentially poison. So it’s no surprise that it would mess up the miller-urey experiment.
In other words, if riddle used this to promote an anti-evolution stance, he is not telling the truth, when the truth is easy to find and has been accessible for decades. What does that make him?

Incidentally, the mu experiment was never meant to be the be-all and end-all of how life arose; it was the first of a long series of such experiments that are still ongoing. How life first arose is a fascinating question, and i guarantee that no creationist will be able to figure it out… unless they follow the tenets of science. But scientific method to a young-earth creationist is like holy water to a vampire.

To continue…
according to lisle, laser reflectors left behind on the moon’s surface by the apollo astronauts revealed that our lunar neighbor moves a little over an inch farther away from us each year.
How many billions of years earlier was it scraping our mountaintops?

It doesn’t work this way. The moon recedes from the earth due to tides, but the rate at which is recedes depends on many factors. In the past, it receded more slowly than it does today. It formed much closer in to the earth, but there is no problem with it taking billions of years to get to its current distance. Typically, young earth creationists take current values of things and extrapolate them billions of years into the past without considering that the values might have changed.

This argument has been debunked for many years. Decades. If lisle really is an astrophysicist and he said this in a talk, he is either incompetent or a liar. Or both.

One of lisle’s associates calculated the amount of emissions given off by the various belts of jupiter shortly before the voyager probe visited it in the early ’80s. The data returned was in sync with the thousands of years that the mathematics ph.d. Had suggested. The spacecraft had no knowledge of the bible.

This statement is a total mess, but what i think he means is the prediction by creationist russel humphries, before voyager got to uranus and neptune, of their magnetic fields. But his guess was that they were intermediate in strength between earth’s and saturn’s, which is a pretty safe bet given their masses. Also, while it’s true that the magnetic fields of those two planets are weird, humphrey’s model (that god made the planets from water which was then transformed into various other substances) doesn’t predict any of the other odd features (like the tilt of the fields and that they are off-center). He claims it does, but his claim on how some of the odd features formed isn’t really any different than a model assuming the planets are old; in other words, his model doesn’t actually predict those features.

Even a randomly fired gun will sometimes hit the target… by accident.

more cutting and pasting from your fundie evo priest will provine's website.

so? Can you prove it false?