Microdissecting Meyer

"I'm personally not well-versed in science" - Joe Carter

You can say that again. He shares this characteristic with Philip Johnson and most Bible college graduates. In fact the latter can expect to be "badly misinformed" (worse than ignorant) when it comes to science.

The scientifically ignorant substitute rationalizing and propositional logic for scientific thinking. It's pretty much useless to debate science with those lacking some fluency in "scientific method".

To support his apparent hypothesis, Myers must at least concede that the fossil record is at least accurate back to the Camrian period, that radiological dating is accurate at least back to the cambrian period, and that common descent is valid at least through the Cambrian period. Can the Discovery Institute agree that his paper must spell the death knell for young earth creationism?

Yer killin' me, man.

My name is Myers (or Mrrzay, or Mazzuzah, or something), while the author of the bad Discovery Institute paper is Meyer. I readily agree to all of your statements, and I disagree with most everything the DI says. I hope you meant "Meyer", right? Please?

Although if we could get the DI to agree that I speak for them, we could solve a lot of problems fast.

PZ -- nice post.

The habit that I notice is this bizarre one where the creationist picks some recent scientific paper that begins with some phrase like "Currently, there is not agreement in the field with respect to the levels of blah blah" and using that phrase for the proposition that nobody has a clue what the hell is going on.

Estimates of the age of this or that have changed over the past 50 years???? According to the creationist, this means that nobody has a clue. The earth could be 10 billion years old or it could be 10,000 years old.

Estimates of mutation rates have changed????? Maybe there is no mutation rate. Or maybe it's a billion times slower than the slowest rate yet measured. Who can tell??? After all, that paper says that "there is disagreement among evolutionary biologists ..."

Etc., etc.

Which makes this paper's appearance in the taxonomic journal so sneaky. Even if it had been properly reviewed, the reviewers would be able to say "Wait, this tree shrew was first described in 1949!", not to know much about pre-cambrian fossils.

Argh!!! My screw up, and I actually checked the spelling because I knew of the name similarity. Complete synapse malfunction on my part. All I can say is that it happened with no warning and completely out of the blue...I have no explanation. Such an unexplained malfunction is surely evidence that it was induced by the designer(s).

And, of course, I'd love it if you'd speak on behalf of DI--that would indeed solve quite a bit.

A serious question about the peer review process and the use of references: I'm not a scientist, I'm a lawyer. In legal writing the use of citations is very critical. The use of individual citations is also signaled by agreed conventions. Citations can be a general reference to a non-controversial general proposition, a reference to a specific point, an example of a typical discussion, an acknowledgement of opposing authorities, etc. Piling a series of references on at a single point is called "string citing" in legal circles and is appropriate only when the proposition is so well accepted that you are demonstrating the point by listing ten or twelve representative samples to demonstrate the very fact that the proposition is so widely held. Citations are used in both legal briefs made in court and in scholarly legal journals and treatises. In court, attorneys have an obligation to identify opposing controlling authority if they argue a legal proposition to a court. Failure to do so or using citations in a misleading manner is grounds for discipline. You can get disbarred for it. Burying a single reference in a string citation is one way to abuse the process. So is mischaracterizing the point made in the citation.

In legal journals and treatises, at least theoretically, citations are supposed to be verified. I've read Intelligent design related law reviews and legal treatises and it's apparent that the citations are NOT checked. The use of a bunch of citations dumped at a single footnote is frequent. (Is the occurence of the same phenomenon in both legal and scientific journals evidence of "design?") Another abuse is the "circular footnote"---a footnote sends you merely to some other section of the same article where the subject is purportedly discussed in more detail. Upon arrival at the identified section that further explication is absent. Moreover, the dumped citations are usually not "legal" but massive references to scientific sources difficult for lawyers to access. In the legal context, reality frequently departs from the ideal, but you do have to consider the professional disciplinary consequences and academic reproval.

In light of that long background, is there any way that a peer review journal would retract an article or publish a correction when it's been demonstrated that the references are misleading? Is there any other disciplinary action that is taken when references are abused?

"Failure to do so or using citations in a misleading manner is grounds for discipline. You can get disbarred for it."

Has that ever happened to your knowledge? I've never seen it happen. The one case I recall where a Federal Judge (Schwarzer) punished an attorney for a misleading citation, the case was overturned on appeal and Judge Schwarzer was reprimanded for abusing Rule 11!

Seriously, Meyer's sloppiness is hardly unique or outrageous among scientists at large.

But it is noteworthy insofar as his overall claim, if it turns out to be true, would be the most noteworthy advance in our understanding of biology since the discovery of the cell. And certainly the single most important scientific development since Einstein's work.

You would THINK the guy would be more careful. Of course, all this assumes that he is a genuinely honest human being and not an evangelical crank with the emotional and intellectual maturity of a 10 year old.

I started reading Joe Carter's article and found this sentence near the beginning:

"Meyer has managed to elbow his way into the process with a "review article" criticizing the idea that the materialistic theory of evolution can account for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms."

Was there any reason to keep reading past the word "materialistic"?

Was there any reason to keep reading past the word "materialistic"?

Hi PZ,

I've been looking at Meyer's evo-devo arguments over at ARN, starting here:

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000944;p=4#000146

Meyer's scholarship in this doesn't impress me much, especially since he misses some important hypotheses regarding the Cambrian explosion.
Unfortunately, evo-devo--or even devo, for that matter-- isn't my area of expertise. I'm appealing to evo-devos to chime in and give some more in-depth criticism of the paper. Now that it's 'peer-reviewed', it's fair game for a grilling.

Sorry about the link:

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000944;p=4#000146

This is a question, not a comment.

From Genetics 101 a few year ago, (so I assume there is alot that I don't know) we learned that if a mutation causes a gene to make a defective protien, that gene will never be completely selected out of a population (genetic diseases are of course an example). And, if bad mutations outnumber good mutations (100 to 1?), why do not negative mutations accumulate.

What is it that I am missing, and can you suggest some books or websites that will give me current and basic information evolution.

Merlin Perkins

Negative mutations do not accumulate because they are selected against. Mutation is balanced by negative selection.