How I spent my morning.

Give Fred credit, he made hardly any absolute claims of what is or isn't true.. all he did was express a view that skepticism as to unproved details is not unjustifiable. I think you do him a disservice in seeking to eviscerate him in this way.

I actually wrote him an email response earlier today:

Thanks for a typically incisive article, Fred. I am one of those who take
the plausibility of Evolution as being most consistent with how I observe
the world working around me, but I very much appreciate your thoughtful
critique. Not all evolutionists will reflexively take what you have written
and read 'heathen!' into it. If by happy chance you actually are a heathen,
well, that's of course your own look out. I don't get that from this article,
though. Small comfort, I expect.

I would like to say that scientists are investigating just about everything
you write about, and that what they are doing is as fascinating as your questions.

On biogeneis: I've a few interesting links that I've come across that talk about
experimentation in the field. The first two talk about a research program to
create simple structures capable of Darwinian evolution from some RNA and bubbles
of fatty acids.

http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Before_DNA.html
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/006006.html

The next link is a computer simulation that analyzes the necessity of structural
separation among early replicators in order to evolve more complex (and reliable)
replication machinery.

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v420/n6913/full/420278a_r.html&filetype=&dynoptions=

Life is complicated stuff, but I think it's clear that it's either not as hard
to come about as we intuitively suspect it is, or that there was something that
helped it past the hard parts. Intelligent Design folks claim that, at a minimum,
something helped it past the hard parts, but I suspect that life in this universe
just isn't that hard. It may be that a Creator created the universe in that way
on purpose, but then one has to wonder how and why the Creator came about.

On your starlings vs. guacamayos conundrum: I think the matter of things is that
different living things go their own way through history, and everybody is
optimizing for slightly different things, as a result of their unique history.
Guacamayos may be colorful not because it makes them easier to find, but because
the guacamayo ladies decided at some point that they just liked that sort of thing.
Ditto the starlings. Who knows? You're right that the 'just so stories' are not
to be relied on as evidence for evolution, but most of the Darwinian skeptics I've
met tell 'just can't be so' stories which are equally difficult to base a reliable
argument on.

As far as significantly beyond-the-mean human intelligence being maladaptive: That
may be true only recently. One of the things that seems to keep life interesting
on this planet is that the natural and competitive environment around each of us
is always changing, and what might have helped (or been neutral to) an ancestor
might help us slightly less today. Perhaps society (which evolves faster than we
do, culturally and technologically) has evolved to the point where you don't have
to be that smart to survive well enough to have a mess of kids.

Thanks very much for all of your material. It's a joy to read intelligent,
elegant, and curmudgeonly writing such as your own.

Jon

The last point seems hard to grasp for most creationists today. They seem to think that all the babbling about bit sand the UPB actually means something in terms of being able to calculate the likihood of some sort of self-replicator coming into being. How they think they can calculate the probability of something happening without:

a) knowing EXACTLY what the target somethings are (we don't)
b) knowing at least roughly what sorts of environments the target somethings have to form in (we don't, or at least, we vaguely know only some of them)
c) in some way modeling causal reality of how all the different things in these environments interact

The biggest headslapper is c). Somehow, people like Dembski et al have convinced themselves that you can model the complex causal realities of the natural world by simply flipping a bunch of coins in indepedant, repeated trials!

Jonathan Abbey, you might want to mention that while biologists can indeed be prone to telling "just so" stories, the fact is most of them then go on to try and test the implications of those stories to see if they make sense. For instance, biologists didn't simply "just so" the idea that bdelloid rotifers had become asexual at some specific point in their evolutionary past: they actually thought up a way to test the idea and even get a pretty decent date onto when it happened.

Oh, no doubt. I think Fred is extrapolating popular recountings of evolutionary stories into the work of professional biologists, but I don't. To the extent that 'just so' stories are ever told, however, I think that ID'ers like Behe are worse.

You stated that: Some immediate examples of evolution in action are found at 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent.  Further examples are given at Observed Instances of Speciation. 
So, we have taken care of the "evolution happens" issue.  If you don't think so, then there really isn't any point for you to continue reading anything but the Bible and the obits.

If that's the case, it's time to win some money...$250,000.00. Here's the challenge:

The general theory of evolution believes these five major events took place without God:
1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

Observed phenomena:
Most thinking people will agree that..
1. A highly ordered universe exists.
2. At least one planet in this complex universe contains an amazing variety of life forms.
3. Man appears to be the most advanced form of life on this planet.

Go to www.drdino.com on:
How to collect the $250,000:
Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence. Only empirical evidence is acceptable.

PS. let us know if you win, OK?
We're still posting over at Vox Day's blog...

Thanks very much for all of your material. It's a joy to read intelligent, elegant, and curmudgeonly writing such as your own.

I've been reading Fred's stuff for a couple of years now. I wasn't thanking him for his scientific opinion on evolution. I do appreciate his asking intelligent questions, and for accepting that there might be intelligent answers to them, despite his ignorance.

Hello Mark. Perhaps you should read Kent Hovind FAQs: Examining "Dr. Dino"

The phony "Doctor" Kent Hovind's offer of any money to anyone seems in poor taste since he has also insisted that he is bankrupt in order to avoid paying income tax, and been arrested when trying to evict rent paying tenants of his properties.

Mark, after you're done reading the TalkOrigins articles on evidence for macroevolution and other examples of speciation, you may want to look at why Kent Hovind's challenge is designed to be impossible to win. Quick summary: To win, you'd need to prove things which science doesn't actually claim, and you'd need to prove them to the satisfaction of people hand-picked by Hovind (think he'll get impartial judges?).

The general theory of evolution believes these five major events took place without God: 1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves. 2. Planets and stars formed from space dust. 3. Matter created life by itself. 4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves. 5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

— Mark in OC (Oblivious Confusion?)

The general theory of evolution believes these five major events took place without God: 1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves. 2. Planets and stars formed from space dust. 3. Matter created life by itself. 4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves. 5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

— Mark in OC

3. Man appears to be the most advanced form of life on this planet.

Thanks, BTW, for sticking your head in there, Doc. I try and get at least some of them to doubt their presumptions of comprehension of science but the vocal ones aren't all that easy to nail down.

The most annoying part is that ET and most of science really doesn't argue against anything the Bible or Faith say about God, as long as you aren't a literalist.

You'd think that ET directly "proved God" wrong the way some of 'em look at it, though, instead of not having anythng to say about God except what techniques He used in the process of creation if He did create it all.

Part of it is for self-clarification (I always like to test my world construct against the views of others) and part of it is for the lurkers' consideration. Some of them may think about it and Get It even if the noisy ones don't.

;-)

This is either dishonest, lazy or stupid. Mr. Reeds use of words suggest that he is not stupid. The fact that he maintains his "blog" suggest that he is not lazy. I see little alternative to dishonesty.

Well, in the arena of Xtian attitudes, Xtians are sorta like Democrats with Keynesianism and Marxism, or the dangers of The State. Any argument against it has just got no sticking power. You lead them down the logical path, they follow you step by step, all the way, and as you turn around to show them, "See, your idea doesn't work..." And then turn back and they are gone -- POOF! -- somehow, they teleported back to where they started from with no memory of the journey.

It's not actually stupidity, but it is a form of it, sort of like an inability to time-bind or something.

I do appreciate his asking intelligent questions, and for accepting that there might be intelligent answers to them, despite his ignorance.

And that being the case, people remain ignorant not because they can't find or understand the answers, but because they *don't like* the answers. Be careful, Jonathan. In these waters, one can tell a man's religion by his honesty. Fred knows better and so do you.

Jon,

Fred Reed is not responding to the deficiencies of journalists incompetently reporting science. If he were, he might be able to claim some sort of advantaged insight, as he claims to be a journalist. But he is not making this claim. Rather he has assumed the pose of a privileged critic informed of the scientific details, and forthrightly announcing that they are faulty. In order to honestly maintain this, he would have had to shown a little bit of effort at learning what is well known. His bogus "questions' are proof enough- they are generally ignorant and framed only to be misleading. He did not honestly present what is readily avialable in scientific publications, free to anyone with the wit to read them. He is therefore dishonest.

Journalists maybe are tolerant of dishonesty in their ranks, their readers seem to be, but scientists are not. He is 'condemned' because he is dishonest and/or incompetent.

PS. let us know if you win, OK? We're still posting over at Vox Day's blog . . .

Fred may be a journalist, but he's not a science journalist. The column in question is just something he put up on his web site for his fans to read. When he was working as a journalist, he tended to go out on patrol with cops in various major cities and report on their experiences. He's also had a column in Soldier of Fortune, I believe. That sort of thing. Mostly these days he writes about politics, how proud he is of his daughter, what it's like living as an ex-pat in Mexico, and so forth.

His assumption that his questions have not been addressed or answered may in many cases be bogus, but I don't believe the questions themselves are. Mostly, I think the column is about him complaining that his questions are treated like they are bogus and that anyone who doubts something having to do with evolution is an idiot.

I don't think idiot describes Fred. Nor do I think scientist or science journalist describes him. I think curmudgeon describes him. Uppity would describe him nicely.

And I think for a layman, he asks a lot of good questions that I don't know the answer to. How did color vision evolve? I'm quite certain that it did, and I'm even quite sure that it has been written about in detail (I do recall Dawkins touching on the topic in The Ancestor's Tale), but I don't think that I have myself read discussions of the neuro-evolution of it. I did do some research into neural network modeling of episodic memory in college, so I know there's a lot of ways in which the brain self-organizes in response to input. It's perfectly plausible to me that the color-sensitive receptors came first and the brain just worked with it, but Fred may not know about neural self-organization. Even if he did, he's asking for more than plausible in the article.

Honestly, I'd expect that to get detailed answers to many of his questions, he'd need a graduate level education in zoology / molecular biology / evolutionary biology. I think the root of his problem is that he's wanting to know for himself at a detailed level how this stuff happens rather than taking the word of the scientific community on it, but that a lot of the details are either not yet known, or are not disseminated down to where the layman can read the details.

Dr. GH,

I must have missed the part where science has observed mutation plus selection creating a (choose one or more):

1. novel body type
2. novel tissue type
3. novel organ

Be a good chap and give me the reference for that.

Thanks in advance.

I think you do him a disservice in seeking to eviscerate him in this way.

— Jonathan

DaveScot

Just because I believe that Fred Reed is asking questions in a sincere, if ignorant, way, doesn't mean that you trolling like that doesn't make you a pernicious twit. The events you're asking about are ones that would be expected to take a very long time indeed to develop, perhaps into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of years for vertebrates. You're asking for something that evolutionary theory doesn't predict should likely be directly observable in human time scales, and then asking that mutation be directly observed bringing it about.

Given that you're not even interested in having the proper questions asked _or_ answered, shouldn't you run off and play with your dolls or something?

Jonathan,

I'm interested in making clear what a huge extrapolation of actual observations is made when crediting mutation/selection for all the observed diversity.

You don't have a problem with clarity do you? After that long pompous speech about trying to make things clear to laymen I think I made a very clear point for you. Practice what you preach and spread the word.

The events you're asking about are ones that would be expected to take a very long time indeed to develop, perhaps into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of years for vertebrates.

— Jonathan

You're asking for something that evolutionary theory doesn't predict should likely be directly observable in human time scales, and then asking that mutation be directly observed bringing it about.

Just because I believe that Fred Reed is asking questions in a sincere, if ignorant, way, doesn't mean that you trolling like that doesn't make you a pernicious twit.

— Jonathan Abbey

I'm interested in making clear what a huge extrapolation of actual observations is made when crediting mutation/selection for all the observed diversity.

You don't have a problem with clarity do you? After that long pompous speech about trying to make things clear to laymen I think I made a very clear point for you. Practice what you preach and spread the word.

Pay attention. I didn't mention vertebrates. A bacterium mutating into a yeast would be fine. I'm not picky. Show mutation/selection generating any novel body type, any novel tissue type, any novel organ.

And you sir, are asking me to accept as a matter of faith that time empowers mutation/selection to accomplish things that have never been observed.

Jonathan,

I don't have a problem with holding out mutation/selection as a strong explanatory mechanism for diversity. What I have a problem with is holding it out as the only mechanism and pretending it doesn't have problems that would make one want to consider other explanations.

I'm not asking you to accept anything, whether as a matter of faith or not. You clearly have no interest in considering anything but your own point of view. You demonstrate this by your refusal to internalize the evolutionary argument, and by your constant demand for evidence for that which evolutionary theory does not predict.

— Jonathan

I'm not picky. Show mutation/selection generating any novel body type, any novel tissue type, any novel organ.

Hey, I acknowledged in the first comment on this post the argument for creationism. I acknowledge that God might have done it all. I just don't acknowledge that evidence has been presented for that proposition. There is massive, interlocking, mutually supporting evidence for evolution. Given the direct observation and characterization of genetic mutations, the evidence from molecular biology for a succession of small mutations over time and the vast quantity of replicators and the time for replication that Earth has had, the question becomes why you think the evidence does not suffice to point to micromutations giving rise to large-scale changes over time. What intercedes to prevent the small changes from accumulating to large changes?

If you were really interested in clarity, you would at least address yourself to that question. The fact that you pick on the fact that large evolutionary changes tend to happen over a really long time as if it were a weakness rather than one of the essential characteristics of the theory shows that you're not serious.

Funny...

Evolutionists have a bunch of fallacies that they state over and over....I will try and rephrase them so that you can see what I find funny.......

1) Even if an all powerful God created the first life from dust we still know that he didn't created more than one species. Because we made theories and monkeys and humans are very similiar...

2) Evolution is caused by random mutations which although extreamly unlikely to have singlehandedly formed the complex forms we have now, are able to make complex life because they are guided by this process natural selection that we don't understand and can't quantify.

3) The evolution movement has backed away from biogenesis, false claims about life on Venus, Jupiter, the moon and Mars. Most evolutionists have backed away from survival fo the fittest as well. But evolution has always been proven right, those other parts were never part of evolution, expecially the parts that didn't turn out the way we wanted. Evolving from dust....please that is not part of evolving without any outside interference...

4) Creationists are silly for believing a unknown non-random cause make mutations in DNA causing lifes varied makeup. We all know it was a unknown random cause...how silly they are. Ocman's razor and all that.

5) Evolution has been proven. Because I said so.

6) No you misunderstand, evolution happened. Didn't you hear me say so.

7) Look at these sceptical non-evolutionists how ignorant they are. Questioning how frequent large scale mutations are when none are observed in current life....how dare you question our dogma.

8) Of course evolution is true we are here aren't we? There is no God and no little green men therefore evolution is true until you can prove a theory for how life started. Nevermind the holes in this theory.

9) The first ancestor and all creatures even remotely similiar to it are all dead leaving only creature 4 or 5 orders of magnitude more complex than it, they evolved thats why they aren't there, dumbass. Asking why are there still monkeys when humans have evolved from monkeys is not a valid question, dumbass.

10) Evolution is a gradual process whereby the entrophy of life is reduced allowing more complex life with more information stored in its DNA. But missing links are ok too.

Do you see why these arguments are silly yet?

Yes, Donkey, your straw man arguments against evolution DO seem pretty silly. I can't even quite make sense of what half of them mean.

Jeez, things are getting nasty down at Pandas Thumb today!

1) Even if an all powerful God created the first life from dust we still know that he didn't created more than one species. Because we made theories and monkeys and humans are very similiar . . .

2) Evolution is caused by random mutations which although extreamly unlikely to have singlehandedly formed the complex forms we have now, are able to make complex life because they are guided by this process natural selection that we don't understand and can't quantify.

3) The evolution movement has backed away from biogenesis, false claims about life on Venus, Jupiter, the moon and Mars. Most evolutionists have backed away from survival fo the fittest as well. But evolution has always been proven right, those other parts were never part of evolution, expecially the parts that didn't turn out the way we wanted. Evolving from dust . . . .please that is not part of evolving without any outside interference . . .

4) Creationists are silly for believing a unknown non-random cause make mutations in DNA causing lifes varied makeup. We all know it was a unknown random cause . . . how silly they are. Ocman's razor and all that.

5) Evolution has been proven. Because I said so.

6) No you misunderstand, evolution happened. Didn't you hear me say so.

7) Look at these sceptical non-evolutionists how ignorant they are. Questioning how frequent large scale mutations are when none are observed in current life . . . .how dare you question our dogma.

8) Of course evolution is true we are here aren't we? There is no God and no little green men therefore evolution is true until you can prove a theory for how life started. Nevermind the holes in this theory.

9) The first ancestor and all creatures even remotely similiar to it are all dead leaving only creature 4 or 5 orders of magnitude more complex than it, they evolved thats why they aren't there, dumbass. Asking why are there still monkeys when humans have evolved from monkeys is not a valid question, dumbass.

10) Evolution is a gradual process whereby the entrophy of life is reduced allowing more complex life with more information stored in its DNA. But missing links are ok too.

All genetic events are or were instantaneous events occurring in the order of seconds. There never was a gradual genetic change and there never will be. Since evolution WAS a series of genetic changes it follows that all such steps were instantaneous and without intermediate stages. That evolution was a gradual process flies in the face of everything we know from the fossil record and from the laboratory bench. I can't believe that any objective human being could still subscribe to such nonsense. I presented this perspective in my paper "The Case for Instant Evolution" so I am sure not going to repeat it here. You can find the unexpurgated version of this paper in Terry Trainor's Talk Origins forum where he kindly has stored other of my papers in the Document section. For those who still frequent decent libraries you can read the paper sans the conclusion section (the referees were horrified at my conclusions so they deleted that section)in Rivista di Biologia 96:203-206, 2003.

John A. Davison

Grey

1) Your theory rests on LUCA, your proof of LUCA is your theory...see a problem yet?

2) Please do the math on your mutation rate...no really DO THE MATH. There isn't enough time.

3) Carl Sagan, heard of him? And biogenesis is evolution's God. Without biogenesis you rely on a completely seperate mechanism from randomness which if a second mechanism exists would put in doubt your complete theory. Biogenesis is essential to evolution.

4) Do you think random mutations guided by a mystical natural selection is more likely than a non random process? This is your religion it doesn't belong in school.

5) Usually answering a parody with wholehearted acceptance of the parodied aspect is frowned upon, but I am sure the kool-aid drinkers miss the irony. BTW unicorns are real, you probably call them rhinos.

6) Evolution has not been reproduced in labs. Biogenesis has not been reproduced in labs. Simple experiments that you THINK show evolution occur in the lab. Evolution is a very large theory reaching back millions of years there are tons and tons of apparently false aspects to evolution starting with biogenesis.

7) Unless you can show a feasible guiding function large scale mutations may take trillions of years. DO THE MATH... You are assuming the timeline fits before you figure out what is happening.

8) Not English, American. It is statistically unlikey that you have a better grasp of english than I. I have dyslexia which limits the spelling. I am in a state of not knowing regarding evolution. That is where all intelligent scientists must be. I can see the strength of the fossil data but I also seem to have a greater appreciation for the weaknesses that most of the anti-creation priests.

9) If you base your theory on a linear driving function that goes from 1 mutation deviating from species to 2->3->4 etc and you claim that natural selection acts as a guiding function by favoring certain traits then you are faced with a delima. Were monkeys or humans more fit? Why do you a believer have the power to say LUCA was eliminated because Natural selection punishes the unfit but monkeys weren't because Natural selection does not punish the unfit? Yes if it suits me No if it doesn't and the burden of proof is on you???

10) Local minimization of entrophy is possible and can be observed in gas and quantom particles for short periods of time. I am talking about self assembly and increasing order in genetics sustained over time. This energy needed to sustain the lower entrophy is a clear opposing force to natural selection as higher complexity requires more energy to replicate. It is not clear to me that natural selection would win. And in the event that the laws of nature are structured to have natural selection win who is to say that it isn't ID?

"All genetic events are or were instantaneous events occurring in the order of seconds. There never was a gradual genetic change and there never will be. Since evolution WAS a series of genetic changes it follows that all such steps were instantaneous and without intermediate stages."

The logic is patently false. Yes, genetic changes do happen near instantaneously. But their actual effects may not actually be felt for thousands of years (not all impact morphology directly in the next generation). Or they may be weeded out right away. The fact is that translating gene changes into changes to the average morphological of entire breeding populations is not a direct or simple pathway. And it is only by the slow _accumulation_ of these genetic effects that variation in morphology increases, and it is this variation that natural selection actually then works upon (not the gene changes themselves, at least, not in modern animals). Not to mention that the genetic effects that occur from mutations by and large are in general very minor, if not completely neutral.

"That evolution was a gradual process flies in the face of everything we know from the fossil record and from the laboratory bench."

Nothing about the fossil record suggests anything other than gradual change over time. The rates of change aren't constant, but the changes in morphologies are almost all gradual changes rather than successful saltational jumps. While most of the fossil record gives you just a rare random smapling of these gradual changes, there are actually quite a few situations in which whole generations of creatures fossilize one right after (and on top of) the other. Diatoms are one example, and certain snails are other. And from looking at these nearly complete records, we can see exactly what evolution predicts: gradual changes in morphology.

John A. Davison, the first claim in the first essay I accessed in your web page claims that evolution is a random process:
"Perhaps the most compelling feature for the Darwinists resides in
their persistent conviction that all of evolution is the result of
blind chance." (AN EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE, John A. Davison). Since such conviction is not a part of evolution theory, you are shown to have absolutely no idea of the subject you're trying to cricise. I feel disinclined to read through the rest of it, since you've already proven you're not to be listened to.

It seems to me that this fact has been pointed out at you before, recently. If you answered it, please direct me to the answer.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

Go to www.drdino.com on: How to collect the $250,000: Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence. Only empirical evidence is acceptable.

I must have missed the part where science has observed mutation plus selection creating a (choose one or more): 1. novel body type 2. novel tissue type 3. novel organ Be a good chap and give me the reference for that.

I'm not picky. Show mutation/selection generating any novel body type, any novel tissue type, any novel organ.

I don't have a problem with holding out mutation/selection as a strong explanatory mechanism for diversity. What I have a problem with is holding it out as the only mechanism and pretending it doesn't have problems that would make one want to consider other explanations.

evidence of a designer [is] something that ID doesn't predict is observable.

— DaveScot,in comment # 19429,

I'm STILL waiting for you to explain to me why the appearence of life through natural means on another planet is any more or less probable than the appearence of life through natural means here, and how you know.

the question becomes why you think the evidence does not suffice to point to micromutations giving rise to large-scale changes over time

— Jonothan Abbey

Evolution is caused by extremely commom mutations (3 or so per individual. That gives you, what, 99.999% chance of having at least one?)

— Grey Wolf

John A. Davison, the first claim in the first essay I accessed in your web page claims that evolution is a random process: "Perhaps the most compelling feature for the Darwinists resides in their persistent conviction that all of evolution is the result of blind chance." (AN EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE, John A. Davison). Since such conviction is not a part of evolution theory, you are shown to have absolutely no idea of the subject you're trying to cricise. I feel disinclined to read through the rest of it, since you've already proven you're not to be listened to. It seems to me that this fact has been pointed out at you before, recently. If you answered it, please direct me to the answer.

— Grey Wolf

500 millions years of nothing then BOOM, the first tissue type appears. 3.5 billion years of nothing then BOOM, in the space of 10 million years most of the modern multicellular body types, tissue types, and organ types appear.

— DaveScot

500 millions years of nothing then BOOM, the first tissue type appears in the fossil record. 3.5 billion years of nothing then BOOM, in the space of 10 million years most of the modern multicellular body types, tissue types, and organ types appear in the fossil record.

Mosquitoes have developed immunity (not just resistance) to DDT through the novel mechanism of now being able to digest the stuff rather as a nutrient, and break it down. How is this example insufficient for your challenge?

— Ed Darrell

Fossilization is a chance process, so it only gives us snapshots of evolution.

— RPM

7) Unless you can show a feasible guiding function large scale mutations may take trillions of years. DO THE MATH . . . You are assuming the timeline fits before you figure out what is happening.

— DonkeyKong

Mr. DaveScot,

I know you won't listen, but it is you who claimed that the fossil record disproved evolution because of the 'instantaneous' appearance of new species.

This is false, precisely because fossils are 'snapshots' (even more than that; they are individuals, isolated both in time - from their ancestors and descendants - and in space - from the rest of the population they belonged to).

Nobody says "if the fossil record were complete, it would prove this and that"; we all know that these are snapshots, and cannot ever be anything different. However, like the successive frames of a film, they allow us to 'see' the motion; like points on a curve, they allow us to reconstruct the curve itself.

The discontinuities creationists love to mention simply aren't there.

Unless you can show a feasible guiding function large scale mutations may take trillions of years. DO THE MATH . . . You are assuming the timeline fits before you figure out what is happening.

Darwin believed that the primary means of change for selection to act upon was the heritability of acquired characters.

These are DIRECTED changes made in response to environmental pressures. Natural evolution could have proceeded orders of magnitude faster with directed changes for selection to act upon. However, the notion of heritable acquired characters has been falsified. The only remaining mechanism to generate novelty for selection to act upon is random mutation. That's a whole different ballgame than Darwin imagined.

As well, back in Darwin's day the universe was thought to be steady state - without beginning and without end.

Therefore there was an arbitrarily long amount of time for natural evolution to act out. Darwinian theory, until it was falsified, was a lot less of a stretch of the imagination.

It still took a leap of faith but it was a much smaller leap. The so-called modern synthesis requires a huge leap of faith.

I'm STILL waiting for you to explain to me why the appearence of life through natural means on another planet is any more or less probable than the appearence of life through natural means here, and how you know.

— Lenny

Mosquitos have been feeding on plants for ages and plants have been producing insecticides as a defense mechanism for ages. So how do you know this is a novel capability rather than a recessive trait that was there all along?

— DaveIQ153Scot

It gives you an 87.5% chance of having at least one.

Effects of Use and Disuse From the facts alluded to in the first chapter, I think there can be little doubt that use in our domestic animals strengthens and enlarges certain parts, and disuse diminishes them; and that such modifications are inherited. Under free nature, we can have no standard of comparison, by which to judge of the effects of long-continued use or disuse, for we know not the parent-forms; but many animals have structures which can be explained by the effects of disuse.

— Darwin in chapter 5 of Origin of Species

DO THE MATH...

Gosh darn it. Who forgot to put up the "Please don't feed the trolls" sign?

How much direct effect difference of climate, food, &c., produces on any being is extremely doubtful. My impression is, that the effect is extremely small in the case of animals, but perhaps rather more in that of plants. We may, at least, safely conclude that such influences cannot have produced the many striking and complex co-adaptations of structure between one organic being and another, which we see everywhere throughout nature. Some little influence may be attributed to climate, food, &c.: thus, E. Forbes speaks confidently that shells at their southern limit, and when living in shallow water, are more brightly coloured than those of the same species further north or from greater depths. Gould believes that birds of the same species are more brightly coloured under a clear atmosphere, than when living on islands or near the coast. So with insects, Wollaston is convinced that residence near the sea affects their colours. Moquin-Tandon gives a list of plants which when growing near the sea-shore have their leaves in some degree fleshy, though not elsewhere fleshy. Several other such cases could be given.

For example, if all but 1% of the population has 3 mutations (with .5% having 2 and .5% having 4), the average is 3 and the probability of having more than 1 is 100%. That would fit my number but not your answer.

— Grey Wolf

The average mutation rate was estimated to be 2.5 x 10-8 mutations per nucleotide site or 175 mutations per diploid genome per generation.

Then there's the problem. Large scale changes such as new body types, new tissue types, and new organs have a habit of happening fast with few predecessors. 500 millions years of nothing then BOOM, the first tissue type appears. 3.5 billion years of nothing then BOOM, in the space of 10 million years most of the modern multicellular body types, tissue types, and organ types appear. Then evolutinary biology, happy as a lark while the biggest prediction of mutation/selection fails (the gradual accumulation of micromutations over billions of years resulting in bottom up evolution), an ad hoc theory of punctuated equilibrium is formulated to explain it like it was no big deal. I'm supposed to accept that new theory on faith too.

Sorry. I accepted the gradual accumulation of micromutations and bottom up evolution when I was a naive young man. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now I want empirical evidence all this happened the way you claim it does otherwise it's time to put an alternative explanation on the table so another generation doesn't get blindsided by this atheist crock of shi!t like I did. Oh yes, I used to be an atheist just like 70% of the AAAS membership. No more thank you very much. I've been agnostic for the last 14 years thanks to a few scientists who were brave enough to risk their careers by bucking the establishment to point out the inferential evidence for intelligent design which, IMO and growing number of others, is just as good as the inferential evidence for mutation/selection, if not better.

Mosquitoes have developed immunity (not just resistance) to DDT through the novel mechanism of now being able to digest the stuff rather as a nutrient, and break it down. How is this example insufficient for your challenge?

They're still mosquitos, ain't they? Mosquitos have been feeding on plants for ages and plants have been producing insecticides as a defense mechanism for ages. So how do you know this is a novel capability rather than a recessive trait that was there all along?

...which essentially proves that DaveScot pulled the "87.5% chance of having at least one" mutation figure out of his ass.

At last, some honesty (albeit inferential) from ol' Dave.

But I am strongly inclined to suspect that the most frequent cause of variability may be attributed to the male and female reproductive elements having been affected prior to the act of conception. Several reasons make me believe in this; but the chief one is the remarkable effect which confinement or cultivation has on the functions of the reproductive system; this system appearing to be far more susceptible than any other part of the organization, to the action of any change in the conditions of life.

— Darwin, chapter 1, in Origin

[previous post referncing post #19480]

So how do you know this [DDT digesting enzyme] is a novel capability rather than a recessive trait that was there all along?

— DaveIQ153Scot

Mosquitoes don't feed on plants. They suck blood from animals.

— Ed Darrell

DaveScot

That estimate includes all sites in the genome. It would be more relevant to look at nonsynonymous sites (those that change amino acids) only.

2.5e-8 mutations per nucleotide site
1.6e8 nonsynonymous sites
= 4 nonsynonymous mutations per generation

Because the estimates of mutation rate vary depending on generation time and divergence time between humans and chimps used in the calculations, that number should only be used to get an idea of the order of magnitude of mutations per generation. Therefore, there is somewhere between 1-10 nonsynonymous mutations per generation.

Furthermore, the mutation rate is lower in gene rich regions of the genome (due to less repetitive sequences), but the mutation rate calculated by Nachman and Crowell includes all sites in the genome. If they only looked at coding sequences, the mutation rate would likely be even lower.

The Rev. Dr. Flank has had interesting correspondence with Mr. Kent Hovind -- almost exactly the same correspondence many of us have had.

It might be fun to get Mr. Sandefur over here to weigh in, but it seems to me that Hovind's offer is a crank proposal. In legal terms, it is not bona fide for vagueness, if nothing else. Hovind did this on purpose.

Under contract law, were Hovind's offer real, that is, bone fide, anyone who could meet the standards would have provided consideration and formed an enforceable contract to collect the money. Hovind has no intention of paying out, and he needs the public relations device of the challenge even more than he needs the money. Hovind has not taken the usual, legally-preferred steps of getting a contract with an insurance company to pay off, or putting the money into an escrow account.

But more to the point, his terms are squishy. As you've discovered, he won't say what the terms mean, so one cannot know in advance if one has met the terms.

This is a sure sign of a crank contract.

You may want to pay attention to the case of Mel Mermelstein, in California. A crank, Holocaust denying group had made a similar offer, to pay $50,000 to anyone who could prove the holocaust happened. Mermelstein offered the proof, and the group rejected it. Mermelstein sued, and the California courts ruled that the contract was valid -- the rejection had been hoked up, and false. (The court also ruled that the Holocaust is so well proven that it is now a matter of judicial note in California.)

It would be fun to have the money to take Hovind to court. The experts could be lined up, and certainly most of the steps he asks for could be proven well enough for a civil case. One issue would be whether Hovind's judges would be the final arbiters -- he's paid some attention to the Mermelstein case to try to shore up his defense there, it appears to me -- but they can't reject real evidence.

So he's also asked for things that are simply wacko. No one could ever provide such proof. He'd be able to avoid paying on a technicality.

DaveScot, maybe if you knew how to read, you'd see the difference between us. I *asked* what the chance of having at least one mutation is. Because I didn't know. I gave a number, yes, inside the question, one I felt was pretty close to the real answer. You countered that the chance was much lower. Now you tell me that the number of mutation is, in fact, so much higher than the number I though that the chances of having at least one approach certainty.

I wonder, why do you feel you've "one-upped" me? I said that mutations are extremelly common. You gleefully said otherwise, and you are in fact claiming that there are 12.5% of humans with no mutations. Maybe you should have revised your claims after you pointed out an average of 175 mutations?

In fact, I know you don't read other people's post except to create your straw men, but do you at least read your own? I gave you two examples that showed your answer wrong, wrong, wrong. And now you provide yet another fact that shows your answer wrong, wrong, wrong, while proving that the number I felt was close to the truth is right. And regardless of your double foot-in-mouth in as many posts, my original claim (that mutations are not only not "extremelly unlikely" but are, in fact, extremelly common) is now more strongly supported than what it was when I first gave it.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution (option 3 above, under "known options") is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence.

Mosquitoes don't feed on plants. They suck blood from animals. Plant defenses against mosquitoes are completely beside the point, consequently.

— Ed Darrell

Mosquitoes don't feed on plants. They suck blood from animals.

Darwin, chapter 1, in Origin wrote: But I am strongly inclined to suspect that the most frequent cause of variability may be attributed to the male and female reproductive elements having been affected prior to the act of conception. Several reasons make me believe in this; but the chief one is the remarkable effect which confinement or cultivation has on the functions of the reproductive system; this system appearing to be far more susceptible than any other part of the organization, to the action of any change in the conditions of life.

Grey Wolf,

The difference between us is that I actually go look up answers. You'd still be blundering about claiming that humans have an average of 3 mutations per generation when the real answer is 175.

Don't bother thanking me. Just keep in mind that it's 175 and not 3 next time the subject comes up.

Thanks in advance.

Effects of Use and Disuse From the facts alluded to in the first chapter, I think there can be little doubt that use in our domestic animals strengthens and enlarges certain parts, and disuse diminishes them; and that such modifications are inherited. Under free nature, we can have no standard of comparison, by which to judge of the effects of long-continued use or disuse, for we know not the parent-forms; but many animals have structures which can be explained by the effects of disuse.

Given that it's already been pointed out that, in fact, the number is about 5, I am not going to thank you. I do thank RPM for his answer, who knows what he's (she's?) speaking about.

Oh, and indeed, the difference between us is that I don't try to pass as an expert in biology, while you, even when you look up the answers, can't make sense of them and yet still try to look as if you can. I admit I am not an expert and thus, instead publicly making an ass of myself, I simply ask.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who now wonders if 1-10 mutations per generation are enough to be deemed "very common" or just "common".

The difference between us is that I actually go look up answers.

Kirby has remarked (and I have observed the same fact) that the anterior tarsi, or feet, of many male dung-feeding beetles are very often broken off; he examined seventeen specimens in his own collection, and not one had even a relic left. In the Onites apelles the tarsi are so habitually lost, that the insect has been described as not having them. In some other genera they are present, but in a rudimentary condition. In the Ateuchus or sacred beetle of the Egyptians, they are totally deficient. There is not sufficient evidence to induce us to believe that mutilations are ever inherited; and I should prefer explaining the entire absence of the anterior tarsi in Ateuchus, and their rudimentary condition in some other genera, by the long-continued effects of disuse in their progenitors; for as the tarsi are almost always lost in many dung-feeding beetles, they must be lost early in life, and therefore cannot be much used by these insects.

Which part of that don't you understand? If that's Lamarckian I'm a monkey's uncle.

Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound. Not in one case out of a hundred can we pretend to assign any reason why this or that part differs, more or less, from the same part in the parents. But whenever we have the means of instituting a comparison, the same laws appear to have acted in producing the lesser differences between varieties of the same species, and the greater differences between species of the same genus.

I've clearly shown that Darwin believed that acquired characters were heritable. Now it's just a matter of whether or not he believed that was the primary means of variation.

What Lamarck actually believed was more complex: organisms are not passively altered by their environment, as his colleague Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire thought. Instead, a change in the environment causes changes in the needs of organisms living in that environment, which in turn causes changes in their behavior. Altered behavior leads to greater or lesser use of a given structure or organ; use would cause the structure to increase in size over several generations, whereas disuse would cause it to shrink or even disappear. This rule -- that use or disuse causes structures to enlarge or shrink -- Lamarck called the "First Law" in his book Philosophie zoologique. Lamarck's "Second Law" stated that all such changes were heritable. The result of these laws was the continuous, gradual change of all organisms, as they became adapted to their environments; the physiological needs of organisms, created by their interactions with the environment, drive Lamarckian evolution.

Emanuele Oriano

Evolutionists claim that a random process created human life.

If that is true the odds against it are roughly 4^4300000000:1 against, for any given truely random Genetic organism being human.

This number is massively big^massively big^massively big. For perspective 10^100 is a massively big number on the order of every partical in the universe big.

It is your hypothesis that some organized process drove this evolution and thereby escapes the odds that are so close to zero that science would call it impossible in any other field.

For example if you could show that the number of mutations since time began is large compared to the number I have stated, or alternately that there are process that are testible that reduce the number of random selections etc. Or a combination of the two.

Personally I think the reason this approach is alien to you is that it has never been done with an outcome that supports your hypothesis...

Even simple things like Human to chimp that are 99.99? (gave you 2 more 9s than I wanted to to be charitable) similiar is roughly 4^430000.

If you started with that number I would be suprised if you could rationalize that within the time from big bang to present using any actual observed mutation rates.

Now you will claim that you are not talking about a random process but actually un-Intelligent design by virtue of enviornmental conditions.......

But at least humor me and show that you even think its possible....

Rilke's Grandaughter

Next point. Popular view of the universe in Darwin's time.

I submit to you Olber's Paradox formulated in 1823, contemporaneous with Chuck Darwin more or less, which states that if the universe is static and infinite then the night sky should be white because eventually every line of sight must terminate on a star.

This begs a question.

Why would they call it a paradox unless it was taken as a given that the universe was indeed static and infinite?

I therefore continue my claim that the vast majority contemporaneous with Darwin believed the universe to be infinite and unchanging, without beginning and without end.

That's naturalists' beliefs of course. The majority in Protestant Reformation countries back then believed, as they do now, that in the beginning the firmanment was void and without shape. Funny how science came over to the bible thumper's side there, ain't it? The big bang theory initially met with some serious opposition because of that too. Imagine the chagrin on scientists faces, who were dominated by atheists even in 1950, when the evidence started pointing to a firmanment that in the beginning was void and without shape... Wow! Creation city! but I digress...

Evolutionists claim that a random process created human life. If that is true...

The origin of life is in fact totally irrelevant to the fact that we observe evolution occurring today.

I submit to you Olber's Paradox formulated in 1823, contemporaneous with Chuck Darwin more or less, which states that if the universe is static and infinite then the night sky should be white because eventually every line of sight must terminate on a star.

Please read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss to find out what's wrong with you're punctuation.

It is very distracting to read poory punctuated prose. It causes inadvertent pauses in perusal which counters comprehension.

...you're punctuation?

Since Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a book, shouldn't it be underlined instead of in quotes?

Emanuele, maybe John Beck expects us to become one with punctuation? Granted, Zen is quite hip these days...

GW

Jonathan

What's really mind blowing is Lamarck and Darwin might've had it right in transmission of acquired characters - epigenetically. Gadzooks! Who's next to be vindicated, William Paley fercrisakes?

The new fad... "I'm OK, you're punctuation!"

The difference between the modern flavors of Lamarckian evolution (ie, developmental plasticity, niche construction) and intelligent design is that they are experimentally testible and entirely compatable with naturalistic mechanisms. You can discuss them at a scientific meeting and maintain some credibility. There has also been a fair bit of research on these topics, as opposed to ID which, at this point, is nothing more than hand waving and godidit arguments.

Gimme a break, Fred. The jury was still out on steady state vs. big bang 100 years after Darwin published. Just imagine, I read those theories when they still hot off the press. I can't imagine you alive and into cosmology in the early 1960's or you wouldn't argue with me on this.

Dave, while I generally don't think it's good for trolls or their feeders to feed them, I do have to admit that watching people run circles around you is a laugh riot. Your goofy arguments get slammed all over the place, and yet you keep on kicking, oblivious, shooting off on yet another tangent and snarky response...

Fred's argument is quite simple: Because science doesn't know everything, it doesn't know anything. So let's not trust it.

RG: Once again, you show your ignorance of the history of science - there was quite a lively discussion going on in Darwin's day about the actual age of the universe. I don't believe Darwin ever expressed an opinion.

DaveScott: Why would they call it a paradox unless it was taken as a given that the universe was indeed static and infinite?

DaveScott: The jury was still out on steady state vs. big bang 100 years after Darwin published.

It's quite interesting standing on the sidelines and observing the free-for-all.

Just a simple clarification that might be helpful:

The idea of a kind of 'ageless', but not 'steady-state' (a more 20th century kind of notion) earth was part of Hutton's 'uniformitarianism' while teaching at Edinburgh at the end of the 18th century. Both Lyell and Darwin studied (later) at Edinburgh, and were likely affected by Hutton. Darwin suggested the earth might be extremely old, but the thinking of his day was mostly that of a relatively 'young earth.' In fact Lord Kelvin's work (later shown to be erroneous) was thrown into his face.

When I hear 'steady-state' universe, I think of Sir Fred Hoyle--no friend of Darwin.

I said: In a nutshell, so that even someone with an IQ of 153 can follow: The advent of engines and the industrial revolution and thermodynaics eventually led to the notion of entropy. This led people to questions Newton's notion of an infinite universe. This all happened before and around the time Darwin was writing his book. Hence Rilke's Grandaughter is right and DaveScott is, as usual, wrong.

DaveScott: Just imagine, I read those theories when they still hot off the press. I can't imagine you alive and into cosmology in the early 1960's or you wouldn't argue with me on this.

Thus, it is well known to furriers that animals of the same species have thicker and better fur the more severe the climate is under which they have lived; but who can tell how much of this difference may be due to the warmest-clad individuals having been favoured and preserved during many generations, and how much to the direct action of the severe climate? for it would appear that climate has some direct action on the hair of our domestic quadrupeds. Instances could be given of the same variety being produced under conditions of life as different as can well be conceived; and, on the other hand, of different varieties being produced from the same species under the same conditions. Such facts show how indirectly the conditions of life must act. Again, innumerable instances are known to every naturalist of species keeping true, or not varying at all, although living under the most opposite climates. Such considerations as these incline me to lay very little weight on the direct action of the conditions of life. Indirectly, as already remarked, they seem to play an important part in affecting the reproductive system, and in thus inducing variability; and natural selection will then accumulate all profitable variations, however slight, until they become plainly developed and appreciable by us. EFFECTS OF USE AND DISUSE. From the facts alluded to in the first chapter, I think there can be little doubt that use in our domestic animals strengthens and enlarges certain parts, and disuse diminishes them; and that such modifications are inherited. Under free nature, we can have no standard of comparison, by which to judge of the effects of long-continued use or disuse, for we know not the parent-forms; but many animals have structures which can be explained by the effects of disuse. As Professor Owen has remarked, there is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly; yet there are several in this state. The logger-headed duck of South America can only flap along the surface of the water, and has its wings in nearly the same condition as the domestic Aylesbury duck. As the larger ground-feeding birds seldom take flight except to escape danger, I believe that the nearly wingless condition of several birds, which now inhabit or have lately inhabited several oceanic islands, tenanted by no beast of prey, has been caused by disuse. The ostrich indeed inhabits continents and is exposed to danger from which it cannot escape by flight, but by kicking it can defend itself from enemies, as well as any of the smaller quadrupeds. We may imagine that the early progenitor of the ostrich had habits like those of a bustard, and that as natural selection increased in successive generations the size and weight of its body, its legs were used more, and its wings less, until they became incapable of flight.

Kirby has remarked (and I have observed the same fact) that the anterior tarsi, or feet, of many male dung-feeding beetles are very often broken off; he examined seventeen specimens in his own collection, and not one had even a relic left. In the Onites apelles the tarsi are so habitually lost, that the insect has been described as not having them. In some other genera they are present, but in a rudimentary condition. In the Ateuchus or sacred beetle of the Egyptians, they are totally deficient. There is not sufficient evidence to induce us to believe that mutilations are ever inherited; and I should prefer explaining the entire absence of the anterior tarsi in Ateuchus, and their rudimentary condition in some other genera, by the long-continued effects of disuse in their progenitors; for as the tarsi are almost always lost in many dung-feeding beetles, they must be lost early in life, and therefore cannot be much used by these insects.

In some cases we might easily put down to disuse modifications of structure which are wholly, or mainly, due to natural selection. Mr. Wollaston has discovered the remarkable fact that 200 beetles, out of the 550 species inhabiting Madeira, are so far deficient in wings that they cannot fly; and that of the twenty-nine endemic genera, no less than twenty-three genera have all their species in this condition! Several facts, namely, that beetles in many parts of the world are very frequently blown to sea and perish; that the beetles in Madeira, as observed by Mr. Wollaston, lie much concealed, until the wind lulls and the sun shines; that the proportion of wingless beetles is larger on the exposed Dezertas than in Madeira itself; and especially the extraordinary fact, so strongly insisted on by Mr. Wollaston, of the almost entire absence of certain large groups of beetles, elsewhere excessively numerous, and which groups have habits of life almost necessitating frequent flight;--these several considerations have made me believe that the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection, but combined probably with disuse. For during thousands of successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight will oftenest have been blown to sea and thus have been destroyed. The insects in Madeira which are not ground-feeders, and which, as the flower-feeding coleoptera and lepidoptera, must habitually use their wings to gain their subsistence, have, as Mr. Wollaston suspects, their wings not at all reduced, but even enlarged. This is quite compatible with the action of natural selection. For when a new insect first arrived on the island, the tendency of natural selection to enlarge or to reduce the wings, would depend on whether a greater number of individuals were saved by successfully battling with the winds, or by giving up the attempt and rarely or never flying. As with mariners shipwrecked near a coast, it would have been better for the good swimmers if they had been able to swim still further, whereas it would have been better for the bad swimmers if they had not been able to swim at all and had stuck to the wreck. The eyes of moles and of some burrowing rodents are rudimentary in size, and in some cases are quite covered up by skin and fur. This state of the eyes is probably due to gradual reduction from disuse, but aided perhaps by natural selection. In South America, a burrowing rodent, the tuco-tuco, or Ctenomys, is even more subterranean in its habits than the mole; and I was assured by a Spaniard, who had often caught them, that they were frequently blind; one which I kept alive was certainly in this condition, the cause, as appeared on dissection, having been inflammation of the nictitating membrane. As frequent inflammation of the eyes must be injurious to any animal, and as eyes are certainly not indispensable to animals with subterranean habits, a reduction in their size with the adhesion of the eyelids and growth of fur over them, might in such case be an advantage; and if so, natural selection would constantly aid the effects of disuse.

4) Creationists are silly for believing a unknown non-random cause make mutations in DNA causing lifes varied makeup. We all know it was a unknown random cause . . . how silly they are. Ocman's razor and all that.

— DonkeyKong

When I hear 'steady-state' universe, I think of Sir Fred Hoyle---no friend of Darwin.

Just for an interesting change of pace, can anyone cite an example of a creationist being honest, or making a point with a correct and valid representation of evidence? I'd even be willing to settle for a question which isn't founded on false assumptions and doesn't presume the desired answer.

Constantly 'correcting' deliberately dishonest claims gets boring after a while.

Flint,

I have yet to come across a die-hard supporter of any religion who is capable of being honest when it come to anything that affects their beliefs. Otherwise they are pretty sane usually. I know someone who is now the religious affairs correspondent for a major newspaper in the UK. He maintains that the most dishonest people he ever has to deal with are the press officers for religious organizations; Catholics, Mormons, Baptists, etc, doesn't matter - you can't hardly believe a word they say according to him.

I think fundie brains must get rewired through constant exposure to mind numbing rubbish. The real problem is that they are looking for arguments to justify their conclusions rather than the other way around. Dave Scott is a case in point - he knows a lot of stuff but it's all to prove his point. I doubt he gets any joy out of studying science for its own sake. The upshot is that he can't concede a point even when it's not related to his religious beliefs, so sure is he that he's right on all matters.

Fred

David Heddle said: The (erroneous) push for a steady state universe paralleled the growth of humanism, since a steady-state universe allows one to avoid that nasty problem of a beginning.

"The (erroneous) push for a steady state universe paralleled the growth of humanism, since a steady-state universe allows one to avoid that nasty problem of a beginning."

Must be nice when you can just make up the history of this or that to fit into your prejeduces!

Just for the record, the BB theory (the refutation of Steady State) has as little to say about a begginning as evolution does about abiogenesis. Nor is a beginning a "nasty problem" from humanism: it's a matter of indifference.

Is this really a problem?

Must be nice when you can just make up the history of this or that to fit into your prejeduces!

Funny how science came over to the bible thumper's side there, ain't it?

What did I make up? I didn't say anything that is not easily verified. And it was "value neutral." I think you have some sort of hair trigger: Oh Heddle said something, he's on their side (I think), so I better say his point was [Pick at least one:] {dissembling, arguing a strawman, a logical fallacy, latent Nazism, racist, made up, homophobic, quote mining, . . . }

Mr. Heddle:

I would like to "easily verify" the link between the "push for a steady state" and "the growth of Humanism". Would you please give me some evidence of the causal link between the two?

Rilke's GD:

A minor quibble, perhaps, but Humanism began in fourteenth century Italy.

RGD & Emanuele

Humanism flourished in physics in the 19th and 20th centuries, not before. Unless you care to characterize Newton and Maxwell as "humanists." When most scientists were theists, a finite universe presented no problem. As humanism took over physics, and without QM to rescue them, there was an enormous pressure to toward a steady state universe (you see, ironically I agree with you that at the time of Darwin there was significant support for a finite universe.) In the post-Darwin era of the agnostic/atheist scientist, we see the pendulum swinging toward steady state. Hoyle explictly mentions the incomprehensibility of a start to the universe (something a theist scientist would not fret over) as part of his motivation. And then there is the prime example of Einstein. So the rise of steady-staters does parallel the rise of humanism in physics.

Picky, picky. But you are, of course, correct. I tend to associate Erasmus and Humanism in my mind. I must cure myself of the habit.

Mr. Heddle, you appear to be confusing "Secular Humanism" - directly connected to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933. Humanism as a movement began in Italy in the 14th century and continued through the renaissance. If you continue to be vauge, you must accept that people will point out your errors. Erasmus was a humanist - he flourished early in the 16th century.

In addition, you haven't established a causal connection between anyone other than Hoyle - who has a number of theoretical problems with his logic.

The steady state theory is a model developed in 1949 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory. Although the model had a large number of supporters among cosmologists in the 1950s and 1960s, the number of supporters decreased markedly in the late 1960s and today it is considered a non-standard cosmology. It is also the basis for another theory known as the quasi-steady state theory which postulates a lot of little big bangs occurring over time. The steady state theory was developed as a result of theoretical calculations that showed that a static universe was impossible under general relativity and observations by Edwin Hubble that the universe was expanding. The steady state theory asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its look over time. For this to work, new matter must be formed to keep the density equal over time.

What is significant about saying that humanism began in the 14th century--surely you are not saying it began and was universally adopted by all?

Humanism in secular aspects, for quite the while, was confined to Southern Italy. As the Renaissance moved north, it was applied more to theology--culminating in many respects with Erasmus and Luther.

Do you consider Newton a humanist?

Do you consider Maxwell a humanist?

It's funny what you say about Hoyle--its the old "give us an example, oh but not that one, that one doesn't count."

Hoyle said: "I have an aesthetic bias against the Big Bang," which I am sure you can verify via google. And this was (I think) in 70's, after virtually everyobe accepted the Big Bang.

And by YOUR constant demand for evidence of a designer when that's something that ID doesn't predict is observable

I'm STILL waiting for you to explain to me why the appearence of life through natural means on another planet is any more or less probable than the appearence of life through natural means here, and how you know. Living cells appeared on earth about 500 million years after the earth itself formed. Other solar systems in the galactic habitable zone formed up to 4 billion years before the earth with the average being about a billion years earlier. Panspermia thus has 4.5 billion years and millions of solar systems for abiogenesis while on earth abiogenesis has only 500 million years.

Mr. Heddle:

Maybe it escaped you, but it is you who claimed there was a causal link between Humanism, the movement that began in Central and Northern Italy in the fourteenth century that would eventually lead to the Renaissance, and the "push towards a steady-state [model of the universe]". So far, you haven't even attempted to give any evidence at all for this preposterous claim.

You've heard of Galileo Galilei, I assume - are you aware of how influenced by Humanism he was? Do you consider him a Humanist? If not, why not?

Also, when someone asks for an example, it is considered dissembling to give an unrepresentative example. Or are you now claiming that Hoyle's ideas were representative of the whole, entirely non-existing, Great Atheist Conspiracy in astrophysics?

If by that you mean why won't I put unwavering faith in the unobserved and unobservable then it's simply to be consistent.

I'm STILL waiting for you to explain to me why the appearence of life through natural means on another planet is any more or less probable than the appearence of life through natural means here, and how you know. Why that is trivial, if you mean any other planet. Do really mean that, or do you mean another earth-like planet?

I will close comments Friday morning, and will most likely delete those with profanity etc...

This is becuase public schools as well as many public libraries have blocking software which scans for "bad words." Naughty naughty!

Demanding that creationists be honest is an exercise in futility. Demanding forcefully that they be honest earns you demerits, but no honesty. I'm quite confident that you could put a gun to a creationist's head and threaten to pull the trigger unless he told the truth, and he'd die shortly thereafter never understanding what was expected of him whatsoever.

I'm STILL waiting for you to explain to me why the appearence of life through natural means on another planet is any more or less probable than the appearence of life through natural means here, and how you know. HEDDLE wrote: Why that is trivial, if you mean any other planet. Do really mean that, or do you mean another earth-like planet? Nice evasion. Now answer the goddamn question.

Mr. Heddle:

you continue confusing Humanism with Secular Humanism, and predating Secular Humanism to the 19th century when it began to spread in the first half of the 20th century. This is sloppy, to say the least.

But even more fundamentally, there's simply no way you can have Secular Humanism make scientists of the late 19th-early 20th century prefer a model of the universe that would be developed around the mid-20th century.

Time travel has not been invented yet, you see.

No, Mr. Heddle. You need to do much better next time; and if I may suggest you a starting point for improvement, please drop the fundamentalist silliness of conflating humanism, secularism, atheism, agnosticism, naturalism and whatnot in a monstrous hydra hell-bent on getting rid of god(s). It is unbecoming, and it smells of desperation.

Re "and how much to the direct action of the severe climate? for it would appear that climate has some direct action on the hair of our domestic quadrupeds. "

That's interesting. It hadn't occurred to me that rate of hair growth might be keyed to local weather conditions, but it makes sense. Has that hypothesis been tested? (And if so, confirmed or not?)

Henry

David Heddle wrote: .... Just like today many favour multiverses because of a more modern problem, fine tuning. It's déjà vu all over again.

Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; & anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno. - "Was the World Made for Man?" Mark Twain

"To a non-physicist, it looks like speculation once you start to look beyond the beginning of our universe..."

Emanuelle---I don't know how to make the link clearer---by their own words many scientists of the late 19th and early twentieth centuries favored a steady state model because it avoided the beginning problem. That's the link, see. Just like today many favor multiverses because of a more modern problem, fine tuning. It's déjà vu all over again.

Katarina

Abundant is a relative thing.

Random processes are abundant relative to small numbers.

Random processes are very very very very very very very very very very very very scarce relative to 4^4300000000.

So relative to that context no we cannot agree that random processes are abundant.

That is why evolutionists don't like to use numbers because you can't speak evolution in the language of science which is numbers...Its kinda like evolution is the anti-christ of science and numbers burn it or something.

Re "and how much to the direct action of the severe climate? for it would appear that climate has some direct action on the hair of our domestic quadrupeds. " That's interesting. It hadn't occurred to me that rate of hair growth might be keyed to local weather conditions, but it makes sense. Has that hypothesis been tested? (And if so, confirmed or not?) Henry

Emanuele Oriano

I said
"Evolutionists claim that a random process created human life. If that is true . . . "

You said
"That is not true. No "Evolutionist" claims that. Why do you feel it is necessary to lie?"

***
So you think that NO evolutionist has claimed that life evolved from dirt? Not Carl Sagan?
Not SETI?

Can you guys ever tell the truth?

Here SETI is trying to teach it to grade school kids

http://www.seti.org/atf/cf/%7BB0D4BC0E-D59B-4CD0-9E79-113953A58644%7D/howlif.pdf

Complete cowards can't even defend your own theory against adults.

Its sick.

Flint...

Honest? Calling your oponents arguments lies is a very poor debating tactic. Doing it twice is a cry for help....

So here is the help...

Science 101, One aspect of science that is often not mentioned when people learn about it is that it is a cousin of math. Most scientists have the ability to do at least simple math and often find it helpful to seperate what is possible from what is not possible.

For examle, a human genome is roughly 4,300,000,000 bases long. Were life to be an accident the odds of putting bases together at random and getting your DNA would be 4^4.3 billion. Thats 1 with more than 2 billion zeros after it.

Thats a very big number. And it assumes that the building blocks are all ready formed into G A T C bases, each of these bases is made up of more than one atom. The odds of these spontaneous forming is rare too.

Its kinda like telling someone that they should buy lottery tickets if they want to get rich. Every week you have a lottery winner who actually did make money by buying a lottery ticket. But to claim that all wealth comes from playing the lottery is obviously false (or the company running it would go out of business).

Evolution is the same way, it appears possible even to sceptics in the same way that a lottery win is possible. Every now and again there is a big find that seems to support it. But the extreamly rare massive win is actually overshadowed by the mundane $1 loss that usually occurs. A proposed lucky win must over come unlucky streaks and yet produce improvement.

In the same way that you cannot explain that lotterys are a bad investment to a person who can't understand math, so to it is very difficult to explain why evolution is such a weak theory to evolutionists who won't do the math........

But as a rule of thumb if a scientist explains something to you without numbers and can't make predictions with it BEWARE.

Can you guys ever tell the truth? Here SETI is trying to teach it to grade school kids http://www.seti.org/atf/cf/%7BB0D4BC0E-D59B-4CD0-9E79-113953 . . . Complete cowards can't even defend your own theory against adults. Its sick.

— donkeykong

For examle, a human genome is roughly 4,300,000,000 bases long. Were life to be an accident the odds of putting bases together at random and getting your DNA would be 4^4.3 billion. Thats 1 with more than 2 billion zeros after it. Thats a very big number. And it assumes that the building blocks are all ready formed into G A T C bases, each of these bases is made up of more than one atom. The odds of these spontaneous forming is rare too.

— donkeykong

Evolutionists don't claim "a random process created human life". Evolutionists claim a systematic process created human life. There's a slight difference.

Calling your oponents arguments lies is a very poor debating tactic.

Mr. DonkeyKong:

You can repeat the same lie over and over till you're blue in the face; it won't mysteriously turn into a true statement.

Either you can quote any legitimate evolutionary biologist who claims that somehow ANY given number of bases in the genome of ANY lifeform "randomly assembled itself and BINGO!", or your claim is a lie.

Put up or shut up, as they say.

Emanuelle & RGD,

My American Heritage Dictionary (New College Edition, 1978) defines humanism as: (1)The condition or quality of being human (2)A philosophy or study that is concerned with human beings, their acheivements and interests, rather than with abstract beings and problems of theology.

And it defines humanist as (1) One who studies the humanities... (2) One who is concerned with the studies of human beings... (3) A Renaiassance student or a follower of humanism

So although I hate nit-picking games, in this case I was using humanism in an acceptable way. It need not be directly tied to the Renaiassance, and I was not confusing it with "secular humanist."

Mr. Heddle:

So you now - noise of goalposts being moved - claim that the Steady State model of the universe was born out of what, precisely?

Out of a philosophy or study that is concerned with human beings, their achievements and interests, rather than with abstract beings and problems of theology?

As opposed to, e.g., the Big Bang model being born out of what else, precisely?

Also, please clarify for my amusement how could "late 19th-century physicists" (your words, remember?) prefer the Steady State model of the universe (which wasn't around at the time) out of anything.

Emanuele:

The claim is simple and I am surprised that it is even controversial. When physicists were (mostly) believers, then a finite universe posed no philosophical dilemma. When religious belief among physicists waned in the 19th and 20th centuries, then it was only natural (and historic) that they would favor steady-state models. Anyone, religious or not, would prefer that their cosmology prsented no problems to their philosophy. This is not a criticism of anyone.

Today we see the same thing in cosmology. The response to the apparent fine tuning is either to say it affirms your religious beliefs or to say it points out a weakness in the current big bang model.

I don't think you want to claim that physicists are impervious to all influences from their theism or atheism, as the case may be.

The (erroneous) push for a steady state universe paralleled the growth of humanism, since a steady-state universe allows one to avoid that nasty problem of a beginning.

The claim is simple and I am surprised that it is even controversial.

I don't think you want to claim that physicists are impervious to all influences from their theism or atheism, as the case may be.

Mr. Heddle, aside from the unsubstantiated nature of your commentary; I find it amusing that you have still failed to deal with Emanuele's point: the steady state theory is a product of 1950's scientific thought. How then could it have been pushed or favored or accepted by 19th century physicists?

What you appear to be grossly ignorant of are the actual motivations, behaviors, and practises of working scientists. Few of them allow their religious faith to force them to particular scientific conclusions. Even Dawkin's doesn't do that - and he takes his atheism out in public on far too long a leash.

As usual, your invented historical scenarios appear both baseless and confused. Study, Mr. Heddle, and learning. These are excellent things and will make these conversations so much more interesting and enjoyable for all parties.

Hokeydooky,

This is closed. Thanks for all cogent comments. Don't forget the "bathroom wall" is available for any parting shots.

Gary