The Bathroom Wall

Creationists suck. Still.

But their arguments blow.

Of course we should worship mathematics. The Pythagoreans worshipped mathematics. Galileo was a Pythagorean. I am a Pythagorean too. I am especially impressed by 1.61803398 . . . also known as the divine proportion. Consider a line AB on which there is a point C such that AB over AC equals AC over CB. Squared it becomes 2.61803398 . . . Its reciprocal is 0.61803398 . . . The Pythagoreans discovered this wonderful number. It is also the ratio of the side to the base of the 5 triangles that make up the Pentagram. Now there is a number worth worshipping don't you know.

Mathematics like everything else in the universe was generated by the Big Front Loader (BFL) in the sky. Since BFL is no longer with us we should worship its work which certainly includes all of mathematics. You notice I describe the BFL as an it because there is no reason to personify God. In fact that is where most of the trouble comes from.

2/7? Don't make me laugh. 3/7 is the one true fraction: all other fractions are inferior, and their worshippers must be converted or annihilated.

Take down the crucifix, replace it with the HP-48.

(Only gods that can do RPN are worthy of worship).

Infidels, both of you!  Only the One True Slipstick can save you from the perils of expression syntax, split ends and dead batteries!

Plus, any replica of the One True Slipstick makes a FAR better melee weapon than an HP-48.  Great when rallies turn into riots.

Want to start a pool on how many posts before JAD shows up whining and peddling veggies or fruit?

2/7? Don't make me laugh. 3/7 is the one true fraction: all other fractions are inferior, and their worshippers must be converted or annihilated.

"Want to start a pool on how many posts before JAD shows up whining and peddling veggies or fruit?"

I say 2.

Wrong again toejam. You obviously miss me. I do not whine, I spout.

Mathematics has nothing to do with the human condition. It exists independent of us. Godfrey Hardy recognized this and so do I. Our sole function in the infinite scheme of things is to figure out what the Big Front Loader did in order to make our ultimate appearance possible. It is a giant riddle and one worthy of my attention which is why I am interested in it. As to where BFL came from, that's easy. He came from the same place the Big Bang came from - nowhere: piece of cake. I thought everybody knew that.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them Concord grapes?

John A. Davison

Is Natural Selection a cause or an effect or both?

Actually davison you've just established that you can't even count as high as two. jeffw's post was the first post after Bob Maurus's and before yours, and Sir Toejam's post was the second post after Bob Maurus's and before yours. You handed Sir Toejam the victory because you couldn't count.
insincerely,

Natural Selection is very real. It serves to prevent change by rigorously maintaining the status quo. That is why every chickadee looks like every other chickadee. Natural Selection is anti-evolutionary and always was. Even Natural selection, with very few exceptions, ultimately fails which results in extinction.

"Natural selection is a real factor in connection with mimicry, but its function is to conserve and render preponderant an ALREADY EXISTING LIKENESS, not to build up that likeness through the accumulation of small variations, as is so generally assumed."
Reginald C. Punnet, Mimicry in Butterflies, page 152 (my emphasis)

I hope that helps.

John A. Davison

Touche for a change.

But shouldn't math courses teach the controversy?

— jeffw

What we should teach in our schools is that a past evolution is undeniable and nobody has a clue as to how it took place, except of course that chance had absolutely nothing to do with it. That much is firmly established. Everything else is still conjecture but not for much longer. Trust me.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them tangerines?

John A. Davison

Oh god, another blog... :)

Heaven Is Not The Sky
http://www.alethian.org/wp/

42

The fact that the Darwimpians boycotted the hearings speaks volumes as to their insecurity. If they refuse to participate they should keep their traps shut. That goes for Panda's Thumb too. If you can't stand the heat stay out of Kansas.

Is math really dependant on the nature of the universe? Wouldn't 2+2=4 be true in any other universe? If it would at what point was it fixed? The same time as the physical laws were fixed ( 10^-33 seconds or something like that after the BB)?

JAD "Wrong again toejam. You obviously miss me. I do not whine, I spout.

lol. you can't count, either. my post was the second after the poll started. yours came right after.

I said it would be 2 posts after the poll started that you would post...

you are so predictable it's scary.

The fact that the Darwimpians boycotted the hearings speaks volumes as to their insecurity.

You're all very clever with your math-worship, but you've completely missed the boat concerning my definition.

I definied a "supernatural event" as an event that is logically possible, but physically impossible, e.g., walking on water.

Someone lacking understanding retorted that mathematics falls into that category. Really? What's physically impossible about mathematical equivalences? 2+2=4, for example, does not represent a physical impossibility?

Speaking of boycotts - How long have ID'ers been boycotting scientific journals?

I definied a "supernatural event" as an event that is logically possible, but physically impossible, e.g., walking on water. Someone lacking understanding retorted that mathematics falls into that category. Really? What's physically impossible about mathematical equivalences? 2+2=4, for example, does not represent a physical impossibility?

I definied a "supernatural event" as an event that is logically possible, but physically impossible, e.g., walking on water.

Navy DAVY
DAVEScot
J.A. DAVIson
DAVID Duncan

(any others?)

Is there a pattern here? Could someone run this through the Explanatory Filter to see if there's a relationship between Daviness and evophobia?

Daves must be AntiSteves

Posted by Sir_Toejam on May 8, 2005 11:31 AM (e) (s) JAD "Wrong again toejam. You obviously miss me. I do not whine, I spout. lol. you can't count, either. my post was the second after the poll started. yours came right after. I said it would be 2 posts after the poll started that you would post . . . you are so predictable it's scary.

— Sir Toejam

Posted by John A. Davison on May 8, 2005 06:56 AM (e) (s) Touche for a change.

I am more of an evolutionist than all the rest of you Darwimps could ever be. You are so out of touch that you actually believe it is going on all around you. How deranged can one be? It is over and done with and it won't be starting up again no matter what happens just as when an organism dies it does not come back to life. Ontogeny is a predetermined, front-loaded, self-limiting, self-regulating process which proceeds independent of the surrounding environment and phylogeny was the same. They are simply different aspects of the same organic continuum with one important distinction. Evolution has ceased and only ontogeny continues. Extinction continues also with the annual loss of thousands of species not one of which has ever been replaced in historical times. It is all over folks. The scenario has been played out. The curtain is falling. Get used to it. I have.

How do you like them crystal balls?

John A. Davison

Your crystal balls have long been apparent, John.
We can always see you coming.

"I do believe JAD conceded you the point with.."

no, actually he ceded the point to Paul. I like to take my own pokes, thanks.

I thought the Amish disavowed modern technology? Why are they posting here?

My goodness, Davison has proposed his ideas to become a featured topic on ARN... This could be fun... Couldn;t have happened to a nicer forum ;-)

Michael Finley,

There is a lizard, maybe a collared lizard, quite possibly called the "Jesus Lizard, that can walk (actually,run) on water. Does this impinge or intrude in any way on your math or your indignation?

Paul Flocken,

ROFLMAO -I love it. Your post 28952 - brilliant!

Hey, John - congratulations on the new granddaughter. We've got three and a grandson.

There is a lizard, maybe a collared lizard, quite possibly called the "Jesus Lizard, that can walk (actually,run) on water.

so can several species of insects, at least one species of spider, and i even hear there are fish that can fly!.

amusing, but i doubt finley will consider those refutation of his argument.

Posted by John A. Davison on May 8, 2005 05:52 PM (e) (s) I am more of an evolutionist than all the rest of you Darwimps could ever be. You are so out of touch that you actually believe it is going on all around you. How deranged can one be? It is over and done with and it won't be starting up again no matter what happens just as when an organism dies it does not come back to life. Ontogeny is a predetermined, front-loaded, self-limiting, self-regulating process which proceeds independent of the surrounding environment and phylogeny was the same. They are simply different aspects of the same organic continuum with one important distinction. Evolution has ceased and only ontogeny continues. Extinction continues also with the annual loss of thousands of species not one of which has ever been replaced in historical times. It is all over folks. The scenario has been played out. The curtain is falling. Get used to it. I have. How do you like them crystal balls? John A. Davison

— JAD

The man and his theory need to be knocked off their pedestal.

"Natural selection is a real factor in connection with mimicry, but its function is to conserve and render preponderant an ALREADY EXISTING LIKENESS, not to build up that likeness through the accumulation of small variations, as is so generally assumed." Reginald C. Punnet, Mimicry in Butterflies, page 152 (my emphasis)

I have quoted Reginald C. Punnett in his own words and Sandor calls me a liar. That is rich. Punnett was a colleague of William Bateson and the inventor of the Punnett square so familiar to genetics students. The simple truth is that there is not a single example of Natural Selection operating as a creative element in the evolution of any higher organism. It never did in the past and it cannot be demonstrated in the present. If all the denizens of Panda's Thumb can do is call me a liar, I am delighted. I have repetedly asked for examples of creative mutation and been met with stony silence. I have asked for "beneficial" muations and received the same response, a deafening nothing. I have asked for new species to replace any of the thousands that disappear annualy. Where are they?

Look out folks, Ed Darrell just took off his gloves. What is he going to do I wonder, give Dembski a sound thrashing?

Hell, I've been ridiculing Darwin for decades and all those that are so weak minded to believe any of his mindless flights of fancy. I love that one about a bear filtering insects through his teeth on the way to becoming a whale. That is one of Darwin's better efforts don't you know. What do you think Darwimpianism is all about? Do you think that is a tribute to the man who mever accepted the cell theory, to a man that who admitted in hard copy that he didn't know where cells came from? Why he even explained why he didn't know. You see he wasn't an histologist. Don't take my word for it. Get out your Darwin Concordance and plug in the word cell. Enjoy.

His grandpa Erasmus more more rational than Charles. The whole family was a little soft to put it mildly.

You clowns never cease to amaze me. I quote verbatim a distinguished scholar and what happens? I'm am a liar and should have kept my mouth shut.

Keep up the great work all you denizens of Panda's Thumb. You amuse me no end with your knee jerk defence of the biggest joke in all of science. Panda's Thumb is the last outpost of Darwimpianism, the Alamo of evolutionary mysticism, Elsberry's last stand if you will. Keep them wagons in a circle. Geronimo!

It is hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them muskmelons?

John A. Davison

While I am certain this post will be either deleted or shipped directly to the latrine, I will present it nevertheless.

Speaking as a convinced evolutionist and a great admirer of Giuseppe Sermonti, I must confess that I differ with him on certain matters. I do not believe in the great antiquity of Homo sapiens. There is no evidence that we existed more than 100,000 years ago.

I also do not believe our DNA is in any way unique. At the DNA level we are practically identical with chimp, gorilla and orang utan and, in that same order, most closely related to them, conclusions that were reached by anatomical studies decades ago. The only necessary explanation for our phenotypic and genotypic expressions is reflected in the several chromosomal reconstructions that also support the same relative position of our evolutionary origins, placing chimp as our closest living relative, followed by gorilla and orang utan.

As I have claimed before, the two words "mutation" and "selection" have and had nothing to do with creative evolution. They must be replaced with the two words that have, "position effect."

It is hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them papayas?

John A. Davison

The simple truth is that there is not a single example of Natural Selection operating as a creative element in the evolution of any higher organism.

I have repetedly asked for examples of creative mutation and been met with stony silence. I have asked for "beneficial" muations and received the same response, a deafening nothing. I have asked for new species to replace any of the thousands that disappear annualy. Where are they?

Just out of sheer curiosity, what itch is scratched by responding to Davison?

Sandor and Ed Darnell, since you seem constitute a clone:

I have a perfect grasp of the Darwinian mutation/selection myth. Neither ever had anything to do with creative evolution. Grow up.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them sour ball suckers?

"We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled."
Montaigne.

John A. Davison

Posted by Fowad on May 9, 2005 09:52 AM Media Event Tonight, May 5th, 2005

Couple of comments:
ID going down in flames in Kansas. Seems if you give them enough rope....

JAD:
To be fair to you, I've tried to research your papers/publishings. Seems that no one of any importance or consequence knows who you are...or give any credence to your theories.

Could it be the pot is cracked?

[T]he two scientists report they and colleagues in Australia have used the radioactive decay rates of uranium -- one of whose isotopes has a half- life of 700 million years and the other of 4.47 billion years -- to date the tiny zircons they have analyzed. The oldest indeed date from about 4.1 billion to 4.3 billion years old, little more than 200 million years after the Earth itself was formed and nearly a billion years before the oldest known fossils of living creatures. More important, the two scientists used the titanium in the zircon crystals as a novel kind of thermometer to determine for the first time that the zircon minerals formed into crystals at about 700 degrees Celsius, or nearly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. After those early zircon crystals formed, temperatures on the Earth must have cooled quickly to more benign levels that allowed water-containing granites to form in the planet's crust, through processes "much more similar to the present day," the scientists said in their report. "In fact," said Watson in an interview, "there had to be substantial water on the Earth's crust at basically room temperature." ... The age of the oldest evidence for life on Earth is still in doubt and ranges from 3.5 billion years for microscopic cells discovered in the Apex chert of Western Australia to 3.8 billion years for other fossil cells found in the Ishua Super Group in Greenland. But as Arrhenius said of the report from Watson and Harrison: "A fascinating aspect of the early hydrosphere is of course the prospect of the emergence of life as soon as the watery medium makes this possible." The new report appears to make it possible many millions of years earlier than anyone has thought.

congratulations, steverino, on reaching the only logical and innevitable conclusion regarding John Davison. He's one whacky monkey.

[...] I love that one about a bear filtering insects through his teeth on the way to becoming a whale. [...]

Steverino

There are a great many professionals who know exactly who I am and what I have published and choose to pretend that I do not exist just as they pretended that my sources have never existed either. That has always been the Darwinian way. Where may I find your evolutionary writings?

John A. Davison

Sadly, Yang Yang hasn't banned JAD. The Bathroom Wall is not the source of interesting discussion it was before it became JAD's cage. Anyone else agree?

I'm on the fence on this one. I have grown accustomed to enjoying newbs attempt to get the monkey to speak english, but I can see where a screaming monkey detracts from the conversation in the room too.

JAD doesn't really warrant his own cage to himself.

However, any interesting discussions can still be maintained in "after the bar closes".

so, i say leave things as they are. on topic discussions obviously belong in the threads they are started in. off topic discussions can go to the bar, and we can always come visit JAD and toss him an apple whenever.

After all, who can argue with the joy of having a screaming mad monkey in your bathroom?

Sadly, Yang Yang hasn't banned JAD. The Bathroom Wall is not the source of interesting discussion it was before it became JAD's cage. Anyone else agree?

Kudos to CBC Newsworld who brought up the Kansas hearings and how the judicial appointee filibustering is related, in a round about way. The reporter didn't try to play it off as a two worldview question. He came right out and said this was an attempt to get God back into the school system, and that Christian conservatives were pushing for sympathetic judges who will eventually have to rule, yet again, on this issue.

Just who are the priveleged few who can post in "after the bar closes." I'll bet that is a prime assortment of Darwimpians. I don't expect you to answer this simple question. Fraternities are like that don't you know. So are groupthinks like EvC, "brainstorms" and Panda's Dislocated Thumb. What a bunch of losers.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them woody radishes?

John A. Davison

Flint asked "Just out of sheer curiosity, what itch is scratched by responding to Davison?"

Maybe it's the fruit.

"What a bunch of losers."

John, what an ingrate. calling us losers after we got you elected as the crankiest evolutionist on the net.

no more bananas for you, naughty monkey.

You Darwimps are all performing exactly according to expectations. It is EvC all over again. Please don't change a thing as I wouldn't know how to deal with it if you did. Have a nice groupthink. I am going to listen to Bill Dembski now on Nightline (ABC). Sleep tight all you clonal clowns at Panda's Disclocated Thumb.

John A. Davison, unfair as always, obviously seriously unbalanced, yet, oddly enough, still unafraid of the Big Bad Darwinian toothless wolf, indeed gleefully watching all those that still support it continue unabated and unabashed to make perfect damn fools of themselves. You have no idea what this means to this old man, this senile demented old fool who has actually had the temerity, as have so many others before him, to continue to identify the Darwinian fairy tale as the most perfect expression of mass hysteria since the Salem witch trials.

Darwimpians of the world unite. you have nothing to lose but your Natural Selection.

It is hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them Rocky Mountain oysters?

Dr. Davison:
I am debating with Neo-Darwinists at EvC,
and ARN.
You are welcome to have comments there.
Thanks.

Jianyi Zhang

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads.cgi?action=tf&f=5

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/002150.html

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/002172.html

NO! you can't have our monkey.

on second thought, i think maybe it's time these two monkeys get together.

who knows what offspring they will produce?

from the administrator over at EvC:

" Message 14 of 162
04-27-2005 10:19 AM Reply to: Message 3 by JonF
04-26-2005 03:16 PM

Folks, though I'm replying to JonF, this is to everyone. JonF pointed out that Jianyi Zhang had a thread on this issue at talk.origins. If you decide to participate in this thread, be sure you set your frustration tolerance level to maximum. Example:
From message 1 of his talk.origins thread:

"I believe in evolution, but not in natural selection as the mechanism of speciation. "

From message 39:

"I never denied roll of NS. If you think I did, tell me where and when."

Enjoy, but stay within the Forum Guidelines.

Percy
EvC Forum Director

a sound warning for any who choose to follow into the house of madness.

Of course it is true that Natural Selection never had anything to do with evolution except to maintain for variable periods of time that which had appeared. The mechanism for evolution was always internal and autonomous just as is the mechanism which regulates the development of the individual. Selection, whether natural or artificial is powerless as a creative factor. It is pure Darwimpian mythology and nothing more. I thought everybody knew that by now. Punnett knew it by 1915, Berg by 1922. Darwimps are slow learners I guess.

Jianyi

I would love to join in at EvC. I have been banned for life from that snake pit as I was from "brainstorms." I occasionally post at ARN where I am largely ignored. Here I at least evoke some response as I am sure you must have noticed. Thanks for the invite though. Try not to get yourself banned. I managed it with three little words, Who is next? Percy couldn't handle that. He is in charge you know.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them navel lint balls? (I'm running out of veggies)

John A. Davison, unfair to the extreme, unbalanced (any fool can see that), yet, for some unknown reason still unafraid, holding forth with undiminshed fervor his denunciation of Darwimpianism as the scandalous hoax it always was and continues to be in its 146th year.

"Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed."
Thomas Henry Huxley

Nonsense!

Let us pray.

Dr. Davison:
Even I do not agree with your theory, I think you a brave man who dares to stand up against Neo-Darwinian pseudo-science for a long, long time, they are billion people there. In my book, I discuss your idea. When I re-edite it, I will praise your courage, bravery in the book. In many times, it is very difficult and almost impossible to get persons out of their faith.
If you read Dr. Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolution", you will find out it take decades or hundreds years for paradigm shift. I do not expect to see it in my life. However, I think my model the correct one, the truth will prevail, just a matter of time.

Make sure to mention that JAD is exactly like Galileo.

I do not think him correct. I just admire his courage and bravery. However, Neo-Darwinism is a pseudo-science for sure.

Jianyi

I have no theory. I have proposed an hypothesis, actually a couple of them. The semi-meiotic hypothesis describes the mechanism by which the prescribed infomation was expressed. The Semi-meiotic and Prescribed Evolutionary hypotheses are closely related, the former being the mechanism for the expression of the information which was there all along.

Also I have no courage and no bravery either. I am just a recalcitrant old fogie who stubbornly refuses to be conned by the biggest hoax in history. I also have a long history of having nothing but contempt for the abuse of authority, especially when it is the handiwork of relative morons. I also have a wonderful capacity to evoke the most hideous responses imaginable from ideological fanatics of whatever persuasion, Fundamentalist Bible Bangers or Darwimpian, chance worshipping imbeciles. They are all the same to me, just as they were to Einstein.

"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source...They are creatures that can't hear the music of the spheres."
Albert Einstein

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them meat balls?

No kidding. If you need to point to a recent time when it was clear Dembski had jumped the shark, go here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/44

— Ed Darrell

However, I think my model the correct one

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank"

Please look http://chickensfirst.net

Also three onging debates:

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads.cgi?action=tf&f=5 . . .

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/0 . . .

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/0 . . .

Natural Selection is very real. It serves to prevent change by rigorously maintaining the status quo.

— John Davison

Dr. Davison:
I suggest you drop word groupthink, and groupfollowers or groupparrots seem more appropriate.

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank" Please look http://chickensfirst.net . . . Also three onging debates: http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads.cgi?action=tf&f=5 . . . . . . http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/0 . . . . . . http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/0 . . . . . .

geez, lenny, JZ and JAD are just two cranks in comeptition with one another. neither of them are IDers in the strict sense of the word.

If you can't get Paul Nelson to answer you, because even he claims it isn't possible, then what hope do you have of getting a whacky monkey to answer you?

just throw them a banana and move on.

Sir_Toejam:
You only shows nature of Neo-Darwinian rogue or parrots.

hmm. i prefer rogue, sounds slicker.

"Sir_Toejam the Darwinian Rogue"

or "Sir_Toejam the rogueish Darwinist"

not sure which i like better.

I'll let you pick.

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank" or Neo-Darwinian parrot:

Do you have brain to understand what I said in the posts? How does that relate with the scientific theory of ID?

JZ writes "Dr. Davison:
I suggest you drop word groupthink, and groupfollowers or groupparrots seem more appropriate."

Ahhh the love letters of kooks in Love.

Must be near summer.

Salvador to Bill Dembski...
Jianyi Zhang to JAD...

In spring a young man's fancy, lightly turns to thoughts of love....

Comment #29333 Posted by John A. Davison on May 10, 2005 12:40 PM (e) (s) Jianyi I have no theory. [...] Also I have no courage and no bravery either. I am just a recalcitrant old fogie [...].

That's the spirit Sandor. You are a credit to Panda's Dislocated Thumb. Dishonest liar is redundant. All liars are dishonest and I am not one of them. Sorry to disappoint you.

As for the rest of you, all I hear is the same old Darwimpian nonsense about Natural Selection. You actually believe it don't you? That's what's so mind boggling. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the emergence of any new life form, only with the maintenance of that form once it had appeared. Admittedly, this might involve some trivial adjustments to a slightly changing environment, but anything creative is out of the question. I thought everybody knew that by now. All it ever did was to delay extinction by culling departures from the standard, the vast majority of which were deleterious. That is all it does today as well.

I too would like to see Jianyi's evolutionary hypothesis in detail. My veiws are published in refereed journals and a somewhat out of date summary can be found in the Manifesto on my home page and elsewhere. I would also ask that every participant here present a capsule summary of his own evolutionary perspective. It could be an interesting starting point for a real discussion of the great mystery of organic evolution. Is that asking too much? Of course it is. Groupthinks are like that.

The other thing is do any of you people read any of the books and papers by the many critics of the Darwimpian fairy tale? You should try it sometime as I have. You would abandon your silly Darwimpianism in a heartbeat. Trust me. Ontogeny and phylgeny are the two most important unsolved mysteries in all of science. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a fantasy world.

It is hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them passion fruits?

John A. Davison

geez, lenny, JZ and JAD are just two cranks in comeptition with one another. neither of them are IDers in the strict sense of the word. If you can't get Paul Nelson to answer you, because even he claims it isn't possible, then what hope do you have of getting a whacky monkey to answer you? just throw them a banana and move on.

Dishonest liar is redundant.

I would agree with you if you'd say the terms "John A Davison" and "dishonest liar" are redundant. Did you mean to say that perchance?

JAD,

If evolution is over, what expains cancer cells developing a resistance to chemoterapy drugs by evolving specific pumps that pump the drug out from the cell.

Is this another example of IDists mischaracterizing the position of a scientist here?

Is anyone here familiar enough with Michael Foote's work to tell if Jonathan Witt is mischaracterizing his opinion when he says that, "In other words, some evolutionists see the fossil record as a real problem."

If JAD kept playing on a typewriter, would he eventually type out the entire works of Hovind?

I too would like to see Jianyi's evolutionary hypothesis in detail. My veiws are published in refereed journals and a somewhat out of date summary can be found in the Manifesto on my home page and elsewhere. I would also ask that every participant here present a capsule summary of his own evolutionary perspective. It could be an interesting starting point for a real discussion of the great mystery of organic evolution. Is that asking too much? Of course it is. Groupthinks are like that.

— JAD

Comment #29404 Posted by GCT on May 11, 2005 08:02 AM (e) (s) Is this another example of IDists mischaracterizing the position of a scientist here? Is anyone here familiar enough with Michael Foote's work to tell if Jonathan Witt is mischaracterizing his opinion when he says that, "In other words, some evolutionists see the fossil record as a real problem."

"We have a representative sample and therefore we can rely on patterns documented in the fossil record"

Jonathan Witt is a moron.

— Sandor

Thank you Stephen Elliott. Your honesty and candor are appreciated and noted.

Who is next?

John A. Davison

ohhhh... gotta ask.

next for what?

As for the rest of you, all I hear is the same old Darwimpian nonsense about Natural Selection. You actually believe it don't you? That's what's so mind boggling. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the emergence of any new life form, only with the maintenance of that form once it had appeared. Admittedly, this might involve some trivial adjustments to a slightly changing environment, but anything creative is out of the question. I thought everybody knew that by now. All it ever did was to delay extinction by culling departures from the standard, the vast majority of which were deleterious. That is all it does today as well.

— John A. Davison

When the environment changes, mutations . . . .or to use your words, "departures from the standard", may become the new standard that is selected for. In this fashion, Natural Selection does change the population so that it fits the new environmental reality. This process never ends.

We observe the products of a past evolution, not evolution in action. All the selection in the world has not and cannot transform one species into another. It is just part of the Darwinian hoax to believe that it can. If all you are going to do is knee-jerk recite Darwinian pablum I can't and will not deal with you. Keep on fantasizing.

We observe the products of a past evolution, not evolution in action. All the selection in the world has not and cannot transform one species into another. It is just part of the Darwinian hoax to believe that it can. If all you are going to do is knee-jerk recite Darwinian pablum I can't and will not deal with you. Keep on fantasizing.

— John A. Davison

One other thing.....both past evolution and present evolution are observed....what's your point?

All the selection in the world has not and cannot transform one species into another.

Big deal. I am unimpressed. How does that grab you? Lets try generation next after speciation and then lets take a crack at a new family, a new order, a new class and a new phylum while we are at it. Let's get this evolutionary show on the road shall we? It is FINISHED buster. Get used to it, if your homozygosity at the Darwimp locus will permit it. I am tired of casting pearls before Darwimpian swine. You are a bunch of illiterate morons mindlessly perpetuating a fantasy.

John A. Davison,unfair as usual, unbalanced (just ask anyone at Panda's Dislocated Thumb) and not only unafraid of the biggest fraud in history but thoroughly disgusted with all those who are still so weak minded as to believe a word of it.

How do you like them spaghetti squash?

Big deal. I am unimpressed. How does that grab you? Lets try generation next after speciation and then lets take a crack at a new family, a new order, a new class and a new phylum while we are at it. Let's get this evolutionary show on the road shall we?

I am tired of casting pearls before Darwimpian swine.

It is FINISHED buster.

— John A Davison

At the genus level it stopped around two million years ago when the last known genus appeared, at least according to Julian Huxley and Robert Broom. At the mammalian species level it apparently stopped around 100,000 years ago when Homo sapiens appeared. You see phylogeny, just like ontogeny, was goal directed and ceased when the desired objective was reached, namely the production of rational creatures some of whom, but obviously not all, as Panda's Dislocated Thumb continues to demonstrate, were intelligent enough to realize that evolution was a prescribed, planned and executed phenomenon.

How do you like them cow pies?

John A. Davison, incredibly unfair, unbalanced perhaps but not legally blind, and unafraid to expose the Darwimps for what they really are, nothing but a fraternal order of illiterate mental defectives held together by a common genetic defect know far and wide as Darwimpianism, the last bastion for which is Wesley Elsberry's Panda's Dislocated Thumb, the evolutionary Alamo of the 21st century.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

Lets try generation next after speciation and then lets take a crack at a new family, a new order, a new class and a new phylum while we are at it.

Keep them wagons in a tight circle folks. Don't let anything rattle the convictions of the one true faith, Godless, pointless, random or semi-random, Darwimpianism, the biggest hoax in the history of science.

Of course a new family would not be recognizable because a new family is out of the question just as is any other component of the Linnaean system.

Evolution is finished folks. Get used to it. Robert Broom, Julian Huxley, Pierre Grasse and I have all gotten used to it. Why can't the rest of you? I'll answer that question. You can't because one of the most obvious features of the human condition is the way we regard our position in the universe. Darwinians suffer from the same congenital defect that prompted Stephen Jay Gould to characterize intelligence as an evolutionary accident. Need I say more?

How do you lke them apple pan dowdies?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison

Still getting no traction at ARN :-)

mmmm. apple pan dowdies.

now you're talkin!

it was about time for some desert after all that fruit and vegetables.

Of course a new family would not be recognizable because a new family is out of the question just as is any other component of the Linnaean system.

Comment #29440 Posted by jeffw on May 11, 2005 04:14 PM (e) (s) [...] Natural Selection does change the population so that it fits the new environmental reality. This process never ends.

Comment #29488 Posted by John A. Davison on May 11, 2005 09:33 PM (e) (s) [...] phylogeny, just like ontogeny, was goal directed and ceased when the desired objective was reached, namely the production of rational creatures [...]

I love it folks. Don't stop now when you are behind. Keep disappearing into the mist of Darwimpianism.

Sandor

Of course I am a creationist. Isn't everybody? I'm just not one of the fundamentalist variety. I have no more respect for them than I do for you Darwimps. I probably do qualify as a bigot. I sure hope so. Martin Luther was a bigot. Why must you qualify liar with dishonest? You really should try to stop abusing the English language like that.

"Darwimpians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your Natural Selection."
John A. Davison

Have a nice groupthink

"Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed."
Thomas Henry Huxley

Here we are 146 years later and the Darwimpians still haven't managed to do themselves in. How much longer is this going to take?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison, the most unfair of the unfair, certifiably daft, yet strangely unafraid and still gallantly tilting the revolving vanes of the most assanine, infantile intellectual windmill ever concocted from nothing in the history of the Western World.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them sirloin tips?

There's nothing wrong with being a creationist, John. My mother was one. There is a problem with confusing superstition with science. Mom never made that mistake.

No offense, but if Dembski, Behe, and Davison are the best challenges Creationism can offer to evolution, evolution is on fairly firm ground.

Pim van Meurs

Of course I am getting no traction at ARN just as I haven't gotten any here, at EvC, at "brainstorms" or any other forum where I have participated. That is to be expected when dealing with mentalities deeply rooted in cultural and genetic predispositions. Everything has been predisposed you know. That is the entire thrust of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. As for the resistance that my views have encountered here and elsewhere:

"Everything is determined...by forces over which we have no control."
Albert Einstein

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."
Albert Einstein

I am pleased that Einstein in 1932 was able to anticipate the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis with such clarity.

How do you like them all day suckers?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison

Professor Davison

Have you retired from th University of Vermont? I think you make a good point about the composting toilet.

Dr. Davison:

1. Determinism does not imply PEH. Darwinism is perfectly compatible with the idea of environmental determinism, and some use it to support determinism. Stop abusing Einstein.

2. If you don't believe in free will, why try changing anyone's mind? Why is it important for us fleshy robots to know anything anyway?

I guess they dake JAD seriously...as quoted in Kansas and reposted in a blog under "Humorous Note":

6) A humorous note.

At one point, Calvert favorably mentions that "A recent paper by John A. Davison, a professor of biology at the University of Vermont proposes that 'the information for organic evolution has somehow been predetermined in the evolving genome in a way comparable to the way in which the necessary information to produce a complete organism is contained within a single cell, the fertilized egg.'" 'Nuff said on that one.

Another thing, Dr. Davison. Why are "rational" creatures so bleeding important that God steered biology toward making us when we do not even have free will? Are we just action figures put here to amuse a Big Egotist in the Sky?

Every now and then, I like to check up on the Bathroom Wall. Lately, however, it seems dominated by Davison's content-free ravings and responses to them. Booooring!

Oh well. At least it's confined to the Bathroom Wall and no longer pervades every post.

At the genus level it stopped around two million years ago when the last known genus appeared, at least according to Julian Huxley and Robert Broom. At the mammalian species level it apparently stopped around 100,000 years ago when Homo sapiens appeared. You see phylogeny, just like ontogeny, was goal directed and ceased when the desired objective was reached, namely the production of rational creatures some of whom, but obviously not all, as Panda's Dislocated Thumb continues to demonstrate, were intelligent enough to realize that evolution was a prescribed, planned and executed phenomenon.

— John A Davison

Harq al-Ada

I believe in determinism partly BECAUSE I cannot change the mind of Darwimpian mystics. I agree with Einstein because Einstein agreed with me. It is as simple as that. Surely even a Darwimp can grasp that one.

Ken Shackleton

I have speculated that macroevolution ceased when sexual reproduction became the sole reproductive device.

The first meiotic division is what I proposed as the mechanism for macroevolution. Meiosis occurs in two steps, the first of which is a form of diploid reproduction in its own right. The first must have evolved before the second. The semi-meiotic hypothesis has yet to be subjected to a rigorous experimental test of any sort. All this has been spelled out in great detail in my several published papers and in the unpublished Manifesto. It is not my fault if you or any one else refuses to read or otherwise consider that material. The fact remains that no sexually reproducing species has been demonstrated to transgress the species barrier through the most rigorous of experimental selection. I have concluded that it is impossible. All that sexual reproduction can do is to scramble and recombine trivial mutational differences which have no evolutionary significance whatsoever beyond the level of variety or subspecies.

The first meiotic division is the mechanism that is no longer being employed since the second has now evolved rendering sexual reproduction the only remaining option, one quite incapable of transforming species as nearly as we can judge from the most intensive experimental attempts and centuries of experience with domesticated plants and animals. To believe in selection as a creative device is without foundation. It simply does not work.

I see no species responding anywhere. All I see is rampant extinction. Furthermore there is as yet no evolutionary theory, only a pair of thoroughly discredited hypotheses, Lamarckism and Darwinism.

My primary sin would seem to be that I have postulated a new explanation for organic evolution, one that remains completely compatible with everything that we really know about the subject.

Steverino

Thanks for mentioning Calvert's refernce to my papers. That is a sign of progress. The fact that you or others regard it as humorous is beside the point. Apparently Calvert didn't which is all that matters. I look forward to the entire transcript of the Kansas hearings.

Alan

I tried to respond to your post earlier but apparently it didn't get through. I retired from the University of Vermont on Dec 1, 2000 at the age of 72 when I discovered that they were planning to detenure me. The Provost Jeff Gamble also retired on the same date. He had arranged to award me $104,000 because he felt I had been treated unfairly by my chairperson and the administration. If I had not retired when I did I would not have received his thoughtful remedial compensation. Gamble left UVM to become the President of Montana State University. I left UVM to continue my efforts to expose Darwimpianism as the hoax it has always been, an enterprise I continue now and will for so long as I am able.

I hope this post seves to answer some of the questions.

Who is next? as I used to say over at EvC before they banned me for life. God but I am having a good time.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them rib eye steaks?

John A. Davison

My last two posts have failed. Appaently Elseberry has had enough.

Thank you very much.

And now for our next comedian, please give a warm welcome to Mr. Yakov Smirnov...

awww. no more monkey?

oh well, I'm sure we'll get a new monkey soon enough.

You clowns are a caricature of yourselves, mindless, drooling, wisecracking idiots, not one of whom ever had an original idea in his life. Groupthinks are like that don't you know.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for all those imbeciles that still subscribe to the biggest hoax in recorded history.

ahhh, ya got me, silly monkey.

I really thought you were saying goodbye this time.

now get in the kitchen and make me some of those apple pan dowdies you mentioned!

I have speculated that macroevolution ceased when sexual reproduction became the sole reproductive device.

— John A Davison

You clowns are a caricature of yourselves, mindless, drooling, wisecracking idiots, not one of whom ever had an original idea in his life. Groupthinks are like that don't you know.

— Davison

I realize that you denizens of Panda's Dislocated Thumb can't accept my convictions that evolution is over and sexual reproduction is the reason. Neverthless, it remains my conviction and will until such time that someone, somewhere, somehow produces a bone fide new species through sexual means. In reaching that conviction I have relied very heavily on the contributions of some great predecessors all of whom have been shunned by the Darwinian establishment and I can tell you why. Not only have all of my sources denied natural selection as a creative element as I have so often quoted, but one in particular, I am now convinced more than any other, stated without qualification the most important element of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis:

"Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 406

I am now convinced that the unfolding of pre-existing rudiments is the SOLE cause of evolution, a phenomenon no longer in progress.

Berg also realized, as did Reginald C. Punnett, that Natural Selection had nothing whatsoever to do with creative evolution:

"The struggle for existence and natural selection are not progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard."
Nomogenesis, page 406.

With these two complete English (originally Russian) sentences, Leo Berg destroyed every element of the Darwinian fairy tale. He will one day be regarded as the greatest evolutionist of all time. I doubt any member of this forum has read a word of Nomogenesis because if they had they would have abandoned, as I have, the Darwinian hoax in a heartbeat. It remains, what it always was, the product of the imagination of a pair of Victorian naturalists, one of whom, Alfred Russel Wallace, had the good sense to abandon the whole scheme in later years. I am convinced that if Wallace had not reached identical conclusions with Darwin, that the Origin would never have been published. The prospect of being scooped was more than Darwin and especially his many high placed friends could resist. You see Wallace was not a member of the leisure class. The whole damn debacle was and remains to this day nothing more than biopolitics and the never ending battle between the forces of good and evil, the former being those who recognize beauty, design and purpose in the world, the latter denying that such a thing is even conceivable. These differences undoubtedly have a genetic basis and are just as predetermined as was evolution itself. We are all victims of our genes. Some of us have been more fortunate than others.

"Everything is determined... by forces over which we have no control."
Albert Einstein

It's hard to believe isn't it?

By the way, I know damn well I am not a genius as I fell a few points short of 150. It has all been down hill since then but I am still not in the room temperature range as I suspect some of the denizens of Panda's Dislocated Thumb sure seem to be.

How do you like them smoked sausages?

John A. Davison

I just spent over an hour responding to some of you clowns only to be informed that my post had been moved to some Archive some where. If that is the way this forum finds it necessary to operate I am really delighted because it proves better than anything else that you are nothing but a bunch of insecure intellectual cowards who can't defend their mysticism in open dialogue. Since you don't have the balls to ban me for exposimg you, you have now really shown your ass with this latest little ploy. It is the bottom of the barrel known far and wide as Panda's Disarticulated Thumb also known as Elsberry's last stand. I am pleased as punch and will now inform the world of my reasons for being so delighted.

It's hard to believe isn't it? Not any more.

Why don't you guys break down and get Dave Scott or someone else to designe a system for you that works at least reasoanbly well. Posting here is a nightmare.

Posting here is a nightmare.

My perspective? Nothing particularly original: I find the arguments for the basic principles* of the current theory to be convincing or at least plausible, and based on evidence and inferences (extrapolations and some interpolations) from that evidence.

In contrast, the counter arguments sometimes don't address the right questions, and sometimes assume the existence of some (so far undetected) barrier that they think blocks the aforementioned extrapolations from passing some unspecified upper limit, and (quite often) contain mistakes that can be spotted by amateurs. I'd think that if serious critics had viable arguments, the critics would be using arguments that would at least take expertise to refute.

*Basic principles:
Descent with change;
Little or no change over small number of generations;
Common ancestry of extensively similar types (the more similar the more recently diverged from that ancestor);
Natural selection and genetic drift as major factors;Speciation as a factor in allowing formerly interbreeding groups to evolve separately;
Co-adaptation of interacting species as a possible major driver (i.e., biological arms race, or in engineering terms a positive feedback loop);
Availability of unclaimed territory or resources as another major driver (especially after extinction events that make formerly used resources free for the taking);
Very little or no DNA transfer between distantly related species.

(That's the major principles of the current theory that come to mind offhand; are there any others I should add to the list?)

Henry

Is it still precipitous to suggest that the best course for JADs wellbeing would be for the managers to suspend his posting priveleges? God knows he's amusing as hell, but any village idiot can qualify there, if you're cruel or insensitive enough. He's either putting us on - in which case he's brilliant; or he's serious - in which case he's pathetic.

well, he does serve as a good source of amusment for those new to PT, as i can myself attest to. Newbs always try to get the monkey to speak english, but fail miserably.

It doesn't take long for his screeching to wear on ones nerves, however.

meh, I'm still on the fence. It probably would be better to give him his own thread on the bar, so folks could visit whenever they wanted to hear the monkey spout gibberish. then the bathroom could be freed up for normal usage again.

even better...

JAD, why don't you get your own forum? you can open up a free forum on google easy enough; then you could advertise here once or twice, and we will send anyone who asks to visit you there so you won't get lonely.

how does that sound?

Henry J

Thank you for responding to my request to present your view of the great mystery of organic evolution. You did an admirable job of reciting the standard Darwinian spiel not one word of which has any semblance of reality. Trust me. Congratulations.

Who is next?

How do you like them fidddleheads? (they're in season now)

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison, still unfair, who wants to be fair? - still unbalanced, who wants to be balanced? - and still unafraid, who wants to be a coward? - not little old he. He is having the time of his senile existence quoting some of the finest minds of two centuries and supplementing them with his own little addenda in the process of forging a whole new working and testable model for organic evolution which will one day be known far and wide as Bergian evolution, an evolution predetermined from the outset, independent of the environment, self-regulating and self-terminating exactly as is the development of every individual from the fertilized egg. It has been a glorious experience for the deranged (unbalanced) old fool and he would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of Panda's Dislocated Thumb for tolerating his obvious flights of fancy all these months. Without their friendly and continuous support it would never have been possible. I understand he intends to dedicate his next paper to Wesley Ellsberry, John Rennie and Richard Dawkins but not necessarily in that order.

"Old evolutionists never die. They just fade away."
John A. Davison

I hear he has a drinking problem.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

where's my apple pan dowdy?

Since everything I post here automatically goes directly to the "latrine," the PT equivelent of EvC's "boot camp," I posted at Dembski's blog instead of here. Go there and enjoy. Or don't. I couldn't care less.

John A. Davison

Bend over.

*slap* naughty monkey.

I agree, you should spend more time with Dembski. you two were made for each other.

Professor Davison

I couldn't find your post at www.uncommondescent.com. Could you suggest a keyword to search?

How much time would you save by ignoring JAD?
In 3 months 6 days JAD has racked up over 113,000 words over the coarse of 681 post.
Over 10% where he asks you "how do you like them apples" another 10% of his posts asking if we like some other items with his attempt at humour.
109 references to Grasse. 93 attempts to all evolution a "hoax". 13 Times calling us "godless". 47 references to Dawkins, Gould and other great scientists being "mindless" for ignoring his ramblings. 81 ramblings about how unfair and unbalance he is. 49 references to his useless PEH, unless you want a laugh. 517 references to use being Darwinist etc and 74 times calling us "Drawimps".

So once you realise he has no real contribution to the scientific community or this blog on scientific matters then you realise that his dribble is highly repetitive and annoying. It took me about 1 month before I started ignoring him, secretly I'm scared of him reporting me to the "FBI" for being a Darwimp that wouldn't listen to him therefore a national security risk. I post occasionally about things here normally in relation to recent speciation events, that JAD seems to still deny. Occasionally I put up stats on how much dribble has come out of JAD's computer....Don't know if he comments on my posts or not...but I don't care. I post about him just to clue in some of the new people that might not yet have a grasp on him.

Just like I occasionally do with Charlie Wagner now that he is back... I haven't ignored CW yet.

test for double post

We observe the products of a past evolution, not evolution in action

Comment #29620 Posted by John A. Davison on May 12, 2005 02:32 PM (e) (s) [...] I have speculated that macroevolution ceased when sexual reproduction became the sole reproductive device. [...]

To everyone who crossed swords with JAD: did you ever get any emails from a Dave Springer, whose unthinking devotion to JAD is matched only by his ignorance of science?

PaulP,
Yes, that would be DaveScot. He seems to think davison is too wimpie to defend himself. I've been threatened by his ex-marine baby machismo. I knew enough marines from my time in to know most can't resist the full-frontal lobotomy at PI, which nicely explains DaveScot. If you find any of the old DaveScot posts and cursor his name you will see the vnasecretary@hotmail email address. You can report him to abuse@hotmail.com or do as most probably do, ignore him. He doesn't even deserve the negative attention that davison gets.
Sincerely,
PaulF

It is semi-meiosis that is not in practice much if at all. Mitotic clonal reproduction also had absolutely nothing to do with evolution. I thought everybody knew that. What cytological mechanisms do you all have in mind other that your precious anti-evolutionary sexual reproduction? The best evidence that sexual reproduction is anti-evolutionary is the undeniable fact that it was separately invented many many times. If it were fundamental it would have always been the same, with the same cytogenetic mechanism for its expression. Nothing could be further from the truth. I thought everybody knew about that too.

How do you like them lemons?

Suck on them.

Keep them wagons circled. Geronimo!

John A. Davison

Alan. It is under Vice Strategy: squeezing the truth out of darwinism. Thanks for the interest. Every little bit helps.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate made me an authority myself. Albert Einstein

Davescot claimed to be a Marine, yet a simple google search for his email address reveals (via a reunion webpage) that he was really in the navy.

Navy Davy is apparently also a liar, as well as a scientific charlatan.

And his boyfriend and he have been 'terrorizing' blogs together - a regular pair of tweedles-dee and DUMB.

Mitotic clonal reproduction also had absolutely nothing to do with evolution.

Professor Davison

I know you are not Dr Cordova. Are you then "art", as those are the only two posts? I venture to suggest Dr Dembski may not be as welcoming to you as Panda's Thumb and may have deleted your post. He has certainly deleted all mine. I have space on my server if you want wour own blogsite. However I suspect you may find yourself conducting a monologue. Have you tried Al anon for the drink problem?

Here's an interesting account of a study on sexual selection favoring increased gonopodium size in Gambusia balanced by natural selection against large gonopodium size in certain environments. The author even suggests some ways this may be involved in speciation.

http://news.biocompare.com/newsstory.asp?id=78990

Of course, Dr. Davison knows better.

I picked up a copy of Ruse's and Dembski's Debating Design, and the first chapters I read were Miller's and Behe's on the bacterial flagellum, irreducible complexity, etc.

It seems to me that Behe's claim of irreducible complexity for the flagellum is correct if the system's function is confined to motility, i.e., if any part of the system were absent, the system could not provide locomotion.

Miller's point is that the "parts" of the flagellum could initially serve other functions than motility, and then, once all of the "parts" were present, they could be co-opted for the new function of locomotion.

To this, Behe replies that it is not enough to have systems homologous to the parts of the flagellum. Even assuming that a homologous system corresponding to every part of the flagellum were present, in order to assemble into a flagellum, the "parts" must be of complementary shapes, i.e., they must be fitted to each other. If they were not, then they could not combine into a new structure.

Here my ignorance of cellular biology makes it impossible to assess Behe's reply. How does co-option occur? Is Behe correct? If so, how would Miller (et al.) respond?

I have keys to Cox Hall at NCSU, because I've worked for various physics groups. The keys to get into the building are for a side door. Nevertheless, if you know the trick, you can use the keys to jimmy your way in through the front door, without even inserting them in the lock. You can do this jimmying with the other Cox Hall keys, your car keys, even a credit card, and perform the new function of Opening the Front Door. The keys were not fitted to perform this new function. The shapes are only roughly important.

Finley: Here my ignorance of cellular biology makes it impossible to assess Behe's reply. How does co-option occur? Is Behe correct? If so, how would Miller (et al.) respond?

in order to assemble into a flagellum, the "parts" must be of complementary shapes, i.e., they must be fitted to each other. If they were not, then they could not combine into a new structure.

— Michael Finley

Jim,

(A) It's not my point, it's Behe's.

(B) You've completely missed the point. Behe's claim is that the 'parts' of the flagellum, prior to their becoming parts, would not be complementary, i.e., they would not be fitted to each other.

On it's face, it seems like a reasonable concern. Unfortunately, to know whether or not Behe is correct requires a better understanding of cellular biology than I possess. I must defer to the experts.

Russell,

Would you be kind enough to give me a nut-shell, crash-course in co-option. How do the different sub-systems (arrangements of proteins) cohere as a single system. Is it by being fitted together in some sense similar to Behe's? (e.g., puzzle pieces)

You've completely missed the point. Behe's claim is that the 'parts' of the flagellum, prior to their becoming parts, would not be complementary, i.e., they would not be fitted to each other.

— Michael Finley

Jim,

It may be incorrect, but it's certainly not circular.

By comparison, imagine that the separate parts that make up some machine, say a combustion engine (e.g., spark-plug, piston, carburetor, etc.), had initially served different functions. It would be highly improbable that the initial shapes of those parts would be such that they all fit together to make an engine. The fact that I can't use Ford parts to repair my Honda further illustrates the point.

Behe makes this sort of argument for the parts of the flagellum. I don't know if he's correct, but it is in no way circular. In fact, it seems rather intuitive.

By comparison, imagine that the separate parts that make up some machine, say a combustion engine (e.g., spark-plug, piston, carburetor, etc.), had initially served different functions. It would be highly improbable that the initial shapes of those parts would be such that they all fit together to make an engine. The fact that I can't use Ford parts to repair my Honda further illustrates the point. Behe makes this sort of argument for the parts of the flagellum. I don't know if he's correct, but it is in no way circular. In fact, it seems rather intuitive.

Do these parts have rigid (as in unbendable) shapes?

So fish get bigger dicks. So what?

I want to thank Wayne Francis for producing a veritable Davison Concordance. Unfortunately he doesn't list the precise posts for each of the key words. Take care of that would you Wayne baby? For someone who claims to be ignoring me, he sure has been keeping close track of my scholarship if you can call it that.

How can I become one of the inner circle at Panda's Dislocated Thumb? Being one of the major contributors to keeping this blog alive, I think it is time to start giving me a little respect don't you think? Of course you don't think. Groupthinks are like that.

Mike Behe is a brilliant critic of the Darwimpian hoax. Unfortunately, like Dembski and Wells, he has attempted to carry on a debate with ideologues who are incapable of rational discussion. The truth has never been subject to debate, only to discovery. Without Intelligent Design there never could have been evolution, a phenomenon of the past, now finished. Get used to it folks. Robert Broom did, Julian Huxley did, Pierre Grasse did and even I have. Why can't the rest of you? I'll tell you why. You can't hear Einstein's music of the spheres that's why. Just as nearly all white cats are congenitally deaf so are all, not just nearly all, Darwimps stone deaf to any deviation from the one true faith, Darwimpianism, the last refuge for the dedicated, homozygous, atheist, chance worshipping zealot that is so universally represented by the contributors here at good old Panda's Dislocated Thumb.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do like them leeks.

John A. Davison

I've seen (well, read about) competitions where grade school children are challenged to name everything they can think of to do with (name it...a brick, a screwdriver, whatever). The answers are imaginative, but all entirely workable. Bricks and screwdrivers aren't particularly bendy.

Martin Gardner once had a competition: How many different was can you think of to determine the height of a tall building using a barometer? Gardner came up with five. Can anyone do better? Would anyone want to bet that RM+NS can't "think up" more ways to make a bacterium mobile than you can?

An ion pump complex with another function in the cell fortuitously becomes associated with the base of the secretion system structure, converting the pilus into a primitive protoflagellum.

Make that "combustion engines."

"I think it is time to start giving me a little respect don't you think? "

man, that short memory of yours must come with that drinking problem you have.

We got you elected the most crankiest evolutionist in the world!

what more do you want?

ingrate.

And make that '2/5'. (I sure wish we could edit our comments.)

Finley,

I think you have described one possible mechanism. The reference to a 'part' is probably misleading, since a 'part' can be whatever we choose to isolate. But unless there is a change at some level, which makes some new functionality easier, we probably would never have isolated the area that changed as being a 'part'. In this respect, Behe's taxonomy is working against any clear understanding.

Approaching the issue from a very different direction, think of the different uses people have found for their various body parts. The hallmark of our hands is their versatility. Imagine the first person to use their hands as paddles to aid in swimming. Does this imply that a 'part' magically became 'fitted' for a novel purpose? But our hands work well enough as paddles to picture the (admittedly long-term, but evolution can be slower than empires) splitting off of a group of highly aquatic people. In their lifestyle, larger (and/or partially webbed) hands would aid in survival. We know these variations are occasionally made available to be selected. The process isn't mysterious.

Biological adaptive systems have "partness" at every level from the entire organism down to the DNA base pair, and are sensitive to changes anywhere along this spectrum. Such systems are not bolted together out of prefabricated interchangeable chunks, such that a Ford voltage regulator won't fit a Chevy. Getting you to buy into an invalid model accomplishes nearly all of Behe's purpose.

Flint,

Perhaps you're right, but let me try the following response.

Let's instead talk of bits or pieces of a cell. Now a cell certainly isn't merely a group a pieces, but is an arrangement of pieces, i.e., some of the pieces 'go together' with other pieces, and do not with others. This 'going together' provides an objective basis for carving the cell up into a number of distinct systems.

Now I can recast my question about the evolution of the flagellum ("Is it like this.... Or is it like this....") in the language of pieces. It would seem (intuitively) that different pieces must be able to fit/hold together to form a whole.

One disanalogy between the systems of a cell and my hand qua paddle is that the former concerns a relation between different pieces of an organism, while the latter concerns the various functions a single piece can serve in a particular environment.

With a face like that, Davison really ought to do radio.

Oh come on, JAD looks fine for his age. It's his big bad conspiracy theories and tales of persecution that are distasteful, along with his desire to teach errant nonsense to those he's being paid to teach science.

We've got to keep our perspective, regardless of the BS cranked out by the wankers of this world.

The second link does not discuss the challenge to co-option issued by Behe, viz., that the co-opted systems must 'fit' together in a new whole.

Most of the first link uses technical descriptions that I do not understand. One statement seems to concern co-option: An ion pump complex with another function in the cell fortuitously becomes associated with the base of the secretion system structure, converting the pilus into a primitive protoflagellum. If the bold text describes co-option, it does not address Behe's 'problem'.

Would the flagellum have evolved like this: All the 'parts' developed separately for other functions, and then were fitted together in a new whole.

Or like this: A 'part' (say a significant 'part' such as the TTSS which, according to Miller, contains homologues for one third of the flagellum's proteins) with a distinct function evolves a modification to itself which makes it into another system that is 'closer' to the flagellum, and so on. That is, if the TTSS is 1/3 of a flagellum, so to speak, then by slight modifications to itself, it becomes a series of different systems that are 3/5, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 of a flagellum, until finally the complete flagellum has evolved directly fromt the TTSS.

I understand there are significant differences between the histories and hardware of, e.g., combustine engines and bacterial flagella. I only meant to illustrate (using an example not unlike Steve's) the need for parts of a system to fit each other.

Finley:

I'd address your point better if I understood it better. The bacterium uses the flagellum for locomotion. Might a slightly different (or even the same) structure have one or more other valuable uses? Quite likely. I recall reading somewhere that there are similar structures serving entirely different purposes for different bacteria. How different must such structures become before we can usefully say they are "not the same part" anymore?

My understanding of the cell (I think this is a consensus, but I'm not a biologist) is that it originated as a colony of prokaryotic organisms (the organelles), which became increasingly symbiotic and specialized. Mayr and others consider this development highly unintuitive, and are not surprised that prokaryotic cells appeared basically as soon as planetary conditions permitted biological life, while the eukaryotic cells (these colonies) didn't appear for 2 or 3 billion more years. I think it makes sense to regard the original cells as "parts" and the eukaryotic cell as the end result of fitting themselves together. By the time this had been accomplished, for sure the original colonists had changed significantly.

As Dawkins has written at great length, all that's required is some possible continuous developmental pathway. As our understanding of the genetics of development increases, we realize that "sudden jumps" in apparent (morphological) change are side-effects of simple, single-gene timing changes during development. In other words, small smooth changes where they actually occur.

Behe is essentially trying to argue that "you can't get there from anywhere" because the parts can't fit until they fit, and since they start out not fitting, there is no viable pathway to get them to fit. So they must have been created POOF already pre-fitted! But this mechanistic viewpoint fails to explain our observation, which is that mutation provides lots of variations to choose from. Most such variations are neutral or discarded (indeed, so immediately fatal as to prevent development at all).

Another rather subtle implication Behe's model makes is that the teleological goal or purpose of the parts is what they're presently used for. So we see the flagellum being used for motility, it must have developed for that purpose! But of course, this is not correct. Instead, lots of different structures with variations on each have been available for selection, and the only requirement is that they be useful -- for anything at all. In other words, the "parts" aren't "assembled" to enable a particular "whole", but rather the whole, considered AS a whole, is viable or it isn't.

Finley:Would you be kind enough to give me a nut-shell, crash-course in co-option. How do the different sub-systems (arrangements of proteins) cohere as a single system. Is it by being fitted together in some sense similar to Behe's? (e.g., puzzle pieces)

An ion pump complex with another function in the cell fortuitously becomes associated with the base of the secretion system structure, converting the pilus into a primitive protoflagellum.

I misspoke. The transmembrane transport system in question exports rather than imports , rendering my idle speculation useless. Here's a discussion of it in the context of Behe's arguments.

Behe is essentially trying to argue that "you can't get there from anywhere" because the parts can't fit until they fit, and since they start out not fitting, there is no viable pathway to get them to fit. So they must have been created POOF already pre-fitted! But this mechanistic viewpoint fails to explain our observation, which is that mutation provides lots of variations to choose from.

— Flint

...system B must have all or most of the function of A plus some new beneficial function.

RM and NS can't do squat and never could. How is this possible I ask? How can so many be so royally screwed by so few. How can there still be humnan beings trodding this planet that still actually believe that chance ever had anything to do with this universe. It is impossible. It cannot be true. It is an illusion. I am losing my mind for sure, but am I? Darwimpianism is nothing but the current equivelent of the witch hunt hysteria of Salem Massachusetts. First we had Karl Marx and communism, followed by Charlie Darwin's delusions after which the third member of the Idiot Triumvirate, Sigmund Freud, tried also to con the intellectual world. Why, oh why, does Darwimpianism still survive I ask you? I can tell you why. It is because the alternative is to recognize a Creator of unfathomable intelligence that is why. You see one could reject communism and Freudian pseudo-Psychology without invoking a Creator so it was a piece of cake. But not so with Darwimpianism. To reject this fairy tale one must be confronted with the unthinkable and so one does not choose to make that choice. Well folks I made that choice decades ago based on nothing but hard headed laboratory evidence coupled with centuries of human experience as well as the undeniable testimony of the fossil record.

Phylogeny, like ontogeny, is the handiwork of an original Creator which, not who, no longer has to intervene to make things happen. It, the Big Front Loader if you will, primed the pump, probably several times, and started the ball rolling toward its ultimate end, the production of a rational creature capable of realizing exactly that scenario. To me it is as clear as crystal as I am sure it was to Leo Berg, in my opinion one of the greatest intellects ever to grace this planet.

John A. Davison, still cruelly unfair, unbalanced beyond comprehension (just ask Scott L Page or Pim van Meurs), yet inexplicably still unafraid of monolithic Darwimpianism, the most infantile, ill conceived, thoroughly tested, unsupported and delusionary fabrication ever produced by the human imagination.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them raw oysters?

"unbalanced beyond comprehension (just ask Scott L Page or Pim van Meurs), "

hey, don't forget me!

I think you have lost your sanity as well.

I think it happened right around 1984.

care to share with us what happened to you to cause your ever accelerating state of cognitive dissonance?

Alan

I have revisited Dembski's blog and it seems he has deleted my post as you have noted. Apparently the great God Dembski also regards me as some kind of loony tune. I can only say that Dembski has made a strategic error in treating a potential ally with such callous disdain. I'll see to it that I add his name to the list of those to whom I plan to dedicate my next paper. It then will be dedicated to John Rennie, Wesley Elsberry, Richard Dawkins and William Dembski, not necessarily in that order but for exactly the same reasons. I thought Dembski was a cut above that sort of thing. Live and learn. I once again asked him for an explanation. I expect no response.

Thanks for alerting me.

John A. Davison

This is getting interesting. I wonder if it relates to something I read not too long ago (possible on this blog or referenced from it) - a microbe's waste expulsion system evolved into a propulsion system. Makes sense - if the original system pushed material away from the microbe, it would also (if weakly) push the microbe the other way.

Henry

Now you've got me really confused, Mr. Davison. You've said before in other posts about your pride in being excluded and derided by Creationists in addition to Evolutionary Biologists. Yet, in post #29928 you essentially adopt the same position they do by appealing to a Judeo-Christian God-like entity (your "Big Front Loader")...therefore this would generally put you in with the Intelligent Design/Creationism camp.

So I guess my question to you, to what extent do you consider yourself to be a Creationist?

I'm not intending to ask this in a confrontational way, btw. It just seems to me that you have the same general position as Creationists, yet don't consider yourself to be an actual Creationist.

henry-

there are lots of papers referenced on the subject over at talk.origins. You could go to your local university library and check out some of the primary literature referenced, and then use the science citation index to see if anybody has done more recent research using the references cited.

there is no better way to get an idea of what's up with an issue in science than to simply go to the "horses mouth" so to speak.

cheers

JAD:

"I add his name to the list "

careful, you start to sound more and more like the paranoid version of Nixon every day.

Consider a hypothetical example where proteins homologous to all of the parts of an irreducibly complex molecular machine first had other individual functions in the cell. [...] Here the analogies with mouse traps break down somewhat, because the parts of a molecular system have to find each other automatically in the cell. [...] In order to find each other in the cell, interacting parts have to have their surfaces shaped so that they are very closely matched to each other, as pictured in Figure 19.2. Originally, however, the individually acting components would not have had complementary surfaces. So all of the interacting surfaces of all of the components would first have to be adjusted before they could function together. And only then would the new function of the composite system appear. Thus, I emphasize strongly, the problem of irreducibility remains, even if individual proteins homologous to system components separately and originally had their own functions. [Behe's emphasis] Debating Design, pp. 358-9

— Behe

Michel Finley,

Actually, Behe is on record as saying "Poof," when asked how he thought it all happened.

Michael Finley,

Actually, Behe is on record as saying "Poof," when asked how he thought it all happened.

look, finley, if you want to understand how flagella work, why are you wasting time looking at Behe's inanity rather than actually going to the primary sources of literature for the folks who actually HAVE done research on these things?

it really isn't hard to track down the primary literature on these things.

If you truly want to understand coevolution, co-option, genetic drift, the role of various selection pressures, etc. you time would be far better spent actually researching this stuff yourself, by checking out the papers of those who have done the work, rather than armchair theorists like Behe.

Why don't you check out some of the papers listed on talk.origins that deal with these issues, or go to a university library and do some literature searches yourself, and ask questions about those instead?

trying to understand evolutionary theory by reading Behe is like trying to understand why the earth is round by talking to someone from the flat earth society.

I'm not sure about the pro-evolution crowd.

I think this bankrupted holdover from the 19th century still lurks in the schools because no serious science relies on it, and its dogma goes unexamined.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that genetics is a well established and proven science.
Just don' pretend that evolution has to be right for genetics to be right.

In fact, I challenge anyone, If there is any branch of science that would have to revise any theories or findings if evolution was discarded.

Like the Dodo bird of yore, it only exists because it lives unchallenged in a backward island.

somebody tell me if i should even bother to answer this troll?

Time to peg you all right now.

EVERY ONE OF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD DEEP DOWN.

But at some point in your life something happened to you. The message got skewed, and somehow you ended up thinking you were going to go to hell. A lame evangelical turned you off, a personal trajedy convinced you God doesnt care, or something like that. Or you have some evil in your lifestyle you are unwilling to give up, and its easieer to just not believe.

So you decided not to believe. So you latched on to Darwinism, and now you hold on for dear life, because you know if Darwinism dies...you go to hell.

And you have an aching fear in your heart...because your heart knows that you DO believe, and that you cant hide behind Darwin forever.

Rampancy

Yes I am creationist. I thought everybody was. I am just not of the sectarian variety. When one has, as I have, rejected Darwinism in its entirety, there remains only creationism as an explanatory device. I have come to grips with this in the form of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypopthesis which postulates for good reason that an original intelligence of some sort somehow programmed the evolutionary and developmental scenarios. I have made no attempt to describe how this was done as I feel that is presently beyond our capacity. That it must have been done is obvious to me if not to others. It represents a starting point for an understanding of both ontogeny and phylogeny. The evidence for it, both indirect and direct, surrounds us. I have summarized some of it in my most recent paper as I did previously in "Ontogeny, phylogeny and the origin of biological information," Rivista di Biologia 93:513-524, 2000.

The scientist has a responsibility, having rejected accepted hypotheses, to offer a substitute. This I have done. That would seem to be an unpardonable sin to the Darwinians and the Fundamentalists alike.

All that I have really done was to formalize ideas that were recognized but not explicitly stated independently by Berg, Bateson and Grasse long ago.

To deny a role for internal factors in evolution is unthinkable yet that is precisely what the Darwinians have always done. They are simply constitutionally incapable of dealing with it. Part of the determined universe that I share with Einstein involves the way in which we individually feel about such a concept. To some it is anathema. To others, like myself, it is transparent, self evident and undeniable. There is no question in my mind that the way we view our world and our position in it is strongly influenced by our genetic constitution. The evidence for that is overwhelming. That is why I have great hesitation in accepting free will. I am not at all sure I have it myself.

Montaigne put it very well:

"Men are most apt to believe what they least understand."

So did Einstein:

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."

Thank you for asking a rational and thoughtful question rather than engaging in the typical knee jerk denigration and rancor that so typifies the behavior here at Panda's Dislocated Thumb and elsewhere.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

Seriously, I think this whole evolution thing happens because science has is being taught like dogma.

The interesting thing to me, is that if I was to say Newtons theory of gravitation ws wrong, I could find several scientific explanations why it is valid. The explanations might range from the theories ability to predict various actions or how it leads to further valid theories.

Essentially, the only response pro-evolutions have is that "many scientists" or "most scientists" say its so. Too many are willing to parrot back what some underpaid high school biology told them.

Since Evolution is not really used in any serious science, its claims are left unexamined, in a way that would not be allowed for any serious theory.

"When one has, as I have, rejected Darwinism in its entirety, there remains only creationism as an explanatory device."

If the modern theory of evolution ever is falsified, which is certainly possible though not likely given the weight of evidence in its favor, it will be replaced by another naturalistic theory, not superstition.

John, you are a pefect example of why some people trained in science, reject science. Your faith in your belief system is too fragile to suffer other possibilities. You reject the outcomes of scientific inquiry because you fear those ideas contradict the beliefs you hold so dear. Your mistake is to believe that god is threatened by science. Only your belief is threatened.

GT(N)T

I hold no beliefs dear. I hold the opinions of many of my predecessors in very high regard. I have built upon a foundation provided by some of the most astute observers of the natural world that ever lived: men like William Bateson, Leo Berg, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Pierre Grasse, Robert Broom and Otto Schindewolf. Are you going to tell me that I am not a scientist when I agree with some of the greatest scientists of all time? You are pathetic. You are just one more atheist ideologue who cannot hear Einstein's music of the spheres. You and all the others just like you bore me to tears. Your description of me is insane, bigotted and stupid. Grow up.

An open letter to ken ham: Your new blog is great. Lots of juicy insane bits like "The aborigines--are they the missing link?" and "Little green men--will we meet them?". Sadly, this info is only available podcast. I would really appreciate being able to review a transcript.

thanks
Steve Story

jyund

A past evolution is undeniable. It is only how it was executed that remains in contention. Organic reproductive continuity cannot be questioned except at the very beginning when it is still unclear how many times life was separately created. Everything in this universe occurred through natural means or it wouldn't have occurred at all. Nature includes the Creator or Creators as we don't even know how many there were. Let's get real shall we? Let's freely admit how little we really know about phylogeny, a phenomenon no longer in progress. That it occurred cannot be questioned. As to how it occurred one thing is for sure. Chance had absolutely nothing to do with it just as it has nothing to do with ontogeny today.

How do like them crullers?

John A. Davison

New Creationist Textbook:

http://www.mattbors.com/archives/121.html

Let's get real shall we? Let's freely admit how little we really know about phylogeny

a phenomenon no longer in progress

Chance had absolutely nothing to do with it

Time to peg you all right now. EVERY ONE OF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD DEEP DOWN. But at some point in your life something happened to you. The message got skewed, and somehow you ended up thinking you were going to go to hell. A lame evangelical turned you off, a personal trajedy convinced you God doesnt care, or something like that. Or you have some evil in your lifestyle you are unwilling to give up, and its easieer to just not believe. So you decided not to believe. So you latched on to Darwinism, and now you hold on for dear life, because you know if Darwinism dies . . . you go to hell. And you have an aching fear in your heart . . . because your heart knows that you DO believe, and that you cant hide behind Darwin forever.

— Deadshot

Comment #29987 Posted by some retard on May 14, 2005 05:19 AM (e) (s) Time to peg you all right now. EVERY ONE OF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD DEEP DOWN. ... And you have an aching fear in your heart . . . because your heart knows that you DO believe, and that you cant hide behind Darwin forever.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7818645/

Dobson's power grows.

Russel

There is no irony involved. That chance had nothing to do with an evolution that is no longer going on is obvious to any rational observer of the living world. Those are two aspects of the great mystery of evolution about which there is no question whatsoever. They represent a starting place for a new hypothesis which is exactly what I have done. Get used to it. The PEH is here to stay and nothing you can say or do will ever change that. Trust me.

How do like them fried hog balls?

John A. Davison

Russel ...obvious to any rational observer of the living world ...Trust me.

Well I am sorry sir. I guess I thought you might be related to Alfred Russel Wallace who had enough sense to completely abandon the idiotic myth he helped create. I should have known better. You bore me.

Russell

Speaking of observing, the name is not Davidson; it is Davison as in John Davison Rockefeller, one of my relatives. You still bore me. Have a nice boring Darwimpian day.

I'm going to be rich and famous when I invent a machine to punch people in the face over the internet.

roflmao!

Enough have you had enough yet enough? Who do you have in mind? Don't be shy. Speak right up. I'm a tough old bird used to being abused by lightweights like you. Or is it possible that someone else might be bothering you besides little old senile me? God I hope not? I love irritating Darwimps. It has become a way of life for me, a new career for me in my dotage if you will. Panda's Dislocated Thumb provides me with plenty of opportunity. Thank you all.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them periwinkles?

John A. Davison

John, do you ever wonder why PT doesn't just ban you outright, like all the other places you've been?

Speaking of observing, the name is not Davidson; it is Davison

I'm going to be rich and famous when I invent a machine to punch people in the face over the internet.

hmm. i guess it would depend on whether you expect to give more than you recieve, yes?

I couldn't care less what Panda's Dislocated Thumb does with me. I'm too busy right now dealing with uneducated clowns like William Dembski that insist on banning my comments from his idiotic little egomaniacal blog. Frankly I think he is nothing but a Bible Banging Baptist Bigot at heart. At least that is how he comes off. It all boils down to what I have always maintained. The Darwimpians and the Christer Fundies are both dead wrong. The truth lies elsewhere and I think I have found it.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them scampi?

John A. Davison

Ah, John - you don't bother us, any more than a gnat is a bother. You may rise to the level of a minor irritation, but that is offset by the amusement you provide.

If we bore you, why do you hang around? Do I sniff the rank odor of desperation here? No one else will have you; Dembski deletes your rants; everyone else bans you - are we all you've got? Are you that desperate for attention that you'll abase and embarass yourself to get it?? Poor pitiful pathetic Salty - no one acknowledges his (possible) brilliance. Get over it.

"Bible Banging Baptist Bigot"

that's not bad, John.

I like "god-bothering tub-thumper" myself.

I will continue to hang around wherever I can between papers until the professionals whip up enough courage to start paying attention to me and my sources. It is catch-as-catch-can and the devil take the hindmost as far as I am concerned. I'll just keep right on polluting the universe with the truth for as long as I can. That is what science is all about don't you know. At least this way I am certain that everybody at least knows where I am coming from, a cultural and factual heritage provided by some great biologists, unfortunately mostly of the past. There is more hard headed reality in the books by Berg and Grasse alone than in the entire litany of Darwimpian nonsense.

As for being ignored by the Discovery Institute and its members, that suits me just fine although I notice that they now list me among their more prominent figures which I very definitely am not. The only support I have ever offered them is to join the dissent list of those that regard Darwinism as a disaster. That does not make me a Fundie by any means. If Dembski deletes my posts and refuses to explain why, that reflects on Dembski not me. He could have had a valuable ally but his ego got in the way. He realizes I am not a devout Christian and that is anathema to him or at least that is how he comes across. In that sense I have more respect for you guys. At least you let me amuse you. I can't even amuse Dembski. He just won't have it. That is pure unadulterated bigotry and nothing else.

Actually I am a devout Pythagorean like Galileo. I have a genuine monks habit complete with the knotted rope and all and I wear it with the Pythagorean Pentagram dangling around my wrinkled neck every Halloween and on certain other occasions as it suits me. I intend to get my portrait done with it bare-footed and all this summer when the portrait people return to Price Chopper where I have my morning coffee. I even burn a little incense sometimes when I get into the sauce and break out the old pentagram, turn on the disco light, and fantasize for a while. It is very relaxing.

It is all really invenereal to me at this point in my life. The "invenereal" is for your amusement and not a typo.

I remain supremely confident of my interpretation of the great mystery of evolution just as I have about every paper I have ever published. I have tried to be my own best critic and have been quite unable to discredit my convictions. Neither has anyone else I am happy to report. They just think they have. If they could they would have published it. You see the Darwimpians have always ignored their critics. That is all they can do because their hypothesis is a house of cards and always was. They are just like a dog with a bone and will not give it up. Well folks, they are choking on it right now and don't even realize it.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them upside down cakes?

John A. Davison

"I will continue to hang around wherever I can between papers until the professionals whip up enough courage to start paying attention to me and my sources"

I'm sure if you just scream a bit louder, someone will hear you.

"As for being ignored by the Discovery Institute and its members, that suits me just fine although I notice that they now list me among their more prominent figures which I very definitely am not"

lol. so... they cite you as a supporter, but they won't let you post on their blogs??? If that's true, that's pretty damn funny.

"Actually I am a devout Pythagorean like Galileo. I have a genuine monks habit complete with the knotted rope and all and I wear it with the Pythagorean Pentagram dangling around my wrinkled neck every Halloween and on certain other occasions as it suits me. I intend to get my portrait done with it bare-footed and all this summer when the portrait people return to Price Chopper where I have my morning coffee. I even burn a little incense sometimes when I get into the sauce and break out the old pentagram, turn on the disco light, and fantasize for a while. It is very relaxing. "

uh, overshare. I now have to scrub my eyeballs to try and get that image out of my mind. [shudder]

"It's hard to believe isn't it?"

coming from you... nope.

"lol. so . . . they cite you as a supporter, but they won't let you post on their blogs??? If that's true, that's pretty damn funny."

ya know that reminds me of a certain christmas story...

you wouldn't happen to be nicknamed Rudolph by any chance?

Fungus foot

You are also very amusing. I love it when people quote me. Don't stop. Thanks for the inadvertant support. Take a shower and do something about your smelly extremities. I can smell you clear up here in Vermont, the home of a another deranged homozygous liberal, Howard Dean.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them Fig Newtons?

John A. Davison

lyund

You are absolutely right on. Evolution never had anything to do with our understanding in any of the basic sciences. They all flourished without any reference to mechanism as to how they originated.

One of the dumbest statements ever made came from Theodosius Dobzhansky, a Darwinian through and through. Wasn't it he who said "Nothing in biology makes any sense except in terms of evolution" or words to that effect?

That is pure hogwash. What he should have said is that nothing in biology makes any sense in terms pf Darwinism.

I'll stick with good old fashioned Einsteinian determinism, thank you very much.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them deep fried chicken wings?

John A. Davison

There is a longish article about Phillip Johnson in today's Washington Post:

Doubting Rationalist: 'Intelligent Design' Proponent Phillip Johnson, and How He Came to Be

"You see the Darwimpians have always ignored their critics."

John, the most effective critics of the Darwinian view of life are the Darwinians. Read any issue of Evolution. It will be filled with pointed, effective criticisms of evolutionary theory. Intelligent men and women who focus on both detail and the broad overview of theory. Those are the scientists who change the theory of evolution. They bring the theory into tighter concordance with the data.

Not so people like you. I've read your prescribed evolutionary hypothesis. It's nothing but pure conjecture and rehashing of tired old ideas laid to rest many years ago. You and your hypothesis could be safely ignored were it not for the comfort you give those who would seek to put the Prescriber, the Designer, the Creator into the science classroom.

I've never met the Chairman of the Biology Department at the University of Vermont but I've come to have a great deal of sympathy and respect for the man.

Hey, John,

I actually liked this - "He (Dembski) realizes I am not a devout Christian and that is anathema to him or at least that is how he comes across. In that sense I have more respect for you guys. At least you let me amuse you. I can't even amuse Dembski. He just won't have it. That is pure unadulterated bigotry and nothing else."

You do occasionally make sense.

Is it not remarkable how the resident example of obtuseness ignores comments showing him how he is wrong about Einstein? Comments posted by people who know what Einstein was writing about, having spent some years studying physics at the highest level.
And is it not even more remarkable that the same individual thinks those who do not rise to his challenge are wimps? JAD is a self-described wimp.

Physics envy is a terrible thing

The Chair of Biology at UVM is Judith Van Houten. If you meet her, give her my warmest, "steaming" regards.

I have always taken Einstein at his word, Why others insist in reinterpreting everything the great man said reflects on them, not on me and certainly not on Einstein.

My appraisal of Dembski like my appraisal of everything else is right on Bob. Thanks for the unexpected compliment. It is sure not like you.

Who is next?

John A. Davison

Is it not remarkable how the resident example of obtuseness ignores comments showing him how he is wrong about Einstein?... And is it not even more remarkable that the same individual thinks those who do not rise to his challenge are wimps?

It's considered a good idea in science to have some clue what you are talking about. But JAD knows better. He does not need to understand any physics because he can read the words that Einstein wrote (even if out of context) and go straight to a degree in the subject.
Here we go with the science lesson:
Brownian motion is a random process (technically it's a random walk). It's random because we cannot predict everything about it, because to do that we need more information than we can ever get about the states of the moelcules of the solution (in particular locations and velocities). However each and every part of the process is deterministic. The randomness here is the same sort of randomness involved in tossing a fair coin or drawing numbers for a lottery or playing roulette - it's purely an expression of our ignorance. NB: This concept of randomness we owe to pure mathematics, starting I think with Pascal's analysis of the roulette wheel game. Mathematics is not interested in where the randomness comes from, only in providing a quantifying framework for working with it. Hence we can take a random walk down Wall Street, because the maths is the same as for Brownian motion, even though the processes that are random are totally different.
Now Einstein did a paper explaining Brownian motion in 1905. Physicists before and since - including Einstein - have known that the process is random because of our ignorance, not because the underlying process is non-deterministic.

The argument Einstein had with other physicists was about Quantum Mechanics. They claim it is the finished article and that the fact that it can only make probabilistic statements about phenomena means the phenomena themselves are non-deterministic. Einstein disagreed - "God does not play with dice" he said - and thought this showed QM was not the final word, that a deeper theory could be found that would restore determinism.

So the state of play today is that physicists think that in the universe there is micro-non-determinism and macro-determinism. Since only physics deals with the fundamental laws of the universe, only physics can decide the question of determinism.[BTW I hope no one take this as physicists' arrogance. When I write that only physics deals with the fundamental laws of the universe, I am not denigrating other sciences, rather relying on the fact that the other sciences depend on physical processes. For instance, quantum mechanical processes are studied by physics but all chemical reactions are quantum mechanical processes.] When scientists in other fields, such as biology, use the term "random" they are using the mathematical sense I mentioned above.

Think again about "God does not play with dice". In a deterministic universe where Einstein's God exists, God knows everything - he knows the locations and velocities of all the molecules in a Brownian motion solution and therefore can predict the motion. We lack this information and the process has to be treated as if it were (mathematically) random. But if the standard interpretation of QM is correct, then even God cannot predict the outcome of some processes - even he has to resort to the mathematics of randomness.

"I've never met the Chairman of the Biology Department at the University of Vermont but I've come to have a great deal of sympathy and respect for the man."

uh, for those not in the "know", the dept. of biology at Vermont basically "retired" JAD when it became clear he had become, how shall we say, "mentally unstable".

That is what JAD is refering to when he sent his regards in the form he did.

In case you were wondering, the University pretty much disavows his existence these days, so don't be too hard on U of V; they did the best they could to distance themselves from him. I'm sure it's a fine school.

Wrong again, or is it still, Fungus foot. I retired when I did because the Provost, Jeff Gamble, who was my friend in the administration, retired at the same time to become the President of Montana State University. I have explained all that many times so I won't repeat it again now. UVM does not "pretty much disavow" my existence. They completely disavow my existence which is fine with me. Only a third rate institution would find it necessary to stoop so far. The College of Arts and Sciences at UVM has always been a political nightmare and continues to be to this day. The Med school is fine and totally independent of the rest of the university. The measure of the success of a university is its endowment. UVM has one of the smallest endowments of any university in the country and the reason is very simple. They haven't produced enough alumni who have become millionaires. As a result it has one of the highest in state and out of state tuitions in the country. Most of our high school graduates go out of state for college because they can't afford UVM. It is a scandal if you ask me.

After I retired they evicted me from my office/ laboratory and when a colleague in another college gave me space they evicted me from that space also.The posture of UVM, like that of any institution, speaks for itself and requires no characterization by me or anyone else. They even denied me library priveleges and when the head librarian heard about it she promptly reinstated me. I was not the first Emeritus to be treated that way. Incidentally I am not a Professor Emeritus so I lie about it with every published paper and every email that I send. Oddly Toejam finds it necessary to explain to all who are not "in the know" that which is transparent and requires no further explanation.

UVM was and probably still is dominated by a herd of Darwinian liberal (They are closely related)bigots who found my scholarship not to their liking. This is not the first time UVM has behaved like this. Back in the fifties they canned Alexander Novikoff because they thought he was a communist. As I recall he promptly got a job at Brandeis and I think subsequently became a member of the National Academy. I think he was also nominated for the Nobel Prize. Being canned by UVM is a tribute that I would prize highly, but the truth is I beat them to the punch by resigning.

PaulP

Thanks for the very confusing physics lecture. I prefer the original version.

"Everything is determined...by forces over which we have no control."

That requires no further explanation from you or anyone else.

John A. Davison

John,

RE: This from #30155 - "Thanks for the unexpected compliment. It is sure not like you," You're welcome; credit where it's due.

But as for, "My appraisal of Dembski like my appraisal of everything else is right on Bob," I'm afraid I can't go that far.

Re "Yup.
Hard to believe, isn't it?
How do you like them fruitcakes?"

ROFL

Henry

"Bible Banging Baptist Bigot"

that's not bad, John. I like "god-bothering tub-thumper" myself.

Bob Maurus

Nobody expects us to agree with each other. That is what is wrong with many forums. They become intellectual fraternities that haze nonconformists like myself. Brainstorms committed suicide because of that. So did EvC. Panda's Thumb will do the same if it continues in the same path.

"When all think alike no one thinks very much."
Walter Lippmann

The issues that are at stake are very fundamental and have to do with how man is to regard his position in the universe. I have made my position very clear by rejecting every aspect of the Darwinian model. There is nothing in it that has survived the testimony of the laboratory or the fossil record: absolutely nothing. If others cannot see that I can only conclude that even their blindness has been determined somehow. I sincerely believe that we are victims of our genetic heritage with very little room for modification from experience. Einstein felt the same way and said so as I have indicated more than once. That is just one more manifestation of what I have called a Prescribed Evolution, an evolution that proceeded without reference to environmental influences driven from within in a fashion similar to the way in which the individual develops from a single cell. Both phenomena are autonomous, self regulating and self terminating. In order to understand this perspective it is essential to also recognize that creative evolution is no longer in progress.

Just as ontogeny stops when the differentiated adult state is reached, so evolution stopped when the highest representatives of the various phyla finally appeared. These were the last classes, orders, families, genera and species that appeared. I believe that Robert Broom was absolutely correct when he claimed that a new genus has not appeared in the last two million years. He convinced Julian Huxley of the same. I have documented that interesting history in the Manifesto with the correspondence between these two men that led to that shared conclusion. It should be given serious consideration by every student of evolution.

Just as ontogeny undergoes the most rapid and dramatic changes early in the process so did evolution, beginning explosively and progressively declining to a complete standstill at the present. These parallels are not mere coincidences; they are manifestations of a fundamental predetermined historical sequence that cannot be repeated.

I now believe with Schindewolf that evolution is not an experimental science any more than geology is and cannot be examined that way. I am fully aware that this will not be easily accepted by the Darwinian establishment but it represents my conviction nevertheless. This in no way means that we cannot employ experimental methods in understanding the sequence. Indeed it is these analyses that support exactly this interpretation. We witness not evolution in action but the products of a past evolution which has run its inexorable course.

This view is the antithesis of Darwinism and can never be reconciled with it. It has been summarized in the form of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.

"Here I stand. I can do no otherwise."
Martin Luther

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them all day suckers?

John A. Davison

"nonconformists"

John, you may be a non-conformist, but the problem is that you also are not rational.

You have no evidence to support your hypothesis, which is essentially based on made-up assumptions to begin with. You ignore the detailed responses to your "theories", and also the massive amounts of evidence already in the published literature for the last 150 years. How can one conclude you still adhere to any form of rational thought?

that's why folks criticize you, rightly, not because you are a non-conformist.

If you don't like it, don't put up with it, but it does describe you to a "T".

"Thanks for the very confusing physics lecture"

actually, it wasn't confusing at all. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you thought it was?

By your "retirement" i was refering to your ability to teach classes, not your "official" retirement; i guess i should have been more clear.

btw, since you seem to be in a reflective mood, would you mind detailing what happened to you around 1984, when your publication quality took a noticeable nose-dive? I'm still curious.

Look at how well Dembski is progressing in his thinking; he now is positive that ID offers positive evidence in it's support:

"The debate has moved along considerably since the early 90s when Johnson was mainly focused on critiquing evolution. Indeed, ID now offers a positive alternative to conventional evolutionary theory."

I wonder when he will come over here and present that positive theory we have been "anxiously" awaiting for 150 years?

Can you say: psychological disconnect? knew ya could.

PaulP Thanks for the very confusing physics lecture. I prefer the original version. "Everything is determined . . . by forces over which we have no control." That requires no further explanation from you or anyone else. John A. Davison

You are wasting your time trying to talk me down or insult me. I am immune to such tactics, an immunity aquired through long experience dealing with intractable Darwimpiann zealots and fanatical Fundamentalist Christians, both of which sects haven't a clue about evolutionary mechanisms because both have already decided what those mechanisms were and still are. For the Darwimps they are mutation and Natural Selection, for the Fundamentalist they are some kind of a mystical Special Creation for which ancestors are not necessary. While it is true that we do not know how many times life was created it would seem exceedingly improbable that it was created as many times as there have been genera (kinds) which is what the Creationist scenario demands.

There is also no indication of a directive intervening element governing life either now or in the past. All tangible evidence points to a preprogrammed set of instructions that resulted in not only what is preserved in the fosil record but also everything that we see around us today.

At first this seems impossible, but do we really have any choice but to accept that possibility and proceed to examine it carefully? I say no, we have no other choice because both the Fundamentalist and Darwinian models are disastrous failures and must be discarded so that a fresh start can be made.

I am also acutely aware that what I propose is a form of creationism. That is not my fault and has not been generated through a preconceived ideology on my part. I have been driven to that conclusion through the process of the elimination of all other explanations. There is nothing unscientific about that procedure. Having reached those conclusions I have attempted to formalize that position as the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. This hypothesis is also testable as has been the Darwinian. The difference is the Darwinian hypothesis has failed every attempt to support it. The PEH is just now beginning to be critically examined and so far remains viable. So does the Semi-meiotic hypothesis which I introduced 21 years ago. The PEH and the SMH are closely related aspects of the same underlying mechanism and both remain viable until they are disproved with tangible experimental data which will not allow that interpretation. That has not yet occurred. Until it has I will continue to promote my heresies and nothing will stop me while I am still able to hunt and peck out my thoughts and convictions.

As for PaulP, he has demonstrated his profound ignorance in his own words by claiming that "random is not always the same thing as non-determinate." Sorry PaulP, that just won't wash. I'm sure this will evoke a veritable hissy fit. Let's see shall we?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them rare T-bone steaks?

John A. Davison

Look at how well Dembski is progressing in his thinking; he now is positive that ID offers positive evidence in it's support: "The debate has moved along considerably since the early 90s when Johnson was mainly focused on critiquing evolution. Indeed, ID now offers a positive alternative to conventional evolutionary theory."

As for PaulP, he has demonstrated his profound ignorance in his own words by claiming that "random is not always the same thing as non-determinate." Sorry PaulP, that just won't wash. I'm sure this will evoke a veritable hissy fit. Let's see shall we?

thuth

thuth

What did I tell you about PaulP's hissy fit. Right on eh? You bet. What a jerk.

I have a new strategy for dealing with guys like Dembski that find it necessary to block me from particiapting on their private blogs. I just transpose their names a bit. William Dembski has now become Dilliam Wembski; get it? It seems that Wesley Elsberry has shut me down without explanation on his little personal blog too. If that proves to be permanent he will become Esley Welsberry in all future reference to him by name. John Rennie is still John Rennie as near as I can determine. It really is about all I can do by way of exposure of these people as the bigots they most certainly seem to be. Just think, Toe Jam will become Joe Tam. That has a nice ring to it don't you think. The moral of the story is : start giving me some respect or you too may have your name changed.

How do you like them sour dough muffins?

John A. Davison

@Lenny.

I knew Dembski's comment would attract your attention. too bad he won't let you post over there; that would be fun to watch!

It's obvious to me that at this point, Dembski is either going insane, or has completely decided that placating his acolytes is more important than making sense.

"start giving me some respect or you too may have your name changed."

lol.

but John, as i keep pointing out to you, we gave you all the respect you deserve; we even got you elected crankiest evolutionist in the world over on the crank website:

http://www.crank.net/evolution.html

what an ingrate.

I have a new strategy for dealing with guys like Dembski that find it necessary to block me from particiapting on their private blogs. I just transpose their names a bit. William Dembski has now become Dilliam Wembski

Eeeeww! I haven't been in here for a long time, and I'll be exiting after a single scrawling, never to return:

There are some truly nutty, yet disgusting, examples of the very worst of the "creationist" position here.

I'll go rinse my mind from a public sewer pipe, now: it'll feel refreshing after having subjected my mind to some of the rabidly insane Xian/nutcase arguments the spiritually/intellectually damned have posted here.

Nick Matzke

To compare evolution to the vagaries of the weather is about the dumbest thing I have yet heard coming out of the mouth of a Darwimp. If i ever see this post again I am sure it will be in the latrine. From now on you are Mick Natzke, just as William Dembski is now Dilliam Wembski etc. etc.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison, the most unfair soul ever to trod the sod, unbalanced as ever and still unafraid to confront those like Mick Natzke, so deluded as to compare evolution with the weather.

How do you like them portabellas?

Now you listen here Faul Plocken, I thought you were dead. You start giving me some respect or I'll throw a hissy fit like PaulP did. You wouldn't that to happen would you? You are beginning to act like a ferfect pamn dool. Get some help.

but John, as i keep pointing out to you, we gave you all the respect you deserve; we even got you elected crankiest evolutionist in the world over on the crank website:

Hey John, did you know Dave Scott is still a big fan of yours?

"Author: DaveScot
Dr. Davison,

What can I say except RIGHT ON!

Thanks for your efforts. They're not for naught "

He even wanted to send you to Kansas Kangaroo:

"Author: DaveScot

I nominate Professor John Davison. He's a scientist, a biologist with 50 years experience no less, and I'm sure he'd be willing to talk about Darwinian evolution with the Kansas board of education."

there ya go, John. a true fan for ya. sure you don't want to start your own "blog" so he can worship you like Salvador Cordova worships Bill Dembski?

Salvador Cordova is a Christian and has always treated me with respect. Dilliam Wembski is an arrogant pompous jerk, with no background whatsoever in biological science, who let his ten or so minutes on the tube go to his head. He is an embarrassment to Discovery Institute and they should disown him but most probably won't. If Salvador wants to worship Wembski that is his business. I have lost all respect for him and for good reason.

DaveScot is a brilliant computer genius who at least had the common sense to recognize that the whole notion of a creative computer is absurd at the present level of our understanding. In my opinion there will never be a creative computer of any sort. The only creative computer is the one that the Big Front Loader produced and which has finally run its program to completion.

I have never associated myself with any professional institutions because I don't choose to surrender my identity for any reason. I offered my services to the Kansas Board of Education and received no response.

I have no interest or competence in creating my own blog. If someone else chooses to do so that would be fine with me. If pompous morons like Richard Dawkins can have a fan club surely a real scientist like myself could have one. Is any one interested out there? I can use all the publicity I can muster.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them chicken pot pies?

John A. Davison

well, there ya go.

Davey boy is a computer genius, and obviously appreciates you. Why not have him construct a temple for you?

then you could give him a new place to post, and you each could teach the other all of your vast wisdom.

what could be wrong with that?

What did I tell you about PaulP's hissy fit. Right on eh? You bet. What a jerk

PaulP

Just because we are unable to measure a subatomic particles velocity and location does not mean that it does not have them.

IE Everything has a velocity and a place in space. People are unable to measure it.
That is not the same as a particle not having a velocity or place.

Or have I misunderstod you?

Stephen Elliott:

We do not need quantum mechanics to talk about Brownian motion or the motions & locations of the molecules of a gas. So we can treat the molecules' motions and locations as being those of particles that have definite values for both location and motion. However because we cannot in practice know each molecule's location and motion at any given time, we cannot make predictions about each molecule's future location and motion. So we reach for probability & statistics and treat the phenomena as the outcome of random behaviour. Just like deaing with tossing a coin or playing roulette.

QM in the standard interpretation says that if you measure a molecule's location you cannot measure its motion and vice versa (by measure I mean obtain a value whose precision is determined only by the precision of the measuring apparatus). And goes from there to say it is therefore not meaningful to say that a particle has motion or location until you measure one or the other. (Which IMHO is nonsense but most physicists, particularly in the US, ignore it and just "do the calculations" )

PaulP
Thanks for the reply.
So you are saying it is too complex to measure (Brownian motion) rather than impossible (QM)?

I can understand why it is impossible to measure an electrons position and speed beyond a certain degree of acuracy.
Where I lose the plot is why that should mean an electron has no definite speed/place.

So you are saying it is too complex to measure (Brownian motion) rather than impossible (QM)?

Where I lose the plot is why that should mean an electron has no definite speed/place

So you are saying it is too complex to measure (Brownian motion) rather than impossible (QM)?

Where I lose the plot is why that should mean an electron has no definite speed/place

When the Darwimps and the Fundies get through destroying one another, I intend to be the last man standing, unscathed, pristine and proud that I, with the able assistance of my several predecessors, the fossil record and the experimental laboratory, have finally vanquished the two most infantile, misdirected, ideologically intoxicated, anti-intellectual and genetically deprived human aggregates in the history of the Western World.

"Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty."
Galileo

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them Angel Food cakes?

PaulP,
I have just ordered "The Fabric of the Cosmos"
The last time I ordered a book on someones recomendation here it was "Biology" by Campbell, Reece.
That book must weigh over 10 pounds and will take a while yet to read it all.
I seriously hope this book is a somewhat easier read.

I agree that Dilliam Wembski is giving the Discovery Institute a bad name. What can you expect from somone with no background in biological science, coupled with an arrogant ego recently further inflated by a brief appearance on the tube? He has never offered anything constructive in the way of an evolutionary hypothesis and seems perfectly content with simply denigrating the poor Darwimpians. I regard him as an intellectual joke and an impediment to progress.

It's hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them grape leaves?

John A. Davison

Comment #29912 Posted by Russell on May 13, 2005 05:34 PM (e) (s) I misspoke. The transmembrane transport system in question exports rather than imports , rendering my idle speculation useless. Here's a discussion of it in the context of Behe's arguments.

"When the Darwimps and the Fundies get through destroying one another, I intend to be the last man standing, unscathed, pristine and proud that I, with the able assistance of my several predecessors, the fossil record and the experimental laboratory, have finally vanquished the two most infantile, misdirected, ideologically intoxicated, anti-intellectual and genetically deprived human aggregates in the history of the Western World."

Well, JAD, untill your ideas are reviewed by a peer group with standing, you are just the last man out.

Comment #30596 Posted by John A. Davison on May 17, 2005 06:12 AM (e) (s) When the Darwimps and the Fundies get through destroying one another, I intend to be the last man standing, unscathed, pristine and proud [...]

Stephen Elliott:

Greene's book is a lot shorter but it might blow your mind. QM is spooky no matter how it is interpreted. Enjoy!

I have given the evolutionary community plenty of opportunity to evaluate and comment on my papers and my hypotheses. Just as they have ignored the devastating and penetrating analyses by Grasse, Schindewolf, Goldschmidt, Berg, Broom, Bateson and others even including two of their own, Julian Huxley and Alfred Russel Wallace, they pretend I too do not exist. It is a scandal, a disgrace and a hoax.

Well folks, there is a difference this time because I have offered an alternative to Darwinism, the most thoroughly discredited piece of mystical nonsense ever conceived by mortal man. This alternative does not require a personal God or any other sectarian considerations. It remains in perfect accord with everything we really know about both ontogeny and phylogeny and receives additonal support with every passing day and nothing that it cannot accomodate.

The ultra-materialistic Darwinian zealots have finally run of of time. The entire intellectual community is now recognizing the utter failure of every aspect of the Darwinian fairy tale. It is even entering the public domain, a domain in which the Darwinians refuse to participate but shun like the plague because they know that haven't a leg to stand on. They are finished, washed up and through and don't even recognize it yet but it is finally beginning to sink in as is demonstrated by their transparent cowardice and insecurity.

I regard this as a glorious period in the history of Western Civilization as the so called "Age of Enlightenment" is finally being called into question. It is time for some humility and a return to an appreciation that we live in a world that could never have come about through chance but surrounds us because it was planned, set in motion and finally executed by the inventions of an impersonal intelligence far beyond our capacity to understand.

I say Hallelujah.

It is hard to believe isn't it?

How do you like them Devil's Food cakes?

John A. Davison

JAD,

Ta for the generous time allotment and extension of deadline. I have determined to my own satisfaction that further examination of your own devastating and penetrating blunders isn't worth missing a smoke break. Just because genuinely distinguished scientists have fucked up as well is not an endorsement of your position. You claim the onus is no longer on you. I say it is. If you genuinely seek to popularise your ideas, you will need to do so in a more telling forum. Even if you swing the whole of this site's attendees, you will influence "the establishment" not one bit. If your idea has merit, exercise yourself in demonstrating that merit and publishing in Nature or somesuch, rather than embarrassingly advertising Sermonti's misuse of editorial discretion in publishing your article as page-filler. *I* am not upset by the lack of reconition you receive, *you* are. Your problem, not mine.

To address your deliberately spurious comments:

Your alternative may not require a personal deity, but you miss the point that this is not a strength. It requires at minimum an alien intelligence with interstellar capability, a previous terrestrial civilisation not much more advanced in biology than our own, or our own as it might be in the near future plus the capability to generate artificial wormholes and relativistic velocities. It requires a capacity of genetic manipulation not much more sophisticated than radiation bombardment plus the existing demonstrated rates of genetic change. Your offensive leap is the peculiar notion that something even worth calling a god was ever necessary, given that there is zero evidence offerred of such other than your limited and frankly diseased imagination.

Materialism works. When dead bodies turn up, the court prefers to examine the wounds to determine the means of death, rather than consulting a shaman. When you have infections, penicillin works better than prayer. For enhancing oxidation of a novel aromatic toxin, random mutation of cytochrome p450 plus a few hundred generations of further cumulative mutation and selection achieves it and consulting you does not.

The entire intellectual as opposed to church community perceives no significant error in Darwin's theory that observed facts of evolution are explained by variation and natural selection. The opinion of the public is irrelevant - when they need an appendix removed, they don't do it themselves. When they want research done they leave it to "the boffins", enjoy the results and bitch that it wasn't done quicker and cheaper, yet never actually roll up a sleeve. Why should I respect that any more than you do the people who rightly regard your quote-mining as a pathetic disgrace.

In the unlikely event that you are right, time will tell. If you are not right, likewise. In the meantime, how about you shut the fuck up, eat shit, die, and let those of us still capable of real work get on with it? The bathroom wall is a nice place to bat ideas around on a break and you make it a shithole. Finish your drink and piss off and stop annoying the paying customers.

Rustopher.

Pusty Recker

Are you really a paying customer at this blog? Are you one of the inner circle?

To claim that "The entire intellectual world perceives no significant error in Darwin's theory etc. etc." proves beyond any doubt that you are living in a complete fantasy world. Why do you think they are finally having public hearings on the biggest farce in human history? Why do you think it is making the tube? Why are you Darwimps afraid to even represent yourselves when invited to do so? You are just another bully and you bore me to tears with your bluster.

Send me a preprint or some other demonstration that you are worthy of my time. Of course there goes your anonymity you mouthy cowardly zero.

How do you like them greasy french fries?

John A. Davison

The bizarre plates and spikes that lined the backbones of the long-extinct stegosaurs were probably extreme examples of the often elaborate and colorful displays developed by animals to recognize fellow members of their species, according to an international team of paleontologists.

The plates of Stegosaurus, like many other bizarre morphological developments, probably had no adaptive significance at all but were the expressions of an orthogenetic inexorable path that invariably ended in extinction. Schindewolf called this terminal phase of the evolutionary sequence typolysis, meaning the degeneration of the type. It has characterized nearly all evolutionary sequences as has also the tendency to gigantism. In other words it constitutes evidence for a prescribed orthogenetic evolution which proceeded independently of the environment. Very few organisms have escaped its fate. It continues to this day.

How do you like them skunk cabbages?

John A. Davison

There is now and never has been anything preventing the "professionals" from reviewing and commenting on my many papers. They have ignored them just as they have ignored Grasse, Berg, Broom, Schindewolf, Bateson and Goldschmidt. We do not exist. There have never been any critics of the one true faith bcause that cannot happen. Don't you people yet understand the situation?

As for submitting my paper to Nature for publication, does anyone think it would ever get off the editor's desk? Where are the peers to evaluate my work? They do not exist. They are not allowed to exist. Look at John Rennie's SciAm blog if you want to see peer revue in action. He is so certain I am a loony tune that he doesn't even bother to acknowledge my existence. Instead he lets Pim van Meurs to do it for him or any one else who can insult me with perfect abandon. I will say this for him however. He hasn't deleted my posts like Dilliam Wembski has and our own Esley Welsberry has done on his personal blog. I actually complimented Rennie for NOT banning my comments. That is the situation folks. It is called democracy in action, freedom of expression and the search for the truth.The reason I have no critics in hard copy is the same reason that the six I mentioned above don't either. It can be summarized with a single word - Fear. Fear that by calling attention to alternate interpretations their own fragile beliefs will not survive comparison. It is a strategy of denial and a silent conspiracy practiced by like minded ideologues who cannot abide the thought they have wasted their lives chasing a phantom.

Truly great minds have always been willing to admit failure. One of the many reasons I admire William Bateson is expressed in a comment he made toward the end of his life. It was disclosed by Arthur Koestler when he interviewed Bateson's son Gregory as part of the research for his book "The Case of the Midwife toad."

"By 1924, Bateson had come to realize, and told his son in confidence 'that it was a mistake to have committed his life to Mendelism, that it was a blind alley which would not throw any light on the differentiation of species, nor on evolution in general.'"

Truer words were never spoken.

How do you like them chocolate chip cookies?

John A. Davison

@rusty;

if you want to start discussion on an off-topic subject, just start a new thread in 'after the bar closes'. JAD can't post there, and the bar gets too little use as it is.

I state again, you little toad: *Your* problem. *I* have wasted enough time on you. *I* have determined to my own satisfaction that your stuff is crap. *I* coudn't give a fig. *You* want more recognition, so go get the real stuff.

There is absolutely nothing preventing professionals looking more at your work. I gather some did. Even minor papers get some recognition if they contain valid work, even if poorly understood and poorly communicated. *someone* picks it up and extends/confirms/refutes it. Perhaps you did not state it clearly enough. Have another go. Do some more stats. Do some more close analysis of published genomic sequences and supplementing it with data you generate yourself. Rather than convince the whole world, convince a backer, then *find* the sequences that are the necessary residue of the genomic remodelling you propose. Rather than stating that the present evidence is enough, go get more. Be insultingly exhaustive (hint: 8 pages isn't enough for such work). Many of the most distinguished paradigm smashers of history had to do just that.

But do it in the real forum. As I said, swinging every attendee here does you nothing.

*I* am not living in a fantasy world. The "public hearings" were a joke and just a couple of diligent people were able to make the majority of those present admit that they knew nothing about the topic, even less about related topics, but still had an opinion. Not a considered or informed opinion, not a professional or experienced one, just their precious own, pig-ignorant and selfish. The entire proceedings were run and attended by a pack of 'tards too dumb-as-dogshit to read the relevant documents but who expected their opinion on those same documents to be heard and binding. That such egregious crap was even allowed to happen at public expense should be getting a few people sacked about now. People who should know better but supported it should have their competance for senior roles examined.

PEH is useless to me and NeoDarwinism is useful. Even if there are limitations of such (which I do not concede or stipulate), they are equivalent to those of Newtonian mechanics vs Einstein's closer approximations. Most mechanical engineers still use Newton for day to day stuff. I would use Darwin for day to day stuff.

You keep digging up quotes that indicate dissatisfaction with Darwin. Whoopee. They almost all precede work that clarifies the issues that troubled them. Bateson for instance would no doubt have been invigorated by having even minor knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved.

I remain anonymous for the same reason I don't give my card to nutters in the pub. You stand around bitching and when people tell you to fuck off you give them even more of your bullshit. You aren't worth my time and *I* am the judge of that. If I am not worth yours, feel free to piss off and spare yourself the burden.

Rustopher.

Re "Just because we are unable to measure a subatomic particles velocity and location does not mean that it does not have them."
It's that guy Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - uncertainty of position times uncertainty of momentum has a minimum value. So measuring one of them to a large precision sets an upper limit on the precision to which the other can be measured. I gather the theory isn't saying simply that it's a matter of inability to measure it - it's rather that the first measurement provokes a random change on the value of the other attribute. At least that's a summary of what I recall learning in physics class; I can't explain why it's like that.

Henry

It's that guy Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - uncertainty of position times uncertainty of momentum has a minimum value. So measuring one of them to a large precision sets an upper limit on the precision to which the other can be measured. I gather the theory isn't saying simply that it's a matter of inability to measure it - it's rather that the first measurement provokes a random change on the value of the other attribute. At least that's a summary of what I recall learning in physics class; I can't explain why it's like that. Henry

— Henry J

Custy Ratheter

I didn't invade this blog to "swing" anybody. I came to offer a perfectly valid alternative to the mutation/selection Darwimpian fairy tale.

If I am not worth your valuable time why do you require such a very long post, laced with foul language, to transmit such a simple sentiment? When someone tells me to "fuck off" you damn right I intend to respond. That is what I am doing right now with or without your permission.

You compare Darwin to Newton. What a mindless joke. Darwin's evolution is like Aristotle's physics, dead wrong. Galileo destroyed Aristotelian physics in an afternoon and discovered the gravitational constant in the process with nothing but some balls and a few inclined planes. Galileo and Kepler are the two giants on whose shoulders Newton later stood and he said so. Well I have stood on some pretty great shoulders myself and I too have said so. You just don't like it and you have admitted as much. I don't particularly care for the notion that evolution is finished either but the evidence demands that conclusion. Once that reality is accepted everything else falls into place at least for me.

I don't know who you think you are kidding with all this nonsense about Darwinism being working science. Nobody is using Darwinism as a tool for the study of evolution. They finally gave up doing that when Dobzhansky struck out trying to transform Drosophila with selection. Now the Darwimps just say it has to be so because it cannot be otherwise. The alternative is so distatsteful to the congenital atheist mentality that is unacceptable, even inconceivable. Well, that doesn't wash any more.

"Hypotheses have to be reasonable, facts don't."
Anonymous

"An hypothesis does not cease to be an hypothesis when a lot of people believe it."
Boris Ephrussi

I have never believed the Darwinian hypothesis and now I know it is dead wrong.
John A. Davison

I admit the PEH doesn't seem very reasonable but that does not mean that it is wrong and all the bluster and cursing won't make it wrong.

My Ph.D. Professor, H. Burr Steinbach, once said to me: "John, get a bright idea and then prove it is right." I have done that a few times in my fifty year career and I know how difficult it is to prove something is right. The last challenge I undertook 21 years ago is still keeping me busy and I probably won't be able to prove I am right in my lifetime. But I sure know what is wrong. Everything about Darwinism is wrong, just as Aristotelian physics is wrong and for exactly the same reasons. It has not withstood either controlled experiment or the undeniable testimony of the fossil record. As I have said before, Darwinism is a failure, a scandal and a hoax.

As for all your bluster, nasty insult and foul language:

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak."
Montaigne

"Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconciousness."
George Orwell, 1984

How do you like them link sausages?

John A. Davison

From pig-ignorant davison, Comment #30813 Galileo... ...discovered the gravitational constant in the process with nothing but some balls and a few inclined planes

He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak

Faul Plocken

S = g/2 x (time squared) x (cosine theta). Galilieo measured every term except g which is the constant of proportionality also known as the gravitational constant. He did exactly the same thing with the Law of the Pendulum. If you want to give Newton the credit for discovering g, good for you. I happen to know better. So did Newton. Why do you think he said "I have stood on the shoulders of giants"? The gravitational constant IS the constant of proportionality in the equation. That is why if you jump out a window you will fall exactly 16 feet the first second. That is because g equals 32 feet. If you don't believe me, try it. I thought everybody knew that: but not Faul Plocken.

How do you like them rehydrated tomatoes?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison

Faul Plocken

S = g/2 x (time squared) x (cosine theta). Galileo measured every term except g which is the constant of proportionality also known as the gravitational constant. He did exactly the same thing with the Law of the Pendulum. If you want to give Newton the credit for discovering g, good for you. I happen to know better. So did Newton. Why do you think he said "I have stood on the shoulders of giants"? The gravitational constant IS the constant of proportionality in the equation. That is why if you jump out a window you will fall exactly 16 feet the first second. That is because g equals 32 feet. If you don't believe me, try it. I thought everybody knew that: but not Faul Plocken.

How do you like them rehydrated tomatoes?

It's hard to believe isn't it?

John A. Davison

Paul is right, John. Litte g is the gravitational constant of acceleration on earth, 32 ft/sec/sec. This value is a consequence of the earth's mass - on other planets little g is different. This is what Galileo discovered.

Newton discovered big G, the universal gravitational constant. This occurs in the formula F = G * m1 * m2/d^2: that is, the gravitational force is proportional to the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the masses. If you use this formula and the formula F = ma, and then insert the mass and radius of the earth, you get little g for a.

Posted by Jack Krebs on May 18, 2005 06:29 AM (e) (s) Paul is right, John. Litte g is the gravitational constant of acceleration on earth, 32 ft/sec/sec. This value is a consequence of the earth's mass - on other planets little g is different. This is what Galileo discovered. Newton discovered big G, the universal gravitational constant. This occurs in the formula F = G * m1 * m2/d^2: that is, the gravitational force is proportional to the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the masses. If you use this formula and the formula F = ma, and then insert the mass and radius of the earth, you get little g for a.

Jack,

Be patient...JAD is feverishly trying to dig up an Einstein quote to dismiss you.

Give it a couple...

to Stephen Elliott: I didn't say anything concerning the topics you mentioned in your response to my comment. I merely expanded on Paul's correction of Davison's physics. I never said or implied anything about Davison's ignorance of Biology in my post, nor about the genius of Galileo and Newton.

Breaking News!

Apparently Jay Richards has positive evidence for ID.

You can find it here...

I'd like to say something witty/funny here, but I'm sure it won't be as funny as what Richards himself wrote...

[...] [fulfilling of] unlikely requirements [for habitability] is only half the story [...]

[...] those conditions for habitability also provide the best overall conditions for doing science[!].

Richards talks about Meyer and Dembski and Behe, but for some inexplicable reason leaves out his own refutation of Relativity. Surely his overthrowing of Einstein is at least as important as his colleagues' overthrowing of Darwin.

Richards ... for some inexplicable reason leaves out his own refutation of Relativity. Surely his overthrowing of Einstein is at least as important as his colleagues' overthrowing of Darwin.

— steve

...also, there is no proof offered.

Aha. The key word is universal eh? I don't recall using that term. I don't think Galileo did either. Incidentally, I have been told that the g stands for Galileo not for gravity as is so widely assumed.

Darwin was overthrown by Mivart in Darwin's own day when he noted how Natural Selection could hardly influence a structure which had not yet appeared. Darwimps are incredibly slow learners.

"Of course, in this matter, as elsewhere throughout Nature, we have to do with the operation of fixed and constant natural laws, but there is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these as yet unknown natural laws or law will never be resolved into the action of "Natural Selection."
St George Jackson Mivart, "Genesis Of Species", 1871, page 75

How do you like them chicken livers?

It's hard to believe isn't? I mean that anybody can still believe in Darwimpianism, the grandest hoax in recorded history.

"Never in the history of the world have so many been so royally screwed by so few."
John A. Davison

John A. Davison

Posted by Jack Krebs on May 18, 2005 08:19 AM (e) (s) to Stephen Elliott: I didn't say anything concerning the topics you mentioned in your response to my comment. I merely expanded on Paul's correction of Davison's physics. I never said or implied anything about Davison's ignorance of Biology in my post, nor about the genius of Galileo and Newton.

Posted by Paul Flocken on May 18, 2005 04:40 AM (e) (s) davison, You really ought to limit your repeatedly demonstrated pig-ignorance to biology. From pig-ignorant davison, Comment #30813 "Galileo . . . . . . discovered the gravitational constant in the process with nothing but some balls and a few inclined planes" What Galileo Galilei discovered was the constant acceleration produced by gravity. It was Newton who was responsible for elucidating the nature of the gravitational constant, G, and Cavendish with empirically computing its value for the first time.

Darwin became quite upset with Mivart, not because of his objections to his theory, but because of the venomous manner in which he put forth his objections and because of his attacks on Darwin's colleagues. The 6th edition of "Origin of Species" included lengthy answers to Mivart's criticisms, and by the way, was the first edition of "Origin" to contain the word "Evolution." Even after all of Mivart's objections were answered, he still spilled out venomous attacks on Darwin. In the end Darwin and his colleagues (Huxley, Hooker, et al) ostracized him.

John, do you ever reference anyone still living, other than yourself? You stand upon the shoulders of giants, but those giants died before much of the empirical support for the modern theory of evolution was gathered. Some of them were indeed giants but their vantage point was obscured by ignorance. Your observations seem obscured by your gigantic sense of self-importance. There are other giants who could offer you a better view from their broad shoulders. Giants like Dozhansky, Mayr, and Nei come to mind.

Re post 30856 by Stephen:

Re-read Flocken's comment carefully. Then carefully re-read what you mutated it to.

Posted by Savagemutt on May 18, 2005 01:23 PM (e) (s) Re post 30856 by Stephen: Re-read Flocken's comment carefully. Then carefully re-read what you mutated it to.

GT(N)T

Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky were giants? Their respective books "Systematics and the Origin of Species" by Mayr and "Genetics and the Origin of Species" by Dobzhansky have done more to inhibit progress in evolutonary science than any other two books in the history of biology. That is especially true of Mayr's schlock. His is truly an egomaniacal rant. Egomaniacal rant by the way is a term used by Scott Page to describe Grasse's "The Evolution of Living Organisms," one of the most important summaries of evolutionary thought ever published.

Speaking of Page, I understand he has been banned again for obscenity, this time under the alias of Great White Wonder. Is that correct? I hope it was me he was slandering with his filthy mouth. I have always been able to bring out the best in him. Was it Scott (Mad Dog) Page?

Speaking of obscenity, Custy Ratheter sure gets away with plenty using the f**k word and the s**t word to describe another's position. I guess he must be one of the inner circle who can post on your special forum. I would still like to know who these elite few are: fat chance though eh? The Protective Brotherhood of Darwimpians (BPOD for short) must remain anonymous you know, just like the Klu Klux Klan and for the same reasons. That's how they manage to stay out of jail.

How do you like them bleached asparagus spears?

John A. Davison

I note the comments since this morning but I just spent 11 hours at one job and now have to dash off for 6 more at another, so the time to read them and reply is lacking. However I can manage this hit-and-run: as my day progressed and I thought about it, I regreted more and more the harshness of the comparison in my last comment, so I have decided to make my apologies to pigs everywhere.

Alan
There is not a word of vitriol in Mivart's Genesis of Species. Not one word. Mivart was ten times the biologist that Darwin was. So Was Alfred Russel Wallace which is why he had the sense to completely abandon the myth he helped as a naive young man to create. Stop trying to rewrite history,

John A. Davison

Hey, PT grew a favicon!

Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky were giants? Their respective books "Systematics and the Origin of Species" by Mayr and "Genetics and the Origin of Species" by Dobzhansky have done more to inhibit progress in evolutonary science than any other two books in the history of biology.

Air bear

Yes. As a friend of mine once said - prexactly. The battle for how man is to regard his position in the universe has always been between the forces of good and those of evil. Except for Dobzhansky, for whom I have respect, I would regard Mayr, Gould and Dawkins as demonstrable instruments of the devil. Wouldn't everyone?

Incidentally folks, in the interest of accuracy it was the small g that I was referring to and used when I pointed out that it was Galileo, not Newton, who discovered gravity.

John A. Davison

"I would regard Mayr, Gould and Dawkins as demonstrable instruments of the devil. Wouldn't everyone?"

there goes that whacky monkey again, flingin' his crap at visitors.

naughty monkey!

I'm changing my mind, and thinking it's about time to put you down, to stop your suffering.

to the moderator of the Bathroom Wall: my opinion is that Davison's post 30878 above is beyond the bounds of what is appropriate for a variety of reasons. I have suggested several times (this is just my opinion) that banning him for a while would be good for both him and us - a moratorium, at least, on this useless and unending banter.

I second that, because he is not just worthless, he is reducing the value of the Bathroom Wall. I used to read it, because people would post interesting off-topic comments. When it's flooded with JAD crap, i usually won't.

Also, I would ban Charlie Wagner, for his sake. Maybe he could do something valuable, if he couldn't post Nelson's Flaw another fifteen thousand times.

Is it not technically feasible to limit JAD to a sparate wall, say, The World according to JAD, and anyone who wishes can visit? Lack of censorship still gives you the moral advantage over the ID blogsites.

Alan

I have always been confined in a separate cell right along with Leo Berg, Pierre Grasse, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Otto Schindewolf, William Bateson, Robert Broom and all the other critics of the Darwimpian hoax. This is nothing new.

After all, this is the only place my drivel ever appears. Isn't it sufficient that I am not allowed to play with the big dogs? Do they have to threaten me with banishment in order to satisy their blood lust for my demise? So it would seem. If they ban me it will only reflect on Panda's Thumb by proving that there is no room for dissent in this forum, just as there was none at EvC, "brainstorms", FringeSciences and Uncommon Descent; can you even imagine such a title?. That is much worse than Panda's Thumb. I would think that PT would recognize an ally in me when I am dead set against the Fundies. Apparently not. I am an evolutionist through and through. If that is not sufficient to permit my particpation at Panda's Thumb, I say the hell with Panda's Thumb.

How do you like them Belgian waffles?

John A. Davison

John, you're a creationist through and through. You're no ally of anyone except other creationists. Like 15-year-old-Paul, you choose superstition over science. Unlike 15-year-old-Paul, you lack the excuse of ignorance.

Of course I am a creationist. Why isn't everyone is the question I ask. I am no ally of creationists like Dilliam Wembski who can title his pathetic little blog "Uncommon Descent" that is for sure. He, in so doing, denies reproductive continuity which is the sine qua non of evolution. Your pathetic attempt to pigeon hole me with fundamentalists like Wembski is just one more manifestation of the stupid polarization that still exists. I have no respect for either camp in this stupid little pissing contest that continues to plague the evolution scene. Both factions are totally full of it. The truth lies elsewhere and I think I know where. I have published where that is. Read it and weep or keep on bitching and denigrating. I couldn't care less.

If I were an ally of Dilliam Wembski do you think he would have banned me? He knows I have his number and he has proved it. That is good enough for me. I learn fast and always have. The Fundies hate my guts just as much as you Darwimps do and for the same reason. They're scared to death of me and all my sources, that why. Keep on insulting me. It stimulates me in direct proportion as it reveals you. What more can a man want?

How do you like them Elephant garlics?

John A. Davison

As a layman, without more than a love of science and all that it can prove, I for one would love to see a serious peer-review of JAD's published material.

Until such time, we will never really know just how crack potty he is or isn't.

Having said that, I do find his tone both annoying and condescending. I'm guess someone like him probably has some familiarity with the term "swirlie".

Comment #31019 Posted by John A. Davison on May 19, 2005 03:55 AM (e) (s) [...] If they ban me it will only reflect on Panda's Thumb by proving that there is no room for dissent in this forum [...]

Ban the monkey.

Davison:
not to be harsh, but has it dawned on you that the reason you were banned by "serious" (or pretending to be serious) ID sites, and are somewhat tolerated here, may be that you are an embarassment to ID? You are good to them when you add your name and title to one of their "scientist" lists because you lend them credibility, but as soon as you run your mouth, that credibility is lost.

Like everyone else, I find you annoying, arrogant and unhinged, but I'd love to keep you here, especially if people refrained from trying to engage in rational conversation with you. You remind me of Zio Teo in Fellini's Amarcord, shouting from the top of a tree. I hope they don't ban you, but it's a close call at this point.

If I understand the argument of Prof. JA Davison, there was one act of creation and since then the world had been running down. In case of the living creatures, the system have been losing species as they are extinguished one by one, and it had just enough steam to arrive to intelligent beings. He repeatedly poses the question: Arent we all creationists?

I am sure I have been missing something essencial or misinterpreting him, because the above doesnt make sense. New species are being created all the time, spontaneously in the nature as changes in ecology open up new niches (such as creation of lakes in Africa and the opening of the Panama and Suez canals) or artifically, such as domestication of animals like the dog (which for me is a new species and not a wolf), cats, cows, goldfish, etc. and plants, such as maize and wheat and tulips. The Japanese nylon eating bacteria is something new that changed its metabolism to feed on a new synthetic material. The process of change is accelerating, as genetic engineering is creating new species every week, species that cannot breed with natural species and are necessarily classified as new species. Even DNA has been modified and new synthetic bases added to the natural four, and the new kingdom of organisms so created cannot reproduce except among themselves, and if left alone, they will surely evolve to create new species. I cannot see the hand of a designer in anything, not even in the startup of the universe. Not that I would not like to, but intellectual honesty prevents me from imagining things. As I stated at the beginning, probably I misunderstood Prof. Davison, and would thank him to correct me and state his argument in a way that even me can understand it.

Time for a competition: how out of date is JAD's thinking?

I have shown him to be completely ignorant of the meaning of chance and randomness as used by science since at least 1877, by the tiresome expedient of gathering evidence, can anyone find him flogging some even older error/mistake/misunderstanding?

Also, perhaps we need a dictionary of JAD-speak.

How about this entry:

JERK: noun: (1) someone who shows JAD up to be a purveyor of bull**** in a field in which he has no expertise; (b)someone who knows more than JAD about some field that JAD needs in support of his absurdities and who therefore must be trivialized lest someone with an open mind notice and deduce that JAD is bull*****ing.

Science progresses funeral by funeral.

Anyone interested in taking up Bill Rubinstein's challenge?

See http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000427.php

and scroll to the end.

Yeah, that last comment pretty much indicts him as a complete crank.

hmm. it's pretty strict...

in 10 years from NOW...

limited to field experiments only (for reasons unkown)...

even with that, it shouldn't be too hard. Just find some species that are on the verge of being defined as having diverged into seperate species already.

I wonder if Rubinstein ever bothered to look at the literature on this subject to begin with, and could see all the examples of speciation that have happened within the last 50 years or so.

Just find some species that are on the verge of being defined as having diverged into seperate species already.

— Sir_Toejam

well, if you utlize IDiots as a selective factor in making me rip my hair out with their ridiculous arguments, and if you consider random clumps of hair as a seperate species, then sure, I'm "diverging" from myself.

other than that... WTF are you talking about?

Do you think you any better than IDiots? You are even worse, you must be mental retarded.

Apologies to all genuine contributors for language on previous wall. I let myself get away. I stand by the basic sentiment though. Congrats to the maintenance team for elegant solution.

Rustopher.

Based on JAD's latest posts in his new forum, i think they could have more aptly named it:

Davison's rubber room.

what you wrote was tea and sugar compared to Davison's vitriol.

Even that is nothing compared to some of the previous things i have seen Wayne Francis quote JAD as saying before I ever arrived.

I promised i wouldn't tornment the monkey anymore... he blew a gasket today after i asked him some simple questions.

but i have an idea.

I think JAD's cave should be treated like a magic 8-ball.

go in with random questions and see what kind of responses you get when you shake the magic 8-ball.

I'm glad JAD is gone. This place can get back to being a good repository of interesting offtopic items.

If you guys haven't seen this, check it out. You'll lose what little respect you had for Dumbski. H. Allen Orr reviews Bill's book:

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR27.3/orr.html

I'm going to jump in here OT:

I need an example of religions worshiping different Gods, not THE God. You know, the Christian God. In other words, I have a friend who is of hte Ba'hai faith which claims that everyone religion worships the SAME God and all religions have the same roots. I find this not only difficult to believe but ignorant.

Thanks,

tytlal

hmm. you might look into what came before here in the US.

Check out god worship in native american cultures. I think you might find it a quite interesting exploration into comparative religious thought.

Did you know that the Iroquois has a fully developed democracy long before Europeans showed up in North America?

What god(s) did they worship? It shouldn't be too hard for you to track this down.

I think what you will find is that all religions that are monotheist assume the worship of a god figure must be based essentially on the same god. it is a logical extension of a monotheistic belief system.

for example, if i say i believe that there is only one god, and you say you have a different religion that also believes in only one god, for my beleif system to work, i have to assume that my god and your god must in fact be one and the same... since there is only one god.

I don't see this as ignorance, more than i see it as interpretation.

Very much like interpretations of biblical accounts spouted by creationists, in fact.

I have a friend who is of hte Ba'hai faith which claims that everyone religion worships the SAME God and all religions have the same roots. I find this not only difficult to believe but ignorant.

How can you tell the difference between Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy just pretending to be Santa Claus.

How can you tell the difference between Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy just pretending to be Santa Claus.

(this post inspired by GWW ;-) )

When I get a decent job after graduation in 6 weeks, I pledge a donation to the server kitty. double-posting sucks.

How the monotheistic religions interpret the same God is where the fun begins. If Religion A says that the path to God is "that way" and Religion B says the path to God is "this way", then one of the religions must be wrong - not necessarily that there isn't a God.

Somehow this reminds me of the Dire Straits song Industrial Disease - "two men say they are Jesus, one of them must be wrong".

Who cares? Last time I checked this is The Bathroom Wall. Thanks for playing though :)

Why would God assume different identities to different cultures? Why "10 Commandments" to one and silence to another? Clearly, this is a delimma created by humans and not a so-called God.

Question - how does one communicate with somebody who insists that species don't share any DNA, and uses the differences in number of chromosomes in different species to "justify" said claim?

Henry

"Clearly, this is a delimma created by humans and not a so-called God."

bingo.

"Question - how does one communicate with somebody who insists that species don't share any DNA, and uses the differences in number of chromosomes in different species to "justify" said claim?"

I suggest you drink heavily before trying. that should help.

on a more useful note...

you might try reversing that person's argument... show them the mechanisms that can lead to variations in the number of chromosomes to begin with, and how that actually might lead to a new species in and of itself.

How do you communicate with someone who says that two species sharing 98% of their DNA aren't necessarily related?

IIRC, plant chromosal anomalies might be a good thing to include in the discussion.

here's a start:

http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e12/12a.htm

"How do you communicate with someone who says that two species sharing 98% of their DNA aren't necessarily related?"

??

is this the same person "who insists that species don't share any DNA"

??

if so, yikes. I'd say communication is pointless in that case, and you should proceed to the heavy drinking mentioned earlier.

btw, the chromosomal number argument can work both ways.

there are plenty of species (including humans) that can have different numbers of chomosomes under certain circumstances. Are they now different species because of the change in chromosome number?

Over time, a stable chromosal number variant can lead to a new species, but it doesn't define one to begin with.

here is a different overview of polyploidy and speciation in botanicals:

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Polyploidy.html

Re "How do you communicate with someone who says that two species sharing 98% of their DNA aren't necessarily related?"

At least that person is aware of the results of the DNA comparison.

Re "is this the same person "who insists that species don't share any DNA""

Doubt it - unlikely that steve would have been talking (or exchanging online replies) with the same person I was. Btw, The no-shared-dna argument was on a BB forum. But how anybody can claim that common ancestry wouldn't imply some shared DNA is totally beyond me. My best guess is he was copying arguments from somewhere and wasn't actually thinking through what the material said, but that's just a guess.

Henry

"Doubt it - unlikely that steve would have been talking (or exchanging online replies) with the same person I was."

ah, yes, the question was so similar in phrasing i didn't notice the questioner had changed. sorry 'bout that.

i was already working on my heavy drinking strategy.

;)

" wasn't actually thinking through what the material said"

... kinda goes without saying, doesn't it?

Henry J.,

This paper describes three species of toadfish that each have a diploid complement of 46 chromosomes, just like humans.

Clearly, humans are toadfish. QED.

;-)

Today's Cincinnati Enquirer has a big feature on AiG's creation "museum", including pics of some of the displays.

See Ministry uses dinosaurs to dispute evolution

What people are saying about Ken Ham, the Creation Museum and creationism

Massive museum based on ministry

Differing beliefs (which includes a pic of a dinosaur with a saddle on its back, my favourite pic of the bunch)

Dinos with saddles. Jesus, what a bunch of retards. Reminds me of the SNL line:

"Officials in Georgia have mandated that schools continue to use the word evolution when teaching science. However, as a compromise, dinosaurs are now called Jesus Horses."

In the time honored tradition of creationist quote mining, we bring you this from "Massive museum based on ministry:"

"'We want to make this very family-oriented. This is not a... science museum,' says Mark Looy, vice president of outreach for Answers in Genesis"

A national embarrassment. I'm ashamed to be an american.

How do you communicate with someone who says that two species sharing 98% of their DNA aren't necessarily related?

— steve

Cincinnati Enquirer on Ken Ham:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050522/NEWS01/505220367

Steve, if your link was supposed to convince me that Ham honestly believes what he preaches, it doesn't. AIG may criticize the Discovery Institute for not being pro-YEC enough. But they may just disagree with the strategy to "save souls" (note how the article begins). Not to sound too cynical, but AIG may wisely note that the big tent strategy is ultimately risky, even though it currently appears to be more successful - even at maintaining YEC - than a direct YEC sell. Sooner or later, though, as more people start thinking to ask "what happened and when" the ID bubble will burst.

AIG and DI may disagree on the sales strategy, but they both seem to know that they are selling snake oil. And snake oil salesmen tend not to use the stuff.

"Differing beliefs (which includes a pic of a dinosaur with a saddle on its back, my favourite pic of the bunch)"

i think maybe Ken Ham watched one too many episodes of "the Flintstones" when he was a kid.

I'll be interested to know how the Panda's Thumb apologists attempt to explain that one away, given that it cuts the legs out from under their insistence on the impartiality of science and supports every doubt that evolutionary skeptics have had about evolutionary apologists for decades.

uh, all lewontin is saying is that science, by definition, is only able to test things in the measurable world, and the foibles of individuals within science itself doesn't change the way science works.

pretty simple, really.

it's the assumption of "apologetics" on the part of Day that people should be asking for an explanation of. Lewontin's statement was a bit roundabout, but uninteresting for all that.

test

I am later joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts. All in all, he seemed to me excentric and fueled by a burning desire to pick up a fight with anybody reminding him of his former enemies. His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable. That evolution has ended, another of his statements, seems a priori wrong, but nothing to hang a person for. Publishing manifests is highly unusual for scientists, but I am a tolerant person by nature. He seems to me one of those persons who actually makes an effort to be provocative and be barred, so they can enjoy the position of unjustly wronged and say no one understands them and all are idiots.

May I be permitted metaphors, Argentine whorehouses used to maintain a house homosexual, to enliven the normally boring environment. Also royal courts used to employ court jesters who were never punished for making fun of the presents or saying things that no one felt as saying.

I am later joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts. All in all, he seemed to me excentric and fueled by a burning desire to pick up a fight with anybody reminding him of his former enemies. His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable. That evolution has ended, another of his statements, seems a priori wrong, but nothing to hang a person for. Publishing manifests is highly unusual for scientists, but I am a tolerant person by nature. He seems to me one of those persons who actually makes an effort to be provocative and be barred, so they can enjoy the position of unjustly wronged and say no one understands them and all are idiots.

May I be permitted metaphors, Argentine whorehouses used to maintain a house homosexual, to enliven the normally boring environment. Also royal courts used to employ court jesters who were never punished for making fun of the presents or saying things that no one felt as saying.

I am later joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts. All in all, he seemed to me excentric and fueled by a burning desire to pick up a fight with anybody reminding him of his former enemies. His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable. That evolution has ended, another of his statements, seems a priori wrong, but nothing to hang a person for. Publishing manifests is highly unusual for scientists, but I am a tolerant person by nature. He seems to me one of those persons who actually makes an effort to be provocative and be barred, so they can enjoy the position of unjustly wronged and say no one understands them and all are idiots.

May I be permitted metaphors, Argentine whorehouses used to maintain a house homosexual, to enliven the normally boring environment. Also royal courts used to employ court jesters who were never punished for making fun of the presents or saying things that no one felt as saying.

I am late joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts. All in all, he seemed to me excentric and fueled by a burning desire to pick up a fight with anybody reminding him of his former enemies. His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable. That evolution has ended, another of his statements, seems a priori wrong, but nothing to hang a man for. Publishing manifests is highly unusual for scientists, but it does not bother me. He seems to me one of those persons who actually makes an effort to provoke and get thrown out, so they can enjoy the position of unjustly wronged and say they are all idiots.

May I be permitted metaphors, whorehouses in my home village used to maintain a house homosexual, to enliven the normally boring environment. Also royal courts used to employ court jesters who were never punished for making fun of the presents or saying things that no one felt as saying.

I am late joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts. All in all, he seemed to me excentric and fueled by a burning desire to pick up a fight with anybody reminding him of his former enemies. His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable. That evolution has ended, another of his statements, seems a priori wrong, but nothing to hang a man for. Publishing manifests is highly unusual for scientists, but it does not bother me. He seems to me one of those persons who actually makes an effort to provoke and get thrown out, so they can enjoy the position of unjustly wronged and say they are all idiots.

May I be permitted metaphors, whorehouses in my home village used to maintain an in-house homosexual, to enliven the normally boring environment. Also royal courts used to employ court jesters who were never punished for making fun of the presents or saying things that no one felt like saying.

A nice article on the Skeptical Inquirer web site for March 2005.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-03/evolution.html

Has JADs Forum been taken down?

Alan Semi-meiosis as an evolutionary mechanism,...I hope this helps to answer your question.

His proposal that meiotic rearrangements play a fundamental role in the creation of new species, is not looney at all. That natural selection tends to protect and conserve existing species, well, it may be conceivable.

Oops sorry. 31654 should have gone on Davison's Soapbox

I am late joiner of this forum and was just starting to get familiarized with Prof. Davison's ideas when he disappeared from here and cannot locate his whereabouts

To the Moderator: My computer is so slow that my comment was posted 4 or 5 times. Please erase the superfluous ones and this comment too. Thanks.

The first fossil of a sleeping non-avian dinosaur has been described by a pair of American Museum of Natural History paleontologists. The small bird-like dinosaur is preserved in a remarkable life-like pose, with its head tucked between its forearm and trunk with its tail encircling its body. The pose matches the typical sleeping or resting posture found in living birds and thereby supports the already established evolutionary connection between extinct dinosaurs and modern birds (which are living dinosaurs) and the occurrence of bird-like features in early dinosaurian evolution. It also supports the hypothesis that non-avian dinosaurs, like the modern birds that evolved after them, were warm-blooded.

H. Allen Orr wrote such a damning review of Dembski's NFL, it must make FL and Sancho P. Cordova cry themselves to sleep at night.

Well, he's back, with an enormous new article on ID for the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact

As it happens, David Wolpert, one of the authors of the N.F.L. theorems, recently denounced Dembski's use of those theorems as "fatally informal and imprecise." Dembski's apparent response has been a tactical retreat. In 2002, Dembski triumphantly proclaimed, "The No Free Lunch theorems dash any hope of generating specified complexity via evolutionary algorithms." Now he says, "I certainly never argued that the N.F.L. theorems provide a direct refutation of Darwinism."

President Bush encouraged Frist and conservative Republicans in the Senate to push ahead with the 'nuclear option.' Bush emphasized that he wanted 'his type' of judges on the federal bench which is the real reason behind this fight over Senate rules.

breaking news on the filibuster issue:

just now (5 pm PST), the moderates in the Senate announced a deal to remove the "nuclear option" from the table.

the details of the deal haven't been published yet, but it appears there might be some hope for moderacy after all.

Again - has JADs Soapbox been taken down? If not, how does one access it? I can't find a link.

BTW, do you guys know about the ReDiscovery Institute?

http://www.re-discovery.org/

"Again - has JADs Soapbox been taken down? If not, how does one access it? I can't find a link."

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001050.html

By the way Sir T

You were so right

Re "has JADs Soapbox been taken down? If not, how does one access it? I can't find a link."
For the moment there's still a link from the main page, but a few more days and it'll fall off the bottom of the page. Another question is what happens when that thread gets too big for JAD's browser - we know he's had trouble with long threads before.

Henry

@alan:

perhaps, but it seems that everyone has to find out about JAD for themselves.

cheers

"BTW, do you guys know about the ReDiscovery Institute?

http://www.re-discovery.org/ . . . "

yes... did you have some comments on it you would like to share?

Not sure if this has been mentioned on here yet but The Foundation for Thought and Ethics, the publishers of the pro-ID textbook 'Of Pandas and People', want to get involved in the Dover case according to this article. It seems as though they are afraid that the Dover lawsuit could harm sales of 'Pandas and People' and hurt their financial interests; especially when the plaintiffs expose just how poorly written the book is.

Re "It seems as though they are afraid that the Dover lawsuit could harm sales of 'Pandas and People' and hurt their financial interests;"

Oh gee whiz. ROFL.

Henry

Some believers get the science close to correct . . .

From the DeJong Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center named after my ancestor, Franklin Stewart Harris, a lecture at Brigham Young University on insects and evolution. This is from a BYU pubication, so it's laced with references to Mormon scripture and the Bible:

http://nn.byu.edu/story.cfm/55646

FYI

@ Sir_Toejam 31850

I was trying to follow the scientific method and testing your evidence for repeatability.

I'm still mildly curious as to whether JAD ever gave a coherent definition of semi-meiosis. In fact was he ever coherent?

Mustafa Akyol, one of the pro-ID people who testified at the Kansas kangaroo court, has this opinion piece published at Tech Central Station; in case anybody wants to take it apart, embrace it, be at one with it, etc.

A new supercomputing cluster designed for the phylogenetic research community has been installed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The Cluster, a 16 node, 8-way Fusion A8 by Western Scientific, features a total of 128 Opteron processors each with 4 GB memory, for a total of 0.5 TB memory. The cluster was purchased with a grant from the National Science Foundation in support of the CyberInfrastructure for Phylogenetic Research project, a collaboration of biologists, computer scientists, statisticians and mathematicians at 19 institutions whose goal is to understand the evolutionary relationships between all living organisms.

A team of scientists, led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has discovered an active underwater volcano near the Samoan Island chain. During a research cruise to study the Samoan hot spot, scientists uncovered a submarine volcano growing in the summit crater of another larger underwater volcano, Vailulu'u. Researchers explored the unique biological community surrounding the eruption site, and were amazed to find an "Eel City," a community of hundreds of slithering eels.

"In fact was he ever coherent?"

not that i saw. However, his publications prior to 1984 suggest he was at least at that time.

I just had another "discussion" with the office's resident YEC fund-oid.

I was talking about Pagan stuff (bunk, the lot of it) and he started in on it in a sort of "One persons faith is trash and mine is golden" kinda thing. Saying that there is scientific evidence for Biblical events. (Flood geology, anyone?)

Well, sure there's evidence that Jesus lived, there's certainly a middle eastern culture with a history in the Bible... no question.

This brought me to the "Creator as Deceiver" argument. I mentioned that its funny how folks could believe the universe was so young when investigation overwelmingly shows otherwise. I suggested that literal interpretations of the Bible may be the misleading "evidence" in the case of the universe's age.

"Those investigations are conducted by humans with human-made instruments."

Oh... so when those instruments show Christ was real, they're good science, when they suggest the local preacher has his head up his ass, its bad science.

I love my job.

Jeff,

Exactly!...You bring up the major hyprocrisy of Creationist.

When science and researched are in the name of medical research and used to save lives its all "good".

When science and research are used to support Evolution, it's all God-less crackpottery.