Stephen Meyer needs your help

Well my suggestion would be that he explain why the "explosion" happened hundreds of millions of years ago and why it took millions of years to happen. That should make the YECs very happy. I would also suggest that he explain why there were no vertebrates of any kind produced by the "explosion" until millions of years later. No fish, no amphibians, no reptiles, no birds, no mammals, such some basal chordates. Why is that?

I'm not sure why they are speaking so triumphantly. So little of the internal anatomy of the Ediacaran macrofossils (not to speak of cellular and subcellular structure) is preserved that much of the interpretation must rest on assumptions. Is this the kind of evidence they want to rest their faith in God on?

What is the alternate view of the origin of the Cambrian animals? Does Meyer say that God came down and made all the critters in one fell swoop?

See the thing is that once you start using the fossil record to argue from, which is the only evidence for the so called cambrian explosion, then you are forced into admitting that the record is exactly what one would expect if evolution were true. It is exactly what one would not expect if creationism of any sort were true. So the only way you can make it work is to lie and misrepresent and that isn't gong to fool anyone who knows anything. And you don't need to look at the fossil record at all to fool people who know nothing, so what's the point? Is he that desperate to try to appear scientific?

So, is Stephen Meyer going to explain how Intelligent Design is relevant, I mean vital to understanding the origins and morphologies of Late Precambrian and Early Paleozoic organisms? A magic trick never successfully produced by any anti-evolutionist ever?

I think we ought to mention the recent research that shows the Cambrian "explosion" really wasn't any more significant than any other period of Earth's history.

I would also REALLY like to see an explanation of where the "intelligence" requirement is in all the Intelligent Design work. Is human level intelligence enough? Is termite level intelligence enough (Hi JoeG!)? Is only supernatural deity level intelligence enough?

Since termites can create highly complex structures are they equivalent to god... I mean, the Designer?

Finally, I'd like a brief description of the last few dozen "game-changing", "Darwin killing", "paradigm altering" books and papers... and why they actually didn't change the game, kill Darwin, or alter the paradigm of science.

But I guess an honest discussion of the topic would be too much. The point is to make money off the rubes, not actually do anything useful.

Let's see, Dembski actually wrote a book named The Design Revolution which was published in 2004.

Yet "a revolution is on the horizon."

Yep, it's happened, it's happening, and it is yet to happen. Typical IDiot logic.

Glen Davidson

DS: The Cambrian explosion did produce vertebrates, or so it appears. Haikouichthys, for example. What you mean is that none of the vertebrate taxa more familiar to us -- sharks, bony fish, tetrapods, etc. -- arose then. Not to mention plants, which all came later.

Ogremk5: What recent research, exactly?

I'd like to see Meyer's theory about what the explosion was, rather than what it wasn't. And then I'd like to see a proposed test for that theory. Is he claiming fiat creation, or is the unnamed designer supposed to have done a few tweaks then?

DS said: Well my suggestion would be that he explain why the "explosion" happened hundreds of millions of years ago and why it took millions of years to happen. That should make the YECs very happy. I would also suggest that he explain why there were no vertebrates of any kind produced by the "explosion" until millions of years later. No fish, no amphibians, no reptiles, no birds, no mammals, such some basal chordates. Why is that?

Karen S. said: What is the alternate view of the origin of the Cambrian animals? Does Meyer say that God came down and made all the critters in one fell swoop?

I think it would help for Meyer to tell us why life appears in, say, such an evolutionary manner, with prokaryotes evident first, then eukaryotes, and "coincidentally," the "Cambrian Explosion" occurring after titanically great geologic changes. You know, as adaptive radiations often do.

Oh yeah, I'd like the design explanation for the "Ediacaran Explosion" that came prior to the "Cambrian Explosion." I'm sure that it makes design perfect sense to come up with a whole set of organisms, then to wipe them out with few or no descendants. I'm also eager to hear why a number of Cambrian phyla also appeared, only to go extinct shortly thereafter. Designer lost the blueprints? Why don't we see, for instance, pterosaurs being remade, same problem with record-keeping?

May as well explain the appearance of later phyla as well, Steve. You know, because intelligent design has endless resources for explanation, like "God did it," "Jesus did it," and, "the Designer did it."

And tell us why all of life--including phyla that appeared in the Cambrian--is so extremely derivative, as it must be with known evolutionary mechanisms, and which makes no sense at all from a design standpoint.

You know, if he answers all of those explanations meaningfully, that is, with reference to known design possibilities existing at that time, it will be revolutionary. Otherwise, well, it'll be the same old dreck.

Glen Davidson

Why does extinction happen? Is it related to the Fall...?

John Harshman said: DS: The Cambrian explosion did produce vertebrates, or so it appears. Haikouichthys, for example. What you mean is that none of the vertebrate taxa more familiar to us -- sharks, bony fish, tetrapods, etc. -- arose then. Not to mention plants, which all came later.

I'd like to see Meyer's theory about what the explosion was, rather than what it wasn't. And then I'd like to see a proposed test for that theory. Is he claiming fiat creation, or is the unnamed designer supposed to have done a few tweaks then?

Dr. Meyer stands on the verge of turning the evolution debate in an entirely new direction, compelling critics of the theory of intelligent design, at last, to respond substantively and [in] detail. The book will be a game-changer, for science and culture alike.

William Dembski: At the Fourth World Skeptics Conference, held on June 20–23, 2002 in Burbank, California, he told the audience that "over the next twenty-five years ID will provide the greatest challenge to skepticism". He asserted that "ID is threatening to be mainstream",

Matt G said: Why does extinction happen? Is it related to the Fall...?

raven said: (The ID creationists) don't pay any attention to reality or facts.

apokryltaros said:

Matt G said: Why does extinction happen? Is it related to the Fall...?

Possibly: This one creationist tried to poopoo the significance and discovery of the "pregnant placoderm," Materpiscis by dismissing the fossil through claiming that her species was deliberately obliterated by God during the Flood as a part of the "just" punishment of human sin.

John, Here's the stuff I'm basing my thoughts on.

http://rogov.zwz.ru/Macroevolution/butterfield2007.pdf
MACROEVOLUTION AND MACROECOLOGY THROUGH DEEP TIME

Butterfield looks at the ecosystem stability and the morphological disparity of the last 1.6 billion years. Disparity is determined from variety of cell types. According to this, the actual 'explosion' was in the Ediacaran (including the Tommotian of the Cambrian). The actual Cambrian time period wasn't that different from the rest of the Phanerozoic.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2006.00611.x/pdf
AUTECOLOGY AND THE FILLING OF ECOSPACE: KEY METAZOAN RADIATIONS

This paper is basing diversity on modes of life, rather than cell types. From this point of view, the Ediacaran has the lowest rate of appearance of unique modes. The Cambrian is a little better, but the post Cambrian eras seem to have greater development of various modes of life.

I'll freely admit I am probably wrong about this and a lot of depends on how you define diversity. While the Cambrian is, paleontologically, obviously explosive, I think that missing a lot of the soft-bodied Ediacaran stuff may be over-reporting the diversity explosion in the Cambrian.

Hope that helps. Useful criticism appreciated.

DavidK said:

Karen S. said: What is the alternate view of the origin of the Cambrian animals? Does Meyer say that God came down and made all the critters in one fell swoop?

In not so many words, that's precisely what Meyer is saying, though if he explicitly states that he exposes his creationist ties and the game is over. I think all of their books borrow and rehash arguments from one another, e.g., Dembski's "The Design Revolution." But throughout this whole mess again as someone pointed out they never have to explain their position, only to attack the biological premise and evidence.

apokryltaros said:

raven said: (The ID creationists) don't pay any attention to reality or facts.

With the sole exception when reality and facts collude together to result in jail time and or career-destroying bankruptcy for ID creationists.

Honestly-have the book fact-checked by scientific professionals in the field(s) the book will cover. The validity of his arguments aside, Meyer's earlier book Signature in the Cell was riddled with errors. Steve Matheson pointed out many in his review, and as someone who works on RNA world research, I found Meyer's treatment of that subject particularly bad. These errors range from the trivial but embarrassing-many of Meyer's literature citations are incorrect, he routinely confuses nucleotides, nucleosides, and the nitrogenous bases- to significantly questioning his understanding of the subject matter- Meyer claims the peptidyl transferase center of the ribosome is a protein, that the ribosome itself is mostly protein, that proteins can fold into more complex shapes than RNA because amino acids can be hydrophobic or hydrophilic while RNA bases are only hydrophilic, etc. It seems like most of these could have been avoided by having a scientist review his manuscript, though admittedly, correcting some of these errors (like those regarding junk DNA or the ribosome) would weaken his main arguments. Still avoiding the blatent misstatement of facts would probably get a few more scientists to respond as "substantively" as he desires rather than as dismissively as SitC deserved.

I'd like to see a serious explanation of what was so "explosive" about the Cambrian explosion. It lasted about 50 million years. That's a long time for purposes of evolutionary change.

If the typical creature living during the Cambrian required a full year between generations, they had time for 50 million generations. In all likelihood, reproduction for the simple creatures then alive took much less than a day, possibly only an hour, so there were literally billions of generations during that “explosion.”

That's plenty of time for a whole lot of “micro” evolution to occur, and the cumulative effect of billions of generations was sufficient for all that “micro” evolution to become “macro” evolution.

ogremk5 said: John, Here's the stuff I'm basing my thoughts on. http://rogov.zwz.ru/Macroevolution/butterfield2007.pdf MACROEVOLUTION AND MACROECOLOGY THROUGH DEEP TIME Butterfield looks at the ecosystem stability and the morphological disparity of the last 1.6 billion years. Disparity is determined from variety of cell types. According to this, the actual 'explosion' was in the Ediacaran (including the Tommotian of the Cambrian). The actual Cambrian time period wasn't that different from the rest of the Phanerozoic. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2006.00611.x/pdf AUTECOLOGY AND THE FILLING OF ECOSPACE: KEY METAZOAN RADIATIONS This paper is basing diversity on modes of life, rather than cell types. From this point of view, the Ediacaran has the lowest rate of appearance of unique modes. The Cambrian is a little better, but the post Cambrian eras seem to have greater development of various modes of life. I'll freely admit I am probably wrong about this and a lot of depends on how you define diversity. While the Cambrian is, paleontologically, obviously explosive, I think that missing a lot of the soft-bodied Ediacaran stuff may be over-reporting the diversity explosion in the Cambrian. Hope that helps. Useful criticism appreciated.

Hello Andrew, Thanks for your interest. I hold the Discovery Institute in the lowest regard, and it sounds like the new book will be a further perversion of reason in the name of pseudoscience. As a science educator, I could never support such an effort! I will not grant reproduction rights to any of my photos or drawings to any creationist effort such as the one you describe here. Best wishes for your good health, and the speedy demise of the sham institution that employs you. Callan Bentley

I can't think of better advice than what we learned in our high-school lessons on descriptive writing, the six W's. Describe the who, what, where, when, why and how of intelligent design.

It would be nice if there were a description of what happened during the design of (for example) the vertebrate eye, when and where that happened, something about the designer(s) who did that design (how many of them, what traits they have that influenced their design motivations and methods), how they used (or went beyond) the laws of nature and the materials they were given to work with, and something about why they resorted to design (rather than natural processes) at that time (rather than making the animals the right way from scratch).

First thing he should do is change the title, it's Meyer's doubt, not Darwin's.

Second, if he really wants to "explain" the cambrian "explosion", the correct explanation is to be found in evolutionary development and the evolution of hox genes, CREs and GRNs. I will not hold my breath waiting for a detailed discussion of these topics. It is obvious that he isn't qualified to address them.

SensuousCurmudgeon said: I'd like to see a serious explanation of what was so "explosive" about the Cambrian explosion. It lasted about 50 million years. That's a long time for purposes of evolutionary change.

Complex Specified Information - Phlogiston
Compare and Contrast.

Starbuck said: I'm not sure why they are speaking so triumphantly.

Even though the book is not yet released, we're already discussing it on its Amazon page - see http://www.amazon.com/this-book-listed-under-science/forum/Fx1VFQ40OHPGGV3/Tx35KPOH7C0XY4A/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_tp_cq?_encoding=UTF8&asin=0062071475 - "Why is this book listed under science?"

Golfball said:

apokryltaros said:

raven said: (The ID creationists) don't pay any attention to reality or facts.

With the sole exception when reality and facts collude together to result in jail time and or career-destroying bankruptcy for ID creationists.

Which IDiot(s) got jail time? (The CLM, no argument there. I just didn't remember about any IDiots getting a spell in the big house.)

EvoDevo said:

Golfball said:

apokryltaros said:

raven said: (The ID creationists) don't pay any attention to reality or facts.

With the sole exception when reality and facts collude together to result in jail time and or career-destroying bankruptcy for ID creationists.

Which IDiot(s) got jail time? (The CLM, no argument there. I just didn't remember about any IDiots getting a spell in the big house.)

Hovind, Kent.

EvoDevo said:

Golfball said: Which IDiot(s) got jail time?

Hovind, Kent.

Paul Burnett said: Hovind isn't an intelligent design creationist - he's a young earth creationist. We need a scorecard to differentiate the IDiots from the idiots.

More power to ID but this YEC creationist would stress to any book about the cambrian explosion the issue of evidence.
As I would insist to evolutionists the use of snapshots of creatures (fossils) is only biological description of these creatures at the time of the snapshot.
All other connections from creatures before or after is speculation.
The fossil record does not fossilize process NOR descent.
Yet both ID and evolutionists persuade themselves that these fossil assemblages are telling the tale on biological origins.
There is no biological scientific investigation going on in observing the fossil record.
Its entirely a issue of geology presumptions and anatomy presumptions of change based on the geology presumptions.
Even if true it still is not biological science research.
Without the common acceptance of time represented by strata there was no evolution or a failure of evolution.
YEC says these are just creatures killed 4500 years ago. No time to evolve or critize evolution.
There's a optical illusion going on here about using 'rocks' to explain biology.

I guess Kenneth -- er, Stephen -- has lots of time on his hands since "30 Rock" is over.

I can't believe all of the people who watch "movies." All they are is a series of snapshots that only tell a person about the scene at one specific time, and there's no excuse for putting them all together (digitally or analog, makes no difference) into a sequence that tricks the eye into seeing a progression of events.

The very idea of actually making sense of the world! No IDiot/cretinist would dream of doing so.

Glen Davidson

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: I can't believe all of the people who watch "movies." All they are is a series of snapshots that only tell a person about the scene at one specific time, and there's no excuse for putting them all together (digitally or analog, makes no difference) into a sequence that tricks the eye into seeing a progression of events. The very idea of actually making sense of the world! No IDiot/cretinist would dream of doing so. Glen Davidson

dphorning said: Honestly-have the book fact-checked by scientific professionals in the field(s) the book will cover. The validity of his arguments aside, Meyer's earlier book Signature in the Cell was riddled with errors. Steve Matheson pointed out many in his review, and as someone who works on RNA world research, I found Meyer's treatment of that subject particularly bad. These errors range from the trivial but embarrassing-many of Meyer's literature citations are incorrect, he routinely confuses nucleotides, nucleosides, and the nitrogenous bases- to significantly questioning his understanding of the subject matter- Meyer claims the peptidyl transferase center of the ribosome is a protein, that the ribosome itself is mostly protein, that proteins can fold into more complex shapes than RNA because amino acids can be hydrophobic or hydrophilic while RNA bases are only hydrophilic, etc. It seems like most of these could have been avoided by having a scientist review his manuscript, though admittedly, correcting some of these errors (like those regarding junk DNA or the ribosome) would weaken his main arguments. Still avoiding the blatent misstatement of facts would probably get a few more scientists to respond as "substantively" as he desires rather than as dismissively as SitC deserved.

Still avoiding the blatent misstatement of facts would probably get a few more scientists to respond as “substantively” as he desires rather than as dismissively as SitC deserved.

I can’t believe that they get DNA evidence from crime scenes. It is only a snapshot of who was there at one time. It certainly can’t have any value in a murder case. It’s not even biological!

It would be nice if he would honestly admit the actual evidence for evolution, while denying it, rather than denying some straw man construction.

But what would be really impressive would be some positive evidence for ID.

It would be revolutionary and paradigm changing for an establishment ID/creationist to answer any of these questions...

1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you, if present?

2) The Supreme Court ruled against the direct teaching of Biblical Young Earth Creationism as science in public schools; however, if that ruling were overturned, which would you support more, teaching of ID, or direct teaching of Bible-based YEC?

3) Do you think it is important for opponents of the theory of evolution to fully understand the theory of evolution? If so, can you explain it, and if not, can you explain why not?

4) Who is the designer? How can we test your answer?

5) What did that designer do? How can we test your answer?

6) How did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?

7) When did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?

8) What is an example of something that was not designed by the designer?

harold said: 1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you, if present?

John Harshman said:

Paul Burnett said: Hovind isn't an intelligent design creationist - he's a young earth creationist. We need a scorecard to differentiate the IDiots from the idiots.

Especially since some intelligent design creationists are also young earth creationists. It isn't actually a matter of factual disagreement but of sociological disagreement. IDers believe in the big tent (don't ask, don't tell), while Hovind-type YECs consider that a craven compromise with the enemy.

John Harshman said: DS: The Cambrian explosion did produce vertebrates, or so it appears. Haikouichthys, for example. What you mean is that none of the vertebrate taxa more familiar to us -- sharks, bony fish, tetrapods, etc. -- arose then. Not to mention plants, which all came later. Ogremk5: What recent research, exactly? I'd like to see Meyer's theory about what the explosion was, rather than what it wasn't. And then I'd like to see a proposed test for that theory. Is he claiming fiat creation, or is the unnamed designer supposed to have done a few tweaks then?

harold said: It would be nice if [Meyer] would honestly admit the actual evidence for evolution, while denying it, rather than denying some straw man construction.

Ray Martinez said:

John Harshman said:

Paul Burnett said: Hovind isn't an intelligent design creationist - he's a young earth creationist. We need a scorecard to differentiate the IDiots from the idiots.

Especially since some intelligent design creationists are also young earth creationists. It isn't actually a matter of factual disagreement but of sociological disagreement. IDers believe in the big tent (don't ask, don't tell), while Hovind-type YECs consider that a craven compromise with the enemy.

Yet Tony Pagano is both: a DI-IDist and a YEC, did you forget?

Doc Bill said:

Still avoiding the blatent misstatement of facts would probably get a few more scientists to respond as “substantively” as he desires rather than as dismissively as SitC deserved.

The IDiots don't care about science so addressing their bogus, disingenuous, BS "arguments" is futile. Behe still talks about the mousetrap as if it was a new idea. Dembski, who knows what he's doing - probably in charge of keeping the printer loaded with paper at the Diploma Mill he "works" at. And we have Meyer who is still flogging the Cambrian Nixplosion AGAIN (!) with the same info he flogged 20 years ago. My, the IDiots do get a lot of mileage on quite a thin gruel! The photo they wanted for their book was taken from the Walcott quarry looking down on Emerald Lake. I've been to both places but they didn't ask me for pictures! Ironic, isn't it, that the IDiots are all GaGa about the Burgess Shale but they've never gone to the site. Of course, that would take work. It's a 6-mile hike up 2500 feet to get to the quarry and takes all day, round trip. I don't argue with IDiots, I laugh at them. Yeah, Stevie, we're laughing AT you!

I would suggest that Mr. Luskin use the insights of Design Theory to tell us in simple terms and general strokes what was going on during the Cambrian Explosion. "Darwinists" can do that with their mechanisms of evolution to a degree, but it is obviously difficult for them (or so I hear). So I'm expecting the obviously superior Theory of Intelligent Design to do even better and give us more details.

I would suggest he avoid simply filling up a book with passages all basically saying, "Here's a Thing. How can Darwinists explain Thing? They cannot explain Thing!" What I want is the Design explanation of Thing. That's why I buy books; because I want to know what happened. I have never bought a book because I didn't want to know what happened. Yet that seems to be all that Design Proponents put out, which is why I don't buy them.

Of course, it might help drum up positive press (and therefore sales) to first publish one's findings from studying the Burgess Shale in a peer-reviewed journal. This can only help recruit even more researchers to the Design Paradigm, as they discovery its utility for solving real-world problems in paleontology. Riding this wave of academic goodwill and reviews, which can only help spill over into the mainstream press, the book is sure to shoot straight to the top of the NYT Bestseller list and stay there. Even Anthony Watts can get his name on a peer-reviewed paper these days, so it should be no big deal for the amassed brainpower and scientific prowess of the Discovery Institute, armed with a superior approach, to be primary author on a paper or two about the Cambrian Explosion prior to the publication of this pop-press book.

Right?

I would suggest that Mr. Luskin use the insights of Design Theory to tell us in simple terms and general strokes what was going on during the Cambrian Explosion.

DavidK said: I believe Meyer has his PhD in the Philosophy of Science, not any particular field of science, e.g., biology, physics, etc. So it's quite understandable how he, and his DI creationist colleagues, can blunder and bluster they way through this material. And it's very easy since the people who read their nonsense basically have no understanding of it to begin with, so it all sounds so impressive to them. That's also the primary reason why they talk to church groups who basically know nothing about the subject they're speaking of but are themselves supportive of creationism.

Thus, transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and in principle measurable) increases in specified complexity or information content.

He demonstrates that the weaknesses of orthodox evolutionary theory, when flipped over head-to-foot, are precisely the positive indications that point most persuasively to intelligent design. Evolutionary biologists studying gene regulatory networks and fossil discontinuity, among other fields, have come tantalizingly close to reaching this conclusion themselves.

Karen S. said:

I can’t believe that they get DNA evidence from crime scenes. It is only a snapshot of who was there at one time. It certainly can’t have any value in a murder case. It’s not even biological!

I can't believe all the people who look at animal remains and conclude not only that it was once alive, but that it even had ancestors!

Rolf said: I wonder what may be new since Meyer wrote extensively about the Cambrian ten years ago? PDF listed here

Thus, transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and in principle measurable) increases in specified complexity or information content.

Will measurements be presented in the new book? What’s new in ID research necessitating another book with that tired old incantation: Evolution is false therefore ID? Evolution News and Views:

He demonstrates that the weaknesses of orthodox evolutionary theory, when flipped over head-to-foot, are precisely the positive indications that point most persuasively to intelligent design. Evolutionary biologists studying gene regulatory networks and fossil discontinuity, among other fields, have come tantalizingly close to reaching this conclusion themselves.

With yet no new and exciting(!) ID research, all his pseudo-new book will be is just another turning the ToE upside down to recreate the old mantra “ToE is false, therefore poof.”

Exactly what does he think he can contribute by just criticizing the work of real scientists?

Karen S. said:

Exactly what does he think he can contribute by just criticizing the work of real scientists?

More criticism. That's what his fans want and expect. Why should he get his hands dirty doing real work?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/RdfV1YQJ1oSFPntEbv7Ug6z0.CM6DYqt6t6ZE0XxwYlRtQ--#ad533 said: I think the following paper by Stuart Newmman is very relevant to the problem of the Cambrian explosion: Physico-genetic determinants in the evolution of development: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23066074 "Animal bodies and the embryos that generate them exhibit an assortment of stereotypic morphological motifs that first appeared more than half a billion years ago.....I propose that the origins of animal development lay in the mobilization of physical organizational effects that resulted when certain gene products of single-celled ancestors came to operate on the spatial scale of multicellular aggregates." He doesn't claim that new "biochemical information" was introduced (after all microscopic nematodes have about 20,000 protein-coding genes), but that there was a revolution in the way genes were used to generate new morphological themes.

Karen S. said: What is the alternate view of the origin of the Cambrian animals? Does Meyer say that God came down and made all the critters in one fell swoop?

Ray Martinez said:

John Harshman said:

Paul Burnett said: Hovind isn't an intelligent design creationist - he's a young earth creationist. We need a scorecard to differentiate the IDiots from the idiots.

Especially since some intelligent design creationists are also young earth creationists. It isn't actually a matter of factual disagreement but of sociological disagreement. IDers believe in the big tent (don't ask, don't tell), while Hovind-type YECs consider that a craven compromise with the enemy.

Yet Tony Pagano is both: a DI-IDist and a YEC, did you forget?

From a 2004 interview: In response to this question, Dr. Dembski replied: "In the next five years, molecular Darwinism -- the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level -- will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years."

Not quite Steve Meyer, but please tell me this is real.

Supposedly, a California creationist is putting up a $10,000 reward for anyone who can scientifically disprove the biblical Genesis account.

The catch is that this time it's not the typical rigged jury and mobile goalposts. At first glance, this challenge seems to feature a neutral arbitrator and a trial-like setting where (one imagines) everyone is sworn in and nobody gets away with Gish-shit.

According to the article, the challenger has to pony up his own $10K to bring the challenge.

Let me be the first to offer to throw a Benjamin in to the pot.

Magic may work, at long last.

I mean, why not? Failing constantly for all of human history doesn't mean anything, does it?

Glen Davidson

DS said: Right. If he presents a calculation for the amount of "specified complexity" that would be new. He's had ten years to dos it, so if it can be done "in principle" what's the waiting for?

The release of this book could be the final nail in the coffin, the wooden stake that slays Darwin’s beastly idea once and for all?

According to the US National Academy of Sciences: evolution is “so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter” . ....

The release of this book could be the final nail in the coffin, the wooden stake that slays Darwin’s beastly idea once and for all?

apokryltaros said:

Karen S. said:

Exactly what does he think he can contribute by just criticizing the work of real scientists?

More criticism. That's what his fans want and expect. Why should he get his hands dirty doing real work?

Because dirtying his hands doing science is blasphemy according to the doctrine of Creationism Intelligent Design.

The various explosions can be explained easily by analogy to the explosion of dog breeds over the last 200 years. The latter reflects an explosion of dog breeders. By analogy the Cambrian explosion is explicable by an explosion of designers. Later explosions are easily explicable by explosions of better designers.

stevaroni said: Not quite Steve Meyer, but please tell me this is real. Supposedly, a California creationist is putting up a $10,000 reward for anyone who can scientifically disprove the biblical Genesis account.

The catch is that this time it's not the typical rigged jury and mobile goalposts. At first glance, this challenge seems to feature a neutral arbitrator and a trial-like setting where (one imagines) everyone is sworn in and nobody gets away with Gish-shit.

RULES FOR THE LIFE SCIENCE PRIZE MINI-TRIAL

1. The evolutionist puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
2. The creationist, Joseph Mastropaolo, puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
3. If the evolutionist proves evolution is science and creation is religion, then the evolutionist is awarded the $20,000.
4. If the creationist proves creation is science and evolution is religion, then the creationist is awarded the $20,000.
5. Evidence must be scientific, that is, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.
6. The preponderance of evidence prevails.
7. At the end of the trial, the judge hands the prevailing party both checks.
8. The judge is a superior court judge.
9. The venue is a courthouse.
10. Court costs will be paid by the prevailing party.

xubist said: Not so fast, squire. Here, from Mastropaolo's own webpage on his bullshit 'prize', are the ground rules for said bullshit 'prize':

RULES FOR THE LIFE SCIENCE PRIZE MINI-TRIAL

1. The evolutionist puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
2. The creationist, Joseph Mastropaolo, puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
3. If the evolutionist proves evolution is science and creation is religion, then the evolutionist is awarded the $20,000.
4. If the creationist proves creation is science and evolution is religion, then the creationist is awarded the $20,000.
5. Evidence must be scientific, that is, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.
6. The preponderance of evidence prevails.
7. At the end of the trial, the judge hands the prevailing party both checks.
8. The judge is a superior court judge.
9. The venue is a courthouse.
10. Court costs will be paid by the prevailing party.

See any problems there? I sure do. Think about it for a while, with particular emphasis on definitions of terms.

What's the point of a mock trial anyhow? It's been determined already that creationism is essentially pseudoscience at Dover, in McLean v. Arkansas, and in various other rulings, some from the Supreme Court. They didn't so much say that creationism/ID is wrong, but that's pretty much what it amounts to, and the creationists hate it.

Of course any mock trial set up by these losers is going to be biased against science in some manner or other, or they'll lose.

Glen Davidson

Can you really just rent a court and judge? That's basically what he's saying here.

Meyer begins with what Darwin himself regarded as a troubling enigma, a subject of doubt and even some scientific distress. It is a mystery from which subsequent generations of Darwinists have sought to distract the public's attention. Some 530 million years ago, in the event called the Cambrian explosion, there sprang suddenly into existence the majority of animal body plans (phyla) that have existed on Earth.

a far greater mystery: the origin of the biological information necessary to build the animals of the Cambrian and all the living creatures that have existed on Earth.

introduces us to the challenges to Darwinism based on the study of combinatorial inflation, protein science, population genetics, developmental biology, epigenetic information, and more.

Some 530 million years ago, in the event called the Cambrian explosion, there sprang suddenly into existence the majority of animal body plans (phyla) that have existed on Earth. The shallow seas of the Cambrian period abruptly teemed with diverse, exotic animals. Evolutionary biologists and paleontologists since then have struggled to explain this epic event.

The problem boils down to Crick and Watson choosing the word "code" to describe
DNA sequences. DNA is a template that forms other molecules. It's not a code.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: I can't believe all of the people who watch "movies." All they are is a series of snapshots that only tell a person about the scene at one specific time, and there's no excuse for putting them all together (digitally or analog, makes no difference) into a sequence that tricks the eye into seeing a progression of events. The very idea of actually making sense of the world! No IDiot/cretinist would dream of doing so. Glen Davidson

I don't think that will help Meyer.

So an explosion, followed by an extinction 300 million years later.

Now thats intelligent design.

diogeneslamp0 said: Can we please return to the topic of the Cambrian Nixplosion? When will the ID creationists stop telling the same lies over and over? Consider this obvious one from the recent ENV post, a lie that the IDiots have been repeating ad infinitum for a decade or more:

Meyer begins with what Darwin himself regarded as a troubling enigma, a subject of doubt and even some scientific distress. It is a mystery from which subsequent generations of Darwinists have sought to distract the public's attention. Some 530 million years ago, in the event called the Cambrian explosion, there sprang suddenly into existence the majority of animal body plans (phyla) that have existed on Earth.

How many years ago did Casey Luskin lie about that and get dinged? Five? Six? Seven? I think it was 2005. How many times do we have to repeat that HALF OF ALL ANIMAL PHYLA DO NOT LEAVE FOSSILS!? If we are to date the time that phyla 'spring into existence' from the time of their first image, should we not conclude that dinoflagellates appeared magically at the same moment the microscope invented them? How many times do we have to say that perhaps four or up to seven phyla appear in the pre-Cambrian--- certainly sponges and cnidarians, something with shells, one or more phyla that are worm-shaped (we only see their tracks), bilaterians, some kind of echinoderm, etc.? Or that at least two phyla appear long after the Cambrian-- bryozoans and vascular plants? (I'm counting vascular plants as a different phyla than algae. To call them the same is ridiculous.) Insects appear much later, if you count hexapods as a different phyla than arthropods. And furthermore, the first 'vertebrates' have no jaw, no fins, and barely have a head. It takes 50-60 million years for their Intelligent Designer TO DESIGN A JAW BONE, by modifying rib bones. How many times do we have to correct their lies? Are they INCAPABLE OF SHAME!?

Descent or any evolving relationship between creatures in fossils is based on speculation however reasonable. Process equally speculated on. Yet there is no biological scientific evidence for these conclusions of process/descent. Yet evolutionists and ID both persuade themselves they are doing research on biology by looking at fossils. Its been a subtile error of logic.

Rolf said: That is not in their vocabulary. And their mode of thought and argument is not much different from what's demonstrated a few posts upstream here:

Descent or any evolving relationship between creatures in fossils is based on speculation however reasonable. Process equally speculated on. Yet there is no biological scientific evidence for these conclusions of process/descent. Yet evolutionists and ID both persuade themselves they are doing research on biology by looking at fossils. Its been a subtile error of logic.

See how easy it is to dismiss the entire field of paleontology as a viable method of studying the past?

ogremk5 said: And the designer is??!?!?!?! Hmm... let me try. Design or any non-evolving relationship between creatures in fossils is based on speculation however reasonable. Process equally speculated on. Yet there is no biological scientific evidence for these conclusions of process/design. Yet evolutionists and ID both persuade themselves they are doing research on biology by looking at fossils. Its been a subtile error of logic. Yep and a subtle error that they accept for the ID side and not on the science side. Of course, it's not an error either, but that's just details.

Curr Top Dev Biol. 2009;88:35-61. doi: 10.1016/S0070-2153(09)88002-2.

The Urbilaterian Super-Hox cluster

Of course, what really needs to be addressed is Ohno's Evolution by Gene Duplication (1970). If the Urbilaterian had a complete suite of homeobox genes 20 million years before the Cambrian Explosion, then Meyer will have to focus really, really hard on the fossil evidence to avoid looking at the genomic analysis.

David,

Thanks for the references. I completely agree. If Meyer really wants to address the cambrian "explosion" this is where he has to start. If he cannot or does not do so, any speculation on his part is worthless. I imagine that is what the editors and reviewers would say, if he dared to get it reviewed by competent people. Of course, he isn't any more of a molecular developmental biologist than he is a paleontologist, so I won't hold my breath.

Speaking of HOX clusters, if the standard vertebrate total of 4 arose by magic during the Cambrian explosion, doesn't that mean that the teleost number of 7 must have arisen much later, in another big magic event?

John Harshman said: Speaking of HOX clusters, if the standard vertebrate total of 4 arose by magic during the Cambrian explosion, doesn't that mean that the teleost number of 7 must have arisen much later, in another big magic event?

See any problems there? I sure do. Think about it for a while, with particular emphasis on definitions of terms.

— xubist

Update:

I see that Mastropaolo replaced "creation" with "Literal Genesis," so I retract the accusation of bait-and-switch. But I still encourage him to off the the "challenge" to the DI first. But not before, as John H. noted, he spells out which of the mutually-contradictory ones claimed to be "the" literal one he has in mind.

Keith B. Miller writes: "Widely read critiques of evolution, such as Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by [Michael] Denton, and Darwin on Trial by [Phillip] Johnson, contain serious misrepresentations of the available fossil evidence for macroevolutionary transitions and of the science of evolutionary paleontology. In "On the Origin of Stasis by Means of Natural Processes," [creationist A. L.] Battson similarly does not accurately communicate the rapidly growing body of evidence relevant to the Precambrian/Cambrian transition. ...Some Late Precambrian Ediacaran fossils (~580-560 My) bear strong resemblances to colonial coelenterates [comb jellies, true jellies, corals] called pennatulids, or sea pens.13 ...There are also sack-shaped organisms interpreted as sea anemones.15 ... The fossil record thus indicates that the Late Precambrian was dominated by solitary and colonial coelenterates that may have included *all four living cnidarian [jellyfish, corals] classes.* Recently spicules from sponges of the class Hexactinellida have been identified in Ediacaran age rocks.19 There is also evidence for the presence of ARTHROPODS as well as ECHINODERMS *before the beginning of the Cambrian.* ...Annelid worms may be represented by the mineralized tubes of Cloudina and by multi-segmented forms such as Dickinsonia. Casts interpreted as echiurid worms have also been described from the Ediacaran.... Certainly some modern phyla appeared before the end of the Precambrian. ...First, with important new fossil discoveries and the redescription of previously known forms, the many peculiar Cambrian taxa are now being grouped into coherent phyla. These phyla include living phyla and groups interpreted as ancestral to living phyla. Secondly, many Early Cambrian taxa have morphologies that bear similarities with more than one living phylum, that is, their morphologies are mosaics of phylum-level characters. ...Hallucigenia is now recognized as a member of a diverse and widespread group of Cambrian organisms called lobopods. They are very similar to, and may belong to, an obscure living phylum called the Onychophora... The Cambrian lobopods occupy a transitional morphological position between several living phyla. [The lobopod Xenusion] bears similarities to both palaeoscolecid worms and to living onychophorans and tardigrades.26 Furthermore, lobopods also have morphological features in common with the arthropods, particularly with peculiar Cambrian forms such as Opabinia and Anomalocaris. Recent redescription of Opabinia has also disclosed the presence of lobopod limbs strongly suggesting a lobopod to arthropod transition. The discovery of a Cambrian gill-bearing lobopod reinforces this conclusion. These forms fall nicely into a transitional position between extant phyla. ...Two well-known, and well-preserved, examples of this group of organisms [slugs with scale-like skeletal elements] are Wiwaxia and Halkieria... A strong case can be made for the assignment of at least some of these taxa to the Mollusca. However, a relationship to the polychaete annelid worms is also strongly suggested by some workers, as with Wiwaxia... The above discussion shows that the presentation of the Precambrian to Cambrian fossil record given by [creationist A. L.] Battson does not reflect our present understanding of the history of life. MANY METAZOAN GROUPS APPEARED BEFORE THE CAMBRIAN, INCLUDING REPRESENTATIVES OF SEVERAL LIVING PHYLA. Furthermore, the many small scale, plate, and spine-bearing organisms of the earliest Cambrian, while sharing characteristics with several living phyla, are also similar enough to each other to be classified by some workers into a single phylum. ...In addition, many living phyla, including most worm phyla, are unknown from the fossil record until well into the Phanerozoic. Thus, to claim the near simultaneous appearance of virtually all living phlya in the Cambrian is not an objective statement of the fossil evidence but a highly speculative, and I believe unsupported, interpretation of it. Finally, there is a question of whether the rapid diversification of metazoans in the Late Precambrian and Early Cambrian reflects an equally rapid increase in complexity. An interesting study by Valentine and others uses the number of cell types as a useful measure of morphological complexity... The resulting plot shows that the upper bound of complexity has increased steadily and nearly linearly from the origin of the metazoa to the present. Furthermore, they conclude that "...the metazoan `explosion' near the Precambrian/Cambrian transition was not associated with any important increase in complexity of body plans..." This suggests that the appearance of new higher taxa in the Cambrian did not involve the sudden appearance of major new levels of complexity." [The Precambrian to Cambrian Fossil Record and Transitional Forms. By Keith B. Miller. 1997]

A major issue that Stephen Meyer needs to address is how the Cambrian Radiation interacted with other processes happening on planet Earth at the same time. Since he has only a month left, perhaps he can deal with the rise in atmospheric (free) oxygen before the Cambrian:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sauerstoffgehalt-1000mj2.png

//// 70 million years is a heck of a long time to design a jaw, considering that it’s just a modified version of the rib bones that separate a fish’s gills. A real intelligent designer could have come up with that in an afternoon. ////

When Francis Collins was asked why God took billions of years to create life, he questioned our understanding of God and the timescales in which He operates. So what seems like millions and billions of years to us may probably be "an afternoon" for Mr. God!
This is how creationists get around such inconveniences.

Robert Byers said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: I can't believe all of the people who watch "movies." All they are is a series of snapshots that only tell a person about the scene at one specific time, and there's no excuse for putting them all together (digitally or analog, makes no difference) into a sequence that tricks the eye into seeing a progression of events. The very idea of actually making sense of the world! No IDiot/cretinist would dream of doing so. Glen Davidson

Movie snapshots reinforce each other that they are indeed a progression. They are seconds/or less separate from each other as noted observation. The analogy fails with fossils. There is not close resemblance between each very alike creatures in the fossil record. In fact its all about millions less/more years going by before a different body plan is shown. Descent or any evolving relationship between creatures in fossils is based on speculation however reasonable. Process equally speculated on. Yet there is no biological scientific evidence for these conclusions of process/descent. Yet evolutionists and ID both persuade themselves they are doing research on biology by looking at fossils. Its been a subtile error of logic. A modern example would be the living seals. THere are some with this type of foot and walk better on land and others with a less able foot and don't walk well on land. Yet if they were separated in colonies and then overthrown by mud and this pushing one layer/colony on top of another, and fossilized people in the future would persuade themselves one evolved from another. yet in fact they lived together at the same time. Their conclusions would be reasonable (though wrong) but theu would be based only on speculation of these different segregated types of seals. hey would not nor could of done any biological scientific investigation. It would be a error to think they had done science. if it was science there would not be an error in the conclusion or whats the point to the scientific method.

diogeneslamp0 said: I would like to return to the topic of the Cambrian Nixplosion, specifically the fossil record of pre-Cambrian animals (Ediacaran or Vendian). I am not a paleontologist, so if I make any blunders in what's below, feel free to correct me, please.

No one in science has believed "no precursors in the pre-Cambrian" since 1996 at the latest.

Modern hagfish are craniates, they're not true vertebrates. The oldest known true vertebrate is Arandaspis, a jawless fish, from the Ordovician, 480-70 Mya, some 50 million years after the early Cambrian. The first jawed fish (gnathostomes) appear in Late Ordovician (less than 461 Mya.)

So it took 70 million years after the Cambrian "explosion" for their Intelligent Designer to put a jaw on a vertebrate. 70 million years is a heck of a long time to design a jaw, considering that it's just a modified version of the rib bones that separate a fish's gills. A real intelligent designer could have come up with that in an afternoon.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/hHXYfJpysYHQ3610gllC7ldTYTqv#37db0 said: //// 70 million years is a heck of a long time to design a jaw, considering that it’s just a modified version of the rib bones that separate a fish’s gills. A real intelligent designer could have come up with that in an afternoon. ////

When Francis Collins was asked why God took billions of years to create life, he questioned our understanding of God and the timescales in which He operates. So what seems like millions and billions of years to us may probably be "an afternoon" for Mr. God! This is how creationists get around such inconveniences.

John Harshman said:

diogeneslamp0 said: I would like to return to the topic of the Cambrian Nixplosion, specifically the fossil record of pre-Cambrian animals (Ediacaran or Vendian). I am not a paleontologist, so if I make any blunders in what's below, feel free to correct me, please.

OK.

No one in science has believed "no precursors in the pre-Cambrian" since 1996 at the latest.

Not completely true. There is still some controversy regarding the exact nature of most if not all Ediacaran fossils. Some still consider them to be members of a separate radiation, Vendozoa, not early members of Metazoa. Given the state of their preservation, it's hard to tell. Sponges, almost certainly. Cnidarians, almost certainly. Arthropods, mollusks, echinoderms, or chordates, maybe and maybe not.

Modern hagfish are craniates, they're not true vertebrates. The oldest known true vertebrate is Arandaspis, a jawless fish, from the Ordovician, 480-70 Mya, some 50 million years after the early Cambrian. The first jawed fish (gnathostomes) appear in Late Ordovician (less than 461 Mya.)

Depends on what you count. Haikouichthys and several other Chengjiang animals are claimed to be vertebrates. At any rate, the Late Cambrian Anatolepis is definitely a true vertebrate. I am not familiar with the Ordovician gnathostome. Do you have a citation?

So it took 70 million years after the Cambrian "explosion" for their Intelligent Designer to put a jaw on a vertebrate. 70 million years is a heck of a long time to design a jaw, considering that it's just a modified version of the rib bones that separate a fish's gills. A real intelligent designer could have come up with that in an afternoon.

Pedantic note: gill arches are not ribs. My favorite Cambrian explosion paper, also by Graham Budd: Budd, G. E., and S. Jensen. 2000. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 75:253-295. Main message: few of the Cambrian explosion fossils belong to the crown groups of their phyla, and of those that do, few belong to the crown groups of their classes. In other words, transitional forms all about.

Certainly, bilaterans are among the Ediacarans, but which branch they’re from remains in doubt. Some, like Solza margarita, appear to be basal bilaterans, while others, like Parvanchorina and Kimberella, suggest they may have been arthropods or mollusks, respectively, while still others, like Arkaura, bear fiendishly superficial similarities.

I think the “Ordovician gnathostomes” are the various Late Ordovician scales that are thought to come from either thelodonts or “shark-like fishes.”

To quote Wikipedia, It is important to remember that the fossil record of trilobites begins with the appearance of trilobites with mineral exoskeletons - not from the time of their origin.

John Harshman said:

To quote Wikipedia, It is important to remember that the fossil record of trilobites begins with the appearance of trilobites with mineral exoskeletons - not from the time of their origin.

A point worth making. It's often been suggested that the Cambrian explosion isn't an explosion of diversity but an explosion of mineralized skeletons, or responses to that. Or the sudden opening of a taphonomic window. Or various other things than the actual origin of major taxa. However, we have no fossils of unmineralized trilobites that predate the earliest mineralized ones, so who knows?

While this is a suggestion lacking scientific merit, I find that it is wholey applicable to psuedo-sciences like ID. My suggestion is that Steve should have HarperOne print his book on toilet tissue so it can at least serve a useful purpose.

More seriously, why are the DI'ers still harping on the 'explosion'? Isn't something that took 50-70 million years kinda out of the range of being an 'explosion'? IMHO

John Harshman said: apokryltaros:

Certainly, bilaterans are among the Ediacarans, but which branch they’re from remains in doubt. Some, like Solza margarita, appear to be basal bilaterans, while others, like Parvanchorina and Kimberella, suggest they may have been arthropods or mollusks, respectively, while still others, like Arkaura, bear fiendishly superficial similarities.

"Certainly" is too strong. The preservation is just too coarse to be sure. Even what I consider the best of them, Spriggina has an alternate reconstruction as a sessile vendozoan.

I think the “Ordovician gnathostomes” are the various Late Ordovician scales that are thought to come from either thelodonts or “shark-like fishes.”

Which you choose makes a big difference, since thelodonts aren't gnathostomes.

To quote Wikipedia, It is important to remember that the fossil record of trilobites begins with the appearance of trilobites with mineral exoskeletons - not from the time of their origin.

A point worth making. It's often been suggested that the Cambrian explosion isn't an explosion of diversity but an explosion of mineralized skeletons, or responses to that. Or the sudden opening of a taphonomic window. Or various other things than the actual origin of major taxa. However, we have no fossils of unmineralized trilobites that predate the earliest mineralized ones, so who knows?

tedhohio said: More seriously, why are the DI'ers still harping on the 'explosion'? Isn't something that took 50-70 million years kinda out of the range of being an 'explosion'? IMHO

Anyway, who says the Cambrian explosion took 50-70 million years? That's around an order of magnitude longer than the usual estimates. Now it's true that DIers tend to try to the explosion look more explosive by expanding the limits of what happened (origin of all phyla, which even if we just considered the ones with good records would extend from the Vendian to the Ordovician) while simultaneously stressing its brevity ("geological instant"). But we don't have to fall for the first part. The Cambrian explosion is generally supposed to start with the first appearance of clear bilaterians, more or less the Atdabanian, and end around the start of the Middle Cambrian, when most phyla (or at least their stem lineages) seem to be in place; 5-10 million years.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/hHXYfJpysYHQ3610gllC7ldTYTqv#37db0 said:

Robert Byers said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: I can't believe all of the people who watch "movies." All they are is a series of snapshots that only tell a person about the scene at one specific time, and there's no excuse for putting them all together (digitally or analog, makes no difference) into a sequence that tricks the eye into seeing a progression of events. The very idea of actually making sense of the world! No IDiot/cretinist would dream of doing so. Glen Davidson

Movie snapshots reinforce each other that they are indeed a progression. They are seconds/or less separate from each other as noted observation. The analogy fails with fossils. There is not close resemblance between each very alike creatures in the fossil record. In fact its all about millions less/more years going by before a different body plan is shown. Descent or any evolving relationship between creatures in fossils is based on speculation however reasonable. Process equally speculated on. Yet there is no biological scientific evidence for these conclusions of process/descent. Yet evolutionists and ID both persuade themselves they are doing research on biology by looking at fossils. Its been a subtile error of logic. A modern example would be the living seals. THere are some with this type of foot and walk better on land and others with a less able foot and don't walk well on land. Yet if they were separated in colonies and then overthrown by mud and this pushing one layer/colony on top of another, and fossilized people in the future would persuade themselves one evolved from another. yet in fact they lived together at the same time. Their conclusions would be reasonable (though wrong) but theu would be based only on speculation of these different segregated types of seals. hey would not nor could of done any biological scientific investigation. It would be a error to think they had done science. if it was science there would not be an error in the conclusion or whats the point to the scientific method.

Two species living at the same time doesn't exclude the possibility that one evolved from the other. The ancestor can continue to exist after giving rise to descendants. Evolution is not a linear progression, it's a branching out of species. Conclusions of relationships are based on many factors, not just on finding one species in a rock layer above or below another. Moreover, fossil evidence can be cross-checked with DNA analysis. Phylogenetic trees obtained from these analyses must match. The so-called assumptions you're talking about are the best explanations of the available data. They not only explain the problem at hand, but also fit with the picture as a whole. Until and unless IDiots and creationists can offer a more comprehensive explanation of the observed data, the theory of evolution will stand.

Robert Byers, you are an idiot parroting idiotic lies. Seals have an extensive fossil record, starting from Puijila darwini and Enaliarctos. Of course, Creationists have done absolutely nothing to explain any seal fossil, other than to make idiotic, unsupportable claims about how they were magically killed and sorted away from more modern-looking seal corpses during the Flood.

Sorry Robert, wrong again. Real scientists know what they are doing. You on the other hand haven't got a clue what you are talking about. Do you really think that every professional scientist in the world is incapable of testing a hypothesis in a rigorous manner? You say what you "know" but you don't say how you know. You are placing an impossible burden of proof on those you disagree with and none whatsoever on your own claims. Give is up Robert, you aren't fooling anyone.

It has been explained to you countless times how science works, yet you stubbornly refuse to understand. You have no knowledge of the evidence an no explanation of the evidence. You are not biological Robert, therefore your opinions are worthless. (Well you seem to think that claiming that something isn't "biological" for no good reason is somehow some kind of argument, so there).

Only Darwinian materialists can be "sure" that gods, demons, ghosts, or, to say the least, the Designer, didn't manipulate a "film sequence." Byers is apparently a Darwinian materialist when it comes to movie cameras.

Of course that's supposed to be ridiculous, but it's really the "argument" that these ignorant bozos use when it comes to reconstructing the past. They don't have any causal objections to the reconstructions by scientists, which are very much like FBI reconstructions of crimes, save that in science it's not a one-off, you can not only replicate the observations of limited data, you can go out and find similar data if you really care to search hard. The only "real objection" they have is that their favorite magic fiction "could have" intervened, planted fossils, manipulated DNA, made earth to "look old" (and that life evolved, no less).

There's really no different principle involved in "questioning" the evidence of the old earth and evolution than in "questioning" whether or not god or demons have changed the sequence of a moving picture. Byers has nothing except his meaningless prejudices that "god intervened in the past, but god doesn't intervene today to change things," or however you want to put that BS. The past is supposed to be open to magic like the present is not, and that's only a sort of cognitive problem, not at all a reasonable proposition.

Glen Davidson

They don’t have any causal objections to the reconstructions by scientists

Anyway, who says the Cambrian explosion took 50-70 million years? That’s around an order of magnitude longer than the usual estimates. Now it’s true that DIers tend to try to the explosion look more explosive by expanding the limits of what happened (origin of all phyla, which even if we just considered the ones with good records would extend from the Vendian to the Ordovician) while simultaneously stressing its brevity (“geological instant”). But we don’t have to fall for the first part. The Cambrian explosion is generally supposed to start with the first appearance of clear bilaterians, more or less the Atdabanian, and end around the start of the Middle Cambrian, when most phyla (or at least their stem lineages) seem to be in place; 5-10 million years.

Henry J said:

Anyway, who says the Cambrian explosion took 50-70 million years? That’s around an order of magnitude longer than the usual estimates. Now it’s true that DIers tend to try to the explosion look more explosive by expanding the limits of what happened (origin of all phyla, which even if we just considered the ones with good records would extend from the Vendian to the Ordovician) while simultaneously stressing its brevity (“geological instant”). But we don’t have to fall for the first part. The Cambrian explosion is generally supposed to start with the first appearance of clear bilaterians, more or less the Atdabanian, and end around the start of the Middle Cambrian, when most phyla (or at least their stem lineages) seem to be in place; 5-10 million years.

Of course, the "first appearance" of a phylum just means a predecessor with enough of the features to identify it, but without the refinement of those features that would occur over the following half billion years (for phyla that are still around). I would expect the reason they are classified as separate phyla is because their descendants are different enough from each other to qualify for that, rather than them being all that different from each other at the time. Had some biologists been there to study them at the time, they probably wouldn't have split them up to that extent. Henry

john.19071969 said: The problem boils down to Crick and Watson choosing the word "code" to describe DNA sequences. DNA is a template that forms other molecules. It's not a code.

A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

This is a test.

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

Garbage, Byers.

You have no point. Seals in separate colonies living in proximity and buried at the same time, would be buried in the same sediments, dated the same. They are not so found. They are found in different sediments, dated differently.

Ring species are defined as species where the terminal forms cannot interbreed, but the adjacent forms can and do. There are multiple examples known. By the definition of "kinds" adopted by creationists - that is, they can breed, ie, 'bring forth', as the Bible puts it - the adjacent forms are the same kind, but the terminal forms are different kinds. But the terminal forms are also adjacent to the form next to them, and that to the next, and so on. So the terminal forms are both the same "kind" and different "kinds", both at once.

Creationism in separate kinds thus breaks down. But evolution explains this effect. The terminal forms have evolved away from their furthest cousins, far enough to be a separate species from them. But evolution is gradual, and this must mean that speciation is gradual, too. Hence, there are intermediates, and in ring species we see them living concurrently.

Once again Robert displays his abysmal ignorance. Once again he arrogantly assumes that he and only he can possibly interpret the natural world correctly. Once again he denigrates each and every scientist, from paleontologists to population geneticists to phylogeneticists, to well just about everyone.

Seriously Robert, if you are not going to actually study any evidence for yourself, you could at least read the actual literature and get a clue what you are talking about. Do you have any idea how many times and in how many different ways scientific hypotheses are tested? Do you any idea what a convergence of evidence from different data sets means? Do you have any idea how idiotic it is to just define anything you don;t want to believe as "non biological"?

Quit making a fool of yourself yourself Robert, You haven't got a clue and everyone here knows it.

Byers is high on bullshit said:

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

I'm saying the methodology of using fossils as wrongly been seen as biological scientific evidence for evolution or any good at all for a hunch. Its been just a line of reasoning that can't be proven or disproven.

EvoDevo said:

Byers is high on bullshit said:

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

I'm saying the methodology of using fossils as wrongly been seen as biological scientific evidence for evolution or any good at all for a hunch. Its been just a line of reasoning that can't be proven or disproven.

How, oh wait, [strike]evolution is false, all "ancestral human fossils are forgeries, the BB didn't happen, I didn't come from monkeys[strike]. How is archeopteryx, Lucy, Ardi, or pakicetus, not evidence of evolution?

EvoDevo said:

EvoDevo said:

Byers is high on bullshit said:

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

I'm saying the methodology of using fossils as wrongly been seen as biological scientific evidence for evolution or any good at all for a hunch. Its been just a line of reasoning that can't be proven or disproven.

How, oh wait, [strike]evolution is false, all "ancestral human fossils are forgeries, the BB didn't happen, I didn't come from monkeys[strike]. How is archeopteryx, Lucy, Ardi, or pakicetus, not evidence of evolution?

How, oh wait, evolution is false, all "ancestral human fossils are forgeries, the BB didn't happen, I didn't come from monkeys. How is archeopteryx, Lucy, Ardi, or pakicetus, not evidence of evolution?

I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this:

Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible".

Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

Just because someone can't imagine it doesn't mean it can't happen. That's the fallacy that they are incorporating into their lives.

I can't imagine how someone could rape someone else. Yet it happens every day.

The one thing that science has shown us, time and again, is that reality is much more impressive than we can imagine.

Mr. Fink said:

EvoDevo said:

EvoDevo said:

Byers is high on bullshit said:

Scott F said: A few zillion years off-topic, but perhaps Mr Byers and Mr Meyer could use ID to explain "Ring Species".

I'm saying the methodology of using fossils as wrongly been seen as biological scientific evidence for evolution or any good at all for a hunch. Its been just a line of reasoning that can't be proven or disproven.

How, oh wait, [strike]evolution is false, all "ancestral human fossils are forgeries, the BB didn't happen, I didn't come from monkeys[strike]. How is archeopteryx, Lucy, Ardi, or pakicetus, not evidence of evolution?

How, oh wait, evolution is false, all "ancestral human fossils are forgeries, the BB didn't happen, I didn't come from monkeys. How is archeopteryx, Lucy, Ardi, or pakicetus, not evidence of evolution?

Because Robert Byers, the Parroting Idiot For Jesus, neither understands the very concept of evidence, nor cares to look at/provide evidence. Hell, God, Himself, could come down from the Heavens and give a thoroughly detailed, yet understandable explanation using magic handpuppets, and Robert Byers the Idiot would still automatically dismiss Him as inconsequential and invalid for not mindlessly agreeing with the inane claim de jour.

TomS said: I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this: Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible". Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

DS said:

TomS said: I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this: Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible". Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

Good point. Just like the recent fossil discoveries of intermediate forms between toothed and baleen whales: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/new-whale-species-unearthed-in-c.html And of course this new evidence is entirely consistent with all of the other evidence from developmental biology and several genetic data sets as well. So maybe Robert could tell us how he would explain this evidence? Claiming it isn't "biological" isn't going to cut it. How doe creationism explain these intermediate forms that occur in the proper sequence in the fossil record? It isn't "hydrologic sorting" or anything like that. Now what could the explanation possibly be. I know, all of them danged atheististical scientifical types is just plain stupids. That's a gotta be its.

EvoDevo said: I already new, what the answer was: (mere ignorance).

DS said: If he really thinks that he is right, he would be out there looking for the evidence. The fact that he doesn't even try says that not only is he dead wrong but he knows it, so he's just plain lying.

TomS said: I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this: Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible". Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

Robert Byers, you are a lying idiot who repeats lies told by Creationists. You do not know anything about science, you do not care to learn anything about science, and you even said repeatedly that you do not care about defending or even discussing the Lies for Jesus you parrot. Why do you think your inane claims carry weight?

Robert Byers said:

TomS said: I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this: Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible". Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

Lets look at this carefully. All that is observed about this auditory detail is what is observed. there is no evidence for any relationship of evolution between the two parties. What is the biological evidence? Its just presumed there is a link and then speculation on how the one evolved from the other. WHOA! these creatures simply have needed parts as needed. likeness is not evidence of descent. Its not evidence of the process. the whole thing is simply a hunch this evolved from that. Even if true there still is not presented any evidence for connections by descent. If there had been no evolution , descent and process, it would also look this way. You are connecting the dots of connections on solitary biological data points. Confirming ones own presumptions. fine but don't say its biological investigation using the scientific method. There is no science here being demonstrated on process or descent reality. Just adding up in ones heart after already accepting the process reality. One can't do biological evolution investigation on rocks(fossils).

Byers doesn't appreciate it, but I do. Thanks!

TomS said: It was observed that the middle ear bones were developmentally related to the jaw bones. This observation was made before Darwin. After Darwin, it was inferred that the developmental relationship was a consequence of common descent with modification. At this stage, one could object that common descent with modification was unlikely because it would demand a transitional form with a doubly-articulated jaw. Now, pause here. There are two possible methodologies. The evolutionary one says that there was a transitional form. The anti-evolutionary one says that there could not be a transitional form. Which of these methodologies is right? Likewise with the case of flatfish, evolution makes a risky prediction, something which seems to be implausible: a doubly-articulated jaw, and eyes half-way migrated across the head. Continuing: A transitional form (Morganucodon and others) with a doubly articulated jaw is discovered. This is a confirmation of the evolutionary methodology and disconfirmation of the anti-evolutionary methodology. One fits standard Baconian "scientific method": Make a prediction, verify the prediction, thus confirming the hypothesis. And the other fits standard falsificationism: Make a prediction, falsify the prediction, thus disconfirming the hypothesis. Or, rather, the response "this don't show nothin" shows that anti-evolution methodology really is: refuse to allow evidence to count.

Robert Byers said: likeness is not evidence of descent. Its not evidence of the process.

Robert Byers said: the whole thing is simply a hunch this evolved from that.

likeness is not evidence of descent. Its not evidence of the process.

Relevant ~ Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: Relevant ~ Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles

DS said:

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: Relevant ~ Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles

Something worth mentioning (I think that it was Wesley Elsberry who first pointed it out) that I don't think is in this Wikipedia article is that the hammer-anvil-stirrup chain of bones in the middle ear of mammals is "irreducibly complex" if anything in biology is. The structure cannot function as Thanks for the link. A detailed analysis including 37 references from the peer reviewed literature. All data sets converging on the exact same answer. Against that, the Byers approach, (covering his ears with his hands and screaming "nonbiological"), doesn't seem to hold up too well. Apparently you can't really draw biological conclusions from fossils, unless of course you are a trained professional, which leaves Robert out. Too bad.

Sorry for the muddled posting. I hope that my point can be retrieved from the mess.

TomS said: One thing which I don't think is mentioned in the Wikipedia article is that the hammer-anvil-stirrup mechanism is as good an example of "irreducible complexity" as one can get in biology. If any of the bones were missing, one couldn't get sound transmission. Yet the evolutionary history is as well established as one can hope for. (I believe that Wesley Elsberry is responsible for this observation.)

diogeneslamp0 said:

likeness is not evidence of descent. Its not evidence of the process.

This is what rapists say when their DNA matches the sperm in a dead girl scout.

A comment I made somewhere was that the Tooters would be in Full Outrage, outrage I tell you (!), about this pre-emptive attack on Meyer's Hopeless Monster Mark III or IV, now in hardback.

And they are! They pulled out old Dr. Dr., on permanent "vacation" from his Bible diploma mill (yee haw!) to cobble together a rebuttal - of sorts.

Cobblers it certainly is! My next prediction, already proven (thank you!) by Dr. Dr., is that Meyer's "book" will be full of circular self-references. Meyer will quote some creationist who is quoting Meyer quoting some other creationist or, most likely, himself. Following Meyer's footnote trail will be like traipsing through the Haunted Forest and always ending up at the Designer's house, I mean, Witch's house.

Dr. Dr. certainly doesn't disappoint as he shuffles on about how his earlier "proof," rather, poof of complex whatever was less rigorous, i.e. wrong, than the New and Improved searchy thingy, although not even as rigorous it is at least more easily nixplained to the layman. Or something like that. Apparently, the math is way too complex for the human mind and only works in the dark which only compounds its complexy thinginess. Oh, and Shallit is a poopy head. So, there.

As usual with creationist screeds, Dr. Dr. doesn't so much stand up for Meyer as he does whining about his own poor treatment. Apparently his banning from the Mac 'n' Cheese counter at the Baylor Cafeteria still sticks in his craw - even more so than cold mac.

Can't wait for Meyer's book to come out so I can not buy it, not read it and really gripe about it!

TomS said:

Robert Byers said:

TomS said: I see a methodology of using fossils as evidence for evolution something like this: Using the evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles as an example, it was observed that the middle ear bones of mammals were related to jaw bones of reptiles (and other tetrapods) in a way that indicated that evolution was involved. However, it was not clear how this could take place by a series of small evolutionary steps. Among other things, this would require a difficult-to-image transitional form in which there was an animal with two different jaw joints simultaneously. And then, there was discovered a fossil which had that doubly-articulated jaw. (Eventually, lots of fossils similar to that.) This confirmed the evolutionary reasoning, and disconfirmed the reasoning "I can't imagine how that is possible". Similar examples are Amphistium and Heteronectes - how could there be a transition to the asymmetric eye location in flatfish? - and transition from dinosaurs to birds - where are the feathered dinosaurs?

Lets look at this carefully. All that is observed about this auditory detail is what is observed. there is no evidence for any relationship of evolution between the two parties. What is the biological evidence? Its just presumed there is a link and then speculation on how the one evolved from the other. WHOA! these creatures simply have needed parts as needed. likeness is not evidence of descent. Its not evidence of the process. the whole thing is simply a hunch this evolved from that. Even if true there still is not presented any evidence for connections by descent. If there had been no evolution , descent and process, it would also look this way. You are connecting the dots of connections on solitary biological data points. Confirming ones own presumptions. fine but don't say its biological investigation using the scientific method. There is no science here being demonstrated on process or descent reality. Just adding up in ones heart after already accepting the process reality. One can't do biological evolution investigation on rocks(fossils).

It was observed that the middle ear bones were developmentally related to the jaw bones. This observation was made before Darwin. ....

TomS, I was going back through the thread to pick up on anything I missed. From the quoting going on, it seemed that I had. I note that you actually brought the Wiki link on mammalian ear evolution to the thread before I had. So, any thanks are rightfully yours.

Robert, thanks for bringing all this up and giving me once again the opportunity to learn something new.

scienceavenger said (to Beyers): I could say the same thing about your supposed relationship to your parents. YOU say they are your ancestors, but genetics schmenetics, I say you poofed into being from nothing.

Even if true there still is not presented any evidence for connections by descent.

Brace yourselves for a flood of comments. PZ Myers just discussed Meyer's forthcoming book and mentioned this thread.

Some flood! ;-)

Joe Felsenstein said: Some flood! ;-)

It would be nice if there were a description of what happened during the design of (for example) the vertebrate eye, when and where that happened, something about the designer(s) who did that design (how many of them, what traits they have that influenced their design motivations and methods), how they used (or went beyond) the laws of nature and the materials they were given to work with, and something about why they resorted to design (rather than natural processes) at that time (rather than making the animals the right way from scratch).

Why would you have to be able to describe when and where the design of the vertebrate eys happened in order to know that it was designed? ID doesnt care who did the designing the only thing that it is picking up are the clues that the eye was designed. It may very well have been some naturalistic process that did the designing. ID is simply trying to detect if the thing was designed. This is not creation science which all the prior metaphysical baggage of trying to prove God exists. ID is perfectly comfortable simply showing that something was designed because it exhibits the hallmarks of design and it could care less about "who" or "what did the designing. Do you need to know who designed your car to know that it was designed? It seems that you are creating a scenario where the ID position is simply defined out of the picture rather than really discussed and shown with proper science why it is faulty. If evolutionists wanted to end the conversation they would just have to account for the emergence of multipart, tightly integrated complex biological systems (many of which display irreducible and minimal complexity) apart from teleology or design. If you could do that then the ID project falls apart. Instead of worrying about who or what did the designing why wouldn't you just focus on showing that it isn't designed?

Aaron Marshall said: It would be nice if there were a description of what happened during the design of (for example) the vertebrate eye, when and where that happened, something about the designer(s) who did that design (how many of them, what traits they have that influenced their design motivations and methods), how they used (or went beyond) the laws of nature and the materials they were given to work with, and something about why they resorted to design (rather than natural processes) at that time (rather than making the animals the right way from scratch). Why would you have to be able to describe when and where the design of the vertebrate eys happened in order to know that it was designed? ID doesnt care who did the designing the only thing that it is picking up are the clues that the eye was designed. It may very well have been some naturalistic process that did the designing. ID is simply trying to detect if the thing was designed. This is not creation science which all the prior metaphysical baggage of trying to prove God exists. ID is perfectly comfortable simply showing that something was designed because it exhibits the hallmarks of design and it could care less about "who" or "what did the designing. Do you need to know who designed your car to know that it was designed? It seems that you are creating a scenario where the ID position is simply defined out of the picture rather than really discussed and shown with proper science why it is faulty. If evolutionists wanted to end the conversation they would just have to account for the emergence of multipart, tightly integrated complex biological systems (many of which display irreducible and minimal complexity) apart from teleology or design. If you could do that then the ID project falls apart. Instead of worrying about who or what did the designing why wouldn't you just focus on showing that it isn't designed?

Aaron Marshall said: ID doesnt care who did the designing the only thing that it is picking up are the clues that the eye was designed.

ID is perfectly comfortable simply showing that something was designed because it exhibits the hallmarks of design and it could care less about "who" or "what did the designing.

If evolutionists wanted to end the conversation they would just have to account for the emergence of multipart, tightly integrated complex biological systems (many of which display irreducible and minimal complexity) apart from teleology or design.

...why wouldn't you just focus on showing that it isn't designed?

If evolutionists wanted to end the conversation they would just have to account for the emergence of multipart, tightly integrated complex biological systems (many of which display irreducible and minimal complexity) apart from teleology or design. If you could do that then the ID project falls apart. Instead of worrying about who or what did the designing why wouldn’t you just focus on showing that it isn’t designed?

Aaron Marshall said: Do you need to know who designed your car to know that it was designed?

It seems that you are creating a scenario where the ID position is simply defined out of the picture rather than really discussed and shown with proper science why it is faulty.

If evolutionists wanted to end the conversation they would just have to account for the emergence of multipart, tightly integrated complex biological systems

(many of which display irreducible and minimal complexity)

apart from teleology or design.

If you could do that then the ID project falls apart. Instead of worrying about who or what did the designing why wouldn't you just focus on showing that it isn't designed?