My, how time flies.

Posted 7 April 2014 by Richard B. Hoppe

PZ reminds us that today is the 10th anniversary of Paul Nelson's promise to deliver an operational definition of "ontogenetic depth." Nelson said it would be forthcoming "tomorrow." When I was about four years old it struck me that tomorrow never comes. And I can't resist re-publishing this:

Concerning Richard B. Hoppe and his requests for Paul Nelson to provide support for his Intelligent Design claims about Ontogenetic Depth: Paul Nelson's "depth" tales sounded tall. Richard Hoppe thought, "it's past time to call Nelson's ontogenetic- clad apologetic." Quoth Richard, "So where's the beef, Paul?" I doubt that he'll find satisfaction, nor even a lucid reaction. Behind the smoke screen there's an ID machine building weapons of media distraction. A meal of Intelligent Design when served with the fruit of divine is lacking in beef, which supports my belief that it's tripe marinating in whine.

19 Comments

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 7 April 2014

When you stare too long into the Ontogenetic Depths...you get bored and quit.

Glen Davidson

Mike Elzinga · 7 April 2014

Nelson apparently got hung up when he got to “depth.”

Nick Matzke · 7 April 2014

Recently I realized that it would be more efficient with my time to only debate ID on twitter. Usually the fatal flaw in their science comes down to something that can be stated in 140 characters or less.

http://twitter.com/search?q=%23IDerrors

Mike Elzinga · 7 April 2014

Nick Matzke said: Recently I realized that it would be more efficient with my time to only debate ID on twitter. Usually the fatal flaw in their science comes down to something that can be stated in 140 characters or less. http://twitter.com/search?q=%23IDerrors

There seems to be a lot of truth to that. That UD site is pretty convincing evidence that they stopped learning science some time around the 8th grade; well before they got to high school biology, chemistry, and physics. And they didn't get any remediation even if they went to college. If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.

John Harshman · 7 April 2014

Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.

How do they do on concepts of probability?

Mike Elzinga · 7 April 2014

John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.
How do they do on concepts of probability?

Hee hee! Pretty badly. ;-) They use inert objects like Scrabble letters, dice, coins, junkyard parts, battleship parts, and now robotic parts as stand-ins for the properties and behaviors of atoms and molecules. Then they take a string of length L with N possibilities per position and say that the probably of assembly of complex molecules is 1/N^L. Not only is such a “calculation” completely irrelevant, they don’t even bother to multiply that number by the numbers of permutations of all the repeated elements in the string. All they want is for minus the log to base 2 of their probabilities to be greater than 500. That is as far in mathematics as any of them has ever gone; in other words, barely even high school level, and they get it wrong.

DS · 7 April 2014

Maybe we will get a definition of ontogenetic depth right after we get an equation for irreducible complexity. I won't be holding my breath. How long do these guys think they can bluff before they are called on their nonsense?

david.starling.macmillan · 7 April 2014

DS said: Maybe we will get a definition of ontogenetic depth right after we get an equation for irreducible complexity. I won't be holding my breath. How long do these guys think they can bluff before they are called on their nonsense?

Just longer than the attention span of their audience.

david.starling.macmillan · 7 April 2014

John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.
How do they do on concepts of probability?

I thought it was 1000 times out of 999...

Mike Elzinga · 7 April 2014

david.starling.macmillan said:
John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.
How do they do on concepts of probability?
I thought it was 1000 times out of 999...

Heh; that’s even funnier. :-) Come to think of it; they do in fact find multiple ways of getting any given concept wrong. And they don’t even seem to notice the contradictions among their multiple misconceptions and misrepresentations.

Henry J · 7 April 2014

Time flies like an arrow.

Fruit flies like a banana.

Therefore Jesus.

Or something like that.

Karen S. · 8 April 2014

How do they do on concepts of probability?

Probability is a dirty word because it has to with chance.

david.starling.macmillan · 8 April 2014

Karen S. said:
How do they do on concepts of probability?
Probability is a dirty word because it has to with chance.

We don't believe in probability. We believe in God-Ability!

John Harshman · 8 April 2014

Mike Elzinga said:
John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.
How do they do on concepts of probability?
Hee hee! Pretty badly. ;-)

Sorry. I should have used some kind of "sarcasm" smiley. I was referring in a subtle way to *your* concept of probability as expressed above.

Karen S. · 8 April 2014

Oops I meant to say "Probability is a dirty word because it has to DO with chance."

But I guess leaving out the word was not a chance event--God did it!

Mike Elzinga · 8 April 2014

John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said:
John Harshman said:
Mike Elzinga said: If an ID/creationist has a 50/50 chance of getting a scientific concept wrong, 999 times out of a 1000 he will.
How do they do on concepts of probability?
Hee hee! Pretty badly. ;-)
Sorry. I should have used some kind of "sarcasm" smiley. I was referring in a subtle way to *your* concept of probability as expressed above.

I wasn’t sure you got the joke; hence the explanation. I should have used the wink emodicon.

Matt G · 11 April 2014

I still want to know what research is coming out of those secret ID labs we heard about way back when.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 11 April 2014

Matt G said: I still want to know what research is coming out of those secret ID labs we heard about way back when.

They're still watching for poofs. You just don't know when it'll happen. Glen Davidson

Henry J · 11 April 2014

Matt G said: I still want to know what research is coming out of those secret ID labs we heard about way back when.

http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=5348907cbb918c95;act=ST;f=14;t=7420;st=10050