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Saturday, June 06, 2015

Who's an authority on evolutionary theory?

There's an interesting discussion going on at Uncommon Descent. Barry Arrington is wondering who to believe when it comes to evolutionary theory and many of the ID regulars have chimed in [Authority in evolutionary theory]. Clearly, this is an important issue for them because they don't want to be accused of not understanding evolution. They want to protect their version of Darwinism.

They seemed to have reached a consensus. They say you can't be an authority on evolutionary theory unless you have published a scientific paper on the subject in the last decade or so. What this means is that they can dismiss the views of many evolution supporters because we don't meet the minimum qualification.1 Our view on what is, and isn't, proper evolutionary theory are just personal opinions so they don't count.

Unfortunately for them, this also eliminates Barry Arrington, Vincent Torley, Denyse O'Leary, Casey Luskin, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Jonathan McLatchie, Michael Behe, Salvador Cordova, Jonathan Bartlet, Michael Egnor, Cornelius Hunter, Gordon Elliot Mullings, Ann Gauger and just about everyone else in the Intelligent Design Creationist camp. If they stick to their guns, it means that nothing posted on the ID blogs is anything more than a personal opinion by someone who is not an authority on evolutionary theory.

So, who are they going to believe now? My first thought is that this can only be good for the evolution side since people who publish scientific articles on evolutionary theory are not ID supporters. It means that the Intelligent Design Creationists are obligated to trust many prominent evolution biologists as authorities while dismissing most of their own crowd.

I don't think that's what they have in mind. What they have in mind is that people like Jim Shapiro and other critics of modern evolutionary theory are the real authorities because they have published in the scientific literature. I suppose it's part of a strategy to maintain the illusion that "Darwinism" is deeply flawed.

The one good thing that will come out of this discussion, I'm sure, is that the number of posts and comments on their blogs will be greatly reduced since the general consensus is that none of them are authorities on the subject of evolution. Lot's of people are going to have to shut up because they haven't published anything on evolutionary theory.2

Strange, but I will miss Barry Arrington and Denyse O'Leary's attacks on evolutionary theory. They will now be criticized by their own people as non-authorities whenever they post.


1. I have never published a paper in the scientific literature on evolutionary theory.

2. No, I'm not holding my breath.

148 comments :

Unknown said...

They go as far as claiming that Larry is not qualified because of some postings ate ratemyprofessor.com. I suspect that Barry will stay away from that side of the discussion given his D- rating with the Better Business Bureau.

OgreMkV said...

Sure, let's have a big discussion on authority and ignore the evidence! IDiots.

Just goes to show their authoritarian nature.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Would they really prefer to be visited and engaged by, say, Joe Felsenstein or T. Ryan Gregory (to mention just two people who are very active in research, publication, and blogosphere discussions)? But... ouch! If you look Gregory up at "Rate My Professors" you might doubt if he's sufficiently close to perfection to deserve the honour of being permitted to talk to Timaeus, the arbiter scientiarum.

Georgi Marinov said...

As far as I know, everyone who meets their criteria for credentials has been permanently banned from their comment sections.

Diogenes said...

Acartia: I suspect that Barry [Arrington] will stay away from that side of the discussion given his D- rating with the Better Business Bureau.

Link please.

You mean Barry the Abortion Ambulance Chaser gets poor ratings from the women he talked into suing Planned Parenthood over the abortions it performed?

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Timaeus is quite paranoid about the possibility of being "outed", and he won't divulge anything that might damage his Internet anonymity. Fair enough, but the justification is striking: he thinks his bosses might fire him if they learnt of his creationist sympathies. In other words, he might become another EXPELLED martyr. I have no idea what he specialises in -- perhaps philosophy, literature, history, or Classical studies. He claims, proudly, to have once "corrected an error" in a scientific article, which for me is proof enough that he's got nothing to do with science. How on earth could creationism matter in his case?

Diogenes said...

Or maybe Arrington got a poor rating from former Rep. Michelle Bachmann. He used to cook her campaign finance books, so perhaps Bug-Eyes Bachmann was mad that time Barry got caught violating ethics laws for reporting her campaign contributions.

Republicans have high ethical expectations, you know: never get caught while you're breaking all those laws, and don't leave a paper trail, dummy.

Diogenes said...

Last time I checked in, it seemed the only non-creationist left posting there was Zachriel.

They banned me thrice, twice banned the very polite and patient Elizabeth Liddle, banned the polite if not patient Piotr, and banned Acartia Tonsa/Spearshake many times under different handles.

Who's left? Well, nobody with any credentials.

I have moral objections to going to UD: they engage in endless name-calling, insults, personal attacks and (from Joe G) physical threats against evolutionists. But if evolutionists do any name-calling, they're insta-banned; and quite often even evolutionists who are restrained and do no name-calling are banned, and then falsely accused of making personal attacks when they can no longer reply.

The shtick of the "moderator" Barry Arrington (who never actually moderates) is to call every evolutionist a string of names-- "coward", "ignoramus", "fool" etc., but especially "liar." But if any evolutionist calls any IDologue a "liar", he is insta-banned. This hypocrisy has been pointed out to them many times, and their justification is always the same: 'When we call evolutionists liars and ignoramuses, those are not insults, because they are accurate. When you call ID proponents liars and IDiots, it is a personal attack and we'll ban you for that.'

I don't mind the name-calling and physical threats. It's all they've got, they've had no scientific successes.

Do all the name-calling you want, but present some evidence for your claims, and don't be a hypocrite. But I find the repetition of 'When we call you liars, it's not name-calling, because it's accurate' to be insufferably hypocritical, so much so that I feel all ID critics should boycott UD until they change their hypocritical banning policy.

Georgi Marinov said...

I was banned within a day of my first post there, years ago.

I haven't bothered to create other accounts

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Diogenes: Last time I checked in, it seemed the only non-creationist left posting there was Zachriel.

There are a few more left. In particular, wd400 (evidently an evolutionary biologist) keeps on doing good work there.

Intruguingly, someone seems to have banned JoeG. The IDiot Mapou has recently protested against it.

colnago80 said...

I assume that Prof. Moran, at least at one time, published papers on biochemistry in the peer reviewed technical literature, else he would not have achieved tenure at a research oriented institution such as UT.

William Spearshake said...

http://www.bbb.org/denver/business-reviews/attorneys-and-lawyers-collections-law/barry-k-arrington-law-office-in-englewood-co-90138018

William Spearshake said...

Barry once called me a pathetic snivelling coward for not responding to one of his loaded questions. From him, I take it as a compliment.

Ted said...

I posted the following on Uncommon Descent. Do you think it will get me banned?

"I find this fussing over the qualifications of biology professors to discuss evolution rather puzzling since evolution critics seem remarkably uninformed. In particular, there is a well known result from JBS Haldane which says that if a mutation produces a 1% increase in survival, then there is a 2% chance that the mutation will be permanentantly "fixed" in the population. In other words, 49 out of 50 of such mutations will lose the luck of the draw and die out. This would seem to be obvious grist to the evolution skeptic's mill, and yet I have never seen any creationist or ID proponent mention this basic fact.

How many readers of UD have ever heard of this? For extra credit, what is the full formula for the fixation probablity?"

Beau Stoddard said...

Professor Moran I think you're misrepresenting the conversation over at UD. The conversation wasn't about who's an authority on evolution, it was centered on why you believe you are. I don't recall Timaeus saying anyone associated with intelligent design was an evolutionary authority, he simply questioned why you believe you are. If his accusations are true concerning your career, where are the faults in his argument? I'm not qualified to be a judge but I'm a little disappointed you haven't responded on the thread. You spend plenty of time criticizing ID. It would only be fair, to me at least, that if you and Behe are similar in accomplishment you would explain why your view is the right one.

Gary Gaulin said...

Here is a preliminary version of the new origin of intelligence software for modeling self-navigation, source of imagination, and more:

http://intelligencegenerator.blogspot.com/

Before publishing it at my favorite software repository I'm currently welcoming all constructive ideas, comments, interest in coding to a new computer language, help refining the system, group project, etc..

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

You spend plenty of time criticizing ID. It would only be fair, to me at least, that if you and Behe are similar in accomplishment you would explain why your view is the right one.

Quite simply, there are a whole legion of "evolutionary authorities" (people who carry out research, publish in peer-reviewed journals and have a thorough, expert knowledge of their field) who say the same things as Larry, more or less. Quite a few of them visit Sandwalk regularly and don't seem to treat Larry like an oddball or a poor relative. He only presents good mainstream science; I don't recall him claiming to be some sort of evolutionary guru.

On the other hand, Behe is the lone star of the ID movement. Where are all those people with better accomplishments and better credentials who agree with him? The only support he gets is from the religiously motivated fringe. Go figure out for yourself whose views are more likely to be correct.

As for Timaeus, the less said the better. He's a pompous and cowardly piece of shit, taking advantage of his Internet anonymity to attack people who are not afraid to speak under their real names, making themselves vulnerable to such personal attacks. What's the point of responding to him directly if he has placed himself in a more comfortable position and wants to keep it? It's like challenging someone to a duel in which only the challenger is allowed to wear a bullet-proof vest.

Jass said...

I have a solution to your banning problems at UD. I will create a blog where you can place ALL YOU WANT scientific evidence that disproves ID. The problem is resolved.

We will together get ID and UD out of business!

Gary Gaulin said...

Go KevNick go! Rah!!

http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

Diogenes said...

Kevnick says: "I have a solution to your banning problems at UD. I will create a blog where you can place ALL YOU WANT scientific evidence that disproves ID. "

Yeah they already exist, they're called TalkOrigins and Panda's Thumb, but how does their existence solve the problem of UD?

The problem of UD is that all the commenters are bitter failures at non-scientific careers who try to pose as scientists and almost always falsely inflate their credentials, when they're not lying outright, and who hate atheists with such a purple passion that they think it's perfectly OK to write things like 'When you call us cowards and ignoramuses it's a personal attack so we'll ban you, but when we call you cowards and ignoramuses, it's not name-calling because it's accurate, so no ID proponent is banned or even corrected.' You got a solution for that? If not, STFU.

Chris B said...

KevNick,
You have it backwards. In science, if you want to establish a theory, you have to start by testing hypotheses. In this case, evolutionary theory has been tested for decades, and has mountains of empirical data consistent with its hypotheses.

Science is always open to new evidence of course, which is why theories operate provisionally, and are refined as new information is discovered. That is where ID could contribute. Evolutionary theory has no requirement to "disprove ID". If ID has scientific validity, it must generate testable hypotheses and then empirically test these hypotheses. Currently ID has zero empirical evidence to support it. It is already "out of business" until it does so.

Beau Stoddard said...

Fair enough.

Gary Gaulin said...

Currently ID has zero empirical evidence to support it.

Excuse me. Do you a vision problem?:

http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/

Peter said...

UD: "Shapiro, Newman, Wagner, Jablonka, or any of the other currently important evolutionary theorists"
A bit of a warped view. Especially as they do not support ID, not even Shapiro.

Perhaps they better get acquainted with other other Wagner, G.P.; but getting a textbook would suffice to solve their problem. Futuyma is still the recommended reading, but no ID person ever got that far.

Faizal Ali said...

Interesting. Admittedly, there are only two complaints listed there. But they are quite consistent with what we know of ol' Barry:

Complaint
Leaving rude and harassing messages on my cell phone attempting to reach a person I have not relationship with.

Harassing telephone calls. No attempt to verify that they are calling the correct person.

Desired Settlement
Remove my telephone number from their records.place on company DNC list. I have no business relationship with this company. Next call I want $1000 per call per federal laws.


The other complaint is more detailed, but essentially the same: Repeated telephone harassment and threats, up to 6x in the span of 10 minutes, to someone who was never a client. That behaviour is not just unprofessional. It's outright criminal.

Anonymous said...

Gary,

That's not empirical evidence, that's simulated wishful thinking.

Anonymous said...

Leaving aside the irony, it's interesting that the IDiots would go for such a clear cut ad hominem fallacy, and that they would be proud of it. There's reasons why Larry calls them IDiots.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't it be obvious Beau, that if they cared about the science they would be concentrated on that aspect rather than looking for credentials?

I see what Larry writes about evolution, and I understand his position. He links to articles in the primary literature, and discusses them. Good science, bad science, etc, all come into the blog. I can follow the results Larry talks about, I can check the literature, and I often do (often add to my own course's literature suggestions) I have disagreed with Larry on a point or two. Perhaps more. Yet, I am as sure as he is that IDiots don't understand evolutionary theory. I understand how far from Darwin we are today, and the need for a whole renewal or perhaps of a good and robust new synthesis (instead of the self-serving thing that appeared recently). If the IDIots were interested din the science at all, they would try and understand those very things. Yet they decided an attack on the person, rather than trying to understand evolution.

It's not that hard to actually understand what's going on in evolutionary theory today. But it does take some work and will to understand. But ID is a religiously-motivated political movement. They rather concentrate on using propaganda techniques (like this ad hominem), instead of understanding the science that they want banned from school because it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Anonymous said...

Gary, you have a model. Biologists and scientists of other sorts have enough experience with models to know that they often don't work. They must be tested with real-life data and either discarded or modified.

Since this is, as you've written elsewhere, a bottom-up model for the emergence of intelligence, it would be good to start near the bottom. Make it clear how your idea of molecular intelligence better explains what molecules do than does the current idea that molecules lack intelligence. Make some predictions about molecules that can be observed and measured. Find a chemist to test your predictions (or learn enough chemistry to test this yourself).

Believe me, if your idea helps chemists understand molecules better and chemists start writing about this, biologists will pay attention.

Anonymous said...

KevNick,

"I will create a blog where you can place ALL YOU WANT scientific evidence that disproves ID."

How many times do you have to read that it's you who needs evidence that ID is even plausible? I know you're an IDIot, but do you have to confirm it time and again? Is there any room for you guys to actually and honestly learn something?

Diogenes said...

Shapiro is not even an evolutionary theorist-- much less an "important evolutionary theorist." He has a hypothesis, but he refuses to say how it could be tested.

Theorists do some math or figure out testable ideas or logical deductions from known principles. Crackpots have hypotheses and seek to evade testing them. Shapiro is not an evolutionary theorist.

Larry Moran said...

kairosfocus posted nine articles on evolution at Uncommon Descent. The comments on the first one (last week) were all about the censorship policy on UD. He got frustrated with that discussion and closed the comments. All of the other posts do not allow comments.

That's a shame since I'm sure Timaeus wanted to put up a comment where he analyzes the credentials of kairosfocus to determine whether he has the authority to talk about evolution.

William Spearshake said...

Larry, how dare you criticize Kairosfocus Mullings. Don't you realize that you are enabling the cyber stalking and on the ground stalking of this paragon of virtue? Obviously the repeated correctives he has provided you have not been heeded.

Damn, it is hard to write like this and keep a straight face. I wonder how he does it.

Alan Fox said...

Piotr writes:

Timaeus is quite paranoid about the possibility of being "outed", and he won't divulge anything that might damage his Internet anonymity. Fair enough, but the justification is striking: he thinks his bosses might fire him if they learnt of his creationist sympathies. In other words, he might become another EXPELLED martyr. I have no idea what he specialises in -- perhaps philosophy, literature, history, or Classical studies.

An educated guess says he has a Ph D in "Religious Studies".

Gary Gaulin said...

Gary, you have a model. Biologists and scientists of other sorts have enough experience with models to know that they often don't work. They must be tested with real-life data and either discarded or modified.

Then you better start testing my model, before claiming that it does not work.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Oh dear. I can imagine his employers' outrage if they found out they had an ID mole among their staff.

Anonymous said...

Gary, You are confused about where the burden of proof lies. Any new idea has to earn its way in science, in the sense that there must be, or certainly appear to be, evidence to support it. Your model at this point is purely theoretical and it doesn't fit well with established science. That's not a bad thing, but that's only the start.

To put it another way, you care about your model. You think it's true. You have reason to promote its acceptance by providing empirical evidence for it. I don't care about your model. I think it's wrong, though of course I could be wrong about that. But I don't have any reason to spend thought or time on it, beyond comments in this blog. And I have enough of my own work to keep me busy for the next couple of lifetimes.

If someone is going to provide the kind of evidence that will get your model accepted as a useful idea about how the world works, that person will be you, or perhaps a good chemist you manage to intrigue with your ideas.

Gary Gaulin said...

I am not responsible for those who disgrace themselves by talking trash in order to discredit a model that they have no interest in testing.

I do not work for a university science department and cannot afford to meet all the pompous demands from those who get paid to make sure they leave no stone unturned or viable theory left untested.

Jass said...

Diogenes,

Considering the level of your dishonesty and manipulations, I'm not surprised you are banned @UD. If I were the host of this blog, I will ban you too for the sake of others who at least try to maintain a "humane" level of decency.

Unfortunately, you and many others, have turned this blog into a public privy, which was not allowed @UD.

Anonymous said...

Gary, I don't work for a university either. Doing science as consultants and privately is a challenge, as you know.

No one is under an obligation to drop their own work to do yours, any more than you are obliged to drop your model to measure my plants.

Gary Gaulin said...

bwilson, I'm stuck in a vicious cycle where I have to find a university that can apply for and receive grant money but they're all too busy (usually for good reasons) with their own projects to get involved. Those who are already responsible for "evolution" related theory and should already be testing this on their own (and giving credit where due) are only allowed to discredit my "evolution" related work.

PZ Myers said...

This is excellent news! I coauthored a letter to Animal Behaviour with Lloyd and Wallen on evo biology -- which means I'm on their approved authority list.

Does this mean they'll have to listen to me now?

PZ Myers said...

Since it was published in 2012, I guess that means they have respect my authoritah until 2022.

Steve said...

Larry Moran,

Is this your long winded way of saying you will no longer be offering your comments on evolutionary biology?

Nah, Larry. Dont be bothered by UD. Go on, have it your way. Be that un-authoritative authoritive narrator for Darwin.

We IDers do like to see designed objects crochet knitted into those languid non-designed darwinian cardigans you seem so fond of wearing.

You do wear them well.

Robert Byers said...

Animal behaviour is not biological evolution really. Just minor habits of mind.
So your not in yet! Of coarse all this discussion counts as a analysis on animal behaviour if people are animals. We ain;'t. We are made in Gods image and smarts.

Robert Byers said...

Who is a uthority on anything? Who decides?
An authority must recognized by some standard.
I say the standard in all human intellectual strivings is if the person proves, to himself or others, he is knowledgable on the subject in question.
it must pass a standard of basic understanding and able to deal with discussions on the subject.
This eliminates kids who memorize things in school.
I see most posters on origin blogs, regulars, as counting as thoughtful intellectual people. so authorities on the subject.
If paid researchers/teachers show they don't know enough then they are not authorities.
Writing papers is irrelevant. of coardse teaching it or like issues is relevant.

I do see evolutionary biology as done, paid or on pension, by very few people.
I don't know the number but suspect its mere thousand in North america.
Even writing a paper, or few, is irrelevant unless the whole career effort in involved.

This is why evolution was so long in error and only now is being toppled. it was small circles involved at anytime. Creationist were accused of not being professionals.
Now the ID people are and so the end is near for old Darwin. In our time folks.
Yes I think I'm knowledgable on these matters and so, yo me, a authority.
Jusy don't get paid!!

Diogenes said...

Spearshake, Lutesuite, thank you for the tasty info.

I'm shocked to see Barry Arrington harasses people with hostile, unwanted phone calls. It's almost as if he were unprofessional and a little nuts. Who would have expected that from Barry?

Oh, right. Those who've met him.

Chris B said...

Gary,

"bwilson, I'm stuck in a vicious cycle where I have to find a university that can apply for and receive grant money but they're all too busy (usually for good reasons) with their own projects to get involved."

You are correct here. If you want to test your hypotheses, you have to do it scientifically. If you have no lab or any ability to do that, you will have to find someone to collaborate with to fund testing of your hypotheses. There is no substitute. You are stuck at the position you are in, and no scientist is required to test your idea. You will have to convince someone to test your hypotheses with you.

"Those who are already responsible for "evolution" related theory and should already be testing this on their own (and giving credit where due) are only allowed to discredit my "evolution" related work."

This is where you go off the rails. No one is required to test every idea that pops into your head, and they most certainly are not "only allowed to discredit your work". They are unaware of of your 'work'. it is up to you to convince them it is worth investing resources in. They have jobs where they follow fairly specific lines of experimentation; they are a cog in the scientific enterprise.They should not be testing your ideas unless they deem them important. That part id up to you.

Gary Gaulin said...

Chris it's like I just said in another forum:

Scientists are supposed to objectively consider all evidence.

But as we can see what is being taught is that it's OK to ignore inconvenient evidence unless somehow forced to behave like a scientist is supposed to.

Gary Gaulin said...

PZ, is this science or religion?

http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/

Gary Gaulin said...

Zietsch & Santtila’s study is not evidence against the by-product theory of female orgasm

Kim Wallen, P. Z. Myers, Elisabeth A. Lloyd

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/256655228_Zietsch__Santtila%27s_study_is_not_evidence_against_the_by-product_theory_of_female_orgasm

Ed said...

Gary, it's like bwilson says:
"If someone is going to provide the kind of evidence that will get your model accepted as a useful idea about how the world works, that person will be you, or perhaps a good chemist you manage to intrigue with your ideas."

You, and only you, are responsible for testing your model. Or getting it tested. Until then it's another nice idea floating around on cyber space, but that's it. The burden of proof is on the scientist proposing an idea, ie YOU.

If you can get people interested, maybe they will test your model. If not, you might want to consider why they're not interested. Did you miss something in your model? Does your model also provide answers to the question why f.e. healthy parents have children with three chromosomes 21? Or why some primates, incl. humans, lack vitamine C production, while others do? Or why whales seem to be alive while lacking key components in blood clotting which other mammals do have and need to survive?
You can theoretically test your model and verify it works in theory, and perhaps results from those theoretical test might interest scientists to test your model in a lab.
But at the end of the day you'll need to validate your model, which means you'll need to perform lab tests.

And behaving like a sour, grumpy person who thinks the whole world is against him won't really help your position. It's called the Galileo gambit.
To cite a few lines:
The Galileo gambit, or Galileo fallacy, is the notion that if your ideas provoke the establishment to vilify or threaten you, you must be right

and

People use this argument repeatedly in response to serious criticisms that more often than not they just don't understand.

Anyway, I wish you luck trying to get your model tested. But the grunt work, remains your responsibility.

Alan Fox said...

I wonder if I could put in a request that Professor Moran and anyone still commenting as an ID critic should stop posting at Uncommon Descent. The moderation has become so arbitrary and fickle there that the site has put itself beyond the pale of reasonable discourse.

A recent egregious example: a poster , Aurelio Smith, (my sockpuppet) had the entire record of his participation erased notwithstanding some thought his participation there was acceptable enough to be invited to write a guest post.

I did get feedback that the reason for erasing me from history was "for being an asshole" which clarified matters a great deal

Can I also put in a plea that Jon Bartlett should not be tarred with the same wide brush as others in Larry's list. It was Jon who invited me to guest-post.

Gary Gaulin said...

Apparently it's considered scientifically ethical to repeatedly claim that no testable theory or hypothesis has ever been offered to scientists to test then when someone does to move the goalposts to where it's suddenly up to them to do all the testing.

My faith in the scientific system is now 100% gone.

PZ Myers said...

Neither. It's just nonsense.

judmarc said...

my authoritah

South Park!! :-)

judmarc said...

I will create a blog where you can place ALL YOU WANT scientific evidence that disproves ID.

You can save yourself the work - most biological science blogs have already done so, and of course academic journals have done so with tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of published peer reviewed scientific articles by now for more than a century.

You remind me of a schizophrenic client I once represented. He spoke quite reasonably most of the time, and I recall the time I met with him when he described to me the business he planned to set up, where drivers would pay him a certain amount of money every month, and if they had accidents he would pay to have their cars repaired. I didn't have the heart to tell him car insurance had already been invented.

Sorry, scientific evolutionary theory was already invented.

SRM said...

My faith in the scientific system is now 100% gone.

And this is what allies you with creationists, IDers, and others who believe that all information acquired throught the scientific process is false, while information acquired through personal supposition and revelation is perfectly true and valid.

Seems the scientific process has worked spectacularly well over the last few centuries, even without votes of confidence from people who dislike the conclusions drawn from it.

Gary Gaulin said...

Neither. It's just nonsense.

Please explain how you "tested" it.

Thank you.

Gary Gaulin said...

Oh and I'll also need your "testable" operational definition for intelligence. You probably already missed mine:

A behavior from any system qualifies as intelligent behavior by meeting all four circuit requirements for this ability, which are: [1] something to control (body or modeling platform) with motor muscles (proteins, electric speaker, electronic write to a screen), [2] Random Access Memory (RAM) addressed by sensory sensors where each motor action and its associated confidence value are separate data elements, [3] confidence (central hedonic, homeostasis) system that increments (stored in memory) confidence value of a successful motor action else decrements the confidence value, [4] guess mechanism for a new memory action when associated confidence level sufficiently decreases. For flagella powered cells a random guess response (to a new heading) is designed into the motor system by the action of reversing motor direction causing it to “tumble”.

Gary Gaulin said...

Hey SRM, I hope you don't mind explaining how you "scientifically tested" this theory that covers almost all of the scientific fields that exist, and your operational definition for "intelligent":

http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/

SRM said...

Apparently it's considered scientifically ethical to repeatedly claim that no testable theory or hypothesis has ever been offered to scientists to test then when someone does to move the goalposts to where it's suddenly up to them to do all the testing.

And furthermore, the goalposts have not suddenly been shifted on your behalf. Do you really think that scientists just sit around waiting for some potential lunatic to come along so that they can spend their lab's resources on testing every crackpot hypothesis proposed.

Anonymous said...

Steve,

I know you don't really care, but I would suggest that it's not either on Larry's or in your IDiot's authorities that these things rest upon. It should be you going on beyond that and thinking about the issues with honesty and willingness to understand.

But we know that you're not about thinking. You just enjoy being a self-deluded idiot.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I have never posted there. Even when tempted I just think about how little they're willing to listen, plus the flood of imbecility that comes from the common pro-creationist crowd.

I doubt they would care though. They enjoy their echo chamber quite a lot.

Anonymous said...

Gary,

There's no need for testing. Your shit is nonsense, therefore it would be nonsense to "test" it. To test it we would have to take it seriously, but it lacks at all levels, from philosophical to scientific, that it would be just a waste of time. You're an idiot Gary. Get it already. You're an idiot and only you think that you have the key to all the questions of life, the universe and everything. That's the very definition of self-delusion. Grow up already. You're not what you think you are. You're just an idiot.

Anonymous said...

And furthermore, the goalposts have not suddenly been shifted on your behalf. Do you really think that scientists just sit around waiting for some potential lunatic to come along so that they can spend their lab's resources on testing every crackpot hypothesis proposed.

Accurately and nicely put. Gary's unreachable though.

Faizal Ali said...

His law firm is also being sued by a Lisa Lynch, though there is little further info about the nature of the complaint:

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2013cv05967/286837

judmarc said...

The first and last times I commented on UD (I think it was UD, maybe it was another, similar site?) before being silently banned were way back in the days of DaveScot, when I disagreed with him that an article by Carl Zimmer (IIRC) about Tiktaalik disproved evolution. I think I got two very polite comments in (two more than I expected) about his misinterpretations before nothing else I posted showed up.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Some of the UD regulars are quite friendly and capable of conducting a civil dicussion as long as it's understood that the big bosses tolerate your presence. However, once you happen to fall from grace (that is, Bazza Arrington starts calling you names and he or Gordo M. adds offensive "warnings" to your comments), no-one will take your side. If they ban you, you become an unperson, and anyone who enquires about you risks getting banned as well.

Bill said...

Showing my age, I was banned by Dembski himself back in the day when he took an active role with UD. I thought my question was polite. I asked if there was a reference book that laid out the "theory of ID," whereupon Dembski labeled me a member of the "Darwin lobby" and banned me. I took that to be a "no."

Diogenes said...

As I said above, a good case can be made for all ID critics boycotting Uncommon Descent.

Unknown said...

I have the suspicion that Gordon (KairosFocus) has more banning authority than he claims to have. I have been banned a couple times when Barry was absent. The fact that Gordon would feel it necessary to lie about it is very telling.

Alan Fox said...

Apologies, Diogenes, I overlooked that you'd said this earlier when I commented.:

I feel all ID critics should boycott UD until they change their hypocritical banning policy.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Here is my favourite example of KF's "moderation":

KF defaces DNA_Jock's comment, drowning the original text in a torrent of verbal diarrhoea,

and then lectures him about "reasonable, civil behaviour".

Unknown said...

Damn. I used to feel guilty about outing Gordon Mullings. But not any more. What an arrogant, asshole.

steve oberski said...

The "theory of ID" reference book is called the bible ...

SRM said...

Here is my favourite example of KF's "moderation"

I rarely visit UD but I did enjoy the 2LOT exchanges with you, Diogenes, and others, explaining the the real nature of that law to the regulars there that clearly do not understand it.

It was particularly amusing that so many replies to you were prefaced with the admonition that you shouldn't be so rude. Apparantly educating people is considered rude.

This, as much as anything, betrays the religious underpinning of ID. To point out the deficiencies of religious belief and ideology is considered rude and unthinkable in this world. And so it goes for the "scientific theory" of ID.

Diogenes said...

Piotr, thanks for linking to He Who Shall Not Be Named going ballistic on DNA_Jock.

It reveals HWSNBN's character (as if we didn't know already): a hostile, aggressive (not passive-aggressive) prig who lashes out at others who try patiently to educate him, who drops slanders and outrageously false accusations the way a guinea pig makes shit pellets, and uses shrill shrieks claiming his own moral superiority while haranguing other people about a "civility" and politeness he has never possessed himself.

Gary Gaulin said...

Here is the forum for the religious underpinning of the "scientific theory" you are passionate about:

http://biologos.org/blog

Diogenes said...

SRM says: "I rarely visit UD but I did enjoy the 2LOT exchanges with you, Diogenes, and others"

As you probably know, Piotr and I have been banned from UD. The arrogant, insufferable hypocrisy and cendorship of the UDites is so bad that I've concluded that critics of ID should boycott that shit forum, at least until the Arrogant Ambulance Chaser, Joe Security Clearance, and He Who Shall Not Be Named have gone the way of DaveScot-- that is, banned, or at least had all their banning privilelges revoked, along with their North Korean-style Loudspeaker From The Ceiling.

DaveScot (who once obscenely threatened to hack Panda's Thumb, consequently got banned there, and later lied about the reason for his banning) is long gone from UD. Security Clearance is more recently gone. Am I naive to hope that a certain Canadian grandma could give the heave-ho to HWSNBN and the Ambulance Chaser?

Gary Gaulin said...

I got (guess you could say) banned from BioLogos. And twice at UD. The first time was by William Dembski for my habit of annoyingly demanding that they seriously work on a viable scientific theory instead of dwelling on religion.

Diogenes said...

Jeff Shallit, who was also a target of the brave Timaeus, takes down the pompous hypocrite here.

skongstad said...

I've seen that argument leveled against scientists for decades now. "How can you ask for peer reviewed research from the ID side if you personally have not produced any research on Evolution?".

It almost sounds like they have a point, until you realize that when for instance Behe publishes a pop sci book describing his take on ID, he is making untested claims, and he, or other people, should lift the burden of proof.
When Larry Moran discusses ID creationism in the light of modern evolutionary theory he is using accepted consensus science as a basis. You can go look up peer reviewed research on Evolutionary science. On the other hand, if all you have is some arguments in a pop sci book like Behe or Dembski, then counter arguments on a blog is on the same level.

nmanning said...

Pity that creationists never come to blogs or websites that they do not control to defend evidence-backed charges of incompetence, tomfoolery, etc. on their part.

nmanning said...

Keep doing the bidding of your un-qualified masters, Stevie boy. You are such a good lap dog.

Tom Mueller said...

How to get kicked off UD

According to the illuminati on Uncommon Descent, the following issues have already been satisfactorily addressed and require no further discussion by the annoying noncognoscenti.

Put a Sock In It
http://www.uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/

Arguments we’ve heard many times before and don’t want to hear again.

If you insist on boring us with them you won’t be with us for long.


-Who Designed the Designer

-Intelligent Design is Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo

-Since Intelligent Design Proponents Believe in a “Designer” or “Creator” They Can Be Called “Creationists”

-Intelligent Design is an Attempt by the Religious Right to Establish a Theocracy

-Bad Design Means No Design

-No Real Scientists Take Intelligent Design Seriously

-“Evolution” Proves that Intelligent Design is Wrong

-Real Scientists Do Not Use Terms Like Microevolution or Macroevolution

-Intelligent Design Tries To Claim That Everything is Designed Where We Obviously See Necessity and Chance

-The Explanatory Filter Implies that a Snowflake is Designed by an Intelligent Agent.

-This Proves that the Design Inference is Not Reliable!

-What About the spreading of antibiotic resistance?

-What Do You Mean by “Constructive” Beneficial Mutations Exactly?

-Intelligent Design proponents deny, without having a reason, that randomness can produce an effect, and then go make something up to fill the void.

-Intelligent Design is Not a Valid Theory Since it Does Not Make Predictions

-The Evidence for Common Descent is Incompatible with Intelligent Design

-It is certainly true that evolution predicts only minor changes from generation to generation – but when you look at the cumulative effect of hundreds of millions or billions of replications then those many, many changes can incrementally lead to large changes.

-Macro-evolution *is* nothing but lots and lots of microevolution!

-Nothing is Wrong with the Modern Synthesis!

-The Information in Complex Specified Information (CSI) Cannot Be Qualified

-What types of life are Irreducibly Complex? Or which life is not Irreducibly Complex?

-In the Flagellum Behe Ignores that this Organization of Proteins has Verifiable Functions when Particular Proteins are Omitted, i.e. in its simplest form, an ion pump.

-Darwinian evolution is a Vastly More Simplistic Argument than Intelligent Design

-The Designer Must be Complex and Thus Could Never Have Existed

-Intelligent Design is Completely Out of Date! It’s arguing against old idea and not modern evolutionary theory.

-Intelligent Design Does Not Do Research

-Intelligent Design Cannot Be Falsified

-William Dembski “Dispensed” with the Explanatory Filter (EF) and thus Intelligent Design Cannot Work

Tom Mueller said...

The “put a sock on it” continues with the following (and repetitive) subset of the “Dembski Dispensation”

• ID Proponents Wrongly Claim that Natural Selection Does Not Work

• Intelligent Design Makes No Scientific Observations


• Behe is Jumping to Conclusions. p.falciparum Did Not Evolve Because It Did Not Need to Evolve. In Other Words It is So Perfect Already That It Cannot Improve Upon Itself.

• ID Proponents Talk a Lot About Front-Loading But Never Explain What It Means


• Lenski’s Research on Citrate-Eating E. Coli Refututes Behe’s Edge of Evolution Hypothesis

• The Evidence for Gradualism in the Phylogenetic Tree of Life is Overwhelming

• Even if the Tree of Life is Not Gradual We Still See a Bottom-To-Top Pattern as Darwin Predicted Would be Found

• Lateral (Or Horizontal) Gene Transfer (LGT) is Strong Evidence Against ID


• Symbiosis Theory as Promoted by Lynn Margulis is Evidence Against ID

• Genetic Entropy is False and Thus ID is Falsified as Well

Final Warning


If you are making the above arguments your understanding of the subject matter is in error. The simplistic view of Darwinism of the past that you apparently adhere to is wrong. The arguments you are attempting to regurgitate will quickly earn you scorn. Please read the scientific literature produced by both Darwinists and ID proponents before continuing your association here at Uncommon Descent.

As just one example of erroneous disuccsions that will no longer be tolerated:

Predictions of non-functionality of “junk DNA” were made by Susumu Ohno (1972), Richard Dawkins (1976), Crick and Orgel (1980, Pagel and Johnstone (1992), and Ken Miller (1994), based on evolutionary presuppositions.

By contrast, predictions of functionality of “junk DNA” were made based on teleological bases by Michael Denton (1986, 1998), Michael Behe (1996), John West (1998), William Dembski (1998), Richard Hirsch (2000), and Jonathan Wells (2004).

These Intelligent Design predictions of are being confirmed. e.g., ENCODE’s June 2007 results show substantial functionality across the genome in such “junk” DNA regions, including pseudogenes.

These predictions are further detailed in Junk DNA at Research Intelligent Design.

Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project.

The ENCODE Project Consortium, Nature 447, 799:816 (14 June 2007) doi:10.1038/nature05874

There are other predictions, but the majority of them are within the scope of ID-compatible hypotheses.


[sic]

Tom Mueller said...

So I guess that explains it... Larry and his acolites have been proven "wrong" and UC has better things to do with its time than continuously entertain their fallacious lines of reasoning.

;-)

nmanning said...

Except that blogs that expose the shenanigans of the IDC movement have the added benefit of, for the most part, being grounded in reality and relying - honestly - on published science.

nmanning said...

Regarding the whole "IDers predicted function in junkDNA" bit - they ignore or dismiss the fact that there were not only predictions, but examples of function in junkDNA in the literature well before Denton or Dembski ever discussed it. I know - I have informed some of them of this, and been ignored or "Yeah but"ed into submission.

Tom Mueller said...

Larry and others present should have no difficulty in outing Timaeus. Ironically the very Biblical Hermeneutics that permitted the identification of the author of "Luke's" Gospel to be the same author of "Acts" can also be employed to identify and out Timaeus.

Any university prof has access to a "plagiarism program" that identifies students who attempt to pass off their efforts as original when in fact their writing matches others' already posted on the internet..

Chris B said...

So basically none of the obvious weaknesses of ID/creationism, and arguments against ID/creationism they can't refute are off limits. How convenient.

Why anyone would want to bang their head against the wall in the UD church/echo chamber is a mystery to me.

Tom Mueller said...

Hi Larry

Re your question:

So, who are they going to believe now?

It would appear that you have stumbled across the answer to T Ryan Gregory’s question:

I admit that I'm curious who will end up contributing papers... [to this authoritative peer-reviewed journal]

I am betting Shapiro and gnomon have Barry Arrington, Vincent Torley, Denyse O'Leary, Casey Luskin, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Jonathan McLatchie, Michael Behe, Salvador Cordova, Jonathan Bartlet, Michael Egnor, Cornelius Hunter, Gordon Elliot Mullings, Ann Gauger and the regnorator already lined up.

To quote Joe:

Hoo boy ...

Of course, Felsenstein’s & Ryan’s clear lack of authority would explain their “sour grapes” at not being invited.

Maybe if PZ Myers asks nicely, he could still get in.
;-)

Robert Byers said...

skongstad
Whast is accepted consensus science? Is there unaccepted consensus? Accepted non consensus?
Who is doing all this acceptance?
How many?
I never understand how many evolutionist researchers evolutionists think there are!!
hundreds or thousands?
Who are the top ten? Creationists are told the top NEVER lower themselves to talk about creationist/ID criticisms. The ones who do have other anti-religion motivations.
I don't know!
They predent they are holding back their best troops in reserve.
I think its very few REAL researchers who can be called biological evolutionist including papers/books/teaching positions.
Under a thousand.
Thats why its so easy to beat them these days. Its not many one is fighting.
In the past YEC simply was missing a dozen good thinkers on these matters. TTHe ID people have supplied this and now are the talk of the scientific community whether in fear, hostility, bemusement, or praise.

judmarc said...

• Lenski’s Research on Citrate-Eating E. Coli Refututes Behe’s Edge of Evolution Hypothesis

So they understand nothing, since Lenski's research illustrates a path (citrate-eating E. coli) that really *is* difficult for evolution to traverse.

John Harshman said...

We seem to have a varied collection of good arguments they wish nobody would make, bad arguments that nobody makes, and a very few bad arguments they could legitimately complain about. In the last group I immediately see only one: "Real Scientists Do Not Use Terms Like Microevolution or Macroevolution". I've seen that claimed lots of times.

Petrushka said...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150608213032.htm

Just for grins.

Unknown said...

John: "In the last group I immediately see only one: "Real Scientists Do Not Use Terms Like Microevolution or Macroevolution". I've seen that claimed lots of times."
Oh. I thought macroevolution was just an accumulation of a lot of microevolution and not a result of a known biological process.

John Harshman said...

Eddie,

You're garbling something. If evolution is just the accumulation of a lot of microevolution, isn't that a known biological process? Two other problems: there clearly are some macroevolutionary processes that aren't reducible to microevolution (and they're known too), and your comment is irrelevant to the question of whether real scientists use the term.

Joe Felsenstein said...

I looked up the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in Google Ngram, just to see when it said they were first used. The first starts in 1936, and there is a big blip in the 1940s. The early uses are to distinguish between changes between major taxonomic groups and population-level changes. Traditional biologists tended to see these as different processes, while the advocates of the Modern Synthesis argued that the first was a consequence of the second. Neither seemed to define clearly how major change had to be to be major.

Useage then declined by about half, picking up in the late 1970s, when a surge began until the 1990s. This was when mechanisms of punctuated equilibrium were being advocated by Raup, Stanley, Eldredge, Gould, Sepkowski, Vrba and others. There the distinction made was within-species evolution and differences between species, where the punctuationists tended to emphasize a role for "species selection". A different distinction than the earlier, less clear distinction.

After 1990 the usage of these subsides some. The one thing one can say is that there is no clear consensus on how one uses "macroevolution": it could be describing the issue of how differences between phyla arose, or it could be describing the issue of how differences between species arose.

Jmac said...

I’ve noticed that Larry didn’t include Doug Axe among his unpublished morons… He did include Ann G though. I wonder if Larry didn’t include Doug Axe in his prayer for help, because he embarrassed himself a while back by not responding to Dough’s challenge. The is easily accessible here: next post

Jmac said...

Here is the link:

http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/34190339725/are-we-reaching-a-consensus-that-evolution-is-past
It will not change much but we have to hope.

Unknown said...

The way I would use the terms is as follows:
Evolution is the change of allele frequencies in populations.
Somatic evolution is the change of allele frequencies in populations of cells
Microevolution is the change of allele frequencies in populations of organisms
Macroevolution is the change of allele frequencies in populations of species.

In each case we have a birth-death process to work with and our population consists of entities with a suite of genes allowing us to track allele frequencies as the BDP proceeds. I do not think that species selection and PE are linked - they came up at roughly the same time and the protagonists were largely the same, but they are still independent ideas. But it should be noted that there is no alternative that consists of "microevolution does it". The alternative to species selection is strict neutrality at the species level. My response to the idea of strict neutrality across the TOL is this: Coleoptera.

Anonymous said...

Shit Macau, you're too much of an idiot. The many problems with that "challenge" and with the "demonstrations" have been pointed out too many times already. In this blog and in many others.

It's also false that scientists don't think of evolution as going on today, and its also false that scientists would think that natural selection is just a force of the past. Your IDiots are also misinterpreting the discovery of phenomena other than natural selection playing part in the processes we call evolution for a "confession" that natural selection is not the force that it was in the past.

Man the idiocy displayed in that "challenge" is painful. Your idiocy at thinking that there is true to it without ever reading any critiques to the bullshit is too much even for an IDiot. Go get some mental help. Either that or learn to be honest and make the effort to search for actual answers and to understand them. Honesty doesn't go well with creationism, so I doubt you're about to follow that advice though.

Anonymous said...

If you were't that much of an imbecile you would have typed "doug axe" in the search field above and found that Larry is very far from being afraid of mentioning that IDIot.

Jmac said...

Axe: "So, to Moran I say, regale us with heroic stories of magically evolvable apes and magically evolvable enzymes if you must, but when you’re finished with the stories, be sure to join us in doing the science that should convince everyone one way or the other as to their plausibility.

We can go into the lab and modify bacterial cells by deleting the entire set of genes dedicated to the synthesis of tryptophan, one of the essential building blocks of proteins. When we observe what happens when these modified cells are given just enough tryptophan to grow and reproduce, we will see lots of things happening, but none that can be expected to reinvent a set of genes for making tryptophan, even in a large population over billions of years.

I know of many processes that people talk about as though they can do the job of inventing new proteins (and of many papers that have resulted from such talk), but when these ideas are pushed to the point of demonstration, they all seem to retreat into the realm of the theoretical. Having followed this debate for some time now, and having made several experimental contributions to it, Ann and I have become convinced that none of the current naturalistic ideas about the origin of protein folds or the functional diversification of existing folds actually works in any general sense.

But of course, as experimentalists we are very willing to see the evidence that might prove us wrong."

Larry, this is your chance to prove Axe and all the blind believers of ID wrong. Don't let us down Larry. It's your time to shine without publishing any scientific papers. What else can you ask for? This is it...

Anonymous said...

Look for the information you lazy dishonest sad excuse of a human being. Is hypocrisy all you learned from your religion?

Anonymous said...

Man! You're willingness to come and play the role of the imbecilic creationist is astounding. How far are you willing to go in ridiculing yourself, your intellect, and your beliefs?

Go on by all means. This kind of stupidity in display shows that ID creationism is proper for credulous imbeciles like yourself.

Anonymous said...

I looked. I saw your stupidity and ignorance in full display. How about now you get informed? Of course not. You're a lazy and dishonest imbecile. Proud and happy in your ignorance and stupidity, like a pig bathing in mud and shit.

Anonymous said...

Blah, blah, blah. But will you get informed? Nah. Of course not. You feel better as an ignorant imbecile. Keep at it.

Jmac said...

Someone once said: You can't teach the blind to see, especially if he doesn't want to''
No comment.

Cale B.T. said...

I thought you guys might enjoy this meme I made:

http://imgur.com/w4IwcTa

Larry Moran said...

I didn't include Doug Axe because I wasn't sure whether he had published anything in the scientific literature on evolutionary theory. I don't think he has. Does anyone have a citation?

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Don't get too excited, photosynthesis. Mr. Macau is only a new clone of Pest. Ignore the imbecile; all he craves is attention.

judmarc said...

Ann and I have become convinced that none of the current naturalistic ideas about the origin of protein folds or the functional diversification of existing folds actually works

Yeah, all those X-ray crystallographic studies aren't worth the paper - err, film - they're printed on.

So Axe and Gauger's skepticism being confirmed depends on all sorts of cross-confirming chemical structure work from various scientific disciplines being proved wrong, including work that's already been successfully commercialized in the area of drug synthesis. In other words, not only are there a zillion academic papers over decades confirming this stuff, but people have built companies and made lots and lots of money producing drugs that the models said would work, and they have. Does this tell you anything about the chances that Axe and Gauger are correct?

Many experiments, including famously Lenski's, much better designed and more thorough than Axe and Gauger's, have shown how difficult it is for evolution to take certain specific paths. Scientists all know there's nothing magic about evolution. Tell us when Axe and Gauger actually come up with something new, interesting and valid.

nmanning said...

Of course, Axe cannot hang - he cannot even seem to publish his own ID 'science' and instead, as all creationists do,. seems to spend more time whining about meanie evos than actually earning his DI salary. or maybe that is what he is actually paid to do.

Tell Axe for us all - show us some actual evidence FOR ID, and you can play in the game. But nit picking and "what if'ing" from the sidelines and attacks on evolution are NOT evidence for IDC, just evidence for the incompetence of ID supporters.

nmanning said...

Axe is just upset that he and his less-than-competent sidekick cannot come up with anything that actually SUPPORTS ID. Gauger is still lying about the type of data used in human-chimp comparisons, for crying out loud.

Faizal Ali said...

We can go into the lab and modify bacterial cells by deleting the entire set of genes dedicated to the synthesis of tryptophan, one of the essential building blocks of proteins. When we observe what happens when these modified cells are given just enough tryptophan to grow and reproduce, we will see lots of things happening, but none that can be expected to reinvent a set of genes for making tryptophan, even in a large population over billions of years.

Sure. And if you were to destroy Mt Everest with a nuclear bomb, and then wait for geological processes to create an exact replica in the same location, you'll likely be disappointed as well

This is what passes for "science" in ID-land.

To coin a phrase "And you wonder why they're called 'IDiots'?"

judmarc said...

Thanks, lutesuite, I was trying to come up with an example to illustrate the breathtaking inanity (thanks, Judge Jones) of the "thinking" behind that experiment, but you've done it beautifully.

Larry Moran said...

I also like the Mt. Everest analogy and I'll probably use it myself in the future. I'll attribute it to "an anonymous contributer to comments on Sandwalk". Is that okay?

Diogenes said...

I have a better analogy, if I may.

What Axe is saying is that if you poke a baby and remove its intestines, its intestines will never spontaneously re-insert into the baby, bringing it back to life. Therefore, babies cannot be produced by any natural process, so the 'babies come from sexual reproduction' theory is disproven, since you just proved natural processes totally can't spontaneously assemble babies. That leaves you with no alternative but Stork Theory: babies must be delivered by supernatural waterbirds. QED.

Or as Stephen Meyer would call it, "The positive argument for Storkal Design."

Axe: We can go into the lab and modify bacterial cells by deleting the entire set of genes dedicated to the synthesis of tryptophan, one of the essential building blocks of proteins. When we observe what happens when these modified cells are given just enough tryptophan to grow and reproduce, we will see lots of things happening, but none that can be expected to reinvent a set of genes for making tryptophan, even in a large population over billions of years.

Diogenes said...

Gauger once said that the 98.7% identity between human and chimp DNA came only from comparing coding DNA regions, so the difference was greater for the whole genome. Charlatans.

Petrushka said...

I have an idea for ID research: demonstrate Design is possible by designing a novel protein having a specified function without using trial and error or processes that mimic evolution.

Faizal Ali said...

I'll attribute it to "an anonymous contributer to comments on Sandwalk". Is that okay?

Sure. Or if you want to use my actual name, it's Faizal Ali. I don't have any great need to maintain anonymity. But I work as a psychiatrist and I just try to be a bit careful about putting comments out in public that might be offensive to some of my patients.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Macau,

Someone once said: You can't teach the blind to see, especially if he doesn't want to''

Sure thing. An excellent example would be those idiots who can't be bothered to do some minimal search before posting a comment insinuating that Larry is afraid of D. Axe's bullshit.

John Harshman said...

What makes anyone think that Gauger's statements arise from deceit rather than arrogant ignorance?

Anonymous said...

John,

And plain stupidity.

Larry Moran said...

@lutesuite

When I heard that you are a psychiatrist I immediately wondered how you could put up with all the IDiots who post here. I figured you probably get enough of that in your day job. :-)

Then it hit me. They are potential patients! You are using my blog to recruit clients.

Clever.

AllanMiller said...

This is it dot-dot-dot ... now who could it be ... ?

Jass said...

I think this is some kind of a joke. Larry isn't known for humor, so what is this supposed to be? Provocation?

Jass said...

Moran, people do not tend not to publish on the findings they don't have unless they are Darwinists. How are you expecting ID's to publish on evolution? They can only publish on non-evolution experiments, which many of them did.

Faizal Ali said...

When I heard that you are a psychiatrist I immediately wondered how you could put up with all the IDiots who post here. I figured you probably get enough of that in your day job. :-)

The difference is that my patients usually get better. IDiots seem to be hopeless cases.

Nullifidian said...

How are you expecting ID's to publish on evolution?

People publish critical articles all the time, and it's even better when they're backed up by data. But thanks for conceding that the ID crowd doesn't have any. Evidently you think that "publishing on X" means "uncritical agreement with X", which says a great deal about how IDiots misconceive scientific practice.

Larry Moran said...

@KevNick

I agree with you that people like Barry Arrington and the rest of the crowd at Uncommon Descent have not published articles on evolutionary theory. The obvious conclusion is that they have no authority to speak about evolution. That's according to their own definition of authority.

What's the problem? Their own standards mean that pretty much the only people qualified to speak about evolutionary theory are professional evolutionary biologists. I'm fine with that. Are you?

Larry Moran said...

It's true that very few IDiots appreciate my sense of humor.

Tom Mueller said...

re:
Their own standards mean that pretty much the only people qualified to speak about evolutionary theory are professional evolutionary biologists.

A mentioned above, it would appear that may be about to change

judmarc said...

not to publish on the findings they don't have

Freudian slip?

Jass said...

If you do have a sense of humor, (I don't know you personally so I'm not in a position to judge; I've seen one of your public talks where you used your favorite "IDiot" slip as a punchline. I'm not going to even try to comment on this one) there must be a lot of sarcasm involved in your sense of humor?

Jass said...

Larry,
I agree with you that people like Barry Arrington and the rest of the crowd at Uncommon Descent have not published articles on evolutionary theory. The obvious conclusion is that they have no authority to speak about evolution. That's according to their own definition of authority.

What's the problem? Their own standards mean that pretty much the only people qualified to speak about evolutionary theory are professional evolutionary biologists. I'm fine with that. Are you?

Larry,

What do YOU think makes SOMEONE an authority in any given field? Life of experience? Or actual scientific documentation?



Anonymous said...

KevNick,
Stop pretending. We know that you won't read any answers.

Jass said...

Larry,

Since you didn't answer my last question I'm gonna ask you, and Darwin's faithful, to provide reasonable arguments as to what makes you an authority to critic ID?


Also, what are the scientific arguments for nonexistence of gods /ID or what scientific evidence convinced you that there are no gods/ID or that there is no need for their existence?

Larry Moran said...

Idiots frequently make up arguments based on their interpretaion of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, molecular evolution, and/or evolutionary theory. I've been studying and learning about all those subjects for almost fifty years and I've been arguing with creationists for 25 years.

That doesn't mean I'm right about everything but time and time again I've been able to prove that the IDiots are wrong about the science. And I'm not the only one. Any competent undergraduate can be an ID critic and show that IDiots don't understand the science they criticize. You don't have to be a world class expert in biochemistry, for example, to show that IDiots are incompetent.

I don't think that there are any scientifc arguments that prove the nonexistence of gods. I never believed in them so I didn't need any evidence of their nonexistence. Instead, I listened to the arguments of believers who tried to convince me that gods exist and found those arguments unconvincing.

The burdon of proof is on those who believe in gods (or the tooth fairy) and I have yet to hear of any evidence that they exist.

Now let's turn the question around, What makes you, or any other creationist, an authority to criticize evolution? What knowledge and experience are you bringing to the table?

Jass said...

Larry,

You didn't really answer my questions but I didn't really expect direct answers from you or others. When I get into discussions with people like you, I never get direct answers right to the point. I often wonder if those vague answers are deliberate or they are just answers that do not hurt the doctrines you are so devoted to.

You didn't really provide you credentials that would allow you to criticize ID and just because you never believed in gods does it make their existence untrue. I've never believed in evolution meaning; that inheritable changes overtime can lead to new kinds. While the term "kind" could be vague today, most know that the bird kind and fish kind are isolated kinds.

Jass said...

I'm not going to dwell on the issue whether I'm a creationist. I know it is pointless.

Larry, you have asked about the authority that allows me to criticize evolution.?


Jass said...

Larry, what moves you about atheism? It seems you have made up your mind before the arguments were available...

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

We'd have to ask Timaeus to be sure, but apparently the only people competent to discuss ID are those who have published on intelligent design in the peer-reviewed literature. Unfortunately, nobody has ever published on intelligent design in a real (non-cargo-cult) scientific journal, which means that nobody has the right qualifications. We shall have to wait till someone gives it a try. Pending the first such publication, ID should not be discussed at all.

Jass said...

Why are you are here? Present your credentials to comment here

Gary Gaulin said...

KevNick do you agree that Larry should be discussing this Theory of Intelligent Design?
http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/