Most IDiots are half-a-century behind in their knowledge of science. They think that random mutations and natural selection are the only way that evolution can occur.1 That's why they refer to evolution as "Darwinism."
Many of them have heard vague rumors of change, proving that from time to time they do, indeed, take their fingers out of their ears. They've discovered that modern scientists have moved well beyond natural selection as an explanation for every bit of evolution. This makes the IDiots very happy since, to them, it means that evolution is wrong. And if evolution is wrong then gods must exist.
They've even developed a course to explain why Neutral Theory and random genetic drift support the idea that gods must be making bacterial flagella and protein-protein contacts. It looks like a very interesting course ...
152 comments :
Table of Contents
Now, where's that chapter on neutral theory? Hmm, never mind they've got a Glossary of technical terms.
Let's see... Neutral... no "neutral". Drift... no "drift". Ah, but at least they define EVOLUTION. Hurrah!
evolution: of the many meanings of this word, three are used here: (1) change over time; the fact that most of the organisms alive today are different from organisms that existed in the past; (2) universal common descent; the hypothesis that all organisms are modified descendants of a single common ancestor in the distant past; (3) the mechanisms of biological change; the hypothesis that natural selection acting on random variations has been the principal cause of modification.
All's well with the world: IDiots are IDiots.
Dear Professor Moran
I greatly enjoy your posts and have learned a lot from them, but I think you have a serious blind spot as to what the public wants to see as a defense of evolution. They want hard evidence that evolution not only can but did make Big Changes, the rest they regard as academic technicalities. Creationists have a laser-like focus on "molecule to man" development not just because they don't understand the neutral theory but because that is what the public cares about. Saying creationists are IDiots because they left out genetic drift sounds like you are admitting they are right about Big Changes.
Genetic drift sounds even less promising than natural selection, which at least is getting feedback from the environment. Creationists continually claim that natural selection can do peppered Moths (although they often take back even that concession), but it can't make an eye or a brain. If you don't counter that allegation, but instead just talk about genetic drift, the creationists will keep on winning the battle of public opinion.
Yes, I know that drift can help natural selection to get around "you can't get there from here" bottlenecks, but the creationists argument is that there are so many such bottlenecks that natural selection is stymied. So creationists can them claim that if the only bottleneck breaker is drift, then natural selection is blocked indeed.
I am sorry if this sounds as if I am a creationist or that I am making their arguments for them. I am not. I am just saying that harping on the creationist penchant to ignore drift, is not going to impress anyone who doesn't understand the science already.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. It comes from paleontology, genetics, molecular biology, comparative anatomy, biogeography, and a host of other disciplines. Modern evolutionary theory explains the facts of evolution.
Lots of religious people choose to ignore that evidence. Some of them even deny that the Earth is billions of years old. It seems completely insane to ignore the evidence that life evolved but it's true that some people do just that.
Most don't ... at least in most Western industrialized nations.
The ones that ignore scientific evidence do so because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. They can sustain such a ridiculous position because there are supposedly intelligent people out there telling them that scientists don't know what they are talking about and evolutionary theory is wrong.
I've chosen to focus my attention on proving that the creationists are lying when they make those false statements about evolutionary theory. I know something about molecular evolution and I know something about biochemistry so it really, really annoys me when the IDiots tell lies about those subjects.
... I think you have a serious blind spot as to what the public wants to see as a defense of evolution. They want hard evidence that evolution not only can but did make Big Changes,
The IDiots are spreading the word that evolutionary theory can NOT explain the Big Changes. That has always been their focus because they don't have a better explanation to offer. (When is the last time you've heard a creationist explanation of the fossil record or junk DNA?)
Let me repeat. The FACT that Big Changes occurred gradually over time is indisputable unless you've buried your head so far in the sand the light of knowledge can't penetrate. Modern science can explain how this happened even if it can't give you a blow-by-blow account of every single mutation and fixation.
The role of IDiots is to discredit the scientific explanation so they can maintain the illusion that gods must have done it. My role is to show that their arguments are full of ..... lies.
@Ted Lawry,
How do you suggest one explain "molecule to man" evolution in such a way that the average creationist would understand and accept it?
Professor Moran you seem to believe that evolution has caused some panicked retreat for all theists. That simply isn't the case. I get the impression you are quite similar to Dawkins in your knowledge of scripture, that's not a compliment. I understand this is a blog about science but you keep dragging God into the mix so I feel I must defend Him. Fundamentalists and maybe some IDproponents may be ignorant concerning evolution or simply ignoring evidence as you claim. The problem I have is you've formed a wall between science and religion that need not exist. You are a good thousand years behind in your understanding of the Bible. You are the Ken Ham of theology. If you get bored take a minute and research the Jewish thought on the age of the universe and the process of its formation. These arguments predate the current squabble by 900 years or so. I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised. What you do on this blog is the same thing you accuse creationists of. You write things off you really don't understand. I'd offer you the same advice you offer "IDiots", take the time to understand what you are trying to discredit. Have a good day
I'm trying to see where Larry made any theological claims in this post, but I can't seem to find any. Could you kindly point them out, Beau?
(Though he does say that most religious people in the West have no trouble accepting evolution.)
come on now, all you are doing is strawmanning. You have no evidence for your god. Creationists desperately what evolution to be "evidence" for their god but it never pans out .This upsets them. The onion test for functional DNA sends shivers of randomness down their spine. Which is in stark contrast to that of an intelligently designed creationism.
You then play this old garbage can trick of what X person believed (evolving jewish thought) way after the fact as if all of a sudden that validates your ideas for an imaginary god.
What did the earliest jewish writers have to say about Adam and Eve?
-The earliest jew "Paul" gives a clear indication in the new testament that adam and eve were historical . Even going as far as to say they are the reason for death in the world which corrupted nature because of original sin.
-Josephus who is another early jew believed entirely in a historical adam and eve as demonstrated from his writings.
-The early jew Philo of Alexandria believed in a real historical Adam made out of the finest clay as demonstrated in his writings .
What secular non orthodox jews like to do is post Maimonides in support of a non literal adam and eve interpretation. Maimonides was born in 1135 and died 1204... Here we have a guy reforming the old jewish thoughts into his new middle age woo 1000's of years after the torah. This guy is really is no different than say Martin Luther reforming christianity to get yet another division called protestant. His new school jewish ideas were heavily influenced by the society of his time. If such facts were easily recognizable by reading the scripture. We would expect that the earliest jews would not have seen adam and eve as historical. This is not what we find. Instead it took 1000's of years to get the right interpretation. This is evolution of religion in essence lols.
Hey Beau, why do you think that Larry would be "unpleasantly surprised" to be shown that he was wrong about something ?
You wouldn't perhaps be projecting you own reaction to any form of criticism onto Larry ?
And who are you to say that Ken Ham has it wrong ?
Have you ever considered that you may be the Westboro Baptist Church of theology ?
I for one find those nasty bigots easier to stomach than you, at least they aren't afraid to take their holy books at face value and don't hide behind some liberal veil of hypocrisy.
And seriously, you seem to have formed a wall between the Celtic, Norse and Hindu pantheons and whatever bunch of invisible and supernatural psychopaths you spend you time grovelling to.
Take the time to understand what you are trying to discredit.
And what the fuck is it with this "have a good day" passive-aggressive behaviour?
You obviously disagree with Larry, and here you are acting like some low caste primate sucking up to the alpha male.
Larry, this is off-topic for this thread, but because it has to do with IDiots and genetics, and it's right up your alley in terms of expertise, I wanted to point your attention to Casey Luskin's and the Young Earth creationists' latest salvo against the fusion of human chromosome 2. It should be of interest to Larry because it has to do with alternative splicings of proteins that are included in databases like RefSeq, which Larry has written about before, pointing out that alternative splices that were assumed to be functional are later found to be non-functional and physically impossible as proteins.
The young Earth creationist Jeffrey Tomkins had claimed that at the site of the fusion of human chromosome 2, there was a functional gene.
In this report, it is also shown that the purported fusion site (read in the minus strand orientation) is a functional DNA binding domain inside the first intron of the DDX11L2 regulatory RNA helicase gene, which encodes several transcript variants expressed in at least 255 different cell and/or tissue types. Specifically, the purported fusion site encodes the second active transcription factor binding domain in the DDX11L2 gene that coincides with transcriptionally active histone marks and open active chromatin. Annotated DDX11L2 gene transcripts suggest complex post-transcriptional regulation through a variety of microRNA binding sites. Chromosome fusions would not be expected to form complex multi-exon, alternatively spliced functional genes. This clear genetic evidence, combined with the fact that a previously documented 614 Kb genomic region surrounding the purported fusion site lacks synteny (gene correspondence) with chimpanzee on chromosomes 2A and 2B (supposed fusion sites of origin), thoroughly refutes the claim that human chromosome 2 is the result of an ancestral telomeric end-to-end fusion.
At UD, IDiot VJ Torley tried to tweak Prof. Moran's nose with Tomkins' "discovery."
But Ken Miller, at Chris Mooney's blog, said that in fact the gene in question was far from the fusion site-- Tomkins was wrong.
To be continued...
Continuing on Luskin:
Now Luskin is back, citing an unknown and untraceable statement (? private email? presumably) from Ken Miller (to Tomkins?) in which Miller allegedly takes it back, "admitting" that the gene's first exon does overlap the fusion site-- at least according to the database RefSeq (but not according to other, unnamed databases).
Luskin's prose is so vague and evasive that he doesn't mention the gene or where Ken Miller allegedly said this-- I googled the Miller quote and it turns up only in references to Luskin, so this appears to be a private email to Tomkins, not a blog post by Miller.
Luskin: But that’s just wrong, according to Miller. The fusion site is “more than 1,300 bases away from the gene,” he says, based on a review of major gene databanks. “These increasingly desperate efforts to ‘debunk’ the chromosome 2 story have failed before, and they’ve failed this time, too,” Miller concludes.
Actually [Chris] Mooney was wrong. When challenged privately, Dr. Miller conceded that the fusion point was only far away from the gene when one excludes results from a genomic database called “refseq.” When refseq is included, a longer gene transcript is found — produced by a section of DNA that includes the fusion site.
Miller admitted the mistake to Tomkins: “in this transcript, the fusion site is in the middle of the first [gene] exon as you note.” Somehow Mooney failed to mention that inconvenient fact.
I call bullshit, because Luskin said it and Luskin has proven he is a pathological liar where chromosome 2 fusion is concerned, and when he was exposed as a dishonest quote-miner by Carl Zimmer, he doubled down on his chromosome 2 lies; and what's more worrying, in the above quote from Ken Miller, Luskin quotes only a sentence fragment, not a whole sentence nor paragraph, so I smell quote mine.
I suspect that what's happening here is that RefSeq is wrong, that this is another case of a reported alternative splice in a database that turns out to be non-functional and physically impossible as a protein. Note that in vertebrates telomeres consist of repeats of TTAGGG, and I find it hard to believe this could be in an exon encoding a functional protein.
So one of us (or all of us) should look up the RefSeq record, see what evidence it's based on (presumably an RNA transcript at low expression levels), and also email Ken Miller and ask him what he really wrote to Tomkins, in context.
If you're curious, the telomeric repeat TTAGGG, if it were in a functional protein's exon, would code for Leucine Glycine.
Beau writes: I get the impression you are quite similar to Dawkins in your knowledge of scripture, that's not a compliment.
Why do so many religious people think that calling Dawkins (or atheists) a dummy is both factually accurate and also support for God being real?
It's a cliche by now. Anyway, Dawkins knows more about the Bible than 99% of all Christians, so if Dawkins is a dummy, 99% of all Christians are dumber.
Actually Larry, it is you who are lying about the mountains of evidence.
All the evidence you cite is built on pre-existing elements that cannot be explained by evolution. There is not one biological threshhold than can be explained using Darwinian logic (Irreducible complexity is the bane of beleaguered darwinian minds).
That is what IDists are talking about. I understand how you(pl) want to keep that dirty little secret under wraps, away from impressionable ears.
But alas, you have nowhere to run.
The Behe is putting paid to the notion that your brand of evolution (directionless, goalless, purposeless) causes anything but tweaks in the system to maintain what already exists.
To your utter dismay, we will keep pushing that envelope relentlessly.
That means you will be under extreme pressure to capitalize every single letter of your pet epithet for proponents of intelligent design.
Oh, but be sure not to punctuate the speed of this lingual evolution. You would ideally want to capitalize one letter at a time over several months, years maybe, time permitting.
Naturally.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. But in this case, refuse is refuse.
Hey Steve, what exactly is the direction, goal, purpose, and how do you know?
Well Diogenes, its gotta be the same reason you(pl) have this utter compulsion to hurl infantile epithets at intelligent design proponents.
Is it some kind of alternative heart medicine that has these soothing binaural side effects?
Course? What course? Thirst comment links to "Explore Evolution" but that's from 2007...
Thirst shd be the first
Acartia, don't forget to recycle that tidbit sound bite.
:)
Truthy,
life, survival, communion with the rest of life.
I've got mountains and mountains of intelligent evidence.
Steve, are you one of Joe "Security Clearance" Gallien's sock puppets? Because, like him, you never make any scientific points, you simply exist to engage in name-calling.
But to answer your assertion, "its gotta be the same reason you(pl) have this utter compulsion to hurl infantile epithets at intelligent design proponents", in my comments (unlike yours) I compare what IDcreationists say against the facts, and that makes them look like liars or morons. My comments have actual substance and I prove what I say with facts, unlike you, who have nothing but name-calling to assuage your deserved feelings of inferiority.
Steve, aka Joe "Security Clearance" Gallien: "There is not one biological threshhold than can be explained using Darwinian logic (Irreducible complexity is the bane of beleaguered darwinian minds)."
I'll be %$^&ed if I know what "biological threshhold" means (if you look in textbooks of genetics or anatomy, you won't find it), but it's typical for IDcreationists to invent cultic vocabulary with vague meanings to assist them in evasiveness.
Our IDiot doesn't know that "irreducible complexity" in biochemical systems was predicted by an evolutionist, H. J. Muller, under evolutionary models in 1918 and worked out by him in more detail in 1939 [H. J. Muller, "Reversibility in Evolution Considered from the Standpoint of Genetics," Biological Reviews 14 (1939): 261–80.] Of course Muller did not use the term "irreducible complexity"-- Muller defined the concept; Behe, blissfully ignorant of the literature as usual, gave it a new name and gave no credit to Muller. Why, Steve, is "Irreducible complexity... the bane of beleaguered darwinian minds" if evolutionists defined the concept under evolutionary theory?
And why would it trouble us at all, when every biochemical system called "irreducible" by Michael Behe exists in reduced form, and when natural processes are known to produce irreducible complexity?
To use an obvious example, natural arches like Landscape Arch: if you remove any big or medium-sized part, they collapse, but we know they're formed by removal of redundant parts-- just like IC biochemical systems. And natural arches have a function-- many around the world carry actual roads, like man-made bridges-- so by Dembski's definition of "specified complexity", natural arches have specified complexity created entirely by natural processes.
Steve: "All the evidence you cite is built on pre-existing elements that cannot be explained by evolution."
Pre-existing elements. Bullshit. The "pre-existing elements" themselves have evolutionary explanations almost always supported by evidence. What IDcreationists do is argue with a biologist and then change the subject to the origin of life (which is not a biological subject, much less an evolutionary subject, but instead a subject for a geochemist), or they argue with a geochemist and change the subject to the formation of planet Earth, or argue with an astronomer and change the subject to cosmic inflation, back and back in time and changing from one subject to another until the scientist (being honest) finally admits some topic is outside his expertise, then the IDcreationist exclaims, "That proves my Deity (among thousands of deities humans have believed it) must have done it!"
Are "explanations for pre-existing elements" your criteria, Steve? If so, then IDcreationism loses by your criteria, because supernaturalism offers no explanations for anything, merely a redefinition of the word "explanation" so as to exclude evidence forever.
Diogenes,
who have nothing but name-calling to assuage your deserved feelings of inferiority.
You're forgetting that Steve also cheer-leads on "The Behe." That must be quite the winning strategy. That should be enough of an argument to prove Steve right. Right?
(Shit, I could not contain my laughter. Now I have to clean the coffee off my laptop. This Steve is too much of an idiot. Way too much. Winning by cheer-leading! Come on!)
Mr Moran. Are you saying that ID/YEC hitting 50 years ago would of had a great point?
Well at least we caught up that much. or rather evolution caught up with its need for better ideas to explain the unlikely.
Evolution should be based on biological scientific evidence.
Not on biogeography, genetics, fossils, molecular biology(which is really about extrapolations,.
all these are evidences that can be debunked on their own. Yet evolution is a great claim to explain biological origins and processes and biology is greatly complicated and needs complicated hypothesis and evidence.
Are you agreeing evolution can't stand on biology evidence alone.?
Yeah, I need the mental image of Steve in a cheerleader skirt with pom-poms singing "We win! We win! Rah! Rah! Rah!" in the dark after "the Behe" has been defeated in a shutout, and the audience has all left the stadium, and the stadium lights have turned out.
Byers: "Are you agreeing evolution can't stand on biology evidence alone.?"
Jesus, how you got that out of Larry's post is beyond me. Non sequitur, thy name is Byers.
Robert, can you please explain to me what you did to get banned from the ID website Uncommon Descent? Is this story true, that they banned you because of your uh, prejudicial statements about shall we say, ethnic groups with a non-Christian background? Can you (or anyone) give me a link to the thread at UD where they banned you? Because that story would be much more entertaining than your endless repetition that bones, DNA, droppings, shells, skin, blood, organs, and all parts of all bodies, etc. are all non-biological and thus cannot prove evolution.
you are not even making sense IDiot. Are you saying we should ignore every line of evidence and focus only one aspect of the evidence? LAWL Dumb as can be.
We have direct evidence that mutation occurs. Mutations are change so i dunno what you talking about. We see gene duplications that diversify into distinct genes. We see Retrotransposition creating new genes. When Chimeric genes are formed they cause regulatory changes and can shuffle protein domains to produce novel adaptive functions.
Junk DNA shows this process was not guided and creationists are desperate to say junk dna has function yet cannot for the life of them pass the onion test. The mere fact that DNA CHANGES is the nail in the coffin for creationists. But they are too hard headed and stubborn. Idiot creationists see a humpback whale with 2 large atavistic protruding legs and they be like " I SEE NOTHING I HEAR NOTHING ".
Steve said:
"Truthy,
life, survival, communion with the rest of life.
I've got mountains and mountains of intelligent evidence."
Steve, will you please present a mountain (or at least some) "intelligent evidence" that supports a supernatural source and need for the Earth to have so many living, surviving, and communing species of beetles?
Will you present a mountain (or at least some) "intelligent evidence" that supports a supernatural source and need for the Earth to have so many (or any) species of living, surviving, and communing deadly parasites?
Will you also provide more details about what you mean by "communion"?
I understand this is a blog about science but you keep dragging God into the mix so I feel I must defend Him.
Him? With a capital H even. So many mere humans defending "Him" all the time. Some god you have there. Sigh.
Ted Lawry, you ask a good question so I will try to give a good answer.
Most of the time, in arguments with creationists, the distinction between evolutionary processes, e.g. natural selection, neutral drift, etc. does not matter. The IDiots of the Discovery Institute always call us "Darwinists" and most of the time, we don't complain, because we know all they've got is name-calling and quote mines. For example, if we're discussing, say, an intermediate fossil like Tiktaalik or Ambulocetus, we've got the fossils, so it doesn't matter what you call us-- most of the time.
But there are exceptions: some IDiot counter-arguments get technical, and way beyond the ken of the average muggle. Sure, the best IDiot counter-arguments are stupid by the standards of scientists, but they're technical enough to that we can't explain to muggles what's wrong with them unless we get technical too. And where "DNA don't prove I come from a monkey" claims are concerned, the distinction between NS and neutral drift is often crucial to explaining where the IDiots went wrong.
I'll give three examples:
1. Junk DNA. The IDiots say that Junk DNA was a prediction of "Darwinism", when in fact it was a prediction of neutral evolution, and the neutralists who developed the Junk DNA hypothesis clearly saw themselves as challenging Darwinists. Thus their work from the time (1960's-70's) can't be understood at all unless you know the context-- e.g. perhaps the first article on what later was called Junk DNA was by Jukes and King, their article of 1969 titled "Non-Darwinian Evolution." It's right there in the title of the article, but IDiots have to conceal the real history, so their church audience is kept dumb and unable to understand what scientists were saying in context.
2. Human-Chimp DNA comparison. Larry on this blog showed how a simple calculation could predict that human and chimp DNA would be 1.3% different, if you assume neutral drift dominates natural selection at the molecular level. This assumption was crucial to the calculation, but should we emphasize the point or gloss over it? As it turned out, we had to emphasize it over and over and over, because the IDiots at Uncommon Descent and other creationists everywhere turned out to be unable or unwilling to understand this very simple calculation, one involving only multiplication and division, and most of their counter-arguments being absurd claims based on a refusal to understand neutral drift. e.g. IDiot VJ Torley claimed that Larry said NS played no role in forming complex adaptational structures; many IDiot "experts" like Branko Kozulic argued exhaustively that under neutral drift, the mutation rate per individual would not equal the fixation rate, which was a rejection of basic, basic math in population genetics; etc.
3. In Larry's argument with Michael Behe about evolution in the malaria parasite, the parasite evolves resistance to the drug Chloroquine by a series of ~4 mutations-- the first two are neutral or slightly deleterious, the next two are beneficial and driven by NS. We agreed on the beneficial mutations; the whole argument was about the neutral and slightly deleterious mutations. Adapatational complexity resulted from an interbraiding of neutral drift and natural selection.
The creationist arguments are technical arguments-- not smart arguments, but technical ones-- and sometimes we can't refute them unless we disentangle neutral drift from NS.
Steve is right about one thing: The purpose of life is survival. And life itself is capable of that; 3 - 4 billion years is ample evidence of that.
Beau Stoddard writes:
research the Jewish thought on the age of the universe and the process of its formation
...and a Happy (upcoming) New Year 5775 to you! (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on September 24th.)
Why would this be an unpleasant surprise (if a surprise at all) to Dr. Moran?
Oh, the video didn't appear on my ipad...
Beau Stoddard says,
You are a good thousand years behind in your understanding of the Bible. You are the Ken Ham of theology. If you get bored take a minute and research the Jewish thought on the age of the universe and the process of its formation.
Why in the world should I spend any time at all trying to understand the Bible? The are dozens (hundreds?) of religious books out there and every one of them assumes that their gods actually exist and their particular holy book is the only one that's correct.
If you really want to understand cosmology, take a physics course.
I get the impression you are quite similar to Dawkins in your knowledge of scripture, that's not a compliment.
Yes it is. Richard Dawkins knows much more about the Bible than I do. But that's not the point. The point is that I don't believe in gods, and that includes your gods. You're welcome to try and convince me that gods exist by presenting rational arguments and evidence. Telling me to read your holy book doesn't count as rational and nothing in that book counts as evidence.
I'd offer you the same advice you offer "IDiots", take the time to understand what you are trying to discredit. Have a good day
I am trying to discredit IDiots who think they understand evolution well enough to proclaim that it is a lie.
Meanwhile, I suggest you take some time and try to understand what it means to be an atheist. You're not off to a very good start.
You are a good thousand years behind in your understanding of the Bible. You are the Ken Ham of theology. If you get bored take a minute and research the Jewish thought on the age of the universe and the process of its formation. These arguments predate the current squabble by 900 years or so.
By the way, Mr. Stoddard, you really ought to do more reading regarding interpretations of the Bible yourself. "[T]he Jewish thought," to use your words, does not exist. There is a tremendous range of Jewish thought, including a quite up-to-date fundamentalist strain that succeeded in getting the Kashrut (kosher) symbol removed from an Israeli yogurt brand that had the temerity to put dinosaurs on its labels, because the Earth is only 5700-odd years old and thus dinosaurs are fiction, don't ya know.
Yeas Larry, Because unless you know a lot about The Emperor's New Clothes you're not allowed to point out that they're imaginary!
Diogenes, your wish is my command. Here is the link to the article in which Robert gets banned from UD
http://www.uncommondescent.com/science/scientific-american-may-be-owned-by-nature-but-it-is-now-run-by-twitter/#comments
Here are a couple of his pearls of wisdumb:
By the way this stuff about women and science is just showing again a presumption women can compete and achieve like men in smart stuff.
But it doesn't end here.
Women will never compete with men intellectually because of male motivation to be accomplished given by God.
And it gets better
Women are only to help their husbands. its a fraud to push them to be doctors and scientists. Its unnatural.
And then the proclamation from Barry Arrington:
Robert Byers will no longer be posting on UD.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Thank you Acartia. I had thought it would be because of Byers' "White Christians are the true, original North Americans" routine (Iroquois? who are the Iroquois?)
I don't think I know any women who would want to "compete" with Mr. Byers intellectually. They aim a lot higher.
Byers and morons like him belong in jail not in churches.... Byers, but more so the racists behind his indoctrination are one of the reasons why I renounced from Catholicism and Judaism... for two different reasons....
This obviously doesn't help evolutionists to answer to my challenge... but it helps them to understand where I stand and what they need to deal with...
"They think that random mutations and natural selection are the only way that evolution can occur."
Evidence, evidence. Stories, excuses and wishful imagination are not evidence. Is there any evidence that random errors plus whatever else modern science claims can build coherent systems?
If it is I think it wouldn't be a problem to answer these challenges.
M. Behe:"And just as those alternative chloroquine resistance pathways are imaginary, Professor Moran's "millions and millions of possible evolutionary outcomes" are imaginary. In the absence of actual evidence that a huge number of relevant unrealized biochemical features could have been built by Darwinian processes, it is illegitimate to arbitrarily multiply probabilistic resources."
"In the absence of an a priori requirement, science is obliged to investigate whether or not such pathways exist. Right now the evidence we have in hand militates strongly against it."
D. 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."
... 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.
In the Biologic Institute's famous Greenscreen Laboratory?
Diogenes
Steve, are you one of Joe "Security Clearance" Gallien's sock puppets? Because, like him, you never make any scientific points, you simply exist to engage in name-calling.
I'd doubt it. Gallien cannot disguise his tics. Obvioulsy. Steve has tics of his own, but they are clearly distinct.
Maybe Axe and the other IDiots should move in with joey g. and then they could all share his state of the art, basement lab. With a lab that puts most other labs to shame they might even discover and explain how, when, where, and why 'God' created blood sucking, watermelon loving ticks.
Unknown said:
"Stories, excuses and wishful imagination are not evidence"
That's true. Can you present any evidence that supports the existence/reality of your chosen, allegedly supernatural, so-called 'God' and its alleged powers and actions?
Unknown: "Stories, excuses and wishful imagination are not evidence."
Gee, ya think? Perhaps that explains why real scientists amassed hundreds of transitional fossils and detailed, step by step reconstructions of evolutionary pathways, while anti-evolutionists like Da Behe and Doug Axe were displaying themselves in church basements, masturbating the PowerPoint slides they downloaded from real scientists' websites, and exercising their creationist imagination most vividly, imagining transitional forms that drop dead. Thus justifying why they do no experiments, say "God did it" and take the month off.
As for Doug Axe, when he invites us to "join him in doing science" [snicker], do we have to join him in Green Screen laboratories packed with 90's era technology from a stock photo staged lab, like his technician Ann Gauger "used"? And do we have to join Axe in writing shit papers employing mediocre 1980's techniques, to show that you must mutate 30 amino acids on a protein's surface before it loses its function... like Axe showed in his 2000 paper?
... magically evolvable apes and magically evolvable enzymes...
Pray tell, what non-magical explanations do you have for the life observed on earth? I do hope you don't need to resort to any number of god hypotheses, which are always run through with nothing but magic.
In the Biologic Institute's famous Greenscreen Laboratory?
I would like to institute one of those labs myself. By my figuring, the number of publications I could pump out would be limited only by how fast my fingers can type.
D. Axe:"So, to Moran I say, regale us with heroic stories of magically evolvable apes and magically evolvable enzymes [...]
Heh heh. Nice bit of goading, Doug. Professional denial. Evolve me a new functional enzyme. No, not in vitro, in vivo. No, not in a bacterium, in a eukaryote. No, not in a protozoan, in an elephant ... No-one landed on the moon, 9/11 was a put-up job, and global warming both isn't happening and would happen anyway. Meantime, Doug has shown empirically that mutating in a decidedly non-'natural' manner (how do DNA polymerase/mismatch repair errors concentrate only on surface residues?) damages function.
If anyone wants to look into it further, here is where Axe spewed that arrogant challenge:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/are_we_reaching065671.html
And here is a Google search page that shows several places where it has been brought up, including here on Sandwalk:
http://tinyurl.com/p7j67vb
Unknown,
I've challenged the real scientist here many times to provide the real and experimental evidence for their beliefs in evolution and abiogenesis ... You may have seen some of them and one of them just recently....
Nobody has taken on the challenge...
These people are delusional; living in a world where performing one or two relatively simple experiments would cure their imaginary power of abiogenesis and evolution...
They obviously don't want that.... because, at the very back of their mind they know what the real consequences of such experiments would be...
They are like a schizophrenics, who, when offered medicine refused to take it.... because they prefer their world of delusion rather than the world of realty...
M. Behe:"And just as those alternative chloroquine resistance pathways are imaginary, Professor Moran's "millions and millions of possible evolutionary outcomes" are imaginary. In the absence of actual evidence that a huge number of relevant unrealized biochemical features could have been built by Darwinian processes, it is illegitimate to arbitrarily multiply probabilistic resources."
Translation: The correct probability mathematics makes evolution look too likely, and therefore I will arbitrarily restrict it to only the path it actually took. But then I will (nothing up my sleeve, presto!) by sleight of hand bring all these alternative possibilities I have supposedly dismissed back into the denominators of the probability factors I am using in order to make evolution look impossible!
Seriously, Unknown, if you know real probability math this is facepalm stuff.
As for the likelihood of the specific rare/unlikely mutational paths such as the one Dr. Behe is looking at, that's indeed a subject of interest to evolutionary biologists, and actual scholarly papers have been written about the subject, including one cited here recently on Sandwalk. Would you like the citation so you (and Quest) can read the paper for yourselves, since you evince such interest in the topic? Or like the rest of the IDiots, are you happy to remain ignorant and catcall from the peanut gallery?
I've challenged the real scientist here many times to provide the real and experimental evidence for their beliefs in evolution and abiogenesis ... You may have seen some of them and one of them just recently....
Nobody has taken on the challenge...
Untrue. You've been answered and pointed to academic papers pretty frequently, but you simply respond in every case that these aren't adequate. Very much like Behe on the stand at the Dover trial, where he got his rear end handed to him in open court. (Available on the web for you or anyone else to read.) Hint: That stuff about "No matter what evidence you provide, I still don't believe you!" doesn't fool anyone, except possibly you.
... magically evolvable apes and magically evolvable enzymes...
I almost choked on the irony.
I almost choked on the irony.
Please be careful. I could be sued if you die from reading comments on Sandwalk.
"That's true. Can you present any evidence that supports the existence/reality of your chosen, allegedly supernatural, so-called 'God' and its alleged powers and actions?"
So you are admitting there is no evidence for your evolutionary claims, your only argument is that you can't see God.
"Perhaps that explains why real scientists amassed hundreds of transitional fossils and detailed, step by step reconstructions of evolutionary pathways"
nice , nice but where is the evidence?
Again stories, excuses and wishful imagination are not evidence. Is there any evidence that random errors plus whatever else modern science claims can build coherent systems?
"Please be careful. I could be sued if you die from reading comments on Sandwalk."
But the choking would result from the less than optimal "design" of the human airway. The very same "design" that the creationists say is perfect.
IDiots more and more accuse evolutionary theory of being "magic" because we gleefully pointed out that their hypothesis invokes actual magic, like when Michael Behe said that he believed that irreducibly complex structures were created by a magic "puff of smoke" (quoted by Larry Arnhart.)
So now, having been busted, all the IDiots accuse us of believing in "magic" in the same way that a KKKlansman will accuse you of racism (against whites.)
Yes. For example, people have quitted trying to solve problems with greedy algorithms, and have started to make programs that work on random mutation/selection/recombination protocols, and the programs find solutions to problems that are intractable by "mere" intelligence. These have been used to solve some computational problems, learn how to direct traffic more efficiently, "design" computer chips, etc. Interestingly, when the evolved chips are built, they work, but computer scientists cannot figure out how they do the job. Imagine that. The chips are too complex for intelligent people to figure out, yet they were evolved.
People have also performed experiments putting together RNA sequences at random, then putting them under rounds of selection, amplification/mutation, and isolated evolved RNA sequences that can catalyze self-replication and such, often quite efficient at the job. As efficient as naturally occurring ones.
So, yes. There's examples where random variation and selection do quite interesting tricks. All of this to the point that we can apply those principles to lour advantage.
I hope you're authentically interested. But creationists have this habit of making questions without really caring about having answers. If so, I'm sure you'll find a way to ignore my answer and act as if there's really no answers anywhere to be found.
Do you have any evidence about gods? Suppose we did really not have a clue about evolution, and that random variation, selection, recombination, never helped do anything. Why should we therefore believe that there's gods? Why your god rather than any other? Why should our default position when faced with something we can't solve be "gods exist," and why should it be your god regardless of how much nonsense and superstition might surround those gods and/or your god? Since we know that primitive societies make gods of everything they don't understand, why should we think that gods are answers to any unsolved questions? Why yours? Sacrifices are attached to every obviously superstitious gods. Why should we think that your god, and whatever sacrifices your god requires, are not just like any of those other superstitions?
As you said. stories, excuses, and wishful imagination are not evidence. So, why gods and why yours? What's your evidence?
No asshole, learn to read. He said it's true that "Stories, excuses and wishful imagination are not evidence".
You have the imagination, we have the evidence and we present it in the scientific literature where it belongs.
You should learn to use google.
Non-scientists can start with Wikipedia's list of transitional fossils, or Theobald's "29+ Evidenced for Macroevolution", still never refuted by creationists, and Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters", Coyne's book "Why Evolution is True", and Sean Carroll's books "Making of the Fittest" and "Endless Forms Most Beautiful."
Scientists should read the scientific literature, starting with basic paleontology, Lenski's E. coli evolution, Joe Thornton on hormone receptors, etc.
Unknown: "Is there any evidence that random errors plus whatever else modern science claims can build coherent systems?"
You haven't defined "coherent", and we know from sad experience that all IDiots play word games to evade falsification of their evasive claims.
But nylonase enzymes are newly evolved, and the PCP degradation pathway is IC, and citrate uptake evolved in Lenski's E. coli experiment are both irreducibly complex systems. Vpr viroporin in HIV recently evolved to be a GATED, controlled, specific ion channel with multiple novel protein binding sites and a new targeting system.
As Photosynthesis points out, Genetic Algorithms and evolutionary programming design irreducibly complex systems that no known Intelligent Designer (humans) can design, anticipate or even understand.
Now let us ask the same question of you: do not use imagination or stories. What is your EVIDENCE that invisible spooks can create any "coherent system" (whatever that is)? Or that spooks can mutate even one nucleotide in any genome of any species anywhere? No imagination or stories allowed, EVIDENCE of spooks please.
Your "Irreducible Complexity" argument is based on your imagination. You imagine one transitional form and you imagine it dying. Thus you imagine you have proven the impossibility of the other ten trillion evolutionary pathways.
Stop imagining. Present evidence NOW that invisible spooks can mutate even just one nucleotide in any genome of any species anywhere.
Steve's contributions to this thread so far is to ask a question and then to stick his fingers in his ears and close his eyes and chant LALALALALALAaaaa...
Oh, and he can copy-paste Behe statements. Well done Steve, you mighty god-warrior.
Heh, you'll often hear creationsts complain that we can only show them microevolution(ignoring for a moment that this claim is incorrect), which they claim to already accept.
Well, where's the evidence of micro-creation? I've never seen some tiny organism, like an ant, or a tiny prokaryotic cell, instantaneously and divinely created. Where's the evidence?
Never mind macro-creation, the creation of whales, planets, stars and entire universes with magic spells. Just the tiniest thing will do, where's the evidence? Can some one call the Cosmic Jew and have him speak stuff into existence? I'd like to see just something...
I believe in micro-intelligent design: Mt. Rushmore, Mona Lisa, Shakespearean sonnets, airplanes made by humans... Macro-Intelligent Design (God did it) is their religion.
Quest,
Since you insist on repeating old arguments that have already been addressed as if they were new, you'll please forgive me if I repeat myself as well:
So now we're back to origins, Quest? How does evolutionary theory explain the origin of life on Earth? Here's your answer: we don't know (yet). Understand, though, that because evolutionary theory has not yet explained the origin of life a few billion years ago does not in any way invalidate the mountains of data accumulated over decades supporting evolutionary theory. That would be the equivalent of saying that if gravitational theory can't explain how and why the big bang occured, that this invalidates all gravitational theory.
Resorting to 'origins' is just a god of the gaps argument. You have to keep retreating until you find some area that science doesn't yet explain. A place where god can magically poof life into existence by divine fiat. But you have zero evidence that is what happened. You have turned your god into nothing more than the embodiment of scientific ignorance.
In addition to the computer argorithm example of selection on random variations, another good analogy is affinity maturation of antibodies.
When a cell surface expressed antibody of a B-cell encounters an antigen it can bind to, the cell begins rapidly replicating itself. At the same time, the DNA coding for the antibody in those cells undergoes what is called somatic hypermutation: the protein binding site of the antibody undegoes random nucleotide substitutions, generating a pool of variation in the binding site in progeny cells. Cells which can bind the antigen better continue to bind antigen and receive the stimulus to continure replicating. Those that have a reduced ability to bind or lose entirely the ability to bind do not receive the proper stimulus and die, leaving a population of replicating B-cells enriched for increaced specificity for the antigen.
This represents a rather stringent example of random mutation followed by natural selection: cells with reduced binding all eventually die, cells bearing antibody with higher specificity survive and reproduce.
This demonstrates that random mutation and natural selection can improve protein-protein interactions: mutations in protein interaction sites do not invariably break the system.
This happens billions of times around the world every day.
That would be the equivalent of saying that if gravitational theory can't explain how and why the big bang occurred, that this invalidates all gravitational theory.
Something Quest also believes, to the extent of needing a magic super-powerful and super-intelligent being to create the Universe and all the laws it runs by, including the law of gravitation.
At least that makes more sense than Barry Arrington's pronouncements that quantum mechanics shows the Universe was created by God. Right, a system that is inherently not predictable, so not even God would know how things might turn out, thus proving God could not have intended any particular outcome (such as humans).
Resorting to 'origins' is just a god of the gaps argument.
It's really worse than that. Since we can't supposedly conceive of something as simple as a virus arising out of nothing, instead what must logically arise out of nothing is unimaginably more complex and powerful. Kind of like saying if you can't afford a Chevy, your logical answer is to buy a Bugatti Veyron.
Unknown,
Diogenes and others have already responded to you appropriately and I'll add some things to what has been said to you.
You obviously don't accept that natural, biological evolution occurs or that scientific evolutionary theory is credible and productive, which means that you must accept a different explanation for the diversity of Earth's life forms.
It's obvious that what you accept and strongly believe in is a religious explanation but, since your religious beliefs and all other religious beliefs are based solely on "Stories, excuses and wishful imagination", your religious beliefs and all others are actually no explanation at all.
You're in no credible position to question and condemn scientific evolutionary theory. Some of the contents of scientific evolutionary theory are debatable and debated, and there is still a lot to learn about the details of evolution throughout the last few billion years or so, but the fact of evolution and many details are well established due to scientific research and evidence. Evolution has occurred, does occur, and will continue to occur whether you accept it or not.
If you can present a non-naturalistic, evidence based explanation for the diversity of life forms that has more productivity and explanatory credibility than scientific evolutionary theory, and that is something other than religious "Stories, excuses and wishful imagination", I'm sure that I and others here would like to see it.
Larry- why do you lie about IDists? Does it make you feel like a big boy to lie about your opponents?
Theobald's claims can't be tested and not one of those other books support unguided evolution producing anything. Lenski's E coli supports baraminology.
Other than that, nice job.
Bullshit, Joe. Theobald "claims" are testable predictions that follow from common descent, then he shows their observational confirmation, with references to the scientific literature. Theobald focused entirely on testability, which is why creationists have never refuted them.
As for the other books, Joe His lying, because he falsely insinuates he's read then. This is Joe Gallien's modus operandi: pretend to have read a book he never opened, then lie about its contents, insult people, switch to name-calling and threats of violence. It's all creationists have.
You never read those books, Joe.
Baraminology, eh? I believe that ranks just behind beer pong as a scientific field.
Now, be fair, judmarc. You have to admit, no one in Lenski's lab came in to work one morning and found one of the E. coli bacteria had evolved overnight into a giraffe. That's what evolution would predict to have happened, right? Ergo, baraminology is confirmed.
Unlike you, I'm a big fan of honesty.
If you can prove that I've lied about IDiots then I'm happy to apologize.
Lenski's E coli supports baraminology.
Sure. I remember quite clearly, as if it was yesterday, how report after report at each milestone number of generations, Lenski would report that a new Adam appeared during generation X, and then, out of his rib, a woman would be formed. Not without the proper confirmation of the hands of "God" being involved, like little photographs of divine fingers pointing to the E coli soup, and then zoom, a fully formed human male, then the chest of this human, just formed but already an adult, would open, a rib would come out, and zoom, the rib transformed into a fully formed human female.
Of course, explaining those humans to the rest of the department, or explaining why they were trapped inside the incubator was quite hard. Lenski almost lost his job, until he showed the videos confirming baraminology time and again.
And I rather leave the appearance of plants, animals, critters that critteth, etc, out of the explanation. All of that baraminology happening in Lenski's experiments would take forever to describe.
You have to admit, no one in Lenski's lab came in to work one morning and found one of the E. coli bacteria had evolved overnight into a giraffe. That's what evolution would predict to have happened, right? Ergo, baraminology is confirmed.
True, the E. coli stayed in the Microbe Baramin, which the Old Testament mentions - well, wasn't it the second day of Creation, or somewhere in the story of Noah?
Lutesuite:
I should think if Lenski came into his lab in the morning and found a giraffe, an oak tree, and a coconut crab among some broken Petri dishes, that would confirm baraminology. Evolutionary theory does not predict that bacteria may turn into complex organisms overnight, so it would be falsified immediately. Baraminology, on the other hads, predicts that new taxa spring out of nowhere as the invisible designer ("He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named") snaps his fingers.
Ran across this, and it was just too apt to the current discussion in which IDiots insist that reality is evidence of nothing, while true evidence coincidentally points exactly in the direction their faith tells them it should:
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I believe that ranks just behind beer pong as a scientific field.
Hey, don't underestimate the value of beer pong in advancing science.
“..if Lenski came into his lab in the morning and found a giraffe, an oak tree, and a coconut crab among some broken Petri dishes, that would confirm baraminology. Evolutionary theory does not predict that bacteria may turn into complex organisms overnight, so it would be falsified…”
If Lenski, after of 25 years of experimenting the bacteria evolution, walked into the lab and found a bacteria with superior flagellum, or the new, unique and totally unknown species of bacteria possibly an intermediate to a new complex organism, that would be something worth of considering as more than minor change in organisms….
What does Lenski see…? The evolution of a “new” function in E. coli: the ability to use citrate as a carbon source for growth. ….but as Behe or one of the best experts in the world in this area explains the new genes and new information arose from pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome….
So...?
Larry wrote:
"Unlike you, I'm a big fan of honesty"
Why...? It's not a sin according to you... You don't believe in some sort of morality do you...?
Chris B,
Addressing the issues and providing the evidence for the issues are two and very different things...
I have presented here to the best of my recollection 4 challenges:
1. Abiogenesis-Larry has no clue about that... and he admits it...I humbly asked to assemble the cell that has been punctured... nobody can do it....
We can very well end the conversation here... because if life can't be recreated by intelligence, what is the evidence it aroused on its own...?
Larry, Diogenes, Nick M and the rest didn't provide one... so what makes them so certain they and you are right...? Evidence please...!
Quest,
For about two billion years following the origin of life the Earth was inhabited only by prokaryotes, evolving for hundreds of billions of generations, and still remaining prokaryotes. This is approximately how long you must wait till a prokaryote evolves into "something else". And that natural experiment involved the entire biosphere of the Earth, not just some bacterial cultures in a single lab.
Quest: "What does Lenski see…? The evolution of a “new” function in E. coli: the ability to use citrate as a carbon source for growth. ….but as Behe or one of the best experts in the world in this area explains the new genes and new information arose from pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome…."
The system is irreducibly complex by Behe's definition, so it's another proof that Behe is wrong about what can and can't evolve.
And so what if it "arose from pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome"? According to evolutionary theory and the observed evidence, all biological complexity so far observed arose from "pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome." You guys are the ones who think giraffes are created from dirt or ex nihilo.
Excuses... for lack of evidence... ? Come on ...!
Why don't you set up the chicken evolution experiment in Poland... ? You will have a chance to be the first not only scientist but also non-evolutionary scientist to catch evolution live...?
I heard that chickens are cheap on Poland and scientists are cutting lawns...
Quest, stop molecting chickens or I'll call the police.
molecting => molesting
Diogenes,
I'm sorry but unless you preforms some experiments, and provide the EVIDENCE FOR" I'm not talking to you and you very well know why...
The rest has been said many times..you come up with evidence for your claims or you can kiss your claims goodbye...
Gąsiorowski,
I'm gonna be in your neck of the woods this month... Are you giving any interesting lectures I could attend...
BTW: My wife's relative has a huge chicken farm outside of Poznań... ;-)
Quest,
Why do you IDiots think that if something can't be done by scientists RIGHT NOW, it can never be done? And what exactly do you expect scientists to do, go back billions of years in time and 'create' life all over again?
Just one of the things that you IDiots obviously don't understand is that when life arose on Earth (or came here via meteorite/asteroid/comet), Earth was VERY different from what it is now and it is very difficult (or maybe impossible) to figure out the exact event(s) or process by which life on Earth came about. Another thing you don't get is that recreating life from scratch isn't necessary to understand how life could have come about. And you do expect scientists to recreate life from scratch, don't you? You expect scientists to 'recreate life' by 'creating' the right atomic particles from scratch and then assemble them in a test tube so that a full blown human pops out, right? You probably expect the 'recreated' human to pop out of the test tube dressed in a nice suit and preaching a christian sermon.
And yet another thing that has been pointed out to you IDiots over and over and over again is that discovering, studying, and explaining evolution does NOT require the 'recreation of life' by scientists.
Tell you what, Quest, let's see you recreate your chosen designer-god. If you can't do that, especially RIGHT NOW, then your chosen designer-god must not exist, must not have ever existed, and must not have created life.
No, Quest, you can't end the conversation there. As I already explained, the fact that scientists can't give a detailed account of how life began several billion years ago in no way eliminates the mountains of evidence for evolution. the fact that we can't create life in the lab is completely irrelvant to the evidence of evolution in the real world.
The only reason you retreat to abiogenesis is because it is the only place left for your god to magically poof life into existence. That is your whole argument. And you accuse scientists of having no evidence? Produce one bit of evidence life forms were created de novo by divine fiat.
If Lenski, after of 25 years of experimenting the bacteria evolution, walked into the lab and found a bacteria with superior flagellum, or the new, unique and totally unknown species of bacteria possibly an intermediate to a new complex organism, that would be something worth of considering as more than minor change in organisms….
And of course we should expect this from evolution! Sudden appearance of flagella. I tell you guys, we've been misreading evolutionary biology all this time. We should thank Quest for keeping us on check about what evolution is about. Any minimal new function should come with bits and pieces of DNA coming out of nowhere. Complex systems like new and improved flagella should appear overnight. The cultured bacteria should look like nothing else in existence overnight (or no more than a few months). All of that would be consistent with evolution. But organisms showing clearly that they come from previously existing ones? New functions out of pre-existing DNA? Come on! That does not even make sense!
….but as Behe or one of the best experts in the world in this area explains the new genes and new information arose from pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome….
And of course, we all know that according to evolutionary theory new functions should come from DNA appearing out of nowhere. I remember that being mentioned by Darwin himself! If you read "On The Origin of Species" you will notice the "DNA out of nowhere" word-string time and again. Check it out if you don't believe me!
Quest, you have already been given 'evidence for'. Furthermore, you have absolutely no scientifically testable alternative to the evidences Diogenes pointed you to. Simply denying these powerful evidences is not an argument. And you still have the other side of your work ahead of you: what is your scientifically testable alternative? Anything?
You have been pointed to evidence over and over again, but have never examined it or critiqued it in a scientific fashion. Bizarre requests for flying chickens is not an argument.
At this point, your mindless denial of the facts indicates you are just trolling like Unknown and Steve. You have no actual argument.
I'll give you this, though:
There is no mountain of evidence you won't ignore or deny.
No goalpost you can't move.
No graveyard of lame, debunked creationist "critcisms" of evolution you won't whistle by.
You truly are a man of faith.
Quest,
"Why...? It's not a sin according to you... You don't believe in some sort of morality do you"
You don't have to believe in the biblical idea of 'sin' to have morality. The two are not a package deal.
Chris B,
Let's face it. If we can't explain abiogenesis at the quantum level detail, then the universe is but a few thousand years old, there was a global flood, the Earth has foundations and doesn't move, stars are holes in the curtain that "God" extended like a tent above the circle of the earth, and the Earth is, well, a flat circle. Etc., etc. End of conversation right here.
You truly are a man of faith.
Quest would be more like a man/woman without any character.
if life can't be recreated by intelligence, what is the evidence it aroused on its own...?
So if a cell can't be recreated by intelligence, it can't have arisen without it. Fantastic logic, Professor Quest.
photosynthesis,
For some, you are right. At some point, you have to recognize the irrational, and move on...
I don't think I know any women who would want to "compete" with Mr. Byers intellectually. They aim a lot higher.
I'm not sure there are any creatures equal to Byers in intellectual stature that are actually dioecious.
All I'm asking is to reassemble the cell that is still alive...
If you can't do that, what evidence do you have that natural processes and unintelligent lack have done what you, apparently intelligent creatures can't replicate...?
If you, scientists, can't replicate what the unintelligent luck has done, I say all of the scientists in the field return your funding and all the awards including Nobel prizes and give it back to whom they belong-unintelligent luck... It's only fair to do that, since people who claim to be intelligent can't keep up with lucky stupidity...
Quest's creationist logic: "if life can't be recreated by intelligence, what is the evidence it aroused on its own...?"
So if no intelligent being can create life, that proves an intelligent being created life. Brilliant logic that; ID geniuses call it "the positive argument for Intelligent Design."
Quest, you've asked for evidence for abiogenesis many times, and we've presented evidence many times, but you and Steve and Unknown and Joe Gallien (possibly all the same person) keep saying we never tell you evidence, when we did, over and over.
Let's test whether you can understand or remember evidence-- and whether you'll ever admit that we presented evidence to you. Your "chicken and egg" abiogenesis question was once answered in detail by SLC/Colnago. Please summarize briefly the evidence he presented.
If you can't, that explains why there's no point presenting evidence to you.
All I'm asking is to reassemble the cell that is still alive...
All you are doing is spreading bullshit in service of your magical explanations. At one time humans could not synthesize peptides and proteins from amino acids, at one time humans could not synthesize DNA from nucleotides. Do these biological processes require an omnipotent being too? Except for now, when humans can do those things?
You really should go back to religous blogs where your contributions will make perfect sense and be immensely useful.
Actually, I too have previously given Quitton a detailed account as to why reassembling a complex modern cell is the wrong way of looking at the abiogenesis issue. I've also speculated on what to me seems a plausible entry point, and discussed difficulties with that scenario. I'm sure Mr Q remembers this also, and can summarise and explain where I went wrong.
Actually, I too have previously given Quitton a detailed account as to why reassembling a complex modern cell is the wrong way of looking at the abiogenesis issue.
It won't do. To a creationist, it is creation all the way down. Quest thinks that the components of a modern cell popped into existence at some point either as pre-formed cells or organisms or as separate components assembled by supernatural intervention. I suspect your detailed thoughts will not compute in his mind as they do not involve pre-formed, complex, supernaturally created structures.
Quest: "All I'm asking is to reassemble the cell that is still alive..."
The #$%^ you are. If I break a chicken egg, and you can't reassemble it to make a viable fertilized developing egg, does that prove that the formation of chicken eggs must be a supernatural process? Because you can't reassemble it?
Scientists used to be unable to synthesize diamonds from carbon. Does that prove that the formation of diamonds is not a natural process and must require a god acting supernaturally?
Scientists used to be unable to synthesize any organic substance; the first organic substance synthesized was urea. Does that prove that the synthesis of urea required a supernatural god?
If scientists assembled a living cell from dead matter, you'd say, "Oh, you just proved that intelligence is needed to create life" and you'd claim that proved intelligent design.
Hey Quest, what do you think of this?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140904141955.htm
Next thing you know there will be recreated, full blown humans popping out of test tubes and they'll be dressed in nice suits and preaching christian sermons. LOL
Unknown quotes Axe ""So, to Moran I say, regale us with heroic stories of magically evolvable apes and magically evolvable enzymes". Isn't magically evolving whatsits the whole basis of ID theory?
aljones909 said: "Isn't magically evolving whatsits the whole basis of ID theory?"
That made me think about some things. IDiots constantly bash evolution and evolutionary theory, even though they (well, some of them) say that they are not anti-evolution. They (well, some of them) pretend that they are only against natural evolution, and they promote front-loading, intervention, or some other form of supernatural 'design' (a deceitful replacement for the word 'creation', and in the case of humans, 'special creation').
Now, here are some things to consider: If IDiots (or anyone else) accept that evolution occurs but believe that humans can't and didn't evolve from apes (actually ape-like ancestors and many other, previous ancestors) then what did humans evolve from? If humans can't and didn't evolve from any other, previous life forms then where did humans come from?
Some IDiots claim to be OECs, Since they believe in a designer-creator-god and if they don't accept that humans evolved (whether naturally or supernaturally) from other, previous life forms (such as "apes") then they must believe that humans were 'specially created' (magically poofed into existence) by 'God' and that humans have either been around and remained virtually unchanged biologically for billions of years (since the 'beginning' of life Earth) or that humans were 'specially created' (magically poofed into existence) by 'God' at some point since the beginning of life on Earth and have remained virtually unchanged biologically since that poof point.
Some IDiots claim to be YECs and, well, we all know that YECs believe that humans were 'specially created' (magically poofed into existence) by 'God' about 6 thousand years ago and have remained virtually unchanged biologically since then.
So, regardless of whether someone claims to be an OEC or YEC, if they don't accept that humans evolved from other, previous life forms, then they are anti-evolution and anti-evolutionary-theory, and therefor the only difference between OECS and YECs is their beliefs in the time frame of human origin ('special creation').
Some creationists (and all religious people are creationists) might accept that evolution occurs (supernaturally designed, created, and constantly directed of course) but only pertaining to life forms other than humans. To creationists, humans are in a VERY special category and are not subject to anything as crude as evolution, and especially natural evolution from lowly, filthy apes or any other 'lower life forms'.
Frankly, I have never understood the rationale for their tactics. Even if evolution as we know it was proven to be wrong, this does not add one bit of evidence to the creationist claim.
It is like the kid In the playground who nobody likes who goes out of his way to identify and broadcast every little character flaw in others.
Well, all the delusional boys... You have come up with some crazy "solutions" to make yourself "comfortable...
You are so lame...
I have paid a great deal of money in order to try to understand your stupidity... It turns out I was wrong... it's not stupidity... most people on this blog are not necessarily stupid... they may and probably are very highly educated... So... What makes an intelligent person ignore reality...? Arrogance, arrogance and narcissistic behavior that depicts them all..
How about the famous endosymbiosis... can the big boys prove the carnivorous prokaryotic cells that swallowed themselves and lead to the miracle of life and the miracles emergence of eukaryotic cells...I'm pretty sure there is theory for everything ... the one that matters with evidence is just not there...
Paid? For what? You'd be better off expending some intellectual capital, if understanding were really your aim.
Therefore magic designer, acting at a time and in a manner completely unspecified. Got it.
Less frivolously, I'm not sure what you would regard as 'evidence', but for a roundup of the many primary, secondary and tertiary endosymbioses identified, and the rationale for their identification as such, try this: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1541.toc
Magic evolution has it's turn....
Magic evolution has it's turn...
So you're invoking the Explanatory Filter? Evolution had its chance, now it's back to Creation?
I don't think 3 minutes is really enough to get the grips with the papers I linked.
A correction to what I said above: "Some IDiots claim to be OECs, Since they believe..."
There should be a period after OECs, not a comma. My eyesight isn't what it used to be.
The evidence for endosymbiosis is irrefutable at this point.
However, there is a subtle point there, which is usually missed from discussions about the religious implications of evolution - there is tons of endosymbiosis within eukaryotes, and we even have examples of modern eukaryotes in the process of developing what seems to be endosymbiotic relationships with prokaryotes (Paulinella chromatophora being the most famous), but the prokaryote/prokaryote endosymbiotic event that lead to the origin of eukaryotes seems to have been unique (modern eukaryotes are clearly monophyletic, and all seem to postdate the alphaproteobacterial endosymbiosis even if they currently lack mitochondria). This was the second most important even in the history of life after its origin - mutlicellularity seems to be both a relatively easy and almost inevitable step after that as evident by the fact that it has evolved nearly a dozen times within the modern diversity of eukaryotes (and who knows how many times in extinct lineages that left no trace), but as far as we know it has never evolved in prokaryotes. Which means that without that endosymbiotic event there might have been no complex multicellular life on this planet. This is (deceptively) good news for the creationists as they have something to point at and say "God must have done this" (the reasons they are focusing on the Cambrian and not on this are that, first, they are simply too ignorant of the deep history of life, as you just demonstrated in this thread, to know this stuff, and, second, although uncertain as it depends on someone actually possessing some knowledge of the subject to make a conscious assessment of the situation, trilobites and the rest of the Cambrian fauna are macrofossils that have become ingrained to at least some extent in popular culture and that people can relate to rather than obscure invisible single-celled organisms that almost nobody has heard of). But as I said, this is deceptively good news, and the reason is that while a lot of uncertainties remain about the specifics of the process (after all, it happened 2 billion years ago and it's no simple matter to tease apart events that old when so much of the phylogenetic signal they left has been erased), we know enough to never even have to think about invoking external "intelligence" in the process - it can be explained perfectly well in purely natural terms. It also happens to be bad news for the great majority of theistic evolutionists as the improbability of the event means God must have directly intervened (otherwise humans are not inevitable), which makes their proposals either nonviable or equivalent to creationism...
Acartia Tonsa said:
"It is like the kid In the playground who nobody likes who goes out of his way to identify and broadcast every little character flaw in others."
Yeah, and they do it in an attempt to build themselves up. The thing is, it just demonstrates their insecurities. Religious people think that their insecurities can be overcome by believing and claiming that they're 'specially created in the image of God' and by self-righteously attacking anything, such as evolution and 'natural' evolutionary theory, that challenges and refutes their insecurity based, narcissistic desire to feel secure and special.
Creationists have often been asked why they don't just as vehemently attack certain other scientific theories, hypotheses, or inferences such as gravity theory, but I've never seen an honest answer from them, and they usually don't answer at all. Evolution and 'natural' evolutionary theory are the main things that challenge and/or refute the 'humans are special/exceptional and created in God's image' claims of creationists. Most or all other scientific theories, hypotheses, or inferences are not as directly challenging (at least from a creationist's point of view) to their 'special creation' claim for humans. To me though, it's obvious that many religious people do not believe that all humans fit into their claim of 'special creation'. Racism, bigotry, self-righteousness, etc., are common among religious people.
Georgi,
Blah, blah, blah...
The evidence accounts to the believers..... no science involved....
Really, after all this you are just going to declare vistory and call us lame?
And then call us arrogant and narcissistic?
Geez, Quest, project much?
I come to these discussions to discuss science, not get bogged down in a by troll bait.
You have been a huge disappointment.
A stunning refutation, Professor Quest.
Don't be too hard on Quest, he's merely demonstrating the quintessential creationist's relationship to evidence: "blah blah blah".
Here again was the question I asked Professor Quest, because I knew the outcome-- we would present evidence, he would falsely state that no evidence was presented:
Me: "Let's test whether you can understand or remember evidence-- and whether you'll ever admit that we presented evidence to you. Your "chicken and egg" abiogenesis question was once answered in detail by SLC/Colnago. Please summarize briefly the evidence he presented."
As we see from the above, Georgi takes considerable time to describe some, not all of the evidence for endosymbiosis, and Quest falsely implies that no evidence was presented ("Blah, blah, blah... no science involved" says a NON-scientist to an actual scientist.) Scientists don't know everything, but what they do know, creationists lie about.
Quest has proven our point: that we present evidence to creationists, and immediately, they falsely deny that we did so. We should all save hyperlinks to this thread to demonstrate in the future why we no longer answer Quest's questions. It's reasonable that we should answer questions ONCE, but we should not answer them over and over to people who deny the facts about what we just wrote. He's deliberately trying to keep scientists from their research by trolling.
He's deliberately trying to keep scientists from their research by trolling.
I tend to doubt his thinking is that strategic. He asks his non-serious questions, which are either answered or not. If answered, he says the evidence is inadequate and declares victory. If not answered, he says science has no answer and declares victory. Or even if answered, he says science has no answer and declares victory. It's the "declares victory" part that's most important, as a look at any ID web site will tell you.
the new genes and new information arose from pre-existing bits of DNA that were already in the genome….
Since this is of course exactly what evolutionary theory would predict (rather than some magical entirely new stuff poofing into existence, as ID requires) - a new function evolving from "pre-existing bits of DNA" - I think we must congratulate Quest on becoming the most recent Darwinist here at Sandwalk! Welcome aboard! :)
And of course we should expect this from evolution! Sudden appearance of flagella.
Only if the E. coli have faith will the Deity reward them by giving them the propellers all the cool microbes are sporting this year.
A stunning refutation, Professor Quest.
It's Schopenhauer's Stratagem XIV ("Claim Victory Despite Defeat"):
This, which is an impudent trick, is played as follows: When your opponent has answered several of your questions without the answers turning out favourable to the conclusion at which you are aiming, advance the desired conclusion, - although it does not in the least follow, - as though it had been proved, and proclaim it in a tone of triumph. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the trick may easily succeed. It is akin to the fallacy non causae ut causae.
But Quest has a feeble voice and a speech defect. Most of what I can hear sounds like "Blah, blah, blah..."
W. Ford Doolittle on endosymbiosis:
"...Many eukaryotic genes turn out to be unlike those of any known archaea or bacteria; they seem to have come from nowhere..."
www.icb.ufmg.br/labs/lbem/aulas/grad/evol/treeoflife-complexcells.pdf
I guess those genes must have come from outer-space.. anything will do if you choose to believe it....
Buhahahahahahaha!
And who is an idiot now...?
By-bye...
Right... You have enough impudence, but unfortunately your opponents are neither shy nor stupid. Try doing your number somewhere else.
And who is an idiot now...?
You are, if you think citing Ford Doolittle (who said ENCODE was quite wrong - there is definitely lots of junk in our genomes) for the now well accepted fact that microbes exchange DNA causes any problem for evolutionary theory.
This is standard IDiot stuff - Darwin wrote about the Tree of Life, so anything that shows this metaphor wasn't absolutely accurate for all time is supposed to cause a problem. Microbial exchange of DNA means some of the "branches" can affect the genetic makeup of other "branches," whereas in natural tree growth two branches will not ordinarily combine. So? Do tell us, Quest, beyond silly quote mines, what exactly in current evolutionary theory does this contradict? Be specific, please.
It occurs to me that citing a controversy from 25 years ago as somehow problematic for current evolutionary theory is like pointing to the DynaTAC phone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC) and saying its lack of easy portability is a problem for Apple today.
Quest attempts a standard type of dishonest quoting out of context: the "It Seems" Quote Mine [ISQM]. A scientist writes a sentence of the form, "It seems like X, but actually it's not X." The creationist chops off the "but actually it's not X" and just copies the first part. Many examples of ISQM's, the most famous being Darwin quoted on the step-by-step evolution of the complexity of the eye, "it seems, I freely admit, absurd in the extreme." Then creationists cut off the part where Darwin says "but it's actually not."
Always be on the lookout for "It seems." That and ellipses.
I guess those genes must have come from outer-space.. anything will do if you choose to believe it....
Or maybe they came by LGT from unsequenced or now-extinct organisms, a perfectly reasonable possibility Doolittle mentions a mere sentence later - the bit you keep accidentally omitting when you offer that quote (handy thing, Google).
LGT is well known with non-extinct organisms as the source, so why discount that possibility out of hand, and gibber about space?
LGT is well known with non-extinct organisms as the source, so why discount that possibility out of hand, and gibber about space?
Because Quest doesn't care one bit about explanations. Quest is not trying to learn anything. Quest is not trying to have a discussion or to understand. Quest just trolls. Quest deserves nothing but plain mockery.
I appreciate the explanations you guys give though. Even if the intended recipient, Quest the IDiot, could not care less.
"I have paid a great deal of money in order to try to understand your stupidity"
I this cost was for a formal education, I would be demanding a refund because it was not effective. Maybe you should have gone to a school other than the Canada Christian Colledge (or other like institute).
I appreciate the explanations you guys give though. Even if the intended recipient, Quest the IDiot, could not care less.
This proves that IDiots have a function. By interacting with knowledgeable people, they elicit explanations which are wasted on them, but from which interested onlookers can profit.
Georgi: "This was the second most important even in the history of life after its origin"
Except for maybe the evolution of photosynthesis. Which, of course, did not involve endosymbiosis... Oh, yah. Chloroplasts.
Autotrophy has evolved multiple times.
Quest deserves nothing but plain mockery
Sure, but it is kind of amusing in its own way to see a serious explanation get the Quest treatment. Look on it as reverse-trolling.
Acartia Tonsa says,
Except for maybe the evolution of photosynthesis. Which, of course, did not involve endosymbiosis... Oh, yah. Chloroplasts.
I hate to be picky but just in case there's any misunderstanding we should remember that photosynthesis evolved more that one billion years before there was such a thing as a chloroplast.
Quest: "I have paid a great deal of money in order to try to understand your stupidity"
How many ellipses did you use in your master's thesis...?
"This proves that IDiots have a function. By interacting with knowledgeable people, they elicit explanations which are wasted on them, but from which interested onlookers can profit."
Yes! Thanks to all involved. Fun tidbits here and there for the experienced, and for the beginners entire new ideas to research on their own time.
I must say though, Quest surprised me by literally responding with "blah blah blah" after asking for evidence/explanation. That's just a new pathetic low.
Larry, this post is proof that you lie about IDists. You sure as hell didn't support your tripe and the reason is you cannot because it is all a lie. You are a dishonest chump.
I don't understand why this has to be an argument, science and theology are not mutually exclusive nor are they even remotely related. Isn't that what it means to have faith? To believe in your god and accept that it is impossible to provide evidence for your belief? There should literally NEVER be religious discussions about scientific matters, and vice versa. Science cannot disprove gods, and gods cannot disprove science, and personally I feel that those who engage in this petty and tired debate impair their credibility on both sides. Science does not care what you believe, whether you're religious or not, and surely whatever god(S) one chooses to believe in has better things to concern themselves with than their creation learning about them and what they did and how they did it.
This debate has got to stop because it is doing harm to both science and religion which are both beautiful and intriguing in their own right. The less science attacks the idea that a god exists, the less religious people will reject scientific evidence for things we have observed to be accurate. Conversely, the less religious people try to justify their faith using science the better off we will ALL be. If one feels like they must justify their beliefs for or against god using science there is clearly a seed of doubt in their heart regarding the matter, and perhaps they should spend more time in introspective thought, and less time slinging petty insults on scientific blogs.
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