In goes another nail: Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

[sideshowbob]

What name? Please quote where I have called you any name at all.

You called me a "whacko".

“ Originally Posted by sideshowbob
You may not have noticed this, but the Internet is full of whackos. ”

Yes, and you seem to be one of them

And below, you also call me a "Darwinist".

I did not admit to getting my information from the Internet.

You said that "The Internet is changing all this since, for the first time in history, the elitists no longer control and filter the information highway," implying that you consider the Internet to be a reliable source of information.

I was well versed in these subjects before there was an Internet.

Reading a few books does not necssarily make you "well-versed". One of the perils of self-education is one's tendency to read what one wants to read instead of what one should read. It's a lot like eating what you want to eat instead of what's good for you. The fact that you can't go into a candy store without buying something is not a testimonial to your good health.

When it comes to the science community, I do know what I am talking about.

That is hardly apparent from your behaviour on this and other threads. What is apparent is more like paranoia and hatred of the scientific community. But I am content to let the members of sciforums decide for themselves which one of us knows what he is talking about.

I suppose you are now using the common Darwinist tactic - when you can't compete on ideas, start personal attacks and intimidation.

More name-calling, eh?
I am not, in fact, a "Darwinist". On the other hand, if you think you can insult me by calling me one, think again.
As for "intimidation", well, I'm really not as scary as you make me out to be. Don't be afraid. The big bad boogey-man won't get you.

Please feel free to continue, but I will not respond, unless you wish to move back into the realm of ideas - science or religion, I don't mind either but I find it best to keep them separate.

Thank you so much for your kind permission.
All along I have been trying to get you to address ideas, but if you want to run and hide instead....

 

[David F.]

Careful now Bob. You are accusing me of what you said - and I would not want to have your words put in my mouth. I merely agreed with you as to your own statement. The name you accuse me of calling you does not appear in any of my posts. It comes from yours. You are the name caller, not me. You are tricky but I am on to you. You mixed my quote with yours and tried to indicate that I said it - that's called deception, Bob - a common Darwinist tactic (kind of like when the National Geographic Society published a Bird fossil with a Dinosaur tail glued on to it! - ).

I did in fact call you a Darwinist. Are you not? Do you not believe and follow and argue for the teachings of Darwin? I am so sorry, that you find this insulting (I know I would). Please accept my appologies. You may, however, call me a Christian without fear of hurting my fealings because I am in fact a follower of Christ and His teachings.

If you are not a Darwinist then may I refer to you as an Evolutionist? Do you follow the teachings of Evolution? What do you follow and why do you spout Darwinist teachings if you are in fact not a Darwinist? I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the title Darwinist would be embraced and accepted by you and those who believe as you do. Please enlighten me further, Bob. What do you believe, Bob.

As for my education and my training, I have spent many years at the university level, both as a student and as a full time college instructor and I spend about half my time on campus even to this day. My wife even teaches at the college. I have enough PhD friends, to know not to be impressed by that monogram and not to confuse intellegence with degrees. I know the academic world very well, obviously better than you do.

 

[Michael]

Select what? You have to have things to select between. Evolution is about selecting the fittest organism between organisms which are different. Difference comes from changes in the organism. Changes, according to Evolution happen by random chance. The selection is to keep good changes and to reject bad changes. Selection cannot happen until there is first a random chance change!

What do YOU mean select what? Have you been listening at all???

SMALL inheritable changes!

Geezus!!

Yes small random changes - now you seem to get it, yet before this is what you post:

“When I see Eiffel's Tower, I don't believe it popped out of the ground or flew together by random chance”

Why the sudden change? I can only assume you are being purposely misleading, disingenuous, and deceitful. (act like that and one would think you a Christian).

You keep harping on your article, which I ignored since it does not have any relevence to the current discusion. Did you read the article at all? Your article is about a bacteria called Salmonella Typhimurium which secretes two bacterial toxins (proteins) which attack skin cells.

OMG, that was regarding something completely different.

THIS ARTICLE: Early events in speciation: polymorphism for hybrid male sterility in Drosophila

I read your article about Phillip Johnson but, UNLIKE Richard Dawkins whose books are PACKED with PEER REVIEWD Science citations, FUNNY ENOUGH I can not seem to find ANY citations to peer reviewed articles to back up Phillip Johnson’s claims.

WHERE IS THE SCIENCE DAVID?

ANY crackpot can write ramblings, it’s only considered noteworthy when they produce SCINETIFC MANUSCIPTS in PEER REVIEWD Journals.

Where are they?

Good try David, but as they say - try again.

 

[Michael]

Very Good Analogy!

Michael, Here's another response to the Dawkin's "Blind Watchmaker" book:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/264.asp

Remember Michael, I read your link, now you read mine.

Fred Hoyle did some calculations on the likelihood of a hypothetical minimum self-reproducing cell coming together, given all the ingredients (this is impossible anyway, by natural, non-enzymatic processes). Hoyle hypothesised a cell of only 400 enzymes/proteins; a real world bacterium has about 2,000! For this hypothetical minimum cell, Hoyle calculated a probability of it forming by natural processes of 1 in 1040,000.

Could you say STRAWMAN any louder?!?!?!

Yeah, what Fred Hoyle calculated is probably correct – it a good thing that NO BIOLOGIST is suggesting that it happened in that fasion.

Bascially, this is no different than your “The Effiel Tower just fell together by chance" crap.

NO ONE IS SUGGESTING THAT IS THE CASE

DAVID, DO YOU GET it now???

YOU are MAKING UP a theory and then smashing YOUR OWN theory down.

So WHAT?

You must critique the REAL THEORY as it is proposed BY MODERN BIOLOGISTS or in the case of ABIOGENESIS, MODERN BIOCHEMISTS.

Here are some references you can read to get you on your way. Just try critiquing ONE of them please:

1] Unrau PJ, and Bartel DP, RNA-catalysed nucleotide synthesis. Nature, 395: 260-3, 1998
[2] Orgel LE, Polymerization on the rocks: theoretical introduction. Orig Life Evol Biosph, 28: 227-34, 1998
[3] Otsuka J and Nozawa Y. Self-reproducing system can behave as Maxwell's demon: theoretical illustration under prebiotic conditions. J Theor Biol, 194, 205-221, 1998
[4] Woese C, The universal ancestor. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 95: 6854-6859.
[5] Varetto L, Studying artificial life with a molecular automaton. J Theor Biol, 193: 257-85, 1998
[6] Wiegand TW, Janssen RC, and Eaton BE, Selection of RNA amide synthases. Chem Biol, 4: 675-83, 1997
[7] Severin K, Lee DH, Kennan AJ, and Ghadiri MR, A synthetic peptide ligase. Nature, 389: 706-9, 1997
[8] Ruse M, The origin of life, philosophical perspectives. J Theor Biol, 187: 473-482, 1997
[9] Lee DH, Severin K, Yokobayashi Y, and Ghadiri MR, Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network. Nature, 390: 591-4, 1997
[10] Lee DH, Severin K, and Ghadri MR. Autocatalytic networks: the transition from molecular self-replication to molecular ecosystems. Curr Opinion Chem Biol, 1, 491-496, 1997
[11] Di Giulio M, On the RNA world: evidence in favor of an early ribonucleopeptide world. J Mol Evol, 45: 571-8, 1997
[12] Ekland EH, and Bartel DP, RNA-catalysed RNA polymerization using nucleoside triphosphates. Nature, 383: 192, 1996
[13] Lohse PA, and Szostak JW, Ribozyme-catalysed amino-acid transfer reactions. Nature, 381: 442-4, 1996
[14] Ferris JP, Hill AR Jr, Liu R, and Orgel LE, Synthesis of long prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces [see comments]. Nature, 381: 59-61, 1996
[15] Lazcano A, and Miller SL, The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre- RNA world, and time. Cell, 85: 793-8, 1996
[16] Ertem G, and Ferris JP, Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature, 379: 238-40, 1996
[17] Lee DH, Granja JR, Martinez JA, Severin K, and Ghadri MR, A self-replicating peptide. Nature, 382: 525-8, 1996
[18] Joyce GF, Building the RNA world. Ribozymes. Curr Biol, 6: 965-7, 1996
[19] Ishizaka M, Ohshima Y, and Tani T, Isolation of active ribozymes from an RNA pool of random sequences using an anchored substrate RNA. Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 214: 403-9, 1995
[20] Mushegian AR and Koonin, EV, A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 93: 10268-10273.
[21] Ekland EH, Szostak JW, and Bartel DP, Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences. Science, 269: 364-70, 1995
[22] Breaker RR, and Joyce GF, Emergence of a replicating species from an in vitro RNA evolution reaction.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 91: 6093-7, 1994
[23] Chyba C and Sagan C, Endogenous production, exogenous delivery and impact-shock synthesis of organic molecules: an inventory for the origins of life. Nature, 355: 125-32., 1992
[24] Doudna JA, Couture S, and Szostak JW, A multisubunit ribozyme that is a catalyst of and template for complementary strand RNA synthesis. Science, 251: 1605-8, 1991
[25] Lahav N, Prebiotic co-evolution of self-replication and translation or RNA world? J Theor Biol, 151: 531-9, 1991
[26] Stadler PF, Dynamics of autocatalytic reaction networks. IV: Inhomogeneous replicator networks. Biosystems, 26: 1-19, 1991
[27] Eigen M, Gardiner W, Schuster P, and Winkler-Oswatitsch R, The origin of genetic information. Sci Am, 244: 88-92, 96, et passim, 1981
[28] Eigen M, and Schuster P, The hypercycle. A principle of natural self-organization. Springer-Verlag, isbn 3-540-09293, 1979
[29] Yockey HP, On the information content of cytochrome c. J Theor Biol, 67: 345-76, 1977

 

[Michael]

AND FOR THE RECORD:

Professor of ZOOLOGY, Richard Dawkins
Professor of LAW, Phillip Johnson
Professor of PHILOSOPHY, Michael Ruse
Professor of ASTRONOMY, Fred Hoyle

DID you happen to notice that the last three are NOT biologists?

 

[Michael]

SORRY to tell you this David but you have offered nothing at all to refute any aspect of modern Evolution.

Evolution is well and truly ALIVE

YUP, rack one up for the Good Guys!

 

[sideshowbob]

The name you accuse me of calling you does not appear in any of my posts. It comes from yours. You are the name caller, not me.

Tricksy, ain't you?
I said that there are a lot of whackos on the Internet. You strongly implied that I am one of them.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness." Tsk. Tsk.

I did in fact call you a Darwinist. Are you not? Do you not believe and follow and argue for the teachings of Darwin?

No, I do not, and I don't know where you could have gotten that idea.

I am so sorry, that you find this insulting

I specifically said I do not find it insulting. If somebody called me a Nobel laureate they would be equally wrong, but I would be flattered, not insulted.

You may, however, call me a Christian without fear of hurting my fealings because I am in fact a follower of Christ and His teachings.

Unfortunately, it doesn't show. Wouldn't Christ want you to turn the other cheek?

If you are not a Darwinist then may I refer to you as an Evolutionist?

No. You many not.
If you insist on calling me something, you may call me a human being. I plead guilty to that charge.

Do you follow the teachings of Evolution? What do you follow and why do you spout Darwinist teachings if you are in fact not a Darwinist?

I follow nobody and no thing. I follow no "teachings". I guess I'm just not a follower.
I am not aware of "spouting" any "Darwinist teachings". I do accept the findings of science, whereas I am skeptical of quackery.

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the title Darwinist would be embraced and accepted by you and those who believe as you do. Please enlighten me further, Bob. What do you believe, Bob.

I don't know why you think you know what I "believe" from a few posts on this forum.
I do "believe" that you are an idiot, but that's strictly a religious conviction, not based on direct scientific evidence.

I know the academic world very well, obviously better than you do.

Again, I'll just leave it to the readers of this thread to decide what you know and what you only think you know.

(By the way, I'm sure this is entertaining for the casual reader, but i'm beginning to have a little trouble keeping a striaght face in your presence. So, if I'm forced to break off the discussion, giggling hysterically at your antics, please feel free to claim victory. )

 

[Ophiolite]

David, I was re-reading your discussion with Michael on your view that the characteristics of life cry out for a designer, and his observation that some of the designs looked at little suspect. (I'm paraphrasing both your thoughts - I trust I've captured them correctly.)
Coincidentally, I was looking at my genitals and was reminded of the old question, 'Why would God run a waste disposal system through the middle of a recreational area?'
It may appear trite and in bad taste, but it is a fundamentally sound question, the generic equivalents of which you have failed to answer.

If I go to South Africa, to an area known to geologists as the Bushveld complex, I find some remarkable rocks, with some remarkable properties. The rocks are layered, sometimes visibly, a dark layer alternating with a light, sometimes in way revealed only through chemical analysis. These layers extend semi-horizontally for miles, with a remarkable uniformity within each layer. Here is a layer composed of feldspars. More than 95% of the rock is feldspar. Above it is a second layer equally rich in pyroxene. Then above that a further layer where these minerals are uniformly mixed. How could this be? Perhaps chance, but no. The layering continues in a variety of bewildering mixes for many hundreds of vertical feet. Surely this speaks of design. What possible mechanism could generate such richness and diversity and uniqueness of mineralogical composition?
Comments please.

 

[David F.]

Ophiolite, Try putting a mix of soils in a large glass jar or tank - about a quarter or less of the container. Fill it with water and stir violently. Let the sediment fall out on its own. Guess what? Layers! No magic and no supernatural events. Now imagine the same thing on an region-wide scale (or perhaps, on a world-wide scale).

I am beginning to think Michael is a teenager, maybe young college – lots of passion but not much brains – not that passion is bad, it just needs to be tempered with a little common sense and experience. He doesn't seem to be able to follow a train of thought and he is not really giving any insight or argument of his own. All he is giving me is things copied from books. All he is doing is saying things like "see, the experts say so, so it must be true". Is this what is being shoveled at our kids? If so, I must watch the curriculum of my own children a bit more closely.

 

[David F.]

What do YOU mean select what? Have you been listening at all???

SMALL inheritable changes!

Geezus!!

Yes small random changes - now you seem to get it, yet before this is what you post:

“When I see Eiffel's Tower, I don't believe it popped out of the ground or flew together by random chance”

Why the sudden change? I can only assume you are being purposely misleading, disingenuous, and deceitful. (act like that and one would think you a Christian).

OMG, that was regarding something completely different.

THIS ARTICLE: Early events in speciation: polymorphism for hybrid male sterility in Drosophila

I read your article about Phillip Johnson but, UNLIKE Richard Dawkins whose books are PACKED with PEER REVIEWD Science citations, FUNNY ENOUGH I can not seem to find ANY citations to peer reviewed articles to back up Phillip Johnson’s claims.

WHERE IS THE SCIENCE DAVID?

ANY crackpot can write ramblings, it’s only considered noteworthy when they produce SCINETIFC MANUSCIPTS in PEER REVIEWD Journals.

Where are they?

Good try David, but as they say - try again.

Yaaaaaaaaawn... Been there, done that (on this forum).

If you can't understand that in order to select something, you must first create a difference to select from, then I can't help you. Where exactly do you think those "SMALL inheritable changes" come from? They come from RANDOM MUTATIONS in the DNA (according to Darwin that is - not that I believe this nonsense).

You are not intellegent enough to have a discussion with. Why don't you quit parrotting the lies of others and start making some arguments of your own?

Saying that only a trained biologist is qualified to talk about Evolution is about the same as saying that only a trained theologian is qualified to talk about religion. I don't meekly follow stupid theologians and I don't meekly follow stupid biologists/zoologists (like the fanatic Richard Dawkins).

Michael, you are incoherently babbling again.

 

[Michael]

Yaaaaaaaaawn...

Take a deep breath, yawning may be a sign you’re not getting enough gas exchange and your brain is registering an increase in CO2. This usually comes about from panting. Painting can be a result of stress, in this case after having read my rebuttal

Oh, yawning is also a defense mechanism usually done in pretense that you are no longer interested when in actually you have just reached the limit of your mental agilities and admitted defeat!!

Thanks David F., I’ll take your yawn as a compliment.

Where exactly do you think those "SMALL inheritable changes" come from? They come from RANDOM MUTATIONS in the DNA (according to Darwin that is - not that I believe this nonsense).

You don't think DNA can mutate??

HAAAA hahahahahahaaaaa!!!!

How do bacteria develop resistance? OH, I know - the invisible to everyone but Davoid, CREEPY ALIENS do it with their mental telepathic abilities . . .

HAhahahahahhaha

YOU ARE TOO FUNNY!!

But, at least you admit you don't believe in DNA mutation - what a wondrous scientist you'll make

You are not intellegent enough to have a discussion with. Why don't you quit parrotting the lies of others and start making some arguments of your own?

1) its spelled intelligent

2) Reinterpret – I, David F, am BEATEN!!!!’

YOU see David you’ll find, if you are indeed doing a higher degree, that PEER REVIEWED articles usually shuts up the competition – as it did in this case with YOU.

Saying that only a trained biologist is qualified to talk about Evolution is about the same as saying that only a trained theologian is qualified to talk about religion.

I didn’t say that – I implied that being a Biologist adds credibility.

Michael, you are incoherently babbling again.

Asking you to find a PEER REVIEWED REFERNCE is babbling…. right. . . .

No, David that’s called thinking “scientifically” – here I’ll break it down phonetically for you: sci•en•tif•i•cal•ly

Yeah, I suppose it must seem like babble to one such as yourself, I suppose an infant feels the same way when listening to an adult.

Anyway, thanks for yawning/conceding defeat David F.

Evolution – truly alive and kicking, rack one up for the good guys!

 

[David F.]

Take a deep breath, yawning may be a sign you’re not getting enough gas exchange and your brain is registering an increase in CO2. This usually comes about from panting. Painting can be a result of stress, in this case after having read my rebuttal

Oh, yawning is also a defense mechanism usually done in pretense that you are no longer interested when in actually you have just reached the limit of your mental agilities and admitted defeat!!

Thanks David F., I’ll take your yawn as a compliment.

You don't think DNA can mutate??

HAAAA hahahahahahaaaaa!!!!

How do bacteria develop resistance? OH, I know - the invisible to everyone but Davoid, CREEPY ALIENS do it with their mental telepathic abilities . . .

HAhahahahahhaha

YOU ARE TOO FUNNY!!

But, at least you admit you don't believe in DNA mutation - what a wondrous scientist you'll make

1) its spelled intelligent

2) Reinterpret – I, David F, am BEATEN!!!!’

YOU see David you’ll find, if you are indeed doing a higher degree, that PEER REVIEWED articles usually shuts up the competition – as it did in this case with YOU.

I didn’t say that – I implied that being a Biologist adds credibility.

Asking you to find a PEER REVIEWED REFERNCE is babbling…. right. . . .

No, David that’s called thinking “scientifically” – here I’ll break it down phonetically for you: sci•en•tif•i•cal•ly

Yeah, I suppose it must seem like babble to one such as yourself, I suppose an infant feels the same way when listening to an adult.

Anyway, thanks for yawning/conceding defeat David F.

Evolution – truly alive and kicking, rack one up for the good guys!

I do believe that DNA can mutate, I just don't believe that lots of little mutations add up to big changes, like changing reptiles into birds. It would be impossible for random mutations to change a limb into a wing for example. I have many times agreed that speciation (adaptability) is true. This has been known for centuries and it is the root of Darwin's theories. Darwin started with the known truth of minor mutations (e.g. one amino-acid mutation changes brown eyes to blue), even though he did not know exactly what a mutation was - he didn't know about DNA. Darwin then made an unsubstantiated leap to say that lots of these little changes could add up to big changes - common ancestry. This has turned out to be without basis or evidence in the fossil record.

Once again, I must assume that name-calling and rude attacks means you have nothing substantial to say. You know what, there is no discussion left here. I shouldn't have yawned. You win. I choose not to be sucked into a name-calling session. Bye-Bye now.

BTW, it is considered childish and rude to quibble about spelling, grammar or punctuation on this forum. It gets in the way of good discussion.

 

[Michael]

I do believe that DNA can mutate, I just don't believe that lots of little mutations add up to big changes, like changing reptiles into birds. It would be impossible for random mutations to change a limb into a wing for example.

again – “selection” and, as birds exist, yes it is possible for a limb to eventuate into a wing (weather you believe so or not)

This has turned out to be without basis or evidence in the fossil record.

Sorry, saying this over and over doesn’t make it fact.

The FACT is that it is substantiated in the fossil record.

Once again, I must assume that name calling and rude attacks means you have nothing substantial to say.

Funny that:

I am beginning to think Michael is a teenager, maybe young college – lots of passion but not much brains

???

You win.

I know

BTW, it is considered childish and rude to quibble about spelling, grammer or punctuation on this forum. It gets in the way of good discussion.

Unless that is, the person is telling me: “You are not intellegent enough to have a discussion” with while at the same time misspelling intelligent!

(oh and it’s grammar)

In summary, David F., you’ve spent 9 pages and offered not ONE single citation refuting evolution in any recognized PEER REVIEWED journal (say from PebMed). As such, your arguments have little credibility. Instead you just repeat yourself over and over and over at nausea as if saying the same wrong statement a tenth time will suddenly transform it into a correct statement.

I on the other hand have presented MANY PEER REVIEWED ACADEMIC JOURNAL ARTICALS. I also offered for you to present an argument as to what is wrong with each article. If you’re correct then send your critique into the Journals editors (ie: PNAS). Hell, you never did read and comment on the Journal article regarding Speciation. Instead you just “say” it can’t occur – sorry buddy but it did, does, and will happen.

So in conclusion – yes, evolution is here to stay and finds such as the Pierolapithecus catalaunicus are helping to push ID/Creationism anther 6 feet under.

 

[Silas]

Michael, Michael, calm down. David does not believe in Peer Review, as he has previously stated. I have asked that he mention this to his Ph.D. invigilators, but he just says he accepts it as the status quo. Unfortunately, his problem with Peer Review (as with so much that David posts) is based upon flawed logic and incorrect review of data. He believes that peer review solidifies conservatism and an inability to accept radical new paradigms. You can, of course, find many examples where the scientific establishment resisted a radical new idea. Max Planck once said, "The only way to get new ideas accepted is to wait for all the old scientists to die." However, this view of the scientific establishment totally neglects the other side of the coin - the plethora of bad science, incorrect scientific ideas and flawed experimentation which is submitted constantly and which cannot be rooted out as being basically incorrect without being subjected to strict scrutiny by other people in the same subject matter (the "peers"). Without peer review, "science" would be filled with unsubstantiated, unsupportable, pseudoscientific rubbish. As Churchill said of democracy, "Democracy is the worst system of governing the people there is - apart from all the others."

I do believe that DNA can mutate, I just don't believe that lots of little mutations add up to big changes, like changing reptiles into birds.

Why not? This is just arguing from personal incredulity.

It would be impossible for random mutations to change a limb into a wing for example.

Personal incredulity does not make for scientific proof. If it was demonstrably impossible for random mutations (working within the constraints of Darwinian natural selection, of course), then evolution would not be part of science. If the Earth is only 6,000 years old (or whatever figure David believes in, having rejected 4.55 bn years out of hand but accepting that the world might be a bit older), then evolution is demonstrably false. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that supports a young Earth and many different separately attested bits of evidence to indicate an Earth with an age in the billions of years, which is long enough (only 65 million years is more than long enough) to evolve a wing from a limb. Little changes do in fact add up to big changes, and given long enough those little changes will inevitably lead to something that is changed quite out of recognition.

I have many times agreed that speciation (adaptability) is true. This has been known for centuries and it is the root of Darwin's theories. Darwin started with the known truth of minor mutations (e.g. one amino-acid mutation changes brown eyes to blue), even though he did not know exactly what a mutation was - he didn't know about DNA. Darwin then made an unsubstantiated leap to say that lots of these little changes could add up to big changes - common ancestry. This has turned out to be without basis or evidence in the fossil record.

Darwin's case wasn't exactly unsubstantiated. In fact the case is made thoroughly and rationally using demonstrations and illustrations through many, many examples in a book of almost 500 pages which took 28 years to compile. (I mean, of course, The Origin of Species.) Darwin was a great scientist - in the Origin he included at least two chapters devoted to problems in the theory and areas where one simple scientifically valid demonstration would topple the entire theory.

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html

When he made his case, even palaentology was relatively in its infancy. Not one find has contradicted the basic premise of common ancestry. In the early 20th Century came mathematical genetics and Mendeleevian heritability. In the second half of the 20th Century came the discovery of the structure of DNA, genetic mapping and now gene-based remedies and cloning. None of this scientific advancement would have been remotely possible if it were not fully understood at the outset that DNA is a molecule that replicates itself, and that consequently all life is related.

 

[David F.]

Michael, Michael, calm down. David does not believe in Peer Review, as he has previously stated. I have asked that he mention this to his Ph.D. invigilators, but he just says he accepts it as the status quo. Unfortunately, his problem with Peer Review (as with so much that David posts) is based upon flawed logic and incorrect review of data. He believes that peer review solidifies conservatism and an inability to accept radical new paradigms. You can, of course, find many examples where the scientific establishment resisted a radical new idea. Max Planck once said, "The only way to get new ideas accepted is to wait for all the old scientists to die." However, this view of the scientific establishment totally neglects the other side of the coin - the plethora of bad science, incorrect scientific ideas and flawed experimentation which is submitted constantly and which cannot be rooted out as being basically incorrect without being subjected to strict scrutiny by other people in the same subject matter (the "peers"). Without peer review, "science" would be filled with unsubstantiated, unsupportable, pseudoscientific rubbish. As Churchill said of democracy, "Democracy is the worst system of governing the people there is - apart from all the others."

Why not? This is just arguing from personal incredulity. Personal incredulity does not make for scientific proof. If it was demonstrably impossible for random mutations (working within the constraints of Darwinian natural selection, of course), then evolution would not be part of science. If the Earth is only 6,000 years old (or whatever figure David believes in, having rejected 4.55 bn years out of hand but accepting that the world might be a bit older), then evolution is demonstrably false. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that supports a young Earth and many different separately attested bits of evidence to indicate an Earth with an age in the billions of years, which is long enough (only 65 million years is more than long enough) to evolve a wing from a limb. Little changes do in fact add up to big changes, and given long enough those little changes will inevitably lead to something that is changed quite out of recognition.Darwin's case wasn't exactly unsubstantiated. In fact the case is made thoroughly and rationally using demonstrations and illustrations through many, many examples in a book of almost 500 pages which took 28 years to compile. (I mean, of course, The Origin of Species.) Darwin was a great scientist - in the Origin he included at least two chapters devoted to problems in the theory and areas where one simple scientifically valid demonstration would topple the entire theory.

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html

When he made his case, even palaentology was relatively in its infancy. Not one find has contradicted the basic premise of common ancestry. In the early 20th Century came mathematical genetics and Mendeleevian heritability. In the second half of the 20th Century came the discovery of the structure of DNA, genetic mapping and now gene-based remedies and cloning. None of this scientific advancement would have been remotely possible if it were not fully understood at the outset that DNA is a molecule that replicates itself, and that consequently all life is related.

Silas, you are right that incredulity is not by itself proof of scientific falsehood. However, even Darwin realized that the fossil record did not show support for his theories. Darwin simply assumed that these "missing links" would be found in time. We are still waiting. Even those "missing links" which have been suppsedly found are questionable. For instance, archaeopteryx is a fossil (actually there are several specimens) which has some bird-like features and some reptile like features. Is this a transitional form between reptiles and birds? There are two possibilities here: One, there might be just a single (or a very few) DNA "switches" which make the DNA change from creating reptilian features (heavy bones, cold-blooded, relatively small lungs, etc) to instead create avian features (hollow bones, large lung capacities, thin retractable legs, long raptor-like claws - the basic bird features which appear in one or more species) - and these switches just happened to be changed; or Two, there should be a long series of small changes which slowly change the reptile into a bird (lots of transitional steps). One transitional fossil is not applicable to the second possiblitiy. There is of course the Darwinian necessity that each of the slow changes provide some feature which allows the species to better adapt to its environment - better than the species before the change. For example, there must be some reason why scales or hair must start changing to stubby feathers and there must be some reason that stubby feathers (the precursor to true feathers) is better than hair. I'm not trying to say this is exactly the evolutionary path but it needs to be something along these lines.

As you are probably aware, it is philosophically impossible to prove a negative. No one can prove that something is impossible. However, statistics can rescue us here. Statasticians say that anything with a probability of less than 1 in 10^70 is impossible. Many people/scientists have worked out the odds of many of the stages of evolution and the odds are far smaller than 1 in 10^70. I have even done some of these odds on this forum in other threads. Darwin's theories might have actually made some smattering of sense until DNA was discovered. Now that we know where the genetic information is stored, and we are starting to learn how it is read, we can calculate these odds and "prove" (as much as there can be any proof) that Macroevolution is impossible.

The facts, as Darwin recognized, are that there are no fossils with stubby, non-functional feathers. There are no fossils with shrunken limbs half-way to wings. There should be thousands/millions of such transitional fossils, yet there are none. Even if you consider archaeopteryx as a transitional fossil (which it might not be - i.e. the duck-billed platypus is not a transitional form between mammals and birds) this is still only one. Further, there should be transitional forms alive today with stubby somethings which are in the midst of transition from one appendage to another. You might argue that each mutation/transition has to be useful and thus would not be a stubby something - and I would agree. But if so, then what series of changes, all useful, can be shown between limbs and wings? Why don't such things appear in the fossil record. You might claim gaps, but this is not gaps, this is a total silence between phylum.

As I have repeatedly stressed, I am not saying that adaptability is wrong - it is absolutely observable. But, changes in bill lengths are not evolutionary - they may only be dietary and not DNA changes at all. Even so, I do not doubt that DNA changes do occur (bacteria for instance) but these are changes in one or two amino-acids in a particular position. Macroevolution requires not only large numbers of changes, but the addition of large sections - whole new strands of DNA, genes and chromosomes - not changes in the code itself from one base-pair to another but adding millions of new base-pairs. I am not aware of any mechanism which will accomplish whole new genes - are you?

BTW, I do understand that peer review is meant to subdue the quacks – and there are indeed a lot of quacks out there. I even understand and sympathize with this problem. However, science has historically found progress in just such quacks – Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, just to name a few. Einstein could not get anyone to publish some of his early works and had to go to non-peer-reviewed journals to get some of his papers published. I am reminded of the story of Newton, who could not get his optics works through because they conflicted with “known science” (the prevailing theory was that colors were made by adding light to dark, rather than white light containing all colors). Newton was stymied by peer review, yet when it became Newton’s turn to be in a position of power (peer review power) he perpetuated the same injustice toward another outsider (read about Longitude and Harrison’s clocks). The problem is real, but peer review is IMO generally a bad solution - throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

[sideshowbob]

Newton was stymied by peer review, yet when it became Newton’s turn to be in a position of power (peer review power) he perpetuated the same injustice toward another outsider (read about Longitude and Harrison’s clocks).

The key phrase here is "when it became Newton’s turn to be in a position of power".
Your own statement contradicts you. You didn't say "since Newton's work was suppressed by peer review and never was accepted". You admit, I presume, that Newtonian mechanics became, and still is, a vital part of physics.
The system works. Just not instantaneously.

(By the way, I heartily endorse reading about Harrison's chronometers - not out of paranoia about the peer-review system but because it is a fascinating story.)

The problem is real, but peer review is IMO generally a bad solution - throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Have you proposed an alternative to the peer-review system?
Denigrating it without proposing improvments smacks more of sour grapes than anything constructive. And throwing it out before a better system is tested and proven would indeed be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

[David F.]

The key phrase here is "when it became Newton’s turn to be in a position of power".
Your own statement contradicts you. You didn't say "since Newton's work was suppressed by peer review and never was accepted". You admit, I presume, that Newtonian mechanics became, and still is, a vital part of physics.
The system works. Just not instantaneously.

(By the way, I heartily endorse reading about Harrison's chronometers - not out of paranoia about the peer-review system but because it is a fascinating story.)

Have you proposed an alternative to the peer-review system?
Denigrating it without proposing improvments smacks more of sour grapes than anything constructive. And throwing it out before a better system is tested and proven would indeed be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

As I understand the story, Newton did not get published until his friend Edmund Halley put up private funds - so Newton's book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ('Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy') went around the system, not eventually through it. Some of Newton's work was indeed surpressed through peer review (especially his work concerning optics). The peer-review system never did work on what is arguably one of the greatest publications in science history.

I suspect that the system is becoming self correcting, as I have already indicated. The Internet removes the peer-review filter. What I imagine is going to happen is that there will be some consolidation into public forums, like this one, of publications by non-peer reviewed authors. Search engines will do the rest. However, with things like Google and since everyone can publish their own work simply by making their own web site, even this kind of consolidation may not be necessary. Peer-reviewed articles are often not publicly available, at least not until well after publication, which handicaps them for public consumption. Subscription to all forms of paper distribution is falling quickly. As I have already indicated, the system is correcting itself - and not in favor of the science heirarchy.

 

[Michael]

1) Never has there ever been a SINGLE paper published in a reputable journal that confirms ANY aspect of ID/Creationism.

2) Never has there ever been a SINGLE paper published in a reputable journal that disproves Evolution.

3) A transitional form: Human

4) Your “odds of this or that happening” is a ruse and a strawman.
i) No scientist is suggesting it happens in that manner.
ii) Where are your “publication citations”? What questions are they addressing?

5) “You can’t prove a negative – sure you can.” What you can’t prove is that Aliens or Gods or ID or Creationism or Tooth fairies or Magic Dragons are real.

6) Evolution is a fact.

 

[Silas]

Silas, you are right that incredulity is not by itself proof of scientific falsehood. However, even Darwin realized that the fossil record did not show support for his theories. Darwin simply assumed that these "missing links" would be found in time. We are still waiting.

My reading of Darwin is that the fossil record is extraordinarily poor in a generation-to-generation sense - we only see one creature fossilised out of maybe a million generations. So I don't see that he would have expected all the links to be filled - at least not by palaeontology. However, science has advanced since then, and now we are looking at genes directly - not merely at superficial features - and evolution and common ancestry remains the only theory which covers all the facts that we see.

Even those "missing links" which have been suppsedly found are questionable. For instance, archaeopteryx is a fossil (actually there are several specimens) which has some bird-like features and some reptile like features. Is this a transitional form between reptiles and birds? There are two possibilities here: One, there might be just a single (or a very few) DNA "switches" which make the DNA change from creating reptilian features (heavy bones, cold-blooded, relatively small lungs, etc) to instead create avian features (hollow bones, large lung capacities, thin retractable legs, long raptor-like claws - the basic bird features which appear in one or more species) - and these switches just happened to be changed; or Two, there should be a long series of small changes which slowly change the reptile into a bird (lots of transitional steps). One transitional fossil is not applicable to the second possiblitiy. There is of course the Darwinian necessity that each of the slow changes provide some feature which allows the species to better adapt to its environment - better than the species before the change. For example, there must be some reason why scales or hair must start changing to stubby feathers and there must be some reason that stubby feathers (the precursor to true feathers) is better than hair. I'm not trying to say this is exactly the evolutionary path but it needs to be something along these lines.

People spend all their time figuring out evolutionary paths. Like I say, gene analysis provides the key in the absence of actual fossil evidence.

As you are probably aware, it is philosophically impossible to prove a negative. No one can prove that something is impossible. However, statistics can rescue us here. Statasticians say that anything with a probability of less than 1 in 10^70 is impossible. Many people/scientists have worked out the odds of many of the stages of evolution and the odds are far smaller than 1 in 10^70.

Utter claptrap. I have elsewhere shown a comparison for 10^-70 and evolutionary stages can not possibly have such small possibilities.

I have even done some of these odds on this forum in other threads. Darwin's theories might have actually made some smattering of sense until DNA was discovered. Now that we know where the genetic information is stored, and we are starting to learn how it is read, we can calculate these odds and "prove" (as much as there can be any proof) that Macroevolution is impossible.

DNA's discovery and analysis proves time and time again the progress of evolution in precisely the way that Darwin and Wallace, Mendel and Fisher and hosts of others described prior to the discovery of DNA. If Macroevolution (by which you mean speciation to the extent of the creation of a major phylum) is impossible, how do you even account for the fact that at the basis of all life is this single molecule?

The facts, as Darwin recognized, are that there are no fossils with stubby, non-functional feathers. There are no fossils with shrunken limbs half-way to wings. There should be thousands/millions of such transitional fossils, yet there are none.

Not the case. Even the apparent smoothness of evolutionary development seen in a lot of strata is an illusion. The chances of any creature getting fossilised is vanishingly tiny (by human lifespan standards, let me add). Not only are there no (or very few) transitional forms, there are undoubtedly entire families of creatures and/or plant life about which we know nothing, since not one of them ever got fossilised.

Even if you consider archaeopteryx as a transitional fossil (which it might not be - i.e. the duck-billed platypus is not a transitional form between mammals and birds) this is still only one. Further, there should be transitional forms alive today with stubby somethings which are in the midst of transition from one appendage to another. You might argue that each mutation/transition has to be useful and thus would not be a stubby something - and I would agree. But if so, then what series of changes, all useful, can be shown between limbs and wings? Why don't such things appear in the fossil record. You might claim gaps, but this is not gaps, this is a total silence between phylum.

I would like to nominate in this regard the Nautilus crab, which never evolved a cornea or a lens to its eye. The eye consists of a small hole which lets water in. The amount of focus it gets this way is not very good, but apparently good enough for it to survive. (ref: The Blind Watchmaker). The amazing coelocanth, the prehistoric fish still surviving in Indonesian (I think) waters millions of years after its close relatives died off, actually has limb-like fins which look like their in development towards something better. I actually looked at that (in a documentary) and thought that was totally bizarre, since it seemed to show the kind of morphing development beloved by animations designed to illustrate evolution, but which invariably give you precisely the wrong idea about its processes (to me they all invoke Lamarckian progression with the striving to an ideal concept pooh-poohed by true evolutionists.)

As I have repeatedly stressed, I am not saying that adaptability is wrong - it is absolutely observable. But, changes in bill lengths are not evolutionary - they may only be dietary and not DNA changes at all. Even so, I do not doubt that DNA changes do occur (bacteria for instance) but these are changes in one or two amino-acids in a particular position. Macroevolution requires not only large numbers of changes, but the addition of large sections - whole new strands of DNA, genes and chromosomes - not changes in the code itself from one base-pair to another but adding millions of new base-pairs. I am not aware of any mechanism which will accomplish whole new genes - are you?

Again, I urge you to read Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker in which he effectively handles this (and all your other) questions. He demonstrates many ways in which a macro-mutation can occur in such a way as to provide a positive benefit to a creature - for example, the creation of more and more spinal disks during the evolution of the snake. He also talks about rivals to Darwin, including Eldredge and Gould's Punctuated Equilibria.

BTW, I do understand that peer review is meant to subdue the quacks – and there are indeed a lot of quacks out there. I even understand and sympathize with this problem. However, science has historically found progress in just such quacks – Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, just to name a few. Einstein could not get anyone to publish some of his early works and had to go to non-peer-reviewed journals to get some of his papers published. I am reminded of the story of Newton, who could not get his optics works through because they conflicted with “known science” (the prevailing theory was that colors were made by adding light to dark, rather than white light containing all colors). Newton was stymied by peer review, yet when it became Newton’s turn to be in a position of power (peer review power) he perpetuated the same injustice toward another outsider (read about Longitude and Harrison’s clocks). The problem is real, but peer review is IMO generally a bad solution - throwing the baby out with the bath water.

You clearly did not read my original post properly - my point was entirely that the few cases where paradigm shifting ideas were not the brainchilds of absolute nutters does not alter the fact that peer review is the only way of weeding out the tons and tons of utter dross. You mention Newton only getting his work published because of his friend Edmund Halley - well, at least part of the ultimate success of Newton was because his friend Edmund Halley was an established scientist. Halley, an established scientist, recognised the value of the work Newton put into the Principia. He was able to help persuade the rest of the scientific establishment of that value. Thank God for peer review, in that case, so that we ended up with a theory of Light, a theory of Forces, the theory of Gravity, and the Calculus, but not transmutation of base metals into gold or the numerological calculations based on Bible extracts or the astrology, in which Newton also dabbled.

I acknowledge that you did provide an alternative to peer review. But if it consists of places like this, it will descend into endless argument and constant disagreement over what consitutes the rational viewpoint on any subject.

 

[Red Devil]

Another angle of fossilisation is predation. An animal that dies and is not eaten is a better fossil than an animal thats eaten and its bones dragged all over and sundry!