"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

In other news...

Bryan College (named after William Jennings Bryan) is going to axe its CORE creationist research programme (link).

The project has been led by Todd Wood, the thinking man's creationist, who has tried to do the impossible in keeping up with scientific research and appraising evolution on its merits while at the same time sticking to his creationist faith. Famously, in 2009, he blogged:

Todd C Wood wrote:

The truth about evolution
I hope this doesn't turn into a rant, but it might. You have been warned.

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well. (link)

His relative intellectual honesty - in contrast to the creationist mainstream - earned him a small following amongst scientists. Maybe they were waiting to see if he would ever out himself as a Darwinian. Panda's Thumb has this to say:

Wood was almost the sole representative of critical thinking in the creationist movement. He also had the virtually unique trait of understanding what modern evolutionary biology actually said before opening his big mouth about it.

[...]

Anyway, I fear that Wood is soon going to face a tough choice: to get a creationism job, he’ll probably have to knuckle under to creationist orthodoxy and stop criticizing the rampant intellectual shenanigans in his movement. To get a real biology job, he’ll probably have to give up creationism, at least young-earth creationism. Honestly, I suspect he’s intellectually closer to the latter option, whether or not he realizes it yet.(link)

With the closure of CORE, I wonder if there is any active attempt in the creationist movement to advance their version of science. I can't think of any major novel development in creationism in almost twenty years, since the popularisation and subsequent scientific debunking of the Intelligent Design idea. The recent offerings I've seen have all just been slicker media presentations of tired old propaganda.

DB21 wrote: »

The point of debate or discussion is that when you disagree with something, you bring forward an alternative view, supported by evidence. You have failed spectacularly in this regard, and I have no idea why other posters are continuing to engage you in attempted discourse.

Not necessarily. You don't have to present an alternative view - you can reject the claims of a particular view, without having to present an alternative.

If mickrock is rejecting natural selection as the mechanism for evolution, then he has only to show why it is incorrect.

mickrock wrote: »

I withdraw my claim. I think Darwinism is really fab.

Those snakes with legs are interesting. Why aren't there more of these type of inter-species forms around? The place should be full of them.

/sigh 'inter-species forms'? More inter-form species. If the difference doesn't matter to you don't worry about it, but the aggressive tone of your more recent posts makes me think it might.

Now to answer your questions I could go two ways from here. I could point out that such things are common enough, if you have the wit to see them or the knowledge to find them.

To give a short illustration of some of the dramatic ones, we've got:
fish with lungs,
birds with 'teeth',
and mammals that lay eggs.

There's loads of less dramatic ones, but they're easier for creationists to dismiss as somehow incidental. That way I would show that the place is full of 'them'.

But it's kind of a disservice to the examples, because an animal which shows transitional features will still have undergone it's own evolution since it's LCA with any other modern organism, and looking at the bits that are more ancestral ignores the bits that aren't.

The other way I could go would be to explain competition and the red queen effect. For competition, an organism which mutates a competitive advantage has an advantage over the rest of it's population. An antelope with longer legs can't stop lions from stalking it, it can run away faster than it's shorter legged relatives. It's a case of 'I don't have to outrun them, I only have to outrun you'. The less competitive forms numbers dwindle and likely die out as a result of being preferentially eaten

Here's where the red queen comes in. With less short-legged antelopes around for predators to catch, only those predators which have mutations to be better at hunting long-legged antelopes are the ones which can avoid starving. The evolution of an advantage in the prey organism puts a selective pressure on the predator (and vice versa) leading them into a coevolutionary arms race where:

The Red Queen, Through the looking glass wrote:

"it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

You can find more in depth description of the red queen effect here.

The 'transitional forms' you're looking for went extinct because they could not compete against their offspring. The exceptions I listed above in my first point stayed competitive through isolation, or the evolution of other traits which gave them a different advantage (Which is what makes their non-ancestral features so interesting!)

mickrock wrote: »

Your answer reminds me of what Ringo Starr said when he was asked why he was the Beatle that got the most fan mail:

"Because more people write to me."

Probably because we both answered the question we were actually asked.

mickrock wrote: »

If you have a creadesk, sit at it now and listen to filthy creationist scumbag Phillip Johnson waffle about Darwinism:

I don't have a creadesk, but I most certainly want nothing to do with a man who's stated goal is to force theology into science regardless of its scientific validity.

DB21 wrote: »

True. I just thought since MR is so steadfastly against Darwin's theories he'd have a different view to present.

Either way he's failing both our conditions for this discussion. He's not giving (backed up) points as to why Darwin was wrong, nor has he suggested ANY alternative.

Let's just give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't think a magical sky fairy poofed all the existing 'kinds' into existence :pac:

So if it was was intelligent design, but not by a deity, then who did it, Aliens?

BizzyC wrote: »

So if it was was intelligent design, but not by a deity, then who did it, Aliens?

My theory is Optimus Prime.

Twas dat badly lad offa Prometheus, I was told...

I think it's amusing that the creationists on the net declare:
"If X evolved from Y then how come we still have X eh?"

while also declaring "evolutionists ... where are your missing links! ... if X evolved from Y then not only should we have X but also X1 X2 ..."

oldrnwisr wrote: »

What does this mean for the eye?

In my post on a mechanism for the eye, I detailed a stepwise mechanism of gradual changes where each stage confers a benefit on the creature, supported by examples of extant creatures with eyes at each step and other general research as well. So, no we are not just assuming natural selection to be the mechanism of evolution, we can demonstrate it.

Because of your preconceived ideas you believe it's a demonstation but it's actually an assumption.

mickrock wrote: »

Because of your preconceived ideas you believe it's a demonstation but it's actually an assumption.

I don't have any preconceived ideas about evolution. I am not a biologist. I didn't even do biology in school. Through the last decade I have read everything I could get my hands on on evolution. Pop sci, textbooks, papers, academic books, the works. I didn't assume evolution true when I began because if I'm honest I had no idea how evolution actually worked. But I do now. I know because I have seen the evidence for it. Mountains of it. Genetics, palaeontology, cladistics, molecular biology, physiology, all the evidence that we've managed to uncover and test has added weight to natural selection.

You on the other hand have done nothing in this thread but highlight your ignorance of what evolution actually is. The worse part is not that you're ignorant of it though, it's that you're proud of being ignorant of it. You seem to think that somehow when you come out with these glib little one liners that you look intelligent or clever. You don't. The only thing you add to this debate is an increase in the post count.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I don't have any preconceived ideas about evolution. I am not a biologist. I didn't even do biology in school. ..................... The only thing you add to this debate is an increase in the post count.

another great post mate....

he doesn't seem to accept that evolution did happen and it can be proven by looking at the genetic and fossil evidence. Natural selection is just the mechanism that is best at explaining how it happened, and it's a simple, elegant and logical mechanism. If he can't see that then i think the discussion could be a waste of time. His and ours...

if he wants to substitute the darwinian model with "intelligence?" then the burden of proof firmly lies with him!

mickrock wrote: »

It seems to be the case that a bad answer is better that no answer at all.

well that's a problem, if you think that no answer is better than a bad answer then it is impossible to make progress in any theory, in maths we have things that are called approximations(eg. newton raphson(sp?)), they're all wrong answers but give answers much better than nothing....

you've already asserted "intelligence"... now provide a basis for that assertion please.

(rejection of another theory is not a valid basis for assertion)

oh and sorry for stating you don't accept evolution happened.

mickrock wrote: »

I do accept that evolution happened.

I think it's more honest for science to say that it doesn't know how evolution happened rather than blindly accepting the unproven mechanism of natural selection as fact. It seems to be the case that a bad answer is better that no answer at all.

Oh the irony!