quote:many evolutionist apologists have become fearful of debating him in public because he is so good at debating the subject
How are you defining "good?" He is good at controlling the tone of the debate; he is not good at making logical arguments.
quote:the number one argument I have gotten is something to this effect: "Oh no, scientists are too honest and honorable, they would never cook the data or suppress it..."
No, that's not the #1 argument you've gotten. The #1 argument you've gotten is "the small mountain of contradictory data out there suggests that those people are crackpots fixated on a few edge cases."
quote:See if it is still possible to explain it away as just "exaggerations or misrepresentations."
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Ron, you will never convince us. Ever. However, your attempts are often highly entertaining.
As far as scientists lying, sure they do. So do religious folk. It's a human tendency, and religious folk have more motivation to lie. Why? Because scientists' careers live and die by repeatability. Anything they publish can and often will be rigorously tested. They live in fear of publishing something that others cannot repeat. Religious folks have much less of a rigorous standard to meet. It's much easier to convert the average person to Mormonism or Islam than to convince thousands of other scientists that their whole worldview is wrong. Way easier.
It's a much, much higher hurdle to cross. To convert the average Hatracker to Mormonism is one thing. That has spontaneously happened through people reading OSC's works, and then investigating the LDS faith further. To convert the thousands of experts in any given scientific field to a whole new viewpoint is a whole other endeavor, and does not happen spontaneously. It usually takes several years, and that's if the data is rock-solid and easily tested.
So who's the more reliable group? Scientists, or religious folk? Religious folk will literally sometimes kill you for believing what they don't. Scientists will definitely destroy your career. It happens. Killing someone isn't the same as destroying their career, though. If you think it is, you are confused, I believe.
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quote: the fact still remains that many evolutionist apologists have become fearful of debating him in public because he is so good at debating the subject.
Good? No, he was terrible. That he returned time and time again to debating a subject that he couldn't ever get the facts straight on (Massimo Pigliucci destroyed him in a debate where Hovind actually claimed biologists think people came from bananas) and that he refused to retract statements he used no matter how bogus they turned out to be did not make him 'good' at debating the subject.
He just was possessed of the same shortcomings you are: conspiratorial dogmatism paired with an utter inability to self-recognize argumentative failure.
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quote:I know that when I have presented evidence and arguments in support of Intelligent Design and Creationism, and which contradict Evolutionism and Geologic Gradualism, the number one argument I have gotten is something to this effect: "Oh no, scientists are too honest and honorable, they would never cook the data or suppress it. Stories about them sabotaging the careers of other scientists who question Evolution must be exaggerations or misrepresentations. Scientists would never behave that way."
I would request that those who have felt this was a valid argument should take a long and close look at the CRU Climategate revelations, and think again.
This is a fair comparison. People, perhaps even scientsts, who are very dedicated to a cause have a tendency to be willing to accept some degree of irrationality when it makes their cause look good. That's why people quote Kent Hovind and call him a doctor even though any neutral person would probably judge him to lack the expertise he claims to have. It's also why a scientist might justify presenting their data in a way that makes it appear more persuasive than it actually is. It's why some conservatives often are reluctant to admit that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin make a lot of irrational arguments, and why some liberals often are reluctant to admit that Michael Moore's exaggerations undermine his arguments. This is human nature; there seems to be people who approach any given hot topic issue with the attitude that having the right conclusion is more important than having correct premises or valid logic.
But since this applies to everything, one can't assume that a given idea is flawed just because some extreme advocates act irrationally about it. For instance, just looking at Hovind's dissertation would not be enough to prove creationism as a whole is a bankrupt idea; all it shows is that Hovind's supporters are so committed to creationism that they overlook his rather clear flaws. And on those same grounds, one can't argue global warming is bunk just because a few scientists went just a bit too far in making their data look good; all that shows is that there exist some scientists who are passionate about making the threat of global warming clear. Ideas can't be judged by their advocates. Ideas need to be judged by the data and reasons supporting them.
And therefore... finding a scientist who is dishonest about global warming would not prove evolution is a flawed theory. If the data supports it, it doesn't matter how its advocates act.
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Yeah, I think claiming evolution is fiction based on some emails taken from some climatologists is along the line of saying Christianity is a lie based on the fact that a few priests liked to seduce young boys.
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Worse than that. It's like saying that Islam is a lie based on the fact that a few Catholic priests liked to seduce young boys.
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Samprimary, I have watched pretty much the entire video series of Hovind's debates. I do not recall him being destroyed by anyone. And he did not say biologists teach humans descended from bananas. I remember the debate where that came up (actually I believe there was more than one where he used the same illustration), and he was jokingly describing an episode in his childhood when his older brothers discouraged him from eating the last banana by telling him that spiders became embedded in bananas, and as proof pointing out the five apparent "legs" seen in cross-sections. He said that illustrated how silly evolutionists' arguments were. He did not say that was an actual argument used by evolutionists. This illustrates how readily some people are willing to seize upon something he said out of context, and twist it unfairly. And then people like you hear them give their false summary of what Hovind said, and you accept it at face value, not realizing you have been lied to, which in itself should disqualify everything those people say.
Hovind is considered by all objective viewers as a "good" debater. That means effective at persuading audiences to his side, and putting his opponents obviously on the defensive. Even some evolutionist debaters have described him as "the Hulk Hogan" of Creationist debaters. He is good at thinking on his feet, and has a lot of arguments and citeable evidences instantly ready at his command. He also puts together very effective video aids.
Not all his arguments that I heard were sound. But many of them were sound, and effective, and scored points with most listeners. It is not hard at all to score truly valid points against evolution simply by pointing out the immense complexity of the DNA molecule, and the utter irrationality of supposing that any natural processes acting on the basis of random selection by any means, could produce the vastly increased complexity needed to transform one basic species into another totally different basic species. There is nothing wrong with this argument whatsoever, however futilely evolutionists try to counter it, and Hovind has made this argument many times.
As for whether he should be called "doctor"--he apparently has a legally valid doctorate, but he got it via a correspondence course. So the question is not whether he is entitled to call himself "Dr. Hovind," but what is the relative quality of his doctorate? Obviously a degree from Harvard is more prestigious than one from Plodnick U., or one from a correspondence school. Since the degree was supposed to be in education, anyway, he is not a biologist in formal training, so I prefer not to refer to him as "Dr. Hovind," at least in the context of Creation Vs. Evolution discussions.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: As for whether he should be called "doctor"--he apparently has a legally valid doctorate, but he got it via a correspondence course. So the question is not whether he is entitled to call himself "Dr. Hovind," but what is the relative quality of his doctorate? Obviously a degree from Harvard is more prestigious than one from Plodnick U., or one from a correspondence school. Since the degree was supposed to be in education, anyway, he is not a biologist in formal training, so I prefer not to refer to him as "Dr. Hovind," at least in the context of Creation Vs. Evolution discussions.
I will never refer to him as "Doctor," based on that dissertation. I find it distasteful and even offensive that I could share a title with someone who thinks that... garbage... counts as a doctoral dissertation. He did not earn that title. Someone may have given it to him, but they had no right, ethically, and no right, legally (see: accreditation). Calling him "doctor" insults the men and women who have actually earned the title, who have poured countless hours of rigourous study into it and endured the terror of a panel of accredited supervisors judging it.
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quote:Hovind is considered by all objective viewers as a "good" debater. That means effective at persuading audiences to his side, and putting his opponents obviously on the defensive.
Other issues aside, I'd take issue of this criteria for being a "good" debater: I think the purpose of debate is not to persuade audiences to your side, but rather to jointly persuade audiences (and you and your opponent) to the truthful side. Sometimes that isn't your side - and if it isn't, the only way to determine is by using sound, logical reasons in debate rather than rhetorical devices aimed at persuading without substance.
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Blayne Bradley
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Is this the same Hovind who claims that dinosaurs were dragons, breathed fire, rode on Noah's Ark and may still be alive in remote places?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Samprimary, I have watched pretty much the entire video series of Hovind's debates. I do not recall him being destroyed by anyone.
Then you only watched a very specific set of the "entire video series" of Hovind's debates. Probably the ones offered by creationist sources.
quote:And he did not say biologists teach humans descended from bananas. I remember the debate where that came up (actually I believe there was more than one where he used the same illustration), and he was jokingly describing an episode in his childhood when his older brothers discouraged him from eating the last banana by telling him that spiders became embedded in bananas, and as proof pointing out the five apparent "legs" seen in cross-sections. He said that illustrated how silly evolutionists' arguments were. He did not say that was an actual argument used by evolutionists.
Yes he did. It is even cited in his Wikipedia page.
quote:Hovind is considered by all objective viewers as a "good" debater. That means effective at persuading audiences to his side, and putting his opponents obviously on the defensive.
I am as "objective" a viewer of debates as you will find, and I do not consider him a good debater. Not only was he not effective at persuading audiences to his side (only really from his side, and the distinction is likely more important than you can realize), but he actually actively helped drive people away from the creationist movement by being such a readily discredited and silly man whose paranoid conspiracy-mongering did his other pursuits little credit.
Not all his arguments that I heard were sound. But many of them were sound, and effective, and scored points with most listeners. It is not hard at all to score truly valid points against evolution simply by pointing out the immense complexity of the DNA molecule, and the utter irrationality of supposing that any natural processes acting on the basis of random selection by any means, could produce the vastly increased complexity needed to transform one basic species into another totally different basic species. There is nothing wrong with this argument whatsoever, however futilely evolutionists try to counter it, and Hovind has made this argument many times.[/qb][/quote]
Nothing wrong with this argument whatsoever? Well, you're wrong again. The black box/mousetrap/irreducible complexity/"macroevolution" argument has way, way too many holes in it.
I can demonstrate.
Make any argument you choose. Establish an argument which debunks evolution, in your mind. I'll grind it to dust.
quote:As for whether he should be called "doctor"--he apparently has a legally valid doctorate, but he got it via a correspondence course.
He got it from a blatant diploma mill.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I would request that those who have felt this was a valid argument should take a long and close look at the CRU Climategate revelations, and think again. And look again at Ben Stein's fairly recent documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. See if it is still possible to explain it away as just "exaggerations or misrepresentations."
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was a movie by con artists. They used deceptive practices in producing it. It is full of outright falsehoods. Is this supposed to help us decide that evolution does not have merit? because it only speaks to the meritlessness of many who try to contest it.
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Blayne, yes. Hovind has contended that some dinosaurs (such as T-Rex) may have been able to cast forth binary compounds (like the Bombardier Beetle does in fact today) that when mixed generate boiling hot temperatures, and perhaps in the case of some dinosaurs even burst into flame. Chambers have been found near T-Rex's nostrils that did not seem to be sinuses. Some scientists have speculated they might have been echo chambers to enhance their roar, or whatever. The many, many medieval accounts of fire-breathing dragons (some of which include detailed drawings) may have a basis in fact.
As for their transport on the Ark--perhaps it was only smaller juveniles that were taken aboard the Ark.
Samprimary, Wickipedia is not a true encyclopedia. You can't take it as being necessarily authoritative. I'll have to take a look at that site, and see if I should raise a question about factuality in the article to Wickipedia.
Parkour, you are mistaken about the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Your unsubstantiated claims do not discredit it at all. The movie gives names, shows faces, quotes and shows written documents, etc.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The many, many medieval accounts of fire-breathing dragons (some of which include detailed drawings) may have a basis in fact.
Medieval drawings also include such gems as monkeys blowing trumpets with their butts, asses with legs, asses with noses, noses with legs, ambulatory pilgrim genitalia, elephants with armies riding them, foxes making time with your wife, and many more absurd things. Medieval art is not exactly proof of actual existence.
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Blayne Bradley
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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is full of blatant lies and ridiculous amounts of editing to twist the words of scientists who were taken advantage of and whose entire premise is basically a singular dedication and triumpth of Godwin's Law. Evolution does not lead to Social Darwinism or Genocide.
The many accounts of Medieval dragons is because at best they found dinosaur fossils which they called dragons or because they had an active imagination at worse, dragons do not exist, not a single species has been scientifically determined to be able to breath fire, and they most certainly did not exist at the same time as humans, you cannot use bad science to back up your claims if you subscribe to YEC as well. They are mutually exclusive.
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hmmm...I don't know if saying that "bad science" and "YEC" are mutually exclusive is in fact correct. Seems just the opposite.
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Blayne, you said: "Evolution does not lead to Social Darwinism or Genocide."
That is what you wish were true. You obviously wish the theory of evolution did not lead to racism. But in fact, the logic is inescapable that evolution does lead to racism. The original title of the first edition of Darwin's seminal book was: On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It is completely reasonable for anyone to take from this the conclusion that some human races are favored, and others not; or even that some human races are more evolved, and some human races are more primitive.
If you accept all the premises of evolution, racism is a logically consistent conclusion. Only Biblical Creationism allows you to say that all men of all races are brothers, with logical consistency.
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Tom, in all probability, I know far, far more than you do about these subjects which you say I know little about. That is a very lazy way for you to debate anyone, to charge them with ignorance, and then leave off any substantive argument.
How are you defining "race" in terms of humans? Do you affirm that there is only one race of humans? Well and good if you do, but even a slight familiarity with history would inform you that only a century ago, let alone two or three centuries ago, the vast majority of people regarded African blacks as being a separate race from European whites. Most people in Darwin's time--including scientists--believed there were many distinct races of man. So when Darwin talked about the "preservation of favoured races," the conclusion this led to was that some human "races" (note the quote marks) must necessarily be more advanced, and others more primitive. Even Adolph Hitler less than a century ago believed that the "science" of "evolution" justified committing genocide against the Jews. He said that was his rationale.
Evolutionists have frequently claimed that relatively minor changes in the form of a species, like a change in color of certain kinds of moths, or changes in sizes and skeletel shape of certain animals, constituted a new species. These minor changes were pointed to as being "evolutionary" changes, and the morphing from one kind of finch to another constituted evolution and speciation. Anyone who thinks this way cannot also claim that there are not also different race of man, because of the many outward differences between African blacks and European whites, which are no less profound than those between the various species of finches with different shapes of beaks, or moths with white wings or black wings, or whatever evolutionists are fond of citing as examples of evolution.
Another historical point. The Abolitionist Movement, which called for the freeing of the slaves in the Old South, began as a religious movement among Christians, and always was centered upon the Protestant Churches in America. While the slave-owners were wresting Scripture to try to justify their subjugation of people of African descent, it required religious people who could use the Bible more knowledgeaby and honestly to counter them, and show that God is not in favor of slavery. They won the national debate, and the multitude (at least in the North) was persuaded that the slaves ought to be freed, because they are our brothers and sisters, as fellow sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.
[ December 12, 2009, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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quote:Tom, in all probability, I know far, far more than you do about these subjects which you say I know little about.
Ron, I was a biotechnology major for two years, and am married to a biologist. What would be your reason for knowing anything about genetics?
quote:Well and good if you do, but even a slight familiarity with history would inform you that only a century ago, let alone two or three centuries ago, the vast majority of people regarded African blacks as being a separate race from European whites. Most people in Darwin's time--including scientists--believed there were many distinct races of man.
Absolutely. They were wrong. That's actually one of the superior things about scientific epistemology; once a scientific claim is demonstrated to be wrong, it not only can change but is expected to change. (Whereas, for example, many cultures still believe themselves to be the One True Favored People of God, despite ample evidence to the contrary.)
quote:So when Darwin talked about the "preservation of favoured races," the conclusion this led to was that some human "races" (note the quote marks) must necessarily be more advanced, and others more primitive.
This was not, however, some inevitable scientific conclusion. Rather, a veneer of pseudo-science was applied here -- ex post facto -- to justify existing prejudices. Surely, as someone familiar with the abuses of religion, you recognize this tendency? People will grasp at whatever they can find to justify their own biases to themselves; that a poor understanding of natural selection seemed to justify racism was not the fault of the theory itself.
quote:The Abolitionist Movement, which called for the freeing of the slaves in the Old South, began as a religious movement among Christians...
Sure. And Lincoln was a Republican. Neither of those facts are remotely relevant, however, in the modern era.
quote:They won the national debate...
Such as it was. It's a poor debate indeed that relies on Scripture for both sides of the argument.
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The claim was that someone with an actual understanding of genetics would not use the argument to advance racist arguments. You need to prove that those people who bought into the argument actually understood genetics. I would argue that very few people in Darwin's time understood genetics. Same with Hitler.
Regarding species, in general, species are defined by their ability to mate with each other. So, if you never see a red and blue bird mating, even if that is the only difference, those birds would still be considered different species. However, humans quite clearly were mating amongst races and producing fertile progeny. So, anyone arguing that the differences between two different species of birds was less then the difference between two races of humans clearly did not understand the definition of species.
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It's worth noting that the whole idea of speciation is really just an issue of human nomenclature; it's a way to identify a type of life without having to say "the thing with the DNA sequence...." As such, the definition of "species" is itself rather fluid, and has been since the very concept was conceived. Back when I was in high school, "species" were determined by their ability to interbreed; this definition had already started to change by the time I was in college, and continues to evolve (heh) today. The real truth might be that the concept of "species" has actually outlived its usefulness in many ways, especially among the weirder edge cases.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Evolutionists have frequently claimed that relatively minor changes in the form of a species, like a change in color of certain kinds of moths, or changes in sizes and skeletel shape of certain animals, constituted a new species. These minor changes were pointed to as being "evolutionary" changes, and the morphing from one kind of finch to another constituted evolution and speciation. Anyone who thinks this way cannot also claim that there are not also different race of man, because of the many outward differences between African blacks and European whites, which are no less profound than those between the various species of finches with different shapes of beaks, or moths with white wings or black wings, or whatever evolutionists are fond of citing as examples of evolution.
(Bolding mine.)
You are here only applying "species" to animals, and "race" to humans. Are you using these terms interchangeably?
I am no expert, merely an interested layman, but my understanding is that the biological dividing line for "species" has nothing to do with outward differences of appearance, but whether or not two organisms can mate and produce fertile offspring. (The differing species of finch and moth you mention are different not because of beak size or wing color, but because they cannot mate and produce fertile offspring.) Under this definition, one can deny that there are different "races" of human (if you are using "race" and "species" interchangeably).
ETA: Or, you know... what scholarette and Tom said.
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quote:Samprimary, Wickipedia is not a true encyclopedia. You can't take it as being necessarily authoritative. I'll have to take a look at that site, and see if I should raise a question about factuality in the article to Wickipedia.
And creationists like Hovind aren't usually really biologists, but you sure like to take them as being necessarily authoritative. Besides, if you want to up the ante and move towards 'necessarily authoritative' claims, I will note that you have cited exactly jack squat, and are yourself lagging in terms of factuality.
But my challenge stands, whether you avoid it or not. Make an argument showing how the complexity of DNA disproves evolution. I know you're wrong, and I will grind it into dust once you present it. If you don't present it, well, then I'll just take from this that you are avoiding presenting actual arguments to back up your claims.
quote:So when Darwin talked about the "preservation of favoured races," the conclusion this led to was that some human "races" (note the quote marks) must necessarily be more advanced, and others more primitive.
This is about as wrong as you can get. Evolutionary Theory makes no claim as to the 'advanced' nature of certain races over other 'primitive' races — evolutionary theory doesn't even make distinctions above which species are more genetically complicated, phenotype wise. And the human races don't demonstrate more complexity vis a vis each other.
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Actually, I think the moth example is what's confused Ron, since they can interbreed. He's thinking here of a classic anecdote used to provide a simple (even oversimplified) example of natural selection in high school classrooms: a situation in which moths that used to shelter against white surfaces were so deprived of white surfaces during the Industrial Revolution that a mutant variant of the moth (which was black) became the predominant variant within a generation. Shortly after the pollution began to recede, white moths (which were genetically more likely, as I understand it; it's been a while since I studied thie example) rapidly regained the majority.
What made this example interesting and somewhat nuanced, and what gave it its staying power (beyond its obvious photogenic qualities) was that it would not have happened had an expressed gene for black moths not already existed in the population. (The odds of such a gene appearing at random within the few generations during which it would have been advantageous are miniscule.)
For years, people inclined to oversimplification would point to these moths and say, "See? Proof of natural selection at work!" And, indeed, this was a perfect example of natural selection; a recessive trait that was advantageous in a specific environment became the majority expression fairly quickly. But what it was not was an example of speciation.
For people like Ron, who believe in the mechanisms of "microevolution" but do not think that natural selection is sufficient to cause the development of separate species, that makes this particular example galling. After all, the moths didn't suddenly turn into lizards; there was no evolution to a different sort of creature. And since that's what they're challenging, they don't regard the moth example as much of a "proof" at all.
Ron, then, is arguing that evolutionary scientists think the mainstream moth example is an example of speciation, and thus that the many "races" of humans are themselves different species. In truth, neither situation is an example of speciation.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's worth noting that the whole idea of speciation is really just an issue of human nomenclature; it's a way to identify a type of life without having to say "the thing with the DNA sequence...." As such, the definition of "species" is itself rather fluid, and has been since the very concept was conceived. Back when I was in high school, "species" were determined by their ability to interbreed; this definition had already started to change by the time I was in college, and continues to evolve (heh) today. The real truth might be that the concept of "species" has actually outlived its usefulness in many ways, especially among the weirder edge cases.
My master's thesis involved bacteria and viruses. Defining species in these cases was always fun.
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Blayne Bradley
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Of course who wants to bet Ron will not check my link and if he does will probably stop watching after 5 minutes and brush it off over some veneer of an excuse.
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Ron, the very same geneticists who believe in evolution also are the ones who discovered that the MRCA for all humans was very recent, within the last few thousand years.
Care to find some racism there, Mr. Misguided?
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Samprimary, you always try to issue challenges to me, which generally seem rather sophomoric. I have already presented the argument about the complexity of the DNA molecule proving that evolution is impossible. Do you have some method by which random natural processes can write meaningful code involving billions of DNA proteins, no matter how much time is allowed? Especially when many of the characteristics have to be fully coded for before they can work at all (Behe's irreducible complexity)? Every attempt I have heard of by mathematicians to model the probability of the most simple bacteria giving rise to a significantly different simple organism have always led to the conclusion that it is not remotely within the bounds of possibility, even from the supposed "Big Bang" to the supposed "Heat Death" of the universe.
You may try to find ways around the second law of thermodynamics (which implies that the natural tendency of everything in the universe is towards disorder, not towards increasing order), but when you are talking about billions of protein codes in DNA molecules, you are departing the realms of science into philosophy and speculation about the nature of reality. Thus I can only view in anyone any willingness to give credence to evolution as sheer gullibility.
Since you are so fond of challenges, Samprimary, I will give you one. Prove that evolution can happen.
Scholarette, as Tom pointed out, the ability to mate is no longer generally regarded as the primary definitive means of differentiating species, because of what he referred to as "edge cases." I don't know if he was thinking of donkeys and horses as being edge cases, but in fact they can cross breed. The offspring, mules, are usually sterile--although there are a few cases where the mule was not sterile, just to complicate things further. So do we call donkeys a different species from horses?
Tom, I dislike the term "microevolution," though some Creationists have used it (including Kent Hovind). I prefer not to make any concession to evolution whatsoever, because it is such a stupid and impossible theory. Variation indeed works exactly the way you said it does--the gene that becomes expressed throughout a population is one that was already present in the population, and environmental conditions favored the more frequent expression of that gene (or gene complex).
I have taken this principle further, as some here may recall. I presented my testable means by which the Creation view of speciation can be falsified or proven: Study the complete gene map of similar animals, like lions compared to jaguars, or like wolves compared to collies, and see if all the genes in the specialized offshoot (jaguar or collie) were present in the parent animal (lion or wolf). If Creationists are right in saying that all forms of animals were created originally by God during Creation Week, each of them including a library of alternate characteristics that could potentially become expressed if needed to enable the animals to adapt to changing environments, then this is what must be the explanation for all variations within the same basic species. Conversely, if it can be proven that any genetic characteristics that have arisen were truly new, and never before existed in the parent form, then evolution will be proven, or at least strongly implied. And by new genetic characteristics, I do not mean some gene that has had one atom dislodged by a cosmic ray, or some mitotic mishap that could not be corrected. Such changes are almost always harmful, resulting in impairment of function. Thus I am not impressed by evolutionists' attempts to use mutation as the driving force in evolution. I have not seen any that really seem to go counter to the second law of thermodynamics.
Steven, I believe the human race is no more than six to ten thousand years old.
Studies of mitochondrial DNA and changes or variations in them are interesting, and can help to confirm the matriarchal line. But mitochondria do not have all the elaborate mechanisms for correcting genetic defects that chromosomes in cell nuclei do, so any variation that does not seriously impair function may persist--and the function of mitochondria is supplemental to the cell metabolism, so some variation need not cause prohibitive impairment to the cell. It might be interesting to see if it could be determined whether the latter generations of mitochondrial variations are more or less effective in function that the earliest generations, when the least variations are observed. Again, this looks to me like order proceeding toward disorder. I would expect the earlier generations to be better in terms of biological effectiveness and metabolic efficiency, because they are closer to the original way God made them. Here is something also which is testable.
Blayne, how much of Kent Hovind have you listened to? Or better (since he is not a scientist), how much have you read from the Creationist scientists at Creation Research Society in their peer-reviewed quarterly?--For which I keep giving you the link: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.htmlPosts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:I have already presented the argument about the complexity of the DNA molecule proving that evolution is impossible.
Not quite. For one thing, scientists are already discovering that RNA plays a much more important role than they earlier thought, making the role of DNA somewhat less pivotal. (Of course, RNA is arguably even more complicated, but whatchu gonna do?)
For another -- and more importantly -- the word is not "impossible." The word is "improbable." You are suggesting that evolution is more improbable than the existence of a Creator, based on the fact that DNA is complex enough to make evolution very improbable. To which I say: your Creator is considerably more complex than DNA, and thus considerably more improbable.
quote:You may try to find ways around the second law of thermodynamics (which implies that the natural tendency of everything in the universe is towards disorder, not towards increasing order)...
Let me also point out that here you are betraying a misunderstanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Not only does it only apply to closed thermodynamic systems (and thus not, just as an example, to DNA molecules), but you're using "disorder" as if it were perfectly synonymous with "entropy." Entropy is, indeed, disordered energy. But that's as far as you can go with that. Consider, for example, the perfectly geometric patterns occasionally left by tides and/or erosion; these are certainly ordered, insofar as we look at them and perceive order in them, but they do not disprove the Second Law. That's because they actually have nothing to do with the Second Law.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:I presented my testable means by which the Creation view of speciation can be falsified or proven: Study the complete gene map of similar animals, like lions compared to jaguars, or like wolves compared to collies, and see if all the genes in the specialized offshoot (jaguar or collie) were present in the parent animal (lion or wolf).
Yes. And people have repeatedly pointed out to you why this is absurd.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:I prefer not to make any concession to evolution whatsoever, because it is such a stupid and impossible theory.
This is called the argument from incredulity. Unless you are actually willing to look at evolution as a viable theory (i.e. not an impossible one), there is really not point in anyone in this thread explaining to you over and over why and how evolution works.
Also, my irony metre has exploded again.
quote:...when the least variations are observed.
What do you mean, "the least"? Are you implying that at one point everyone had less diverse mitochondrial DNA? If so, you are mistaken.
I can see where you might be confused. All this talk of a Mitochondrial Eve suggests that at one point everyone had this single expression of Mitochondrial DNA (or indeed, that there was only one person). This is of course not the case. There was just as much diversity relative to the size of the human population back when Mitochondrial Eve lived. Nor was she the only woman around at the time.
Say you, Ron, have a mutation in your mitochondrial DNA that you received from your mother. It's a new mutation! Unless you have sisters, that mutation will be lost forever when you die.
On the other hand, if you have at least two sisters, who therefore go on to have daughters of their own and so on down the line of the entire human race, your mother could, in the distant future, be the Mitochondrial Eve-- although it would be unlikely that anyone would have the same DNA by the time that occurred. We would all have mutated varieties of her DNA, each of which had mutated from your mothers at various times along the thousands of years it took for your sister's descendants to have daughters with everyone.
Your mother, however, was not created as the first of a long line. When your mother gave birth to your hypothetical sisters, she was not the only woman in the world.
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quote:I presented my testable means by which the Creation view of speciation can be falsified or proven: Study the complete gene map of similar animals, like lions compared to jaguars, or like wolves compared to collies, and see if all the genes in the specialized offshoot (jaguar or collie) were present in the parent animal (lion or wolf).
Yes. And people have repeatedly pointed out to you why this is absurd.
I don't think it is, actually. I do not believe that Ron would actually accept any such proof, because no matter how many genes are shown to be changed he will cling to his "only one atom" excuse, but as an experimental test it is not inherently absurd.
Do we have full maps of any of the species Ron is talking about? Can we do a wolf-chihuahua comparison, for example? If these things are publicly accessible - I seem to recall some such things have been published? - we could even do it right here on Hatrack.
Edit: In particular, Ron, are mouse and rat of the same kind? In other words, if I find a rat gene that mice do not have, is that sufficient under your test above?
[ December 13, 2009, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Blayne, how much of Kent Hovind have you listened to? Or better (since he is not a scientist), how much have you read from the Creationist scientists at Creation Research Society in their peer-reviewed quarterly?--For which I keep giving you the link: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.html
You have pretty much summarized every single creationist argument and every single one of them is blatantly false and nearly every single point you've raised has been answered in Miller's lecture on the Collapse of Intelligent Design as a Scientific Theory.
Did you know the speed of light is a constant Ron? Did you also know that it takes billions of years for light to reach us from distant galaxies? Hey, did you know that also disproves creationism?
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quote:Blayne, how much of Kent Hovind have you listened to? Or better (since he is not a scientist), how much have you read from the Creationist scientists at Creation Research Society in their peer-reviewed quarterly?--For which I keep giving you the link: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.html
You have pretty much summarized every single creationist argument and every single one of them is blatantly false and nearly every single point you've raised has been answered in Miller's lecture on the Collapse of Intelligent Design as a Scientific Theory.
Did you know the speed of light is a constant Ron? Did you also know that it takes billions of years for light to reach us from distant galaxies? Hey, did you know that also disproves creationism?
And now Ron will tell you he thinks that the speed of light has changed. Entertaining, is he not? Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I have already presented the argument about the complexity of the DNA molecule proving that evolution is impossible.
You didn't. You just made a statement pertaining to such. You didn't actually provide any means or evidence, or any sort of coherent argument, why this is actually true.
quote:Do you have some method by which random natural processes can write meaningful code involving billions of DNA proteins, no matter how much time is allowed? Especially when many of the characteristics have to be fully coded for before they can work at all (Behe's irreducible complexity)?
posted
I'm afraid that those articles appear to be written at an introductory-university level.
Compare this truly peer reviewed article about a theory concerning the evolution of mammalian hair with this article from the CRS Quarterly. Several things set the two articles apart:
1. Language. Compare the use of scientific, specific, detailed language in the first with the unscientific, speculative, generalized language used in the second.
2. Unsubstantiated claims. Although some of the claims made in this paper are referenced, just as many are not. From the second article, these claims are unreferenced:
quote:The many functions of hair include the retention of heat, sexual dimorphism, attraction of mates, protection of skin, reflection (or absorption) of sunlight and, in the case of pets, the elicitation of a protective response from humans.
The last of these claims, especially, I would expect to be referenced, as it is not common knowledge. In contrast, the background information section of the PNAS article sources almost every sentence, sometimes with two references.
3. Aged references. This CRS Quarterly article was written in the 21st century, and yet references quoted are twenty years old. In science, this is a big deal.
quote:Hair is widely believed by Darwinists to have evolved from scales, yet "no structures are known which can be considered in any sense transitional between hair and any other vertebrate dermal structure" (Denton, 1986, p. 106).
Please note that it is not clear if the first part of this sentence is part of the reference at the end or if it is a seperate, unreferenced claim.
4. Shady references. Look at this, even older, quote:
quote:Darwinists also admit they have no idea why humans did not lose all their body hair, including that on the head, pubic, and auxiliary hair (Cooper, 1971).
33 years before this article was written, Wendy Cooper, author of the book "Hair: Sex, Society and Symbolism", made this claim. Cooper, the internet tells me, was not a scientist. She is/was a historian. I found this on the internet here:
quote:And, notes historian Wendy Cooper in Hair: Sex, Society, Symbolism, “Once the human race discovered that hair was good-tempered, pliable, and regenerative, and could be cut, shaved, shaped, dyed, braided, crimped, curled, waved, puffed, padded, and frizzled, it proceeded to use hair in a vast variety of permutations of length, style, and color, in the long continuous search for novelty, beauty, and status sometimes called fashion.”
A highly authoritative text on Evolution, this book 'Hair.'
In contrast, the earliest reference in the scientific article that I linked to was from 1985. Was it a popular history text? No:
quote:20. Tyner AL, Eichman MJ, Fuchs E. The sequence of a type II keratin gene expressed in human skin: Conservation of structure among all intermediate filament genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1985;82:4683–4687. [PubMed]
The vast majority of the references for this PNAS article are from the 21st century. All are from articles as technical, detailed and focused as the one that is referencing them.
5. Lack of actual research. Most scientific articles explain the results of independent scientific research that builds on the research of previous scientists. The PNAS article is no exception: the investigation is described, the results published and discussed. No such research has been undertaken by the author of the CRS Quarterly article. At best, the CRS Quarterly is at the level of a first-year University writer, who has had poor high-school preparation for writing a research paper. And if I were a professor, I'm not sure I would give it passing grade.
Which leads me to the last of my points:
6. Unfocused conclusions. Even if this article is not intended to be religious, but merely a summary of ideas, it does a poor job. It draws no detailed conclusions except that "we don't know anything," which is unsurprising considering its highly generalized sources and the fact that no actual research has been undertaken.
The PNAS article may not actually make devastatingly conclusive assertions about the evolution of hair in general, but that's not what science is about most of the time. Scientists narrow their questions to a slender piece of knowledge that they feel they can test-- and then they follow that line of investigation. The weight of research builds up and up and up. Nothing about this PNAS article blew away evolution or solved it forever, it merely added another bit of information to what is by now a colossal pile of knowledge.
Ultimately, the idea that this CRS Quarterly article is supposed to be held at the same level as the PNAS article is laughable. Peer-reviewed is a joke. As I have already said, most first year University students would find all these problem is this article (and more*), and would likely be insulted.
I did not pick this article because it was the worst example from CRS Quarterly. I was curious, and it was the first and only article I clicked on from the the journal's list of featured articles.
*For example, the conclusion introduces new ideas, without discussion. That is a mistake that should have been corrected by a high school teacher.
The man who wrote this article is one of Answers in Genesis's scientists, Jerry Bergman.Here are his credentials; scroll down for a list.
He works at Northwest State College, it says. This is a Community College, a word that is omitted from Answers in Genesis's biography, despite being part of the name of the College.
His PhD from Columbia Pacific University is a little suspect. That institution is a now defunct by court order, non-accredited "Distance Learning" university. Please read.
Bergman also has an M.P.H., which stands for Master of Public Health. This is the degree he got from the Medical College of Ohio-- it is not a medical degree in the sense he necessarily had to study much biology or medicine to gain it.
quote:B.S., Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1970. Major area of study was sociology, biology, and psychology.
Hmm, that's a pretty broad area of study there. Sociology, of course, being the biggest.
Bergman has a PhD in Measurement and Evaluation from Wayne State. Measurement and Evaluation, as far as I can tell, is a degree in Education, although Answers in Genesis is coy about this and the degree itself is a little difficult to track down. How he got a minor while doing his PhD, I am not sure. Can you do that?
Needless to say, Bergman does not have a PhD in any kind of science. His highest level of science education is a B.S., which was focused on sociology, which has a shaky base in scientific methodology, and very little to do with biology. All in all, this man is not and should not be considered to be a scientist or a voice with anything even remotely authoritative to say about evolution or biology in general.
posted
Generally speaking, these articles are not scientific articles in any sense of the word. They are poorly written editorials written by a scattered and various group of people who have at best dabbled in science.
It is frankly insulting to scholars of all fields that most of these men (they are overwhelmingly or entirely men) consider themselves scholars. Anyone with a Bachelor's Degree should be able to recognize the childishness of the writing and arguments presented by the majority of writers on this website.
There are, I should add, a few that buck this trend, at least superficially. There is one by Daniel Criswell, for example, that claims that Mitochondrial DNA extracted from Neanderthals was decayed and/or contaminated. It targets the techniques used by scientists to amplify tiny DNA samples drawn from the teeth (for example) of Neanderthal and ancient human specimens.
However, it seems to contain very little actual research, and is poorly referenced. It mostly looks at the research of others. The conclusions drawn about contamination basically comes down to using "adequate experimental protocols." As if these DNA tests were being carried out in the field by some dude with a test-tube. Possibly in the rain.
You can get lost in the gobbledegook of this article, but basically what it says is, "we need to be careful in doing this research to make sure we're actually getting the results we think we're getting."
Yes. Arguments happen. That's why there's peer-review. That's why more than one person tends to do some research to back up (or, yes, refute) an important discovery.
Stand back! I'm going to try science!
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posted
In the US, PhD minors are typically by coursework. They're mostly a way to entice PhD students to take more courses in other departments (by the other departments, who want the tuition $), though they're also a way of signaling that a PhD holder has a secondary specialty.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Nah. You show up for some extra coursework. It's called an "add-on minor." We've had a few people take 'em, but I have no idea why anyone would. Maybe it's a Pokemon-like impulse to collect 'em all.
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posted
Well, Bergman certainly seems to have had that impulse. Not sure how he pulled it off, though. Perhaps he had a very good editor.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:And now Ron will tell you he thinks that the speed of light has changed. Entertaining, is he not?
Actually, if I recall correctly, Ron believes that the photons from distant galaxies were created en route at the same time as the earth and those galaxies were also created.
It's sort of the same idea as the old "you were created 5 minutes ago with a lifetime of memories so that it appears to you that you've existed much longer" thing, except that it's the whole universe and 10,000 years.
quote:Nah. You show up for some extra coursework. It's called an "add-on minor." We've had a few people take 'em, but I have no idea why anyone would. Maybe it's a Pokemon-like impulse to collect 'em all.
Aren't PhD's supposed to be interested in learning purely for learning's sake? Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:And now Ron will tell you he thinks that the speed of light has changed. Entertaining, is he not?
Actually, if I recall correctly, Ron believes that the photons from distant galaxies were created en route at the same time as the earth and those galaxies were also created.
It's sort of the same idea as the old "you were created 5 minutes ago with a lifetime of memories so that it appears to you that you've existed much longer" thing, except that it's the whole universe and 10,000 years.
Which is why his god is evil and not worth worshiping for it is a lying god whose only purpose is to deceive.
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