Commentary: Evolution: Scientific fact or faithful religion?
Jason Spaceman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Hinckley
Common Sense
To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern,
enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is
little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.
After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other
hand, is it?
Separating fact from fiction, and myth from reality, has always
required an open mind and a hunger for the discovery of truth.
With evolution, this is a task made more difficult because intelligent
debate is allowed only if done from a foundation that the theory
itself is an established scientific fact.
The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
In actuality, numerous philosophers and scientists during the
classical period of Greece proposed that natural selection determined
which animals would survive and which would not and that all life
originated from a common ancestor: most notably Anaximander of Miletus
in 550 B.C. and Empedocles in 450 B.C.
A primary foundation of scientific study is that establishment of fact
is derived through observation, the development of a hypothesis, the
testing of the hypothesis through controlled experimentation and then
duplication of the experiment with the same results.
From this perspective, theory and conjecture are as far as evolution
can proceed.
Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum in
London put it this way: "It is easy enough to make up stories of how
one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why stages should
be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of
science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."
One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very
foundation.
How did nonliving chemicals become life?
If this were possible, how did a "simple" life form develop into
something more complex?
Evaluation of what constitutes a "simple" life form even from a naive,
unscientific standpoint illuminates the need for an incredible amount
of faith to accept evolution as established fact.
As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
are almost incalculable.
Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
10 to the 321st power.
Professor Dean Kenyon, a former biology professor with San Francisco
State who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University,
authored and coauthored numerous journals and papers on this subject.
His conclusion was that it was impossible for chemicals to align
themselves in the proper manner and sequence and that the very concept
of spontaneous generation of life was fatally flawed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read it at
http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=11507
or http://tinyurl.com/2nqprh
J. Spaceman
snex
>
> As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
> necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
> are almost incalculable.
>
> Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
> with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
> 10 to the 321st power.
>
one wonders how it is these things exist at all, with such low odds!
Bobby Bryant
Jason Spaceman <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> writes:
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
>
> To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern,
> enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is
> little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.
>
> After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other
> hand, is it?
>
> Separating fact from fiction, and myth from reality, has always
> required an open mind and a hunger for the discovery of truth.
>
> With evolution, this is a task made more difficult because intelligent
> debate is allowed only if done from a foundation that the theory
> itself is an established scientific fact.
No, it's perfectly possible to discuss the reality of evolution and
the evidence for it, without reference to the theory that explains
it.
> The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
> theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
That's not a myth; it's a theory.
8<
> One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very
> foundation.
>
> How did nonliving chemicals become life?
No, that's not a problem for evolutionary theory. Evolution is
what happens to imperfect self-replicators; their origin is irrelevant.
> If this were possible, how did a "simple" life form develop into
> something more complex?
Now *that* is the question that the theory of evolution answers.
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Bobby Bryant
bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant) writes:
> In article <n1uuu2pfbpr8shc3t...@4ax.com>,
> Jason Spaceman <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> writes:
>> From the article:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Jim Hinckley
>> Common Sense
>> The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
>> theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
>
> That's not a myth; it's a theory.
mea culpa; I didn't read the sentence correctly.
impartial...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
>
> To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern,
> enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is
> little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.
Denying evolution is like denying the theory of gravitation: it
principle, there's no reason you can't do it, but if you actually look
at the evidence and educate yourself, you will almost undoubtedly
conclude that the theory is valid.
I think it is also worth noting that as far as I know, there have not
been any other scientific theories of biology that have come close to
the robustness of evolution.
> After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other
> hand, is it?
No, evolution is not a fact. It is a scientific theory. A scientific
theory explains why the facts are as they are.
> Separating fact from fiction, and myth from reality, has always
> required an open mind and a hunger for the discovery of truth.
>
> With evolution, this is a task made more difficult because intelligent
> debate is allowed only if done from a foundation that the theory
> itself is an established scientific fact.
>
> The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
> theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
Darwin himself is completely irrelavent to the theory of evolution
except as a historical footnote.
> In actuality, numerous philosophers and scientists during the
> classical period of Greece proposed that natural selection determined
> which animals would survive and which would not and that all life
> originated from a common ancestor: most notably Anaximander of Miletus
> in 550 B.C. and Empedocles in 450 B.C.
The Greek theory is a precursor to evolution, true, but in many ways,
it is completely different. Specifically, the Greek theories did not
consider the idea of *gradual* change; animals spontaneously changed
form from one type to another in an single generation by fairly
mystical means. Again, irrelavent as far as the current theory goes,
except as an interesting historical footnote.
> A primary foundation of scientific study is that establishment of fact
> is derived through observation, the development of a hypothesis, the
> testing of the hypothesis through controlled experimentation and then
> duplication of the experiment with the same results.
Okay.
> From this perspective, theory and conjecture are as far as evolution
> can proceed.
I'm sure you have some good evidence to back up such a claim?
> Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum in
> London put it this way: "It is easy enough to make up stories of how
> one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why stages should
> be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of
> science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."
And why should we care what this guy thinks? He's not even a
biologist!
> One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very
> foundation.
>
> How did nonliving chemicals become life?
This is irrelavent to the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution
makes no predictions about how life formed, only how living organisms
change in time. If the first organism was created miraculously by God,
that would not in any way invalidate the theory of evolution.
> If this were possible, how did a "simple" life form develop into
> something more complex?
Natural selection, DNA replication, etc. This process is well
understood, all you need is time and energy, both of which we have a
plenty.
> Evaluation of what constitutes a "simple" life form even from a naive,
> unscientific standpoint illuminates the need for an incredible amount
> of faith to accept evolution as established fact.
There are numerous ways you could measure the relative "simplicity" of
lifeforms. You could count the number of cells in the organism, you
could study the relative size of its genome. The criteria is largely
arbitrary, and rather misleading. Natural selection does not
necessarily imply that species will always move from a simple form to
a complex one; indeed, the opposite could be true.
> As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
> necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
> are almost incalculable.
That's assuming the process is completely random. It's also assuming
that there's only one such molecule in present, and that there's only
one such permutation that can produce life. None of these assumptions
are necessarily true. Again, though, this is completely irrelavent to
the theory of evolution. If you want, you can say God did it.
Evolution still works with that assumption.
> Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
> with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
> 10 to the 321st power.
Did he assume the process was random? That the combination was unique?
> Professor Dean Kenyon, a former biology professor with San Francisco
> State who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University,
> authored and coauthored numerous journals and papers on this subject.
>
> His conclusion was that it was impossible for chemicals to align
> themselves in the proper manner and sequence and that the very concept
> of spontaneous generation of life was fatally flawed.
Evolution does not postulate spontaneous generation--evolution does
not postulate *anything* about how the first lifeform came to be. This
is irrelavent.
You seem to have a problem with abiogenesis. This is a different (and
far less robust) theory than evolution.
A.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Read it athttp://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&...
> orhttp://tinyurl.com/2nqprh
>
> J. Spaceman
Harry K
If odds had anything to do with it, you wouldn't be here. The odds of
'you' or 'me' being born are astronomical also.
Harry K
richardal...@googlemail.com
wrote:
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
>
> To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern,
> enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is
> little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.
>
That depends.
If you question the theory of evolution honestly and with reference to
evidence, few scientists would question your right to do so.
If you attack the theory of evolution using distortion,
misrepresentation and outright falsehoods to promote your own
religious, political and financial agenda, you are liable to be
identified as a hypocritical liar.
>
> After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other
> hand, is it?
>
The evolution happens is a fact. After all, we have observed it in
action.
So, on the other hand, yes it is.
>
> Separating fact from fiction, and myth from reality, has always
> required an open mind and a hunger for the discovery of truth.
>
Quite so.
That's why science rejected the Bible as a source for information
about the natural world.
>
> With evolution, this is a task made more difficult because intelligent
> debate is allowed only if done from a foundation that the theory
> itself is an established scientific fact.
>
Well, no.
It is a fact that evolution happens.
There is a theory - or more accurately a group of interrelated
theories - which attempt to explain how evolution happens. If anyone
wants to question the theory, they are not only free to do so, they
are encouraged to do so.
>
> The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
> theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
>
The theory of evolution by natural selection was developed by Darwin
from his observations of the natural world. That is not a myth, but a
fact. That evolution happens had been observed for millenia.
> In actuality, numerous philosophers and scientists during the
> classical period of Greece proposed that natural selection determined
> which animals would survive and which would not and that all life
> originated from a common ancestor: most notably Anaximander of Miletus
> in 550 B.C. and Empedocles in 450 B.C.
...which information you can find by reading Darwin's book "The Origin
of Species".
>
> A primary foundation of scientific study is that establishment of fact
> is derived through observation, the development of a hypothesis, the
> testing of the hypothesis through controlled experimentation and then
> duplication of the experiment with the same results.
>
> From this perspective, theory and conjecture are as far as evolution
> can proceed.
>
> Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum in
> London put it this way: "It is easy enough to make up stories of how
> one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why stages should
> be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of
> science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."
>
Quite so.
Your point?
>
> One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very
> foundation.
>
>
> How did nonliving chemicals become life?
>
That is not part of evolutionary theory.
Such questions are addressed by theories of abiogenesis.
Evolution is what happens to populations of living organisms once life
has started.
>
> If this were possible, how did a "simple" life form develop into
> something more complex?
>
> Evaluation of what constitutes a "simple" life form even from a naive,
> unscientific standpoint illuminates the need for an incredible amount
> of faith to accept evolution as established fact.
>
As abiogenesis is not evolution, this is simply a falsehood.
It takes no faith to accept evolution as a fact. We can observe it in
action.
>
> As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
> necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
> are almost incalculable.
>
They are actually incalculable, as we do not know enough about the
ways in which proteins function to attach probabilities to all the
events. One cannot base statistical calcualtions on unknown
mechanisms.
>
> Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
> with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
> 10 to the 321st power.
>
Bully for him
So what?
>
> Professor Dean Kenyon, a former biology professor with San Francisco
> State who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University,
> authored and coauthored numerous journals and papers on this subject.
>
....and was rather unwilling to defend his position in court in
Arkansas in 1982.
"In 1981, Kenyon was recruited to be an expert witness for the
creationist side in the McLean vs. Arkansas case that tested the
constitutionality of Arkansas' Equal Time Legislation that mandated
equal time for "creation science" and "evolution science." Kenyon flew
to Arkansas to be deposed and testify during the trial. However,
apparently under the influence of creationist attorney Wendell Bird
(who was displeased with the defense of the creationist position by
the Arkansas attorney general Steve Clark), Kenyon left town just
before he was to testify:
"The attorney general presented six science witnesses, two more
than had testified for the ACLU, presumably on the grounds that
quantity made up for evident lack of quality. There would have been
more had not a serious case of disappearing witnesses set in as the
second week wore on. Dean Kenyon, a biologist from San Francisco State
University, fled town after watching the demolition of four of the
state's witnesses on day 1 of the second week. And Henry Voss, a
computer scientist from California, was rapidly withdrawn at the last
minute when, in pretrial deposition, he too began to expound on things
satanic and demonical."
(from p. 34 of: Roger Lewin, 1982, "Creationism on the Defensive
in Arkansas." Science, 215(4528), pp. 33-34, January 1, 1982.)
The Arkansas attorney general apparently threatened to sue Bird after
this interference:
There were other witnesses for the defense who did not show up.
Several scientists who had been listed as potential witnesses for the
state, backed out because of what Clark termed "peer pressure."
Another state witness, Dr. Dean Kenyon, a biophysicist at San
Francisco State University, mysteriously disappeared on the eve of his
day in court. He had flown into Little Rock on a Sunday evening, but
when one of Clark's assistants went to take his deposition he could
not find him. Kenyon had checked out of the hotel and flown back home.
Bird had encouraged Kenyon not to testify, although Kenyon taught
evolution theory for 16 years until three years ago when he became a
creationist. Bird, who is general counsel to ICR, said he attempted to
get other defense witnesses not to testify after he perceived the
trial as botched by Clark.
Bird said he was not trying to sabotage Clark's effort. He said he
merely had told several witnesses for the state that "I don't think
you should jeopardize your reputation with the way [the trial] is
being handled." Clark stated he was considering legal action against
Bird, whose actions, he said, were "tantamount to tampering with
justice."
(p. 29 of: Jack Weatherly, 1982, "Creationists Lose in Arkansas:
Missing witnesses and a divided defense muddled the issue."
Christianity Today, January 22, 1982. Bracketed insert in original.) "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_H._Kenyon
Not surprisingly, he's a fellow of the Discovery Institute.
RF
> His conclusion was that it was impossible for chemicals to align
> themselves in the proper manner and sequence and that the very concept
> of spontaneous generation of life was fatally flawed.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
richardal...@googlemail.com
Woah there!
The late Colin Patterson was a highly respected evolutionary
biologist, and made substantial contributions to evolutionary science.
What he is quoted as saying here is perfectly correct, and is a
warning which is hammered into the brains of students of
palaeontology. Science develops by testing hypotheses, but it is hard
to test hypotheses of what happened to populations of living organisms
200 million years ago. We need to be very careful to avoid just
telling "just so stories" when analysing what we find in the fossil
record. We should be looking for hypotheses we can test.
RF
Desertphile
> His conclusion was that it was impossible for chemicals to align
> themselves in the proper manner and sequence and that the very concept
> of spontaneous generation of life was fatally flawed.
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water.
Desertphile
One wonders how the "Swiss scientist" even managed to perform the
calculations required. Seems to me one would have to have absolute
knowledge of every state of every atom involved.
Robert Carnegie
Jason Spaceman wrote:
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
"Please feel free to submit your comments." But not here - unless you
want to argue whether Jason should or should not have lifted the story
from the web site and posted it here.
Also bear in mind that the I Can't Believe This Place Has Even One
Daily Newspaper That Makes Money probably is desperate to attract
attention to its Web site and tourist advertising. UFO sightings, the
country's largest hot dog (this year, disputed), wrong-headedness
about what the one local high school should teach - this is their
stock in trade.
Mock.
As for Jason, "All original content copyright © 2007, Kingman Daily
Miner and may not be reprinted without permission." Was permission
given? Does online count as "reprinted"? I wonder how they'll feel
about it if I write and say someone sent me the text of part of their
article, is that okay? How does the DMCA apply to a newsgroup?
Dr.GH
> orhttp://tinyurl.com/2nqprh
>
> J. Spaceman
As a scientist with a fondness for irony, I found much to enjoy in Jim
Hinckley's recent ediorial on creationism. For example, there is his
implication that he has a "hunger for the discovery of truth." We
shall see.
There are many serious errors made by Hinckley in his March 8
commentary. The first is his two fold error regarding the sources of
evolutionary biology. The minor part is that Anaximander of Miletus
offered a Darwinian theory of evolution, this is not the case. Nor
did Empedocles, who thought that isolated organs; hearts, spleens etc.
had formed spontaniously and then "found" each other to assemble into
whole organisms. But these are simple errors of fact. The deeper
error was that it is a criticism of evolutionary biology that Charles
Darwin was not the exclusive originator of evolutionary theory. He was
not. The fact is that modern evolutionary theory is much stronger
because it is the product of thousands of scientists working for well
over a century.
Hinckley next confused the idea of "experimentation" with
"observation." To study astronomy we don't need to create suns or
galaxies, nor do we need to create life to study biology. An example
from geology is that if we go and make observations about where oil
has been found, we can go to where similar rock formations exist and
find more oil. Geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology are each
histroical sciences which use a mix of direct observations from nature
for the "big" theory, and much more limited xperimental results for
"fine tuning." Since we can now closely control gene sequences,
evolutionary science has rapidly left field observations and moved to
direct laboratory study. Hinckley seems to be ignorant of the last 15
years of biological science.
Hinckley is either grossly mistaken conserning Dean Kenyon, or he is a
flagrant liar. Kenyon was neither fired, nor demoted, nor forbidden
from presenting his research. Kenyon was told to teach a biology
course for non-science majors from the textbook. He refused, and was
no longer assigned that class. The rest of Hinckley's screed consists
mostly of what is called "quote mining," or the misrepresentation of
an author's meaning by selective out of context quotation. All of the
quote mined material used by Hinckley are found in lists of quotations
compiled by creationist organizations who often shamelessly wait for a
scientist to die before manipulating their work. All of Hinckley's
quotes are found and refuted in "The Quote Mine Project" online at
www.talkorigins.com.
We have in Hinckley's essay is a perfect example of the creationist at
work; attacking America's Constitutional protection of religious
freedom, and undermining our fragile scientific and technological
dominance in the world economy. His tools are half truths and out and
out fabrications.
Gary Hurd, Ph.D.
Lexington Victoria-Rice
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
>
Ever notice how people that favor "common sense" fear science?
--
"Fundamentalists can kiss my left behind."
Some bumper sticker or t-shirt.
Ron O
wrote:
> From the article:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Hinckley
> Common Sense
>
> To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern,
> enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is
> little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.
>
> After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other
> hand, is it?
>
> Separating fact from fiction, and myth from reality, has always
> required an open mind and a hunger for the discovery of truth.
>
> With evolution, this is a task made more difficult because intelligent
> debate is allowed only if done from a foundation that the theory
> itself is an established scientific fact.
This guy has never done any science, and doesn't know the first thing
about science. Just think if this last statement was true, how would
we even get started? It takes a lot of hard work to establish
"scientific fact." Where scientific fact is establishing something
where the evidence makes it so unlikely that it is incorrect that it
is beyond reasonable doubt. It could still be wrong because no one
claims that the evidence is complete, but with what we have
"scientific factd" is the current understanding.
This boob is probably just venting sour grapes over the fact that ID/
creationism hasn't even gotten started and can't claim the
establishment of anything in science. When they do the hard work, and
the evidence goes their way they will establish something. It isn't
the fault of science that ID has a 100% failure rate in science. They
have tried numerous times to shove ID into a gap in our knowledge, but
when we get around to filling that gap the ID explanation is found to
be wrong. 100% failure upon testing is 100%. If there were even a
single example of a success this guy wouldn't have to vent his sour
grapes. Who is responsible for disease? Who pulls the sun and moon
across the sky? Who makes babies? How are these incorrect ID
assertions different from who made the flagellum?
>
> The first widely accepted myth pertaining to evolution is that the
> theory arose from the studies of Charles Darwin.
This is only a myth among the ignorant. Does this guy really think
that evolutionary biologists do not have a better grasp of the
situation? Why can he look up reality and get a better understanding
if everyone accepted the myth? Who is using "Darwinism" in their
creationist propaganda?
>
> In actuality, numerous philosophers and scientists during the
> classical period of Greece proposed that natural selection determined
> which animals would survive and which would not and that all life
> originated from a common ancestor: most notably Anaximander of Miletus
> in 550 B.C. and Empedocles in 450 B.C.
>
> A primary foundation of scientific study is that establishment of fact
> is derived through observation, the development of a hypothesis, the
> testing of the hypothesis through controlled experimentation and then
> duplication of the experiment with the same results.
>
> From this perspective, theory and conjecture are as far as evolution
> can proceed.
See, the boob doesn't know the first thing about science.
>
> Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum in
> London put it this way: "It is easy enough to make up stories of how
> one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why stages should
> be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of
> science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."
Science isn't knowing all the details, and we may never know exactly
how or why land mammals went back to the sea and became whales, but we
have plenty of fossil evidence, morphological, and DNA evidence that
tells us that they did.
Patterson is just telling the limits of our current technologies. The
"natural selection" part should give this guy a clue that this is a
dishonest quote mine. Just because we can't determine the selective
environment doesn't mean that we can't determine that life evolved.
Just look up the Whale FAQ and see some of the evidence for whale
evolution. So what if we can't determine the selective reasoning for
each intermediate form that we can find. They existed, the DNA tells
us that closest living relatives to whales are hippos. Before we had
the DNA paleontologists were telling us that artiodactyls were the
closest relatives to whales, so why were they found to be basically
correct if you can't test evolution?
>
> One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very
> foundation.
>
> How did nonliving chemicals become life?
It is a good thing that this isn't the foundation of evolutionary
theory. Whether you are a creationist or not one thing is certain.
Abiogenesis occurred. Biological evolution deals with what happened
after.
>
> If this were possible, how did a "simple" life form develop into
> something more complex?
The limits of this guys feeble imagination isn't the limit of
science. Anyone just has to realize that this guys answer to this
question is to go to a religious text written thousands of years ago
by people ignorant of the vast majority of what we have been able to
verify about nature, to get his answer. What is really stupid is that
he would rather take that answer than looking at the creation itself
and seeing if he can get a more accurate answer than the one they had
before modern science was a reality.
>
> Evaluation of what constitutes a "simple" life form even from a naive,
> unscientific standpoint illuminates the need for an incredible amount
> of faith to accept evolution as established fact.
>
> As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
> necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
> are almost incalculable.
Pitman would be proud of this guy, but no one else should give him the
time if day.
One clue is "perfect" order. There is no perfect order just a
sequence that does something. Just ask Pitman what the perfect order
for beta gal is when you can get the activity in a hexamer that is
only 35% similar to beta gal and beta gal is a tetramer.
By this guys reasoning it must be impossible for thunder clouds to
form. Just try and calculate the probablity of assembling a thunder
cloud. You need so much dust, and water in the right combination.
The temperature gradients have to be in the right order. Just try and
calculate the back probability for forming any thunder cloud and you
would get astronomical probability estimates. Just try and get all
the dust in the right place. Something is wrong with these types of
calculations, but it doesn't matter to the boobs that depend on them.
>
> Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
> with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
> 10 to the 321st power.
Why are these guys citing new bogus numbers. Cytochrome C wasn't good
enough for them?
Just calculate the probability of one thunder cloud forming if all the
bits had to assemble randomly and you will get your answer to this
type of argument.
>
> Professor Dean Kenyon, a former biology professor with San Francisco
> State who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University,
> authored and coauthored numerous journals and papers on this subject.
We all owe Dean Kenyon a debt of gratitude for his authorship of
Panda's and People. If he and his creationist coauthors hadn't just
swapped out creationism for intelligent design with a word processor
with no major changes to the surrounding text it would have been much
harder for Judge Jones to conclude that intelligent design was just
creationism with a new name. There was even a transitional fossil
where creationism had intelligent design inserted into it with out
deletion of original word. We all owe FTE publishing a debt of
gratitude for saving the old drafts of the book that demonstrated the
dishonest swap and the stupidity of the ID propaganda that claimed
that ID wasn't creationism. Dean Kenyon is also a senior fellow at
the Discovery Institute. He has earned his fellowship stipend in my
book.
>
> His conclusion was that it was impossible for chemicals to align
> themselves in the proper manner and sequence and that the very concept
> of spontaneous generation of life was fatally flawed.
Yes, but what is his alternative? What is the evidence for it? Not
only that, but what is the "proper manner and sequence?" If you don't
know that, how can you claim that it is impossible?
Ron Okimoto
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
911fal...@gmail.com
> On Mar 7, 8:05 pm, "snex" <s...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > As an example, the odds of a perfect sequential order of amino acids
> > > necessary for the function of the protein in a single celled organism
> > > are almost incalculable.
>
> > > Swiss scientist Charles Guye calculated the possibility of one protein
> > > with an average amino acid chain lining up in proper sequence at 1 in
> > > 10 to the 321st power.
What he didn't take into account is the number of opportunities that
amino acids have had to line themselves up. Everyday, of every second,
in a million places at the same time.....
Just like the probability of there being other life in the Universe.
For each galaxy with the same conditions as ours, but there are
billions of such galaxies.
Just like the probability of being rolled over by a Humvee at any
given time. But people are rolled over by Humvees arn't they.
Get it?
Robert Carnegie
> We all owe Dean Kenyon a debt of gratitude for his authorship of
> Panda's and People. If he and his creationist coauthors hadn't just
> swapped out creationism for intelligent design with a word processor
> with no major changes to the surrounding text it would have been much
> harder for Judge Jones to conclude that intelligent design was just
> creationism with a new name. There was even a transitional fossil
> where creationism had intelligent design inserted into it with out
> deletion of original word. We all owe FTE publishing a debt of
> gratitude for saving the old drafts of the book that demonstrated the
> dishonest swap and the stupidity of the ID propaganda that claimed
> that ID wasn't creationism. Dean Kenyon is also a senior fellow at
> the Discovery Institute. He has earned his fellowship stipend in my
> book.
You really don't think the world would be a better place without him?
I don't see how any version of the intelligent design hoax could have
been got going /without/ building on "scientific creationism" - well,
I momentarily have a vision of and argument of nothing at all but
ignorance, "Scientists don't know everything so really they no
nothing", Dr Dino building a Christian Museum of the Science of
Evolution with nothing at all inside it. Even the gift shop only
hands out a slip of paper that reads "I went to the Christian Museum
ofdthe Science of Evolution and I didn't even get a T-shirt.".
Failing that extremist discreationist form of creationism, I don't
think that _Panders to Proselytists_ is essential to making the case
against those jerks. But it was very useful in the case. Still, I
ithink the world might be better if it had never been published.
Earle Jones
"Robert Carnegie" <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> Ron O wrote:
> > We all owe Dean Kenyon a debt of gratitude for his authorship of
> > Panda's and People.
***
One think that Kenyon understood is that plurals do not require an
apostrophe.
***
> > If he and his creationist coauthors hadn't just
> > swapped out creationism for intelligent design with a word processor
> > with no major changes to the surrounding text it would have been much
> > harder for Judge Jones to conclude that intelligent design was just
> > creationism with a new name. There was even a transitional fossil
> > where creationism had intelligent design inserted into it with out
> > deletion of original word. We all owe FTE publishing a debt of
> > gratitude for saving the old drafts of the book that demonstrated the
> > dishonest swap and the stupidity of the ID propaganda that claimed
> > that ID wasn't creationism. Dean Kenyon is also a senior fellow at
> > the Discovery Institute. He has earned his fellowship stipend in my
> > book.
*
I found some reviews of "Pandas and People" at:
http://www.amazon.com/Pandas-People-Central-Question-Biological/dp/09
14513400
Best to use the TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/38nhjz
"...research scientist George Gilchrist of the University of
Washington was able to find only 37 instances of the keyword
'intelligent design' in over 6,000 scientific and academic journals
worldwide. Of the 37, most were irrelevant dealing with computer
software or hardware, architectural or engineering design,
advertising art, literature, fertilizer manufacture, or welding
technology. Only 7 had anything to do with biology, and of these, 5
were discussions of the debate over using the Pandas textbook by
various school boards and 2 were comments on Behe's book in a
Christian magazine....
Pandas is guilty of violating every fallacy of argumentation
outlined in chapter six of David Kelley's book, 'The Art of
Reasoning' ...lessons learned by first-year philosophy students, and
amounts to little more than vague and ad hoc negative argumentation
based on a false dichotomy with frequent hyperbolic congratulatory
statements epitomizing delusions of grandeur."
--Review of Kenyon's book on ID, "Of Pandas and People"
earle
*
Dr.GH
There has been a responce to my comment. My return comment was not
posted. Here it is:
Edited to add Mar, 18: It has been 4 days since I submitted a partial
responce to the bullshit by Silas Stillwater, and there is no post on
the paper's website. I doubt that there will be. My initial responce
was weirdley edited by the paper's removing all paragraphing. I
suspect that the editorial policy at the paper is creationist through
and through.
Following my response to Jim Hickley's creationist screed, someone
using the name of Silas Stillwater posted a response.
My response follows
A common short definition of evolution is "change over time." The
recent, rather long comment by someone perhaps named Silas Stillwater
showed a remarkable lack of evolution. I'll try to be more brief. The
objections to science he makes are all what we call PRATTs, or Points
Refuted Thousands of Times. Most have webpages and even books refuting
them, for example the "Index to Creationist Claims" (
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/index.html ). But the dedicated
creationist is oblivious. Stillwater shows that he is disingenuous at
best when he excused Hinkley's falshoods because Hinckley "... writes
for the casual reader." Who else should we try our best to be honest
and clearly spoken with, Mr. Stillwater? Why do you feel it is
acceptable to lie to general readers? Is it merely because it is
easier than with a scientific audience?
Stillwater followed with an equally false note that he was not an
advocate of a particular position even after his years of "research"
and even publishing on the topic. Why then are all of his objections
directed at science and his "get out of jail" cards wasted on
Hinckley's creationism? On a personal basis, I earned a doctorate in
anthropology over 30 years ago, and count in my professional
experience being a statistical data analyst/computer programer, an
analytical chemist, a professor of medicine, and a forensic scientist.
But it was nearly 17 years ago when I was Curator and then Director of
Education at a natural history museum that I was reluctantly drawn
into the creationist attack on science and reason. Since that time I
have contributed to several publications, print and electronic, on
this topic.
Among the electronic media, I have been published by the
TalkOrigins.org which Stillwater despises as an "evolutionist haven."
More of that dubious neutrality by Stillwather. I co-founded the
Panda's Thumb website in 2004 which currently has recorded over 4.5
million visits, 18 times Stillwater's 0.25 million. Even accepting
Stillwater's unsupported claims regarding his website (What was it
called?), he is no comparison with Panda's Thumb, or TalkOrigins. T.O.
publishes dozens of scientific experts, including leaders in their
fields, on how their research and studies directly refute the sorts of
creationist falsehoods presented in Hinckley and Stillwater's recent
comments. Further, T.O. receives thousands of hits daily; even single
articles out of hundreds published have far over twice the hit count
claimed by Stillwater as evidence of his experience.
But, Stillwater draws on this minor experience to observe that
mathematicians, or "mathy" types genearlly, are dismissive of
evolutionary biology compared with actual biologists. Weirdly,
Stillwater ignored the obvious conclusion that people who actually
know about biology understand evolution, while those who lack the
needful training do not. Instead, he imagines some sort of
"probability theory" problem for evolution. I have doubt if
Stillwater, or Hinckley for that matter, has any idea what probability
theory is, or how it is applied in population genetics, or evolution.
Since nothing that Stillwater claims on this is supported by any
document or evidence beyond his bald assertions, we can only guess at
what this might mean regarding the popular understanding of evolution.
One obvious conclusion is that people who know some math, but are
ignorant about biology are just as biologically uniformed as people
who don't know either math or biology. What we can be certain of is
that this is not relevant to the either the significance or validity
of evolution. It is pure smoke screen, like Hinckley's meaningless
"probabilities" of amino acids randomly aligning into proteins which
if Stillwater had even a modicum of the expertise he claims would have
known.
For those following along point by point, I want to move to why
Stillwater excused Hinckley's gross errors regarding Darwin and
biology professor Kenyon. Stillwater wants you to skip these because
they are gross errors! Stillwater is not unbiased, he wants us all to
forget that Hinckley is incompetently repeating creationist frauds
while pretending to be independent, informed and honest.
Stillwater made an accusation out of my pointing out that Hinckley
followed in a long Creationist tradition of making false quotations.
In fact, there are published volumes of these used by creationists.
One example, that just happened to contain the Patterson "quote"
Hickley and Stillwater so revere was published in the "Revised Quote
Book," published by the Creation Science Foundation in 1990. The first
"Quote Book" had to become "Revised" because the first publication was
so filled with out-right fabrications and lies that even the
creationists had to reissue it. I personally find it strange that the
bulk of Stillwater's comment is related to this blatent
misrepresentation of Professor Patterson. Since we are happily at the
start of spring training, let me say that when a batter is leaning out
over the plate, a high inside pitch is not totally out of the
question. But, the creationist lies regarding Patterson's remarks and
intended meaning are intentionally throwing at the batter! It is not
about "footnotes" it is about lying.
The context that neither Hinckley nor Stillwater seem aware of was the
heated debate within the sciences some 20 to 30 years ago regarding
the place of fossils and molecular genetics in evolutionary theory,
and how fossils could be orgainized into nested groups related to
living species. Even more exactly, Collin Patterson was one of the
leaders in a effort to replace the old classifications with more
modern, more mathematical classification. He shared this position with
Niels Ethridge, and Steven Jay Gould, all of whom provided much
creationist fodder in their polemics against 19th century gradualism.
Hinckley and Stillwater, by repeating the lies of creationist "quote
mines" are apparently ignorant of this argument, since they have
promoted the secondary falsehood that evolution is a monolithic dogma.
Since Stillwather claimed to be a highly proficient expert, we must
reject either his honesty or is claim to be an expert. Oh. That also
means he is not honest.
Here is what Patterson had to say about the misrepresented fragment of
his long ago talk, "That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of
him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous
"keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981
was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion
Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked
to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper
by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a
fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done
more harm than good to biological systematics (classification).
Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden
tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to
professional systematists, and
concerned systematics, nothing else," Colin Patterson to Lionel
Theunissen (1993).
Stillwater concluded that "Patterson had a problem with the theory of
evolution."
Stillwater would be so totally wrong as to be reduced to a joke in the
sciences, we have little patience for those who fail as badly as he at
simple concepts. For readers interested in a full discussion of
Patterson and creationists, I recommend the following
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html (or go to TalkOrigins
and search for "Patterson").
Stillwater acknowledges there are "problems" with Hinckley in spite of
making every effort to deny or excuse them. He committed a major
hypocrisy arguing that I should be careful with the po' lil' general
public, when not minutes before his forgives Hinckley's frauds because
they are written for the same po' general public. I am called to the
Bible verse, 1 John 4: 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but
test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false
prophets have gone out into the world.
The real difference is that I have not lied.
Gary Hurd, Ph.D.
topmind
>
> There are many serious errors made by Hinckley in his March 8
> commentary. The first is his two fold error regarding the sources of
> evolutionary biology. The minor part is that Anaximander of Miletus
> offered a Darwinian theory of evolution, this is not the case. Nor
> did Empedocles, who thought that isolated organs; hearts, spleens etc.
> had formed spontaniously and then "found" each other to assemble into
> whole organisms.
Not really that far off from single cells forming multi-cellular life.
He just got the scale wrong.
-T-
josepphus
josephus