Darwin's Doubt Review

[jillery]

Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
Meyer's book:

<http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>

<http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>

Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
sleights-of-hand.

One comment that's especially relevant to the gaggle of
self-proclaimed skeptics on T.O.:

"The Cambrian explosion is a problem for scientists only in the sense
that there are many possible explanations for it, but too little data
for deciding among them."

IOW don't base a conclusion on a known lack of data.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Ray Martinez]

On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:42:30 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
> Meyer's book:
>
> <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
>
> Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
> ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
> incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
> sleights-of-hand.

Does this imply that Rosenhouse has been impressed with the publications of other Creationists/IDists?

If so, who?

If not, since all Creationists/IDists, in the eyes of Evolutionists, do the same, what's the point?

Ray

[....]

[John Harshman]

On 6/11/15, 12:02 PM, Ray Martinez wrote:
> On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:42:30 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
>> Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
>> Meyer's book:
>>
>> <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
>>
>> <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
>>
>> Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
>> ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
>> incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
>> sleights-of-hand.
>
> Does this imply that Rosenhouse has been impressed with the publications of other Creationists/IDists?

Imply, eh? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you
think it means.

[jillery]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:02:25 -0700 (PDT), Ray Martinez
<pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:42:30 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
>> Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
>> Meyer's book:
>>
>> <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
>>
>> <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
>>
>> Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
>> ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
>> incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
>> sleights-of-hand.
>
>Does this imply that Rosenhouse has been impressed with the publications of other Creationists/IDists?

Nope. Of course, you will likely infer whatever suits you anyway.

>If so, who?
>
>If not, since all Creationists/IDists, in the eyes of Evolutionists, do the same, what's the point?

The relevant object is not "Meyer" but "Meyer's use", and illustrates
the point you identify above. HTH but I doubt it.

[Ray Martinez]

If Rosenhouse "is unimpressed with Meyer's use of...." then the same implies he might be impressed with the works of other Creationists/IDists that don't use....?

I don't think you understood the point.

Ray

[John Harshman]

Oh, I did. It's just wrong. I'm unimpressed with your inability to read.
Does that imply that I'd be impressed with someone else's inability to read?

[Jimbo]

Was it that creationists never make use of standard rhetorical tricks
such as quote-mining, personal incredulity, misrepresentation of
facts, word games, and mathematical slights of hand? That they are all
true-blue and honest to the core, with an understanding of science in
general and biology in particular that far surpasses the knowledge and
understanding of evolutionist pseudo-scientists? That creation science
is suppressed by a huge conspiracy of atheists under the direct
supervision of Satan? That the conspiracy will be exposed and busted
by your book that is coming out any day now?


>Ray

[jillery]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:50:12 -0700 (PDT), Ray Martinez

You assert a concept which presupposes the existence of non-existent
entities.

>I don't think you understood the point.

<PING> Dang it!

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:50:12 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Ray Martinez
<pyram...@yahoo.com>:

Damfino. Why don't you name three such paragons, with cites
to the relevant work? Then we can evaluate your implied
claim that such honest and objective Creationists/IDists
actually exist.

>I don't think you understood the point.

My poor IronyMeter...
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[RonO]

If he doesn't give his alternative and fit his model into what he claims
isn't enough time he is just full of IDiocy.

Why would you waste all your time writing a book about a subject and
then have no opinion on what you would claim as being different from
what is expected. That is how dishonest and bogus the ID scam became
over a decade ago, and it never got any better.

Ron Okimoto

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 12 Jun 2015 10:12:50 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

>On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:50:12 -0700 (PDT), the following
>appeared in talk.origins, posted by Ray Martinez
><pyram...@yahoo.com>:
>
>>On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 12:17:30 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 6/11/15, 12:02 PM, Ray Martinez wrote:
>>> > On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:42:30 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
>>> >> Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
>>> >> Meyer's book:
>>> >>
>>> >> <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
>>> >>
>>> >> <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
>>> >>
>>> >> Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
>>> >> ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
>>> >> incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
>>> >> sleights-of-hand.
>>> >
>>> > Does this imply that Rosenhouse has been impressed with the publications of other Creationists/IDists?
>>>
>>> Imply, eh? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you
>>> think it means.
>
>>If Rosenhouse "is unimpressed with Meyer's use of...." then the same implies he might be impressed with the works of other Creationists/IDists that don't use....?
>
>Damfino. Why don't you name three such paragons, with cites
>to the relevant work? Then we can evaluate your implied
>claim that such honest and objective Creationists/IDists
>actually exist.

[Crickets...]

As expected...

[Steady Eddie]

Rosenhouse:
"Consider first that there are just a handful of places on Earth where rocks of Cambrian age exist. We have just a few fossils from a handful of locations to tell us about what sort of critters were around 500 million years ago. In other words, we know next to nothing about the biodiversity of the time."

The Virtual Fossil Museum:
"A unique aspect of Cambrian is prevalence of lagerstätten, fossil sites exhibiting exceptional preservation, including preservation of soft tissue parts. The lagerstatten are paramount to science's understanding of the evolutionary origins of complex early organisms that contained the genetic building blocks of life on earth today."
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm

Short version:
Jason Rosenhouse is ignorant of the extent of the Cambrian fossil record.

Rosenhouse:
"Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
...
"I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."

What Chapter 12 says:

Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
"The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added

John Maynard Smith (partly in response to Salisbury):
"If evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a CONTINUOUS NETWORK which can be traversed by UNIT MUTATIONAL STEPS without
passing through nonfunctional intermediates" (Nature, 1970) emphasis added

Maynard Smith:
"Suppose that a protein ABCD...exists, and a protein abCD... would be favored by selection
if it arose. Suppose further that the intermediates aBCD... and AbCD... are non-functional.
These forms would arise by mutation, but would usually be eliminated by selection before
a second mutation could occur. The DOUBLE STEP from ABCD.. to abCD would thus be
VERY UNLIKELY TO OCCUR."
...
"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)

H. Allen Orr in 'Nature Review Genetics', 2005:
"Although Maynard Smith's work appeared early in the molecular revolution, [his ideas about problems facing protein evolution] were almost entirely ignored for nearly two
decades." ("The Genetic Theory of Adaptation", 123)

Stephen Meyer:
"Thus, Orr noted that evolutionary biologists STOPPED THINKING ABOUT molecular evolution as a consequence of adaptive changes at the AMINO ACID level. Not until the
first decade of the twenty-first century would biologists confront the challenge of making a
rigorous QUANTITATIVE analysis of the PLAUSIBILITY of protein-to-protein evolution."
...
"In 2004, Lehigh University chemist Michael Behe...and University of Pittsburg physicist
David Snoke published a paper in the journal 'Protein Science' that RETURNED to the
problem FIRST DESCRIBED BY MAYNARD-SMITH." (Behe and Snoke, "Simulating Evolution
by Gene Duplication of Protein Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues.")

Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt, Two Cornell University mathematical biologists, both defenders of neo-Darwinism, conducting their own calculations in an attempt to refute Behe:
"[Our calculation implies that generating two or more co-ordinated mutations is] VERY UNLIKELY TO OCCUR on a reasonable time scale." ('Waiting for Two Mutations: With
Application to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution', 1507), emphasis added

Meyer:
"[Douglas] Axe and [Anne] Gauger confirmed that genes and proteins THEMSELVES
represent COMPLEX adaptations - entities that depend upon the coordinated interaction
of multiple subunits that must arise AS A GROUP to confer any functional advantage"(emphasis added)
...
"[All of the above biologists] and other biologists have recently shown that generating the
number of multiple coordinated mutations needed to produce even ONE NEW GENE OR
PROTEIN is unlikely to occur within a realistic waiting time. Thus, these biologists establish
the IMPLAUSIBILITY OF THE NEO-DARWINIAN MECHANISM as a means of generating
new genetic information." (emphasis added)
...
"Thus, the various experiments and calculations performed between 2004 and 2011...
supply further evidence that the neo-Darwinian mechanism cannot generate the information
necessary to build new GENES, let alone a NEW FORM OF ANIMAL LIFE, in the time
available to the evolutionary process."

-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.

...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...

Rosenhouse writes:
"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."

Fossilmuseum.net writes:
"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm

[Steady Eddie]

On Thursday, 11 June 2015 11:42:30 UTC-6, jillery wrote:

Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is evidently unacquainted with the contents
of both Darwin's Doubt, AND the Cambrian fossil record.

..."Critters"? "Little wormy things"?
-I think the guy should stick to brushing up on his math. He doesn't have a 'gift' for
biology.

[RonO]

The really short version is to take the existing data and put it into
your model. Go for it.

Why doesn't Meyer do that? What is his real explanation for the fossil
record. Just claiming that something is implausible doesn't do much, so
put the data into your model. Make sure that you use all the evidence
that you claim exists and the temporal data that Meyer uses to claim
that there isn't enough time.

The stupid thing is that you are the one that put up the evidence that
there was a lot of evolution that occurred before the Cambrian
explosion. The evolution of your two steroid receptors by gene
duplication had to occur in the common ancestor of all the multicellular
organisms that Meyer is talking about. What happened to those two types
of steroid receptors during the Cambrian explosion? How does Meyer fit
that into his model?

Since you know how badly that you have been had by the ID perps, what do
you think that you are doing? Did you ever get any ID science from
them? Put it forward if you think that you have.

Ron Okimoto

[Steady Eddie]

About the evidence of pre-Cambrian evolution and steroid receptors, I think you have the
wrong person. I didn't mention those things.

Re. your demand for the ID science:
The short answer is, read chapter 18 of the book: "Signs of Design in the Cambrian
Explosion". Then read the rest of the book.
Demonstrably, relying on reviews like the one under discussion will leave you ignorant
of the contents of the book.
The book is way too detailed and well-cited for me to spoon-feed you the whole case for
Intelligent Design in the Cambrian Explosion. You have to see it for yourself to believe it.

The temporal data is likewise woven into Chapter 12 and the related citations, which I tried to summarize here but cannot do justice due to the depth of the material. Rest assured, all the
values on which the calculations are based are widely known and accepted in the field of biology, and the calculations are exhaustively documented in the text and the cited literature.

But you have to do the reading yourself, directly from the book if you want
to give fair hearing to the scientific case for ID.
It's all in there.

[RonO]

I am pretty sure that you are the rube that put up that paper in support
of two rare mutations occurring in order to evolve the new steroid
receptor. Do you remember now? It was your thread.

As for reading Ch 18 my guess is that it has no such explanations worth
anything or the ID perps wouldn't be retreating from their claims on
their web page. Go for it. Demonstrate that any such explanations exist.

Have you gone to their web page lately? They are now claiming that
their bogus IDiocy is only good for home schools and private schools.
You already know that they removed the claim that they had a scientific
theory of intelligent design to teach in the public schools from their
current education policy. What do you think Ch 18 means in the face of
that reality? They have also started several religious web sites
claiming stupid things like theistic evolution is as bad as atheism.
Look up the religious web sites that the Discovery Institute is now
maintaining. These clowns not only have religious motives that they
have lied about for years, but they obviously have a narrow religious
view that excludes a major portion of the Christians in the Western world.

Go for it. Demonstrate that Meyer did what you claim. It should be
easy if Meyer did it for you already.

Ron Okimoto

[John Harshman]

Or perhaps you don't know what "prevalence" means here. The number of
Cambrian Lagerstätten is only a half dozen or so.

> Rosenhouse:
> "Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
> ...
> "I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
> And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
>
> What Chapter 12 says:
>
> Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
> "The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
> of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added

Unfortunately for you and Meyer, and perhaps even for Salisbury, if he
was quoted correctly, there's no need for any new genes in the Cambrian
explosion.

That's a combination of quote-mining and creationist "research".

> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>
> Rosenhouse writes:
> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."

> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm

Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.

[Steady Eddie]

By all means, define "prevalence", Professor.
(lol, the evolutionists' penchant for re-defining terms is never far below the surface!)

>
> > Rosenhouse:
> > "Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
> > ...
> > "I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
> > And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
> >
> > What Chapter 12 says:
> >
> > Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
> > "The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
> > of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
>
> Unfortunately for you and Meyer, and perhaps even for Salisbury, if he
> was quoted correctly, there's no need for any new genes in the Cambrian
> explosion.

Prove it.
(I'll bet it's just another one of your word-games. Evolutionists are renowned for their
"creative writing" skills.)

Prove it, smartass.
Try actually READING THE BOOK, or at least the CHAPTER, and follow its citations,
then get back to me about Meyer's research.

(When evolutionists whine "quote-mining!" I call "Bingo!". I've hit a sore spot;
I've pointed out some admissions made by evolution-defending biologists themselves that they don't want, shall we say, 'emphasized'.)

>
> > ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
> >
> > Rosenhouse writes:
> > "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
> > talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
> > talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
> > wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>
> > Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> > "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> > http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>
> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.

Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.

[Steady Eddie]

Go for it. Try reading a single word Meyer wrote FOR YOURSELF, rather than parroting
the party-line.
Anyone who does so will soon find out who are the victims (and perpetrators) of the "scams".

[jillery]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 10:20:52 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, 11 June 2015 11:42:30 UTC-6, jillery wrote:
>> Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
>> Meyer's book:
>>
>> <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
>>
>> <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
>>
>> Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
>> ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
>> incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
>> sleights-of-hand.
>>
>> One comment that's especially relevant to the gaggle of
>> self-proclaimed skeptics on T.O.:
>>
>> "The Cambrian explosion is a problem for scientists only in the sense
>> that there are many possible explanations for it, but too little data
>> for deciding among them."
>>
>> IOW don't base a conclusion on a known lack of data.
>

>Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is evidently unacquainted with the contents
>of both Darwin's Doubt, AND the Cambrian fossil record.
>
>..."Critters"? "Little wormy things"?
>-I think the guy should stick to brushing up on his math. He doesn't have a 'gift' for
>biology.

So you don't like his choice of words. Apparently you think that's a
meaningful objection. No suprise there.

[jillery]

Nice non sequitur. The two sentences you quoted are entirely
consistent with each other. Apparently you think they contradict each
other, but you don't say how. No surprise there.

Perhaps you're confused by the phrase "prevalence of lagerstätten",
which doesn't mean Cambrian fossils are prevalent, in comparison to
fossils from other eras, but that preservation of soft tissue parts is
a characteristic of many Cambrian fossils.

>Rosenhouse:
>"Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
>...
>"I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
>And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
>
>What Chapter 12 says:
>
>Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
>"The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
>of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added

Really? From 1969?? Really???

>John Maynard Smith (partly in response to Salisbury):
>"If evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a CONTINUOUS NETWORK which can be traversed by UNIT MUTATIONAL STEPS without
>passing through nonfunctional intermediates" (Nature, 1970) emphasis added

The emphasis is almost certainly misplaced. As your following
paragraph shows, Smith's concern is with nonfunctional intermediaries.

>Maynard Smith:
>"Suppose that a protein ABCD...exists, and a protein abCD... would be favored by selection
>if it arose. Suppose further that the intermediates aBCD... and AbCD... are non-functional.
>These forms would arise by mutation, but would usually be eliminated by selection before
>a second mutation could occur. The DOUBLE STEP from ABCD.. to abCD would thus be
>VERY UNLIKELY TO OCCUR."

Non-functional doesn't mean deleterious. Genes are often duplicated,
so one copy continues to function while the other copy mutates without
phenotypic effect.

>"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
> ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)

Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
important.

Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.

>-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.
>
>...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...

...if only you would...

>Rosenhouse writes:
>"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>
>Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm

Apparently you forgot to actually make a point. No surprise there.

[jillery]

Are you referring to:

<169d904a-8a51-4997...@googlegroups.com>

<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/1dUQUCClblo/NCiz3_9h4rkJ>

[RonO]

Unfortunately for everyone you are the one that has claimed to have read
it so you can summarize the high points for us. Go for it. Don't just
run, but actually support what you claim. Quotes would be nice.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Yes. This is a link to the thread:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/1dUQUCClblo/NCiz3_9h4rkJ

[Steady Eddie]

You're entitled to your opinion.

>
>
> >Rosenhouse:
> >"Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
> >...
> >"I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
> >And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
> >
> >What Chapter 12 says:
> >
> >Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
> >"The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
> >of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
>
>
> Really? From 1969?? Really???

Really. From 1969. Really.

>
>
> >John Maynard Smith (partly in response to Salisbury):
> >"If evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a CONTINUOUS NETWORK which can be traversed by UNIT MUTATIONAL STEPS without
> >passing through nonfunctional intermediates" (Nature, 1970) emphasis added
>
>
> The emphasis is almost certainly misplaced. As your following
> paragraph shows, Smith's concern is with nonfunctional intermediaries.
>
>
> >Maynard Smith:
> >"Suppose that a protein ABCD...exists, and a protein abCD... would be favored by selection
> >if it arose. Suppose further that the intermediates aBCD... and AbCD... are non-functional.
> >These forms would arise by mutation, but would usually be eliminated by selection before
> >a second mutation could occur. The DOUBLE STEP from ABCD.. to abCD would thus be
> >VERY UNLIKELY TO OCCUR."
>
>
> Non-functional doesn't mean deleterious. Genes are often duplicated,
> so one copy continues to function while the other copy mutates without
> phenotypic effect.

Ahh, about that...
did you read the book you posted a "review" on?
How about Chapter 11: "Assume a Gene"?

Then read the rest of the book.

Gene duplication, and all of the other 6 mechanisms referred to by Long in his famous
survey of the literature, are insufficient for the task of creating new proteins.

>
>
> >"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
> > ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
>
>
> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
> important.

In your humble opinion, that is.

There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
you and your gang are Evo apologists.

So what?

>
>
> >-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.
> >
> >...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>
>
> ...if only you would...
>
>
> >Rosenhouse writes:
> >"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
> >
> >Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> >"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> >http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>
>
> Apparently you forgot to actually make a point. No surprise there.

Obviously, you missed the point. No surprise there.

> --
> This space is intentionally not blank.

-But your mind is.

[Steady Eddie]

Hey, Slick, it's your gang that posted the topic "Darwin's Doubt Review".
Are you going to take that ignoramus's word for it, or are you going to find out for yourself
what Meyer wrote?
Willful ignorance is no excuse.

[RonO]

Run. It makes no difference IDiocy died over a decade ago and you just
didn't get the memo. Just put up a legislator or school board that ever
got the promised ID science. You obviously never got any.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:34:06 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie

Not an opinion. Fact.

>> >Rosenhouse:
>> >"Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
>> >...
>> >"I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
>> >And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
>> >
>> >What Chapter 12 says:
>> >
>> >Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
>> >"The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
>> >of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
>>
>>
>> Really? From 1969?? Really???
>
>Really. From 1969. Really.

Science has learned quite a bit about mutational mechanisms since
then. Just sayin'.

>> >John Maynard Smith (partly in response to Salisbury):
>> >"If evolution by natural selection is to occur, functional proteins must form a CONTINUOUS NETWORK which can be traversed by UNIT MUTATIONAL STEPS without
>> >passing through nonfunctional intermediates" (Nature, 1970) emphasis added
>>
>>
>> The emphasis is almost certainly misplaced. As your following
>> paragraph shows, Smith's concern is with nonfunctional intermediaries.
>>
>>
>> >Maynard Smith:
>> >"Suppose that a protein ABCD...exists, and a protein abCD... would be favored by selection
>> >if it arose. Suppose further that the intermediates aBCD... and AbCD... are non-functional.
>> >These forms would arise by mutation, but would usually be eliminated by selection before
>> >a second mutation could occur. The DOUBLE STEP from ABCD.. to abCD would thus be
>> >VERY UNLIKELY TO OCCUR."
>>
>>
>> Non-functional doesn't mean deleterious. Genes are often duplicated,
>> so one copy continues to function while the other copy mutates without
>> phenotypic effect.
>
>Ahh, about that...
>did you read the book you posted a "review" on?

Of course. Did you?

>How about Chapter 11: "Assume a Gene"?
>Then read the rest of the book.
>Gene duplication, and all of the other 6 mechanisms referred to by Long in his famous
>survey of the literature, are insufficient for the task of creating new proteins.

If his survey is limited to literature before 1969, I'm not surprised
that Long came to an incorrect conclusion.

>> >"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
>> > ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
>>
>>
>> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
>> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
>> important.
>
>In your humble opinion, that is.

Again, not opinion, but fact. Apparently you don't understand the
difference.

Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?

>So what?
>>
>>
>> >-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.
>> >
>> >...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>>
>>
>> ...if only you would...
>>
>>
>> >Rosenhouse writes:
>> >"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>> >
>> >Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>> >"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>> >http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>>
>>
>> Apparently you forgot to actually make a point. No surprise there.
>
>Obviously, you missed the point. No surprise there.
>> --
>> This space is intentionally not blank.
>-But your mind is.

Is that your point? If so, you didn't need to cut-and-paste from some
ID apologist... sorry, IDiot.... website.

[John Harshman]

Go ahead and show me wrong by mentioning the great many Cambrian
Lagerstätten you know of.

>>> Rosenhouse:
>>> "Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
>>> ...
>>> "I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
>>> And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
>>>
>>> What Chapter 12 says:
>>>
>>> Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
>>> "The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
>>> of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
>>
>> Unfortunately for you and Meyer, and perhaps even for Salisbury, if he
>> was quoted correctly, there's no need for any new genes in the Cambrian
>> explosion.
>
> Prove it.
> (I'll bet it's just another one of your word-games. Evolutionists are renowned for their
> "creative writing" skills.)

How could I prove it? You on the other hand could tell me what genes
were new in the Cambrian explosion, right?

I read the book. Unfortunately I don't have it handy at the moment. But
I've looked up the references in quite a few of the chapters, and Meyer
misuses a great many of them.

> (When evolutionists whine "quote-mining!" I call "Bingo!". I've hit a sore spot;
> I've pointed out some admissions made by evolution-defending
> biologists themselves that they don't want, shall we say,
> 'emphasized'.)

You can of course call whatever you want, and are free to imagine what
you like.

>>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>>>
>>> Rosenhouse writes:
>>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
>>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
>>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
>>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>>
>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>>
>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
>
> Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
> I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.

I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
anything else in biology?

[Mark Isaak]

Furthermore, the claim that all animal phyla go back to the Cambrian is
a tacit admission that plants evolved, because for sure not all plant
phyla go back that far, not even the dominant ones.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have
found it." - Vaclav Havel

[Steady Eddie]

The fact is, evolutionists still haven't let go of the argument from ignorance first proffered
by Darwin as an attempt to explain away inconvenient FACTS of the fossil record.
Even in Darwin's day, this ruse was exposed for what it is by the foremost paleontologist
of the time:

"...since the most exquisitely DELICATE STRUCTURES, as well as embryonic phases of growth of the most PERISHABLE nature, have been PRESERVED from VERY EARLY DEPOSITS [i.e. the Cambrian], we have NO RIGHT TO INFER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TYPES because their absence disproves some FAVORITE THEORY..."-Louis Agassiz, "Evolution and
Permanence of Type", Atlantic Monthly, 1874, pp. 92-101.

You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.

>
>
> >How about Chapter 11: "Assume a Gene"?
> >Then read the rest of the book.
> >Gene duplication, and all of the other 6 mechanisms referred to by Long in his famous
> >survey of the literature, are insufficient for the task of creating new proteins.
>
>
> If his survey is limited to literature before 1969, I'm not surprised
> that Long came to an incorrect conclusion.

Recall that Long's survey was a key exhibit for the anti-ID side in 2005.
Try to keep up.

>
>
> >> >"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
> >> > ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
> >>
> >>
> >> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
> >> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
> >> important.
> >
> >In your humble opinion, that is.
>
>
> Again, not opinion, but fact. Apparently you don't understand the
> difference.

Maynard-Smith didn't say multi-step mutations were unidentifiable.
Thanks, but I think I'll take Maynard-Smith's word over yours.
Besides, as CHAPTER 12 makes clear, MANY MORE THAN 2 coordinated mutations
are required to transform one protein into the closest analogous protein we know of,
putting even the simplest known protein-protein transformations well beyond the ability of evolutionary mechanisms.

I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.

>
>
> >So what?
> >>
> >>
> >> >-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.
> >> >
> >> >...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
> >>
> >>
> >> ...if only you would...
> >>
> >>
> >> >Rosenhouse writes:
> >> >"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
> >> >
> >> >Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> >> >"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> >> >http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
> >>
> >>
> >> Apparently you forgot to actually make a point. No surprise there.
> >
> >Obviously, you missed the point. No surprise there.
> >> --
> >> This space is intentionally not blank.
> >-But your mind is.
>
>
> Is that your point? If so, you didn't need to cut-and-paste from some
> ID apologist... sorry, IDiot.... website.

What "ID apologist" website are you saying I quoted from?
Do you think that fossilmuseum.net is a pro-ID website?
Try to keep up.

[John Harshman]

On 7/12/15, 9:48 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/12/15 2:14 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 7/12/15, 10:13 AM, Steady Eddie wrote:
>>
>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil
>>> record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>>
>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
>
> Furthermore, the claim that all animal phyla go back to the Cambrian is
> a tacit admission that plants evolved, because for sure not all plant
> phyla go back that far, not even the dominant ones.
>

Not even any of them, in fact.

[Ernest Major]

IIRC, there was a recent proposal to reduce all land plants to a single
phylum/division, but as you say that it is still younger than the Cambrian.

On the other hand multicellular algal and fungal phyla are likely older
than the Cambrian. (Rhodophyta is believed to be twice as old as the
Cambrian.)

--
alias Ernest Major

[John Harshman]

On 7/13/15, 6:59 AM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> On Sunday, 12 July 2015 21:45:51 UTC-6, jillery wrote:
>> On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:34:06 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
>> <1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The fact is, evolutionists still haven't let go of the argument from ignorance first proffered
> by Darwin as an attempt to explain away inconvenient FACTS of the fossil record.
> Even in Darwin's day, this ruse was exposed for what it is by the foremost paleontologist
> of the time:
>
> "...since the most exquisitely DELICATE STRUCTURES, as well as embryonic phases of growth of the most PERISHABLE nature, have been PRESERVED from VERY EARLY DEPOSITS [i.e. the Cambrian], we have NO RIGHT TO INFER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TYPES because their absence disproves some FAVORITE THEORY..."-Louis Agassiz, "Evolution and
> Permanence of Type", Atlantic Monthly, 1874, pp. 92-101.

So your whole argument is a brief, unsupported quote from 140 years ago?
Agassiz knew as little of taphonomy as you and Meyer, perhaps even less.
If you're trying to claim that there could have been no complex animal
life before the various Cambrian Lagerstätten, you must explain why the
earliest Cambrian is full of the tracks, burrows, and occasional
sclerites of otherwise unpreserved animals.

An excellent corrective to Meyer's book, if you care at all about the
science, which I doubt, would be Erwin & Valentine's book The Cambrian
Explosion. Here's a review:

http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/6/915.extract

> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.

It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
dispense with unwanted information.

>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
>>>
>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
>>
>>
>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
>
> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.

What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?

[Steady Eddie]

Don't change the subject. Go ahead and show me that you know what "prevalence" means, Professor.

>
> >>> Rosenhouse:
> >>> "Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
> >>> ...
> >>> "I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
> >>> And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
> >>>
> >>> What Chapter 12 says:
> >>>
> >>> Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
> >>> "The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
> >>> of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
> >>
> >> Unfortunately for you and Meyer, and perhaps even for Salisbury, if he
> >> was quoted correctly, there's no need for any new genes in the Cambrian
> >> explosion.
> >
> > Prove it.
> > (I'll bet it's just another one of your word-games. Evolutionists are renowned for their
> > "creative writing" skills.)
>
> How could I prove it? You on the other hand could tell me what genes
> were new in the Cambrian explosion, right?

If you can't prove it, then please try to SUBSTANTIATE your claim that "there's no need

for any new genes in the Cambrian explosion."
>

You've accused me (or Meyer) of quote-mining.
I'm sure you know what that term means. It's a very serious accusation - equivalent to lying.
Please provide your evidence that any quote used here by myself or Meyer was intentionally
twisting the meaning of the subject's words.

Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".

>
> >>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
> >>>
> >>> Rosenhouse writes:
> >>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
> >>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
> >>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
> >>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
> >>
> >>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> >>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> >>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
> >>
> >> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
> >> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
> >> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
> >
> > Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
> > I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.
>
> I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
> than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
> phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
> the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
> anything else in biology?

Calling the entire Cambrian biota "little wormy things" does nothing to demonstrate
Rosenhouse's knowledge of biology.
What's his point in doing so?
The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
I'm embarassed for you guys.

[Steady Eddie]

On Monday, 13 July 2015 08:45:49 UTC-6, John Harshman wrote:
> On 7/13/15, 6:59 AM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> > On Sunday, 12 July 2015 21:45:51 UTC-6, jillery wrote:
> >> On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:34:06 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
> >> <1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The fact is, evolutionists still haven't let go of the argument from ignorance first proffered
> > by Darwin as an attempt to explain away inconvenient FACTS of the fossil record.
> > Even in Darwin's day, this ruse was exposed for what it is by the foremost paleontologist
> > of the time:
> >
> > "...since the most exquisitely DELICATE STRUCTURES, as well as embryonic phases of growth of the most PERISHABLE nature, have been PRESERVED from VERY EARLY DEPOSITS [i.e. the Cambrian], we have NO RIGHT TO INFER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TYPES because their absence disproves some FAVORITE THEORY..."-Louis Agassiz, "Evolution and
> > Permanence of Type", Atlantic Monthly, 1874, pp. 92-101.
>
> So your whole argument is a brief, unsupported quote from 140 years ago?
> Agassiz knew as little of taphonomy as you and Meyer, perhaps even less.
> If you're trying to claim that there could have been no complex animal
> life before the various Cambrian Lagerstätten, you must explain why the
> earliest Cambrian is full of the tracks, burrows, and occasional
> sclerites of otherwise unpreserved animals.
>
> An excellent corrective to Meyer's book, if you care at all about the
> science, which I doubt, would be Erwin & Valentine's book The Cambrian
> Explosion. Here's a review:
>
> http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/6/915.extract

It's entertaining to see that now you evolutionists have resorted to 'believing in ghosts' in order
to prop up your defunct theory.

You can believe in all the speculative ghosts you want; I prefer explanations more in line
with the OBSERVABLE facts.

>
> > You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
> > dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
>
> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
> dispense with unwanted information.
>
> >>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
> >>>
> >>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
> >>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
> >>
> >>
> >> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
> >
> > I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
>
> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?

The same way you earned your PhD.
I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.

[John Harshman]

Hint: it doesn't mean anything that contradicts what Jason Rosenhouse said.

>>>>> Rosenhouse:
>>>>> "Next, we are speaking of an "explosion" only in the geological sense. ... Ten million years is an awful lot of time for natural selection to do its thing. Evolution is a slow process, but not that slow."
>>>>> ...
>>>>> "I think you can include Meyer among the people unfamiliar with the equations of population genetics. Those equations typically have to do with modelling short-term gene flow, and not with drawing grand conclusions about the magnitude of morphological change that can occur in forty to fifty million years. I can't imagine how Meyer intends to quantify the amount of morphological change that occurred during those fateful millions of years. Nor can I imagine how he is going to work out the values of the Cambrian allele frequencies, selection coefficients, mutation rates, or any of the other variables that tend to show up in the equations of population genetics.
>>>>> And no, NOTHING IN CHAPTER 12 DOES ANYTHING TO SUGGEST that Meyer knows what he's talking about."
>>>>>
>>>>> What Chapter 12 says:
>>>>>
>>>>> Frank Salisbury, biologist, Utah State University:
>>>>> "The mutational mechanism as presently imagined could fall short by hundreds of orders
>>>>> of magnitude of producing, in a mere FOUR BILLION YEARS, even a SINGLE REQUIRED GENE" - "Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene", p. 342-43, emphasis added
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately for you and Meyer, and perhaps even for Salisbury, if he
>>>> was quoted correctly, there's no need for any new genes in the Cambrian
>>>> explosion.
>>>
>>> Prove it.
>>> (I'll bet it's just another one of your word-games. Evolutionists are renowned for their
>>> "creative writing" skills.)
>>
>> How could I prove it? You on the other hand could tell me what genes
>> were new in the Cambrian explosion, right?
>
> If you can't prove it, then please try to SUBSTANTIATE your claim that "there's no need
> for any new genes in the Cambrian explosion."

Prove a negative? More difficult than your task, assuming yours can be
done at all. Before I can present any evidence for my claim, you're
going to have to accept common descent. Do you?

I like the weasel word "intentionally" there. I can't in fact show that
any of the twisting was intentional.

> Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
> theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".

It is if, as is usually the case, you ignore the following paragraph in
which the author shows how to resolve the problem. It would help if you
provided actual citations to the literature. You should include author,
year, title, journal (or book), volume, pages. It would also help if you
had actually seen any of your references rather than just copying them
from Meyer. But put some out and I will try to track them down.

>>>>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>>>>>
>>>>> Rosenhouse writes:
>>>>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
>>>>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
>>>>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
>>>>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>>>>
>>>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>>>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>>>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>>>>
>>>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
>>>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
>>>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
>>>
>>> Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
>>> I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.
>>
>> I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
>> than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
>> phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
>> the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
>> anything else in biology?
>
> Calling the entire Cambrian biota "little wormy things" does nothing to demonstrate
> Rosenhouse's knowledge of biology.

He did no such thing. By the way, do you agree that your source is wrong
when it says "all modern animal phyla with a fossil record, except
bryozoans, are represented in the Cambrian"?

> What's his point in doing so?

I believe his point was that Cambrian animals are for the most part more
primitive than extant members of their phyla, which is true. See, for
example, Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil
record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.

That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.

> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
> I'm embarassed for you guys.

Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
that vicarious embarrassment.

[John Harshman]

Certainly. But they aren't plants.

[John Harshman]

So you think that coelacanths became extinct in the Cretaceous and were
re-created quite recently?

>>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
>>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
>>
>> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
>> dispense with unwanted information.
>>
>>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
>>>>>
>>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
>>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
>>>
>>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
>>
>> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
>
> The same way you earned your PhD.
> I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
> of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.

Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.

[Steady Eddie]

Then you can't present any evidence for your claim.

You can't show that any of Meyer's references were "twisting" the facts at all.

>
> > Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
> > theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".
>
> It is if, as is usually the case, you ignore the following paragraph in
> which the author shows how to resolve the problem. It would help if you
> provided actual citations to the literature. You should include author,
> year, title, journal (or book), volume, pages. It would also help if you
> had actually seen any of your references rather than just copying them
> from Meyer. But put some out and I will try to track them down.

You mean you haven't even looked up the references before you accuse Meyer of "quote-mining"?

I knew you were a lying snake, but I didn't think you'd be so STUPID about it.

Go ahead, prove your accusation, Slick. There's plenty of reference provided for you to find the
quotes by Sasisbury, Maynard-Smith, Orr, and Durrett/Schmidt.
As for Axe and Gauger, you know where you can find their work.

You're up, big shot. Prove your allegation of QUOTE-MINING or be exposed as a
slanderer.

>
> >>>>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Rosenhouse writes:
> >>>>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
> >>>>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
> >>>>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
> >>>>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
> >>>>
> >>>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> >>>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> >>>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
> >>>>
> >>>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
> >>>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
> >>>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
> >>>
> >>> Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
> >>> I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.
> >>
> >> I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
> >> than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
> >> phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
> >> the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
> >> anything else in biology?
> >
> > Calling the entire Cambrian biota "little wormy things" does nothing to demonstrate
> > Rosenhouse's knowledge of biology.
>
> He did no such thing.

Liar.

By the way, do you agree that your source is wrong
> when it says "all modern animal phyla with a fossil record, except
> bryozoans, are represented in the Cambrian"?

I'm assuming you now of an exception?

>
> > What's his point in doing so?
>
> I believe his point was that Cambrian animals are for the most part more
> primitive than extant members of their phyla, which is true. See, for
> example, Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil
> record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.

If that's his point, So what? That's not contested by anyone.
Nope, I think my idea is more likely correct; he's trying to gloss over the incredible
diversity of body plans that have no apparent evolutionary precursors.

>
> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
>
> > The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
> > many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
> > I'm embarassed for you guys.
>
> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
> that vicarious embarrassment.

No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
Which is more than you seem capable of.

[Steady Eddie]

I don't care to speculate.

>
> >>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
> >>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
> >>
> >> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
> >> dispense with unwanted information.
> >>
> >>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
> >>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
> >>>
> >>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
> >>
> >> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
> >
> > The same way you earned your PhD.
> > I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
> > of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.
>
> Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
> has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
> biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
> Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.

Neither is posting to newsgroups and blogs, something you like to do.
I guess you're not a biologist either, and neither is Larry Moran.

[John Harshman]

Apparently I would first have to present evidence for common descent. I
could do that, but it would be a new subject and I'm sure you would
reject all my evidence out of hand anyway. So I won't.

Can you present any evidence for your claim that new genes were needed?
Meyer even quotes a paper to the effect that no new genes would be
needed; from Ohno, if I recall.

The first step would be for you to give me at least one complete
reference. Are you able to do that? I do believe Meyer does give them in
the back of the book.

>>> Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
>>> theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".
>>
>> It is if, as is usually the case, you ignore the following paragraph in
>> which the author shows how to resolve the problem. It would help if you
>> provided actual citations to the literature. You should include author,
>> year, title, journal (or book), volume, pages. It would also help if you
>> had actually seen any of your references rather than just copying them
>> from Meyer. But put some out and I will try to track them down.
>
> You mean you haven't even looked up the references before you accuse Meyer of "quote-mining"?

I can't look them up, as you haven't given any.

> I knew you were a lying snake, but I didn't think you'd be so STUPID about it.
>
> Go ahead, prove your accusation, Slick. There's plenty of reference provided for you to find the
> quotes by Sasisbury, Maynard-Smith, Orr, and Durrett/Schmidt.
> As for Axe and Gauger, you know where you can find their work.

I don't want to go through the work of finding what the incomplete
citations actually refer to. You have the book, so perhaps you could
find the complete citations for me?

> You're up, big shot. Prove your allegation of QUOTE-MINING or be exposed as a
> slanderer.

I don't think it works that way. Don't you have to prove the slander?

>>>>>>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Rosenhouse writes:
>>>>>>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
>>>>>>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
>>>>>>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
>>>>>>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>>>>>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>>>>>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
>>>>>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
>>>>>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
>>>>> I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.
>>>>
>>>> I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
>>>> than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
>>>> phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
>>>> the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
>>>> anything else in biology?
>>>
>>> Calling the entire Cambrian biota "little wormy things" does nothing to demonstrate
>>> Rosenhouse's knowledge of biology.
>>
>> He did no such thing.
>
> Liar.

Let's face it; you aren't equipped to tell.

>> By the way, do you agree that your source is wrong
>> when it says "all modern animal phyla with a fossil record, except
>> bryozoans, are represented in the Cambrian"?
>
> I'm assuming you now of an exception?

Several, actually. In fact the very site you quoted records several
exceptions on a page one page away, though they missed others.

>>> What's his point in doing so?
>>
>> I believe his point was that Cambrian animals are for the most part more
>> primitive than extant members of their phyla, which is true. See, for
>> example, Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil
>> record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
>
> If that's his point, So what? That's not contested by anyone.
> Nope, I think my idea is more likely correct; he's trying to gloss over the incredible
> diversity of body plans that have no apparent evolutionary precursors.

Ah, but if those body plans are more primitive than those of the living
taxa, they're evolutionary precursors themselves. All you're doing here
is the standard creationist response to transitional fossils: demand
transitions between the transitions.

Some of them, in fact, seem to bridge multiple modern phyla, as for
example Arthropoda and Onychophora. I know, where are the transitions
between the transitions?

>> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
>>
>>> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
>>> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
>>> I'm embarassed for you guys.
>>
>> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
>> that vicarious embarrassment.
>
> No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
> Which is more than you seem capable of.

Would you care to discuss it?

[John Harshman]

Yet another example of a creationist unwilling to consider the
implications of his claim.

Here's another question: if there were no precursors to the Cambrian
explosion, what's responsible for the tracks, burrows, and sclerites
found before it? Were they perhaps made by nonexistent animals, or do
you not care to speculate?

>>>>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
>>>>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
>>>>
>>>> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
>>>> dispense with unwanted information.
>>>>
>>>>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
>>>>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
>>>>>
>>>>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
>>>>
>>>> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
>>>
>>> The same way you earned your PhD.
>>> I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
>>> of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.
>>
>> Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
>> has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
>> biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
>> Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.
>
> Neither is posting to newsgroups and blogs, something you like to do.
> I guess you're not a biologist either, and neither is Larry Moran.

Actually, they both post to blogs, as I understand it. But I didn't say
you had to do nothing other than biology. I just said you had to do biology.

[jillery]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 06:59:15 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie

Apparently you think that's a relevant point. So please explain how
Long showed that the mechanisms he identified are insufficient for the
task of creating new proteins. And since Long's survey was a key
exhibit for the anti-ID side, then please explain why you think citing
it supports your expressed POV. It's more likely that you and/or
Meyer quote-mined Long.

>> >> >"Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
>> >> > ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
>> >> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
>> >> important.
>> >
>> >In your humble opinion, that is.
>>
>>
>> Again, not opinion, but fact. Apparently you don't understand the
>> difference.
>>
>Maynard-Smith didn't say multi-step mutations were unidentifiable.

...and I didn't say he said... Rather, I said Smith had no basis for
making that assertion. It's still right up there, just a few
paragraphs up. This is just more evidence of your lack of reading
comprehension.

>Thanks, but I think I'll take Maynard-Smith's word over yours.

You don't have to take my word for it. I neither claim nor imply any
particular expertise, nor do my points rely on an expertise. But
since you invoke an argument from authority, you might want to accept
the words of the greater number of authorities who disagree with
Maynard-Smith and whose works are of more recent vintage.

Behe earned a B.S. in chemistry and a PhD in biochemistry. Not
biology.

Stephen Meyer earned a B.S. in geophysics and a PhD in philosophy. Not
biology.

Of the three, only Ann Gauger is a trained biologist.

If you're standard for "earned" is based on what they have done, then
given their work on behalf of the Discovery Institute and its
affiliates, either phrase I mentioned applies to all of them.

>> >So what?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >-And that INCLUDES the Cambrian period.
>> >> >
>> >> >...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ...if only you would...
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >Rosenhouse writes:
>> >> >"Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
>> >> >
>> >> >Fossilmuseum.net writes:
>> >> >"Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
>> >> >http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Apparently you forgot to actually make a point. No surprise there.
>> >
>> >Obviously, you missed the point. No surprise there.
>> >> --
>> >> This space is intentionally not blank.
>> >-But your mind is.
>>
>>
>> Is that your point? If so, you didn't need to cut-and-paste from some
>> ID apologist... sorry, IDiot.... website.
>
>What "ID apologist" website are you saying I quoted from?
>Do you think that fossilmuseum.net is a pro-ID website?
>Try to keep up.

You're right, I should have said IDiot book. I suppose you think that
makes a difference to any actual point you thought you made.

[John Harshman]

I could be wrong, but I don't think Meyer claimed that Long rejected the
sufficiency of those 6 mechanisms. It may not even be that Eddie thinks
Long did. The rejection is all Meyer, and if you read Eddie's original
mention carefully, that's what he seems to be saying.

>>>>>> "Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
>>>>>> ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
>>>>> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
>>>>> important.
>>>>
>>>> In your humble opinion, that is.
>>>
>>>
>>> Again, not opinion, but fact. Apparently you don't understand the
>>> difference.
>>>
>> Maynard-Smith didn't say multi-step mutations were unidentifiable.
>
> ...and I didn't say he said... Rather, I said Smith had no basis for
> making that assertion. It's still right up there, just a few
> paragraphs up. This is just more evidence of your lack of reading
> comprehension.

Quibble: Maynard Smith is one of those British non-hyphenated but
compound last names. His first name was John, last name Maynard Smith.
You should also be cautious in believing that Eddie knows what Meyer
meant when he quoted Maynard Smith or that Meyer meant what Maynard
Smith meant.

[Steady Eddie]

I never claimed that new genes were needed. Salisbury mentioned genes, and you jumped
on the word, evidently to play one of your word games.
What I would claim is that the Cambrian Explosion required huge amounts of new
functional genetic information in order to build and maintain all the different body plans.
This information makes up genes.

If you have some "zinger" for me about your 'special' definition of a gene, I'm not interested.

Don't be daft. Just copy words from the title into Google and the sources pop up like
magic.

Here's the search result for the Durrett and Schmidt paper:
http://www.genetics.org/content/180/3/1501.abstract

And Orr:
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n2/full/nrg1523.html

Maynard Smith:
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n2/full/nrg1523.html

Salisbury:
Salisbury, F. B., Nature, 224, 342 (1969)

Have at it, Slick.
The journal articles are behind a paywall, but i'm sure you can get access to them.

Now, please substantiate your accusation that Meyer (and, by extension, I) twisted
the meaning of any of the above quotes.

>
> >>> Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
> >>> theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".
> >>
> >> It is if, as is usually the case, you ignore the following paragraph in
> >> which the author shows how to resolve the problem. It would help if you
> >> provided actual citations to the literature. You should include author,
> >> year, title, journal (or book), volume, pages. It would also help if you
> >> had actually seen any of your references rather than just copying them
> >> from Meyer. But put some out and I will try to track them down.
> >
> > You mean you haven't even looked up the references before you accuse Meyer of "quote-mining"?
>
> I can't look them up, as you haven't given any.
>
> > I knew you were a lying snake, but I didn't think you'd be so STUPID about it.
> >
> > Go ahead, prove your accusation, Slick. There's plenty of reference provided for you to find the
> > quotes by Sasisbury, Maynard-Smith, Orr, and Durrett/Schmidt.
> > As for Axe and Gauger, you know where you can find their work.
>
> I don't want to go through the work of finding what the incomplete
> citations actually refer to. You have the book, so perhaps you could
> find the complete citations for me?
>
> > You're up, big shot. Prove your allegation of QUOTE-MINING or be exposed as a
> > slanderer.
>
> I don't think it works that way. Don't you have to prove the slander?

No, you have to prove the quote mining. If you can't, then I can accuse you of slander.
(My legal education is from Judge Judy)

>
> >>>>>>> ...MOVING RIGHT ALONG...
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Rosenhouse writes:
> >>>>>>> "Then there's the character of the critters themselves. We're not
> >>>>>>> talking about Cambrian rabbits, to use a famous example. We're
> >>>>>>> talking about little wormy things. Lot's of variations on the "little
> >>>>>>> wormy thing" body plan, but little wormy things nonetheless."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Fossilmuseum.net writes:
> >>>>>>> "Except for enigmatic forms, ALL MODERN ANIMAL PHYLA with a fossil record, except bryozoa, are REPRESENTED IN THE CAMBRIAN."
> >>>>>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianFossils.htm
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Not actually true. All modern animal phyla with a decent fossil record,
> >>>>>> perhaps. Now, one of those phyla is Chordata, but the Cambrian chordates
> >>>>>> are, as Rosenhouse says, little wormy things. Not rabbits.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thank you. You admit that Rosenhouse was only acquainted with "ONE of those phyla".
> >>>>> I rest my case, Professor. The guy's an ignorant quack when it comes to biology.
> >>>>
> >>>> I admit that you can't read. Rosenhouse clearly knows much more biology
> >>>> than you do and more than Meyer. It happens to be true that most modern
> >>>> phyla are little wormy things, and several of them were even wormier in
> >>>> the Cambrian. Do you know anything at all about the Cambrian, phyla, and
> >>>> anything else in biology?
> >>>
> >>> Calling the entire Cambrian biota "little wormy things" does nothing to demonstrate
> >>> Rosenhouse's knowledge of biology.
> >>
> >> He did no such thing.
> >
> > Liar.
>
> Let's face it; you aren't equipped to tell.

I'm equipped to read.

>
> >> By the way, do you agree that your source is wrong
> >> when it says "all modern animal phyla with a fossil record, except
> >> bryozoans, are represented in the Cambrian"?
> >
> > I'm assuming you now of an exception?
>
> Several, actually. In fact the very site you quoted records several
> exceptions on a page one page away, though they missed others.
>
> >>> What's his point in doing so?
> >>
> >> I believe his point was that Cambrian animals are for the most part more
> >> primitive than extant members of their phyla, which is true. See, for
> >> example, Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil
> >> record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
> >
> > If that's his point, So what? That's not contested by anyone.
> > Nope, I think my idea is more likely correct; he's trying to gloss over the incredible
> > diversity of body plans that have no apparent evolutionary precursors.
>
> Ah, but if those body plans are more primitive than those of the living
> taxa, they're evolutionary precursors themselves. All you're doing here
> is the standard creationist response to transitional fossils: demand
> transitions between the transitions.

Of course, 'transitions between the transitions' are demanded, because that is what is
assumed by Darwinism. If Darwin were correct, the fossil record would be FULL of
transitional life forms representing the constant, incremental changes required by
evolution.

>
> Some of them, in fact, seem to bridge multiple modern phyla, as for
> example Arthropoda and Onychophora.

That sounds fascinating, but is not evidence for evolution.

I know, where are the transitions
> between the transitions?
>
> >> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
> >>
> >>> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
> >>> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
> >>> I'm embarassed for you guys.
> >>
> >> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
> >> that vicarious embarrassment.
> >
> > No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
> > Which is more than you seem capable of.
>
> Would you care to discuss it?

If you think you can defend Rosenhouse from my accusation, I would read what you have
to say in the spirit of fairness.

[Steady Eddie]

You would have to cite your published source for me to consider your claim.

>
> >>>>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
> >>>>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
> >>>>
> >>>> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
> >>>> dispense with unwanted information.
> >>>>
> >>>>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
> >>>>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
> >>>>
> >>>> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
> >>>
> >>> The same way you earned your PhD.
> >>> I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
> >>> of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.
> >>
> >> Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
> >> has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
> >> biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
> >> Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.
> >
> > Neither is posting to newsgroups and blogs, something you like to do.
> > I guess you're not a biologist either, and neither is Larry Moran.
>
> Actually, they both post to blogs, as I understand it. But I didn't say
> you had to do nothing other than biology. I just said you had to do biology.

Again, a biologist's work needn't promote the consensus theory to be called biology.
Here's the paper published by Gauger and Axe that Meyer was referring to in CH. 12
of DARWIN'S DOUBT:
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1

And here's a follow-up study to that:
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2014.4

It's called doing biology.

[Steady Eddie]

That's correct. Meyer criticizes Long's survey in his book.

[John Harshman]

Well, Erwin & Valentine 2013 is a useful published source. Perhaps your
local library has a copy. That's Erwin DH, Valentine JW. The Cambrian
Explosion: The Reconstruction of Animal Biodiversity. 2013, Roberts &
Co., Greenwood Village, CO.

>>>>>>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
>>>>>>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
>>>>>> dispense with unwanted information.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
>>>>>>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
>>>>>
>>>>> The same way you earned your PhD.
>>>>> I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
>>>>> of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.
>>>>
>>>> Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
>>>> has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
>>>> biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
>>>> Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.
>>>
>>> Neither is posting to newsgroups and blogs, something you like to do.
>>> I guess you're not a biologist either, and neither is Larry Moran.
>>
>> Actually, they both post to blogs, as I understand it. But I didn't say
>> you had to do nothing other than biology. I just said you had to do biology.
>
> Again, a biologist's work needn't promote the consensus theory to be called biology.

Agreed. Though it ought to be published in a real journal, rather than
in a self-edited vanity web site.

> Here's the paper published by Gauger and Axe that Meyer was referring to in CH. 12
> of DARWIN'S DOUBT:
> http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1
>
> And here's a follow-up study to that:
> http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2014.4
>
> It's called doing biology.

That's cargo cult biology.

[Steady Eddie]

Please provide the quote from the book, and the book's citations to the original research.
Like a REAL citation to demonstrate a REAL scientific claim.

>
> >>>>>>> You must have forgotten that much of the book, including the cited CHAPTER 12, handily
> >>>>>>> dispenses with the illusion that gene duplication somehow explains gene origination.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It handily dispenses with it in the same way an ostrich is rumored to
> >>>>>> dispense with unwanted information.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Both Gauger and Behe are known ID apologists.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> There is no such thing a an "ID apologist". And if there were, then by the same token
> >>>>>>>>> you and your gang are Evo apologists.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Whatever you want to call them suits me. Do you prefer "IDiot"?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I call them biologists, the designation that they earned.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> What, by standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The same way you earned your PhD.
> >>>>> I knew you were bigoted, but I didn't think you would stoop to ridiculing the credentials
> >>>>> of fellow biologists just because their conclusions differ from yours.
> >>>>
> >>>> Having a Ph.D. doesn't make you a biologist, nor is one necessary. This
> >>>> has nothing to do with credentials. A biologist is a person who does
> >>>> biology. Standing in front of a green screen wearing a lab coat, which
> >>>> Ann Gauger likes to do, is not doing biology.
> >>>
> >>> Neither is posting to newsgroups and blogs, something you like to do.
> >>> I guess you're not a biologist either, and neither is Larry Moran.
> >>
> >> Actually, they both post to blogs, as I understand it. But I didn't say
> >> you had to do nothing other than biology. I just said you had to do biology.
> >
> > Again, a biologist's work needn't promote the consensus theory to be called biology.
>
> Agreed. Though it ought to be published in a real journal, rather than
> in a self-edited vanity web site.

They would gladly publish in a mainstream journal, but guess what - the guardians of the
consensus won't let them.
So does that mean their research is not doing biology?

>
> > Here's the paper published by Gauger and Axe that Meyer was referring to in CH. 12
> > of DARWIN'S DOUBT:
> > http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1
> >
> > And here's a follow-up study to that:
> > http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2014.4
> >
> > It's called doing biology.
>
> That's cargo cult biology.

That's your bigoted blanket accusation, not backed up by any examples of their research
being in any way sub-par.
You need to back up your claims, John. The world isn't here to take your word for it.

[John Harshman]

You asked for a citation, not a quote. Nor did I make a claim; I asked a
question. What question would you like answered with this quote/citation?

Do you have any evidence for this claim? Have any of them submitted to
mainstream journals and been unfairly rejected?

>>> Here's the paper published by Gauger and Axe that Meyer was referring to in CH. 12
>>> of DARWIN'S DOUBT:
>>> http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1
>>>
>>> And here's a follow-up study to that:
>>> http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2014.4
>>>
>>> It's called doing biology.
>>
>> That's cargo cult biology.
>
> That's your bigoted blanket accusation, not backed up by any examples of their research
> being in any way sub-par.
> You need to back up your claims, John. The world isn't here to take your word for it.

It's generally agreed that vanity press publishing isn't real
publishing, and that publishing your own stuff doesn't fit the peer
review model very well. WOuld you agree?

[jillery]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 17:19:29 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:


[snip to point]

Then there's no sense to you mentioning Long's survey alone. Instead
it would have made sense for you to cite Meyer's criticism of it.

[...]

[jillery]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:03:54 -0700, John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

[mercy snip]

>I could be wrong, but I don't think Meyer claimed that Long rejected the
>sufficiency of those 6 mechanisms. It may not even be that Eddie thinks
>Long did. The rejection is all Meyer, and if you read Eddie's original
>mention carefully, that's what he seems to be saying.

No, you're almost certainly correct. Mr. Eddie's posting style makes
it difficult to identify who and what he's quoting, and to separate
his quotes from his own comments.

>>>>>>> "Such double steps...may OCCASIONALLY occur, but are TOO RARE to be important in evolution."
>>>>>>> ("Natural Selection and the Concept of a Protein Space, 564, emphasis added)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lenski identified multi-step mutations in his E.coli populations.
>>>>>> Smith had no basis for asserting that double steps are too rare to be
>>>>>> important.
>>>>>
>>>>> In your humble opinion, that is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, not opinion, but fact. Apparently you don't understand the
>>>> difference.
>>>>
>>> Maynard-Smith didn't say multi-step mutations were unidentifiable.
>>
>> ...and I didn't say he said... Rather, I said Smith had no basis for
>> making that assertion. It's still right up there, just a few
>> paragraphs up. This is just more evidence of your lack of reading
>> comprehension.
>
>Quibble: Maynard Smith is one of those British non-hyphenated but
>compound last names. His first name was John, last name Maynard Smith.
>You should also be cautious in believing that Eddie knows what Meyer
>meant when he quoted Maynard Smith or that Meyer meant what Maynard
>Smith meant.

To the contrary, based on Mr. Eddie's posts, I'm skeptical about
everything he says.

[John Harshman]

If you read carefully, that's what he did. You should read the book. You
might find it amusing.

[jillery]

I have read very carefully, and nowhere do I see where Mr. Eddie cites
Meyer's criticism of Long's survey. I do see where he mentions
Chapter 12 and Chapter 11, and claims they dispense with Long's
mechanisms, but he does not cite how Meyer dispenses, or identifies
what Long's mechanisms are.

In your replies to Mr. Eddie, you take him to task for improper cites.
Why don't you quote Mr. Eddie where he follows your standards from
your own posts to cite Meyer's criticism of Long?

>You should read the book. You
>might find it amusing.

I have read the book. I don't have a copy handy to refute Mr. Eddie's
vague references and pedantic allusions. I regret that I don't have
the photographic memory sufficient to satisfy you. Rather than ape
Mr. Eddie's game, you should do what he does not, and actually quote
where Meyer refutes Long's mechanisms.

[John Harshman]

Sure. But a citation is a substitute for an explanation. It's supposed
to support a claim by having you look up the reference and read it. At
least that's how it works in scientific papers. You don't want Eddie to
cite anything; you want him to quote or explain.

> In your replies to Mr. Eddie, you take him to task for improper cites.
> Why don't you quote Mr. Eddie where he follows your standards from
> your own posts to cite Meyer's criticism of Long?

Actually, I think Meyer, chapter 12 (and so forth) is sufficient, since
we all know what the reference is. Of course you should realize without
reading it that Meyer doesn't actually dispose of anything; he waves it
away.

>> You should read the book. You
>> might find it amusing.
>
> I have read the book. I don't have a copy handy to refute Mr. Eddie's
> vague references and pedantic allusions. I regret that I don't have
> the photographic memory sufficient to satisfy you. Rather than ape
> Mr. Eddie's game, you should do what he does not, and actually quote
> where Meyer refutes Long's mechanisms.

Sadly, I don't have a copy handy either. It's up to Eddie. But of course
he won't.

[jillery]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 09:04:20 -0700, John Harshman

With scientific papers, it's reasonable to assume cites say what the
citer says they say, and are actually relevant to the citer's points.
With Usenet generally, and with Mr. Eddies's posts specifically, both
assumptions are at best uncertain. So your analogy might be
technically correct, but it isn't relevant to this situation.

>You don't want Eddie to
>cite anything; you want him to quote or explain.

What I want isn't relevant here, but it would help move the discussion
along if Eddie actually cited anything, as part of a larger effort to
make a coherent and comprehensive argument for his claims.

>> In your replies to Mr. Eddie, you take him to task for improper cites.
>> Why don't you quote Mr. Eddie where he follows your standards from
>> your own posts to cite Meyer's criticism of Long?
>
>Actually, I think Meyer, chapter 12 (and so forth) is sufficient, since
>we all know what the reference is. Of course you should realize without
>reading it that Meyer doesn't actually dispose of anything; he waves it
>away.

You would have a valid point if there was a way to look up the cite
online. To require one to have a ready copy of the book is a great
way to obfuscate the point under discussion, which is exactly what has
happened here.

So what's your point in criticizing Eddie for his poor citations, if
you're going to say that what he posted here qualifies?

>>> You should read the book. You
>>> might find it amusing.
>>
>> I have read the book. I don't have a copy handy to refute Mr. Eddie's
>> vague references and pedantic allusions. I regret that I don't have
>> the photographic memory sufficient to satisfy you. Rather than ape
>> Mr. Eddie's game, you should do what he does not, and actually quote
>> where Meyer refutes Long's mechanisms.
>
>Sadly, I don't have a copy handy either. It's up to Eddie. But of course
>he won't.

So you have no basis for asserting that I didn't read the book. That
makes two of you.

[John Harshman]

I would say "optimistic" rather than "reasonable", but go on.

> With Usenet generally, and with Mr. Eddies's posts specifically, both
> assumptions are at best uncertain. So your analogy might be
> technically correct, but it isn't relevant to this situation.

Could be.

>> You don't want Eddie to
>> cite anything; you want him to quote or explain.
>
> What I want isn't relevant here, but it would help move the discussion
> along if Eddie actually cited anything, as part of a larger effort to
> make a coherent and comprehensive argument for his claims.

This is, if anything, an argument about the meaning of words. Citing is
just what Eddie did (at least in the case you're talking about right
now). You're saying that citation isn't enough.

>>> In your replies to Mr. Eddie, you take him to task for improper cites.
>>> Why don't you quote Mr. Eddie where he follows your standards from
>>> your own posts to cite Meyer's criticism of Long?
>>
>> Actually, I think Meyer, chapter 12 (and so forth) is sufficient, since
>> we all know what the reference is. Of course you should realize without
>> reading it that Meyer doesn't actually dispose of anything; he waves it
>> away.
>
> You would have a valid point if there was a way to look up the cite
> online. To require one to have a ready copy of the book is a great
> way to obfuscate the point under discussion, which is exactly what has
> happened here.

> So what's your point in criticizing Eddie for his poor citations, if
> you're going to say that what he posted here qualifies?

Some things he posted do qualify, and others don't. What I was
complaining about was a case of failing to provide a citation. What
you're complaining about is a case of providing the citation but failing
to provide a quote and/or explanation.

>>>> You should read the book. You
>>>> might find it amusing.
>>>
>>> I have read the book. I don't have a copy handy to refute Mr. Eddie's
>>> vague references and pedantic allusions. I regret that I don't have
>>> the photographic memory sufficient to satisfy you. Rather than ape
>>> Mr. Eddie's game, you should do what he does not, and actually quote
>>> where Meyer refutes Long's mechanisms.
>>
>> Sadly, I don't have a copy handy either. It's up to Eddie. But of course
>> he won't.
>
> So you have no basis for asserting that I didn't read the book. That
> makes two of you.

Starting a fight already? I do not assert you didn't read the book. If
you really want to get into this with Eddie, you might get it from the
library, though. I don't see Eddie providing the necessary information.

[jillery]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:38:24 -0700, John Harshman

You don't get to say what I'm talking about. I say again, Eddie did
not provide a citation of Meyer's criticism of Long's survey, not as I
define "cite", and not as you defined "cite" in your replies to Eddie.

>>>>> You should read the book. You
>>>>> might find it amusing.
>>>>
>>>> I have read the book. I don't have a copy handy to refute Mr. Eddie's
>>>> vague references and pedantic allusions. I regret that I don't have
>>>> the photographic memory sufficient to satisfy you. Rather than ape
>>>> Mr. Eddie's game, you should do what he does not, and actually quote
>>>> where Meyer refutes Long's mechanisms.
>>>
>>> Sadly, I don't have a copy handy either. It's up to Eddie. But of course
>>> he won't.
>>
>> So you have no basis for asserting that I didn't read the book. That
>> makes two of you.
>
>Starting a fight already?

I have no need. You already did. That's what you do. And you didn't
take long at all to do so either. Your post had that smell about it,
but if I said so before now you would have mocked me for paranoia.
Yours is a not-so-clever but all-too-common tactic. Your post is
just the latest example in a almost-continuous series stretching over
years now.

>I do not assert you didn't read the book.

So you deny that you wrote "you should read the book."

>If
>you really want to get into this with Eddie, you might get it from the
>library, though. I don't see Eddie providing the necessary information.

Does the fact that you don't follow your own advice mean that you have
no intention of "getting into this with Eddie"? Is that why you
manufactured an argument with me?

[John Harshman]

Actually, I don't even think that's a quote from Salisbury. Are you
sure? I think it's Meyer. But whoever said it, if you didn't intend to
make the claim in that quote, what was the purpose of quoting?

> What I would claim is that the Cambrian Explosion required huge amounts of new
> functional genetic information in order to build and maintain all the different body plans.
> This information makes up genes.

I doubt that's true. The more usual idea is that it involved the
rearrangement of regulatory networks, which can be accomplished merely
by adding and deleting transcription factor binding sites. And those are
short sequences that can easily appear by chance.

> If you have some "zinger" for me about your 'special' definition of a gene, I'm not interested.

Just the usual definition. While binding sites (and promoter regions)
are often considered to be part of the genes they regulate, changing
them doesn't involve new genes.

I'm trying to encourage you to present real references.

> Here's the search result for the Durrett and Schmidt paper:
> http://www.genetics.org/content/180/3/1501.abstract

I have a problem with the scenario there. Nothing of the sort is needed
for developmental evolution. Transcription factor binding sites are not
all or nothing; a single mutation can make one stronger or weaker too,
which makes a big difference. And there may be -- generally are -- many
binding sites in a single promoter. So this idea that mutation A makes
one appear and mutation B simultaneously makes a different one go away
is not a good model.

> And Orr:
> http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n2/full/nrg1523.html

This abstract unfortunately tells us only what the subject of his review
is, nothing about Meyer's claim.

> Maynard Smith:
> http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n2/full/nrg1523.html

That was Orr again, not Maynard Smith.

> Salisbury:
> Salisbury, F. B., Nature, 224, 342 (1969)

That one doesn't even have an abstract. An editorial, perhaps?

> Have at it, Slick.
> The journal articles are behind a paywall, but i'm sure you can get access to them.

I can't, actually. So that's a problem. But to some extent I can work
with the abstracts.

> Now, please substantiate your accusation that Meyer (and, by extension, I) twisted
> the meaning of any of the above quotes.

Best I can do so far.

>>>>> Just because an evolutionist publishes a candid admission of the weaknesses of the
>>>>> theory doesn't mean quoting it is "quote-mining".
>>>>
>>>> It is if, as is usually the case, you ignore the following paragraph in
>>>> which the author shows how to resolve the problem. It would help if you
>>>> provided actual citations to the literature. You should include author,
>>>> year, title, journal (or book), volume, pages. It would also help if you
>>>> had actually seen any of your references rather than just copying them
>>>> from Meyer. But put some out and I will try to track them down.
>>>
>>> You mean you haven't even looked up the references before you accuse Meyer of "quote-mining"?
>>
>> I can't look them up, as you haven't given any.
>>
>>> I knew you were a lying snake, but I didn't think you'd be so STUPID about it.
>>>
>>> Go ahead, prove your accusation, Slick. There's plenty of reference provided for you to find the
>>> quotes by Sasisbury, Maynard-Smith, Orr, and Durrett/Schmidt.
>>> As for Axe and Gauger, you know where you can find their work.
>>
>> I don't want to go through the work of finding what the incomplete
>> citations actually refer to. You have the book, so perhaps you could
>> find the complete citations for me?
>>
>>> You're up, big shot. Prove your allegation of QUOTE-MINING or be exposed as a
>>> slanderer.
>>
>> I don't think it works that way. Don't you have to prove the slander?
> No, you have to prove the quote mining. If you can't, then I can accuse you of slander.
> (My legal education is from Judge Judy)

You can accuse me of anything you like, certainly. But to make a legal
case you have to show that the accusation is both untrue and malicious,
as I understand it.

Ah, but not for comprehension, and that's important.

>>>> By the way, do you agree that your source is wrong
>>>> when it says "all modern animal phyla with a fossil record, except
>>>> bryozoans, are represented in the Cambrian"?
>>>
>>> I'm assuming you now of an exception?
>>
>> Several, actually. In fact the very site you quoted records several
>> exceptions on a page one page away, though they missed others.
>>
>>>>> What's his point in doing so?
>>>>
>>>> I believe his point was that Cambrian animals are for the most part more
>>>> primitive than extant members of their phyla, which is true. See, for
>>>> example, Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil
>>>> record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
>>>
>>> If that's his point, So what? That's not contested by anyone.
>>> Nope, I think my idea is more likely correct; he's trying to gloss over the incredible
>>> diversity of body plans that have no apparent evolutionary precursors.
>>
>> Ah, but if those body plans are more primitive than those of the living
>> taxa, they're evolutionary precursors themselves. All you're doing here
>> is the standard creationist response to transitional fossils: demand
>> transitions between the transitions.
>
> Of course, 'transitions between the transitions' are demanded, because that is what is
> assumed by Darwinism. If Darwin were correct, the fossil record would be FULL of
> transitional life forms representing the constant, incremental changes required by
> evolution.

Only if the fossil record were complete. Do you think the fossil record
is complete?

>> Some of them, in fact, seem to bridge multiple modern phyla, as for
>> example Arthropoda and Onychophora.
> That sounds fascinating, but is not evidence for evolution.

Why not? Aren't transitional forms evidence?

>> I know, where are the transitions
>> between the transitions?

Another successful prediction for me!

>>>> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
>>>>
>>>>> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
>>>>> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
>>>>> I'm embarassed for you guys.
>>>>
>>>> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
>>>> that vicarious embarrassment.
>>>
>>> No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
>>> Which is more than you seem capable of.
>>
>> Would you care to discuss it?
> If you think you can defend Rosenhouse from my accusation, I would read what you have
> to say in the spirit of fairness.

I doubt it. Why should you change now?

[Steady Eddie]

Ok guys, my good computer is getting fixed so I won't be posting much for a week
or two.
Anyway, I don't think the fossil record will ever be complete in that we can't
expect every organism that ever lived to have fossilized.
But we do have a large enough sampling of life's history that the law of
averages can be expected to kick in.
If life truly was a continuous flow
of one minute mutation aft
er another, the
record would represent this fact - the VAST MAJORITY of fossils would all be
transitional forms, with fixity of species being a rare exception, rather than
the rule. Instead, we find stasis to be a constant feature, with only rare
transitional forms found.

> >> Some of them, in fact, seem to bridge multiple modern phyla, as for
> >> example Arthropoda and Onychophora.
> > That sounds fascinating, but is not evidence for evolution.
>
> Why not? Aren't transitional forms evidence?
>
> >> I know, where are the transitions
> >> between the transitions?
>
> Another successful prediction for me!
>
> >>>> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
> >>>>
> >>>>> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
> >>>>> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
> >>>>> I'm embarassed for you guys.
> >>>>
> >>>> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
> >>>> that vicarious embarrassment.
> >>>
> >>> No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
> >>> Which is more than you seem capable of.
> >>
> >> Would you care to discuss it?
> > If you think you can defend Rosenhouse from my accusation, I would read what you have
> > to say in the spirit of fairness.
>
> I doubt it. Why should you change now?

Anyway, I gave you my opinion about the quality of this guy's review.
If you aren't willing to read the book, or able to access mainstream journals,
there's nothing more to talk about on this string.

[jillery]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:46:41 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip for focus]

>Anyway, I don't think the fossil record will ever be complete in that we can't
>expect every organism that ever lived to have fossilized.
>But we do have a large enough sampling of life's history that the law of
>averages can be expected to kick in.
>If life truly was a continuous flow
>of one minute mutation aft
>er another, the
>record would represent this fact - the VAST MAJORITY of fossils would all be
>transitional forms, with fixity of species being a rare exception, rather than
>the rule. Instead, we find stasis to be a constant feature, with only rare
>transitional forms found.

In fact, the VAST MAJORITY of fossils *are* transitional forms.
Apparently you don't know what "transistional form" actually means:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil>

"A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that
exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived
descendant group."

You say transitional forms are rare, which necessarily implies that
non-transistional forms are common. I challenge you to identify a
fossil that doesn't satisfy the characteristics of a transitional
form.

[Greg Guarino]

On 7/14/2015 11:46 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> If you aren't willing to read the book

A little searching would reveal that John has in fact read the book and
did a chapter-by-chapter summary and critique here on T.O. back when it
came out. If I remember correctly he had gotten it from the library at
the time.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[John Harshman]

You are employing Gould's caricature of phyletic gradualism to attack
evolution. Stasis is something that happens within species. But species
are themselves transitional forms. Expecting continuous change is
mistaking the episodic nature of evolution and ignoring the coarse grain
of the record. It's like complaining that their can be no motion on a
movie screen because there are only 24 frames per second, and no frames
between the frames. And the vast majority of fossils are transitional
forms. Almost all Cambrian explosion fossils lack some characteristics
found in the modern groups, which is what we expect in a transition.

>>>> Some of them, in fact, seem to bridge multiple modern phyla, as for
>>>> example Arthropoda and Onychophora.
>>> That sounds fascinating, but is not evidence for evolution.
>>
>> Why not? Aren't transitional forms evidence?
>>
>>>> I know, where are the transitions
>>>> between the transitions?
>>
>> Another successful prediction for me!
>>
>>>>>> That, by the way, is what a real citation looks like.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The idiot is actually making an ARGUMENT from the SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCE of
>>>>>>> many Cambrian animals, as if that means more than their morphological differences!
>>>>>>> I'm embarassed for you guys.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course you had to make up strawman assertions in order to sustain
>>>>>> that vicarious embarrassment.
>>>>>
>>>>> No straw man assertions required, just the ability to read and think.
>>>>> Which is more than you seem capable of.
>>>>
>>>> Would you care to discuss it?
>>> If you think you can defend Rosenhouse from my accusation, I would read what you have
>>> to say in the spirit of fairness.
>>
>> I doubt it. Why should you change now?
>
> Anyway, I gave you my opinion about the quality of this guy's review.
> If you aren't willing to read the book, or able to access mainstream journals,
> there's nothing more to talk about on this string.

I read the book. And I've accessed the journals at least as much as you
have.

[jillery]

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 07:10:30 -0400, Greg Guarino <gdgu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 7/14/2015 11:46 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
>> If you aren't willing to read the book
>
>A little searching would reveal that John has in fact read the book and
>did a chapter-by-chapter summary and critique here on T.O. back when it
>came out. If I remember correctly he had gotten it from the library at
>the time.

Are you referring to this:

"Darwin's Doubt, Beginning a Summary"

<K_SdnQf-ldK...@giganews.com>

<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pXAPJugzHTI/s1t79Ef26mMJ>

<http://tinyurl.com/qg2ybmj>

Harshman started several topics about Meyer's book, but that one comes
closest to your description.

He also cited a blog which posted several reviews and opinions about
the book, which are still relevant:

<http://darwinsdoubtreviews.blogspot.com/>

[John Harshman]

I did some more in various bits on TO, but that's all collected more
conveniently on the web site you mention above, specifically here:

http://darwinsdoubtreviews.blogspot.com/2013/09/john-harshmans-technical-objections.html

[Greg Guarino]

On 7/15/2015 3:28 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> On 7/15/15, 11:23 AM, jillery wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 07:10:30 -0400, Greg Guarino <gdgu...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/14/2015 11:46 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
>>>> If you aren't willing to read the book
>>>
>>> A little searching would reveal that John has in fact read the book and
>>> did a chapter-by-chapter summary and critique here on T.O. back when it
>>> came out. If I remember correctly he had gotten it from the library at
>>> the time.
>>
>>
>> Are you referring to this:
>>
>> "Darwin's Doubt, Beginning a Summary"

Yes. There were, as you (Jillery) say, other threads as well.

>> <K_SdnQf-ldK...@giganews.com>
>>
>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pXAPJugzHTI/s1t79Ef26mMJ>
>>
>>
>> <http://tinyurl.com/qg2ybmj>
>>
>> Harshman started several topics about Meyer's book, but that one comes
>> closest to your description.
>>
>> He also cited a blog which posted several reviews and opinions about
>> the book, which are still relevant:
>>
>> <http://darwinsdoubtreviews.blogspot.com/>
>
> I did some more in various bits on TO, but that's all collected more
> conveniently on the web site you mention above, specifically here:
>
> http://darwinsdoubtreviews.blogspot.com/2013/09/john-harshmans-technical-objections.html

That is more convenient. Thanks. Nothing past Chapter 10? What are we
paying you, anyway?

[John Stockwell]

On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 1:07:30 PM UTC-6, Ray Martinez wrote:

> On Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:42:30 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> > Evolutionblog recently posted an interesting article about Stephen
> > Meyer's book:
> >
> > <http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/06/10/the-cambrian-explosion/?utm_source=widgets>
> >
> > <http://tinyurl.com/oqyxnxk>
> >
> > Short version: Jason Rosenhouse is unimpressed with Meyer's use of
> > ID's standard rhetorical tricks, which include quotemines, personal
> > incredulity, misrepresentation of facts, word games, and mathematical
> > sleights-of-hand.
>

> Does this imply that Rosenhouse has been impressed with the publications of other Creationists/IDists?
>
> If so, who?
>
> If not, since all Creationists/IDists, in the eyes of Evolutionists, do the same, what's the point?

Meyer's book is more of the same old junk, only packaged like a monograph.
Pity there is no actual original research in that monograph. But then,
Meyer is aiming at the ignorant, and the evolution denialist.


>
> Ray
>
> [....]

John

[John Harshman]

I believe I'm being paid in fame and glory. And I tended to lose
interest as it became more and more apparent that Meyer had no real
interest in the Cambrian explosion.

[Steady Eddie]

Jill, you're right; by that definition, with its implicit assumption of common ancestry, you could almost classify all fossils as transitional.
Let me rephrase.
If Evolution were true, we would not even expect to identify species in the fossil record; generally speaking, each SPECIMEN found would be markedly different from the next specimen. After all, if all life forms came from a common ancestor by an incessant series of tiny changes, there would be countless miilions of different forms in each lineage. A random sampling of these lineages would be expected to have very few specimens similar enough to each other to even be able to classify them into species. It would. E one constant blur of different forms.

[John Harshman]

Nope. That's S.J. Gould's caricature of the expections of a mythical
naive proponent of phyletic gradualism, of whom there are none and
probably never were. It requires that there be both a constant rate of
morphological evolution and a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record,
neither of which is true.

Now, you can attack a strawman scenario of evolution all you like, but
you should realize that you're only making yourself irrelevant by doing so.

[Steady Eddie]

John, I didn't mean that as a put down; it's just that we need to both be able to see the source materials before we can really discuss the book or the review.

[John Harshman]

On 7/15/15, 4:31 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> John, I didn't mean that as a put down; it's just that we need to both be able to see the source materials before we can really discuss the book or the review.
>

I have enough source materials to discuss anything about the Cambrian
explosion. The abstract of one of your references was sufficient to
discuss that one.

You might try reading my analysis of the first 10 chapters of Meyer's
book, here:

http://darwinsdoubtreviews.blogspot.com/2013/09/john-harshmans-technical-objections.html

[jillery]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:38:50 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:38:24 -0700, John Harshman
><jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

[snip to focus]

>>I do not assert you didn't read the book.
>
>
>So you deny that you wrote "you should read the book."

No reply. No surprise.

[Steady Eddie]

I suggest you both pick up a copy of the book again and refresh your memories.

[jillery]

Since all of your objections to my points had little to do with what
Meyer actually wrote in his book, but about what other people wrote
about Meyer's book, or about their quotations used by Meyer in his
book, refreshing my memory about what Meyer wrote in his book wouldn't
make any difference here.

And since you failed to reply to the substance of any of my
objections, I suggest you deal with that, and not worry about another
poster copying your troll tactics.

[Steady Eddie]

Well, listen to Mr. "That line of reasoning is false because none of my circle accept it"!
What I described has NOTHING to do with Stephen Gould. It has to do with the FOSSIL RECORD
and the THEORY OF EVOLUTION.
If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.

And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
" It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.

[Steady Eddie]

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 16:55:42 UTC-6, John Harshman wrote:

Well, listen to Mr. "That line of reasoning is false because none of my circle accept it"!
What I described has NOTHING to do with Stephen Gould. It has to do with the FOSSIL RECORD
and the THEORY OF EVOLUTION.
If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.

And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
" It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."

I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record. That's all you.

[jillery]

Your argument above suffers from your ignorance of taphonomy. Only a
small fraction of species that ever existed have been preserved in the
fossil record. There are exceptional cases where a near continuous
chronological record from a single geographic location have been
preserved. And those cases show exactly the incremental changes you
claim don't exist.

You are like a historian who looks at photos from school yearbooks and
insists the photos from each year must be of different students rather
than the same students at different ages.

[John Harshman]

On 7/28/15, 9:26 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 16:55:42 UTC-6, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 7/15/15, 3:14 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
>>> Jill, you're right; by that definition, with its implicit assumption of common ancestry, you could almost classify all fossils as transitional.
>>> Let me rephrase.
>>> If Evolution were true, we would not even expect to identify species
>>> in the fossil record; generally speaking, each SPECIMEN found would
>>> be markedly different from the next specimen. After all, if all life
>>> forms came from a common ancestor by an incessant series of tiny
>>> changes, there would be countless miilions of different forms in each
>>> lineage. A random sampling of these lineages would be expected to
>>> have very few specimens similar enough to each other to even be able
>>> to classify them into species. It would. E one constant blur of
>>> different forms.
>>
>> Nope. That's S.J. Gould's caricature of the expections of a mythical
>> naive proponent of phyletic gradualism, of whom there are none and
>> probably never were. It requires that there be both a constant rate of
>> morphological evolution and a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record,
>> neither of which is true.
>>
>> Now, you can attack a strawman scenario of evolution all you like, but
>> you should realize that you're only making yourself irrelevant by doing so.
>
> Well, listen to Mr. "That line of reasoning is false because none of my circle accept it"!
> What I described has NOTHING to do with Stephen Gould. It has to do with the FOSSIL RECORD
> and the THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

You think it does, but it doesn't, as I have pointed out. What follows
"if evolution were true" is not actually an expectation of evolution.

> If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
> then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.

You just don't understand how it works. Typically a lot of those small
increments happen in a fairly short time, and most of the time nothing
much is happening. You assume that evolution would occur at a constant rate.

> And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
> " It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
> I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.

If the record isn't perfect and fine-grained, we would not expect to see
the millions of different forms in a lineage that you allege. It's a
requirement of your scenario, along with that constant rate.

[Steady Eddie]

Not any more is it "an expectation of evolution".
That's because the concept was virtually falsified by the fossil record. Face it;
the fossil record virtually proved the core tenet of evolution WRONG, and the evolutionist
apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
out to the scientific community.
Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak" to make it look like you guys had it
figured out all along.
LOL!
You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.
You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism to support
(not to mention, your job on the line).

>
> > If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
> > then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.
>
> You just don't understand how it works. Typically a lot of those small
> increments happen in a fairly short time, and most of the time nothing
> much is happening. You assume that evolution would occur at a constant rate.

I allowed for PLENTY of fluctuation in the rate of evolution.
I just don't believe it would be the NORM, if common ancestry were true.

>
> > And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
> > " It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
> > I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.
>
> If the record isn't perfect and fine-grained, we would not expect to see
> the millions of different forms in a lineage that you allege. It's a
> requirement of your scenario, along with that constant rate.

My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we presently have.
How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example, trilobites?
3?
3,000,000?
What would be your professional estimate?

And, how long do you believe it took for the separate Cambrian phylum to evolve from their
most recent common ancestor?

[jillery]

You're just aping an argument that Gould himself refuted before you
even heard of it. He repeatedly and publicly denounced the misuse and
abuse of his hypothesis by Creationists like yourself, and that
everything he wrote is entirely consistent with biological evolution,
no Creationism required.

>> > If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
>> > then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.
>>
>> You just don't understand how it works. Typically a lot of those small
>> increments happen in a fairly short time, and most of the time nothing
>> much is happening. You assume that evolution would occur at a constant rate.
>
>I allowed for PLENTY of fluctuation in the rate of evolution.
>I just don't believe it would be the NORM, if common ancestry were true.

Common ancestry makes no implication regarding the rate of evolution.
You have no basis to presume such a belief. You're just making stuff
up.

>> > And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
>> > " It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
>> > I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.
>>
>> If the record isn't perfect and fine-grained, we would not expect to see
>> the millions of different forms in a lineage that you allege. It's a
>> requirement of your scenario, along with that constant rate.
>
>My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we presently have.

You point to the gaps and shout "missing link". Your expressed
argument explicitly stands on the holes between the data.

>How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example, trilobites?
>3?
>3,000,000?
>What would be your professional estimate?

I'm no professional, but there are over 17,000 known species of
trilobites, so there are at least that many extant fossil specimens.
Now compare that to the estimated 350,000 known living beetle species.
The fact is that the fossil record necessarily captured only a
fraction of all once-living species.

>And, how long do you believe it took for the separate Cambrian phylum to evolve from their
>most recent common ancestor?

Since some phyla first appeared both before and after the Cambrian, I
would say the entire Cambrian, by definition.

How long do *you* believe it took Cambrian phyla to evolve? Oh wait,
you don't believe in evolution. Nevermind.

[John Harshman]

I apologize for your inability to read. What that sentence meant is that
what you claim we would see if evolution were true is not what we would
see if evolution were true. That's what an expectation is.

> That's because the concept was virtually falsified by the fossil record. Face it;
> the fossil record virtually proved the core tenet of evolution WRONG, and the evolutionist
> apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
> to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
> out to the scientific community.

That's certainly the view you get from various creationist web sites. It
just isn't true.

> Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak" to make it look like you guys had it
> figured out all along.
> LOL!
> You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
> STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.
> You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism to support
> (not to mention, your job on the line).

Now that's your paranoia speaking, and you probably don't realize what
an insulting and demeaning thing it is to say about me and other
scientists. Can we agree that you know very little about the subject
you're trying to dismiss here?

>>> If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
>>> then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.
>>
>> You just don't understand how it works. Typically a lot of those small
>> increments happen in a fairly short time, and most of the time nothing
>> much is happening. You assume that evolution would occur at a constant rate.
>
> I allowed for PLENTY of fluctuation in the rate of evolution.
> I just don't believe it would be the NORM, if common ancestry were true.

You don't believe what would be the norm? Anyway, the main evidence for
common ancestry is in the genomes of living species, not fossils.

>>> And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
>>> " It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
>>> I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.
>>
>> If the record isn't perfect and fine-grained, we would not expect to see
>> the millions of different forms in a lineage that you allege. It's a
>> requirement of your scenario, along with that constant rate.
>
> My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we presently have.
> How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example, trilobites?
> 3?
> 3,000,000?
> What would be your professional estimate?

No idea. Why?

> And, how long do you believe it took for the separate Cambrian phylum to evolve from their
> most recent common ancestor?

That too is hard to say, especially since you don't say which phyla
(plural) ought to be considered. Sponges? Jellyfish? Or just
bilaterians? And what do you mean by "phylum"? Most Cambrian fossils are
stem-members of their phyla, so technically what we call the phyla today
had mostly not evolved at that point.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/30/15 6:59 AM, John Harshman wrote:
> On 7/29/15, 10:20 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:

>> [...]

>> My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we
>> presently have.
>> How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example,
>> trilobites?
>> 3?
>> 3,000,000?
>> What would be your professional estimate?
>
> No idea. Why?

There are more than 17,000 species of trilobites, so there have to be at
least that many fossils. Three million is not unreasonable as a
guesstimate.

Utah's U-DigFossil quarry website says, "The average visitor finds ten
to twenty trilobites in a four-hour period." I have no idea how many
visitors they get.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have
found it." - Vaclav Havel

[John Harshman]

On 7/30/15, 8:09 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/30/15 6:59 AM, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 7/29/15, 10:20 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we
>>> presently have.
>>> How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example,
>>> trilobites?
>>> 3?
>>> 3,000,000?
>>> What would be your professional estimate?
>>
>> No idea. Why?
>
> There are more than 17,000 species of trilobites, so there have to be at
> least that many fossils. Three million is not unreasonable as a
> guesstimate.
>
> Utah's U-DigFossil quarry website says, "The average visitor finds ten
> to twenty trilobites in a four-hour period." I have no idea how many
> visitors they get.
>

It hardly matters, since all those trilobites in that quarry come from
the same horizon. Counting the number of fossils vastly overestimates
the effective sample, if you're looking for intermediates, since all the
fossils from a single horizon are more or less one data point. And
that's true with most fossils: thousands or millions from various single
horizons, none at all from lots of others (and no rocks at all from most
points in space and time).

[Steady Eddie]

You're busted.
You're just following the charade of your establishment; you've been 'excusing' the overwhelming
appearance of stasis of species in the fossil record since Darwin proposed his theory.
Your ad-hoc stories, which you make sound so scientific, are merely brazen attempts to
claim that you "expected" WHATEVER YOU FIND IN THE FOSSIL RECORD!
Face it: you have 'adjusted' your theory of gradual common descent to make it UNFALSIFIABLE.
That's not science; it's philosophy.

>
> > That's because the concept was virtually falsified by the fossil record. Face it;
> > the fossil record virtually proved the core tenet of evolution WRONG, and the evolutionist
> > apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
> > to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
> > out to the scientific community.
>
> That's certainly the view you get from various creationist web sites. It
> just isn't true.

That's the plain view I get from HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY CLASS.
The BARE FACT, undeniable to all, is that Gould, Eldridge, and presumably many in their field
have CONFIRMED that the fossil record is characterized by LONG PERIODS OF STASIS
(equilibrium), PUNCTUATED by geologically SUDDEN TRANSFORMATIONS.
NEWS FLASH, PEOPLE:
This was a GREAT SURPRISE AND EMBARRASSMENT to the entire evolutionary enterprise.

>
> > Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak" to make it look like you guys had it
> > figured out all along.
> > LOL!
> > You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
> > STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.
> > You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism to support
> > (not to mention, your job on the line).
>
> Now that's your paranoia speaking, and you probably don't realize what
> an insulting and demeaning thing it is to say about me and other
> scientists. Can we agree that you know very little about the subject
> you're trying to dismiss here?

Now that you're back to imputing ignorance to me (which has always been insulting and
demeaning), you might realize that this is your knee-jerk reaction to being proven wrong.

>
> >>> If you deny that evolution MUST proceed upon countless small, incremental steps to make sense,
> >>> then, CHECKMATE. You would have surrendered your theory by contradicting it.
> >>
> >> You just don't understand how it works. Typically a lot of those small
> >> increments happen in a fairly short time, and most of the time nothing
> >> much is happening. You assume that evolution would occur at a constant rate.
> >
> > I allowed for PLENTY of fluctuation in the rate of evolution.
> > I just don't believe it would be the NORM, if common ancestry were true.
>
> You don't believe what would be the norm? Anyway, the main evidence for
> common ancestry is in the genomes of living species, not fossils.

I was referring to the state of the fossil record that compelled Gould et al. to propose
PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM, which is in itself an oxymoron designed to apply 'science-speak'
to the problem in hopes it will go away.

Now, we're getting somewhere:
You admit that the fossil record is not "the main evidence" for common ancestry.
Imagine that!
Of course, you won't admit that the bare fact is that the fossil record is NO EVIDENCE for
common ancestry.
But you're coming around.

>
> >>> And just where do you get off imputing to me the straw man claim:
> >>> " It requires that there be ... a near-perfect, fine-grained fossil record..."
> >>> I don't know about you, Big Shot, but I never claimed any such fossil record.
> >>
> >> If the record isn't perfect and fine-grained, we would not expect to see
> >> the millions of different forms in a lineage that you allege. It's a
> >> requirement of your scenario, along with that constant rate.
> >
> > My scenario requires no finer a "grain" in the fossil record than we presently have.
> > How many fossil SPECIMENS do you think are extant of, for example, trilobites?
> > 3?
> > 3,000,000?
> > What would be your professional estimate?
>
> No idea. Why?

So there are MILLIONS of trilobite specimens extant (thanks, Mark Isaak).
How many specimens of SOME OTHER CREATURE TURNING INTO A TRILOBITE are extant?
How many specimens of A TRILOBITE TURNING INTO SOME OTHER CREATURE are extant?

One?
One million?
None?

>
> > And, how long do you believe it took for the separate Cambrian phylum to evolve from their
> > most recent common ancestor?
>
> That too is hard to say, especially since you don't say which phyla
> (plural) ought to be considered. Sponges? Jellyfish? Or just
> bilaterians? And what do you mean by "phylum"? Most Cambrian fossils are
> stem-members of their phyla, so technically what we call the phyla today
> had mostly not evolved at that point.

Okay, I agree that's too general a question, and mis-worded. Let me rephrase:
How long do you believe it took for the TRILOBITE to evolve from its most recent, MORPHOLOGICALLY DIFFERENT ancestor?
AND:
How long do you believe it took for the trilobite to evolve into its morphologically
different DESCENDANT?

In fact, do you even KNOW what creature the trilobite descended from?
Do you even KNOW what creature the trilobite evolved into?

I'll save you some time: YOU DON'T KNOW, because there's NO EVIDENCE IN THE FOSSIL
RECORD of a trilobite evolving from, OR into, a distinctly different animal.

In fact, of the BILLIONS OF FOSSILIZED SPECIMENS now extant, there are NO EXAMPLES of one
Genus GRADUALLY CHANGING INTO ANOTHER Genus.
WHY IS THAT?
Oh, I forgot - the Evo-Establishment has come up with a bevy of RHETORICAL DEVICES to make
it seem like these transitions were NOT EXPECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
LOL!

Sorry, John, I don't mean to ridicule you personally, but it's kind of unavoidable when you believe
and promote the ridiculous.

[Steady Eddie]

Thank you for that info, Mark.

[Steady Eddie]

Yes, and these "horizons", wherever they're found on the Earth, all HAPPEN to contain the SAME
TYPES, fully formed.
NONE happen to contain a convincing record of the evolutionary 'building' process of any of these
fully-formed animal types.
HMM...
That's strange.

[Vincent Maycock]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 22:20:20 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

On the contrary, evolution has turned out to be very well-supported by

the fossil record.

> Face it;
>the fossil record virtually proved the core tenet of evolution WRONG,

The rate at which evolution happens has nothing to do with "core
tenets" of evolution.

> and the evolutionist
>apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
>to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
>out to the scientific community.
>
>Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak"

Too stupid to understand all the science jargon, eh?

>to make it look like you guys had it
>figured out all along.
>LOL!

Why can't you explain the nested hierarchy of the taxonomy of living
things?

>You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
>STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.

No, the fossil groups appear to be evolving from one type to another,
even if we don't have all the details because of the fragmentary
nature of the fossil record taken as a whole.

>You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism

You support methodological naturalism when you take your
non-functioning car to a car shop rather than praying for its
recovery.

> to support
>(not to mention, your job on the line).

Actually, in science, no one loses their job because an idea of theirs
gets disproven.

[Mark Isaak]

Except when they do.

Just how do you explain the many transitional fossils in the fossil record?

[Steady Eddie]

BUSTED!
The RATE at which evolution supposedly occurs is THE MAIN PRECEPT OF THE THEORY.

Let's just take a look at the definition of the term "evolution":

"biology : a theory that the differences between modern plants and animals are because of changes that happened by a natural process OVER A VERY LONG TIME

: the process by which changes in plants and animals happen OVER TIME

: a process of SLOW change and development"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution

Trust me, you don't want me to go into this any further. But I certainly can.

>
> > and the evolutionist
> >apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
> >to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
> >out to the scientific community.
> >
> >Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak"
>
> Too stupid to understand all the science jargon, eh?

That's what evolutionists are betting on when they come up with their ad-hoc, question-begging
rhetoric. The problem is, while most people are just not interested enough to look into it, many
people are not stupid enough to be fooled by the rhetorical circular reasoning embedded into
the terms and definitions used by evolutionary apologists.

>
> >to make it look like you guys had it
> >figured out all along.
> >LOL!
>
> Why can't you explain the nested hierarchy of the taxonomy of living
> things?

Why can't you demonstrate that you can take your blinders off and think OBJECTIVELY just for
a moment:
Is there any reason why an orderly Creator would NOT create life in a hierarchical fashion?
I can think of many reasons why Jehovah, the God of the Bible, would do just that. For example:
"For God is a God NOT OF DISORDER but of peace." 1 Corinthians 14:33

>
> >You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
> >STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.
>
> No, the fossil groups appear to be evolving from one type to another,
> even if we don't have all the details because of the fragmentary
> nature of the fossil record taken as a whole.

As I inferred above, that appearance is only available through your evolutionary 'goggles'.

>
> >You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism
>
> You support methodological naturalism when you take your
> non-functioning car to a car shop rather than praying for its
> recovery.

Yes, that's because I have confidence that an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER produced the car, and
that other INTELLIGENT AGENTS (mechanics) can look at the manual provided by the designer
and fix the car.
What I DON'T do is leave the car to EVOLVE its own solution to the problem.

>
> > to support
> >(not to mention, your job on the line).
>
> Actually, in science, no one loses their job because an idea of theirs
> gets disproven.

Of course not.
Scientists just lose their jobs because they POINT OUT that evolution is unproven:

"Chemistry professor Nancy Bryson lost her job at a state university after she gave a lecture on scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory to a group of honors students."
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/12/academic_persecution_of_scient_1001701.html

"Q. Well, just tell us about the talk and the response, too.

A. Well, in the talk I brought up some of the criticisms of evolution that I had been reading about.
For example, the Cambrian Explosion is often not mentioned in general biology textbooks at
college level. And I think that presents a big problem for evolution. I also talked about the origin of
life scenarios and the unlikelihood that any of those scenarios, for example, the Miller/Urey
experiments, that have very little relevance to anything that I know about. I basically talked-- those
were my two basic points in my talk, I guess, origin of life scenarios and the Cambrian Explosion.

Q. And then what was the reaction?

A. At the end of the talk the evolution professor stood and read a prepared statement. He brought
in a prepared statement and the-- he talked for about five minutes, and the gist of his statement
was that-- what he said - this is a quote - "This is just religion masquerading as science."
...
Q. What happened the next day?

A. The next day was a Friday, and about five o'clock that afternoon I was in my office and my
boss, the vice president of Academic Affairs came in and told me that I would not be serving as
division head the next year. And he suggested that - he did not say directly - that I might not be on
the campus at all the next year."
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/kansas/kangaroo7.html


"Biology professor P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota, for example, recently wrote this
about anyone supporting intelligent design or questioning modern evolutionary theory: "Our only
problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough.
The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking,
and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast
numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.""
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/12/academic_persecution_of_scient_1001701.html
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/witt-in-the-sea.html#more

Need I say more? I can.

[jillery]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 10:24:26 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip to point>

>So there are MILLIONS of trilobite specimens extant (thanks, Mark Isaak).

So you're going to ignore the 350,000 living beetle species. No
surprise there.

>How many specimens of SOME OTHER CREATURE TURNING INTO A TRILOBITE are extant?

What do you think some other creature turning into a trilobite should
look like?

>How many specimens of A TRILOBITE TURNING INTO SOME OTHER CREATURE are extant?

What do you think a trilobite turning into some other creature should
look like?


How do you know if any fossils are ancestors or descendants of
trilobites? Were you there?

[Steady Eddie]

Those are exactly the kinds of questions Evo-apologists should have been asking before they
published their 'conclusion' that common ancestry happened.
Now the cat's out of the bag; they can't take back their proclamation without the whole
evolutionary edifice crumbling underneath them.

[jillery]

It's not strange at all. It's exactly what is expected. Every type
on Earth is necessarily fully formed.

And reality doesn't care if you're convinced or not.

[Burkhard]

you might want to look up what a "rate" is

Hint: you can have a constant high rate of change over a long time, a
constant low rate of change over a long time, a varying rate of change
over a long time, and all of the above also over short time spans.

[Nick Roberts]

In message <804bc224-488e-4d7e...@googlegroups.com>

And if you go out in the world today and pick up a few thousand
beetles, they'll all be the same types, fully formed.

Amazing - sampling animals at a single point in time produces a
constant set of types (they're called species). And all of them are
fully functional individuals (accidental damage excepting).

Why you think that this is in the slightest bit surprising from an
evolutionary perspective is indicative only of your ignorance.

> NONE happen to contain a convincing record of the evolutionary
> 'building' process of any of these fully-formed animal types.

And yet there are numerous examples of evolution in the wild.
Apparently, facts aren't of any interest in your world.

> HMM...
> That's strange.

The strange thing is your distorted view of ToE. You should go back to
whatever source sold you that fantasy and demand your money back.

--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[Greg Guarino]

On 7/30/2015 3:01 PM, Steady Eddie wrote:
> Is there any reason why an orderly Creator would NOT create life in a hierarchical fashion?

Yes. For starters, no "designer" we know of does such a thing knowingly.
And we know why. It's limiting, and serves no purpose. If I want to add
antilock brakes to my car design, I add them. I don't reshape the
catalytic converter into an antilock brake system, or give up trying
because I am limited to the toolkit in a certain lineage. I don't worry
if I'm copying a structure from another kind of design. So if the same
microprocessor that runs a microwave oven or an aileron or Candy Crush
will work, I'm happy to use it.

Designed objects cannot be fit into a non-arbitrary hierarchy of traits
for precisely that reason: Their features are added and subtracted for
utility, with little consideration for "lineage", except sometimes for
style. Good ideas are borrowed and even stolen; "horizontal transfer" is
rampant.

Life on Earth, the multicellular kind anyway, does fit into such a
hierarchy, which is emblematic of a process that reshapes and repurposes
existing structures rather than simply creating each "design" from
scratch, adding in whatever features seem useful.

If Jehovah really created each species separately, he did so in a very
peculiar way; one that precisely mimics branching descent, even at the
genetic level. This, I think, is why Behe accepts common descent,
despite trying very very hard to carve out a role for God in the story;
it is simply not feasible to look at the biological details (including
genetics) and not conclude that life diverged through branching descent.

[jillery]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:01:22 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie

Verbosity is different from veracity. Just sayin'.

>> > and the evolutionist
>> >apologists quickly started racking their brains for ALTERNATIVE "modes" of evolution
>> >to explain the embarrassing results, which, I hear, Stephen J Gould unmistakably pointed
>> >out to the scientific community.
>> >
>> >Then came the excuses dressed up in "science speak"
>>
>> Too stupid to understand all the science jargon, eh?
>
>That's what evolutionists are betting on when they come up with their ad-hoc, question-begging
>rhetoric. The problem is, while most people are just not interested enough to look into it, many
>people are not stupid enough to be fooled by the rhetorical circular reasoning embedded into
>the terms and definitions used by evolutionary apologists.
>>
>> >to make it look like you guys had it
>> >figured out all along.
>> >LOL!
>>
>> Why can't you explain the nested hierarchy of the taxonomy of living
>> things?
>
>Why can't you demonstrate that you can take your blinders off and think OBJECTIVELY just for
>a moment:
>Is there any reason why an orderly Creator would NOT create life in a hierarchical fashion?
>I can think of many reasons why Jehovah, the God of the Bible, would do just that. For example:
>"For God is a God NOT OF DISORDER but of peace." 1 Corinthians 14:33

Are you now agreeing that life was created in a hierarchical fashion?
If not, then there's no point in asking your question. If so, then
there's no point in invoking your supernatural creator.

>> >You should be afraid to even mention the fossil record - it gives NO credence to your creed, and
>> >STRONGLY suggests that separate kinds were created.
>>
>> No, the fossil groups appear to be evolving from one type to another,
>> even if we don't have all the details because of the fragmentary
>> nature of the fossil record taken as a whole.
>
>As I inferred above, that appearance is only available through your evolutionary 'goggles'.

Actually you implied above that Jehovah could have created life just
as Maycock suggested. Did you forget so soon? Or do your new
evolutionary goggles make it hard for you to read your own posts?

>> >You just can't see that because you've got your belief in methodological naturalism
>>
>> You support methodological naturalism when you take your
>> non-functioning car to a car shop rather than praying for its
>> recovery.
>
>Yes, that's because I have confidence that an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER produced the car, and
>that other INTELLIGENT AGENTS (mechanics) can look at the manual provided by the designer
>and fix the car.
>What I DON'T do is leave the car to EVOLVE its own solution to the problem.

And that's a good thing, since nobody disputes that cars are
intelligently designed.

When are you going to learn to read for comprehension? Teaching
Intelligent Design is not pointing out that evolution is unproven.

[jillery]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:14:43 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie

<1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, 30 July 2015 13:09:56 UTC-6, jillery wrote:
>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 10:24:26 -0700 (PDT), Steady Eddie
>> <1914o...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> <snip to point>
>>
>> >So there are MILLIONS of trilobite specimens extant (thanks, Mark Isaak).
>>
>>
>> So you're going to ignore the 350,000 living beetle species. No
>> surprise there.
>>
>>
>> >How many specimens of SOME OTHER CREATURE TURNING INTO A TRILOBITE are extant?
>>
>>
>> What do you think some other creature turning into a trilobite should
>> look like?
>>
>>
>> >How many specimens of A TRILOBITE TURNING INTO SOME OTHER CREATURE are extant?
>>
>>
>> What do you think a trilobite turning into some other creature should
>> look like?
>>
>>
>> How do you know if any fossils are ancestors or descendants of
>> trilobites? Were you there?
>

>Those are exactly the kinds of questions Evo-apologists should have been asking before they
>published their 'conclusion' that common ancestry happened.
>Now the cat's out of the bag; they can't take back their proclamation without the whole
>evolutionary edifice crumbling underneath them.

So will you answer these questions or not?

[Steady Eddie]

That's only the conclusion you come to NOW, after science has recognized that "every type on
Earth is ... fully formed"

Darwin sure wouldn't have believed that, even though already at that time they were getting a
good initial look at the fossil record.
Darwin had the luxury of assuming that the sample sizes were not large enough to disprove his
thesis.
Now, you have no such excuse.

And it really doesn't matter if you agree or not.