All-Too-Common Dissent

I think I see the problem (RE: IDcreationist "information" claims)

2009-01-29T14:34:00.002-05:00

Well, one of them, anyway.

A few months ago, Jeff Shallit wrote about an article in The Scientist, and it got creationist Kirk Durston's attention.

I won't go through ANY of the details - Durston, like many creationists, prefers overly verbose rhetoric to concise language, but feel free to slog through all his patronizing gibberish if you'd like. Others dealt with the technical details of Durston's claims, but I found this short statement very informative:

The question is, is the functional information encoded in the gene that codes
for RecA an example of ID? (I choose RecA because it is an average length
protein, it is a universal protein found in all life forms, and I've done some
work on it.) To answer that question, we need a scientific method to identify
examples of ID that does not yield false positives, yet does not rule out
obvious examples of ID (such as Venter's 'watermarks', or laptop computers) and
is general (i.e., can be applied to forensics, SETI, archeology, and biology).

When I read this (re-read it, actually - I had read the entire exchange some months ago) this really struck me as profound.
And maybe I am just slow and others ahve already recognized this, but it seems ot me their entire line of reasoning regarding "informaiton" and how evolution cannot account for it rests on one little subtle assumption. But it is a big one - a great big foundational assumption which makes their entire 'no new infromation' enterprise little more than a tautology.

Can you see it?

It isn't about ID detection methods or the arcane mathematical details that accompany his boasts. It is this:

...is the functional information encoded in the gene that codesfor RecA an
example of ID?

The functional information ENCODED IN the gene.
Why would they think it is intelligently derived? Because that start out with the a priori position that the 'information' that the gene contains/possesses was PUT IN IT. It is ENCODED:

en⋅code
–verb (used with object), -cod⋅ed, -cod⋅ing.
to convert (a message, information, etc.) into code.

And how is this 'conversion' done if NOT by an intelligent agent, right?

They start out with the assumption that a gene did not arise via natural means and by virtue of the arrangement of it's nucleotides and ends up producing a useful protein, no they start out assuming that a specific protein was needed/desired and that the gene was then 'somehow' acquired in order to make this needed/desired protein.

In other words, they start out assuming what they want to be true.
To be fair, I suppose one could say the same of non-IDcreationists. They start out with the assumption that genes are natural entities, polynucleotides shaped by natural forces into a gene that when transcribed and translated makes something useful.

The difference is, the IDcreationist has mere faulty analogies to support their position.

'Materialists' have observation and experimentation.

Republicans 'admire' Rush Limbaugh

2009-01-29T14:04:00.002-05:00

Mike Pence (R-IN) says he "admires" Rush Limbaugh. He said this defending Limbaugh's latest racist screed about how we are going to have to "bend over" becaue Obama is black.

Sure, Mike - and every other Republican sycophant.. Admire away.

What is not to admire - and take marching orders from - a draft dodging coward like Limbaugh?

A family-values advocate with 3 divorces under his belt.

A good Christian man wio smuggles Viagra to the Dominican Republic. Why would he do that? He wasn't married at the time, so he didn't need them for intramarital relations. Must have been for the underage male prostitutes that the Dominacan Republic is known for.

Blow him some kisses, Mike! Maybe he'll take you with him next time.

And I won't even mention his addiciton to Hillbilly Heroin...

I think it says quite a bit about the people who would 'admire' and 'respect' such a pathetic hypritical pile of filth like Limbaugh.

Creationsafaris.com - cesspool of (purposeful?) disinformation

2009-01-20T08:06:00.004-05:00

I was reading through a creation/evolution discussion board recerntly and the website creationsafaris.com came up. Creationsafaris is the baby of David Coppedge, a computer scientist employed by NASA, who also happens to be a rather adept disinformation peddlar for Christ.
Now, I've read some of Coppedge's stuff before, but I'd not visited his site for some time, so I decided to pay a visit and I was reminded of why I hadn't been there in a while - to describe the site as inflammatory is putting it mildly. I searched his site for some issues of interest to me, and no surprise, I was soon rewarded with a number of highly misinforming/disinforming smug dismissals of legitimate science and that characteristic cherry-picking of quotes to employ as 'look how little evolutinists know!' fodder.
And let us not forget his condescending name calling and the like.Take a look at this masterpiece of flim flammery, sleight of hand, and inflammatory disinformation, my comments interspersed:

The Hopeless Task of Building Evolutionary Trees
07/25/2002
A paper posted in the online early addition July 25 of the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences starts out with an optimistic subtitle: “An
efficient solution for the problem of large phylogeny estimation,” but then
opens with a tone of despair:

Optimality criterion-based phylogeny inference is a
notoriously difficult endeavor because the number of solutions increases
explosively with the number of taxa. Indeed, the total number of possible
unrooted, bifurcating tree topologies among T-terminal taxa ... [corresponds] to
nearly 32 billion different trees for 14 taxa and 3 X 1084 trees (i.e., more
than the number of atoms in the known universe) for 55 taxa. ... As most
mathematicians expect that no such algorithm [i.e., polynomial time solution]
exists, one is forced to admit that no future civilization will ever build a
computer capable of solving the problem while guaranteeing that the optimal
solution has been found.

Instead of number-crunching the impossible, the authors propose a heuristic
approach. Heuristic approaches sacrifice the goal of getting an optimal tree in
hopes of getting one faster that has maximum likelihood (ML).

Um, no... I would think that a taxpayer-funded NASA "scientist" like David Coppedge would at least try to understand the material he is bashing, but I guess that is too much to ask of a creationist. Even a NASA employee. The whole point of a heuristic search is still to find the optimal tree, but to do so without having to examine every single possible arrangement of taxa.

Can a 'computer geek' like Coppedge really not know this?

As this applies to phylogeny searches, look at it this way (A spectacularly simplified example) - say you have DNA sequences from 4 taxa and you want to do a phylogenetic analysis. Their sequences are:

1. AGGGCCCCAAAATTTTT
2. AGGGCCTCAAAATTTTT
3. AGGCCCTCAAATTTTTT
4. AGGCCTAGAAGTTTAAA

We can note that sequences 1 and 2 differ by only one substitution; 1 and 3 by two; 1 and 4 by 8; etc., and we know that taxon 4 is not closely related to the other three. If we choose to root our tree (that is, if we recognize that one of the taxa in our analysis will be the most distantly related to all the others), there are 15 possible arrangements that could be produced (we can quickly see which taxon this is going to be, but we would want to test each one to be sure). Now, we could simply draw out all 15 possible arrangements, count up the number of nucleotide changes needed to 'describe' each tree, then pick the tree with the fewest changes as our optimal tree. But that would take, if we use 5 minutes drawing and calculating each arrangement for our example, 75 minutes. Now, if we employ a heuristic search algorithem, we do not draw and calculate every possible tree, because we can immediately discard 'bad' trees/arrangements without having to draw and calculate them.
For example, a quick comparison of each pair of sequences tells us what I wrote above ("We can note that sequences 1 and 2 differ by only one substitution...") and we can use this information, which can be generated in much less than 5 minutes, to see which groupings are the most likely. In our little example here, we can see that taxa 1 and 2 are the closest, with taxon 3 joining the group of 1 and 2, with taxon 4 as out outgroup. So we know that taxon 4 will be the outgroup, therefore, we only have to draw and calculate how taxa 1, 2, and 3 should group. And as we established that taxa 1 and 2 are the closest, there is only one tree that will do. This can be calculated in maybe 10 minutes, if we do it by hand, and use the "heuristic" I just described, which is essentially what computer analysis programs do (albeit, obviously, with much more rigor).
Coppedge is just trying to use the classic creationist "argument via big numbers" and relying on the fact that most of his acolytic readers will not know any different.
Or care.
Further, maximum likelihood is a search criterion, not an intrinsic value.
Coppedge is clueless. Perhaps for real.

Lemmon and Milinkovitch wrote a computer program that converges quicker on an ML model with larger number of taxa. They call theirs the “metapopulation genetic
algorithm.” It is a quasi-Darwinian model that tries to optimize trees based on
mutations and selection, and it can incorporate rate heterogeneity estimates
into the model. The authors try their program on real and imaginary populations
and compare their results with other heuristic methods.

The article in question came out in 2002. Coppedge writes as if such an algorithem is a new thing. To put this in perspective, I entered graduate school in 1999, and I started out using a computer analysis package that utilized maximum likelihood methods (as well as about 4 others) that was written nearly 10 years earlier. Below is Coppedge's snarky disinformative commentary:

Were you ever told in biology class that generating a phylogenetic tree from the
raw data was mathematically impossible, and that no future civilization would
ever overcome this barrier? Probably not, yet textbooks are replete with neat,
authoritative-looking phylogenetic trees. So how do they determine them? By
heuristic methods, which by translation, means guesswork, inference,
trial-and-error, hunches and hope. Their model incorporates a number of
optimization parameters, such as rate heterogeneity, which means that not all
genes mutate at the same rate, and branch length, the presumed evolutionary
distance between taxa.

Wow... Where to begin? No, Coppedge, heuristic methods do NOT at all mean "guesswork" etc. And for a NASA employee to denigrate trial and error??!?!?? Is he for real? One of my interests is spaceflight, and I have seen many programs about the space program, and NASA's history is little BUT trial and error! And the shock of a program incorporating rate heterogeneity! Imagine, incorporating what the evidence indicates! I have little doubt that one can find on Coppedge's site some snarky little essays decrying any notion that all genes mutate at the same rate. And as far as branch length goes - the programs FIND the branch length as part of the analysis! How can it incorporate something that is one of the outputs of the algorithem!
This guy is CLUELESS!

The tweak space is enormous, and they already have a mental picture of what they
want, so this whole approach is based on circular reasoning. If the program
outputs a tree that agrees with the evolutionary assumptions, is scores high;
otherwise, it is rejected.

Amazing. Coppedge - who should at least have a basic understanding of the terminology (since things like "heuristic searches" are common computer science terms) , is simply spouting nonsense. I challenge anyone here to read the actual paper and point out where the authors state that they already 'have a mental picture of what they want' and somehow force the program to spit out this desired result. The entire purpose of the paper in question was to outline the authors' procedure for producing phylogenetic trees using large datasets with many, many taxa more quickly than can be done with existing methods. Coppedge acts as if they are merely trying to find a way to make a program that produces what they want it to (he must be confusing real science with baraminology).
Of course, what they set out to do - to make a computer analysis program that can analyze large numbers of taxa in large datasets more quickly and just as accurately as existing but slower models all but requires them to 'know' what they want to get - that is how you test your model! Does Coppedgfe REALLY not understand this?

Does this provide any confidence that evolution is being confirmed empirically?
Is this how scientists in our universities should be spending their time,
playing Darwinian computer games?Instead of explaining how mutation and natural
selection could produce a Monarch butterfly or a finch or a peppered moth in the
first place, scientific papers on evolution seem obsessed with trying to uncover
phylogenetic relationships that are impossible to calculate objectively or
verify independently without begging the question whether common ancestry is
even true.

Is this how a taxpayer-funded NASA scientist should be spending his time -writing disinformation filled drivel to prop up his religious beliefs?
And the coup de grace - Coppedge at his sleight of hand best. We see this silly sentiment in many creationist rants - this whole 'those evos are ASSUMING evolution is true when they do their experimets!' as if that is a bad thing to do.
Do creationists assume creation is true when they do their experiments (I mean, if they did any)?
Do physicists assume that gravity is a constant throughout the universe when they plot spacecraft flight paths?
Of course they do - why, I'd even bet that NASA computer technicians like Copppedge assume certain things about the software writing programs they utilize and the models they make.

I would like to point out that this distortion-laden diatribe was one of the shortest I could find on Coppedge's site on this subject. I can only assume that longer rants have even more distortions and embellishments. But David Coppedge need not be concerned -his like-minded readers will believe everything he writes - he is a YEC AND he works at NASA, after all - and will think his smug insults are all well deserved by those evilutionists.

Sad

Oh, the NAME CALLING!!!

2009-01-14T17:12:00.003-05:00

A fellow who has left a couple of comments here decided to write about a comment I left for him on his blog. It is pretty funny:

I recently got a comment on my blog and I would love to share it with you. I will leave the name of this individual anonymous but see if you can see what is missing in his comment.

"I appreciate the spammed post on my blog. I deleted one and posted the other. No Darwin did not have an electron microscope, nor did he know about DNA. Had he, I predict that the would have really enjoyed the vast amount of evidence supporting his basic premise that one can find there". (Which this person commenting does not mention here!!!). " Are cells simple? Not really(not really, look at your science not at all!!!). But simply arguing that they are so complex that could not have arisen by 'chance' and thus evolution is false thus biblical creationism is true is just wrong on so many levels." (yet he does not mention or give facts stating how it is wrong!!) "And I wouldn't be so quick to trust the claims by the folks at ICR in the first place (which he offers zero evidence why other than they disagree with his ideology).- they require al of those associated with them to take oaths that they will never cast doubt on creationism (simply not true), and have a pretty good tract record of having their, shall we say, less than honest antics exposed (Which again he fails to mention one single occurrence.)

Did you see what was missing throughout this man's whole entire argument?? Facts? Again where are the facts, he has been reduced to name calling and empty allegations. Offer me one proof of anything you say. Read my blog post simply not simple in which I quote Charles Darwin!! Yet he offers zero evidence on which his position stands. Then the evolutionist like this man have the audacity to claim that we are the ones who believe in blind faith, who have no evidence. DNA has the amount of info to fill 500 books with a 1000 pages each, an incredible amount of information on a molecular level. Where does this information come from?? How would Darwin be overjoyed if he had an electron microscope?? WHat is it within a cell supports organic evolution?? Darwin himself said the opposite, he said "if it can be demonstrated that any complex organ exited which could not have possibly been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down". (Origin of species) 1872, p.154

So this man who commented said Darwin would be overjoyed, when he himself wrote the quote above which is exactly what we see in a cell. Darwin wouldn't be overjoyed, he would calling for the glory that is due to the Great Creator...

I plan on dissecting this when I have the time, but could someone please point out where I called anyone names? Or is this persecution complex thing a common trait in these folks?

Correlation or causation or neither?

2008-12-15T10:59:00.010-05:00

Andras Pellionisz is an interesting fellow. He appears to have been a productive researcher, who then saw the chance to make some real cash and apparently started up a couple of companies.

Of late, however, he seems to be on a megalomaniacal tirade of sorts, setting himself up as the greatest thing in science since Crick (whose 'dogma' he (Pellionisz) has done away with), with his "establishment" of his "Principle of the Recursive Genome" (I won't even mention his malicious, self-aggrandizing historical revisionism on junkDNA...).

In short, Pellionisz claims that what we used to refer to as 'genes' interact recursively with what we used to call 'junk DNA' to produce structures that can be described via fractal mathematics.

He 'predicted' in 2006 that because of this 'principle', the Purkinje cells (P-cells) in cerebellums of fish (or other organisms with brains) of 'more recently' developed status, having larger genomes, will have greater branchings in their dendritic networks:

One of us (AJP) has previously proposed that fractal processes associated
with DNA are in a causal relation to the fractal properties of organelles such
as P-cells (FractoGene, 2002, patent pending). [let us ignore for now the odd
depiction of a neuron as an 'organelle'] This fractal postulate
predicts that the dendritic arborization of P-cells will be less complex in
lower order vertebrates.

Well, OK. A prediction that Fugu will have less arborized dendrites than mouse and human because ... well, let's see...

The prediction can be tested by systematic comparative neuroanatomy of the
P-cell in species for which genome sequences permit inter-species comparison.
The Fugu rubripes (Fugu), Danio rerio (Danio) and other species are lower order
vertebrates for which genome sequences are available and tests could be
conducted. Consistent with the fractal prediction, P-cell dendritic arbor is
primitive in Fugu, being much less complex than in Mus musculus and in Homo
sapiens. Genomic analysis readily identified PEP19/Pcp4, Calbindin-D28k, and
GAD67 genes in Fugu and in Danio that are closely associated with P-cells in
Canis familiaris, Rattus norvegicus, Mus musculus and Homo sapiens. Gene L7/Pcp2
exhibits strongest association with P-cells in higher vertebrates. L7/Pcp2 shows
strong protein residue homology with genes greater than 600 residues and
including 2-3 GoLoco domains, designated as having G protein signaling modulator
function (AGS3-like proteins). Fugu has a short gene with a single GoLoco
domain, but it has greatest homology with the AGS3-like proteins. No similar
short gene is present in Danio or in Xenopus. Classical L7/Pcp2 is only detected
in higher vertebrates, suggesting that it may be a marker of more recent
evolutionary development of cerebellar P-cells. We expect that a new generation
of data mining tools will be required to support recursive fractal geometrical,
combinatorial, and neural network models of the genomic basis of morphogenesis.

OK, great. Looks like he's onto something. Right?
Now, however, one finds a hyperbole riddled webpage announcing:

UPDATE (14 September, 2007) Question-marks raised by the "Fugu prediction
paper" [the paper mentioned above] have met tentative support. The
correlation - contrary to blogs whose ideology would prefer otherwise -
is further supported, there is no contradiction, no gaps, whatsoever.
Peer-reviewed presentation of evidence from independent sources will follow
whenever they are ready.

Please note the inconsistency between the first and second sentence - in the first, he states that 'question marks' in his Fugu paper have found "tentative support", but the second indicates that there is near certainty.

Anyway, the commentary there is hard to follow, but there are some figures apparently from the paper claimed to have supported his Fugu 'questionmarks' and their legends:

[original legends] Fig. 4. Sketch of the emerging field of comparison of
the complexity of the dendritic trees of P-cells, their genomic analysis,
calling for biophysical synthesis. Insert B shows the P-cell in the Fugu
rubripes (B is courtesy of Székely33), in which the genome size is 0.37
Gigabases. C will show the P-cell in Danio rerio (as it becomes available,
according to studies at an early stage to exhibit an interim complexity) in
which the genome size is 1.56 Gigabases. D shows the dendritic arbor of the
P-cell in the mouse (genome size is 2.6 Gigabases). Insert D is
fluorescent-stained photo, courtesy of Prof. Helen Blau40. E shows a
computer-reconstruction of the P-cell in the guinea pig21. The genome size in
the guinea pig is not known to date, but its sequencing was slated (at Broad
Institute and MIT) among other species. Insert H shows the P-cell of the
human27. The genome size in the human is 3.1 Gigabases.

[updated legends - 14 September, 2007] Fig. 4. Sketch of the emerging
field of comparison of the complexity of the dendritic trees of P-cells, their
genomic analysis, calling for biophysical synthesis. Insert B shows the P-cell
in the Fugu rubripes (B is courtesy of Székely33), in which the genome size is
0.37 Gigabases. Question-marks in C will be replaced by finalized results of
already known preliminary studies exhibiting an interim complexity, in which the
genome size is 1.56 Gigabases. D shows the dendritic arbor of the P-cell in the
mouse (genome size is 2.6 Gigabases). Insert D is fluorescent-stained photo,
courtesy of Prof. Helen Blau40. E shows a computer-reconstruction of the P-cell
in the guinea pig21. The genome size in the guinea pig is not known to date, but
its sequencing was slated (at Broad Institute and MIT) among other species, and
now preliminary sequencing results project the the genome size right in the
predicted range***. Insert H shows the P-cell of the human27. The genome size in
the human is 3.1 Gigabases.

Yes, that is pretty much exactly how it appears on his website (one of apparently a dozen or so that he maintains).
So, they show the P-cell in a Fugu with like 3 dendrites, and 'more recently developed' P-cells with greater arborization (hundreds of branches).

So this is where I get lost - the recursive genome claims appear to indicate a 're-visiting' to the genome areas associated with a particular structure or process by proteins/RNAs with the end result being a fractalicious outcome.

His 'support' appears to be a correlation between genome size and arborization of P-cells in the cerebellum.

While this may well hold true for P-cell arborization in a general sense, what we do NOT see is any indication of 'recursivity' at all - what the 'support' paper shows is that the 'more recently developed' organisms have more/larger genes associated with their P-cells:

L7/Pcp2 showsstrong protein residue homology with genes greater than 600
residues andincluding 2-3 GoLoco domains, designated as having G protein
signaling modulatorfunction (AGS3-like proteins). Fugu has a short gene
with a single GoLocodomain, but it has greatest homology with the
AGS3-like proteins. No similar short gene is present in Danio or in
Xenopus. Classical L7/Pcp2 is only detectedin higher vertebrates,
suggesting that it may be a marker of more recentevolutionary development of cerebellar P-cells.

And that was from HIS OWN paper! Implicit in his junk DNA claims is the notion that the recursivity is a function OF the junk DNA (and so it is not junk). To prop this notion up, he has made a great deal of noise about the fact that one can find stop codons in junk DNA. It has been pointed out to him that you can find ALL of the codons for ALL amino acids (including MET - start codons) in 'junk DNA' , too. But he insists that stop codons in junk DNA are special and supportive of his claims. Somehow - he won't really say how, just that they are.

So is the larger genome - more 'junk DNA' anyway - of a 'more recently' evolved oganism the cause of the greater arborization in their P-cells and thus Pellionisz's recursive genome principle is real and true? Or is greater arborization unrelated to genome size directly and the degree of arborization has a different cause - maybe arborization is influenced by inductive processes* that have little if anything to do with recursivity?

Like anyone envisioning him or herself as a paradigm-busting visionary - who also has a product to sell - Pellionisz seems to make reckless extrapolations and to ignore or downplay potentially disconfirming evidence (none of the 93 citations in his 'Principle' paper, for example, seem to even mention indiction).

Now, about that junk DNA revisionism of his.....

UPDATE:
While perusing the web for more interesting info on Pellionisz's claims, I came across his foray onto the Panda's Thumb last year. As I mentioned, Pellionisz cites as "evidence" for his claims the observation that Fugu has a smaller genome compared to 'higher' vertebrates and also has less arborized P-cells. Andrea Bottaro asks him to look at the lungfish, whose genome is some 10 times the size of our own, to see if they have 10X the arborization that human P-cells have.
Pellionisz's response was to engage in some ego-boosting and ranting but not once did he even mention testing his claims as Bottaro suggests. In fact, when it came up again later, Pellionisz only mentioned the guinea pig genome, which he declared to fulfill one of his 'predictions'. Apparently, he is afraid that the lungfish will negate the predictive power of his 'theory' (which he claims is true). Later, when pressed again, he punted, claiming that he believes that their larger genomes probaly have to do with metamorphosis and have nothing to do with the cerebellum... Cute, but it would clearly violate his claims re: the P-cells in Fugu, guinea pig and human. Not to mention the fact that lungfish do not undergo metamorphosis.

Later, it is pointed out that lots of people were research in junk DNA before he and his hero M. Simons came along, and that their claims of martyrdom were just to generate sympathy for their cause. Pellionisz responds to that by ignoring the fact that junk DNA research had been going on all along and instead merely trying to gain more sympathy by mentioning that Simons has a 'junk DNA-related' disease. Pellionisz also refers to promoter regions as "junkDNA", implying that research on such areas had 'also' been neglected. Such regions have been not only hypothesized but in fact known about for decades.

Also, when he was reminded that things like promoters had been discovered prior to Simons' work and that research into junk DNA had been going on all along, he disissed it by quoting a section from Brenner's Nobel speech in which he characterized junk DNA as useless. The speech was given in 1985.
Later in the comments, we see this:
" Perhaps he feels I have no right to comment, since my Ph.D. is in sociology, not science proper. But I must say, if my work in the sociology of science had played as fast and loose with historical accuracy as Dr. Pellionisz’s does, I would have been booted out of the program before I got my MA."

Indeed.

UPDATE UPDATE:

Pellionisz later (in the PT thread linked above) states:

"Since Malcolm (Simones, Pellionisz's 'partner') is widely known to be affected by a “Junk DNA disease” himself, after having pinned down that “junk was anything but” he is motivated having already spent two decades to finding out the best approach to what might exactly be the function that Darwinian theory actually required. "

More historical revisionism from Pellionisz. Simons published ZERO papers having anything to do with junk DNA or junk DNA diseases or anything until about 10 years after Zuckerkandl has identified promoters and hypoethesized about functionin junk DNA. Amazing.

*I am aware that only a few of the returns on those searches deal directly with the topic of arborization of P-cells, my point is there ARE other potential explanations which one can find by doing a little searching.

Republican Party in denial

2008-12-11T08:26:00.003-05:00

Amazing. I just listened to the chair of the Republican Natinal Committee claim on NPR that contrary to public opinion, the Republicans really have the best ideas on how to fix the economy (trickle down works!).
Further, he refused to address concerns from other republicans about the undue influence of the religious right.

Keep it up! The further they run to the right, the less they allow that their positions might not be the best, the more irrelevant they will be.

I really don't understand Conservatives

2008-11-15T13:03:00.003-05:00

At least not the politically active ones, be they advocates, pundits, spokespersons, or politicians themselves.

Read though a few 'analyeses' of this past election by them.

As usual, the blame game and revisionism is up and running at full speed in the right-wing fantasy land, where Obama's and the Democrat's victories, despite being above and beyond anything the Republicans have seen in decades, is diminished, where Bush's slimmer victories were heralded as 'mandates', Obama is already being blamed for the economic crisis despite not even being president yet, etc.

But what really baffles me is the notion, exhibited by many on the right including Sarah Palin, that republicans have to be MORE conservative to win again. They have to be MORE hawkish, MORE religious, MORE anti-immigrant, MORE tax-cuts for billionaires, MORE pro-death penalty, MORE in love with embryoes, MORE anti-Constitution, etc. That they must go FURTHER to the right because they somehow think that mainstream America is conservative like they are.

Are these folks for real?

Did they actually look at the election results?

Liddy Dole -right-wing bible nut W-is-my-hero lost in North Carolina!

Draft-deferment monger and reliable right-winger Saxby Chambliss won election to the senate with a 7% lead (at 53%) in 2002. This year, there will be a runoff election as nobody earned more than 50% of the vote.

Ted 'Felon' Stevens won his last election with 78% of the vote - this year, there is a re-count as it is too close to call, with his Democratic opponant holding a slight lead as of the writing of this post.

And so it goes. Even those conservative Republicans that held on to their seats did so with much less of a margin than in past elections, including Mitch McConnell, Wicker in Mississippi (winning his House seat with 66% of the vote in 2006, winning his senate seat this time with 55%), etc.

The "true" conservatives LOST their wide margins of victory, and in many cases LOST altogether.

Yet the true believers insist that to win, the party must go even further to the right!
It is like Robert E. Lee insisting that one more open field charge at Gettyburg would have won the battle for them*.

They keep saying that America is a center-right country, but this year's election says something different. The times are changing, and if the Conservative movement wants to survive, they are going to have to change, too.

Frankly, I've had enough of these people. I hope they DO go further to the right. I hope they DO put forth Palin as their presidential candidate next time around. She won't be able to hide from reporters as the Presidential candidate, and the more she opens her mouth, the more idiotic and incompetnet she makes herself out to be (which doesn't say much for the Alaskans who keep votinng for her). I hope they adopt a platform premised on a requirement that all Republicans must take an oath pledging to be biblical fundamentalists, to give tax cuts only to the wealthy (for we all kow how well trickle down works), to increase military spending and start more wars against the heathen, the execution of homosexuals and abortionists, the de-funding of public education, etc., etc., etc.

Let the rational people in this country - the REAL real Americans - see just how fucked up loony these people are so they can be officially marginalized - as they should be.

*Lee ordered an open-field charge (a march, really) by George Pickett's division (and others)- Pickett lost nearly half his division; Lee later ordered him to rally his division to defend the Confederate line, Pickett is said to have replied, "Sir, I have no Division."

Now that a Democrat is president....

2008-11-14T08:51:00.002-05:00

... with troops in the field, can we expect the Right to offer only unyielding support for his every decision?

After all, critics of W. were called traitors and the like for publicly disagreeing with the CinC while we are at war.

My guess is that they will suddenly abandon their pro-president 'principles'.

Because Conservatives' really have no principles.

Berlinski babbles on

2008-11-11T08:32:00.002-05:00

Pity that the poor poseur keeps getting pwned.

How ridiculous can this guy be?

The existence of mathematics is supportive of ID??

Come on....

But hey - the DI keeps paying him!

"Fair and Balanced"? Fake News?

2008-10-28T17:49:00.004-04:00

I have to laugh whenever I hear Fox News personalities carrying on about how 'fair and balanced' they are.

It is almost as if the pundits conflate actual news reporting - such as one might get with Shepard Smith (the one Fox News personality that retains some integrity) - with all of the propagandizing and agenda-pushing they do for the other 22 hours a day.

Here for example.

You can see 'anchor' Megyn Kelly getting indignant that Bill Burton states the truth - that their recent anti-Obama gibberish (such as the "B girl" hoax, which unfortunately was not mentioned) was a Fox embellishment/concoction.

She mentions that only 36% of news stories on other networks are positive for McCain.

As if there is some reason that all stations should have an exactly equal number of positive and negative stories about all political figures (this, let us remember, is the network that runs Obama=terrorist nonsense around the clock).

Let us consider this possibility - other networks report only 36% favorable stories on McCain because, I don't know, maybe the McCain campaign is 64% crap and lies and nonsense?

These people are just plain insane, and anyone that thinks Fox News really is "Fair and Balanced" should have their little pinheads examined.

Curious - Megyn didn't mention this poll, also done by Pew, showing that Fox news viewers are basically idiots.

Collin B., yet again....

2008-10-21T20:11:00.002-04:00

Collin the photographer had posted a reply (presented below in toto) to an exchange we had earlier (our initial exchanges on this blog are here).

I took a bit of a blogging break, and actually forgot about his histrionics, but now have gotten around ot this stuff.

My replies interspersed with Collin's claims:

***************************************************************************

Questions
on Evolutionary Theory, part II
In the first part I raised a question. In the follow-up I tried to clarify the question. In both instances the question was open to correction.

Well, not quite. Yes, you posed a 'question', but the question was exceptionally wrong-headed. When I pointed this out, you asked MORE wrong-headed questions, then got indignant. Open to correction? Hardly.

But so far no intelligent responses have been gleaned from the posts. It's sad because Doppelganger claims to be a PhD in the field yet remains anonymous to the world.

Yes, it is just a 'claim.' Must be. I remain semi-anonymous so I don't have mouth-breathing lunatics harrass my colleagues and superiors, like what happens to folks like PZ Myers.
Of course, the fact is that I corrected your misconceptions and answered you as was warranted. You didn't like the answers, so you insult me and ignore them. That is what creatinists do.

I think there is cause to question this in light of unanswered questions. I
don't mind being wrong. In fact, if I am wrong, I want to be shown precisely how
I am wrong.

No you don't. I showed you how and why you were wrong. You just kept rambling on with the same erroneous tripe. One can follow the links to see the exchanges, but I will offer but 1 example from our exchanges after my May 10 blog post. You had initially written that you felt there were millions of 'trait changes' between humans and chimps. I asked you to name 1000 of these millions. Your response was to claim that you thought there were more than 1000 trait changes!
You apparently cannot even understand the words written in response to your claims, how do you expect to be able to understand technical responses?

One would hope for civility, but alas Doppelganger would rather insult the
questioner than construct a meaningful and substantive response.

Ah yes, it is always the 'civility' issue. If only I were so civil, Collin would have admitted that his claims and 'questions' were bogus and accepted the informaiton I gave him.

So let's revisit the second post and change the question to something more
precise:
Give me the genetic changes in reverse that would take humans back
to the rodent stage, per the current model? (re: To the Yucatan impact of 65mya
fromhumans today.)It's a simple enough question -- what precisely happened? Not
what might have happened or what could have happened (which, when you read the
posts that came before, is all I got -- possibility, but neither probability nor
historical fact.) Don't give me a model. I've read that stuff. Give me the
detail? Is it there or not? Or is your "proof" a workable model but not a
working history?

Details? Details on all of the genetic changes that occurred between modern humans and the 'rodent' stage - and this is supposed to be a rational, reasonable 'question'?
Imagine - I was actually providinng tentative answers! How horrible! I guess Collin is more used to absolutist proclamations that the standard tentative nature of a scientific answer was interpreted as ignorance. Poor Collin, so confused and out of his league...
Of course, what Collin the creationist has done is set up a perfect little win-win scenario - he pretends to have produced a reasonable, rational 'question'. If I try to answer it, he will reject the answer by asking more. If I don't answer it, he will claim victory. Of course, none of this negates the fact that his request is silly - we do not and cannot know what the genome of the 'rodent stage' was.

The best we can do is compare a modern human with a modern rodent. That would produce an approximation of the changes that have occurred in BOTH lineages since they last shared a common ancestor. But since that woul dnot specifically address Collin's 'question', he will reject it.

As a commenter on Collin's blog prsented, he asked for the impossible, and I add, that he doesn't even know why it is impossible.

But I have to wonder - if I produce a pairwise DNA sequence alignment for a mouse gene and it's human homologue, point out the differences, and deduce what the 'original' sequence might have been, would Collin accept that?

The word is NUC-LE-AR!!!!

2008-10-03T12:17:00.002-04:00

Amazing...

Caught some of the vice presidential debate last night and Palin pronounces the word nuclear incorrectly just like moron Bush does - nuculer.

Is being stupid the new requisite for being a NeoCon politician?

Why so many Yellow Elephants?

2008-09-21T13:15:00.003-04:00

A Yellow Elephant is essentially a conservative republican that advocates military action yet has not or will not enlist themselves.

I came across this list, and it says much (any emphases mine):

==============================
Democrats
David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72
Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, etc
Jimmy Carter: Lt. Commander in the Navy 1946-53
Wesley Clark: Army 1966-2000, Vietnam, Silver star, purple heart
Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver/Bronze stars, Vietnam
Bill Clinton: Did not serve
Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72
Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze star
Michael Dukakis: Army 1955-57
John Edwards: Did not serve
Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71
John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs; Air Medal w/18 Clusters
Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam as journalist
Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74
Howell Heflin: Silver star
Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze star
Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII
Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53
Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam
John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver/Bronze stars, purple hearts
Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII
Jim McDermott: Navy 1968-70
George McGovern: Silver star & DFC during WWII
Zell Miller: Marine Corps, 1953-56
Walter Mondale: Army 1951-53
Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver star, etc
Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze star, Korea
Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-79; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91
Chuck Robb: U.S. Marine Corps, 1961-70, Vietnam
Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57
Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart

Republicans
Spencer Abraham: Did not serve
Eliot Abrams: Did not serve
Richard Armitage: Navy, three tours in Vietnam
John Ashcroft: Did not serve
Roy Blunt: Did not serve
Michael Bloomberg: Did not serve
George H.W. Bush: Youngest Navy pilot in WW II; awarded DFC
George W. Bush: Texas Air Nat. Guard; didn't take physical; suspended from flying
Jeb Bush: Did not serve
Saxby Chambliss: Did not serve. Attacked Cleland's patriotism
Dick Cheney: Did not serve
Christopher Cox: Did not serve
Tom DeLay: Did not serve
Bob Dole: Army in WWII, Bronze star, two purple hearts
Bob Dornan: Enlisted after fighting was over in Korea
John Engler: Did not serve
Douglas Feith: Did not serve
Gerald Ford: Lt. Commander, Navy in WWII
Bill Frist: Did not serve
Newt Gingrich: Did not serve
Rudy Giuliani: Did not serve
Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer
Phil Gramm: Did not serve
Chuck Hagel: Served in Vietnam, two Bronze stars and purple heart
Dennis Hastert: Did not serve
Tim Hutchison: Did not serve
Jack Kemp: Did not serve. "Knee problem," continued in NFL for 8 years
Jon Kyl: Did not serve
Trent Lott: Did not serve
Richard Lugar: Intelligence officer in Navy 1957-60
John McCain: POW in Vietnam, Legion of Merit, Silver star, DFC, many more
Mitch McConnell: Did not serve
John McHugh: Did not serve
George Pataki: Did not serve
Richard Perle: Did not serve
Colin Powell: 35 years in Army, 4-star general
Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard
Ronald Reagan: Served in WWII making movies
Tom Ridge: Army in Vietnam, Bronze star
Dana Rohrabacher: Did not serve
Karl Rove: Did not serve
Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor
Rick Santorum: Did not serve
Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base
Richard Shelby: Did not serve
JC Watts: Did not serve
Vin Weber: Did not serve
Paul Wolfowitz: Did not serve

Pundits, Preachers, and Judges
Bill Bennett: Did not serve
Wolf Blitzer: Did not serve
Pat Buchanan: Did not serve
William Buckley: Army in WWII
Charlie Daniels: Did not serve
Lou Dobbs: Did not serve
Paul Gigot: Did not serve
Sean Hannity: Did not serve
Bill Kristol: Did not serve
Jim Lehrer: U.S. Marine Corps
Rush Limbaugh: Did not serve
Chris Matthews: Did not serve
Michael Medved: Did not serve
Ted Nugent: Did not serve
Bill O'Reilly: Did not serve
Dan Rather: Army Reserve
Ralph Reed: Did not serve
Michael Savage: Did not serve
Antonin Scalia: Did not serve
Kenneth Starr: Did not serve
Clarence Thomas: Did not serve
John Wayne: Did not serve
George Will: Did not serve
=================================

See a trend?

Clearly, this list is not exhaustive and not all-inclusive. But the names on it are chosen wisely.

Sean Hannity - blowhard, coward

2008-09-21T12:29:00.007-04:00

On a whim, I signed up for the Sean Hannity Discussion forum today.

I went to the 'America at War' board, and made the following post:

title:

Did Hannity serve in the military?

body:

I was just curious as to whether his uber-patriotism has teeth.

A mere 6 minutes later, I went back to the forum to see if anyone had replied.

As I logged in, I got the follwong message:

You have been banned for the following reason:Troll / Contempt of Host
Date the ban will be lifted: Never

Imagine that....

Well, it is true that I have nothing but contempt for phony-patriot Hannity and his moronic fans, but it seemed to me that my question was pretty tame.

Of course, this is how conservatives maintain their facades - by controlling and quashing dissent. Even if such 'dissent' is little more than asking a relevant question, the answer to which may not act to add to the sheen on the Hero's Halo...

Must be a touchy subject for the fragile-ego'd Hannity.

He is a coward, no two ways about it.

John McCain has no Honor

2008-09-21T11:47:00.002-04:00

There was a time, many many years ago, when I would have actually considered voting for McCain. That was when I, like os manh people, actually believed the claimed 'maverick' status for him. Had I been better informed back then, I would have seen the he did not deserve the label - going against your party on one or two issues does not make you a maverick.

Being in Congress for 26 years does not make you a maverick. Voting with Bush 90% of the time does not make you a maverick. Calling Bush's tax cuts something he could not support in "good conscience" one year, then a few years later, while still at war, claiming that he would try to make them permanent, does not make you a maverick.
I could go on.

But for me, as a veteran, what I find perhaps the most deplorable - not the flip flops, not the lying, not the pandering - is the constant harping on his POW history.

It is as if they want us to think that because he was a POW, he is superhuman. He is the most qualified to be president (nevermind that the folks who are telling us this today, were telling us that this made him unstable and perhaps made him a traitor when he ran against Bush). He is excused for being such an out of touch millionaire elitist that he doesn't know how many mansions he owns.

This is disgusting.

This is pathetic.

This is disgraceful.

It seems every time he makes an ass out of himself, he pulls out the POW card. 'What's that? I flip flopped on issue X? Well you see, when I was a POW, I didn't even HAVE X!'

Give me a break, McCain.

Using your history as a POW to score political points, in my book, removes your cloak of Honorable service.
You are a disgrace and an embarrassment to the men who sacrificed for their country and are NOT using that sacrifice as a means of securing cheap political points and to cloud issues and to sway the ignorant rubes for whom bumpersticker patriotism is REAL patriotism.

These are the acts not of an American Hero, but an American Idiot.

For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee...

Sarah Palin - Right Wing Lying Loony

2008-09-14T10:27:00.005-04:00

While Palin's indiscretions and embellished personal history have not been secret for some time, the New York Times finally had the guts to print, on page 1, an expose of Palin and her antics. The caption for a picture reads, in part:

Throughout her career, Ms. Palin has pursued vendettas, fired officials who
crossed her and blurred the line between government and personal grievance.

Which means she is a lot like George Bush:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on
loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal
e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The
New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Nice. More Star Chamber sleaze.

Add to her description 'ignorant' (she thinks the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance); religious nut (thinks God wanted the war in Iraq and is a Young Earth Creationist); and lying sack of stool (she STILL claims to have opposed the 'bridge to nowhere'), and she is W with a skirt.

Brief return - Collin Brendemuehl is upset that he is so wrong about things...

2008-07-17T14:17:00.002-04:00

Poor Collin Brendemuehl. Having been repeatedly humiliated at multiple blogs, he decided to try mine on for size, and it didn't go too well for him.

He had asked a couple of 'wrong' questions about evolution - wondered 'are there' "10 million" random changes were that were required to explain human evolution from a rodent-like ancestor. I explained that the questions did not even make sense. He didn't like that. He 'allowed' that it might only be 1 million. I asked him to name just 1000 of the 'trait changes' he believes exist. Ultimately, he could produce only those listed below, all dealing with the same structure, most of which are likley goverened by but a few genes. After several rounds of Collin trying to change subjects, dodge questions, and accusing me of all manner of things, I told Collin that until he decided to actually address the original issues, I would not allow more of his comments here. He called it 'censorship.'

I left the following reply (I've cleaned up a few typos):

Hilarious hubris...
I guess you ignored the parts where I explaiend that the 'parts' you seem to think require their own specific sets of mutations are actually all part of the same structure (a limb, for example) and I provided you a real example of how ALL those things can be affected by a single mutation.
In fact, I specifically countered each of your supposed structures and physiological issues, but you bailed.
Regarding an arm, you naively believed the following:

1. circulatory system
2. bone structure
3. muscles
4.
skin
5. foot/hand

Each of these has a variety of qualities that need
to change. Let'slist
a few. There are more, but this is a good
start.

1. circulatory system
1.1 Vessel size
1.2 vessel
capacity
1.3 valve strength
1.4 elasticity
2. bone structure
2.1
formulation
2.2 thickness
2.3 marrow capacity
2.4 strength
3.
muscles
3.1 tendon strength
3.2 size
3.3 strength
3.4
oxygenation
4. skin
4.1 sweat capacity
4.2 elasticity
4.3 hair
capacity
4.4 coloration
5. foot/hand
5.1 Shape
5.2 Nails
5.3
Surface
5.4 Thumb behavior

I provided the example of the FGFR-3 mutation in humans producing dwarfism that affects ALL of those things. ONE SINGLE mutation. I explicitly did not give that as an example of evolution, rather, as an example of how gene changes can ilicit major phenotypic changes.
ADDED COMMENT: But then, you insisted that getting a nail from a claw was a "major" phenotypic change requiring many mutations.
I explained how several of those 'individual' changes were actually
essentially the same thing - changing a vessels size will affect it's capacity;
making abone larger increases it's "marrow capacity", etc. To no
avail.

A rational person might want to quit while they are ahead.

And by the way - even if we are generous and grant that the 20 things you mention are legitimate individual changes each requiring their own suite of mutations (which they are not), YOU said there were MILLIONS, and I asked you to provide 1000.
You have 980 more to go. But I suspect that they, too, would all fall under the same umbrella of multiple changes that really are not multiple changes.
It is too bad that an untrained internet pseudoexpert cannot realize his limitations and actually acknowledge the possibility that he might not be up to snuff on the things he rants about.
Too much to ask, I suppose.
And by the way - discretion is not censorship. Post something of substance, and it will get through.

Internet creationist types also seem to like to try to imply - or state outright - that professors and such have some sort of obligation to put up with trollish behavior and address all manner of shallow nonsense presented as unasailable truth. Collin writes:

Now, if the terms I used were too colloquial, the list was certainly subject to
correction and clarification. A Ph. D. scientist should be able to competently
accomplish that.

Um, OK, well, the names were certainly colloquial enough, but that was hardly the issue, as I explained.
I can only imagine what he would have written if I had provided the anatomically-correct terms for each of the structures he had referred to - let me guess, I would have been labelled an elitist? I would have been accused of trying to embarrass the poor creationist? I would have been accused of trying to cloud the issues with minutiae?
In the end, clarification of terminology is the least of Collin's problems.

Ho hum... Back to vacation...

I agree with Wes CLark

2008-06-30T12:44:00.003-04:00

Retired General Wesley Clark stated recently that "... being shot down" doesn't qualify McCain to be commander in chief, and the McCain camp is "outraged."

But the problem is, it is the truth.

I have read that McCain finished in the bottom 1-2% of his class at Annapolis. That he lost 5 aircraft during his career - only once to enemy action. That is what is referred to as a 'Black Ace' (a feat shared with right-wing nutjob Bob Dornan, who used to brag about his stint as a fighter pilot - never mentioned that he somehow managed to stay stateside during Viet Nam and lost 5 planes while he was at it).

McCain's service is honorable. But getting shot down doesn't make you a hero, nor does it make you more qualified to be CinC than anyone else, especially when you intend to follow the failed policies of the Bush administration....

hiatus

2008-06-04T17:44:00.002-04:00

I've recently taken on additional duties at my place of employment, and so am taking a break from blogging (not that I was super active in the first place). I will placing comments on moderation so as to avoid junk posts and spam from accumulating.

See ya!

No wonder so many rubes find quacks believable....

2008-05-26T11:08:00.005-04:00

They don't know any better, and are easily swayed by legitimate-sounding arguments.

Well, duh... This is old news when it comes ot health-related issues. But for those of us interested in the so-called 'creation-evolution debate', it is not only old news, this folksy 'common sense' approach to technical issues it is one of the biggest pains in the neck we see.

I was perusing some old posts at the ISCID Brainstorms forum, a place where pro-ID creationists get together to pat each other on the back for no real reason. It was supposedly established, as the name implies, as a place where 'ID theorists' could come together to, well, brainstorm about 'Intelligent Design' and such. It quickly turned into the usual place where non-scientist creationists gathered to badmouth evolution. It died on the vine, more or less, as did the entire site (see this list of forums there, and look at the dates of last activity).

Anyway, I was perusing some old threads there, and the arguments of a creationist asthma researcher, Peter Borger, impressed at least one of the non-science types there:

“Can some aspect of Darwinism be falsified?”
Zachriel [a biologist] wrote:
Nothing has been persuasive that evolution doesn't occur, or that it does
not continue to act as the unifying theory of biology.

From a perspective outside the field of biology PB's argument is persuasive...

Emphasis mine.

Funny how that works... A biologist says that none of the biolgy-related arguments he's seen are convincing, a non-biologist says that from outside of biology, they do.

PB's [Peter Borger's] argument is essentially that redundant genes falsify evolution, among other silly things.
No wonder so many people find the yammerings of creationists with biology-related degrees persuasive - they don't know any better because they are not biologists!

Well, duh...

HEY "Andrew"! Where's your website?

2008-05-12T20:46:00.002-04:00

A few days ago, some chump calling himself "Andrew" left the following comment in response to a post pointing out IDcreationist Sal Cordova's dishonesty:

slp, why do you have to be such an asshole?
I won't say YOU are lying, I just "lack belief" in your claims.

I guess 'Andrew' has a soft spot (or maybe it is a hard spot?) for his little sycophantic buddy Sal Cordova...
Clicking on 'Andrew's' blogger profile, you get a link to this website, The Brites, formerly run by IDcreationist and Baylor engineer Robert Marks, apparently as an attempt at parody or humor or something, which is now defunct. As of just a few days ago, when a particularly obnoxious pro-IDcreationist commenter at the Uncommon Descent blog calling itself 'Galapagos Finch' was 'outed' as being Marks.

And he thinks I am an asshole?

Sorry Bobby - you and your pals Sternberg, Dembski, et al. have got that market cornered.

Not a biologist? Not even a scientist? No biggie - all it takes to 'refute' evolution is a 'few years' of looking into it on your own...

2008-05-09T13:55:00.002-04:00

Or so banker and YEC cultist RK Bentley will have you believe:

OK, so you know that I’ve long since given up on evolution. After looking into
it for a few years, I realize the whole idea is untenable.

Oh, sure. Thats all it takes. A few years of looking into it... So, if I look into the bible for a few years and conclude that it is nonsense, my conclusions are valid, too?

His 'biography' on the right hand side of his blog says it all, really:

I don't believe evolution; it's that simple. I do believe in the account of
creation as described in Genesis. On this blog, I will discuss arguments 1) for
creation, 2) against evolution, and 3) the social/political topics surrounding
the issue.
Any aspect of the evolution/creation debate is fair game.
I'm not a scientist so please don't expect lengthy, technical
posts. These are intended for consumption by the ordinary person. But
though my posts may not be technical, I take great care to insure they are
accurate.
Rest assured I will gore many of the sacred bulls of staunch
evolutionists. I've donned my extra-thick-skin to prepare for the
insults soon to be directed at me. My objective though, is not to simply cast
aspersion but to change minds.
Your feedback is welcome. Honest, sincere questions may be the subject of
future blogs. Red Herrings will be dealt with appropriately. Insults will be
ignored for the most part - except perhaps to be used as examples of the lack of
substance in many evolutionists' arguments.

Humble, these people are not.
Of course, we shouldn't expect there to be much 'debate' on his blog - he moderates comemnts and seems to ignore the substantive comments he does let through.

Typical.

If it is enough to 'convict' Haeckel, it should be enough to 'convict' Dembski et al.

2008-05-08T15:22:00.006-04:00

Ernst Haeckel, of "Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny" fame, gets pretty rough treatment from creationists and Intelligent Design advocates. Essentially, Haeckel embellished his drawings of embryoes to make his particular hypothesis seem more 'right' - 130+ years ago. Textbooks often use his drawings (or renditions of them) to illustrate certain points. Time was, they were used to support his hypothesis. Now, they are generally used to demonstrate an historical example of rushing to judgement. Actual pictures of embryoes are more often used now, when they are available, and demonstrate that while Haeckel's original claims were not entirely correct, vertebrate embryoes do, in fact, bear striking resemblances to one another, especially early in development.

But this is only part of the story.

The rest is that creationists and their kind use this as an example of, among other things, how evolutionists supposedly lie to support their theory; how shoddy evolutionist scholarship is, since many textbooks still use the photos (they usually don't talk about HOW they are used); etc. They like to villify Haeckel and in the process, find evolution as a theory 'guilty' by association.

Now, let us consider another, shall we say, inaccurate representation of a biological entity, used to promote a paricular hypothesis.

This particular entity is represented as a perfectly symmetrical machine-like structure. Its parts are invariably shown intertwining with intricate precision. When animations of it working are produced it is always shown operating smoothly and precisely. In the presentations of IDcreationists, it looks like this:

Note the manafactured appearance of its parts - smooth, perfect angles, beautiful engineering, right? Well, that is the intended effect. What does one of these things REALLY look like?

Well, not quite like that.

Here are a few examples:

from Shahid Khan, Imran Humayun Khan, and Thomas S. Reese, 1991; "New Structural Features of the Flagellar Base in Salmonella typhimurium Revealed by Rapid-Freeze Electron Microscopy." Journal of Bacteriology 173:2888-09

Here is a 3-D model of the hook region as determined from molecular content:

Not quite the structures the IDcreationists like to present as their 'designed' argument, is it? No smooth interlocking subunits, no washer-like flat plates, etc.

The closest one can come to the stylized IDcreationist version is this:

But that is actually a composite picture, not an actual micrograph.

Of course, even if it did look just like that, we have to remember the scale we are looking at. The above structure is very, very small (less than 100 nanometers across - that is, less than 100 billionths of a meter), and when you get to this scale, molecules can only go together so many ways.
I remember the first time I saw a micrograph of a T7 bacteriophage I thought to myslef, 'That looks man-made.' Why? All those angles, those 'legs', etc. After some reading, however, I discovered that its shape is just the result of the interactions of the proteins that make it up. The shape is a byproduct of this interaction not a plan.

Anyway...

Why should the unrealistic portrayals of the flagellum by ID creationists NOT be considered just as 'dishonest' and those that use it to sway opinion not just as worthy of vilification as Haeckel was when he embellished his drawings?

Are people like Behe, Dembski, Nelson, Wells, etc. not doing the same thing Haeckel did? I would argue what they are doing is WORSE than what Haeckel did - it is likely that the optical quality of the microscopes of Haeckel's time lent to his 'embellishments' (think 'canals on Mars'), while the IDcreationists of today know full well that fancy, colorful computer-generated idealized/sytlized models are inaccurate representations, but they just keep on using them.

Why the double standard?

Why do these self-proclaimed Christians so readily - eagerly - engage in such deceptive practices?

*Hat tip to Monado at Science Notes...., and for other information to Mark Perakh at TalkReason.

What does a ceationist blogger do when one questions his claims regarding something he clearly knows little about?

2008-05-01T12:02:00.003-04:00

Why, he labels your posts "trolling", of course. And throws in an accusation that you are nto doing your homework, to boot.

Next step? Censorship... I can't wait!

See it all going down here. Some of you might find the blogger's name familiar - Collin Brendemuehl.

Here is how it is going so far, blog commments only (I've omitted comments by anyone but myself and Brendemuehl for brevity). What Brendemuehl wrote is in italics:

Are there 10 million random genetic changes needed to take place from, say, an ancient little rodent to today's human? Just a round figure for the sake of argument.

Why not use a rational number instead of one that you pulled form thin air, most likely as a means of 'proving' what you already "believe"? You say you present the 10 million figure just for the sake of argument, but do you really think that there are 10 million substantive trait differences between a mouse-like rodent and a human? What are they? Can you make a list of, say, 1,000?My bet is that you cannot do even half that before you start repeating yourself.

So do you really think that you can find a major genetic trait shift (on average) every 6 generations? Hardly. There is not enough time!

When you establish unrealistic ground rules, of course your results will
look silly. That was your intent, was it not?

Let's try another route: Lucy is 3.9 million years old and (again, for the sake of argument) pretty close to human structure. That means very few changes from Lucy to today and a greater number of generational changes from Yucatan to Lucy. Again, not enough time!

A baseless assertion devoid of logic or rationale, and premsied on a totally fabricated foundation. Wonderful argumentation!
9:40 AM

Doppelganger said...
Collin writes:It is a hypothetical.But I don't see any reasonable way to get the number of trait changes in a mere 1000.

I had asked you to name 1000 of the millions of changes you believe exist. You did not even try. You see no 'reasonable' way to get a human rom a rodent in 1000 trait changes, but you ave not even explained what you mean by trait. You are just tossing big numbers around as if they mean something. And what ARE the trait changes you speak of, and how many mutations would it take to produce them? You seem to know. You think that there are 'millions' of trait changes between humans and rodents, yet you cannot even list a few of them. I was not saying that there ARE 1000, I was asking if you could actually list 1000 of the millions you say exist.

10M is not an unreasonable hypothetical figure when you talk about the complexity of genetics.

10 M what? Trait changes? Please explain what you mean by a trait. But sure, let us talk about the complexity of genetics. I just taught the genetics unit in my anatomy class this past week. Again I ask - How many mutations are requred to produce specific trait changes, as you call them? Do all trait changes require the same number of mutational changes? I fail to see why 10 M mutations is a 'reasonable amount' devoid of any rationale or explanation. Oh - and are we talking about fixed beneficial mutations, or phenotype-altering mutations in general?

But it's also not simple changes -- there is not a simple path from rodent to human. There are gene combinations and all sorts of other hypotheses related to these processes. Throw in natural selection and you add more possibility for loss.

Of course it is not simple. There is nearly no limit to what direction an evolutionary process could take. But human from rodent was not a goal. In fact, there is NO goal at all. What we see is simply what happened.

That's a field in which you are apparently strong. But for the sake of *your* position let's say it's a mere 1M. That's still a real change every 60 generations, which is also outside the scope of common Darwinian and neo-Darwinian calculations.

Please show some of these 'neo-Darwinian' calculations you speak of. Where did you get your generation numbers from? You will need to establish, in order for your positon to have any merit, at the very least:
1. How many trait differences in 'kind' and not degree there actually are e.g., changes in the density of hair on the skin is a difference in degree, hair from no hair is a difference in 'kind'; differences in degree can be caused by neutral variation and other non-beneficial changes).

2. How many mutations would have been required for each such change.

It would also be helpful to know the population sizes involved and the generation times of the ancestral groups, but 1 and 2 above are the bare minumum that your position must have in order to be taken seriously at all. Simply 'not believing' it is insufficient.

Again, the numbers, even your more modest numbers, don't seem to add up.

I'm sorry - I provided no numbers. YOU did.

Now, if you enlighten me (the post was clear about my wish to hear a real alternative (see paragraph 2), I'm all ears. But make it realistic, please.

An alternative to what?I am unsure why a greater requisite for realism is placed on me when your numbers appear to have been pulled from thin air and to be premised not on any knowledge of genetics, but on an awe of large numbers. Rodents diverged from the rest of the placental mammals some 80 million years ago (depending on the source and the specific branching pattern employed, between 55-125 MYA). In terms of real anatomy and physiology, there is relatively little in terms of 'new' traits that primates possess that rodents do not.If there really are 10 M 'trait changes', what are they? And why is 80 odd million years not enough time?You cannot just toss out numbers and call it an argument.
6:57 PM

Doppelganger said...
Collin writes:
I'm wanting to see "the work" where the number of necessary changes are clarified and the changes are identified.

That does not appear to be what you wrote in your blog post. YOU presented numbers of changes, YOU should identify them and then explain how many mutations would be required to produce them. It is YOUR argument.

That is why I raised a hypotheticall and asked for a clarification as to the reliability of such an estimation.

I'd say that the 'estimation' is orders of magnitude off. It is folly to claim that there are some certain number of traits to account for when no real definition of 'trait' is provided or suggested.

My assertion is for the purpose of gaining clarification. I'm *wanting* someone to show any real or apparent error and not just say that it's wrong.

Why is pointing out the wrongness wrong? I do not pretend to know exactly how many trait differences there are between humans and a rodent ancestor in part because I do not know what traits the rodent ancestor possessed. Do you?
But I do not feel that unless someone proves me wrong, I can make any assertion I want to on the subject. Human and mouse genomes differ by some 60%, 10x the difference between humans and chimps. This number is right about what would be expected had humans and mice diverged for a common ancestral population about 75 MYA ( see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/305/5683/525.pdf). So what exactly are you looking to get corrected on specifically?
7:14 PM

Doppelganger said...
Collin writes:
You asked me to name 10M changes?

Do you read the things you reply to? I ask in all sincerity, for I specifically asked - and later reiterated - if you could name 1,000 of the 10 M you proposed. I don't think that is too much to ask.

How many gene changes for walking upright?

Good question. Do you know? If not, it seems to me that tossing out numbers like 10 M are just BS.

For arms, hands, size, shape, intellect.

Do mice not have arms? Hands (as such)? This is why I asked about
differences in kind and not degree. Mouse forepaws have the same basic skeletal structure as a human hand does, just in different proportions and a slightly different configuration. How many mutations did it require to get a mouse-like forepaw to a human-like hand? Couldn't tell you, but personally, I would not feel comfortable tossing out numbers if I did not have a good reason to do so.

The minimalist approach of classic Darwinism is inadequate.

So you say, but do you really think just making things up is adequate?
Allow me to provide an example of why I do not believe some enormous number of beneficial mutational changes are required to alter the basic vertebrate body plan. I do not present this as an example of evolution, nor as an example of a beneficial mutation. I merely present it as an example of how small genetic changes can produce large phenotypic differences. There is a gene in humans that encodes one of the receptors for fibroblast growth factor. This particular gene is called FGFR-3. A single point mutation in this gene that alters an amino acid produces a form of achondroplasia (dwarfism). This is not a developmental 'programming' gene like the HOX genes, it is just a gene for a receptor that would be found on certain types of cells.
Yet this mutation produces disproportionate limb growth, reduction in the number of interphalangeal joints, and characteristic facial features. All from one little single nucleotide change. Now imagine what sorts of changes could occur as the result of minor changes in genes associated with, say, pelvis formation or neocortex growth. There is a big difference between gross genome structure changes and the acquisition of beneficial mutations.
8:21 AM

Doppelganger said...
Collin writes:
We know that "arm" is not a simple 1-gene change. You have bone
structure, muscle structure, vessel structure, valves, everything including the
attributes of strength, size, shape, color, etc., with the various nuances of
each such as thickness, cell structure, etc.

I guess you missed the very informative point in my last reply - a single
point mutation in one gene altered ALL of those things in the limbs and head of the individual. You do NOT, in fact, need specific mutations to alter every part of a limb. That is just naive folk science.

Set up a chart and you'll see that 1000 is a very small
number.

A chart of what?

These things, it is proposed, came very gradually over millions of years. I'm merely suggesting that the proposed amount of time is inadequate.

I know, and you have offered exactly ZERO rationale, evidence, of
explanation for your position. You just toss out a huge number and say that there is not enough time. Sure you obliquely refer to some 'Darwinism calculations' or whatever it was, but you don't say what those are even after I asked for clarification. Your implied position on the apparent need for mutations for each and every part of an arm, for example, is not premised on any real understanding of genetics or development, rather a 'folk science' belief about how genes and organisms operate. You will continue to 'disbelieve' in the issue until you actually make an attempt to understand what it is really about.

Classic Darwinism is based on observation and, as I said, is
simplistic. The use of molecular biology is neo-Darwinian.

I see no relevance to anything for that statement.

It seems counter-productive to evolutionary biology to propose radical
changes from single genes instead of long, slow changes as the theory
supposes.

Did you even try to understand the points I made? You might be better
off getting your information on genetics, development, and evolution from actual geneticists and evolutionary biologists than from religious philosophers (Plantinga)and the like. Your replies are disjointed and you do not even attempt to address the details. It is almost as if you don't really want the answers you claim to.
But maybe I am wrong, and you will soon provide a list of trait changes
between the LCA of rodents and humans, how many mutations would have been required to get those changes, etc.
12:31 PM
Collin Brendemuehl said...
Dopple,You refuse to study the material or do the
work. Your trolling is tiresome. Enjoy your week.
5:22 PM

Boonton said...
Pot, Kettle, Black
9:07 AM

Doppelganger said...
Collin comically writes:
Dopple,You refuse to study the material or do the work. Your trolling
is tiresome. Enjoy your week.

How quaint, how creationist. Collin, my doctorate is in Anatomy and Cell Biology and my graduate research was on the molecular evolution of primates. My papers are cited by the Tree of Life web project and one of my papers has been cited more than all of Dembski's and Wells' actual peer reviewed publications combined. That I do not accept your bland, unsupported assertions at face value is not a rational excuse for accusing me of 'trolling' and not understanding the issues. It is not my fault that your ignorance of development and genetics and evolution has led you to propose absurd scenarios and even more absurd 'challenges'. If you feel that labelling my comments as trolling is a good way to avoid admitting that you are in over your head, well, so be it. Pride and hubris seem to be requisite qualities for internet creationists. I took the time to check out your comments on Brayton's and Rosenhouse's blogs, and it would appear that only one of us qualifies as a troll, and it is not me.
If you ever feel able to actually produce valid, meaningful numbers for
your scenarios as opposed to things pulled out of thin air and premised on a poor understanding of biology, or worse, on your understanding of the issues via creationist books and essays, let me know and I will gladly discuss it with you.
Until then, I plan to document this exchange on my blog.
9:32 AM

Lots of irony and hypocrisy in there so far....

Note - Brendemuehl has also accused the other active commenter there of trolling. Apparently, the creationist uses this tactic of labelling and accusing people of trolling when he realizes that he can no longer keep up with the level of technical sophistication sought by his opponants.

Ben Stein is a degenerate moron

2008-05-01T11:54:00.002-04:00

In my opinion, of course.

Stein, whose claim to fame is being the boring guy who said, "Bueller... Bueller" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and, of course, beinga speechwriter for Richard Nixon, had the following to say about scientists on some silly religious program, in an interview with televangelist Paul Crouch:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers
[i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was
thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them
what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that
was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this
is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.
Crouch:
That’s right.
Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads
you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing
people.
Crouch: Good word, good word.

Ben Stein, you are an idiot.