Evolution Confounds Postmodernist Postman

There are many more examples of scientific ignorance awaiting the reader of Conscientious Objections, such as Postman's endorsement of Alfred Korzybski...

I agree with Postman that "good science has nothing to fear from bad science". If your theory is strong and your ideas are supported by observational and experimental data then you should have nothing to fear. The reason for the intense fear of "creationism" is concern that the weaknesses in the prevailing theory will be exposed and that it will not stand up to intense scrutiny. Any good theory should welcome this kind of intense scrutiny because if the theory is valid, it only makes it stronger. By trying to silence these kinds of criticisms, it certainly appears like there is something to hide.
The fact is, that in spite of intense criticism from creationists, I see very little defense of evolutionary theory by scientists. They seem to have withdrawn from the scientific debate and turned to personally attacking the critics and their ideas rather then providing better support for their own.

Lukas Buehler wrote the following review of Postman's 1988 book "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century" which applies to your concerns:

"In his newest book Neil Postman makes a convincing case for the strong influence of the philosophes of the Enlightenment on our 20th Century thinking. The book culminates in a five point wish list on how to teach students critical thinking. Postman calls it developing a scientific mind-set, to learn how to be skeptical and ask the right questions, rather than just learn the correct answers. Why are we doing what we are doing and where do we come from. Two questions that refer us to the history of our culture and Postman tells us what could be done to achieve true science literacy. To pick out two examples, Postman suggests not to be afraid to include creation science as a comparative 'theory' to Darwin's theory of evolution. Let students argue about the Ptolemaic astronomy as compared to the modern view based on Galileo's observation and Newton's law of Gravity. By comparing not only the facts, but how these facts have been put forward in the first place, students will learn why a world view depicting the sun revolving around the Earth is no longer tenable, although we can see the sun rise every morning and set every evening. How many people could prove that this is a mere illusion? Similarly, comparing creationist's idea of a 'scientific theory' with the scientific theory of modern synthesis of biological evolution will be useful to teach the power of a falsifiable theory."

January 24, 2000 / © 2000 Lukas K. Buehler /

It is a lovely picture- sure, let the creationists bring their garbage into the classroom, and we'll sweep it right back out the door!

Maybe. I think that in the environment of modern public school, such actual debate would simply be a catalyst for the ignorant parents of the ignorant children to wade into the fray. What creationists want is not just equal time for creationism, but equal respect and merit. Deprive creation of such through fair means, and its adherents will cry foul. No fool fears foolishness when in like company.

Korzybski is the General Semantics guy who, among other things, would have us remove the word "is" (and its various conjugates) from most sentences in everyday speech, because of its metaphysical baggage (it reifies everything, they say).

In a sense, good science has little to fear from bad science. Within the realm of science, that is. Science is self-correcting and useless ideas get left by the wayside. That doesn't mean that good science can be passive about bad science.

As the lesser mongbat pointed out, it's different in the socio-political arena. Society at large is not very good at self-correction, and it lacks the tools to discriminate between good and bad science.

One of the problems with science for the general population is that good science can be very uncomfortable. Good science has far more questions than it has answers (the fact that the questions can be and are answered as time passes has no bearing, sadly). Good science can raise ethical and moral issues. Good science makes one think; it speaks to the intellect. And finally, good science often speaks in a language that most people simply cannot understand.

Bad science, on the other hand, is comfortable. It offers universal answers and the end of all doubts. It speaks to the emotions and removes the need to think.

That latter is the real danger, because once bad science is entrenched in the mind, it resists new ideas, making it very hard to dislodge. Charlie is an excellent case in point, as in other threads he has simply ignored any evidence presented that refutes his positions. Good science welcomes new ideas and is open to change.

So, good science can never, ever, become complacent about bad science.

I agree with Postman that "good science has nothing to fear from bad science". If your theory is strong and your ideas are supported by observational and experimental data then you should have nothing to fear.

The reason for the intense fear of "creationism" is concern that the weaknesses in the prevailing theory will be exposed and that it will not stand up to intense scrutiny.

I see very little defense of evolutionary theory by scientists. They seem to have withdrawn from the scientific debate and turned to personally attacking the critics and their ideas rather then providing better support for their own.

Charlie,

Good science may have nothing to fear from bad science; but we have something to fear bad science. Why?

Because people get hurt when bad science prevails. You only have to look as far as the surgeon who transplanted at baboon heart into an infant only to have the child die from the rejection of the foreign heart. When he was asked by his collegues why he didn't use a chimpanzee heart, since they are closer to humans genetically, the surgeon stated that he didn't believe in evolution.

In other words, a child died because a surgeon was not able to distinguish between his own beliefs and actual Biological knowledge.

Need I say more?

Eddie

Another good example of how bad science can hurt people is HIV denialism. A small movement of people in the early to mid 90s claimed that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and that there was never really any evidence that it did. The movement was led in part by one Philip E. Johnson, the same one who leads the ID movement, and was joined in by Jonathan Wells and I believe at least one other well-known ID advocate. The movement kind of fizzled as anti-HIV drugs started working wonders, but Johnson has never retracted his position (which he defends with the same venom as his anti-evolutionism), and I believe he still runs an HIV denialist email list.

All of this would be worthy of little more than snickering if not for the fact that this nonsense has actually convinced some people in authority to ignore or downplay the threat of HIV. A few years back, South Africa's president Mbeki refused to take the view that HIV is responsible for AIDS, and so he blocked the distribution of an anti-HIV drug that was proven to stop transmission of the virus from pregnant women to their unborn children. A lot of children died needlessly, thanks to the spread of misinformation by Johnson et al.

"I see very little defense of evolutionary theory by scientists. They seem to have withdrawn from the scientific debate and turned to personally attacking the critics and their ideas rather then providing better support for their own."

"What’s the deal with Korzybski anyway? I had never heard of him before."

Korzybski is the founder of general semantics, which flourished around the 60s or 70s. One of the more well-known sound bytes to come out of GS is "the map is not the territory". It's not another clump on the rubbish-heap of history. He valued mathematics, and tried to bring mathematical certainty to the humanities.

One of his followers was the peppery S. I. Hayakawa.

About this theory thing (Postman says "Darwin's explanation ... is a theory")... Postman should know - and if he doesn't, we need pay no more attention to him - that a scientist's view of a theory is quite different from a layman's. There's a good short discussion of this at Impearls:

http://impearls.blogspot.com/

So was Korzybski's work on the level or not? I've been hearing references to his theory of "General Semantics", but this is the first I've ever heard of it, and while I'm not an expert in either the social sciences or humanities, I figure I might have come across it before now if it had lasting influence. What exactly is it? What do its proponents cite as its major successes? What do critics cite as its major failures? Sorry if this is all old news to everyone else...

Steve wrote:

"Cre/IDists have been consistently beaten in the scientific arena where they know they can't compete. So they put their efforts into the political arena. The creationist outfits, particularly the newer ID groups, are nothing more than political advocacy organizations."

First of all, I have no use whatsoever for religious creationists and I don't believe that ideology belongs in a science classroom. On the other hand, I have no problem with people trying to discredit scientific theories. After all, that's what scientists themselves ought to be doing. Only by examining every possible way that their theory might be wrong, can they have any assurance that it's likely correct. Ignoring troubling questions is not how science ought to work.
I think that it's disingenuous to conclude that these folks have been "beaten in the scientific arena". Much of the criticism of evolutionary theory is right on the mark and they have done the world a service by exposing the weaknesses that have plagued this theory since Darwin's time. The fact is, the evolutionists are just as good as the creationists at using political pressure to advocate their views. Organizations like NCSE are evidence of this.
What's going on in the evolution/creation debate is similar to what went on a few years ago in the psychometric arena. While the debate raged in the public forum about IQ and IQ testing, the scientific community was quietly going about it's work as if none of that was happening. These conversations that we're having only represent the public face of science and no scientist who wants to continue to work in the field will ever publicly question evolution. But in their own labs and in their own research, stunning new discoveries are being made that make all of these arguments look like child's play.

General Semantics has a cult-like following. Some of its "insights" are hackneyed versions of other insights in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. For instance, the realization that our language and concepts do not fully capture the reality we live in, that they abstract from that reality, make inferences about it, fill in holes, etc., is one of the central ideas of General Semantics. With this in mind, the General Semanticists go about trying to rectify this by reforming language and logic - the latter includes Korzybski's unoriginal and loosely characterized "infinite-valued logic" (think fuzzy logic) and non-elementalism (a semi-fancy term for undifferentiated). Under the heading of reforming language, the General Semanticists advocate stream-lining language (e.g. the removing "is" stuff I mentioned before) and the way we reason with it. Say only what you mean, and when interpreting what other people say, don't make any inferences, just stick to what was said.
There are good ideas in General Semantics, but they all culminate in a program to make the human mind and language completely antiseptic. It's a sort of linguistic labotomizing program.

General Semantics has a cult-like following. Some of its "insights" are hackneyed versions of other insights in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. For instance, the realization that our language and concepts do not fully capture the reality we live in, that they abstract from that reality, make inferences about it, fill in holes, etc., is one of the central ideas of General Semantics. With this in mind, the General Semanticists go about trying to rectify this by reforming language and logic - the latter includes Korzybski's unoriginal and loosely characterized "infinite-valued logic" (think fuzzy logic) and non-elementalism (a semi-fancy term for undifferentiated). Under the heading of reforming language, the General Semanticists advocate stream-lining language (e.g. the removing "is" stuff I mentioned before) and the way we reason with it. Say only what you mean, and when interpreting what other people say, don't make any inferences, just stick to what was said.
There are good ideas in General Semantics, but they all culminate in a program to make the human mind and language completely antiseptic. It's a sort of linguistic labotomizing program.

Smokey wrote;

"You know, I see very little defense of the "round earth" theory by geologists. Have they "withdrawn from the scientific debate" also? Or is it simply that there is no real debate, just ignorance and faith masquerading as science?"

I see no serious challenges to the round earth theory. If such a challenge were to arise, I would expect that scientists would get out their instruments and their calculators and their photographs and quickly put this challenge to rest. The evidence would be so overwhelming that only an idiot would continue to question.
That's what scientists ought to be doing now, because this is a serious challenge to evolutionary theory. Have you read some of the documents on the creationist web sites? They're very knowledgeable about evolutionary theory and their objections are well thought out and supported in many cases by evidence. Certainly Bill Dembski or Mike Behe should get better treatment than just "you're an idiot".
I suspect that these criticisms are so troubling to evolutionists that they have no response, except to fall back on statements like "evolution is a fact, only the mechanism is in question".

Steve wrote:

"Another good example of how bad science can hurt people is HIV denialism."

It's often very hard to tell bad science from good science. Often, political agenda or just plain greed drives these decisions. There was a study that showed that chlorine in drinking water incresed the risk of cancer, so this report was used by some south american doctors to have chlorine removed from the water. As a result, a cholera epidemic broke out that killed thousands of children. How do we separate the good science from the bad?
My main anger nowadays is how they sell drugs, many of which are not only harmful but can be fatal. My pharmacist refuses to sell prescriptions for Accutane on moral grounds. How many others do likewise? Two other well known drugs are still being heavily advertised on TV despite serious problems in patients.
So called "good medicine" and "good science" have been shown repeatedly to be dangerous and/or worthless. It's no wonder that people are critical of scientists and doctors.

To get an overview of the extent of the problem, see:

dubya dubya dubya dot junkscience dot com

First of all, I have no use whatsoever for religious creationists and I don't believe that ideology belongs in a science classroom. On the other hand, I have no problem with people trying to discredit scientific theories. After all, that's what scientists themselves ought to be doing. Only by examining every possible way that their theory might be wrong, can they have any assurance that it's likely correct. Ignoring troubling questions is not how science ought to work.

I think that it's disingenuous to conclude that these folks have been "beaten in the scientific arena". Much of the criticism of evolutionary theory is right on the mark and they have done the world a service by exposing the weaknesses that have plagued this theory since Darwin's time.

The fact is, the evolutionists are just as good as the creationists at using political pressure to advocate their views. Organizations like NCSE are evidence of this.

That's what scientists ought to be doing now, because this is a serious challenge to evolutionary theory. Have you read some of the documents on the creationist web sites? They're very knowledgeable about evolutionary theory and their objections are well thought out and supported in many cases by evidence.

Charlie, I note on your website that you say:

"Artificial selection experiments in laboratories have demonstrated that there is a point beyond which you cannot go."

Could you provide me with citations to the original research articles you are referring to (assuming the research was published -- if not, then tell me what you know about these experiments and how you found out about them).

Also, you wrote:

"Intelligent design does not imply a supernatural creator. I can conceive of a higher intelligence which operates within the confines of natural law."

Could you describe to me this "higher intelligence which operates within the confines of natural law" which you conceived?

Also, you wrote:

"Scientists don't like to say "I don't know". "

Could you explain to me your basis for this statement? As a scientist who is happy to say "I don't know" when asked a question that I cannot answer, and who knows many other such scientists who are equally happy that there are many scientific questions left to be answered, I'm concerned that you might be just making stuff up based on a bad experience at one of your "major universities."

It's often very hard to tell bad science from good science. Often, political agenda or just plain greed drives these decisions. There was a study that showed that chlorine in drinking water incresed the risk of cancer, so this report was used by some south american doctors to have chlorine removed from the water. As a result, a cholera epidemic broke out that killed thousands of children. How do we separate the good science from the bad?

charlie wagner wrote:
I think that it's disingenuous to conclude that these folks have been "beaten in the scientific arena". Much of the criticism of evolutionary theory is right on the mark and they have done the world a service by exposing the weaknesses that have plagued this theory since Darwin's time.

Until the creationists present a cohesive scientific theory to challenge natural selection, they've lost by default. The only explanation ID et al offer of the current dataset is that the creator or designer made it that way. If evolution is so flawed and creationism the best interpretation of our data, then creationism should spawn a reformation of the life sciences exploiting the new model's superiority. This hasn't happened. The most likely reason is that the creationist's model hasn't been put forward is a scholarly manner. Instead they seek to sway the largely scientifically illiterate populus with popular publications that frequently attempt to play on people's religious convictions.

I'm not opposed to pop science publications; In fact, I think with the complexity of modern science, they're a nessessity. But until the creationist theory (or theories) is stated in a testable matter, it will remain the subject of metaphysics or philisophy, not science.

There are smart guys who argue for ID just as there were smart defense attorneys who argued for O.J. As long as it is possible to get financial or political advantage from promoting anti-evolutionary thinking, it will persist. Logic and probability have nothing to do with it.

There are plenty of otherwise rational folks, unfortunately, who have not yet gotten the real message here, namely, the fact that the debate about the general validity of evolution has been over for rather more than a hundred years. Debates within real science among people who are interested in understanding nature have very little to do with the dreck combated on this site.

BD,

First of all, I'm a major BD fan. I was at the concert at Philharmonic Hall in 1964 that was just released on CD (for what it's worth). Check out the Dylan page on my website, if you want.

Anyway, WRT artificial selection, 2 important cases come to mind, the chicken and the fruit fly. These organisms have been artificially selected (chickens for at least 8000 years) for a long time and no changes above the species level have ever been noted. There are literally thousands of articles in the literature attesting to this fact. There are dozens of other organisms that have been artificially selected for long periods of time without any changes above the species level.
WRT a naturally occurring intelligent designer, I don't see any problem with the existence of a natural entity that is as far above humans in intelligence as we are above the bacterium. We assume that because we are most likely the most intelligent organism on earth that this must hold true for the entire universe. This is just human arrogance. Have you never watched Star Trek? As to the nature of this entity, I haven't a clue.
You are to be commended for admitting that there are things that are not known and/or you do not know. Would that all of science shared your humility. I remember a passage I read in a book many years ago that had the most profound effect on my thinking. I was enamored with science and felt that it could easily replace the christianity that I had rejected. But my infatuation was short-lived. I discovered how little we really know and how much of what we think is true is nothing more than speculation. Here is the passage:

"Man, a being of erect stature, thinks himself the
prince of creation. He felt like this long before he, by his own efforts, came to know
how to fly on wings of metal around the globe. He felt godlike long before he could talk
to his fellow-man on the other side of the globe.
Today he can see the microcosm in a drop and the elements in the stars. He knows
the laws, governing the living cell with its chromosomes, and the laws governing the
macrocosm of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. He assumes that gravitation keeps the
planetary system together, man and beast on their planet, the sea within its borders. For
millions and millions of years, he maintains, the planets have rolled along on the same
paths, and their moons around them, and man in these eons has arisen from a one-cell
infusorium all the long way up the ladder to his status of Homo sapiens.
Is man's knowledge now nearly complete? Are only a few more steps necessary to
conquer the universe: to extract the energy of the atom-since these pages were written
this has already been done -to cure cancer, to control genetics, to communicate with
other planets and learn if they have living creatures, too?
Here begins Homo ignoramus.
He does not know what life is or bow it came to be and whether it originated from
inorganic matter. He does not know whether other planets of this sun or of other suns
have life on them, and if they have, whether the forms of life there are like those around
us, ourselves included. He does not know how this solar system came into being,
although he has built up a few hypotheses about it. He knows only that the solar system
was constructed billions of years ago. He does not know what this mysterious force of
gravitation is that holds him and his fellow man on the other side of the planet with their
feet on the ground, although he regards the phenomenon itself as "the law of laws." He
does not know what the earth looks like five miles under his feet. He does not know how
mountains came into existence or what caused the emergence of the continents, although
he builds hypotheses about these, nor does he know from where oil came- again hypotheses.
He does not know why, only a short time ago, a thick glacial sheet pressed upon most of
Europe and North America, as he believes it did; nor how palms could grow above the polar
circle, nor how it came about that the same fauna fill the inner lakes of the Old and the
New World. He does not know where the salt in the sea came from." - Immanuel Velikovsky
"Worlds in Collision" (1950)

The irony of that "Worlds in Collision" quote is that several of the mysteries it attests to are now have theories explaining them, 54 years later. Sense that passage was written, we've managed to unlock more and more secrets in all areas of science. We know what the earth is like "five miles below our feet". Mountains building is explained by plate tectonics, which has gained mainstream acceptance sense that was written, and probably has more data supporting it that evolution. We can observe and measure the contenents drifting and active mountain ranges rising. We can find clues hinting at climate changes in the past that explain ice ages. DNA, biotechnology, personal computers, antimatter, extrasolar planets...the list goes on and on. Sure, answers only provide more questions, but they answer the questions that were bothering us originally. We once did not know the nature of lightning, or the shape of the earth. Now we are unlocking mysteries all over the place. That's the appeal science has to me: by answering questions, new concepts are brought forward to consider. Science fiction becomes science fact, and new ideas we've never even thought about come forward with new observations. There is no limit to knowledge, so what's the risk? Someday we may find the truth to the God question this way. Maybe that's what God may turn out to be (and what many have proposed): superevolved beings not unlike ourselves. However, because of the countless contradictory descriptions of what God may or may not be, (and yes, he/she/it may not exist and only be a figment of our own imaginations) we cannot make ANY assumptions about the existance of an Intellegence Designer without building on the current wealth of knowledge. Sadly, the best argument ID comes up with is a bunch of made-up terms like "specified complexity", "no free lunch", "law of conservation of information", etc. They are not easily defined, much less established as anything close to fact, yet they are treated as such. They are not based on our collective body of scientific knowledge. If they were, ID might be a credible hypothesis. The theory of evolution makes no claims to the origin of life; that is a seperate field, a seperate group of hypothesises that would not be possible without the theory of evolution, but not part of the theory. Because IDists are not scientific, they attack science, specificly evolution, only because of the sad old creationism/evolution controversy.

Mainstream scientists and others have made several detailed critiques of IDers' arguments; what more does Charlie Wagner want?

He can find some good ones in
http://www.talkorigins.org
http://www.talkdesign.org

And as to scientists not knowing everything, so freaking what? Many things are just plain difficult to discover, though the difficulty often becomes less and less as time goes on.

As an example of that, it is interesting that several of Velikovsky's examples are now reasonably well-understood; some of his examples are readily explained by continental drift.

Sorry. Reading this now I realize I should have checked for grammer, but I'm in a hurry right now.

Charlie, first of all you should be commended for this quote which is easily the most interesting thing I've read on this website:

"We assume that because we are most likely the most intelligent organism on earth that this must hold true for the entire universe. This is just human arrogance. Have you never watched Star Trek?"

Yes I have watched Star Trek, at least all of the original series episodes. My favorite episode, in fact, is "Return to Tomorrow" which includes a great speech by Kirk wherein he implores the rest of his crew to accept the fact that humans still have plenty of evolving to do and that they should not be afraid of the unknown. I also recall several episodes on Star Trek that dealt with civilizations that were dying because they held irrational beliefs. On the other hand, I DO NOT recall any episodes where Kirk said that it is futile to answer any questions which haven't been answered yet so let's just that "a designer did it."

Not that my opinion would change if someone refreshed my memory. Star Trek is a TV show. But it doesn't support your view that evolution is a hoax on society perpetuated by scientists who are afraid to admit that they are wrong.

THAT view, Charlie, is paranoid at best, but really just ignorant.

You also wrote:

". . .I'm a major BD fan. I was at the concert at Philharmonic Hall in 1964 . . ."

Prove it. And where's the proof for those advanced degrees from major universities you were bragging about? I haven't seen a shred of evidence to support those assertions. You expect us to ignore 100 years of research by tens of thousands of scientists and yet accept your baseless assertions at face value? Please. You've been staring at your "Art" for too long.

"Would that all of science shared your humility."

Now it has to be "all of science"? You seemed to be suggesting before that *every* scientist was an arrogant fool who couldn't say "I don't know." Where did you come up with that assertion? Are you aware that your statement is easily contradicted by reading any scientific journal? Or have you never read one before?

"[Chickens and fruit flies] have been artificially selected (chickens for at least 8000 years) for a long time and no changes above the species level have ever been noted. There are literally thousands of articles in the literature attesting to this fact."

Amongst those "thousands of articles" you seem to understand with some specificity, do you recall any articles describing artificially selected chickens or flies which turned out to be sterile? And do you recall any articles which described the artifical selection of chickens or flies that are incapable of mating with either of their parents?

Don't forget, Charlie: if you want to meet Bob Dylan on the other side, you should answer all these questions directly and honestly.

As long as it remains science then bad science is at least manageable - with the major caveat of intentional research misconduct. Cre/ID'ers and their kin engage in marketing and call it science, and that is extremely dangerous because it encourages a fundamental misunderstanding of science.

Nobody promotes a model that explains phenomena less well than vastly simpler explanations unless they have some agenda. To be fair cranky old profs have their own habit of tenaciously clinging to outdated or parochial models, but the new blood needs to shake things up with new models of their own if they want to make any sort of impact. If evolution were vulnerable to scientific debunking then the free market of ideas ensures that some ambitious hotshot would have done it already.

Leighton wrote:

"Out of curiosity, what is one particular example of a creationist website's well thought out objection to evolution written by someone whom you consider to be knowledgeable about evolutionary theory?"

One that I read recently that impressed me was a column by Dr Howard Glicksman on ARN.
(http://www.arn.org/docs/glicksman/eyw_031215.htm)
Dr. Glickman attempts to demonstrate that the biomolecular systems that control calcium in the body are irreducibly complex and does an outstanding job of explaining most of the important biochemical pathways of calcium in the body.
He says "It seems to me that those who support macroevolution's step-by-step mechanics must scientifically demonstrate how it is that calcium is present in proper concentration within the cell, and outside of the cell, and in bone, in order that all of the calcium-dependent biomolecular processes in the body may properly function and thereby allow us to live. But even that is not enough! For they must also demonstrate how the body was able to develop, step-by-step, the mechanisms that it uses to control its calcium metabolism while at the same time accounting for how the system actually functioned absent each successive innovation along the way."
This is not Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. This is the real deal by a person well versed in biochemistry. Well worth considering, IMHO

Levi wrote:

"Until the creationists present a cohesive scientific theory to challenge natural selection, they've lost by default."

There are actually two separate issues here. One issue is to debunk darwinian evolutionary theory. The second is to present a scientific alternative to replace it. They have had a good amount of success addressing the first issue and failed in the second.

Jacob wrote:

"Sadly, the best argument ID comes up with is a bunch of made-up terms like "specified complexity", "no free lunch", "law of conservation of information", etc. They are not easily defined, much less established as anything close to fact, yet they are treated as such. They are not based on our collective body of scientific knowledge."

You must try to separate Intelligent Design Creationism from the scientific investigation of intelligent design. They are NOT the same thing. Creationists have done nothing less than hijack the notion of intelligent input into the evolution of life and twisted it to their own religious agenda.
All I am saying, as an agnostic who is also a scientist, is that we, as scientists, must consider the possibility that these complex, highly organized structures, processes and systems that we observe in living things might not have emerged as the result of random chance and accidental occurrences and might be the result of intelligent input and directed processes. This is not a threat to anyones religious beliefs or lack thereof. It is decidely not a threat to anyone's atheism. It is a completely valid, scientific question that should not be dismissed out of hand because of fear that we will be aiding and comforting religious creationists.
I am not supporting or defending Intelligent Design Creationism nor am I advocating teaching it in any public school setting. I was a teacher myself (physics and chemistry) for 33 years and I believe in science and I believe it is the best path to enlightenment and knowledge. I am in favor of teaching the facts, not the "controversy" or anyones religious or political ideology. Teach the facts and let the students and everyone else decide for themselves what to believe. In that regard, I would only teach darwinian evolutionary theory in an historical framework, stating clearly and unequivocally that the issue, as a question of science, remains unresolved.

"We, as scientists", Charlie? You're a retired schoolteacher, aren't you? You have never been a scientist or researcher.

For they must also demonstrate how the body was able to develop, step-by-step, the mechanisms that it uses to control its calcium metabolism while at the same time accounting for how the system actually functioned absent each successive innovation along the way.

Charlie said:

"This is not Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. This is the real deal by a person well versed in biochemistry."

Hey, at least Jack Chick makes up his own material or swipes from the Bible. Glickman's review of calcium merely summarizes the discoveries of real scientists, none of whom he cites! I have neither the time nor energy to evaulate the accuracy of Glickman's summary of the SCIENCE but let's assume Glickman has read and understood the literature relating to the basics of calcium regulation. How very impressive! Is that all it takes to make an expert on evolution these days?

Glickman presents this tired argument:

"So to recap, in order for one of the most important mechanisms of fluid balance to function in the body one needs [the 10 allegedly essential components deleted here for the sake of brevity]. It is important to note that if just one of the above ten critical factors are missing or are not functioning properly, the system will break down and will not work and the body will die. In practical terms this means that without this fully functional, irreducibly complex system in place, the body would not live long enough to be able to reproduce ..."

Glickman effortlessly ignores many of the obvious questions his argument raises. Is it not true that there is quite a bit of variation between individuals with respect to the functioning of each of the ten elements? Does Glickman purport that every human being has precisely the same number of regulatory molecules, at the same concentration, in the same number of cells, because no variation is possible in the system? Has Glickman evidence that under no POSSIBLE circumstances can any other pathway in the human body possibly be imagined to function or compensate for the ten allegedly essential functions that Glickman recites? Is it true that NO LIVING CREATURE uses a different method of regulating its calcium, which utilizes less (or more) than the 10 essential steps? If other organisms can do it differently, then why couldn't our ancestors?

I think these questions are somewhat relevant, given that Glickman is proposing that a theory which has proven fantastically useful to scientists for the past 100+ years is a crock of baloney. But for some reason, Glickman isn't interested in proposing any testable explanations for the evolution of the human body's mechanism of calcium regulation, not does he address any evidence inconsistent with his conclusion. Rather, once he has presented the work of thousands of honest scientists who have used science to unravel the complex system in his example, Glickman is content to just sit there with his mouth hanging open and say "PRAISE THE LORD!"

Two words, Charlie: peer review. One quack's rant on a website does not a "real deal" make.

Charlie also said:

"One issue is to debunk darwinian evolutionary theory. The second is to present a scientific alternative to replace it. They have had a good amount of success addressing the first issue and failed in the second."

What is your evidence, Charlie, for the "good amount of success" creationists have had "debunking darwinian evolutionary theory"? If your evidence is that you believe they are right, then say so. But don't suggest that it's been established that scientists have been believing in a lie or a myth for the past 100 years because that's untrue.

Your chances of meeting Dylan on the other side are rapidly dwindling. Stay honest Charlie! Dylan went electric because the folkies wanted him to be their political tool. That's what creationists like Glicksman want you to be, Charlie. It's time to plug in, Charlie! Remember, you can't criticize what you don't understand!

I, too, went to PubMed and found the same articles that DaveS did. And all I've got is a lousy BS in Mathematics/Computer Science. One would think that someone with an MD or "degrees in Biology and Chemistry" from A Major University (would that be the East Podunk campus of AMU?) would be able to do the same.

A quick google turned up a number of sites and documents, including this one. I'm not qualified to review the paper, but it looks like someone did a great deal of work to address Dr. Glicksman's point. Too bad he couldn't be bothered to cite anything that might disagree with his position.

BTW: I was very disappointed with the ARN site. I tried to follow the link from Product Catalog->Merchandise and got a broken link. How can you conquer the world if you aren't selling hats and t-shirts? Maybe something with the Darwin fish with the legs in the air and x-es for eyes?

Charlie you said:

"scientists, must consider the possibility that these complex, highly organized structures, processes and systems that we observe in living things might not have emerged as the result of random chance and accidental occurrences and might be the result of intelligent input and directed processes."

Guess what, Charlie? Scientists have considered that possibility. The problem is that there is no evidence for that possibility.

The failure to be able to explain in 2004 every question that can be raised by competent scientists about evolutionary biology (and that is a LOT of questions!) does not mean that "evolution has been debunked."

Looking at your website, Charlie, I notice that you cite over and over various scientific discoveries in fields that have just as many unasnwered questions as evolutionary biology has, if not more. And yet you don't completely discount those fields as mere horse hockey fabricated by scientists who are afraid to "speak out"? What's the difference?

Apparently it is acceptable to you that we teach schoolchildren that "alien beings" (for lack of a better word) put all the existent life forms on the earth (when? you don't say) except for some which mysteriously died and were "miraculously" fossilized (a process you seem to know a great deal about, based on the startling conclusions you make about the fossil record).

I guess I'm wondering why you stop there? Shouldn't we also teach children that the Earth's gravity might also be caused by an alien being? Because we certainly don't understand all there is to know about gravity. And what about light? There are many aspects of light which are not presently understood in all their magnificent detail. Perhaps all light is merely the creation of an alien being. Shouldn't we teach that as well? What is special about evolution, Charlie, that merits this particular attention among all scientific fields?

Also from your website:

"There are no intermediate forms between invertebrates and vertebrates. There are no intermediate forms between birds and reptiles. There are no intermediate forms between amphibians and reptiles, or between fish and amphibians. These forms are not still hidden in the fossil record. They never existed. The hierarchy of living organisms is profoundly discontinuous."

Where did you dig this information up, Charlie? Are these the "facts" you want to teach to your students? What sort of evidence would convince you that any of the above statements is false?

Robert wrote:

"Glickman isn't interested in proposing any testable explanations for the evolution of the human body's mechanism of calcium regulation, not does he address any evidence inconsistent with his conclusion."

I am not defending Glicksman's science or his conclusions. I was asked:

"what is one particular example of a creationist website's well thought out objection to evolution written by someone whom you consider to be knowledgeable about evolutionary theory?"

I merely offered it as an example as requested.

I find it stunning that you just brush off this example of a system that demonstrates a highly organized integration of structure and process in which means are adapted to ends and structure and process support multiple functions as well as an overall function without even so much as considering that it might be beyond the realm of random chance and might have an intelligent component in it's emergence. Why are you so sure about this?

Robert wrote:

"What is your evidence, Charlie, for the "good amount of success" creationists have had "debunking darwinian evolutionary theory"? If your evidence is that you believe they are right, then say so."

This is a good question. Many people have come through talk.origins over the years and made good, solid, coherent and well supported arguments concerning these issues. Yet the evolutionists in talk.origins continue on as if it never happened. They just shut their ear flaps and move on to the next thing. How can you ever convince anyone who refuses to be convinced? I have had no success in convincing anyone that my views are correct despite the fact that I've made some pretty good points. No one has ever granted me even the smallest of concessions on any issue. This then results in claims that "all creationist arguments have been debunked", a notion that exists only in the minds of the faithful.
So the answer is yes. They have been successful because I believe that many of their points are well taken, and expect that others who are open-minded and receptive to new ideas will think likewise. I cannot judge their success by their failure to convince the die-hards or the zealots.
Just for the record, I slept in the same bed that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez slept in. Room 209 The Hotel Earle, Waverly Place, New York City July 11, 1965. I hope it was as good for them as it was for me ;-)

"I merely offered it as an example as requested."

And several people have showed you why it is a crappy example of what you intended it to show. And I did not "brush it off." Rather, I explained to you some (tho not all) of the reasons why your example was not compelling in the least.

You say you're a scientist and speak of concessions. How about conceding that peer review has some merit, CHarlie, and that articles and theories that pass the rigors of peer reviw and are tested and accepted by useful are far more relevant to this discussion than Kirk's instinctive repulsion towards the Gorn? That seems like a very small concession for a scientist with advanced degrees from a major university to make, Charlie. Am I wrong about that? If so, please tell me why.

" .... without even so much as considering that it might be beyond the realm of random chance and might have an intelligent component in it's emergence."

I did consider it Charlie. And then I dismissed it because there is no evidence for this all-explaining "intelligent component" idea. On the other hand, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. You haven't shown me any evidence that evolution can not account for life on earth. All you have done is state the fact (as ANY scientist will readily admit) that there are questions about evolution (and physics and chemistry and geology and climatology etc.) that remain to be answered.

"I have had no success in convincing anyone that my views are correct despite the fact that I've made some pretty good points. No one has ever granted me even the smallest of concessions on any issue."

You've got to be kidding me. I just want to see the beef, Charlie. As you put it, I want to see "a shred of evidence" to support your position that thousands of scientists continue to believe in what would amount to a rather enormous and expensive lie because they are afraid to "speak up." All you've offered in return are restatements of the mundane fact that scientists don't have an answer for everything.

"This then results in claims that "all creationist arguments have been debunked""

Which creationist "arguments" have NOT been debunked? Have any of their "arguments" been tested and shown to have some predictive utility? Can you point me to any peer-reviewed articles? Have any of these articles been cited favorably by the legions of non-"die hard" scientists (or is it your position that nearly every scientist is a "die hard")?

"I slept in the same bed that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez slept in. Room 209 The Hotel Earle, Waverly Place, New York City July 11, 1965. I hope it was as good for them as it was for me ;-)"

Eeewwwwwww, that's just gross Charlie.

Charlie,

ID proposes aliens as the possible designers of life on Earth. Are the aliens a product of evolution or are they a product of "intelligent design" as well?

Charlie Wagner is giving us the alleged unevolvability of irreducible complexity in regard to human-body calcium regulation, but I'm sure that as more details are understood about that, how it came into existence will become clearer.

As to his claims of no fossil intermediates, let's see:

Invertebrates and vertebrates - the Lower Cambrian protovertebrates Haikouella, Myllokunmingia, etc.

Reptiles and birds - feathery and otherwise birdlike theropod dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx, which fade off into dinosaurlike birds.

Amphibians and reptiles - difficult to tell which is the first reptile. The seymouriamorphs have long been thought to be early reptiles, but some of them are now known to have had amphibian-style aquatic larvae. The transition may have been relatively fast, something like the evolution of direct-developing frogs from indirect-developing ones without much change in adult body form. Yes, some species of frogs hatch as miniature adults rather than as tadpoles.

Fish and amphibians - lots of remarkable fossils have been found, like Ichthyostega, that show side fins becoming modified into legs.

Many people have come through talk.origins over the years and made good, solid, coherent and well supported arguments concerning these issues. Yet the evolutionists in talk.origins continue on as if it never happened.

Yes, in that second thread, Charlie Wagner emitted a common creationist misconception, that Archaeopteryx is mostly bird, when it is not. It looks much like some small theropod like Compsognathus, but with feathers. It has a long tail, teeth, front-limb claws, etc.

Dr. Glickman attempts to demonstrate that the biomolecular systems that control calcium in the body are irreducibly complex and does an outstanding job of explaining most of the important biochemical pathways of calcium in the body. He says "It seems to me that those who support macroevolution's step-by-step mechanics must scientifically demonstrate how it is that calcium is present in proper concentration within the cell, and outside of the cell, and in bone, in order that all of the calcium-dependent biomolecular processes in the body may properly function and thereby allow us to live. But even that is not enough! For they must also demonstrate how the body was able to develop, step-by-step, the mechanisms that it uses to control its calcium metabolism while at the same time accounting for how the system actually functioned absent each successive innovation along the way." This is not Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. This is the real deal by a person well versed in biochemistry. Well worth considering, IMHO

So far in these monthly columns, I have tried to show you how these biomolecular systems can be considered irreducibly complex because of the absolute need of each component in order for them to be able to function and allow us to survive. But by reviewing what I've said so far about calcium metabolism, you may have deduced for yourself another level of irreducible complexity. For remember, a gland cell's ability to secrete enzymes or hormones is itself dependent on the body's ability to control its calcium metabolism and provide gland cells with an adequate intracellular concentration of calcium. Yet the mechanism in the body for accomplishing this calcium control is provided by glandular tissue, namely the parathyroid glands. Therefore, the parathyroid gland cells also require an adequate amount of calcium in their intracellular fluid in order for them to be able to release parathyroid hormone. Hence, one can readily see that, in effect, the gland cells largely responsible for calcium metabolism in the body are themselves dependent on their own function in order to be able to function in the first place. Now, how can this be reconciled? I don't think it can!

Rubin DA, Hellman P, Zon LI, Lobb CJ, Bergwitz C, Juppner H. J Biol Chem. 1999 Aug 13;274(33):23035-42. A G protein-coupled receptor from zebrafish is activated by human parathyroid hormone and not by human or teleost parathyroid hormone-related peptide. Implications for the evolutionary conservation of calcium-regulating peptide hormones. Genomic and cDNA clones encoding portions of a putative catfish parathyroid hormone (PTH) 2 receptor (PTH2R) led to the isolation of a cDNA encoding a full-length zebrafish PTH2R (zPTH2R). The zPTH2R shared 63 and 60% amino acid sequence identity with human and rat PTH2Rs, respectively, 47-52% identity with mammalian and frog PTH/PTHrP receptors (PTH1R), and less than 37% with other members of this family of G protein-coupled receptors. COS-7 cells expressing zPTH2R(43), a 5' splice variant that lacked 17 amino acids in the amino-terminal extracellular domain, showed cAMP accumulation when challenged with [Tyr(34)]hPTH(1-34)-amide (hPTH) (EC(50), 1.64 +/- 0. 95 nM) and [Ile(5),Trp(23),Tyr(36)]hPTHrP-(1-36)-amide ([Ile(5), Trp(23)]hPTHrP) (EC(50), 46.8 +/- 12.1 nM) but not when stimulated with [Tyr(36)]hPTHrP-(1-36)-amide (hPTHrP), [Trp(23), Tyr(36)]hPTHrP-(1-36)-amide ([Trp(23)]hPTHrP), or [Ala(29),Glu(30), Ala(34),Glu(35),Tyr(36)]fugufish PTHrP-(1-36)amide (fuguPTHrP). FuguPTHrP also failed to activate the human PTH2R but had similar efficiency and efficacy as hPTH and hPTHrP when tested with cells expressing the human PTH1R. Agonist-dependent activation of zPTH2R was less efficient than that of zPTH2R(43), and both receptor variants showed no cAMP accumulation when stimulated with either secretin, growth hormone-releasing hormone, or calcitonin. The zPTH2R thus has ligand specificity similar to that of the human homolog, which raises the possibility that a PTH-like molecule exists in zebrafish, species which lack parathyroid glands.

Ian,
I didn't say they weren't engaged, I said that
"the evolutionists in talk.origins continue on as if it never happened." I was pointing out the utter futility of trying to use rational and logical arguments to persuade people who simply refuse to be persuaded.
You chose a bad example to use, since I have talked about transitional fossils but don't consider them to be a focus of my concern. In fact, the argument about whether or not there are transitional fossils is somewhat of a red herring in that transitional fossils simply indicate that evolution has occurred, a point with which I have no quarrel, but say nothing about the mechanism of evolution, or whether it was random or directed. In fact, transitional fossils are no threat to intelligent design and their existence, if it is established, cause me little concern. They certainly say nothing about mutation and natural selection, which is my main objection.
BTW, thanks for pinting out that thread. It contained one of my favorite analogies:

from the same thread

"Niles Eldredge calls a transitional fossil one that's a little like
what came before it and a little like what came after it. Most fossils
today that are called transitional fossils are a *lot* like one form and
not very much like the other one. They are trivially different from very
closely related forms and only vaguely related to the other. For
example, one of the best known "transitional" forms is Archaeopteryx.
It is however, a bird with a few reptilian characteristics.
Let me give you a mathematical analogy. Suppose you found the
following data points:
1.000067
1.000059
1.999989
1.000034
1.999976
1.000023
1.999966
1.999971

Clearly, all of these numbers are intermediate between 1.000000
and 2.000000. But the data are clustered very close to 1 and very close
to 2. Would a proper mathematician be acting within his rights to draw a
straight line connecting points 1.00000 and 2.00000 ?
Probably not, because there are no points that lie in the middle. It
would be unreasonable to link 1 and 2 without more data. Now suppose
that the mathematician went looking for these "missing" data points and
he searched for 141 years for these points and never found one grater
than 1.00002 or less than 1.99998. What conclusion might he come to?
And so with fossils. After looking for 141 years, the intermediates
between classes are simply not there. The conclusion is obvious. The
myriad of transitional forms needed by darwinian evolution never
existed."

Hi. I've never visited other evolution forums so you can nudge me if you've heard all this before.

Try and plug IC into a historical timeline and it looks even more ridiculous. In the 1930's and 40's pretty much the only proteins about which we knew anything were hemoglobin/myoglobin and cytochrome C, because they were hugely abundant and you could column-fractionate them by eye. At first nobody would have had the faintest hope of explaining how either came into being evolutionarily, so the Behes of the world would have run about dancing on Darwin's grave.

Then the first peptide sequence appeared, and pretty soon any amateur could draw a molecular phylogeny based on peptide sequence that recapitulated naturalist phylogeny pretty darn well. And so on. At first we don't know, then we do. Only an idiot Lysenkoist would pretend that science must suddenly have a ready answer for every question.

Just to drag this conversation back to its initial topic:

Postman's comments on topics outside his expertise are indeed laughably cartoonish. But readers of this thread would do themselves a great disservice not to familiarize themselves with his work. I would have to take exception to the characterization of him as 'postmodernist'; if anything, he was an inveterate *modernist*. One of his last works, _Building a Bridge to the 18th Century_, is constructed around the defense of Enlightenment values *against* the corrosive influences of popular media. His magnum opus _AMusing Ourselves to Death_ should be required reading for anyone who owns a television -- or an internet.

I think you've taken Postman's comments out of context. His recommendation in the essay you cite taht creationism should be taught along with evolution is simp;y a modern application of J.S. Mill's defense of freedom of speech, viz. that the truth of evolutionary theory will become clearer when juxtaposed with error. The silver lining in the c/e "controversy" is that it has indeed forced the scientific community to be more articulate about the nature and scope of the sceintific method, about what makes for good science and bad science, and about *why* evolution is good science . I would have to say my own understanding of biology would have been limited to a rote recitation of facts had it not been for my interest in creationism.

For the record, no, I do not think his proposal is workable or desirable (or constitutional). But it's underlying rationale is more solidly pro-science than readers of the initial post might be lead to believe, and it would be regrettable if readers were to miss out on _Amusing Ourselves_ or _Building a Bridge_ because of Postman's... verbal indiscretions.

They [transitional fossils] certainly say nothing about mutation and natural selection, which is my main objection.

Most of the fossils today that are called transitional fossils are a *lot* like one form and not very much like the other one. They are trivially different from very closely related forms and only vaguely related to the other.

For example, one of the best known "transitional" forms is Archaeopteryx. It is however, a bird with a few reptilian characteristics.

Let me give you a mathematical analogy.

Probably not, because there are no points that lie in the middle. It would be unreasonable to link 1 and 2 without more data.

Professor of Math (AMU): "Who can tell me about the relationship between 1 and 2?"

Charlie: "Ooo! Ooo! I know! There is no relationship. 2 is irreducibly complex because we don't have all of the transitional values! 2 exists only because the Intelligent Designer says that it does."

PoM: "1.5"

C: "God of the Gaps! God of the Gaps!"

Wow, ID is not just limited to biology; it's truly interdisciplinary. Maybe Mr. Dembski can include this revolutionary new number theory in his next defense of DI/EF.

Charlie:

It is you who missed the point(s)

1) Julie Thomas is not many (and TO didn't continue on as if she had never happened, her arguments were refuted)
2) It is you who continue on as if previous refutations or explanations had never happened. The quote that you use is a case in point, where it was patiently explained to you why you were wrong, and you have not acknoleged that this was explained to you (or in any of the other transitional fossils thread where your mistakes were carefully explained to you over and over). You have even, in this blog, claimed that Archaeopteryx is mostly bird, when it has been patiently explained to you in great detail over in Talk.Origins that this is not the case.

I don't know why you do this Charlie, as anyone with access to Google can investigate the TO threads and see the truth for themselves.

Again to return this thread to its origins

Postman says "good science has nothing to fear from bad science" and Lukas Buehler reports Postman as saying "Let students argue about the Ptolemaic astronomy as compared to the modern view based on Galileo's observation and Newton's law of Gravity."

However, this has little to do with bad science. Ptolemaic astronomy, around the time of Copernicus, was perfectly good science. The transition from the Ptolemaic view to the modern view required not only Galileo's observations, Kepler's elliptical orbits and Newton's law of Gravity, but also advances in technology and the demolition of Aristotlean physics. While some of the players in the drama were bad scientists the Ptolemaic system was, in and of itself, not bad science. A wrong explanation, but one that was initially compatible with available data.

This would be a fascinating thing to teach, but to teach it properly would take a long time (explaining Aristotlean physics for one thing), and is not really a viable subject for high school, as others have said.

The situation with evolution would not be to contrast modern creationists with modern evolution (which is a waste of time as it would tell you nothing about science) but between the "creationsists" of Darwin's time and the development of evolutionary theory from Darwin to Sewall-Wright (etc). to Mayr, Kimura and Gould, with Mendel and Watson and Crick along the way. Even then it is a much harder job, because in Darwin's time there were several varieties of "creationist" as well as "evolutionist" whereas when Galileo started there was only one version of heliocentric theory (Tycho Brae later came up with another in response to Galileo's data). Explaining the difference between global catastrophists, centres of special creationists, ideal typologists etc. is definitely a University level exercise, and should not be inflicted upon poor high school students.

Teaching the history of the development of scientific ideas, and how the process of scientific discovery and though was developed is a worthy cause, and sadly there is little time for this at high school. Teaching bad science is just a waste of time in a crowded curriculum.

One that I read recently that impressed me was a column by Dr Howard Glicksman on ARN. (link) Dr. Glickman attempts to demonstrate that the biomolecular systems that control calcium in the body are irreducibly complex and does an outstanding job of explaining most of the important biochemical pathways of calcium in the body.

I am not defending Glicksman's science or his conclusions.

Leighton,
Since I am a strong advocate of Sir Fred Hoyle, I would be remiss were I not to mention him (and Chandra Wickramasinghe also) if you want to read some of what he has to say, go to:
dubya dubya dubya dot charliewagner dot com slash hoyle dot htm
WRT the Glicksman piece, the science that he discusses is pretty solid, so I have no problem with that. I also agree with his conclusion that such a system could not have evolved by a random series of fortuitous mutations in a step-wise fashion. The only part that I have a small problem with is his claim that the system is irreducibly complex. If you look back at my first note "Behe's Mousetrap Revisited" I discuss my concerns about IC and how I view the problem of unevolvability without invoking intelligent input.

Leighton,
You can find the referenced article here:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000001.html

Charles Wagner,

"intelligent input and directed processes"

With all due respect, you are in the wrong forum. I have no doubt that 'Philosophy' can provide the very answers you seek. To consider that science (natural) must consider 'supernatural' or 'intelligent agents' implies that you believe science possesses the tools to evaluate and analyse metaphysical things. This is not the case today. Try again tomorrow.

Picture this: Adult Velociraptors, savage man-sized hunters with slashing claws, may have been covered in downy feathers, like newly hatched chicks.  The same goes for the young of Tyrannosaurus rex, and even the full-grown monster may have had a tuft or two. That's the implication of the stunningly well-preserved fossils unearthed over the last several years from spectacular fossil beds in China: a total of five small dinosaurs apparently clad in some kind of feathers, ranging from fibrous down to true feathers as unmistakable as a pigeon's.  The most recent find, which a Chinese team reported last week in Nature, is a small, birdlike animal called a dromaeosaur.  The 125-million-year-old fossil is an undersized ancestor of Velociraptor, which makes it almost certain that the later, larger creatures had similar plumage, says dinosaur paleontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City.  “We have as much evidence that Velociraptors had feathers as we do that Neandertals had hair,” he says. From the widely scattered perches of this and the other feathered fossils on the dinosaur family tree, paleontologists are realizing that many other dinosaurs on intermediate branches probably also had some kind of feathers, which may have served as insulation.  “Feathers are marching their way down” the tree, says Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago — and settling on such unlikely creatures as T. rex and its relatives.

Michael McNeil(Impearls) wrote:

"A number of folks up above have noted that Charles Wagner is flat wrong when he says that Archaeopteryx was mostly bird. Rather, as one commenter put it, "It looks much like some small theropod . . . but with feathers."

Archaeopteryx is an ancient bird.

Every reference to Archaeopteryx in PubMed refers to it as a bird and every website that was turned up by Google refers to it as a bird.

You can check for yourself if you don't believe me.

As for the "feathered dinosaurs", I saw those pictures when they first came out and my opinion then was that the claim of "feathers" was spurious. I have not changed my mind. This recent report supports my view that there are no "feathered dinosaurs":

Naturwissenschaften. 2003 Dec;90(12):563-7. Epub 2003 Nov 08.
The dinosaurian origin of feathers: perspectives from dolphin (Cetacea) collagen fibers.

Lingham-Soliar T.

Zoology Department, University of Durban-Westville, Private Bag X54001, 4000 Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. lsoliar@pixie.udw.ac.za

Abstract:

"The early origin of birds is a hotly disputed debate and may be broadly framed as a conflict between paleontologists and ornithologists. The paleontological emphasis has shifted from Archaeopteryx and its origins to recent finds of Cretaceous birds and "feathered" dinosaurs from China. The identification of alleged feathers has, however, relied principally on the visual image. Some workers have interpreted these integumentary structures as collagen fibers. To test the latter hypothesis, using light microscopy, collagen from the hypodermis (blubber) and subdermal connective tissue sheath was examined from a dolphin that had been buried for a year as part of an experiment. Within the blubber, toward the central thicker parts of the material, the collagen fibers had compacted and the three-dimensional latticework of normal blubber had more or less collapsed. Chromatographic analysis of the blubber revealed pronounced oxidation of the unsaturated lipids, probably accounting for the collapse of the latticework. Fibers normally bound together in bundles became separated into individual fibers or smaller bundles by degradation of the glue-like substance binding them together. These degraded collagen fibers show, in many instances, feather-like patterns, strikingly reminiscent of many of those identified as either "protofeathers" or "modern" feathers in dromaeosaurid dinosaurs. The findings throw serious doubt on the virtually complete reliance on visual image by supporters of the feathered dinosaur thesis and emphasize the need for more rigorous methods of identification using modern feathers as a frame of reference. Since collagen is the main fiber type found in most supporting tissues, the results have wide implications regarding the degradation and fossilization of vertebrate integument, such as that of the ichthyosaurs, dinosaurs and birds."

Michael McNeil:

I just pulled the article from Science and here is the abstract:

"A new "feathered" fossil, this one a close relative of Velociraptor, adds to evidence that many predatory dinosaurs had some kind of plumage, which may have served as insulation. To some, it dramatically underscores the proposed evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. But a small, energetic band of dissenters contends that the halos of fibers found around several of the crucial fossils, including the latest one, are just collagen."

It appears that the issue is not so certain as you would have us believe.

Charlie,

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article discussing Lingham-Soliar's work. I'd be very keen to hear your comments regarding any factual errors or misrepresentations in this article.

(from http://wiki.cotch.net/wiki.phtml?title=Downy_Dinos)

In two recent papers, Theagarajen Lingham-Soliar (2003a, 2003b) has argued that detailed similarities between fossilized icthyosaur and recently buried bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) collagen fibers strongly suggests homology between the two. Lingham-Soliar hones his sights on two studies in particular: Currie & Chen (2001) and Xu et al (2001), and it is so littered with errors that its well worth quoting at some length.

In his introduction (pg. 2), Lingham-Soliar says that the "titles of articles (Xu et al. 2001; Ji et al. 2001) that proclaim "feathered dinosaurs" actually describe integumentary fibers or feather-like structures, which are not the same as avian feathers, as some of these authors recently noted (Norell et al. 2002)." Prum, whose model of feather evolution he cites in the first line and apparently believes to be the sine qua non of research in the field, disagrees. On page 297 of the very paper he references, Prum says "the follicle originated with the cylindrical epidermal invagination around the base of the feather papilla. The undifferentiated tubular collar yielded the first feather-a hollow cylinder that resembles the calamus, or sheath, of a modern feather" [emphasis added]. This conforms to the widely used definition given by Brush (2001), that a feather has two essential properties; it is composed beta keratin, and protrudes from a follicle.

On page six, he continues: "It was not so long ago that pterosaurs covered in hair pervaded reconstructions (e.g., see Wellnhofer 1991), an unfortunate interpretation of Sharov's (1971) description of hair-like structures in Sordes pilosus. More recently, however, the structures were shown to be fibers supporting the wings (Unwin and Bakhurina 1994), straight, closely packed fibers on the outer half of the wing and shorter, loosely packed fibers close to the body." Lingham-Soliar presents Unwin & Bakhurina's paper in a way which makes it appear as if they have concluded all the pterosaur integument was of this sort, which is decidedly not the case.

On the more substantive issues, he makes repeated assertions that the collagen fibers approximate dromaeosaurid integument. A nearly exhaustive sample includes:

"Most [feather] fibers are near-parallel (fig 2) and the few instances of divergence can easily be accounted for by taphonomic professes [associated with collagen fibers]." (2003a, pg. 4)

"In other places on the same icthosaur specimen, fine fibers of one layer are compressed onto thick fibers of another, giving an uncanny resemblace to rachis and barbs" (2003a, pg. 5)

"...'wavy' fossilized fibers described in the theropod dinosaur Sinosauropteryx (Currie and Chen 2001), as 'soft and pliable', conform in nature and behavior to collagen fibers." (2003b, pg. 566)

"Slower mineralization may also account for darker edges and lighter center of integumentary structures (figure 1f in Lingham-Soliar 2003[a]), in contrast to the interpretations of similar features in a dromaeosaur as reflecting hollow integumental structures resembling the hollow rachis of feathers (Currie and Chen 2001)" (2003b, pg. 567)

Whats most interesting about all of this is that the the ichthyosaur collagen fibers can be seen to overlap bone or lie medial to the skin surface (see, for example, fig. 1a in 2003a). This is clearly not the case in feathered dromaeosaurids, where integument is clearly external to, and reaches far beyond, the skin and bone. NGMC 91 (Sinornithosaurus cp.) is one extremely clear example. Additionally, the most feather-like of the collagen is frayed from the cross-fiber patchwork associated with aquatic skin types. Unless the author is suggesting (which he did not), that the sort of skin seen in cetaceans and sharks evolved, for some spectacularly odd reason, on terrestrial vertebrates like dinosaurs, one is left to wonder just how appropriate his observations really are.

If not aquatic dinosaur skin, where did these collagen fibers comes from? We are told that there are "two possible scenarios are envisaged in Sinosauropteryx: either the bundles of tightly strung ligaments broke contact with the vertebrae during post-mortem decay and came to lie alongside the caudal vertebrae, or the skin possessed masses of strengthening fibers or rays vertically orientated to the long axis of the body" (2003a, pg. 6).

As Chen et al (1998) observe, the integument is by no means limited to the midline, so these suggestions are rather difficult to comprehend. One also must wonder if this is supposed to apply to other species as well. As Prum (2002) and Prum & Brush (2002) rightly ask, are we to believe that Beipiaosaurus had a 50-70 mm long ligament on its ulna? That NGMC 91 had a 35 mm ligament on its snout?

Finally, he concludes (in 2003a) that "it is impossible to say that the famous Chinese dromaeosaurs did not possess feathers, or that they are not collagen fibers, which has been suggested as the biological material preserved in these dinosaurs (Feduccia 1999)." It is odd that Dr. Lingham-Soliar references Norell et al (2002), a paper preliminary describing Cryptovolans (=Microraptor gui?) and announcing its unmistakable asymmetrical remiges, but still tells us all dromaeosaurid feathers could be collegen fibers. He seems to at least understand the problem in principle, rhetorically asking if "the discovery of true feathers in non-avian dinosaurs support the filamentous "protofeather" stage in Prum's (1999) model." He suggests it would not, saying "both hair and collagenous fibers have been discovered in mammoths (see Kukhareva and Ileragimob 1981) with obviously no evolutionary connection." Aside from begging the question, this argument is odd in that 1) the presense of remiges certainly had a phylogenetic origin, constituting at least prima facie evidence for the integument being keratinous, and 2) it is precisely the sort of feather Prum predicts (his stage 1). In the other paper, (2003b), Lingham-Soliar does acknowledge the presense of pennaceous feathers reported in Norell et al (2002), but places "modern" in those sneering inverted commas, and suggests, without argument or further comment, that they're "not beyond dispute" (presumably because its "an alleged dromaeosaur"), and repeats his former argument.

It should also be reemphasized that the identical integument of the alvarezsaur Shuvuuia deserti has been shown by Schweitzer et al (1999) to have been composed of beta-keratins, and could therefore not be dermal in origin.