Dawkins' Gift to Kansas

Darwin never argued that man 'evolved' from simple matter . Darwin , a Minister of christianity , only pointed out that God's 'created' creatures adapt to the envionment they are given .

If matter , alone , 'evolves' of its own volition , then do not bother to waste your time building an automobile or an airplane :: in time , IT will build ('evolve') itself .

If matter alone can evolve into a human being , then for Godsake it can 'evole' into a simple motorcycle ! !

Darwin and Evolution are totally misrepresented by the idiot followers of the genius thinker .

ERGO :
It is the 'evolutionsts' who preach nonsense .

'Existence' requires WILL. - - Shakespear , " To Be or Not to Be " .

It is your Will that determines your existence .

hey there, buddy.

define evolve for me.

Hmmm yes ofcourse now I see it. Humans exist because there once was an ape who really really wanted very badly to be a human :P

No, humans exist because a speceship carrying a load of hairdressers and telephone hygienists crashed here a few thousand years ago.

OJSB! Yeah! Kepp those jokes coming, you ol' Loki, you!

Evolution is the non-random selection of randomly varying replicators.

Evolution requires replicators. Prior to that, we aren't talking about evolution.

Machines do not replicate. Cells and animals do.

Thank you for your contributions to the Thumb.

BCH

Matter does not evolve, life does. The process by which matter became living is not evolution.
Life can evolve into other forms of life, and I assume you do not believe a motorcycle is living.
Unless you adhere to De Selby's mollycule theory (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/156478214X/qid=1117007257/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9208945-7099146?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).
Noting that mollycules at a surface are not tightly bound, he postulated an exchange of mollycules at a surface under friction, for example between a bicycle saddle and the ..er.. part of the cyclist's anatomy in contact with the saddle (Phew, that was close, almost typed "bum". DOH!). Now imagine a bicycle which has been with one owner for decades, so many mollycules will have been exchanged that the rider will
have become the bicycle and vice versa. So you can see the immorality of a man riding a woman's bicycle.

Telephone sanitation engineers, thank you very much.

Buddy - have you ever read Origin? Have you read anything Darwin wrote?

Something strikes me as not quite right here. I have never yet seen what I consider a conclusion of Divine creation based on an eliminative argument. But to support this claim, I need to distinguish between what I consider a logical progression, and what I consider a rationalization.

Without question, the presentations from (especially) Dembski, but most of the ID school generally, take the form of an eliminative approach. They say, life is too complicated to have evolved blindly. And this being creationism's only real competitor, once we eliminate it creationism remains. Many have pointed out the logical error here: Not A does not imply B.The problem is, they are pointing out a logical error in what was not a logical process.

I should think it would be pretty obvious that creation is not *deduced* in any way, as a proposed answer to "What's going on here, anyway?" The creationist answer is already known, it is axiomatic, a priori, not subject to doubt or question. All of these superficially eliminative arguments are attempts to rationalize a foregone conclusion. It's apparently not considered persuasive to say "I believe this because it's true" except to someone who already shares the same belief.

Surely nobody thinks that Dembski, objective and agnostic, sat down with his mathematical training (and no biological knowledge) and by a sequence of symbolic manipulations within the rules of his discipline derived the conclusion that life could not have evolved -- at which time he experienced a blinding flash of insight and leapt up shouting "I will henceforth worship Jesus Christ, whom I have found in my equations!"

I think it was Dawkins who had a more useful proposal: That humans are born able to accept what they are told implicitly and unthinkingly, because being able to follow directions without question or analysis was for a few hundred thousand years (or more) an essential survival trait, without which children could not have reached the age where they could reproduce. And neotony being what it is, especially with constant reinforcement, by the time the child reaches the age where certain notions can be usefully questioned, they can no longer be neurologically displaced.

(I saw a study where a roomful of people underwent some sort of brain scan while watching a video of someone lighting up a cigarette. Half the people watching had never smoked, the other half were ex-smokers who had quit for at least ten years. The smokers' brains lit up like Las Vegas as they watched, while those who had never smoked showed nothing. There are in this sense no ex-smokers in the same way there are no ex-alcoholics. There are only smokers and alcoholics currently not smoking or drinking. There is what I consider intriguing evidence that religious belief also becomes neurologically hardwired. Perhaps there is some physical age before which this wiring becomes indelible?)

Consider that Behe used the whale fossil claim to buttress his Belief, but that when his whale claim became obsolete in light of clear contrary evidence, Behe's Belief didn't budge an iota. And this, ultimately, is why we are not really seeing eliminative logic. Eliminative logic says Because no A, therefore B. Produce lots of A, and B doesn't move!

Saying that creationists hijack the language is also misleading, because it implies that they know better but are doing so as a tactic in part of a larger battle. I submit that this isn't so. They are describing the world according to their own model. What Dawkins and others can't quite realize is that believers Believe. Their minds are stuffed with crystalline certainties based on no evidence or experience they can remember, and therefore not capable of being altered through evidence or experience. The creationist strives to find some way, ANY way, to make external reality fit and support those certainties. Reality can be interpreted across a broad range. Trained-in Truths cannot.

Evolution requires replicators. Prior to that, we aren't talking about evolution.... Matter does not evolve, life does. The process by which matter became living is not evolution....

Finally, Dawkins points out that creationists have an unfortunate propensity to advocate for ignorance and confusion. I think I speak for everyone here at the Thumb when I agree wholeheartedly with his sentiment. As my recent essay Creationist Fears, Creationist Behaviors has hopefully convinced the reader, this is the whole point of intelligent design creationism: to confuse students about the validity of evolution or the methods of science.

— Burt Humburg

Teleological thinking is generally shunned as a scientific method because it's not useful, but concepts in science are often a lot easier to get across if teachers refer to enzymes or organelles being "designed" to do a particular function.

— Burt Humburg

I don't want to guild Dawkins' lilly

Heh. Point well taken.

I wrote once that I was loathe to do something. Someone corrected me on that as well. Touché.

BCH

Then, it becomes quite clear that prebiotic chemical evolution claims are considered part and parcel of evolution theory. No denying, no sidestepping.

Thats a very good point flint. It seems very unlikely that the majority of creationists believe what they believe as a result of a logical process, leaving them mostly immune to any logical counter-arguement. The decietfulness on their part comes when they try to conceal this, such as they are doing by advocating the teaching of ID in schools. They know what they believe isn't science (or those of them with any self-examination skills do) so why are they trying to get it taught as science? Because they know that if they frame their arguement in the way they feel about the subject- as a matter of revealed truth, they will get no traction in their effort to subvert the wall between church and state. So they pretend to accept science, then go about the process of undermining it. So while using logic to point out the obvious flaws in their arguements won't actually convince any of the people making those arguements, it will expose them as being either fools or the cynical theocrats they are.

Hi, FL. My geology textbook's introduction talks about cosmology and the creation of the Solar System. Does this mean that these subjects are part of geology? Oh wait! I've got it now. No.

Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty, not as a spur to honest research but in order to exploit and abuse Darwin's challenge. "Bet you can't tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?" If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: "Right then, the alternative theory, 'intelligent design', wins by default." Notice, first, the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! We are encouraged to leap to the default conclusion without even looking to see whether the default theory fails in the very same particular. ID is granted (quite wrongly as I have shown elsewhere) a charmed immunity to the rigorous demands made of evolution.

— Dawkins

Kevin:

The underlying problem here is that a very high percentage of voters are well aware that revealed truth and science aren't the same process, but still have a very strong desire that the two agree. If only science could find God, all these problems would go away. And that means anyone making the claim that science HAS found God is going to get a very respectful hearing.

I suggest that most Believers are neither fools nor cynical theocrats. In Dawkins-think, they are victims of their parents' delusions. And so when a closer examination shows that science hasn't found God after all, something has to give. And their faith very rarely compromises with anything, it's too deeply rooted in the back of their brain. God IS. Therefore, if science disputes God's word, science is wrong by definition.

Creationists are well aware of the same thing we are: there is a cut-off age beyond which Belief can no longer be fully internalized. Get your message to a child young enough, and in nearly every case that child will grow up permanently unable to adopt a new Belief or to discard a Belief that got trained in. The younger they can be reached, the more indelible the training -- whether that training be in fundamentalist doctrine or scientific method.

Granted, ID is an artificial posture, ginned up in a rather transparent attempt to make an end-run around existing legal tests. These people can well be regarded as cynical, but the rank and file have consistenly rejected this disguise. They can't help agreeing with Dembski that if Jesus Christ is not central, the position is not valid. And science is the Big Kahuna, because people can't help but be aware that it works so fabulously well.

The article which (nominally) inspired this thread is mistitled: it might more accurately be called "Dawkins' Slap in the Face to Kansas".

Dawkins' passing sneers at "a simplemindedly pious audience" and "Ignorance is God's gift to Kansas" could fairly be used, with no basis for charges of quote-mining, to illustrate the case of arrogant intellectuals holding the general citizenry in contempt. Moreover, he disregards the abundant evidence for the existence of clear-thinking pro-science Kansans, taking the part (the state Education Board's current majority & their supporters) for the whole: wouldn't he flunk any student who handed in a two-page paper doing the same?

Pierce:

You are upset because Dawkins failed to isolate the majority of voters who elected the majority of the school board? But unfortunately, the resulting antiscience curriculum is inflicted on ALL the children of Kansas, not just the children of those who wish to victimize everyone else.

We're all aware that this thread was started by someone in Kansas. Aren't we?

Flint,

Your comment in 32010 was a masterpiece.

Not really a propos, but here I have a gift to Kansas, ala Billie Holiday and Lewis Allen

http://murkythoughts.blogspot.com/2005/05/strange-fruit.html

Then, it becomes quite clear that prebiotic chemical evolution claims are considered part and parcel of evolution theory. No denying, no sidestepping.

— FL

You are upset because Dawkins failed to isolate the majority of voters who elected the majority of the school board?

Moses,

Thank you.

To get me to believe a patient like this had Alzheimer's, I'd have to see a reliable brain biopsy that confirmed the diagnosis, and I'd do that only at the end of ruling out every form of temporary dementia (aka, delirium) I could think of. Even then, I'd be hesitant to settle on that diagnosis unless it was really my last option.

Quote
Get your message to a child young enough, and in nearly every case that child will grow up permanently unable to adopt a new Belief or to discard a Belief that got trained in. The younger they can be reached, the more indelible the training --- whether that training be in fundamentalist doctrine or scientific method.

Wasn't it the Jesuits who started the motto - "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man" ?

Wasn't it the Jesuits who started the motto - "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man" ?

"But show me a man, and I'll teach you to fish."

No, wait. Something like that.

Some people are genetically prone to a disease referred to as early-onset Alzheimer's.  As I recall, the disease is associated with a mutation in the B-amyloid gene which affects its processing and which causes plaques to appear which resemble those observed in elderly Alzheimer's patients. At one time, our ancestors might have imprisoned or tortured or killed such people because they were "possessed by evil spirits".  We know better now, thanks to the scientific method.  Or at least, many of us know better.

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for life."

I think this is one manifestation of "typological" thinking vs. "evolutionary" thinking. Mayr wrote about this some in "What Evolution Is"; Anyone know of better developments of this theme somewhere?

Viruses Viruses hardly fit into the creationist's view of the world at all. In the first place, nothing even remotely like them is even remotely alluded to in either Testament. About the only "biblical" disease that anyone can remember is leprosy (a bacterial disease), and there's no clue that any of the writers that mentioned it knew that it was caused by any sort of micro-organism. Egyptian cattle suffered a "murrain"-- with no apparent cause other than a divine curse. A blight on crops is mentioned in a place or two, which, if it were naturally caused, might be a viral disease, but again only the disease is mentioned, not any organic cause. Then there are the "emerods" (hemorrhoids) with which God afflicted some folks he was miffed at. I have been told both of the following by "creation scientists": o The Devil created viruses. o Viruses are not in the Bible because they are "imperfect." But the really disturbing thing about viruses is that they occupy the twilight zone between living and dead, a zone that would seem ought not to exist in a creation in which creatures were "given life," or have "the breath of life." Of course, the creationist may arbitrarily assign them to either the "living" or "dead" category, but either assignment is a forced fit. Can they be alive if they don't move, breathe, eat, excrete, or metabolize at all, and can even be crystallized, like other non-living chemicals? Can they be dead if they can self-replicate (reproduce) using the same basic methods as other living things, parasitize other creatures, and are made of nearly the same proteins and nucleic acids as we are? Evolutionary theory doesn't demand that there be a sharp distinction between living systems and nonliving molecules. That's the premise of abiogenesis, which creationists insist on lumping in with evolution, so what the heck... we'll take it. Evolutionary theory can also explain where viruses came from, or why they exist. The fact that there are presently several tentative explanations in no way threatens the structure of evolutionary theory; we're perfectly happy with hypotheses until the preponderance of evidence clearly favors one over all others. In evolutionary theory (with abiogenesis) there should be some hazy area between living and nonliving, and viruses are dwellers of that twilight zone.

No, no, I think I remember now it's "Give me a child till he is seven, and I will teach that mans fish to cycle!"

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; give him a religion, and he starves to death while praying for a fish.

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for life."

If viruses are such a problem, what about poisonous plants? Who created them? God? Why?

Andy, friend--I get it. I bet we all get it. I was making a joke.

As far as God creating things like poisonous plants, venomous snakes, viruses and the like, as a former creationist, I can tell you what I said. I basically insisted on TWO acts of creation, the original, in which all things were "good" and death did not yet exist, and a second creation after the fall (that whole bootleg apple incident) in which creation was retooled with fangs and thorns and squirmy pathogens. That was when death entered the cosmos, and with it, the sundry means of exacting it.

No one has to tell me now what absurdity that all is. And the biggest problem is not even biological (it is madness to suggest that something like a functioning ecosystem could exist without death)--it's theological. Why would an omniscient creator, who would have known full well that humans were going to screw up and get eighty-sixed from Eden anyway, why go through the futile gesture of first creating a perfect, death-free world, only to a short time later reverse engineer the whole thing for maximum carnage? Such a short-bus god deserves only scorn.

Anyway. My two cents on viruses. Hey, my degree is in Bible, not biology. For that perspective, bring on the virologists. I'm curious myself what the latest is.

Preposterous. Fish on cycles, indeed. Next, you'll be telling us about fish taking long moonlight strolls along the mudflats of indonesian islands.

"they are victims of their parents' delusions"

"Wasn't it the Jesuits who started the motto - "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man" ?"

this brings up an interesting issue.

If hard-held religious beliefs are mostly due to what essentially could be termed "brain washing", what happens when there is no early indoctrination?

are there studies indicating what happens in such circumstances? any psychologists lurking about that know of any such studies?

this goes back to another article nick posted a while back where researchers had found evidence to support the idea that there is a genetic component to religious behavior.

Although this begins to sound like a nature/nuture argument, I'd certainly be interested in seeing any such studies that might shed light on the issue.

Indeed, someone proposed in another thread that it would be worthwhile to get the fundies to think about something else for a change; put them on the defensive so to speak.

can you imagine the reaction to evidence indicating that their beliefs are primarily genetic in foundation? that evolutionary theory itself might explain extreme funamentalist behavior?

they'd be busy for years trying to tear that one down.

"Preposterous. Fish on cycles, indeed. Next, you'll be telling us about fish taking long moonlight strolls along the mudflats of indonesian islands."

Humbug indeed! or perhaps he will even tell us that fish can "fly"...

ludicrous.

LOL. Flying fish. We don't need any such muddled thoughts here.

No, no! Isn't it "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"?

Note: Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN) anounced he's running for the Senate.

No, no, no, no, no!

"Show me a man, and get out of my way." -- Mae West

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; show a man how to fish, and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking beer."

What happens if you show a creationist a flying fish?

The problem with funny scientists is there often aren't enough peers with a healthy enough sense of humor to get the joke.

I am mostly a lurker to this site, but I am perpetually amazed at two things: your gentlemen's collective intelligence and the frequency with which jokes sail over heads. I say this only in a good natured manner.

What happens if you show a creationist a flying fish?

"What happens if you show a creationist a flying fish?"

uh, you're kidding, right? a flying fish would of course be evidence for special creation. how on earth could a fish "evolve" wings. preposterous.

;)

The God Gene by Dean Hamer might be the book you're referring to. It's more like a propensity toward spirituality - being "one with the universe" - than any doctrinal religion. In fact it might be the opposite.

Lots of fuzzy thinking. Write on a popular topic, make lots of money.

Good article from Reason here

If hard-held religious beliefs are mostly due to what essentially could be termed "brain washing", what happens when there is no early indoctrination?

show a creationist a flying fish, and specifically you get:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/fish_fly.asp

show a scientist a flying fish and you get:

http://www.springerlink.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=8d6d5753e9784df9b8b7125d7bffd6a2&referrer=parent&backto=issue,3,11;journal,21,44;linkingpublicationresults,1:400215,1

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html

moreover, creationists ignore the fact that there are many species of extant fishes that exhibit all the precursors of "flight" (which of course is really just gliding, not true flight), and that there are at least two groups of fishes that show gliding behavior (lots of different "flying" fish).

the transitional fossils are all over the record, but perhaps creationists don't recognize them as "transitional" because many of these species still exist today. it doesn't take much to extend a pectoral fin long enough to allow gliding behavior; a quick glance at the members extant within the family that includes the common "flying fish (it's a relative of needlefish and billfish) reveals many members with elongated pectoral fins and modified anal fins. In fact, flying fish are often used in standard biology texts as a great example of co-option. Pectoral fins are quite useful to any fish as a steering and propulsive mechanism, and if you live near the surface...

sorry, I'm an ichthyologist and just couldn't resist tossing out a bit about such a wonderful fish.

flint:

you should go back and read that article posted by nick.

"early in life, the human brain is amazingly plastic and malleable"

this is not actually the case in many instances. it is an oversimplification of how learning actually works. there are demonstrable genetic components to learned behaviors, even in humans. IIRC, there has been significant research indicating that children's brains are NOT in fact, a blank slate or a lump of clay.

Not my area of expertise to be sure, but even 20 years ago i can recall reading dozens of studies to this effect when an undergraduate. I'm sure all you have to do is do a search on google scholar for nature/nuture to find thousands of articles about genetic components to learned behaviors in humans (weren't we just talking about homosexuality a while back?).

to put it bluntly, i rather doubt your example of Hovind vs. Mill swapping would give you the results you expect.

that's why i am particularly interested in any studies that have attempted to tease this issue out.

the one that nick posted (i'll dig it up later) was the first i had seen looking at the actual genetics, but I'd be willing to bet that there have been "twin studies" and similar looking at the impact of environment on religious thinking as well.

I think both scientifically, and for the impact the studies themselves would have (politically), it would be worth pursuing.

Flying fish aside (and no one has yet mentioned that if you teach a man to fish you can sell him a helluva lot of funny-looking lures with feathers and spinners, expensive rods, big boats with twin 225 horse Mercs, and so on), Flint mentioned Piaget. I think the Piagetian concept that is most appropriate to this discussion is called "assimilation." Piaget distinguished between accommodation (altering/modifying one's cognitive schemata to take account of new information) and assimilation (altering/filtering new information in order to fit it into existing cognitive schemata). The cognitive schemata that dominate are originally constructed during childhood -- Piaget's was a theory of cognitive development, after all. The mindset Flint describes illustrates the total victory of assimilation over accommodation.

RBH

Until about 25 years ago, scientists assumed that religious behaviour was simply the product of a person's socialisation - or "nurture". But more recent studies, including those on adult twins who were raised apart, suggest genes contribute about 40% of the variability in a person's religiousness.

"the one that nick posted (i'll dig it up later) was the first i had seen looking at the actual genetics, but I'd be willing to bet that there have been "twin studies" and similar looking at the impact of environment on religious thinking as well."

er, strike that sentence; what i was recalling was the twin study, and confused it with another article i can't seem to locate now that was attempting to track down the specific genes involved.

only 40 and already my memory is going.

;)

(And, as an addendum, Piaget was originally trained as a zoologist.)

Here's a description of a twin study on religiosity.

Back in the mid '70s, when I took a course on language acquiring in children, the concept of children being pre-wired to learn any language before a certain age was put forward by Chomsky and thus not a "blank slate" as previously thought. Several tests seem to confirm the concept. In light of evolutionary theory, it makes sense as a child needs language to learn survival skills in his/her culture and must acquire it early enough to succeed.

I have long felt that creationism/ID was just a well financed, well orgnaized dis-information campaigne..

Back in the mid '70s, when I took a course on language acquiring in children, the concept of children being pre-wired to learn any language before a certain age was put forward by Chomsky and thus not a "blank slate" as previously thought.  Several tests seem to confirm the concept.  In light of evolutionary theory, it makes sense as a child needs language to learn survival skills in his/her culture and must acquire it early enough to succeed.

@rbh

that's the same study; just a different article.

As seen on Slashdot: Give a man some fire and he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Darwin never argued that man 'evolved' from simple matter . Darwin , a Minister of christianity , only pointed out that God's 'created' creatures adapt to the envionment they are given. If matter , alone , 'evolves' of its own volition , then do not bother to waste your time building an automobile or an airplane :: in time , IT will build ('evolve') itself . If matter alone can evolve into a human being , then for Godsake it can 'evole' into a simple motorcycle ! ! Darwin and Evolution are totally misrepresented by the idiot followers of the genius thinker . ERGO : It is the 'evolutionsts' who preach nonsense .

it just goes to show how far the folks will go to rationalize their belief systems.

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he ...."

Saying that creationists hijack the language is also misleading, because it implies that they know better but are doing so as a tactic in part of a larger battle. I submit that this isn't so. They are describing the world according to their own model.

Up to a point. Quote-mining and all its trappings isn't "describing the world" according to any model, unless the "hardwiring" somehow causes their minds to glaze over everything until they come across a single isolated sentence that seems to support their opinion [in which case they light up like Las Vegas]...

The creationist strives to find some way, ANY way, to make external reality fit and support those certainties.

Except that not all creationists feel compelled to do this. Plenty of people are content to just accept the presence of scientific evidence without trying to explain it away, the same way that plenty of people accept that there is evil in the world trying to figure out precisely what this implies about the Creator, his goodness, his omniscience, his sense of humour, &c. The hard-core rationalisations about X [or the absence thereof] in the fossil record, or in the bacterial flagellum, or any of these bizarre contortions we're seeing, are usually motivated by something other than [or in addition to] an unquestioning faith in a creator. I grew up in Ethiopia, where a huge percentage of the population is quite religious; also in Ethiopia, hominid fossils get forked out of the wasteland every day. Is there any hysteria over a perceived crisis of faith/schooling/materialism? Among the foreign missionaries, yes, but to almost everyone else the fossils are near-venerated as national treasure. You don't really have to take on the evidence of the world if you don't want to-- the hardwiring, if such there is, seems to have more to do with proselytising and politicising the creator rather than a simple belief that the world was created. And it also requires some doctrine about "evidence" and "the real world".

[Sorry for the ramble. All I'm trying to say is that, when forced to say "I don't know X", there are plenty of ways people deal with it-- some say "I'll try to find out," some say "I'll try to convince everyone that it can't be known" and some just say "I'm not going to worry about it". Choosing the second rather than the third seems to have quite as much to do with politics/strategies/plans as with purely theological beliefs...]

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he ...."

As far as God creating things like poisonous plants, venomous snakes, viruses and the like, as a former creationist, I can tell you what I said. I basically insisted on TWO acts of creation, the original, in which all things were "good" and death did not yet exist, and a second creation after the fall (that whole bootleg apple incident) in which creation was retooled with fangs and thorns and squirmy pathogens. That was when death entered the cosmos, and with it, the sundry means of exacting it.

heddle fled; he mentioned something about "getting a life" or some such nonsense.

Except that not all creationists feel compelled to do this. Plenty of people are content to just accept the presence of scientific evidence without trying to explain it away...

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for life."

While it's true that our brains are very likely hardwired for language, Chomsky and his followers go on to make many statements about what kinds of languages our brains are hardwired to accept --- that is, that our brains can intrinsically accept certain types of grammatical structures, but not accept others. In other words, certain types of languages are supposedly 'impossible'. However, it's important for nonlinguists to realize that there is extremely little real empirical evidence for these posited 'possible grammars', and not too hard to find counterexamples to them.

I think that this idea of no-death-before-the-Fall is just more defective fundamentalist thinking.

The fish I caught today for dinner tonight cost about $50. Side dishes and drink add maybe another $10.

Sheesh, for $60 I could take the wife out to a nice resturant and had no dishes to wash.

Oh well, I'll just have to catch more next week.

flint, my whole point of bringing up the issue was to discuss its ramifications, not to argue over the semantics of cognition.

when a behavior is indicated to have as much as 40% genetic influence, that is pretty significant.

I wanted to discuss the impact of studies like this one on the whole creationism argument to begin with, which i personally would find more interesting.

please, read the summary of the article i linked to (or the one RBH linked to - as they reference the same study), and tell me what implications you see arising out of it.

cheers

I don't have many references handy at the moment, but hypotheses about the origin of viruses include hold-overs from the RNA world, and degenerated cells. Due to radically differing life-cycles, it is not thought that all viruses have common ancestors--not in the normal sense of the term. (See here and here.)

It strikes me that viruses are potentially excellent candidates for irreducible complexity, since some RNA viruses depend on viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerases for their replication and gene expression. I wonder if the DI crowd wants to own them?

Give a man a fish and he'll come back for more. Teach a man to fish and you lose your market.

test

Damn. The software ate my entire post.

Was it the software, Flint ... or the Ghost of David Heddle?

Mooo hoo hoo hah hah ha!!!

While it's true that our brains are very likely hardwired for language, Chomsky and his followers go on to make many statements about what kinds of languages our brains are hardwired to accept --- that is, that our brains can intrinsically accept certain types of grammatical structures, but not accept others. In other words, certain types of languages are supposedly 'impossible'. However, it's important for nonlinguists to realize that there is extremely little real empirical evidence for these posited 'possible grammars', and not too hard to find counterexamples to them.

Backwards must you talk, if sound like Yoda you would . . . . .

While it's true that our brains are very likely hardwired for language, Chomsky and his followers go on to make many statements about what kinds of languages our brains are hardwired to accept --- that is, that our brains can intrinsically accept certain types of grammatical structures, but not accept others. In other words, certain types of languages are supposedly 'impossible'. However, it's important for nonlinguists to realize that there is extremely little real empirical evidence for these posited 'possible grammars', and not too hard to find counterexamples to them.

— Arden Chatfield

(Or as in Anthony Lane's "Break me a fucking give".)

Actually, this is a better link for the story of why Yoda's language makes no sense:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002178.html

Additional support for language being inherent in our particular animal is the basic existence of creoles.  Generally, when adults of differing cultures come together, in an arena other than that of war, they might establish trade.  For this, they need a common language.  This pidgin contains mostly single forms of verbs and nouns, and works well.  Over time, however, the children - yes, the little kiddies 'learning' the pidgin - actually modify it into a creole, a language with elements of syntax.  The kids' brains, during their development, did what they always do - learned a language and literally demanded a syntax.  It was not there so it was imposed.

As to the syntactical structure of sentences from the deep structure, these analyses are based on counts of language forms.  Sure, an example or two of very rare occurances can, and has, been found.  However from my recollection, without digging into a box for a book, the most common language is SOV.  This is, BTW, what Yoda speaks. 

In short, Yoda speaks Latin.  Next in commonality is our own basic structure of SVO.  Other forms diminish rapidly.  I think these two account for about 85% of languages.

So why didn't Adam's guts explode within hours from all those fruitfully-multiplying immortal bacteria in there?

So if the bacteria weren't multiplying and dying, what did Adam's, er, excrement consist of?

The inhabitants of Eden DID eat, that much is written down.  To avoid lots of death it looks like more funny business has to be postulated on an on-going basis.

Like that would be a surprise.

The esteemed Rev. Hovind has said on more than one occasion that neither plants nor insects can be proven to be alive. Presumably this would extend to bacteria as well.

Again, we'd need to find a coherent, intellectually honest fundamentalist to ask.

— Air Bear

May 25, 2005 Evolving theory of intelligent design From Dr Milton Wainwright Sir, Like many biologists, Richard Dawkins (Weekend Review, May 21) views the theory of intelligent design merely as an attack on evolution when, being essentially identical to the anthropic principle, it has far wider implications. Such ideas should not be dismissed simply because they have been hijacked by creationists. Despite Dawkins's relentless propaganda, rational criticism of evolution and a distaste for biological reductionism do not equate to religious fundamentalism; bigotry should be resisted from whichever direction it comes. Yours faithfully, MILTON WAINWRIGHT, Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN. May 21. From Professor Andy McIntosh Sir, By building a straw man of creationists (supposedly) misquoting Darwin and Lewontin, Professor Dawkins labels the lot as "ignorant" and skirts the big issue --- there is no hard evidence for molecules-to-man evolution. Dawkins has long touted stories on how the eye and other organs came into being by supposed slow evolutionary processes, but there is no experimental evidence, even if one did accept the fossils as a record of such changes. Any serious thinker knows that the fossils of the "Cambrian Explosion" period, near the base of the geological column, include some of the most sophisticated eyes ever known to have existed --- the compound eyes of trilobites have double calcite lenses, which defeat any slow evolutionary explanation, and, what is more, they have no precursor in the rocks. The non-evolutionist side of the argument is growing not because of ignorance, but because of the rise of knowledge about the real facts of science without the fairytale additions of evolutionism. A growing number of academics on both sides of the Atlantic are attracted to the straightforward logic of scientific reasoning. The logical, coded machinery of DNA and the information system it carries shout design to an unprejudiced mind. Dawkins's defence is based not on scientific facts, but on ideology. Evolutionary thinking is teetering as a way of looking at the evidence, not because of some isolated problems here and there, but because the whole structure is scientifically wrong. Yours faithfully, ANDY C. McINTOSH, (Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory), Energy and Resources Research Institute, Houldsworth Building, University of Leeds, Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9JT. May 23.

Well, if Hovind isn't available for questioning...there's always Salvador.

Posted by Arden Chatfield on May 25, 2005 05:25 PM (e) (s)

As Arden did , go back and re-read the original post .

The logical, coded machinery of DNA and the information system it carries shout design to an unprejudiced mind.

There's some solid reasoning for yah.

"Dawkins Gets a Whuppin! "

hey sal!

when are you going to post those vids of Dembski giving you a spanking for being a "naughty boy"?

Until about 25 years ago, scientists assumed that religious behaviour was simply the product of a person's socialisation - or "nurture". But more recent studies, including those on adult twins who were raised apart, suggest genes contribute about 40% of the variability in a person's religiousness.

Are you suggesting the deepest cut of all... A bible thumping gene?

It's self-evident. Overwhelmingly religion is culturally based as others have said, endemic to any human group that existed historically or pre-. Neanderthal burials show evidence of ritual, don't they? We believe because the urge is primeval, and this has been very useful in social organisation, so there must have been positive selection for the trait.

It's self-evident. Overwhelmingly religion is culturally based as others have said, endemic to any human group that existed historically or pre-. Neanderthal burials show evidence of ritual, don't they? We believe because the urge is primeval, and this has been very useful in social organisation, so there must have been positive selection for the trait.

It's Salvatore, here to dance for us like the puppet that he is and run away when asked tough questions (as always).

Any serious thinker knows that the fossils of the "Cambrian Explosion" period, near the base of the geological column, include some of the most sophisticated eyes ever known to have existed...

—

Ok, we got a fundamentalist. Now let's work on the coherent, intellectually honest part.

Check out Dr. McIntosh's list of publications:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cfd/acm_publs.htm

Salvador, don't you think it's a bit silly, using this man's opinions as support for intelligent design creationism?

Dr. Wainwright is a more intriguing chap. He's a biologists sure enough. With a research program in panspermia. From his web site:

a) Does mitogenetic radiation exist? It is now recognised that all living cells emit low-intensity UV light. The aim of our research is to determine if this UV emission stimulates the growth of other micro-organisms. We have already produced partial evidence for the existence of mitogenetic radiation.

b) Does silicon play a role in bacterial and fungal metabolism? We are particularly interested in determining if microorganisms can use silicon as an energy source, i.e. does silicon-based autotrophy exist.

c) Microbial oligotrophy. That is the growth of bacteria and fungi under extremely low nutrient conditions.

We are currently developing an interest in the role of (b) and (c) in the origin of life on Earth and the possible existence of life elsewhere in the universe, particularly in relation to the theory of panspermia.

I just did a quick Google on Andy McIntosh. Surprise, surprise, he's a YEC.

http://www.train2equip.com/interviewQuestion.asp

I waited until he was 6 to start explaining God and Jesus to my son. Too late. Now, in the middle of my transition to full-blown atheism, he's acting like he was right all the time. Kinda funny. The more I look, the more I see. Without religious training of any sort, my son seems to have always looked at the world from a naturalist's standpoint. A lot of kids today do not believe in God, and they do so from a fairly pessimistic POV. The cool thing here is, he is an atheist, but he's so darn cheery about it.

This is not to say all atheists are downers, I've just known a few and been disgusted by them. The universe is a wonderous place, and God-created or not, it's to be marveled at, not cried over.

So, teach me more, PT... Teach me more!

The convergence was placed there to confound naturalistic interpretations.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Dr. Wainwright is a more intriguing chap. He's a biologists sure enough. With a research program in panspermia.

So why didn't Adam's guts explode within hours from all those fruitfully-multiplying immortal bacteria in there? Because nobody has demonstrated that the claimed E-coli reproduction rate of "one every 20 minutes" held true back in Adam and Eve's pre-Fall days. You'd have to show that in order to demonstrate any danger to "Adam's guts". Genesis tells us that serious changes, including biological changes affecting us humans in particular, followed the Fall. Plausibly, our little E-coli inhabitants and the way they work could have been affected. It's one every twenty minutes NOW, but you'd have to let us know what it was back THEN. ****************** I think that this idea of no-death-before-the-Fall is just more defective fundamentalist thinking.

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--- 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Plausibly, our little E-coli inhabitants and the way they work could have been affected. It's one every twenty minutes NOW, but you'd have to let us know what it was back THEN.

— FL

I've wondered about the Tree of Life. If there was no death at the time of Creation, what was the Tree of Life about?

morning laugh therapy... wingnut theology...

NEW SCIENTIST: Until about 25 years ago, scientists assumed that religious behaviour was simply the product of a person's socialisation - or "nurture". But more recent studies, including those on adult twins who were raised apart, suggest genes contribute about 40% of the variability in a person's religiousness. STJ: the conclusions have interesting ramifications, don't you agree?

You'd have to show that in order to demonstrate any danger to "Adam's guts".

ZIM: I just did a quick Google on Andy McIntosh. Surprise, surprise, he's a YEC. FROM MCINTOSH: "The logical, coded machinery of DNA and the information system it carries shout design to an unprejudiced mind."

Andy MacIntosh is a British YEC so it is therefore possible that he holds to the British version of flood geology. In this version (don't you think its odd that these YECs can't decide on what is a flood rock and what isn't?), only the Hadean and Archean are flood rocks and the Cambrian explosion represents recolonisation of the earth from refugia.

It is only by holding this point of view that he could cite the Cambrian explosion with any kind of intellectual honesty. As I've pointed out a number of times, the vast majority of YECs believe the Cambrian explosion to be the product of a global flood, the result of hydraulics and nothing to do with the history of life (be it evolution or an intelligent designer or by emergence from a refuge in the most extreme case). Any YEC who holds to the non UK flood model is being disingenuous when they talk about the Cambrian explosion being a problem for evolution.

I hope he does hold to the UK model, otherwise he has been extremely dishonest with the readership of The Times.

These numbers don't sit very comfortably with me. I simply can't accept that we have any reliable implementation of a "religiosity measure" much less any useful way to quantify spirituality. Placing a number like "40% variation" strikes me as almost pure numerology. We can't even agree whether creationism itself should be classified more as spiritual or as political.

On the other hand, looking at RBH's description of Piaget's assimilation and accommodation terms, I think we can get a better handle on someone's propensity to alter the data or the model, when faced with data that fail to fit the model. I wouldn't wish to be tasked with designing an experimental methodology to establish whether "more spiritual" people (whatever that means in practice) were more or less likely to be assimilationists.

My observation leaves little doubt in my mind that creationists lean heavily toward the assimilationist end (distort the data to fit a priori doctrine), but is this tendency a spiritual attribute? Could it just as plausibly be said that it's not? Maybe we could find some way to determine experimentally that those heavily oriented toward assimilation exemplify the common human capacity for pig-headed ignorance, and that this capacity takes the form of creationism when such people fixate on religion?

I don't think we could count, or even identify, every factor (both genetic and environmental) that interacts to produce what these studies have decided to call religiosity. The interactions among these factors probably produce side-effects that ALSO interact. And the entire package is dynamic, changing day to day. In short, I regard that 40% number as more comical than meaningful. We don't even understand what it's 40% OF.

Well, in general, I do want to make people smile, Russell.

However, I thought you previously suggested that you weren't particularly interested in anyone's theology

oops. Forgot to edit out those last two bits. Everything following "I thank you" is FL quotes that I meant to leave on the cutting room floor.

My observation leaves little doubt in my mind that creationists lean heavily toward the assimilationist end (distort the data to fit a priori doctrine), but is this tendency a spiritual attribute? Could it just as plausibly be said that it's not? Maybe we could find some way to determine experimentally that those heavily oriented toward assimilation exemplify the common human capacity for pig-headed ignorance, and that this capacity takes the form of creationism when such people fixate on religion?

— Flint

"those they disagree with"

It's not all relative though (let alone equal) in the way you seem to imply. Some people really are more stupid, more ignorant, more deluded, more dishonest etc than others. If there were not differences, then there would be no point in exams at all, for example. It isn't just a matter of one person disagreeing with another but of reality disagreeing with the incompetent people. Sometimes it is very important to know which people have a good grasp of reality and which ones are clueless and not to be trusted.

Yes, I think it's silly to pretend that there is NOT an objective universe out there, that it is what it is and doesn't contradict itself. And the reason that science tends to converge on a consensus explanation of things, while religions tend to schism into sects, isn't that hard to figure out either. Religious doctrine (more accurately, interpretation of ambiguous and inconsistent scripture) is true by arbitration -- because someone accepts that it is true and that alternative interpretations must therefore necessarily be false. There is no method by which such disagreements can be resolved, because there is no authority to appeal to higher than a personal statement of faith. Science would probably fall into the same trap, were it not for the ultimate appeal to an external reality independent of scientists opinions.

Relative assimilationists (pig-heads?) surely exist in the world of science as well. Kuhn pointed out that many if not most large changes in scientific theories occur not because of new data or more correct interpretations, but because adherents of the old theory die off, and are not replaced because the old theory is no longer in vogue. When reputations rest on certain ways of viewing the evidence, other views equally plausible if not moreso are resisted with great energy. Certainly the notorious "Darwinian resistence to the supernatural" looks pig-headed and dogmatic to those who hear the Voice of God in their hearts (whatever that means).

So I think these authors have found variation in the possession of a more general human trait, which they'd find no matter where that trait exerted its influence.

Posted by speaker4thedead on May 26, 2005 12:00 AM (e) (s) The esteemed Rev. Hovind has said on more than one occasion that neither plants nor insects can be proven to be alive. Presumably this would extend to bacteria as well.

But consider still how striking it is that this is not closer to zero, as folks have believed historically. I would imagine it doesn't take much heritability at all for a trait to be exploited by natural selection.

The esteemed Rev. Hovind has said on more than one occasion that neither plants nor insects can be proven to be alive.

That's the reason i am thinking the results have such interesting implications.

These numbers don't sit very comfortably with me. I simply can't accept that we have any reliable implementation of a "religiosity measure" much less any useful way to quantify spirituality.

We can't even agree whether creationism itself should be classified more as spiritual or as political.

I don't think we could count, or even identify, every factor (both genetic and environmental) that interacts to produce what these studies have decided to call religiosity.

Please address the methods used and whether the conclusions drawn were appropriate or not.

This appears to be a fairly robust, if early attempt, at the study of heritability of this trait.

Can you provide corroboration to support that the entire package is dynamic? changing day to day?

Andy MacIntosh is a British YEC so it is therefore possible that he holds to the British version of flood geology. In this version (don't you think its odd that these YECs can't decide on what is a flood rock and what isn't?), only the Hadean and Archean are flood rocks and the Cambrian explosion represents recolonisation of the earth from refugia.

— SteveF

I hope he does hold to the UK model, otherwise he has been extremely dishonest with the readership of The Times.

— SteveF

We have already found good evidence for a "homosexuality gene"

Zim,

Check out this debate by the leading proponent of the view (there will also be stuff on the UK creationist society website):

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43494

There is a comments thread in the Natural Science forum if you fancy reading it.

Steve U:

"But why muddy up the waters with misleading "sexy" (ha!)quotables like references to a "gay gene"?"

I wasn't aware that i was. The title in the article is thus:

Science. 1993 Jul 16;261(5119):321-7.

Evidence for homosexuality gene.

i guess you better take up your concerns with them.

"I am merely illustrating how an inclination to deity worship, likely to be realized in certain environments, could be "inherited" or (acquired by mutation)."

I'd say that you aren't in agreement with Flint then.

i guess you better take up your concerns with them.

I'd say that you aren't in agreement with Flint then.

It just really NARKS me when bogus numbers get injected into politically charged issues all gussied up with the trappings of "science"."

But let's speculate anyway

Is she 40% more spiritual than I am? Can we even ASK such a question without cracking up?

That article was written in 1993. Do you believe that the evidence in 2005 is "weak" "okay" "strong" or "conclusive" that there is a single gene which correlates so strongly with homosexuality in humans that this gene may be accurately referred to as a "gay gene"? In other words, is there a gene that if mutated will cause somebody to be gay? That is what lay people understand when they hear "gay gene". And that is what I mean when I caution against muddying the waters.

Sir T

It is possible you are more of a stubborn mofo than myself or Flint -- if so, you are truly cursed! ;)

My point remains that, in my impossibly humble opinion, your earlier statement and the article's title are misleading insofar as they represent to the average person that "a gene" has been identified which causes someone to be homosexual.

That's all. If you don't believe that the average person would understand your statement about "a homosexuality gene" as I've suggested, then we simply have to agree to disagree unless you want to conduct a poll to prove me wrong. I suggest not wasting your time on that.

As for Flint, I agree with his premise that defining "spirituality" for the purposes of a genetic test is probably impossible unless one chooses a definition along the lines I suggested, e.g., "gullible", which leads to rather trivial conclusions (in my opinion) and is not the novel finding that the authors intended to share with their readers.

Warrington, Cheshire D. W. Dew may be interested to learn that the neurological and genetic basis for religious beliefs have received some attention (Letters, 26 April, p 52). It has long been known that certain neurological disorders (such as temporal lobe epilepsy) can cause hyper-religiosity. The visions of St Paul, Mohammed, Joan of Arc and others come to mind. As for genetics, researchers at the University of Minnesota, studying identical twins raised apart, have shown that if one twin is deeply religious the other often is too. They conclude that religious belief is about 50 per cent genetic (Waller et al., Psychological Science, 1990, vol 1, p 138). This says nothing about the truthfulness or logic of religions, but the huge numbers of people with this genetic disposition does indicate that the gene(s) involved had a selective advantage in the past. Finally, irrational beliefs are not entirely independent of intelligence and education. A review by B. P. Beckwith in Free Inquiry (vol 6, p 46, 1986) looked at all the relevant studies conducted up to that time in the US. Of 43 studies, four found no relationship between religious belief on the one hand and intelligence and education on the other. The remaining 39 studies consistently found an inverse relationship. In other words, the more intelligent and educated a person is, the less likely that person is (on average) to be religious.

"If you don't believe that the average person would understand your statement about "a homosexuality gene" as I've suggested, then we simply have to agree to disagree unless you want to conduct a poll to prove me wrong. I suggest not wasting your time on that."

oh no, i fully agree with this statement. i was under the assumption that i was not directing my discussion towards the "average" person, but rather towards the folks on this forum that have actually read something about behavioral psychology, sociobiology, and the nature/nuture arguments.

my apologies if i offended anyone, as that certainly was not my intention. I certainly wouldn't have even bothered raising the topic on a standard "public blog".

It has long been known that certain neurological disorders (such as temporal lobe epilepsy) can cause hyper-religiosity. The visions of St Paul, Mohammed, Joan of Arc and others come to mind.

my apologies if i offended anyone, as that certainly was not my intention. I certainly wouldn't have even bothered raising the topic on a standard "public blog".

The twins, all male and in their early 30s, were asked how often they currently went to religious services, prayed, and discussed religious teachings. This was compared with when they were growing up and living with their families. Then, each participant answered the same questions regarding their mother, father, and their twin.

"The idea that irrational/illogical/nonsensical beliefs correlate with lesser intelligence/education is trivial."

that wasn't the authors point at all.

he was agreeing with all of us here (I hope) that there are both genetic and environmental components to this type of behavior. It's commonly called a "genetic predispostion" towards certain behavioral patterns.

In other words, even if there is a strong genetic influence on a specific behavior, environment (developmental, social, chemical, etc.) still can affect the outcome of the behavior.

showing that there is a genetic component to religious behavior is NOT trivial, as it has not been done before.

showing that there was a genetic component to schizophrenia is also not trivial, as it led to better cures and prevention measures for it.

so... if we find there is a strong genetic component to extreme religious behavior, and that leads to better knowledge of how this trait is expressed... we logically could conclude there might be a "treatment" for it. doesn't sound trivial to me.

now what results from that as far as social policy is concerned is a totally different subject. We rightly should be very careful in the interpretations, as you point out wrt to what has happened with the study of sexual preferences. However, that does not mean we should simply ignore any data resulting from the study of sexual preferences either, wouldn't you agree?

So why didn't Adam's guts explode within hours from all those fruitfully-multiplying immortal bacteria in there?

Maybe they weren't fruitfully multiplying.

Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on May 26, 2005 12:19 AM (e) (s) Dawkins Gets a Whuppin!

I think that this idea of no-death-before-the-Fall is just more defective fundamentalist thinking.

Plausibly, our little E-coli inhabitants and the way they work could have been affected. It's one every twenty minutes NOW, but you'd have to let us know what it was back THEN.

Here's the article: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v7/i4/treeoflife.as . . .

overall, you are arguing from a social standpoint.

There is a knee-jerk reaction on the part of many people to reject the reseach into the genetic components of human behavior not because of the science involved, but because of the implications for social policy.

I think you should spend more time looking at the primary literature on genetics and behavior before you make any grand claims as to the accuracy of the results or not.

You skepticism is well warranted, but just because we must be careful which interpretations of the data we make, doesn't make these studies any less scientifically valid.

should we reject that 20 years worth of data as well, simply because those statistics get used to discuss politically charged issues?

I'm getting less and less clear what you think science is?

let's not. the methods are described in the article i quoted. if you feel the description is inadequate, please get a copy of the primary article and refute the methods directly.

If we don't use actual science as a reference in discussing these issues, what should we use, Flint?

Your consternation over this issue is starting to sound more and more like the arguments the creationists like FL make.

So, before you expound another unfounded attack on human behavioral studies in general,

i must ask you: do you or do you not agree that there are genetic components to human behavior? if you do, then would you also agree that selection can act on these traits? If yes to both of the above, what is your legitimate beef with the methods or the results of the specific study in question?

Steve U.

I would classify "gullibility" as even more difficult to pin to a genetic basis than homosexuality. I certainly would not be comfortable trying to relate gullibility to something like strength of religious faith, nor do I agree that those of strong faith seem any more gullible than the norm. Indeed, I'm a bit offended at the implication that faith is the province of the naive, simpleminded, or retarded. I've known quite a few quite brilliant people who reject evolution for doctrinal reasons. In my infallible opinion these people are victims, not stupid. Kind of like those kids in some tribe in Africa who have rings put around their necks to lengthen them. By the time they are old enough to decide they don't think it's beautiful, it's too late, and the rings can never again be removed because they support the neck. These longnecks are VICTIMS, not stupid. Religion works the same way, as I see it.

Reducing religiosity or spirituality to genetics may not be possible.

FL:

I would expect that there is a genetic component, but I don't think we'll isolate it anytime soon, I would expect it to involve a great many genetic influences, and I think even so it will be indirect in a social context. For example, spirituality may be related to a desire to be accepted, a desire to please our parents, a desire to feel part of a community, a desire to find answers to ill-phrased questions, a desire anchor our personal reality to perceived absolutes, an appreciation of ecclesiastical ritual and music, a responsiveness to peer pressure, and who could guess how many other factors, all mixed together in proportions and relationships impossible to break up into parts. And genetics may have some influence in ALL of these factors.

I think the conclusions of the study we're talking about have been loaded up with far more freight than the vehicle can currently bear up under. Needs more study. It's not a waste of time, but we shouldn't be too eager to overcommit the results in our zeal for answers either. I'm old enough to be patient, maybe.

Another "drive-by posting" by Sal, it seems. He's gone MIA....

Cheers,

Now, here's something that is meaningful to me (perhaps not to you): The "fear of success" study played right into the hands of the feminists at a time when feminism was rampant. The "homosexuality gene" plays directly into the hands of those trying to combat the creationist "homosexuality is a choice and a sin" doctrine. The "discovery" that people are intrinsically highly variable with respect to "spirituality" now happens at a time of increasing political polarity between science and creationism. All of this reeks of politics. Yet all of these studies are peer reviewed. Is it coincidence that they take sensitive political positions which just happen to coincide with what the peers wish to believe? You ignore this at your peril.

— flint

To generalize to weight, we must establish that our scale is valid (i.e. measuring weight and not something else), that it is reliable (doesn't produce some different number each iteration), etc.

We need other methodologies, other operational implementations of "spirituality measurement", some way of triangulating in on a consensus of validity, an agreement about interpretation. Right now, our ruler could be made of pure putty and we wouldn't know. ... The more data we collect about anything, and the more different ways we collect it, and the more it all tends to dovetail, the more comfortable I become that we are measuring something real. As someone said (wish I could remember who), while it's true that everything that exists can be measured, it is NOT true that everything that can be measured must exist. This is a very immediate clear and present danger in studies like this one.

What does the first sentence have to do with the second? Perhaps the letter writer is describing how his own epilepsy causes visions of historical figures to appear in his mind. Other than that, I remain mystified.

— Steve U.

Rev, I thank you and Air Bear for your questions. They sounded sincere, and that's how I responded to them.

But they've been responded to now. You are free to accept or to reject the response I gave you.
[/quote

I see. So you seem to have helped me establish that your religious opinions are no better than anyone else's, and you can offer no reason -- none at all whatsoever -- why anyone should pay any more attention to your religious opinions than they should to mine, my next door neighbor's, or the kid who delivers my pizzas.

I hope you won't mind if I remind everyone of that, every time you decide to spout off more of your (fallible) religious opinions at us.

You also seem to be conceding that you have no idea -- none at all whatsoever --- how Adam didn't shit himself to death if there was, as your minority religious opinion holds, there was no death before the fall. Not only are you quite unable to explain why your interpretation of "no death" is any more valid or authoritative than the majority Christian view that "no death before the Fall" is utter crap, but you are also quite unable to explain how "no death before the Fall" is even POSSIBLE.

I.e., you have demonstrated that you cannot substantiate or support anything you have said over the past several days, and the best you can do is pompously declare "I said it, so that settles it".

That's what I suspected. Thanks for confirming it for me.

Now then, since you've already established that you cannot defend any of your religious pronunciomentos, how about yous top your preaching and get back to the topic of this blog, whcih is ID, uh, "theory:".

Or can't you defend any of that, either . . . . .

FL, I'll try to make this simple for you . . . If their rate of reproduction was ANYTHING OTHER THAN ZERO ---- ANYTHING AT ALL ---- we get the same problem. Whether it takes two days or two thousand years, the increasing number of bacteria in his gut will STILL split Adam open like an over-ripe tomato. And if Adam was immortal before The Fall, then you have a problem to explain. Since God commanded his creation to "be fruitful and multiply", then either (1) the rate of reproduction of E coli was non-zero, or (2) the E coli have the free will to disobey God's command (and you'd therefore better get busy preaching The Good Word to them). Which is it, FL? I just love watching fundies dig themselves into a hole like this. Alas, if only it would teach them a much-needed lesson in humility so they wouldn't be such arrogant prideful self-righteous holier-than-thou (literally) pricks . . . .

Is it your opinion that not only is the Bible inerrant and infallible, but YOUR INTERPRETATIONS OF IT are also inerrant and infallible? I thought we already established that you are NOT infallible, FL? So what makes your interpretations any better than anyone else's? Other than your say-so? Or are you so filled with the sin of pride that your opinions and God's opinions simply MUST be one and the same . . . . . ?

Rev, I thank you and Air Bear for your questions. They sounded sincere, and that's how I responded to them. But they've been responded to now. You are free to accept or to reject the response I gave you. In your particular case, it's clear that it's the latter. That's your choice. However, in addition to that, you do not appear interested in doing any serious dialogue on this subject (nor in doing your own homework, btw). I may be wrong, but that's really how you are coming across to me. You're not even making any attempt to establish some position(s) of your own, positions that address the specific points I raised (and/or the AiG article too), positions that I could in turn ask you a few questions about, or at minimum learn a bit more about what you actually believe or don't believe concerning the Bible's position regarding human origins. For me, then, I'm satisfied to let my previous response(s) remain where they are, at least in your case. No need to continue further.

I would not ignore it, but still, if the paper stands well on its own, then we should accept it.

— DrJohn

Ah, Salvador. Good to see you again. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to answer the question I first posed to you here. I'll repeat it for your convenience: Salvador T. Cordova wrote: The convergence was placed there to confound naturalistic interpretations. In other words, Salvador, you are claiming that the designer designs to deceive? That the designer is a liar? I just want that clarified. Yes or no will do.

Salvador is a gift - a bonified, absolute gift to the scientific community. His incoherence and syncopophancy are so obvious that he is bound to drive thousands, yea, millions into the fold of actual science. I salute Sally. I would glady pay for more of him.

You're not even making any attempt to establish some position(s) of your own

Well, I don't know if Salvador is such a boon, or if he's the flack put out there to give the illusion that the "great men of ID" would be writing something more imaginative, intelligent, and witty. He is taking the "grenades" for Dembski and others, and I think is proud of his loyalty no matter how much he is shellacked. How long before he's on the payroll of DI do you suppose?

Regardless of strategies and lackeys, though, it is heartening to see Dembski and Salvador writing of their wishes to force scientists into debates where they can substitute rhetorical tricks for their lack of evidence. I'm also heartened by the increasingly obvious lack of openness on ID forums (and ARN isn't very much the exception, as they protect idiocy equally with intelligence), though I don't know if there's been any change in practice. I like the desperation that creeps into the nerdy Dembski's writings as his facade of open-mindedness slips into censorship and the desire to use the law to force debates on IDist terms.

It's getting to Dembski. It's not getting to Salvador (much), as he clearly is more intent on licking IDist boots to a fine spit shine, until he can rise in the ranks and find another desperate know-nothing to do his bidding. Yet for now he provides a buffer, the one who will try out the latest pretense at science to see if it gains any traction. And if it does will presumably be ridden by the new Newtons of biology to the much hoped-for triumph of ignorance over science.

Regardless of strategies and lackeys, though, it is heartening to see Dembski and Salvador writing of their wishes to force scientists into debates where they can substitute rhetorical tricks for their lack of evidence.

the Republican Party, is now also rapidly making tracks away from them.

but it has produced a result with which Sir Toejam is enamored. It says something he likes to hear.

This is when I start to lose faith in my ability to say anything at all

In a practical sense, it's been painfully obvious since at least the beginning of recorded history that our perceptions are unreliable, our memories are not trustworthy, our logic is often hostage to our preferences, and all of this makes us pretty inadequate as measuring and recording instruments. Any trial lawyer is aware that there will be as many different versions of an event as there are eyewitnesses, and these versions can vary by surprising amounts. Science, recognizing this, takes multiple procedural precautions in an attempt to at least partially neutralize these things. We publish our findings so that those with different preferences can examine them. We specify exactly how our data were collected, so that unconscious introductions of systematic bias (nearly always present) can be identified, and perhaps canceled out with a different collection procedure. We have developed double-blind methodologies. We encourage active informed debate wherever any valid cause exists to debate. We have learned to construct tests of our hypothesis that do not corroborate the hypothesis as the default (and preferably, are constructed to discredit rather than support the hypothesis under test). I'm sure there are many other techniques, both obvious and subtle, that the practice of science brings to bear on our inability to avoid being subjective. In other words, science regards our fallibilities as a problem that can be minimized if properly recognized and addressed. The goal is to avoid making stuff up and then finding pseudo-philosophical rationalizations for reifying our fantasies.

Dr. John mentioned:

" In this case of severe psychosis, there are some data indicating that twins sharing, versus twins not sharing a placenta is an important variable"

interesting. do you have the cite for that? I would like to check that out.

If you can recall, was that considered a confounding factor that to date had not been ruled out when utilizing twin studies to determine heritablity of the trait in question? Has there been any quantitative measure given to its relative importance?

I just tried to send a trackback, and it told me: "Your ping could not be submitted due to questionable content."

This is monstrous.

I just tried to send a trackback, and it told me: "Your ping could not be submitted due to questionable content."

This is monstrous.

Hey FL, if you haven't already run away for good (like Heddle), would you mind explaining to me what the "science" behind ID is all about? I'd very much like to demonstrate to the whole world that, like all IDers, you are just as unable to defend your kindergarten science as you are your kindergarten theology.

are you saying that you don't believe in the peer review process?

both yourself and Steve U. are apparently trying to paint me as portraying that there is ONLY a genetic component to the behaviors under discussion. as i have pointed out time and time again, just because there might be a genetic predisposition towards a behavior, does not mean it is "controlled" by genetics only. That said, a 40% result from a twin study on any specific comparison is quite striking, and does indeed warrant further study.

If we use the comparison to schizophrenia again, one could imply that such a condition is "treatable". I'm sure that will raise some hackles, but can you legitimately argue against this being a possibility if there is a significant genetic component to the behavior as the article suggests?

— Sir Toejam

I tried to send a trackback, and it told me: "Your ping could not be submitted due to questionable content."

This is monstrous.

Sorry I keep saying the same boring thing. It tells me my comment isn't accepted, then accepts it anyway, making me look like a chimp.

Alas, instead I find that PT too is inhabited by the brainless parrots, like Heddle and FL and Sal. And when Isaac Newton Himself Reborn drops in, he (1) doesn't answer any questions and (2) quickly tucks tail and runs. I guess IDers like His Isaac Newton-ness just don't have the ping-pongs for any forum where they can't control things and squelch all the heretics and infidels who dare to question their divine authority.

Well, Flint, I don't want to give Mr. Steve any more opportunities to threaten you with being indirectly compared to or lumped in with me, (gotta love evolutionist debate-tactics, no?).

— FL

I have often been fascinated by conversion accounts, whether in the spiritual direction or in the non-spiritual direction. Fanaticism in one direction can be reversed but is seldom changed significantly. David Horowitz was a Trotskyite and is now an arch-conservative (to put it kindly). Jonathan Wells was a peacenik before he became a Moonie, and Paul when from persecuting to proselytizing.

One personality trait that seems to be involved is called "self-transcendence" and is measurable. Hamer's book, The God Gene (which I have not read) suggests that this is due to a variant monoamine transporter. An interesting review is here. The methodology can be criticized - measure enough variables, and some will be significant by chance, the pitfalls of prayer studies. So I think we ought to reserve judgement. Nonetheless, if true, self-transcendence must have been selected for in the past. Is it increasing or decreasing in our modern populations? Or will it always remain in equilibrium?

I would expect, for example, that self-transcendence could lead to a decreased chance of leaving descendents (think warriors, or nuns). So its collateral effects must be selected for in the close relatives of the self-transcendent. Could those effects be from sib selection during intertribal warfare, which seems to be an all-too common trait of our species?

Comment #32408 Posted by Russell on May 27, 2005 10:03 AM (e) (s) Dang! And that was a brand new irony-meter!

And just like Heddle, I will still be here to remind you, as often as I need to, that your religious opinions are just that, your opinions.

Off topic but by request. Medline, too, is your friend.

On schizophrenia twin concordance and prenatal influence, the question has always been more or less an increased sensitivity to viral infections, especially CMV. Here are a couple of abstracts. The third relates the method to the development of the ectodermal tissue (skin and nervous system).

Sadly, I don't see much recent work on this.

Schizophr Bull. 1995;21(1):13-8. Related Articles, Links

Twins with schizophrenia: genes or germs?

Davis JO, Phelps JA.

Dept. of Psychology, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield 65804-0027, USA.

High concordance for schizophrenia in monozygotic (MZ) twins is often cited as evidence for the etiological influence of genetics; however, even if twins are separated at birth, MZ twin concordance is influenced by the shared prenatal environment. Study of the placentation status of MZ twins provides a way to investigate some prenatal influences, including the possible role of viral infections. The probability of shared infections is likely to be greater in monochorionic MZ twin pairs than in dichorionic pairs because of shared fetal circulation in the monochorionic pairs. We drew from published twin studies and used reported concordance for handedness as a retrospective marker of placentation status. We found that MZ twin pairs with opposite-hand preferences were concordant for psychosis in 9 of 15 cases (60%), while only 18 of 56 twin pairs (32%) with same-hand preferences were concordant for psychosis. These results suggest that shared prenatal viral infection may account for much of the high concordance for schizophrenia in identical twins.

Publication Types:

* Twin Study

PMID: 7770735 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Schizophr Bull. 1995;21(3):357-66. Related Articles, Links

Erratum in:

* Schizophr Bull 1995;21(4):539.

Prenatal development of monozygotic twins and concordance for schizophrenia.

Davis JO, Phelps JA, Bracha HS.

Dept. of Psychology, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield 65804, USA.

While twin concordances for schizophrenia have been used to estimate heritability and to develop genetic models, concordances in subtypes of monozygotic (MZ) twins can also be used to investigate the influence of prenatal development in the etiology of mental illness. We used within-pair variability and mirroring of fingerprints to estimate retrospectively the placentation status of concordant and discordant MZ twins. The results indicate that concordant MZ pairs were more likely to have been monochorionic (MC) and to have shared a single placenta, whereas discordant MZ pairs appear more likely to have been dichorionic (DC) with separate placentas. Pairwise concordances for MZ twins without MC markers averaged 10.7 percent. In contrast, concordances for MZ twins with one or more MC markers averaged 60 percent. This suggests that simple MZ concordance rates may overestimate schizophrenia heritability and that prenatal development may also be important in the etiology of schizophrenia. Because MC (but not DC) twins usually share fetal blood circulation and hence are likely to share infections, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that fetal infections may be a significant etiological factor in schizophrenia.

Publication Types:

* Twin Study

PMID: 7481567 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Biol Psychiatry. 1991 Oct 1;30(7):719-25. Related Articles, Links

Subtle signs of prenatal maldevelopment of the hand ectoderm in schizophrenia: a preliminary monozygotic twin study.

Bracha HS, Torrey EF, Bigelow LB, Lohr JB, Linington BB.

Department of Psychiatry, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, North Little Rock.

Genes that predispose to psychosis may act by making individuals more vulnerable to the disruptive effects of various prenatal insults. Fetal organogenesis is mostly completed in the first prenatal trimester. The second trimester is a critical period of massive neuronal migration from the periventricular germinal matrix to the cortex. A peripheral appendage developing simultaneously with this neural migration to the cortex is the distal upper limb. The ectodermal cells of the fetal upper limb migrate to form the hand skin during the fourth and fifth months of gestation (first two-thirds of the second prenatal trimester). Discrepancies in hand morphology between two identical (monozygotic [MZ]) co-twins may be temporal markers, that is, the "fossilized" evidence of various ischemic and other nongenetic insults that may have affected one fetus more than his MZ co-twin during that early part of the second trimester. In twins, prenatal insults (e.g., ischemia) frequently do not affect both co-twins to the same extent, so we examined seven putative markers of prenatal injury to the hand in 24 MZ twin pairs discordant for schizophrenia or delusional disorder. Compared with well co-twins, the affected co-twins had significantly higher total scores of fourth- and fifth-month dysmorphological hand anomalies.

PMID: 1958769 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Even if we agree that a measurement is taken carefully, and that the results are consistent, we don't necessarily know whether we are measuring what we think we are, or what we intend to.

Good Dawkins article.
But the argument in the comments that people simply can't grasp this because their religious beliefs have been programmed in in childhood doesn't impress me at all. Rather like Dawkins "reigion is a virus/meme" argument, it seems mostly a convenient explanation to brush away disagreement ("Well of course I'm right, but your mind has been wired not to see it!").

wanting to "cross swords" with the "big shark" William Dembski eh?

— FL

You realize, of course, that asking Sally to give you an actual answer is equivalent to asking Satan whether he cheats at cards, don't you? Salvador is a gift - a bonified, absolute gift to the scientific community. His incoherence and syncopophancy are so obvious that he is bound to drive thousands, yea, millions into the fold of actual science.

— Rilke's Grand-daughter

Re RG and EP, I think the creationists like Sal fail to understand the hidden purpose of Panda's Thumb--so undecideds can watch the creationists hand-wave and plead in response to scientific questions, giving evolution more credibility.

FL wrote: wanting to "cross swords" with the "big shark" William Dembski eh?

Similarity of peoples' reported frequency of religious activity correlates with thier genetic similarity.

I'm not convinced that you, Dembski, the Pope, and your neighbor would be able to define spirituality in a way acceptable to all four of you.

Even by their own self-definitions, religions are deeply social phenomena---a church is a congregation and the greg in congregation means flock (grex). Since social tendencies in animals are an inevitable target for natural selection, it would be exceedingly surprizing if there were no heritable component to religiosity since religiosity surely has something to do with loyalty to in-groups and hostility to out-groups.

Small point about the limits of a metaphor. We sometimes speak about genetic and environmental factors as if genes and culture were components of human behavior much as flour and water and salt are components of bread. But culture is a different sort of thing than genes. It is more like the part of the recipe that tells you how to do the cooking than the part at the beginning that lists the ingredients.

And just like Heddle, I will still be here to remind you, as often as I need to, that your religious opinions are just that, your opinions.

That's fine, I'm sure I need the reminder every now and then.

Steve White Wonder...

is this who i think it is?

if so, welcome back.

No. It's me. I merely assumed the character of GWW, because people like FL just don't deserve better anymore.

"If Great White Wonder didn't come here, we'd have to reinvent him."

     -- Me

Isn't GWW a "her" rather than a "him"?

Henry

Don't know. He or she hides under an ambiguous pseudonym.

DrJohn:

thanks for the references.

can we reasonably conclude that environmental effects common to twins before birth (developmental environments) are a confounding factor in heritability studies using twins? Based on the schizophenia studies, it appears that at least some older studies of heritability using twins may be re-evaluated to incorporate developmental variability as well. How many other twin studies are being re-evaluated as to their heritability figures based on potential confounding factors due to devlopmental variablity?
Do you see varying developmental environments being a significant factor that must be ruled out for most twin studies, or only certain ones?

"Sadly, I don't see much recent work on this. "

really? this puzzles me, as it would seem a productive area of research.

as to medline searches, or Current Contents searches... Is there a way to access the full papers without having direct access to a university network? I used to be able to link up to the UC Santa Cruz library to do CC and medline searches, but they stopped allowing that some years back, unless you were a registered student or employed by the university directly or as an affiliate.

cheers

after some searching, i did find a decent public access point for medline searches (for abstracts anyway):

http://tinyurl.com/9plbm

but still no Current Contents (only pay services). anybody found a way to search Current Contents for free?

cheers

Comment #32642 Posted by Henry J on May 28, 2005 08:53 PM (e) (s) Isn't GWW a "her" rather than a "him"? Henry

— Henry J

Comment #15654 Posted by Great White Wonder on February 9, 2005 04:00 PM ... And maybe make sure you have the right woman first! God forbid that "Dr. Page" and I aren't wearing the same high heels. ...

— Great White Wonder

Comment #1902 Posted by Great White Wonder on May 6, 2004 09:10 PM Charlie says, "No clue is given by the author on how the tympanum "evolved"." Charlie, I've seen pictures of your jaw but you haven't seen any of mine. Your jaw looks quite a bit weaker than my jaw, just so you know. My jaw looks like my dad's jaw. I married a woman with a big jaw because she reminded me of my dad. My son's jaw and my daughter's jaw are at least as powerful as mine. ...

— Great White Wonder

hey, don't orget, GWW could still be a woman AND married to a woman as well. They could have adopted kids, or..

don't mean to confuse the issue any more for ya, but...

:)