Uncommonly Dense blows common descent.

Wow. Just when I think the IDists can't get any dumber, they do. "How did human genes get into an anemone?" has got to be one of the single most muddle-headed questions I've yet seen coming from that dimly-lit side of reality. I almost feel embarrassed for them.

Nobody who can ask that question deserves to express any opinion about anything in biology at all. It's nothing more than a demonstration of the most fundamental ignorance of the subject. A first year university student shouldn't even be sitting in a biology class if they're this blatantly uneducated about inheritance, let alone take it upon herself to be dismissive of an entire scientific discipline.

This is just exasperatingly stupid. Hopefully they'll learn something from the vivisection of their IDiocy... but I doubt it.

No. It is clear that the people contributing to this forum did not indeed read the actual article.

Else they might have been surprised themselves to learn about the genetic evidence for the common descent of all animal phyla from the eumetazoan ancestor.

This is just exasperatingly stupid.

— Mike O'Risal

And they know it is. But as long as it fools their base they’ll keep piling it on.

— Frank J

Hello Mike and Frank,

I am glad that my article has made it to Panda's Thumb and being discussed.

I think that questions highlights their centuries old view of humans as the center of the universe and above all other creation. While an extremely ignorant byproduct of religion, it nothing more than a shame which fuels their ill-conceived logic and misinformed rhetoric.

With regard to reading the article, they only quote a press release though they did provide one link to abstract from Science. I suppose I shouldn't say it was clear, but I am 95% positive the actual article was not read by the poster and 99% sure that it was not read by 99% of the commenters. Its unfortunate to purport such disdain for a group of people or a certain theory without actually properly understanding the positions and literature of the other side. I believe many atheists have read parts or the whole of the Bible and evolutionary biologists and science philosophers have read many of the ID books. Yet, ID proponents continually read snippets, "read" an article from a 3rd hand source (like Uncommon Descent) and quote mine scientific literature ignoring any evolutionary analysis of a work and jumping to highly misinformed conclusions.

It appears that they are fooling the base, but the base wants to be fooled so that it remains in its philosophical comfort zone. At best, it is frustrating. At worst, it detrimental to our society and rule of law. I don't have any solutions to the problem, but feel scientists have a duty to educate the public about science, within reason, and to battle creationisms wedge into science at every turn. Rest assured, when an invertebrate is threatened, I'll be there to defend its evolutionary history!

If it is a choice between ignorance and deceit, I vote for deceit. If creationists are really this ignorant they have no excuse. If they choose not to read the paper before misrepresenting it they have no excuse.

It seems much more likely to me that most creationists will say absolutely anything, no matter how ignorant, even if they absolutely know that it is wrong, if they believe that there is even the slightest chance that someone will be fooled by it. Of course this is very easy to do if the people you are trying to fool are willfully ignorant and willing to buy any argument uncritically. Hence the persistence of such nonsense as "why are there still chimps", "tornado in a junkyard", "were you there" etc.

When you have no credability in the first place, loss of credability is most likely not a big concern. If creationists want credability they know that all they have to do is do some real research instead of denigrating the research of real scientists. Since this is what they choose to do instead, I vote for deceit as a much more likely motivation.

Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong. It might be that some creationists are really so ignorant that they actually believe nonsense like this. So, let's see, how would that work? Humans mating with anemones I guess. That could get a little sticky. I wonder why someone would be more willing to believe that than believe in evolution? No wait, I forgot about common design. Yea, that's it - the obvious common design of humans and anemones requires God to, ... oh, never mind.

Uncommonly Dense blows common descent

I fixed the post title.

I read the anemone post on UD after looking at their comments on peppered moths. It was, as is typical of UD, total nonsense. It is good to see other websites debunking their nonsense.

One other point is that I made a polite reply to the UD post on peppered moths. I basically pointed out that scientists did additional research on moths while ID proponents did not do any research on moths, only throwing mud at the original research. This post never made it past their censors.

Since Sal of UD regularly reads and posts to Panda's Thumb, I would like to ask him why ID proponents censor legitimate criticism of their claims.

. . . I would like to ask . . . why ID proponents censor legitimate criticism of their claims.

— Edwin Hensley

"UD wonders how human genes got into anemones"

When I read this question, I assumed this was an exaggerated rewording of the UD commentary. So I went there to see what they actually said.

Wow.

If they do understand how ridiculous the question was and asked it anyhow, then they’re lying to their true-believers.

“UD wonders how human genes got into anemones” When I read this question, I assumed this was an exaggerated rewording of the UD commentary. So I went there to see what they actually said. Wow.

— ck1

Nearly one-fifth of the inferred genes of the ancestor are eumetazoan novelties, which are enriched for animal functions like cell signaling, adhesion, and synaptic transmission. Analysis of diverse pathways suggests that these gene "inventions" along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.

Frank J:
"Did they discuss all the research they are doing in the field of horizontal transfer?"
No, but isn't that why they set up Biologic?

(sorry, I don't get the formatting)

If it is a choice between ignorance and deceit, I vote for deceit.

Implicit in the ID take is the assumption that it would be reasonable for an intelligent designer to stick human genes into a sea anemone.

Implicit in the ID take is the assumption that it would be reasonable for an intelligent designer to stick human genes into a sea anemone.

Be fair. It’s “intelligent” designer. Nobody said “reasonable” designer.

— harold

How quickly we forget DaveScot’s panic attack, in which he pleaded with Dembski that it was time to give up the charade.

So, let’s see, how would that work? Humans mating with anemones I guess.

" ... Whereas fruit flies and soil nematodes have proven to be exquisite model systems for dissecting the genetic underpinnings of metazoan development and physiology, their genomes are relatively poor models for the ancestral eumetazoan genome, having lost introns, genes, and gene linkages."-Putnam et al. 2007. Science 317: 86-94

"The host’s genes actually hold the coding information for a completely separate species," he said. Werren doesn't think the genetic transfer was intentional, like that of a virus, but accidentally slipped in during the fly's normal DNA-repair activities.

Maybe fruit flies have cleaned their genomes from most introns, but it seems they have also absorbed the entire Wolbachia genome

— Torbjörn Larsson

I propose we create an abomination of nature, half man, half anemone. We shall call him: Manemone.

Certainly, in the fly, the Wolbachia genes are not quiet stowaways and 2% are actually switched on. Whether they actually do anything is another matter – their gene transcripts are up to a million times less common than the flies’ own. Their role is a question that the researchers have yet to answer.

Link, please. When did this happen?

— GuyeFaux

Thanks RBH - and Jason too. This time I'm saving the link. While searching UD I suspected that it would have been deleted.

Another fun fact, seems they see switched on Wolbachia genes in D. ananassae. Okay, that probably translates to ~ 1 active gene :-):

[salvador]

"we are going to lose. Plain and simple. No buts about it."
-Dave Springer

[/salvador]

Interesting take. Perhaps its advocates might consider changing “intelligent design” to “insane design.” Then they could be a bit more internally consistent and still not have to change the monograms on their towels.

Whats odd about this,

I don’t think it’s too irrational an assumption that the ID creationists at UD didn’t read the published paper. If they had, they would have seen the following (in the abstract no less): Nearly one-fifth of the inferred genes of the ancestor are eumetazoan novelties, which are enriched for animal functions like cell signaling, adhesion, and synaptic transmission. Analysis of diverse pathways suggests that these gene “inventions” along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.

Dembski didn’t like that much.

Dembski didn’t like that much.

— Wesley R. Elsberry

I still think of IDers as the townfolk of Rock Ridge - so dense that the new sherriff can hold a gun to his own head and say "No-body move or the nigger gets it!" and they reply; "Hold on, he's not bluffing!"
Oh baby, you are sooo talented - and they are so dumb!
Dembski is the sherriff; he knows who he is fooling.

The people who make up and distribute ID are above average in intelligence* (*defined in the usual way as a cluster of closely associated cognitive tasks that impact on most types of academic training).

Dembski, Behe, Well, Johnson, etc, may or may not be as intelligent as the scientists they antagonize but are all academically gifted relative to the average person. The lack of insight, curiousity, self-awareness, judgment, honesty, or concern for others that they exhibit should not be confused with lack of intelligence.

The intended consumer of ID is probably a bigoted, brainwashed individual of relatively low intelligence, who supports anything that he or she perceives as "helping their team to win".

In practice, many of the consumers are "in on the gag".

Many of the clumsier "defenders of ID" attempt to use the same weapons as the big stars - fancy big words that mean nothing, obfuscation, distortion, goal-post-moving, subject-changing, and other snake-oil techniques. Sometimes people can't even spell or use grammar correctly, but indulge in imitation of these slippery techniques anyway. This suggests to me that there is at least an unconscious understanding that the point is to "win" at any cost, even at the level of the bottom-of-the-barrel true believer.

I don't see a lot of evidence that lack of academic skills (ie "low intelligence") makes people into creationists. That may correlate with acceptance of certain non-political religious ideas that tend to overlap with creationism, at best.

What I see, for the most part, is honest people of all "intelligence" levels supporting accurate science, and a bunch of dishonest people of all "intelligence" levels attempting to push creationism with dishonest techniqes. Their level of "intelligence" reflects only whether they can produce mounds of grammatically correct slick verbiage, or whether they are forced to express the same BS and use the same deceptive arguments, but slowly and with poor grammar and spelling.

So God, properly conceived

Dembski, Behe, Well, Johnson, etc,

None of those folks wrote any of the material that is being referred to here. The piece in question was written by one “dacook”, who most likely is “a bigoted, brainwashed individual of relatively low intelligence”.

Dembski, Behe, Well, Johnson, etc, may or may not be as intelligent as the scientists they antagonize but are all academically gifted relative to the average person.