Creationist vs. creationist on Homo habilis

Posted 5 May 2010 by Nick Matzke

For many years, Discovery Institute spokesperson Casey Luskin has been telling the world that the genus Homo is preceded by no transitional forms, because the species typically thought to be transitional between australopithecines and Homo, Homo habilis, is actually an Australopithechus itself. Poof, there goes the transition. As I pointed out long ago, this argument about what names to apply to fossils under Linnaean taxonomy is basically pointless -- the fossils stay transitional in time and in morphology no matter what names you give them -- but creationists like Luskin don't care about that (and don't give me that silliness about ID advocates not being creationists, Luskin is arguing for the special creation of humans, for goodness' sake!).* Instead, they love to misrepresent the terminological dispute to obscure the actual big picture of the data. Unfortunately for Luskin, though, other creationists play the same game, and, don't you know it, it turns out that the transitional specimens come out as transitional in their latest analysis. Bryan College creationist Todd Wood is announcing his "baraminological"** analysis of Homo habilis, Australopithecus sediba, and other fossils. He took a bunch of cladistic datasets from the paleoanthropology literature (all based on crandiodental characters) and put them through his "baraminological distance" algorithm to see where there are clusters and gaps. He concludes that the recently-discovered Australopithecus sediba should actually be Homo sediba, but this is just this is what several paleoanthropologists said after it was published. More significantly for our interests, instead of saying that habilis is just another ape far removed from Homo, Wood concludes that habilis clearly groups with the rest of Homo, and that big, unfillable, magical God-obviously-acted-here gap, which all creationists mindlessly, dogmatically believe in come hell or high water, is actually between habilis and the australopiths. Whoops! Here's some quotes: Casey Luskin, September 2006:

"These rapid, unique, and genetically significant changes are termed "a genetic revolution" where "no australopithecine species is obviously transitional." One commentator proposed this evidence implies a "big bang theory" of human evolution. Now that "Homo" habilis is best recognized as an australopithecine due to its ape-like skeletal structure (see "The Human Genus," Science, 284:65-71), it is no wonder an article in Nature last year recognized the lack of a clear-cut immediate ancestor for our genus Homo..."

Casey Luskin, August 2007:

"In other words, habilis can no longer be considered the ancestor to the rest of the genus Homo."

Casey Luskin, March 2010:

But the exhibit gives no evidence of dissent from the official party line, such as an admission from Ernst Mayr in 2004 that "[t]he earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus [sic, should be italicized] by a large, unbridged gap," and therefore we're in a position of "[n]ot having any fossils that can serve as missing links." I guess according to the Smithsonian's exhibit, this large, unbridged gap is just more evidence for evolution.

But Todd Wood (2010) says...

Most surprising, three controversial taxa appear to be unequivocally grouped with the homininans: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Australopithecus sediba. As noted above, Hartwig-Scherer (1999) considers H. habilis an australopith, but Lubenow (2004, pp. 299-301) and Line (2005a) believe some H. habilis specimens might be human. Additional creationists who reject the human status of H. habilis include Gish (1995, p. 279), Hummer (1979), Mehlert (1996), Murdock (2006), and Young (2006). Likewise, though Lubenow (2004, pp. 328-329) and Cuozzo (1977) believe H. rudolfensis to be human, Hartwig-Scherer and Brandt (2007) consider it a kind of ape. As of this writing, there has been no creationist commentary or interpretation of Au. sediba, but given sediba's extremely ape-like forearms (Berger et al. 2010), it seems likely that many creationists would prefer to place sediba among the australopiths.

So there you have it. Wood has "saved" the distinctiveness of humans, but only by including habilis and sediba, which some paleoanthropologists (and even more creationists) thought were so different from humans that they should be in a whole different genus, and which had brains much closer to the size of chimp brains than to modern human brains. Wood continues by looking for the silver lining:

Despite these contradictory opinions, the present results strongly support the classification of all three species in the human holobaramin. All analyses showed all three taxa clearly clustering with other homininans and separately from other australopiths.

Well, except for Australopithecus africanus, which just happens to be the australopithecine that is the closest relative of Homo...

The position of Au. africanus is somewhat less clear. In the BDC analysis of the datasets of Strait and Grine (2001; 2004) and Smith and Grine (2008), Au. africanus was positively correlated with one and four homininans respectively. In both cases, Au. africanus appeared as an outlier from the Homo cluster in 3D MDS. In the case of Strait and Grine's 2001 dataset, the positive correlation between Au. africanus and H. rudolfensis had bootstrap support of only 62%, indicating that the positive correlation was especially sensitive to changes in the character states used to calculate baraminic distances. Likewise, the bootstrap support for the africanus/rudolfensis correlation in Strait and Grine's 2004 dataset was 59%. In the case of Smith and Grine's (2008) dataset, reduction of the number of outgroup taxa eliminated all positive correlation between Au. africanus and homininans. In BDC analysis of the Strait, Grine, and Moniz (1997) and Berger et al. (2010) datasets, no positive or negative correlation was observed between Au. africanus and homininans. Zeitoun's (2000) dataset showed significant, negative BDC between the Au. africanus specimen Sterkfontein 5 and most of the homininan specimens. In summary, the evidence for including Au. africanus within the human holobaramin appears quite weak.

However, Wood neglects to point out that afarensis doesn't form a (phenetic, remember) cluster with the apes or other australopithecines, either. In some of his MDS (multi-dimensional scaling, a way of representing distances between a bunch of points where each point has measurements in many dimensions) plots, afarensis comes out pretty much exactly between Homo and non-Homo. Wood concludes:

this present study should end charges against creationists that classification of australopiths or "early Homo" as human or ape is arbitrary and meaningless (for example, Conrad 1986-1987; Kitcher 1983, p. 154; Miller 2008, p. 93; Nickels 1986-1987). Rather than looking at a handful of traits or casually declaring australopiths to be apes, the present study has supported the separate classification of humans (genus Homo sensu lato) and as many as three groups containing australopith taxa, based on a suite of characters selected from conventional paleoanthropology studies.

Unfortunately, it still remains the case that creationist classifications of hominins are arbitrary and meaningless. The first principle of baraminology is that the Bible is always right, and if the rest of the data contradicts the Bible, then so much the worse for the data. So Wood, whatever spark he may sometimes show amongst the pitiful intellectual trainwreck that is creationism, has already committed intellectual suicide on this issue and guaranteed that the data could never change his mind on the key question he is allegedly assessing, the special creation of humans. Even if he did decide to give the data the final word, his analysis consists of drawing circles around phenetic clusters, with no principles about how to decide when things are in the same cluster or not (such methods do commonly exist in statistics, but they would create the danger of getting an answer one doesn't like). And finally, it's pretty clear that people like Luskin and the Discovery Institute aren't going to change their mind on this one. Unless you are prepared to take the Todd Wood/Kurt Wise position and simply assert that the literal interpretation of the Bible comes first and the data fundamentally don't matter, if you're a creationist and you admit that Homo habilis shares common ancestry with Homo sapiens, it's all over but the whining. * Actually understanding these naming and classification issues in paleoanthropology involves delving into the history of systematics and cladistics in evolutionary biology generally and in paleoanthropology specifically. Each time Luskin quotes someone, you have to ask if the writer in question is a fan of Mayrian "evolutionary systematics", where you lump specimens into species and genera based on overall similiarity and some kind of gestalt sense of what a "genus" is. Or are they adhering to cladistic principles of "phylogenetic systematics", where only shared derived characters are considered informative? Does the writer think taxa should be monophyletic, or is polyphyly ok? Are they defending some taxonomic scheme for reasons of convenience, or as an approximate description of the morphology, or to buttress some hypothesized set of ancestor-descendent relationships, or to propose an explicit, cladistically testable phylogeny? Is the writer Ernst Mayr, arch-defender of "evolutionary systematics", writing at the age of 99 on a topic well outside his speciality? [also, Mayr says in a footnote that Luskin leaves out of his quote, "I follow those who place Homo habilis in the genus Australopithecus"] Or is the writer some marginally-informed journalist who couldn't tell you the difference between "evolutionary systematics" and "phylogenetic systematics", the difference between Linnaean taxonomy and rank-free taxonomy, the difference between characters that are shared with outgroups (and thus don't give any grouping information about the ingroup) and characters that are only shared by a subset of taxa in the ingroup (and thus give grouping information), or the difference between classifications that allow polyphyly and those that don't, and therefore sprinkles their article with vague comments about "big differences" and "small differences" and "ancestral"/"not ancestral", without any sense of the (very narrow!) scale of the actual differences between these positions when applied to a bunch of closely-related hominin fossils? ** "Barminology" is the creationist study of "bara mins" ("created kinds" in Hebrew). The key metric, "baraminic distance" basically seems to be a phenetic clustering method, where groupings are done by eye and outgroups are excluded if they make the ingroups seem too similar.

74 Comments

John Wilkins · 5 May 2010

Do baraminologists use a baraminometer?

Vince · 5 May 2010

How long before some IDiot claims this means barimology works???

Joe Felsenstein · 5 May 2010

Vince said: How long before some IDiot claims this means barimology works???

I think baraminology is great. They make trees and then decide that species that all fit on a tree are the same "kind". I say, they should keep at it! Sooner or later that tree will include all vertebrates, then all animals, then ...

Joshua Zelinsky · 5 May 2010

"bara min" is not the Hebrew for created kinds. They screwed this up also since the creationists (not too surprisingly) don't know much Hebrew. They took the word for kind (min) and added the past tense form for "created" as a transitive verb. The correct Hebrew would have been "min baru" but "bara min" would mean "[unknown male] created a kind] or something like that.

Joshua Zelinsky · 5 May 2010

Sorry that should be "[unknown male] created a kind".

Dave Luckett · 5 May 2010

What gets me about this is the blithe confirmation from the creationists that there was a whole genus of primates that were somewhat apelike (apart from details) from the neck up, but that were perfectly bipedal.

That is, that this whole genus, the Australopithecines, display a set of characteristics intermediate between apes and humans. How on Earth does it make any difference to quibble about where H. habilis fits?

Evolution predicts - and always predicted - a range of forms with characteristics transitional between humans and their apelike ancestors, and here they are. The theory's on the money. What's so hard about this?

Dave C · 5 May 2010

Serious question: among professional systematists, is there really anything but a small minority of people who AREN'T proponents of phylogenetic systematics?

Nick (Matzke) · 5 May 2010

It all depends on the field. Evolutionary-systematic-style argumentation seems to be mostly dead in vertebrate paleontology, but still alive in e.g. certain parts of invertebrate paleontology, or in paleoanthropology. The whole issue of science devoted to Ardipithecus did not contain a cladistic analysis if I recall correctly...

Paul Burnett · 5 May 2010

For those who want to learn more about baramins, see http://www.conservapedia.com/Baraminology. For further applications of baraminology, see, for instance, http://www.conservapedia.com/Kangaroo#Creation_science_and_Creationism or http://www.conservapedia.com/Mammoth#Origins

mplavcan · 5 May 2010

Joe Felsenstein said:
Vince said: How long before some IDiot claims this means barimology works???
I think baraminology is great. They make trees and then decide that species that all fit on a tree are the same "kind". I say, they should keep at it! Sooner or later that tree will include all vertebrates, then all animals, then ...

As far as I can see they are just doing multidimensional scaling (of some sort, I could not get to the actual description, though I did not dig far and sadly do not subscribe to their magazine), and claiming that variation in distances among clusters somehow proves they are not descended from one another (while things in the clusters are). Anyway, I read the article today, and got the idea that wouldn't it be cool to submit a paper to that "journal" and see what kind of review it got? So I went to the site and looked at the instructions for authors. Not surprisingly, the criteria for acceptance involve confirmation of the Biblical account of creation and the flood. Etc etc etc. Probably worth putting in a slide for a presentation, just in case some creationist claims that they are doing "objective" science.

Jim Foley · 5 May 2010

** “Barminology” is the creationist study of “bara mins” (“created kinds” in Hebrew). The key metric, “baraminic distance” basically seems to be a phenetic clustering method, where groupings are done by eye and outgroups are excluded if they make the ingroups seem too similar.

It seems bizarre that Wood's baraminic/phenetic approach would classify Au. sediba in Homo, and Au. africanus in another genus. After all, if you put an africanus and a sediba side by side, they'd look like identical twins compared to a human. The Homo features in sediba are pretty subtle in comparison to the overall bodily similarity to africanus.

Joe Felsenstein · 6 May 2010

Dave C said: Serious question: among professional systematists, is there really anything but a small minority of people who AREN'T proponents of phylogenetic systematics?

Depends on what you mean by "phylogenetic systematics". If you mean making only monophyletic groups in the classification system, this is overwhelmingly the standard approach. If you mean using shared derived states (synapomorphies) to reconstruct phylogenies, this is used more for some kinds of characters (mostly morphological ones) than others (DNA sequences, for example). In my view these two issues get muddled together and should not be considered the same (one is about the classification system, the other about the logic of reconstructing phylogenies). Most textbook descriptions are, on this point, a total muddled mess. However, keep in mind that the number of people in systematics who agree with me on this is very small and my view on this is regarded by many as marginally crackpot.

Nick (Matzke) · 6 May 2010

It seems bizarre that Wood’s baraminic/phenetic approach would classify Au. sediba in Homo, and Au. africanus in another genus. After all, if you put an africanus and a sediba side by side, they’d look like identical twins compared to a human. The Homo features in sediba are pretty subtle in comparison to the overall bodily similarity to africanus.

Well, the actual classification is done by Wood drawing circles around the clusters his eye thinks are clusters...but that said... Regarding "bigness" of similarity/difference: Wood just took the data matrix from the Berger et al. 2010 paper on sediba and stuck that into "bdist" (their baraminic distance perl script) and MDS. The data matrix is basically 1s and 0s scoring different characters. The computer doesn't know anything about what are "big" character differences and what are "small" differences. I.e. 0/1 could be tail/no tail (well, if they weren't doing craniodental characters only here), or it could be the presence/absence of some tiny but consistent bump on some tooth. A morphometrics approach can capture some of that broader picture of morphology difference/sameness that the human eye sees, but incorporating morphometrics data in phylogenetic reconstruction is a somewhat hairy business. I believe our own esteemed commentator Joe Felsenstein has pushed the theory on incorporating morphometrics about as far as it has gone to date...

Nick (Matzke) · 6 May 2010

Joe Felsenstein wrote:

If you mean using shared derived states (synapomorphies) to reconstruct phylogenies, this is used more for some kinds of characters (mostly morphological ones) than others (DNA sequences, for example).

It seems to me that anytime someone roots an unrooted tree with an outgroup, they are essentially saying that shared derived character states indicate shared history, and that shared ancestral character states do not (within the ingroup). So this would apply to not just parsimony but likelihood methods etc. as well, and both molecular and morphological data. This would mean the only people who don't prefer shared-derived character states are those who still think UPGMA is the best method, aka pheneticists. But perhaps I'm missing what you are getting at? (Like maybe Felsenstein zone issues where shared characters can be independently derived on two long branches?) (PS: Yes, for the record, I just brought up the Felsenstein zone in a thread in which Felsenstein is participating.)

Robert Byers · 6 May 2010

If this Luskin guy is a creationist then good for us. Yet I.D folks are not biblical creationists. Thats why they used the segregated term. They don't believe in Genesis as a true witness of origins. They just believe there is a creator and he intervened in nature on the some big points.
These 'fossils" of claimed people ancestors are poverty stricken evidence.
Find 30 or more of each type in order to accurately describe human connections.
Any creationist to any audience can easily wave away these bits and bytes of bones used to make such great conclusions of human origins.

Nick (Matzke) · 6 May 2010

In my view these two issues get muddled together and should not be considered the same (one is about the classification system, the other about the logic of reconstructing phylogenies). Most textbook descriptions are, on this point, a total muddled mess.

Regarding "evolutionary systematics" vs. "phylogenetic systematics", I think of them as two big schools of thought, each with a number of characteristic attitudes which usually but not always go together. E.g. evolutionary systematists prefer or accept overall similarity, ranked Linnaean taxonomy, gestalt/expertise recognition of ranks, paraphyletic groups, and treat species as a another, particularly real rank. Phylogenetic systematists disagree on all these issues, although finding one that has abandoned each and every feature of evolutionary systematics might be hard, outside of Brent Mishler. These are indeed all separable issues -- but I suspect that the tendencies reinforce each other within the camps. E.g. a fondness for Linnaean taxonomy in paleontology leads pretty rapidly to an acceptance of paraphyletic groups based on overall similarity, which then requires one to subjectively delineate the paraphyletic groups based on some fairly arbitrary "it looks like a pretty big difference to me" criterion. (Full disclosure: I have been TAing for Mishler this semester and this may have affected my brain...)

Nick (Matzke) · 6 May 2010

Robert Byers -- how many fossils would you like?
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/fun-with-homini-1.html

...and this is only from fossils available back in 1997 or so...

TomS · 6 May 2010

Joshua Zelinsky said: Sorry that should be "[unknown male] created a kind".

I think that "bara min" would be closer to "a kind created [something or other]". Ordinarily, the subject follows the verb, and the object is indicated by a prefixed "at-", so "he created a kind" would be "bara at-min". Ironically, the expression "bara min" represents a change in the Biblical "bara elohim" = "God created" by replacing "God" with "a kind", and is thus a statement of naturalism. The Polish-language Wikipedia article "Baramin" mentions this. My guess is that the person who coined this expression didn't quite grasp the difference between the English past tense active verb and the past passive participle, as well as not being familiar with Hebrew grammar.

Paul Burnett · 6 May 2010

Robert Byers said: If this Luskin guy is a creationist then good for us.

Most of us here at PT would agree that Casey is a creationist, even though he calls creationism "the scientific theory of intelligent design" (see http://www.caseyluskin.com) - but here at PT we all know the two terms mean the same thing.

Yet I.D folks are not biblical creationists.

Actually, that's incorrect - almost all "I.D. folks" are biblical creationists but won't admit it in public.

John Kwok · 6 May 2010

Well, Nick is both right and wrong about this:

Dave C said: Serious question: among professional systematists, is there really anything but a small minority of people who AREN'T proponents of phylogenetic systematics?

Phylogenetic systematics - which was how Willi Hennig described his new methodology - that was later referred to derisively as "cladistics" - seems to be the prevalent method for systematics in many aspects of vertebrate paleontology and increasingly, even in invertebrate paleontology (It's also become popular in hominid paleontology, especially when practiced by the AMNH and British Museum curators and their research associates.). While I am not familiar with recent literature - and for that, of course Nick is a much better guide - it is quite reasonable to state that much research in systematic biology is conducting now via the lens of phylogenetic systematics - or, if you prefer - cladistics.

John Kwok · 6 May 2010

He's been among the most ardent advocates of cladistics in botany but he isn't the only one. His old friend and colleague Michael Donoghue (one of my grad school profs) is another, the brothers Maddison and quite a few others:

Phylogenetic systematists disagree on all these issues, although finding one that has abandoned each and every feature of evolutionary systematics might be hard, outside of Brent Mishler. (Full disclosure: I have been TAing for Mishler this semester and this may have affected my brain...)

For many years AMNH was the epicenter of "transformed" cladistics as practiced by Nelson et al., but that's simmered to mere ripples since many of those advocating that have either retired or left or passed away.

John Kwok · 6 May 2010

He's not just a creationist, but a bona fide example of a Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer. IMHO, that's worse than being just a "creationist":

Robert Byers said: If this Luskin guy is a creationist then good for us. Yet I.D folks are not biblical creationists. Thats why they used the segregated term. They don't believe in Genesis as a true witness of origins. They just believe there is a creator and he intervened in nature on the some big points. These 'fossils" of claimed people ancestors are poverty stricken evidence. Find 30 or more of each type in order to accurately describe human connections. Any creationist to any audience can easily wave away these bits and bytes of bones used to make such great conclusions of human origins.

John Kwok · 6 May 2010

Grammatical correction, now fixed:

John Kwok said: Well, Nick is both right and wrong about this:
Dave C said: Serious question: among professional systematists, is there really anything but a small minority of people who AREN'T proponents of phylogenetic systematics?
Phylogenetic systematics - which was how Willi Hennig described his new methodology - that was later referred to derisively as "cladistics" - seems to be the prevalent method for systematics in many aspects of vertebrate paleontology and increasingly, even in invertebrate paleontology (It's also become popular in hominid paleontology, especially when practiced by the AMNH and British Museum curators and their research associates.). While I am not familiar with recent literature - and for that, of course Nick is a much better guide - it is quite reasonable to state that much research in systematic biology is BEING CONDUCTED now via the lens of phylogenetic systematics - or, if you prefer - cladistics.

John Harshman · 6 May 2010

Joe Felsenstein: However, keep in mind that the number of people in systematics who agree with me on this is very small and my view on this is regarded by many as marginally crackpot.

Outside the Hennig Society, who? I certainly agree with everything you said there, and I haven't encountered much disagreement. Though I was once told that if I didn't include two successive outgroups in an analysis, I was just doing phenetics. (And it was a parsimony analysis.) I explained that successive outgroups are the very best possible way to produce long-branch attraction, and the response was to repeat the claim. On topic, Todd Charles Wood is a very smart guy, who would if he chose would be capable of doing good science. Instead he's descended to producing poor simulations of science's surface characteristics -- algorithms, diagrams, etc. But only in the service of seeing just what he wants to see. Still, you have to admire a creationist who can say this: "Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well." http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

FL · 6 May 2010

John Harshman said:'

Still, you have to admire a creationist who can say this: “Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.”

It is true that Todd Wood said that. It is equally true that Todd Wood subsequently said:

I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago. I believe that Adam and Eve were the very first humans and were directly created by God. I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world. I believe that people really lived to be 900+ years back then. I believe that there was a truly global Flood that inundated the entire planet. I believe that humans and land animals were preserved on an Ark (approximately 450 feet long for those keeping score). I believe that the humans after the Flood gradually stopped living to be 900+. I believe that the humans after the Flood tried to build a tower in Babel to prevent their dispersal across the globe, in direct contradiction to God's command. I believe that God punished the builders of Babel by miraculously confusing their languages. ----Todd Wood blog, 10-08-09

eric · 6 May 2010

FL, placing both quotes together provides an example of someone who maintains their Christian belief while acknowledging that the ToE is a productive framework, a well-working scientific with amazing explanatory power.

You seem, in other words, to have provided a perfect counter-example to your own typical position. Good job.

Childermass · 6 May 2010

Joe Felsenstein said: I think baraminology is great. They make trees and then decide that species that all fit on a tree are the same "kind". I say, they should keep at it! Sooner or later that tree will include all vertebrates, then all animals, then ...

All currently known life on Earth is part of a single holobaramin.

VJBinCT · 6 May 2010

I believe it will be discovered that while 'baramin' might derive from Hebrew, that Hebrew phrase's ultimate source is as a loan word from the English 'barmy'.

FL · 6 May 2010

Ummm, eric, Todd Wood offers no rational explanations that reconcile the two separate quotations. For example, he wrote:

I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world.

In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, not merely after humams appeared on the earth. No wiggle room on that one. Wood has no rational reconciliation for that contradiction. Eric has no rational reconciliation for that one. Me neither. Nobody does. And then there is Wood's first line, of course.

I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago.

Can you rationally reconcile THAT claim with evolution? Nope? I can't either. So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity. Neither the Christians, nor the non-Christians, have rationally figured out HOW to resolve the huge incompatibility. Not at all. Not even Todd Wood.

J. Biggs · 6 May 2010

FL said: Ummm, eric, Todd Wood offers no rational explanations that reconcile the two separate quotations. For example, he wrote:
I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world.
In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, not merely after humams appeared on the earth. No wiggle room on that one.

None the less Woods recognizes that the scientific evidence supports evolution theory. He believes a literal biblical account of origins but accepts that the evidence doesn't support what he believes. I agree that this is irrational, but there is a difference between opinion and fact and at least Woods seems to know this and understands that the facts don't support what he believes.

Wood has no rational reconciliation for that contradiction. Eric has no rational reconciliation for that one. Me neither. Nobody does. And then there is Wood's first line, of course.
I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago.
Can you rationally reconcile THAT claim with evolution? Nope? I can't either. So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity. Neither the Christians, nor the non-Christians, have rationally figured out HOW to resolve the huge incompatibility. Not at all. Not even Todd Wood.

If you replace biblical Christianity with Creationism, I agree with everything you say here. But even you acknowledge that there are Christians who are able to both believe in the Bible and accept scientific theories. Since the majority of Christians are able to reconcile science and faith, your assertion that the two are incompatible seems weak at best.

eric · 6 May 2010

FL said: Wood has no rational reconciliation for that contradiction. Eric has no rational reconciliation for that one. Me neither. Nobody does.

I'd agree that Wood doesn't, but you're simply wrong about the rest. I do. Many people do. Its pretty simple: Christianity does not require that the biblical story of Genesis be taken literally. You may dismiss that reconciliation for reasons of your own, but its certainly a reconciliation. As for whether its rational, well...it appears that every christian thinks their particular interpretation is the most rational. You think mainstream christians take a "plainly meant" passage allegorically...but flat earthers would accuse you of doing the same. And mainstreamers would probably accuse you of taking a clearly allegorical passage too literally. Based on all of this, I think the only rational conclusion is this: based on textual analysis your particular solution is no more rational than many others, and it becomes a lot less rational when one adds independent empirical evidence to that analysis.

TomS · 6 May 2010

FL said: In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, ... So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity.

John 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Reproduction and development are just as incompatible with "biblical Christianity" as is evolution.

Sylvilagus · 6 May 2010

TomS said:
FL said: In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, ... So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity.
John 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Reproduction and development are just as incompatible with "biblical Christianity" as is evolution.

But THAT part is figurative. Only the literal parts are literal. The figurative parts are figurative. And I decide which is which. If you disagree with me, then you're wrong. I'm the only Christian in the world, because I'm the only one who agrees with me completely. :)

Mike Elzinga · 6 May 2010

eric said: Based on all of this, I think the only rational conclusion is this: based on textual analysis your particular solution is no more rational than many others, and it becomes a lot less rational when one adds independent empirical evidence to that analysis.

To further emphasize the point, when ID/creationists continue to get the science wrong and deny objective reality, they disqualify themselves as experts on anything. The behavior is clear evidence that their minds don't work properly. There is no reason to believe they have any legitimate insights about religion either; especially the beliefs of other people..

Reed A. Cartwright · 6 May 2010

Ironically, I'm actually working on a project to use MDS in phylogeny reconstruction.

Joe Felsenstein · 6 May 2010

Nick (Matzke) said: Joe Felsenstein wrote:
If you mean using shared derived states (synapomorphies) to reconstruct phylogenies, this is used more for some kinds of characters (mostly morphological ones) than others (DNA sequences, for example).
It seems to me that anytime someone roots an unrooted tree with an outgroup, they are essentially saying that shared derived character states indicate shared history, and that shared ancestral character states do not (within the ingroup). So this would apply to not just parsimony but likelihood methods etc. as well, and both molecular and morphological data. This would mean the only people who don't prefer shared-derived character states are those who still think UPGMA is the best method, aka pheneticists. But perhaps I'm missing what you are getting at? (Like maybe Felsenstein zone issues where shared characters can be independently derived on two long branches?)

Would you say that people who infer the tree using, say, the Neighbor-Joining distance method, and root the tree with an outgroup, are doing phylogenetic systematics? I think it is logically more consistent to say that when you make the tree by any of these methods, you aren't yet being a phylogenetic systematist, or an evolutionary systematist, or a pheneticist. That is decided later, when you decide how to use that tree to make a classification. The paradigmatic example was the late Charles Sibley, who inferred trees from DNA hybridization data by UPGMA but was adamantly opposed to having any groups in the classification that were not monophyletic. By my lights, he was a phylogenetic systematist. Consumer warning: (1) this is off the original topic, (2) adherence to the above position is unpopular with many systematists.

John Kwok · 6 May 2010

Sorry, Joe, but even I, as someone who has been out of the field for nearly two decades, wouldn't recognize this as cladistics:

"Would you say that people who infer the tree using, say, the Neighbor-Joining distance method, and root the tree with an outgroup, are doing phylogenetic systematics?"

"I think it is logically more consistent to say that when you make the tree by any of these methods, you aren't yet being a phylogenetic systematist, or an evolutionary systematist, or a pheneticist. That is decided later, when you decide how to use that tree to make a classification. The paradigmatic example was the late Charles Sibley, who inferred trees from DNA hybridization data by UPGMA but was adamantly opposed to having any groups in the classification that were not monophyletic. By my lights, he was a phylogenetic systematist."

Regrettably, you would have to count me as one quite sympathetic to cladists (though I wouldn't be as doctrinaire as the cladist who told John Harshman how he should do outgroup analysis). And I wouldn't consider Sibley to be a phylogenetic systematist in the true sense of the term, as defined by Willi Hennig.

Jim H · 6 May 2010

Weird that there are two versions of this passage:

html:
“Finally, despite the morphological discontinuity demonstrated here, the genetic similarity between humans and nonhumans is astonishingly high (Wood 2006) and the australopiths are surprisingly human in their appearance. Why should this be? It would be easy to attribute their similarities to a common designer, but such an attribution would be trivial. Certainly the similarities arise from a common ancestor?”

pdf:
“Finally, despite the morphological discontinuity demonstrated here, the genetic similarity between humans and nonhumans is astonishingly high (Wood 2006) and the australopiths are surprisingly human in their appearance. Why should this be? It would be easy to attribute their similarities to a common designer, but such an attribution would be trivial. Certainly the similarities arise from a common source, but what distinguishes a common designer from a common ancestor?”

RBH · 6 May 2010

Mike Elzinga said: There is no reason to believe they have any legitimate insights about religion either; especially the beliefs of other people..

Mike, please email me at RBH[dot]THIRD[AT]GMAIL [DOT]COM. Thanks!

James F · 6 May 2010

FL said: So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity.

If "biblical Christianity" means "Christianity that adheres to creationism," sure. A better modifier might be "creationist Christianity." I would appreciate another bit of honesty from the creationist camp, however. The timelines of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 can not be reconciled without a non-literal interpretation of one or both texts.

Jesse · 6 May 2010

James F said:
FL said: So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity.
If "biblical Christianity" means "Christianity that adheres to creationism," sure. A better modifier might be "creationist Christianity." I would appreciate another bit of honesty from the creationist camp, however. The timelines of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 can not be reconciled without a non-literal interpretation of one or both texts.

Sure they can. Let me tell you how most creationists do it if pressed hard enough: 1) Ignore you or 2) "Well, you just don't understand. I'll pray for your soul."

Mike Elzinga · 6 May 2010

RBH said: Mike, please email me at RBH[dot]THIRD[AT]GMAIL [DOT]COM. Thanks!

Done.

Stanton · 6 May 2010

FL said: Ummm, eric, Todd Wood offers no rational explanations that reconcile the two separate quotations. For example, he wrote:
I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world.
In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, not merely after humams appeared on the earth. No wiggle room on that one. Wood has no rational reconciliation for that contradiction. Eric has no rational reconciliation for that one. Me neither. Nobody does. And then there is Wood's first line, of course.
I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago.
Can you rationally reconcile THAT claim with evolution? Nope? I can't either.

Why is it that we're supposed to assume that God literally magically poofed the world and the universe, and everyone and everything in both in less than 6,000 years ago, while simultaneously assume that the passage about "windows of Heaven" letting the Flood waters in is figurative? Isn't that a very heinous double standard to hold?

So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity.

So where did Jesus specifically state that people accepting Evolution as a fact or even trying to study Evolution would be forever denied salvation?

Neither the Christians, nor the non-Christians, have rationally figured out HOW to resolve the huge incompatibility. Not at all. Not even Todd Wood.

Maybe the reason why the vast majority of Christians have not tried to resolve the "huge incompatibility" because Evolution and Christianity is because there is no "huge incompatibility" After all, you took over a hundred page thread at the forum, and still failed to demonstrate why your 5 incompatibilities were important, especially since if your compatibilities were true, then the vast majority of Christians, Christian scientists, and the last 3 Popes, would not be considered Christians to begin with.

Ichthyic · 6 May 2010

Todd Wood offers no rational explanations that reconcile the two separate quotations.

therin lies the rub. Again, FL dances around recognition.

There IS a rational explanation for it:

compartmentalization.

unfortunately, extreme compartmentalization typically leads to cognitive dissonance, and many simply can't handle that kind of mental pressure.

Why bother, I say.

One compartment is well supported by observable evidence along many independent lines.

the other...

well, I'd say toss that part in the rubbish bin, but I seem to be mostly a dissenting voice around these parts.

FL has decided the opposite: embrace the rubbish and abandon the reality.

Ichthyic · 6 May 2010

So where did Jesus specifically state that people accepting Evolution as a fact or even trying to study Evolution would be forever denied salvation?

I have trouble confirming that this fellow actually ever said anything.

evidently, we only have the word of people who came decades (at least) after this person supposedly died.

Ichthyic · 6 May 2010

Maybe the reason why the vast majority of Christians have not tried to resolve the “huge incompatibility” because Evolution and Christianity is because there is no “huge incompatibility”

or maybe, and much more likely, they never really bothered to examine their own beliefs.

harold · 6 May 2010

According to FL, the theory of evolution is incompatible with Christianity.

In fact, some denominations of Christianity accept evolution, others do not.

According to the universally accepted scientific method of rationally evaluating evidence in the physical world, life evolves.

Therefore denominations of Christianity that deny evolution are false, at least on that subject.

The only logical possibilities are that either 1) all versions of Christianity are false or 2) one or more of the versions of Christianity that accepts evolution is true, but the evolution-denying versions are at least partly false.

This may be a matter of grave concern to creationists, as traditionally, those who accept a false version of Christianity are seen by other Christians as heretics who are doomed to a horrific eternal fate. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Hortus_Deliciarum_-_Hell.jpg

Of course, we must note that modern views are more moderate. For example, the Catholic Church accepts evolution, but does not regard sincere creationism (*if such a thing exists*) as a sin, and accepts that sincere members of other denominations may achieve salvation. Likewise, many Buddhists might believe that a sincerely ethical and compassionate Christian should be regarded in a favorable light, and so on.

Nevertheless, I would advise creationists to be cautious. What if a Christian God exists who exiges that the Book of Genesis be interpreted symbolically...or else? The downside of displeasing him could be substantial.

John Harshman · 6 May 2010

John Kwok said: Sorry, Joe, but even I, as someone who has been out of the field for nearly two decades, wouldn't recognize this as cladistics: "Would you say that people who infer the tree using, say, the Neighbor-Joining distance method, and root the tree with an outgroup, are doing phylogenetic systematics?" ... And I wouldn't consider Sibley to be a phylogenetic systematist in the true sense of the term, as defined by Willi Hennig.

How exactly did Hennig define the term? Phylogenetic systematics had, it seems to me, two essential elements: 1) an emphasis on finding clades and 2) the use of synapomorphies for that purpose. Certainly not parsimony, since Hennig assumed that characters would, properly examined, be perfect, hence no need for reconciling contradictory data. When this caught on in the U.S., it was in reaction to two schools whose central focus wasn't on point #1, and that's what the cladist wars were all about. Traditional ("evolutionary") systematist were all concerned with finding distinctness, assigningproper taxon ranks, and "ancestral groups". Ernst Mayr spent an inordinate amount of effort try to get his favorite linear sequence of bird families adopted, because the last family listed was Corvidae, and he thought crows were the most "derived" of birds. Phenetics was an attempt to derive an objective method of classification despite having decided that a search for true relationships was hopeless. So the essential message of phylogenetic systematics was that we should care about the true evolutionary tree, not grades, not efficiency, just the tree. You don't see the term used much today, I imagine because the phylogenetic systematists won the war and there's hardly anyone to contrast with. Anyway, I agree with Joe. What makes a phylogenetic systematist is intent, not method. Are your dendrograms intended as estimates of the true tree of phylogenetic relationships? If so, you're a phylogenetic systematist. As was Sibley. Oddly enough, Sibley would have agreed with you: he was always ranting about "the cladists" and their opposition to his work, and you could always get a rise out of him by telling him that he was a cladist himself. He was, of course, talking about the sort of cladist who summarily rejects any tree that didn't come from parsimony analysis of discrete characters. In some circles even today, it's enough to call a tree "phenetic" to reject it without further consideration. But if you think back to where it all started, it wasn't with parsimony but with tree-thinking. And Sibley was determined that his trees were estimates of phylogeny, and near-perfect ones at that. He was a cladist in all the important ways. Like Joe, I distinguish between tree estimation and classification, and phylogenetic systematics can be stretched to cover both. But I don't think the method of tree estimation enters into it, except in the minds of a few (or at least fewer than there used to be) parsimony fanatics.

Stanton · 6 May 2010

Ichthyic said: Maybe the reason why the vast majority of Christians have not tried to resolve the “huge incompatibility” because Evolution and Christianity is because there is no “huge incompatibility” or maybe, and much more likely, they never really bothered to examine their own beliefs.

In my own case, I was never told that the condition for Jesus giving me salvation was to deny the existence of evolution, or even to read the Bible literally. Ergo, I have no need to do either to justify or validate my faith.

Stanton · 6 May 2010

Ichthyic said: Maybe the reason why the vast majority of Christians have not tried to resolve the “huge incompatibility” because Evolution and Christianity is because there is no “huge incompatibility” or maybe, and much more likely, they never really bothered to examine their own beliefs.

That, and I would not submit to a faith that requires me to reject reality, vomit lie after lie after lie to affirm and validate one's own piety, as well as sneer, mock, ridicule, slander, lie about and condemn people who do not do the same.

KP · 6 May 2010

Wood sez: "but Lubenow (2004, pp. 299-301) and Line (2005a) believe some H. habilis specimens might be human."

I'm pretty sure Lubenow (2004) is very committed to the idea that H. habilis are all apes.

David Fickett-Wilbar · 6 May 2010

TomS said: My guess is that the person who coined this expression didn't quite grasp the difference between the English past tense active verb and the past passive participle, as well as not being familiar with Hebrew grammar.

This is such great evidence that Creationism is a Fundamentalist Christian belief, not one that is based on the bible as written. Cause, you know, they could just have asked someone who knew something about Hebrew, someone like, oh, I don't know, maybe a Jew. And someone who doesn't know the difference between a past tense and a past participle doesn't have any right to be coining anything.

Joe Felsenstein · 6 May 2010

John Harshman said: Anyway, I agree with Joe. What makes a phylogenetic systematist is intent, not method. Are your dendrograms intended as estimates of the true tree of phylogenetic relationships? If so, you're a phylogenetic systematist. ... Like Joe, I distinguish between tree estimation and classification, and phylogenetic systematics can be stretched to cover both. But I don't think the method of tree estimation enters into it, except in the minds of a few (or at least fewer than there used to be) parsimony fanatics.

I think we still differ a bit here. A person could intend their tree to be an estimate of the true phylogenetic relationship ... but after they inferred it, they could go on to make some paraphyletic groups (based, say on amounts of change). In my view, they would then be an evolutionary systematist, not a phylogenetic systematist.

John Harshman · 6 May 2010

Joe Felsenstein said: I think we still differ a bit here. A person could intend their tree to be an estimate of the true phylogenetic relationship ... but after they inferred it, they could go on to make some paraphyletic groups (based, say on amounts of change). In my view, they would then be an evolutionary systematist, not a phylogenetic systematist.

Agreed. I simplified. And that's in fact exactly what Ernst Mayr advocated eventually, though as far as I know he never made an attempt to practice it. And in fact I don't know of any "evolutionary" systematists who actually went to the trouble of producing a tree based on any rigorous methodology, even UPGMA. Taking trees seriously and classifying based on clades only are not logically entailed in each other, but I don't know of any real-world exceptions in actual practice. We are agreed that a person who names paraphyletic groups is not a phylogenetic systematist, but for some reason, deep down, such people as I know of don't seem much interested in trees either. Birds aren't dinosaurs, for example, but what they really are is uninteresting and unimportant; that they're "thecodonts" is good enough.

Dale Husband · 7 May 2010

FL said: John Harshman said:'
Still, you have to admire a creationist who can say this: “Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.”
It is true that Todd Wood said that. It is equally true that Todd Wood subsequently said:
I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago. I believe that Adam and Eve were the very first humans and were directly created by God. I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world. I believe that people really lived to be 900+ years back then. I believe that there was a truly global Flood that inundated the entire planet. I believe that humans and land animals were preserved on an Ark (approximately 450 feet long for those keeping score). I believe that the humans after the Flood gradually stopped living to be 900+. I believe that the humans after the Flood tried to build a tower in Babel to prevent their dispersal across the globe, in direct contradiction to God's command. I believe that God punished the builders of Babel by miraculously confusing their languages. ----Todd Wood blog, 10-08-09

So Todd Wood is an self-contradicting idiot. What else is new?

Dale Husband · 7 May 2010

FL said: Ummm, eric, Todd Wood offers no rational explanations that reconcile the two separate quotations. For example, he wrote:
I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world.
In direct contrast, evolution REQUIRES that death etc. has always been present in our world, not merely after humams appeared on the earth. No wiggle room on that one. Wood has no rational reconciliation for that contradiction. Eric has no rational reconciliation for that one. Me neither. Nobody does. And then there is Wood's first line, of course.
I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago.
Can you rationally reconcile THAT claim with evolution? Nope? I can't either. So let's be honest. Evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity. Evolution is irreconcilable with biblical Christianity. Neither the Christians, nor the non-Christians, have rationally figured out HOW to resolve the huge incompatibility. Not at all. Not even Todd Wood.

Then we should do the obvious thing.....do not follow Biblical Christianity, for it was debunked by the teachings of the real Word of God, the universe He created and everything in it, which science explores. The Bible is not the Word of God, but a human product. Why you get so hung up on that issue is a mystery to me.

John Kwok · 7 May 2010

Am in complete agreement with you and Joe Felsenstein with respect to your first sentence: John Harshman said: We are agreed that a person who names paraphyletic groups is not a phylogenetic systematist, but for some reason, deep down, such people as I know of don't seem much interested in trees either. Birds aren't dinosaurs, for example, but what they really are is uninteresting and unimportant; that they're "thecodonts" is good enough.

As for your second sentence, it seems as though existing evidence would refut your assertion that "Birds aren't dinosaurs" (And I will not debate you here only because I haven't read most of the relevant literature. Personally I found dinosaurs too boring and uninteresting in stark contrast to invertebrates.).

John Harshman · 7 May 2010

John Kwok said:
John Harshman said: Birds aren't dinosaurs, for example, but what they really are is uninteresting and unimportant; that they're "thecodonts" is good enough.
As for your second sentence, it seems as though existing evidence would refut your assertion that "Birds aren't dinosaurs" (And I will not debate you here only because I haven't read most of the relevant literature. Personally I found dinosaurs too boring and uninteresting in stark contrast to invertebrates.).

I was characterizing the position of the anti-cladists there, not my own. Wasn't that obvious? Yes, birds are dinosaurs, and they're very, very interesting. "Thecodont" is a meaningless term, and if you say that birds are descended from thecodonts all it really means is that they're archosaurs. Big whoop. This is what comes from failing to understand tree-thinking.

John Kwok · 7 May 2010

Sorry about that, John, though maybe I needed to state what I did merely to remind those doubters who might be reading PT:

John Harshman said:
John Kwok said:
John Harshman said: Birds aren't dinosaurs, for example, but what they really are is uninteresting and unimportant; that they're "thecodonts" is good enough.
As for your second sentence, it seems as though existing evidence would refut your assertion that "Birds aren't dinosaurs" (And I will not debate you here only because I haven't read most of the relevant literature. Personally I found dinosaurs too boring and uninteresting in stark contrast to invertebrates.).
I was characterizing the position of the anti-cladists there, not my own. Wasn't that obvious? Yes, birds are dinosaurs, and they're very, very interesting. "Thecodont" is a meaningless term, and if you say that birds are descended from thecodonts all it really means is that they're archosaurs. Big whoop. This is what comes from failing to understand tree-thinking.

And not just tree-thinking, but, especially, recognizing the difference between monophyletic and parphyletic groups.

Gyan · 7 May 2010

Life is ever changing, or we can say that change is the life. living things is in motion but dead can't.
So motion is the mother of life. If you are move.. may be it in wrong direction! But you have start moving so ultimately you will able to find a right direction. But If you have fear about moving in wrong direction, you will not start move, you can't distinguish among right and wrong.

Mike Elzinga · 7 May 2010

Gyan said: Life is ever changing, or we can say that change is the life. living things is in motion but dead can't. So motion is the mother of life. If you are move.. may be it in wrong direction! But you have start moving so ultimately you will able to find a right direction. But If you have fear about moving in wrong direction, you will not start move, you can't distinguish among right and wrong.

So a drunken random walk is better than sleeping it off?

hoary puccoon · 7 May 2010

Mike Elzinga--
They tested that on Mythbusters. Yes, exercise helps sober you up. :)

Mike Elzinga · 7 May 2010

hoary puccoon said: Mike Elzinga-- They tested that on Mythbusters. Yes, exercise helps sober you up. :)

Yeah; I think I saw that program. Those guys have a great job; I'm jealous. :-) The exercise thing has been known for a long time. Many eons ago, when I was a submariner, guys who came back from shore leave drunk didn't get off watch. They would most likely get sent up to do topside watch, especially in rough weather where they got tossed around, got soaking wet, and could puke over the side. They sobered up pretty quickly while up there.

stevaroni · 7 May 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Many eons ago, when I was a submariner, guys who came back from shore leave drunk didn't get off watch. They would most likely get sent up to do topside watch, especially in rough weather where they got tossed around, got soaking wet, and could puke over the side. They sobered up pretty quickly while up there.

Um, so it was considered good match to assign drunk men to stand around on of a rolling, pitching, sea-splashed cylinder of slick, wet, streamlined, steel in the middle of the ocean? On watch. Where they could use their powers of alert perception to look out for collisions and suchlike. Wow. On-the-job training really meant something back in the day.

Jesse · 7 May 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
Gyan said: Life is ever changing, or we can say that change is the life. living things is in motion but dead can't. So motion is the mother of life. If you are move.. may be it in wrong direction! But you have start moving so ultimately you will able to find a right direction. But If you have fear about moving in wrong direction, you will not start move, you can't distinguish among right and wrong.
So a drunken random walk is better than sleeping it off?

It's more fun, that's for sure. Just look at the duck billed platypus. That thing just has to be the result of a random, drunken evolutionary walk.

Mike Elzinga · 7 May 2010

stevaroni said: Um, so it was considered good match to assign drunk men to stand around on of a rolling, pitching, sea-splashed cylinder of slick, wet, streamlined, steel in the middle of the ocean? On watch. Where they could use their powers of alert perception to look out for collisions and suchlike. Wow. On-the-job training really meant something back in the day.

Yup; as long as the guy wasn’t out cold already, and it was his watch, he didn’t get out of it. So you have typically three people up there, port and starboard enlisted personnel strapped into their lookout positions and an officer. On the old diesel boats, you didn’t submerge to ride out a hurricane because, if you couldn’t stay down long enough and had to surface, the boat passes through a very unstable point where the center of buoyancy is at the center of gravity. A wave slap could easily roll the boat over. So you rode out rough weather on the surface. Being drunk didn’t get you out of duty, but in might get you busted. Guys who thought they might get out of work by getting drunk didn’t get out of work; they were made miserable enough that they were less tempted to try it again. The vast numbers of submariners were a highly selected and competent bunch. Even when drunk, they performed well as a result of repeated training. They didn’t stay drunk for long. The two or three habitual drunkards I knew were extremely competent. The young ones who attempted to reduce their work load got over it quickly or were gone when we returned to port.

eric · 7 May 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Being drunk didn’t get you out of duty, but in might get you busted. Guys who thought they might get out of work by getting drunk didn’t get out of work; they were made miserable enough that they were less tempted to try it again.

I seem to recall reading about a similar practice on naval sailing ships. The sickbay was intentionally located in the fore, even though that provided the worst ride in rough weather. It was done that way to prevent sailors from claiming to be sick to get out of duty. You had to be really sick to want to lie down in the fore of the ship. (Also, because a sailing vessel can never travel directly into the wind, it meant any smells from the sick bay would generally not waft over the ship.) On the topic of drunken sailors, wikipedia tells me that the standard rum ration for the british navy for about two centuries was 1 pint rum mixed with 1 quart of water, and you got that twice a day. Yeeee-haaa! I think my meetings would be a lot more enjoyable.

David Fickett-Wilbar · 7 May 2010

Mike Elzinga said: So a drunken random walk is better than sleeping it off?

Wow, what a great philosophy!

harold · 7 May 2010

hoary puccoon -

Yes, exercise helps sober you up. :)

From a medical point of view, that's simply the expected result. A different result would have been surprising. A modest but significant proportion of blood ethanol is secreted directly by breathing it off as a vapor (which is why breathalyzers work); Wikipedia says up to 5% (implicitly, of ethanol metabolized per unit of time), which sounds about right. It's quite plausible that it could be even more than that if you really get moving. Also, liver and kidney breakdown would certainly not be reduced by increasing metabolic rate through exercise; it wouldn't surprise me if it made that route of elimination go up as well. Also, caffeine is somewhat effective. Obviously, you shouldn't expect it to make you completely sober, but its psychoactive effects do partly counter those of ethanol, and it is a diuretic, which, while augmenting the dehydration situation, also probably increases the rate of elimination. Black coffee has the added benefit of being an emetic. Ethanol is absorbed far more slowly from the stomach than from the small intestine, and the stomach helpfully tends to shut down the pylorric sphincter if you really fill it with high concentration ethanol. Any booze you puke out before it has been absorbed is guaranteed not to make you drunker. Whether this practice is wasteful or not depends on what you were drinking. I would personally recommend pouring some black coffee into a drunken sailor before putting him on watch. Assuming fluids are available and he has the sense to drink them. IMPORTANT - This information can be very helpful for people with healthy cardiovascular systems who have mildly overindulged. If acute ethanol intoxication is suspected (for example, if respiratory rate slows), get emergency help immediately.

Mike Elzinga · 7 May 2010

harold said: I would personally recommend pouring some black coffee into a drunken sailor before putting him on watch. Assuming fluids are available and he has the sense to drink them.

Strong coffee is one of the staples on the boats; and we drank lots of it, especially on patrols where we worked our butts off and lost weight even while eating well. But it came with an added kick. The coffee urn sat in the galley, right under the main hydraulic valve that opened the main induction (main air intake for the boat and the engines). There was always hydraulic oil dripping into in the coffee. A few drops could add plenty of "flavor." Most of the guys drank it “with pride.” I started drinking tea because the hot water could be taped right out of the jacket of the coffee maker before it came in contact with the hydraulic oil.

hoary puccoon · 8 May 2010

harold--
Thanks for the long explanation in response to my post. I'd always just kind of figured exercise burns calories, and alcohol has calories, so....

Henry J · 8 May 2010

Ah, so exercise drives out the spirits without even needing to call an exorcist?

Ian · 12 May 2010

It really bugs me when Australopithecines get called "apes" by these religious morons. ALL APES have big canines and a CP/3 shearing complex. NO AUSTRALOPITH has canines that resemble an ape, even though they have a brain that's apelike in size.

Stanton · 12 May 2010

Henry J said: Ah, so exercise drives out the spirits without even needing to call an exorcist?

Depends on how fast you rotate your head.