Paul McBride's review of the Disco 'Tute's "Science and Human Origins"

Just to remind everyone of the scientific "credentials" of Luskin, take a look at this post from PT from 2008:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/01/casey-luskin-ab.html

She tells us that certainly humans and chimpanzees share a number of common features, but so do (and this is her example) Ford Tauruses and Mustangs.

Yeah, Casey's a classic case of inflationary credentialism.

And dammit, I threw trackbacks at McBride's posts and got error messages on 'em. Shucks.

I've always suspected that Casey ain't no kin to no monkey. If he were, he would be able to reason better than he does.

You mean to say that they didn't do an exhaustive literature review? Really? I wonder why? Why concentrate on a paper from 1990 when a much more recent paper has addressed the issue? Here is the reference:

Venema (2010) Genesis and the Genome: Genomic Evidence for Human-ape Common Ancestry and Ancestral Population Sizes. Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. 62(3)166-178.

The paper was recently discussed here on PT, thanks to whoever provided me with the reference. It used evidence from modern comparative genomics to estimate the size of populations in early human history. No evidence for Adam and Eve was found.

And of course they also ignored all of the SINE insertion data, the chromosomal fusion data, the broken gene data, etc. Maybe that's why they only found evidence for similarity, they ignored all of the evidence for common ancestry. Once again, I wonder why?

Why bother trying to fool those who are already convinced? Why not at least try to fool those who already know better? What? Oh ... Never mind.

PS Robert still hasn't answered questions about this paper from the last time he did a late night drive by. If he can't be banned, he should be ignored, at least until he has provided evidence that he has read the paper.

Science has already shown the existence of a couple from whom all living humans are descended -- think of Mitochondrial Eve's parents. The problem for the IDists seems to be that they were far from the only two humans alive at the time. It does rather give the game away (again!) about their not-so-very-well-hidden agenda.

So much dishonesty or stupidity.

I'll just comment on the obscene "toddler making random changes in a computer program" argument.

Let's create a correct analogy.

First, the program has to have a great deal of redundancy.

Second, the toddler isn't deliberately inserting random changes in the only copy of the program. The toddler is actually trying to copy out the binary digits correctly, but an occasional imperfection occurs with each copying.

The toddler is then taking each new copy and running it on a separate machine. Some of the new copies don't run, many run the same way (although actually containing slight sequence changes), and a few run in a way which may be better, under certain particular circumstances.

I know this was alluded to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming, I just had to elaborate.

The exact number of paid members of the Biologic Institute is unclear http://www.biologicinstitute.org/people/ (Luskin is paid by the DI). Most of the people on the list are actually employed elsewhere. I'd love to know the budget - I've heard it quoted as anything from several hundred thousand to in the low millions per year. There seem to be relatively few paid employees, there seems to be remarkably little work being done even for the number of employees, and a strikingly high budget with all that considered. The tiny amount of work required to do things like put up a post on the web site and crank out recycled creationist pablum like this once every few years is obvious. Looks like Wingnut Welfare at its finest. I'm going to cynically assume that by far the biggest budget item is salaries.

I just provided Amazon with my "review" - "Any publication that claims that Adam and Eve literally existed - and then claims to be about science, not religion - is obviously bogus. But considering the source (the Dishonesty Institute) we already knew that." Now to see if they publish it.

Paul Burnett said: I just provided Amazon with my "review" - "Any publication that claims that Adam and Eve literally existed - and then claims to be about science, not religion - is obviously bogus. But considering the source (the Dishonesty Institute) we already knew that." Now to see if they publish it.

Yes, the majority of sales will be bulk purchases by right wing think tanks, and yes, those boxes will probably go straight from the receiving dock to the recycling area - they may not even open the boxes, let alone the books, at the Heritage Foundation

Your review is on the Amazon site. I gave it a "helpful" nod, but we'll see how long it lasts. The previous 1-star review disappeared no doubt the result of a squeaky Gerbil.

Paul McBride has a super detailed review up on Amazon now.

Hominin fossils generally fall into one of two groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the hype promoted by many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors.

And he [McBride] has a lovely response to Ann Gauger on Uncommon Descent.

Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening.

Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

SteveP. said: And here we obviously have encountered the enlightened one, one Mr. Dave Wisker who actually does know something about chromosome fusions. Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model. What a fantastic thing evolution is; how dynamic, how creative, how enterprising; all in it's purposeless, rudderless wonder! Bartender? I'll have another one of those, please.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

SteveP. said: And here we obviously have encountered the enlightened one, one Mr. Dave Wisker who actually does know something about chromosome fusions. Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model. What a fantastic thing evolution is; how dynamic, how creative, how enterprising; all in it's purposeless, rudderless wonder! Bartender? I'll have another one of those, please.

Dave Wisker said: Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

Meh. The title of the book, like its contents, is just propaganda.

"There's no there there."

fnxtr said: Meh. The title of the book, like its contents, is just propaganda. "There's no there there."

SteveP. said: Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it?

What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model.

David Klinghoffer has just dropped an ENV post accusing "Darwinists" of being too scared to engage with ID ideas. The problem being I am too obscure for my review of the book to have counted. He hasn't read the review or anything, though.

Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What’s more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model.

Well a lawyer should be able to more properly interpret the data and draw a conclusion than the scientists who actually did the research and obtained the data.

Dave Wisker said:

Well a lawyer should be able to more properly interpret the data and draw a conclusion than the scientists who actually did the research and obtained the data.

Funny you should bring that up. Philip Johnson, at the dawn of the ID movement used to say that lawyers, being trained to analyze arguments, would be the ideal people to examine the claims of Darwinism.

paumcb12 said: David Klinghoffer has just dropped an ENV post accusing "Darwinists" of being too scared to engage with ID ideas. The problem being I am too obscure for my review of the book to have counted. He hasn't read the review or anything, though.

… questions the certainty that evolutionary biologists have in the notion of common descent, with the broad claim that it is merely similarity, rather than relatedness, that we observe. She tells us that certainly humans and chimpanzees share a number of common features, but so do (and this is her example) Ford Tauruses and Mustangs. Yet the latter are designed, indicating that similarity cannot rule out design.

Hey, Paul, you've hit the big time when Klapptrapper insults you! In his usual doltish fashion Klapptrapper misses the irony of complaining that nobody reads creationist dreck and in the same flatulence complains that you read their creationist dreck.

Good on you, though, you stung 'em good!

TomS said:

… questions the certainty that evolutionary biologists have in the notion of common descent, with the broad claim that it is merely similarity, rather than relatedness, that we observe. She tells us that certainly humans and chimpanzees share a number of common features, but so do (and this is her example) Ford Tauruses and Mustangs. Yet the latter are designed, indicating that similarity cannot rule out design.

Are we to think that the reason for the unquestioned similarities between humans, chimps, and other apes is that they all were purposefully designed to be similar? (Or is it that their designer(s) were similarly constrained by the laws of nature and the common materials they worked with?) And are we to leave our kids with the idea that, in order to follow the purposes of their designer(s), they ought to behave like apes? Rather than because they happen to be related, a little more distantly related to Binti Jua than to Torquemada, there is no implication that either of those should serve as their role model.

DS said:

SteveP. said: And here we obviously have encountered the enlightened one, one Mr. Dave Wisker who actually does know something about chromosome fusions. Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model. What a fantastic thing evolution is; how dynamic, how creative, how enterprising; all in it's purposeless, rudderless wonder! Bartender? I'll have another one of those, please.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

You got a better explanation for the evidence twinkle toes? Thought not. Bar tender, cut this guy off.

SteveP. said: and we have DS here trying his hand at tidbit soundbites. FYI, no explanation is better than that cheap costume jewelry you mistake for reality.

DS said:

SteveP. said: And here we obviously have encountered the enlightened one, one Mr. Dave Wisker who actually does know something about chromosome fusions. Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model. What a fantastic thing evolution is; how dynamic, how creative, how enterprising; all in it's purposeless, rudderless wonder! Bartender? I'll have another one of those, please.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.

You got a better explanation for the evidence twinkle toes? Thought not. Bar tender, cut this guy off.

As far as I understand it, the real argument for common ancestry is not just pointing to the fact of similarity, but rather that there is a pattern of similarities and differences, called the "tree of life" or "nested hierarchy". We also observe this nested hierarchy in languages and in manuscripts, and we also infer that languages and manuscripts are related by "descent with modification". We don't see a similar pattern in (to take the example that was brought up) the products of Ford. This pattern of similarities among living things is obvious to anybody, and we don't need to get into recent discoveries about, for example, endogenous retroviruses. We (and chimps) are clearly primates, mammals and tetrapods.

But I was trying to bring up a different issue, not a question of matters of fact, but of the discomfort that people have with accepting our relationship by common ancestry with other animals. If we are similar to chimps because God designed us to be similar to chimps, that means that there is some divine purpose to that similarity, that we and chimps occupy similar positions within the divine plan, and doesn't that suggest that, if we are supposed to take our clues as to how to behave from our observations of the divine plan, then ought we to consider that we should act like monkeys? On the other hand, if the similarity between humans and chimps is merely a matter of chance and the working of purposeless natural regularities, then it tells us nothing about divine purpose, and in particular, does not tell us how to behave. No more than my discovery that my great-great uncle was a horse thief would tell me to consider that I was meant to steal horses.

TomS said: As far as I understand it, the real argument for common ancestry is not just pointing to the fact of similarity, but rather that there is a pattern of similarities and differences, called the "tree of life" or "nested hierarchy". We also observe this nested hierarchy in languages and in manuscripts, and we also infer that languages and manuscripts are related by "descent with modification". We don't see a similar pattern in (to take the example that was brought up) the products of Ford. This pattern of similarities among living things is obvious to anybody, and we don't need to get into recent discoveries about, for example, endogenous retroviruses. We (and chimps) are clearly primates, mammals and tetrapods. But I was trying to bring up a different issue, not a question of matters of fact, but of the discomfort that people have with accepting our relationship by common ancestry with other animals. If we are similar to chimps because God designed us to be similar to chimps, that means that there is some divine purpose to that similarity, that we and chimps occupy similar positions within the divine plan, and doesn't that suggest that, if we are supposed to take our clues as to how to behave from our observations of the divine plan, then ought we to consider that we should act like monkeys? On the other hand, if the similarity between humans and chimps is merely a matter of chance and the working of purposeless natural regularities, then it tells us nothing about divine purpose, and in particular, does not tell us how to behave. No more than my discovery that my great-great uncle was a horse thief would tell me to consider that I was meant to steal horses.

TomS said: As far as I understand it, the real argument for common ancestry is not just pointing to the fact of similarity, but rather that there is a pattern of similarities and differences, called the "tree of life" or "nested hierarchy".

Steve P, maybe you can help. I’ve been trying to get an answer on this, but no luck so far. If all scientists accepted intelligent design as true, HOW WOULD IT HELP? What problems could be better addressed that are now intractable? What new areas of PRODUCTIVE research would be opened up? What new technologies, or cures, or just useful understandings of biology would result? In short, what better results and PRODUCTIONS could we expect from intelligent design than we are currently realizing from methodological naturalism?

Just Bob said: SteveP, so glad to hear from you again! I was so worried when you disappeared from an earlier thread just after I asked the question below.

Steve P, maybe you can help. I’ve been trying to get an answer on this, but no luck so far. If all scientists accepted intelligent design as true, HOW WOULD IT HELP? What problems could be better addressed that are now intractable? What new areas of PRODUCTIVE research would be opened up? What new technologies, or cures, or just useful understandings of biology would result? In short, what better results and PRODUCTIONS could we expect from intelligent design than we are currently realizing from methodological naturalism?

Now that we know you haven't been disappeared by the Taiwanese Mafia, perhaps you'll render a thoughtful, serious answer.

SteveP. said: and we have DS here trying his hand at tidbit soundbites. FYI, no explanation is better than that cheap costume jewelry you mistake for reality.

BTW, SteveP has worn out his welcome on this thread, and any further comments will go off to the BW when I see them.

Richard B. Hoppe said: BTW, SteveP has worn out his welcome on this thread, and any further comments will go off to the BW when I see them.

Once again the "scientific" credentials are first order of business.
Indeed evolutionary biology "got away with it" in its errors because these small circles of researchers were trusted that they did scientific investigation accurately. So it the whole "theory" of evolution has largely been carried to the present day by the statis of being a scientific theory.
Not the merits of the case.

Only today to well degree ed critics take on Toe on the merits.
My fellow biblical creationists were not so well degree ed but through keen minds made up for it but still mostly movede in circles not affecting the bigger world.

Evolutionism will not stand serious attention from investigation based on nature.

I guess you didn't read the bit where McBride is described as a PhD candidate, Byers. So it's not about scientific credentials at all. It's about the data. Only the data.

The critics are wrong, if they ignore the data, which these do. The PhD candidate is right. Evolution has been standing serious attention from investigation based on nature for a hundred and fifty years, only you and your fellow loonies haven't been doing any. All you can do is make stupid factless baseless assertions out of blind prejudiced ignorance. You lose, Byers. You lost a century ago.

Robert Byers said: Once again the "scientific" credentials are first order of business.

Indeed evolutionary biology "got away with it" in its errors because these small circles of researchers were trusted that they did scientific investigation accurately. So it the whole "theory" of evolution has largely been carried to the present day by the statis of being a scientific theory./blockquote>What errors do you mean? That Evolutionary Biology does not deliberately ignore evidence (and reality) so it can go "GODDIDIT" over and over again like Creationism?

Not the merits of the case.

The only reason you say this is that you're so deadly desperate to make up any half-baked lie that you hope beyond hope will somehow, someway magically impugn or negate Evolutionary Biology. That, and seriously, what do you think Evolutionary Biologists do all day? Lounge around in their lairs of evil, engaging in satanic orgies when they're not busy involved in a magic conspiracy to hate God?

Only today to well degree ed critics take on Toe on the merits. My fellow biblical creationists were not so well degree ed but through keen minds made up for it but still mostly movede in circles not affecting the bigger world.

Then why should we take you or other "biblical creationists" seriously, if you're confessing that you and other creationists don't care to enter the scientific community in order to legitimately challenge Evolutionary Biology?

Evolutionism will not stand serious attention from investigation based on nature.

This is a baldfaced lie, Robert Byers. Didn't the Bible have a little blurb about lying being a sin, and another blurb about how Jesus really, really, really, really hates it when His professed followers commit lies in His name? That, and how come you're always too cowardly to explain to us why and how "Biblical Creationism" would be able to "stand serious attention from investigation based on nature"?

Dave Luckett said: I guess you didn't read the bit where McBride is described as a PhD candidate, Byers. So it's not about scientific credentials at all. It's about the data. Only the data.

The critics are wrong, if they ignore the data, which these do.

The PhD candidate is right. Evolution has been standing serious attention from investigation based on nature for a hundred and fifty years, only you and your fellow loonies haven't been doing any. All you can do is make stupid factless baseless assertions out of blind prejudiced ignorance. You lose, Byers. You lost a century ago.

apokryltaros said:

Dave Luckett said: I guess you didn't read the bit where McBride is described as a PhD candidate, Byers. So it's not about scientific credentials at all. It's about the data. Only the data.

And Byers and all other creationists refuse to give anyone any sort of data that they incessantly claim will magically disprove Evolution. I mean, other than to repeat the mantra of "Believe in the Bible, because GODDIDIT"

The critics are wrong, if they ignore the data, which these do.

Of course these "critics" ignore the data, because the data does not agree with GODDIDIT

The PhD candidate is right. Evolution has been standing serious attention from investigation based on nature for a hundred and fifty years, only you and your fellow loonies haven't been doing any. All you can do is make stupid factless baseless assertions out of blind prejudiced ignorance. You lose, Byers. You lost a century ago.

Not even God has the power to make Byers understand that he's wrong.

Robert Byers said: Indeed evolutionary biology "got away with it" in its errors because these small circles of researchers

My fellow biblical creationists were not so well degree ed but through keen minds made up for it but still mostly movede in circles not affecting the bigger world.

Just as I predicted, a content-free screed at two in the morning and no understanding or discussion of "merits" whatsoever. What a worthless piece of crap.

Robert Byers said: My fellow biblical creationists were not so well degree ed but through keen minds made up for it but still mostly movede in circles not affecting the bigger world.

Evolutionism will not stand serious attention from investigation based on nature.

Oops what a mess, a little better: are idiots only if they happen to study evolution?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said:

She tells us that certainly humans and chimpanzees share a number of common features, but so do (and this is her example) Ford Tauruses and Mustangs.

OK, what in a 1968 Mustang engine is a precursor to today's silicon chip engine controls? That's right, nothing. Similarity per se doesn't show evolution without design, it's the evidence of relatedness found in actual life that indicates relatedness. That's why they always deal only generally with similarities, because they have no explanation for homologies, particularly the design-unpromising homologies found throughout life (why do vertebrate wings derive from terrestrial forelimbs of their ancestors in every case?), that "design" fails to explain at all. So it's the same old junk as ever, avoidance of the predictions of non-teleological evolution with which life is suffused, to attack the same worthless strawman and thus to avoid the fact that ID explains nothing while evolution explains the specific derivative patterns existing throughout life. Glen Davidson

Also why creationists so often ask for/demand the “one piece of evidence” that best proves evolution. It isn’t one piece, of course, but many thousands, millions of pieces really by now, of evidence from different fields and angles that all point to the same conclusion.

Rolf said: Robert said:

Evolutionism will not stand serious attention from investigation based on nature.

How do you propose investigation should be done? By whom? Why hasn't it been done yet; science have been very busy for 150 years, and you folks are not even finished with the Bible yet. Please explain biblical creationism. Why do you think all scientists are idiots as long as they stay away from the study of evolution?

Robert Byers said: Nobody is idiots.

People just get things wrong when dealing with difficult subjects. Historical errors in medicine in the past came from serious researchers but mistakes were made over the centuries.

Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results. evolution has not been done this way.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data. Origin issues are not open to easy investigation or testing.

Very few people, relatively, ever got into the meat and potatoes of evolutionary biology aside from presuming as true. Not a paying gig really.

I think the Newton or Einstein of biological research has not come along to correct a lot of wrong ideas.

Nobody is idiots

Evolutionary biology itself is a large field. If someone gives "one piece of evidence" for a key issue in evolutionary biology, it may not be evidence for some other issue.

A standard example: Evolution is directly observed happening both under controlled, repeatable conditions in the lab and in observations in the wild. The creationist response is that this is only "micro-evolution". (For the creationist, micro-evolution being any evolution that is directly observed. Of course, what makes any science interesting and productive is what it says about things that are not directly observed.)

Nobody has ever thought of an explanation for the variety of life on Earth which does not involve descent with modification. (There are different evolutionary theories, such as natural selection, inheritance of acquired characters, genetic drift, endosymbiosis, directed evolution, and so on, but they all involve descent with modification.) But the pattern of the variety of life on earth is a body of complex predictions that cannot have happened by chance. So, if asked for the one piece of evidence for evolution, I think that I'd ask, by way of clarification, "compared with what?"

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data.

Creationists is idiots. People just get things wrong when dealing with difficult subjects. Historical errors in medicine in the past came from serious researchers but mistakes were made over the centuries and creationists continues to make them.

Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results. creation has not been done this way. Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data. Origin issues are not open to easy investigation or testing so creationists don't do any research.

No creationist ever got into the meat and potatoes of evolutionary biology aside from presuming as not true. Not a paying gig really, unless you can milk some rich old dude for everything hes got.

I think the Newton or Einstein of creation has not come along to correct a lot of wrong ideas. SInce creationists are too pig ignorant to listen to any real biologist, thats what its gonna take for them to face up to the truth of evolution i guess.

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of the Bible must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

eric said:

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

You seem to have forgotten that one of the key parts of science is to form an hypotheses. And then test that hypothesis. You can't do those two steps without making assumptions and gaining some expectation of how an experiment might turn out.

MememicBottleneck said:

Robert Byers said: Nobody is idiots.

I think the structure of that sentence proves the statement to be wrong.

People just get things wrong when dealing with difficult subjects. Historical errors in medicine in the past came from serious researchers but mistakes were made over the centuries.

Historical errors have been made in virtually every area of discovery. These errors are corrected through constant testing and study and with very few exceptions converged into very strong theories as new discoveries have been made. Can you name any scientific field of study that has been completely thrown away since the onset of the scientific method?

Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results. evolution has not been done this way.

What assumptions did Darwin start with? What biological assumptions did geologists start with? What assumptions did the genetisists that study SINE and ERV insertions start with? All they did was document what they discovered. And what they all discovered aligns neatly with evolution. Can you name any investigation into the great claims of ID or creationism? TOE has massive amounts of data that all point to evolution. All you have is one massive assumption based on a mythology.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data. Origin issues are not open to easy investigation or testing.

Science is a line of reasoning from data at all levels. Evolution probably has more data from more levels than any other field of science. Because you refuse to learn any of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Very few people, relatively, ever got into the meat and potatoes of evolutionary biology aside from presuming as true. Not a paying gig really.

What do you base this idiotic statement on? I'm guessing you just stood up and pulled it out of your ass like most everything else you post.

I think the Newton or Einstein of biological research has not come along to correct a lot of wrong ideas.

Yes he has, his name was Darwin.

eric said:

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

[My emphasis]. Why? Neal Shubin had a desired result when he dug in the ground for fossils; to find one. Do you think his desired result had some magical effect on the ground? Did it create the fossil? No. That would be silly. The folks at CERN desired to find a Higgs boson. They assumed that if it existed, it would likely be in the 100-150 GeV mass range. In fact, they gambled millions of dollars in equipment manufacture and thousands of hours of labor on this assumption, because the detectors and experiment were tuned to look at particles in that range. Do you think their assumptions and desired result created the Higgs? I hope not - again, that would be silly. Every human investigation contains assumptions and desired results. There is no getting way from it. Evolutionary science is no more invalid because of this than any other area of science. Fortunately for science, our assumptions and desired results do not appear to alter nature. True, they may lead to errors due to bias, but that is what peer review is for; to discover and correct the errors we make due to hidden assumptions and biases. You seem to have forgotten that one of the key parts of science is to form an hypotheses. And then test that hypothesis. You can't do those two steps without making assumptions and gaining some expectation of how an experiment might turn out.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data.

This sentence is incomprehensible to me; please explain what you mean.

Byers again displays his ignorance and prejudice. His latest is the usual tissue of untruths.

Darwin actually started with the idea that the species were fixed and that the Earth was a few million years old, a few tens of millions at most. The geologists of his day had no absolute dating methods, and nobody could explain how the sun could be older. By the time he had arrived at the certainty that the species had evolved, he was troubled by how little time the geological record gave him.

Darwin did not defend the idea of geological time as it was known in his day because it was already well established by geologists such as Lyall, who had begun as YECs but found the evidence for an ancient earth overwhelming. He did not stress "beating the idea of a creator". He avoided the entire question. He confined himself to the evidence - multiple lines of it.

Byers thinks that the scientific method can't apply to events that happened in the past. That's because Byers is a purblind, ignorant loon. The scientific method can be applied to all physical evidence whatsoever, and past events leave physical evidence. That physical evidence is unequivocal. The earth is ancient. The species evolved. Byers is a semiliterate halfwit.

So, Byers, you concede that marine mammals evolved. What makes you think that they're the only species that did? Idiotic refusal to face fact, perhaps?

Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Byers, the assumptions you keep banging on about BECAME assumptions because the accumulating mountains of facts FORCED us to assume those things (like an ancient Earth) are true.

It wasn't because we wanted them to be true. The early geologists and naturalists would have PREFERRED that they not be true. But they saw the facts and could no longer deny them. Even for Jesus.

Also why creationists so often ask for/demand the “one piece of evidence” that best proves evolution.

Robert Byers said:

eric said:

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

[My emphasis]. Why? Neal Shubin had a desired result when he dug in the ground for fossils; to find one. Do you think his desired result had some magical effect on the ground? Did it create the fossil? No. That would be silly. The folks at CERN desired to find a Higgs boson. They assumed that if it existed, it would likely be in the 100-150 GeV mass range. In fact, they gambled millions of dollars in equipment manufacture and thousands of hours of labor on this assumption, because the detectors and experiment were tuned to look at particles in that range. Do you think their assumptions and desired result created the Higgs? I hope not - again, that would be silly. Every human investigation contains assumptions and desired results. There is no getting way from it. Evolutionary science is no more invalid because of this than any other area of science. Fortunately for science, our assumptions and desired results do not appear to alter nature. True, they may lead to errors due to bias, but that is what peer review is for; to discover and correct the errors we make due to hidden assumptions and biases. You seem to have forgotten that one of the key parts of science is to form an hypotheses. And then test that hypothesis. You can't do those two steps without making assumptions and gaining some expectation of how an experiment might turn out.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data.

This sentence is incomprehensible to me; please explain what you mean.

Well. You admit assumptions are relevant to evolutionary biological claims! Yes this is true.

The scientific method is to strip bare assumptions distoring conclusions. Thats why its a methodology. Desired results and assumptions must not interfere with investigation. Therefore scientific methodology must only allow conclusions based on observations or experiment or predictions etc .

Likewise critics, like creationists, can question assumptions/desires and say they affected claimed results.

This is why evolution is so easily attacked on the merits. There is so much assumption and little fact behind it that its easy to take on.

Lines of reasoning replace facts/investigation etc in evolution a great deal. Darwin seeing differences in birds beaks simply reasoned this being from selection in nature means birds did evolve from bugs etc. Micro evolution (if its that) is the EVIDENCE for macro evolution. In fact heaps of evolutionists have argued with me its up to ME to show why micro couldn't lead to the macro results of biology. In short they believe this line of reasoning is evidence for evolution.

modern evolutionists seeing rare cases, like in marine mammals, of good anatomical change then draw the line of reasoning that evolution is proven in all of biology. When all that is shown is a special case of air breathing critters living in the sea were once on land. The special or extreme case being the case in point for all of biology they reason.

lines of reasoning are when fossils in sequences in strata are proclaimed to be evolved from each other just because of the sequence. no other biological evidence and connections are purely geological ones. This is a big flaw .

lines of reasoning and not biological evidence are very dominant in evolutionary biology.

Darwin started with geological assumptions of long time passing on earth and fossils of life in those long ages.

Darwin assumed the bible was not true

j. biggs said:

Lines of reasoning replace facts/investigation etc in evolution a great deal. Darwin seeing differences in birds beaks simply reasoned this being from selection in nature means birds did evolve from bugs etc. Micro evolution (if its that) is the EVIDENCE for macro evolution. In fact heaps of evolutionists have argued with me its up to ME to show why micro couldn't lead to the macro results of biology. In short they believe this line of reasoning is evidence for evolution.

So now you attack an essential aspect of scientific methodology, specifically induction. Certainly from a philosophical standpoint we can't be absolutely certain that nature will behave in a consistent way on a day to day basis, but so far it has and there is no good reason to think it will stop until it does. If evolution can occur at a low level over short periods of time there is no reason to think that over long periods of time these changes wouldn't accumulate to such an extent as to produce extreme phenotypic and genetic differences between a new species and its distant ancestors.

Rolf said:

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Robert, why do you think oil companies spend big bucks drilling for oil based on the geological "assumptions" that you say they should deny? Because the "assumptions" are wrong? Or is it the other way around; the fact that those assumptions are of great value, the oil industry is proof they are correct, facts, not just any old "assumption"? What you want to dismiss as mere assumptions never were; they were sound scientific reasoning based on facts that soon became evidence when subjected to scientific investigation. So go ahead smart guy, study the facts, show they are wrong or shut up!

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Rolf said: Robert Said:

Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Robert, why do you think oil companies spend big bucks drilling for oil based on the geological "assumptions" that you say they should deny? Because the "assumptions" are wrong? Or is it the other way around; the fact that those assumptions are of great value, the oil industry is proof they are correct, facts, not just any old "assumption"? What you want to dismiss as mere assumptions never were; they were sound scientific reasoning based on facts that soon became evidence when subjected to scientific investigation. So go ahead smart guy, study the facts, show they are wrong or shut up!

Just Bob said: Byers, the assumptions you keep banging on about BECAME assumptions because the accumulating mountains of facts FORCED us to assume those things (like an ancient Earth) are true. It wasn't because we wanted them to be true. The early geologists and naturalists would have PREFERRED that they not be true. But they saw the facts and could no longer deny them. Even for Jesus.

Robert Byers said:

Just Bob said: Byers, the assumptions you keep banging on about BECAME assumptions because the accumulating mountains of facts FORCED us to assume those things (like an ancient Earth) are true. It wasn't because we wanted them to be true. The early geologists and naturalists would have PREFERRED that they not be true. But they saw the facts and could no longer deny them. Even for Jesus.

No. The assumptions were accepted quickly because they needed them and rejected the old bible ones.

j. biggs said:

Robert Byers said:

eric said:

Robert Byers said: Investigation into the great claims and conclusions of evolution must be done by careful thought and research stripped of assumptions or desired results.

[My emphasis]. Why? Neal Shubin had a desired result when he dug in the ground for fossils; to find one. Do you think his desired result had some magical effect on the ground? Did it create the fossil? No. That would be silly. The folks at CERN desired to find a Higgs boson. They assumed that if it existed, it would likely be in the 100-150 GeV mass range. In fact, they gambled millions of dollars in equipment manufacture and thousands of hours of labor on this assumption, because the detectors and experiment were tuned to look at particles in that range. Do you think their assumptions and desired result created the Higgs? I hope not - again, that would be silly. Every human investigation contains assumptions and desired results. There is no getting way from it. Evolutionary science is no more invalid because of this than any other area of science. Fortunately for science, our assumptions and desired results do not appear to alter nature. True, they may lead to errors due to bias, but that is what peer review is for; to discover and correct the errors we make due to hidden assumptions and biases. You seem to have forgotten that one of the key parts of science is to form an hypotheses. And then test that hypothesis. You can't do those two steps without making assumptions and gaining some expectation of how an experiment might turn out.

Its greatly been lines of reasoning from entry level data.

This sentence is incomprehensible to me; please explain what you mean.

Well. You admit assumptions are relevant to evolutionary biological claims! Yes this is true.

Eric didn't limit this conclusion to just evolutionary biology but extended it to all of science. Assumptions are essential part of the scientific method and just about everyone has told you this. Assumptions are thrown out if proven false through observation or experiment.

The scientific method is to strip bare assumptions distoring conclusions. Thats why its a methodology. Desired results and assumptions must not interfere with investigation. Therefore scientific methodology must only allow conclusions based on observations or experiment or predictions etc .

The scientific community vets all of the assumptions, testing, experimental design, observation and makes sure that the conclusions drawn from all those things are accurate to a high degree. Desired results have nothing to do with what the scientific consensus is. The scientific consensus is the conclusion that best fits all the available evidence within each particular discipline.

Likewise critics, like creationists, can question assumptions/desires and say they affected claimed results.

Question all you want but you and your YEC brethren are projecting because you presuppose YEC to be true even though there is no evidence to support it and plenty that contradicts it.

This is why evolution is so easily attacked on the merits. There is so much assumption and little fact behind it that its easy to take on.

If evolution is so easily attacked on its merits how come it is still considered the most important over-arching concept in Biology? How come most scientists in the relevant Biological fields understand that the evidence (facts) support evolution and contradict YEC.

Lines of reasoning replace facts/investigation etc in evolution a great deal. Darwin seeing differences in birds beaks simply reasoned this being from selection in nature means birds did evolve from bugs etc. Micro evolution (if its that) is the EVIDENCE for macro evolution. In fact heaps of evolutionists have argued with me its up to ME to show why micro couldn't lead to the macro results of biology. In short they believe this line of reasoning is evidence for evolution.

So now you attack an essential aspect of scientific methodology, specifically induction. Certainly from a philosophical standpoint we can't be absolutely certain that nature will behave in a consistent way on a day to day basis, but so far it has and there is no good reason to think it will stop until it does. If evolution can occur at a low level over short periods of time there is no reason to think that over long periods of time these changes wouldn't accumulate to such an extent as to produce extreme phenotypic and genetic differences between a new species and its distant ancestors.

modern evolutionists seeing rare cases, like in marine mammals, of good anatomical change then draw the line of reasoning that evolution is proven in all of biology. When all that is shown is a special case of air breathing critters living in the sea were once on land. The special or extreme case being the case in point for all of biology they reason.

Here you give an example of "macro"-evolution. That aquatic mammals would have at one time had land dwelling ancestors was an evolutionary assumption however several separate lines of evidence have now made it a warranted conclusion. From an inductive standpoint there is no reason to think that if macro-evolution could demonstrably occur in cetaceans that it couldn't occur in Hominidae, canidae, etc... and in fact separate lines of evidence for each of these families shows that evolution has indeed occured without exception.

lines of reasoning are when fossils in sequences in strata are proclaimed to be evolved from each other just because of the sequence. no other biological evidence and connections are purely geological ones. This is a big flaw .

But Byers, you just got done pointing out the biological evidence for evolution which just happens to be supported by the fossil record. The sequences observed in geologic stratigraphic layers are exactly what we would expect to see if evolution occured over deep geologic time and at the same time completely destroys the idea that there was a Noahic flood or a young earth. The flaw here is your reasoning.

lines of reasoning and not biological evidence are very dominant in evolutionary biology.

You have adequately demonstrated that evolution is a line of reasoning that is well supported by all the available evidence and that YEC is actually contradicted by that same evidence. Bravo.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said:

Darwin started with geological assumptions of long time passing on earth and fossils of life in those long ages.

Utterly dishonest (no matter how pig-ignorant this troll is). There is a host of things that indicate that the earth is old, and Darwin accepted the demonstrated fact that the earth is indeed old.

Darwin assumed the bible was not true

This is how nearly all creationists show how completely disingenuous and uncomprehending they are. They consider not assuming a fiction (that is, that the Bible is true) to be an assumption. Thus throwing away worthless prejudices become in this extremely dishonest misinterpretation an "assumption." Instead of questioning their own unevidenced assumptions, they just cast aspersions those who do question those worthless fictions as committing their own intellectual sins. My point not being more idiocies from the dullard Byers, of course, rather that the "sophisticated" creationists at the DI do essentially the same thing when claiming that "materialism" or "naturalism" are assumed. Of course they are not (despite the confusion many evince regarding "methodological naturalism," a bit of holdover piety deliberately leaving an unevidenced space for magic), they are just what can actually be demonstrated. We don't rule out the "supernatural," we simply don't have the first reason to take that fiction seriously. Glen Davidson

Scott F said:

j. biggs said:

Lines of reasoning replace facts/investigation etc in evolution a great deal. Darwin seeing differences in birds beaks simply reasoned this being from selection in nature means birds did evolve from bugs etc. Micro evolution (if its that) is the EVIDENCE for macro evolution. In fact heaps of evolutionists have argued with me its up to ME to show why micro couldn't lead to the macro results of biology. In short they believe this line of reasoning is evidence for evolution.

So now you attack an essential aspect of scientific methodology, specifically induction. Certainly from a philosophical standpoint we can't be absolutely certain that nature will behave in a consistent way on a day to day basis, but so far it has and there is no good reason to think it will stop until it does. If evolution can occur at a low level over short periods of time there is no reason to think that over long periods of time these changes wouldn't accumulate to such an extent as to produce extreme phenotypic and genetic differences between a new species and its distant ancestors.

On a recent thread, Byers has already admitted that he does not understand what scientific "induction" means, yet he rejects it completely. He explicitly claims that there is some kind of magical barrier that prevents "induction" from proceeding from "N+1" to "N+2". He has admitted that he doesn't know what that barrier might be, but he is absolutely certain that it must exist, because of his assumption that the Bible is literally true. That, and that alone, is his reason for all his conclusions. Further, because all of his "logic" is based on unchallenged and unassailable assumptions made by authority figures, he assumes that all of science is similarly based on unchallenged and unassailable assumptions from different authority figures. (Hence his fixation on establishing the "credentials" of the various "authorities".) He literally cannot comprehend any other way of "knowing". Therefore (the "logic" goes), because all knowledge is based on unchallenged and unassailable assumptions, his assumptions are just as valid as the "assumptions" of "science"; even more valid, because his assumptions are based on the infallible literal truth of God's Word. Hence his focus on "assumptions" and "lines of reasoning". He simply has no concept of what the words "evidence" or "facts" mean. In Byer's world, "evidence" and "facts" are things that conform to and support the inerrancy of the Bible. By definition, anything that does not conform to and support the inerrancy of the Bible is false, and must not be believed on pain of eternal damnation. (I would link to the AiG "Statement of Faith" where this is explicitly spelled out, but I don't want to touch that web site from work. But Google will find it for you.)

Robert Byers said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said:

Darwin started with geological assumptions of long time passing on earth and fossils of life in those long ages.

Utterly dishonest (no matter how pig-ignorant this troll is). There is a host of things that indicate that the earth is old, and Darwin accepted the demonstrated fact that the earth is indeed old.

Darwin assumed the bible was not true

This is how nearly all creationists show how completely disingenuous and uncomprehending they are. They consider not assuming a fiction (that is, that the Bible is true) to be an assumption. Thus throwing away worthless prejudices become in this extremely dishonest misinterpretation an "assumption." Instead of questioning their own unevidenced assumptions, they just cast aspersions those who do question those worthless fictions as committing their own intellectual sins. My point not being more idiocies from the dullard Byers, of course, rather that the "sophisticated" creationists at the DI do essentially the same thing when claiming that "materialism" or "naturalism" are assumed. Of course they are not (despite the confusion many evince regarding "methodological naturalism," a bit of holdover piety deliberately leaving an unevidenced space for magic), they are just what can actually be demonstrated. We don't rule out the "supernatural," we simply don't have the first reason to take that fiction seriously. Glen Davidson

I don't think I'm pig-ignorant, a troll, or dishonest but i'll leave that to the voters . Darwin did presume long ages and he needed them to go from bubbles to buffalos. He insisted his readers accept this. So he admits his ideas need geological assumptions to back him up. Yes. evolution is greatly based on geology and is not just unworkable without it but has no great evidence without geological assumptions. Something real sciences don't do.

Tenncrain said:

Rolf said:

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Robert, why do you think oil companies spend big bucks drilling for oil based on the geological "assumptions" that you say they should deny? Because the "assumptions" are wrong? Or is it the other way around; the fact that those assumptions are of great value, the oil industry is proof they are correct, facts, not just any old "assumption"? What you want to dismiss as mere assumptions never were; they were sound scientific reasoning based on facts that soon became evidence when subjected to scientific investigation. So go ahead smart guy, study the facts, show they are wrong or shut up!

We would be eager to see Byers do point-by-point criticism of this Christian oriented video (click here) which explains how the oil industry routinely finds oil deposits using bio-stratigraphy. The link also has examples of YEC oil employees that were horrified upon discovering firsthand that their YEC beliefs were useless in finding oil.

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Well, as has been explained countless times to Byers, both Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace mainly used evidence for evolution other than the fossil record within the rocks. At the time, they viewed the fossil record as too incomplete, so Darwin and Wallace instead used evidence like comparative anatomy of living species, behaviorism among species, and bio-geography. This goes to show that if there wasn't a single fossil in existance, evolution would still be strong. Later on, fields like molecular genetics and evo-devo added more independent evidence, along with the filling in of many gaps in the fossil record (like the Tiktaalik fossils in far northern Canada).

So, Robert Byers, where in the Bible did it say that whales are descended from cows that magically hyper-evolved in than a thousand years?

apokryltaros said: So, Robert Byers, where in the Bible did it say that whales are descended from cows that magically hyper-evolved in than a thousand years?

Robert Byers lied: Yes i believe evolution really can be wounded by close analysis of its claims to be the result of a science of biology.

My whole case is that evolution is not true and couldn’t possibly have any biological evidence behind it therefore.

Robert Byers said: I don't think I'm pig-ignorant, a troll, or dishonest but i'll leave that to the voters .

Robert Byers said: No. The assumptions were accepted quickly because they needed them and rejected the old bible ones.

Robert Byers said: [emphasis added] Micro doesn’t prove macro even if it was true. Therefore evidence for macro evolution is wanting by the evidence of the need to invoke reasoning from minor details of micro evolution. All one has to do is provide a barrier to macro evolution and you must admit quickly there is no actual biological evidence for macro but only that one could not imagine any barrier .

Robert Byers said: I understand induction.

Robert Byers said: It isn't biologically evidenced strong even if it was otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are something else.

Robert Byers said: Everyone should see it that way too.

Robert Byers said: I don't think I'm pig-ignorant, a troll, or dishonest but i'll leave that to the voters . [...] My whole case is that evolution is not true and couldn’t possibly have any biological evidence behind it therefore.

I love how Byers goes on about Darwin himself but doesn't seem to know any more about him then what he has been told by his bible-banging buddies. Darwin had just finished his theological studies and was about to be ordained as a minister and assigned a church when he had the chance to go on the HMS Beagle. While on the ship he was sometimes teased for being too much of a Biblical literalist. Secondly he was much more interested in geology then biology and spent a lot of time looking for fossils in South America. So much for developing evolution and then using the fossils. He looked at a number of sources of evidence and then hypothesized an
explanation that took all of what he had seen into account. He did not start from a position of Biblical denial he came to that conclusion only after years of looking at evidence. Robert if you are going to make comments about what Darwin did I suggest you do a little reading first. How about Desmond and Moore's "Darwin, the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist". Yeah I know wishing you would educate yourself first is like wishing to win the lottery. It happens but not often.

Creationism isn’t biologically evidenced strong and it was not otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are still biological evidence. Creationists used lines of reasoning and their final conclusions needed assumptions of geological claims. Fossils wasn’t to them important but ever since its still not been very important.

My whole case is that creation is not true and couldn’t possibly have any biological evidence behind it therefore. So i pay attention, and try to get others, to the claims of biological evidence creationists put up. i’m not debunking the data itself but the claim their conclusions come from biological investigation. they come from elsewhere and even if true, NOT, but even if true they still ain’t the recoy of what they claim to be.

Yes i believe creation really can be wounded by close analysis of its claims to be the result of a science of biology. In fact, every real scientist has concluded that it is dead wrong, so let it die and stop beating the dead corpse of it.

DS said: Creationism isn’t biologically evidenced strong and it was not otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are still biological evidence. Creationists used lines of reasoning and their final conclusions needed assumptions of geological claims. Fossils wasn’t to them important but ever since its still not been very important. My whole case is that creation is not true and couldn’t possibly have any biological evidence behind it therefore. So i pay attention, and try to get others, to the claims of biological evidence creationists put up. i’m not debunking the data itself but the claim their conclusions come from biological investigation. they come from elsewhere and even if true, NOT, but even if true they still ain’t the recoy of what they claim to be. Yes i believe creation really can be wounded by close analysis of its claims to be the result of a science of biology. In fact, every real scientist has concluded that it is dead wrong, so let it die and stop beating the dead corpse of it.

terenzioiltroll said:

Robert Byers said: I don't think I'm pig-ignorant, a troll, or dishonest but i'll leave that to the voters . [...] My whole case is that evolution is not true and couldn’t possibly have any biological evidence behind it therefore.

Ok, very nice. You almost got me. Now: just which one of you, smart guys, is Robert Byers?

Robert Byers said:

Tenncrain said:

Rolf said:

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Robert, why do you think oil companies spend big bucks drilling for oil based on the geological "assumptions" that you say they should deny? Because the "assumptions" are wrong? Or is it the other way around; the fact that those assumptions are of great value, the oil industry is proof they are correct, facts, not just any old "assumption"? What you want to dismiss as mere assumptions never were; they were sound scientific reasoning based on facts that soon became evidence when subjected to scientific investigation. So go ahead smart guy, study the facts, show they are wrong or shut up!

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Well, as has been explained countless times to Byers, both Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace mainly used evidence for evolution other than the fossil record within the rocks. At the time, they viewed the fossil record as too incomplete, so Darwin and Wallace instead used evidence like comparative anatomy of living species, behaviorism among species, and bio-geography. This goes to show that if there wasn't a single fossil in existence, evolution would still be strong. Later on, fields like molecular genetics and evo-devo added more independent evidence, along with the filling in of many gaps in the fossil record (like the Tiktaalik fossils in far northern Canada).

It isn't biologically evidenced strong even if it was otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are something else.

Robert Byers said: Darwin used lines of reasoning and his final conclusions needed assumptions of geological claims. Fossils wasn't to him important but ever since its been very important.

We would be eager to see Byers do point-by-point criticism of this Christian oriented video (click here) which explains how the oil industry routinely finds oil deposits using bio-stratigraphy. The link also has examples of YEC oil employees that were horrified upon discovering firsthand that their YEC beliefs were useless in finding oil.

Byers,
This entry was about a response to a creationist book. Can we take it from your silence that you agree with Paul's critique? If not where has he got it wrong?

MichaelJ said: Byers, This entry was about a response to a creationist book. Can we take it from your silence that you agree with Paul's critique?

Scott F said:

Robert Byers said: It isn't biologically evidenced strong even if it was otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are something else.

Robert Byers said: Everyone should see it that way too.

Really? The study of the behavior of living creatures does not deal with living biology? What else could it possibly be? Dead animals and inanimate rocks don't exhibit much "behavior" to study. The study of "bio geography" is the study of how living creatures are distributed around the world. You say that isn't dealing with "living biology"? What else could it possibly be? The study of anatomy deals with how living creatures move their bodies and limbs. You say that isn't dealing with "living biology"? Dead animals and inanimate rocks don't "move" very much. If a "living animal" is not "living biology", then what in God's creation could the term "living biology" possibly mean to you? Black is not black, and white is not white. Why? Because I say it is so. Dear Robert. Simply making shit up and lying is not going to convince any one that they should see it that way too.

Mary H said: I love how Byers goes on about Darwin himself but doesn't seem to know any more about him then what he has been told by his bible-banging buddies. Darwin had just finished his theological studies and was about to be ordained as a minister and assigned a church when he had the chance to go on the HMS Beagle. While on the ship he was sometimes teased for being too much of a Biblical literalist. Secondly he was much more interested in geology then biology and spent a lot of time looking for fossils in South America. So much for developing evolution and then using the fossils. He looked at a number of sources of evidence and then hypothesized an explanation that took all of what he had seen into account. He did not start from a position of Biblical denial he came to that conclusion only after years of looking at evidence. Robert if you are going to make comments about what Darwin did I suggest you do a little reading first. How about Desmond and Moore's "Darwin, the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist". Yeah I know wishing you would educate yourself first is like wishing to win the lottery. It happens but not often.

MichaelJ said: Byers, This entry was about a response to a creationist book. Can we take it from your silence that you agree with Paul's critique? If not where has he got it wrong?

Wrong, Byers. Utterly, maniacally, ridiculously false. Darwin was convinced of the ancient earth from about 1830 onward, as soon as he read Lyall and began observing geology for himself. Anyone who becomes aware of the facts of stratigraphy, sedimentation, faulting, folding, overthrust and superposition of denser strata over less dense, cannot deny that the earth is ancient. No other conclusion makes sense.

He observed the facts of biogeography - that species in isolated locations are often morphologically specialised variations on more generalised species found in the nearest non-isolated land mass. That distantly separated but similar environments have life forms that are different, yet fill the same niches. That small flightless birds are found only on distant oceanic islands that do not have mammalian predators. That invasive species, but not native species, can reproduce without checks, to the destruction of the environment and even their own.

He read Malthus, and understood that all living things produce more offspring than can potentially survive. He realised the necessary implication of this observation - that there must exist a competition among them for this survival. He observed artificial selection, and understood that all the offspring of all living things vary slightly from their parents, which variations can be selected and passed on. His great insight followed - that the competition for survival in a particular environment performs exactly the same selection function.

Put those understandings together, and that's evolution. Evolution must happen. It can't not. Tracing it backwards with the time available to the ancient earth necessarily implies common descent. Darwin and Wallace saw that. They recognised the truth of it. The observations are undeniable; their implications are inescapable.

Darwin agonised over that. Long after he had formed the necessary conclusions from the observations he had made, he grappled with his own religion. He was simply not able to believe that the earth was not ancient, because the evidence of his senses told him otherwise. He was simply not able to believe that all life was separately created, because his observations of fact denied it. Gradually, he realised that if the Church insisted that the Biblical account must be taken literally, then the Church was wrong.

He did not come to that conclusion lightly or gladly, and he came to it after he had sifted through the facts for many years. Still more did he regret his inability to trust in the benevolence or goodness of a God who worked by such methods. But that came later.

Byer's thesis, that Darwin was motivated by rebellion against God and synthesised the Theory of Evolution out of it, is a flat straight lie that is contradicted by the historical facts. Byers lies.

Robert Byers said:

MichaelJ said: Byers, This entry was about a response to a creationist book. Can we take it from your silence that you agree with Paul's critique? If not where has he got it wrong?

His critique included questioning , as it always matters , who is a scientist and who is doing science in these things. I answered this point and it went from there. i just addressed this point.

Dave Luckett said: Byer's thesis, that Darwin was motivated by rebellion against God and synthesised the Theory of Evolution out of it, is a flat straight lie that is contradicted by the historical facts. Byers lies.

No making anything up. Creationism here is about the ability of mythology and the reality of it to have never changed from this to that. The living thing itself is completely irrelevant to creationism. Creatures locale, manners, or bone structures are related to origins. tHese other subjects are simply not invoked to provide evidence for creationism because its wanting in actual biological evidence. Theres no creation going on right now in any biological entity.

I'm late to this party, and look forward to reading McBride's review. In the meantime, please feel free to give away the punch line if it has been mentioned there and/or upthread. Since this book fulfills a post-Dover prediction that the DI will pander more to committed Biblical literalists*, do the authors directly challenge their own colleague Michael Behe on common descent, or not?

*At least the OEC and new-agey "what is time anyway" subsets. YEC followers of AiG and ICR will be disappointed.

Robert Byers said:

Scott F said:

Robert Byers said: It isn't biologically evidenced strong even if it was otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are something else.

Robert Byers said: Everyone should see it that way too.

Really? The study of the behavior of living creatures does not deal with living biology? What else could it possibly be? Dead animals and inanimate rocks don't exhibit much "behavior" to study. The study of "bio geography" is the study of how living creatures are distributed around the world. You say that isn't dealing with "living biology"? What else could it possibly be? The study of anatomy deals with how living creatures move their bodies and limbs. You say that isn't dealing with "living biology"? Dead animals and inanimate rocks don't "move" very much. If a "living animal" is not "living biology", then what in God's creation could the term "living biology" possibly mean to you? Black is not black, and white is not white. Why? Because I say it is so. Dear Robert. Simply making shit up and lying is not going to convince any one that they should see it that way too.

No making anything up. Biology here is about the ability of biology and the reality of it to have changed from this to that. The living thing itself. Creatures locale, manners, or bone structures are not related to origins. tHese other subjects are simply invoked to provide evidence for evolution because its wanting in actual biological evidence. Theres no evolution going on right now in any biological entity.

YEC followers of AiG and ICR will be disappointed [with "Science and Human Origins"].

— I

Dave Luckett said: Byer's thesis, that Darwin was motivated by rebellion against God and synthesised the Theory of Evolution out of it, is a flat straight lie that is contradicted by the historical facts. Byers lies.

C'mon, folks - get thee over to Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Science-Human-Origins-Ann-Gauger/dp/193659904X - and enter some reviews and comments to reviews. There are nine 5-star reviews and only three 1-star reviews (Paul McBride's, mine and one other). We're being out-gunned by the Dishonesty Institute's sock-puppets. Help!

Paul Burnett said:

Dave Luckett said: Byer's thesis, that Darwin was motivated by rebellion against God and synthesised the Theory of Evolution out of it, is a flat straight lie that is contradicted by the historical facts. Byers lies.

Of course Byers lies - Byers is a creationist - all creationists are Liars For Jesus(TM). Keep that basic truth in mind.

Frank J said: Including David Klinghoffer, Michael Medved and Ben Stein? How about Harun Yahya?

Just Bob said:

Frank J said: Including David Klinghoffer, Michael Medved and Ben Stein? How about Harun Yahya?

No, no! They aren't CHRISTIANS. They practice FALSE RELIGIONS. That means they work for SATAN!

Robert Byers said:

Tenncrain said:

Rolf said:

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Robert, why do you think oil companies spend big bucks drilling for oil based on the geological "assumptions" that you say they should deny? Because the "assumptions" are wrong? Or is it the other way around; the fact that those assumptions are of great value, the oil industry is proof they are correct, facts, not just any old "assumption"? What you want to dismiss as mere assumptions never were; they were sound scientific reasoning based on facts that soon became evidence when subjected to scientific investigation. So go ahead smart guy, study the facts, show they are wrong or shut up!

Robert Said: Put down his book if one denies these geological assumptions. One should.

Well, as has been explained countless times to Byers, both Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace mainly used evidence for evolution other than the fossil record within the rocks. At the time, they viewed the fossil record as too incomplete, so Darwin and Wallace instead used evidence like comparative anatomy of living species, behaviorism among species, and bio-geography. This goes to show that if there wasn't a single fossil in existence, evolution would still be strong. Later on, fields like molecular genetics and evo-devo added more independent evidence, along with the filling in of many gaps in the fossil record (like the Tiktaalik fossils in far northern Canada).

It isn't biologically evidenced strong even if it was otherwise strong(not that either) bio geography, anatomy, behaviorism , are not subjects dealing with living biology. They are something else.

Robert Byers said: Darwin used lines of reasoning and his final conclusions needed assumptions of geological claims. Fossils wasn't to him important

Robert Byers said: but ever since its been very important.

We would be eager to see Byers do point-by-point criticism of this Christian oriented video (click here) which explains how the oil industry routinely finds oil deposits using bio-stratigraphy. The link also has examples of YEC oil employees that were horrified upon discovering firsthand that their YEC beliefs were useless in finding oil.

SteveP. said: And here we obviously have encountered the enlightened one, one Mr. Dave Wisker who actually does know something about chromosome fusions. Hell, DNA repair mechanisms did it! Who would have thunk it? What's more, the repair mechanisms are so good, that the repair outperformed the original model. What a fantastic thing evolution is; how dynamic, how creative, how enterprising; all in it's purposeless, rudderless wonder! Bartender? I'll have another one of those, please.

Dave Wisker said: Luskin's discussion of human chromosome 2 is a joke. First of all, the fusion is not evidence of common ancestry-- its the only cytogenetic explanation that makes sense if common ancestry is true. Secondly, Luskin and his experts seem to be surprised that there is less telomeric material at the fusion point than would be expected if the two chromosomes fused head-to-head. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think the fusion involved somehow gluing two complete chromosomes together, with complete conservation of all the telomeric material. But that's not how centric fusions (a particular type of Robertsonian translocation) occur. This particular fusion involved two breaks, one in the telomeric region of each chromosome. Then the DNA repair mechanisms fused the two chromosomes together. But wait-- what about the small pieces of telomeric material that broke off? They were lost because of the lack of a centromere for proper segregation. So...in a centric fusion with the breaks occurring in the telomeric regions, of which human chromosome 2 is an example, we would expect a NET LOSS OF TELOMERIC MATERIAL. Which is what Luskin and his toadies think shouldn't be happening. Its obvious Luskin and his minions have no idea how chromosome fusions occur.Yet here they are, pontificating about it to a scientifically illiterate public. They disgust me to my very core.