It's Paul Nelson Day, again

Posted 7 April 2016 by PZ Myers

Solemn greetings, all. Today, as the more reverent among you know, is Paul Nelson Day. Today is the 12th annual feast day of St Nelson, patron saint of obtusity and procrastination, and we honor his contributions to science by...well, by not doing much of anything at all. You could make grandiose claims today and promise to make good on them tomorrow, a tomorrow that stretches out into a decade or more, I suppose, but that's too much work. Instead, maybe we should all just shrug and say we'll think about celebrating later.

Oh, jeez, shrugging? I don't have time for that. How about if we don't and just say we did.

I also thought about suggesting waffles as the perfect food for this day, but nah, I'd have to cook them, or go to a restaurant. I'm just going to say "waffles!" and put it off to some other day.

Anyway, if you don't know the story, Paul Nelson is a creationist who attended the Society for Developmental Biology meetings in 2004, with a poster in which he claimed to have developed this new evo-devoish parameter, Ontogenetic Depth, that supposedly measured the difficulty of developmental complexity to evolve. I quizzed him on it, and specifically asked him to explain how I could measure it in my zebrafish, for example, and he couldn't tell me, even though he seemed to be saying that he and a student had been doing these 'measurements'. But he promised to send me a paper he was working on that explained it all. Tomorrow! A tomorrow that never came.

So now we remind him of his failure every year. It's a good thing to point out to Intelligent Design creationists that they don't seem to be very good at fulfilling their grand promises.

He seems to sometimes notice that he's being mocked, at least. Last year, he tried to trot out Ontogenetic Depth 2.0, which was just as impractical and ill-conceived as the first non-existent version. Maybe he'll have a new beta for us this year, too?

Unlikely. Too much work. Not in the spirit of the day.

75 Comments

Mike Elzinga · 7 April 2016

Paul Nelson claims:

Current evolutionary theory falls short because it excludes a priori notions such as foresight -- not for any evidential reason, but because foresight requires mind, and mind is philosophically unacceptable within the prevailing materialist outlook.

So, according to Paul Nelson's "reasoning," foresight is required for all other bifurcating systems as well. All one has to do to recognize that "fact" is to go out on one of the billions of twigs downstream on a successively branching system and ask, "How did this specified twig come to be?". If one looks at the entire panorama of living organisms - past and present - that have formed on this planet, why is Nelson singling out a specified sequence of cell divisions of a specified organism and proclaiming that this is a problem for evolution? The "argument" is irrelevant to evolution because atoms and molecules aren't inert objects being blown about by a tornado into specified arrangements. But the "reasoning" itself is also a fallacy because it is like looking at millions upon millions of, say, five-card deals, pointing to a specific one, and asserting that this particular set of cards is so improbable that card dealing is impossible without foresight. Perhaps ID/creationists cheat a lot at poker.

Michael Fugate · 7 April 2016

The only ones making a priori notions are creationists. They have no evidential reason for gods of any kind. The evidence such as we have points to a lack of foresight. The "materialist outlook" is based on the evidence not in spite of the evidence, as is the supernaturalist outlook.

Robert Byers · 7 April 2016

There never should be a ....DAY if its purpose is to highlight someone within the nation as being put in their place. Its the priveloge of home ownership. There are many "DAYS" that should be revoked in the political calendar.
Anyways.
Its not easy to prove complexity can't create itself. Its up to those who say it can to prove it could and/or did.
ID is always striving to show this couldn't created itself because of mutual components needed to exist and progress. thats a good idea.
Thats the irreducible complexity idea. YEt its not provable except by reasoning.
Its all really a extension of the clock being found in the forest. Which is a extension of the bible saying nature proves by its complexity the existence of a creator.
Proving things are too complex is very slippery. Its up to the others to prove complexity came from bumps in the forest.

phhht · 7 April 2016

Robert Byers said: There never should be a ....DAY if its purpose is to highlight someone within the nation as being put in their place. Its the priveloge of home ownership. There are many "DAYS" that should be revoked in the political calendar. Anyways. Its not easy to prove complexity can't create itself. Its up to those who say it can to prove it could and/or did. ID is always striving to show this couldn't created itself because of mutual components needed to exist and progress. thats a good idea. Thats the irreducible complexity idea. YEt its not provable except by reasoning. Its all really a extension of the clock being found in the forest. Which is a extension of the bible saying nature proves by its complexity the existence of a creator. Proving things are too complex is very slippery. Its up to the others to prove complexity came from bumps in the forest.

Gods you're dumb, Byers. But at least sometimes you're a real hoot.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 · 7 April 2016

Its not easy to prove complexity canât create itself. Its up to those who say it can to prove it could and/or did.

= I can't prove it isn't so you have to prove it is" Some people should not be allowed to own anything sharper than a rubber ball.

Just Bob · 7 April 2016

https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 said: Some people should not be allowed to own anything sharper than a rubber ball.

You can CHOKE on one of those!

stevaroni · 7 April 2016

Mike Elzinga said: So, according to Paul Nelson's "reasoning," foresight is required for all other bifurcating systems as well. All one has to do to recognize that "fact" is to go out on one of the billions of twigs downstream on a successively branching system and ask, "How did this specified twig come to be?".

Om many occasions, people have given me access to a building or cabinet, or loaned me a car, using the complex process of dropped a big key ring in my hands and sending me on my way. In an industrial setting this was sometimes a very big key ring. Shockingly, though I had no insider knowledge about which key to use I have usually been able to open said room or start said car. I simply tried all the keys, and whichever one works is the one I continued to use. It should always be remembered that this is how evolution works. it simply tries a bunch of combinations, then, after the fact it "decides" to keep using whichever solution already worked, usually because the non-working solutions are no longer in contention, being conveniently dead.

Dave Luckett · 7 April 2016

Easy, there. Byers is claiming that complexity cannot arise spontaneously from simpler components unless foresight, and hence mind, is involved. He says that if we think it can, it's up to us to demonstrate it.

Oddly enough, this procedure is the foundation of rational discourse. I realise, of course, that Byers has stumbled over it in the dark, but he happens to be right. His "clock in the forest" (aka watch on a heath) is right twice a day, after all.

So let us demonstrate that complexity can arise from simpler components, and can do so spontaneously and without foresight. Ready? Snowflakes. Dendritic drainage patterns. Solar systems. Crystal lattices. Zipf's law. Weather systems. Many other examples. Done.

So Byers will now argue that life is an exception to a general rule that has been proven good in many other cases. This is not a negative. It is in turn a positive assertion that must be demonstrated. That is, Byers must demonstrate that life is unique among many other complex systems.

Discourse, Byers. Here or the BW is fine with me, if Prof Myers is disinclined to indulge you here.

Dr GS Hurd · 8 April 2016

It makes me feel old.

Another year gone. Dembski retired to a barbecue joint. Casey the Hamster just puffed away somewhere.

prongs · 8 April 2016

A rainbow is complex - a good example of complexity. It also has symmetry and beautiful colors. It is also very well understood as a natural phenomenon.

If I found a rainbow in an otherwise dull and grey sky, would I recognize its complexity and conclude it was designed?

TomS · 8 April 2016

Dave Luckett said: Easy, there. Byers is claiming that complexity cannot arise spontaneously from simpler components unless foresight, and hence mind, is involved. He says that if we think it can, it's up to us to demonstrate it. Oddly enough, this procedure is the foundation of rational discourse. I realise, of course, that Byers has stumbled over it in the dark, but he happens to be right. His "clock in the forest" (aka watch on a heath) is right twice a day, after all. So let us demonstrate that complexity can arise from simpler components, and can do so spontaneously and without foresight. Ready? Snowflakes. Dendritic drainage patterns. Solar systems. Crystal lattices. Zipf's law. Weather systems. Many other examples. Done. So Byers will now argue that life is an exception to a general rule that has been proven good in many other cases. This is not a negative. It is in turn a positive assertion that must be demonstrated. That is, Byers must demonstrate that life is unique among many other complex systems. Discourse, Byers. Here or the BW is fine with me, if Prof Myers is disinclined to indulge you here.

ISTM that if there is a principle of "comsorvation of complexity" that there ought to be some reason to accept it. Are there examples of it being obeyed? I'm not going to dwell on whether there is a measure of complexity. It just seems that the advocates can only agree on there being examples of it not being obeyed: When humans are involved. In the ordinary course of life When there are small increases. (Such as snow flakes.) When there are spontaneous decreases. (We never search for an explanation for a decrease of complexity.) As far as I know, there is no exemption for any other law of nature when humans are involved.

Mike Elzinga · 8 April 2016

One of the most glaring characteristics of ID/creationist leaders is how poorly educated they are. There is a difference between being uneducated and being poorly educated.

ID/creationist leaders have filled their own heads with so much misinformation and so many misconceptions - while trying to keep "true" to their sectarian dogma - that the inconsistencies of their "arguments" against science are no longer visible to them.

With the exception of their mathematician, Granville Sewell, who used some third semester calculus for his "diffusion equation" in which he plugs in his "X-entropies," all of the attempts at math by Dembsk and all the other ID/creationist leaders fail at the high school level.

They all know only one way to calculate "complexity" of some sort; and that is to put arbitrary labels on specified arrangements of inert objects and then count all the arrangements of which their specified arrangement is a subset. But, as I mentioned above, they don't even know how to do this counting correctly. All permutations of all repeated objects in their specified arrangement produce the same result; so they should be dividing by all the factorials of the numbers of all the repeated objects. For example, all permutations of a given letter in a Shakespearean sonet result in the same sonet; and so it goes for each and every repeated letter or other ASCII character in the sonet.

Not only have these ID/creationist leaders not learned the basic combination and permutation counting techniques in elementary probability theory, they think the probability of any arrangement is simply the reciprocal of K^L where L is the length of a string of K objects per position. That's all the math they know. They really don't understand what taking logarithms does; or more properly, doesn't do.

Taking logarithms to base 2 of this "calculation" and calling it "information" adds two more layers of obfuscation to make the "calculation" look inpressive; but it doesn't change the underlying arithmetic. Slathering on hundreds of pages of pseudo philosophy then further removes any chance that one of their followers will ever figure out that the "calculation" is meaningless but will instead look upon their leaders as a scolarly geniuses.

The reason that Paul Nelson, William Dembski, and the rest have not made any progress with their "mathematical proofs" of intelligent design is because none of them is able to recognize the fact that their calculations have no meaning. They have been deluding themselves into thinking that a breakthrough is just around the next corner; only to be confronted with more difficulties because of the irrelevancy of the calculations that they can't see for themselves.

I suspect that Nelson and Dembski may have caught a brief glimmer of their own foolishness but have immediately shut down any such thought before it sinks in. Their main hope for pushing their pseudo math and pseudoscience lies in waiting for radical Right Wing political change throughout the country.

Henry J · 8 April 2016

Well, a truly educated person wouldn't be one of them, so...

harold · 9 April 2016

They all know only one way to calculate âcomplexityâ of some sort; and that is to put arbitrary labels on specified arrangements of inert objects and then count all the arrangements of which their specified arrangement is a subset. But, as I mentioned above, they donât even know how to do this counting correctly. All permutations of all repeated objects in their specified arrangement produce the same result; so they should be dividing by all the factorials of the numbers of all the repeated objects. For example, all permutations of a given letter in a Shakespearean sonet result in the same sonet; and so it goes for each and every repeated letter or other ASCII character in the sonet. Not only have these ID/creationist leaders not learned the basic combination and permutation counting techniques in elementary probability theory, they think the probability of any arrangement is simply the reciprocal of KL where L is the length of a string of K objects per position. Thatâs all the math they know. They really donât understand what taking logarithms does; or more properly, doesnât do. Taking logarithms to base 2 of this âcalculationâ and calling it âinformationâ adds two more layers of obfuscation to make the âcalculationâ look inpressive; but it doesnât change the underlying arithmetic. Slathering on hundreds of pages of pseudo philosophy then further removes any chance that one of their followers will ever figure out that the âcalculationâ is meaningless but will instead look upon their leaders as a scolarly geniuses.

This valuable summary literally tells you everything you need to know, and most likely everything you will ever need to know, about ID/creationist "probability arguments". I have some very modest formal training in probability, but you don't need it. A decent introductory poker book will typically contain a brief discussion of odds for lay people. It's usually enough to show why creationist probability claims are wrong. (Having said that, common wrong ideas about probability that plague some poker players overlap with creationist distortions.) Creationists literally always try to model "evolution" as the a priori probability that one sampling attempt from some implied multinomial distribution will produce and exact string. E.g. "There are four base pairs in DNA, therefore the 'probability of a string of three billion base pairs occurring by random chance' is one over four to the three billionth power". The "log base 2" crap is merely a conversion to binary/number of bits, to give this nonsense an "information science" veneer. There's a level of stupidity that can only be a product of bias, agenda, and insincerity, and this type of argument is an example of that. Of course it's true that if I have a massively large hat filled with a near infinite number of individual nucleotides, in equal proportion, and I get one chance to sample three billion of them, that is the probability that I will sample any individual exact sequence of three billion. So what? A model of evolution based on probability would have to make note of the following - 1) Massive numbers of samples being drawn in parallel. 2) Sampling is from a pool of what has been sampled and saved before, not from an infinite pool of units. 3) Selection - this could be thought of as a sum or integral - once something is sampled it may be discarded, or any number of copies of it may go into the pool for future sampling; where there is a higher probability that more copies will be retained we may call it "adaptive". For each level of amplification there is some probability. But no matter how adaptive, everything can be eliminated by chance. On the other hand many things will always be eliminated, if they are fundamentally incompatible with reproduction in all contexts (e.g. dominant alleles that cause fetal demise in 100% of cases). 4) Redundancy - many individual sequences are identical in terms of adaptation. Many such models already exist; in fact good population genetics models of this sort predate the discovery that nucleic acids make up the genetic code.

TomS · 9 April 2016

When meeting a creationist argument against evolution, it is often interesting to see how creationism can deal with the same problem.

What is the probability that a creator/designers without limits would produce a string of DNA?

The first approximation is one out divided by infinity: zero.

It is taking the wrong approach, to increase the number of possibilities.

If you are dealt AKQJ10 spades of cards, the better explanation is to say that the deck has fewer cards (like a penochle deck without 2, 3, ... 8), rather than saying that there is something which makes more outcomes possible. However small the probability of being dealt a royal flush out of a standard 52-card deck, it is even less from a deck which is supplemented with Uno cards. Or an omnipotent dealer who can make any card appear (not just 2 ... 10, but also 11, 12, ... google, and a duke of cups and balls, not just black and red, but also orange and purple. How about i of ultraviolet unicorns?)

Mike Elzinga · 9 April 2016

harold said: Many such models already exist; in fact good population genetics models of this sort predate the discovery that nucleic acids make up the genetic code.

One of the issues in the ID/creationist vs. science "debate" that I have tried to get a handle on but still don't fully understand is why apparently intelligent, well-educated people get sucked into a debate and then allow themselves to be dragged onto ID/creationist territory using the ID/creationist's misconceptions. Nobody in the science community believes that the kinds of calculations that ID/creationists do have anything to do with the formation of molecular assemblies; that is the significance of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Chemists and physicists have been working on these kinds of calculations for many decades; and those kinds of calculations go back into the 1920s, long before chemists and physicists began using the "newer" super computers to build up molecular assemblies from first principles. Now scientists are taking on complex organic molecules that have secondary, tertiary, and higher levels of complexity in the presence of water. Ever since Morris and Gish, I have tended to be not only miffed, but puzzled about the psychological states of people who would put those ridiculous "calculations" out in public and keep repeating them decade after decade even though they have been told the calculations are meaningless. I think that, with Morris and Gish, this kind of crap was partly to taunt scientists into public debates on college campuses. But within a few years, emboldened by the free publicity they got in the press, they reified this crap into their catechism which became the foundation of their "graduate program" at the Institute for Creation "Research." After that, morphing language to get around the courts became central to the ID/creationist movement, but the misconceptions and misrepresentations of science remain the central core of their dogma. But still, even today, reasonably intelligent and educated people get sucked into accepting the basic premises of ID/creationist calculations even though these calculations have never had anything to do with reality. I can understand that ID/creationist leaders quite likely have some deep psychological problems and god complexes. But what about others; how do they get suckered into accepting these lines of thinking?

Daniel · 9 April 2016

Dave Luckett said: So let us demonstrate that complexity can arise from simpler components, and can do so spontaneously and without foresight. Ready? Snowflakes. Dendritic drainage patterns. Solar systems. Crystal lattices. Zipf's law. Weather systems. Many other examples. Done.

As a computer engineer, my favorite has always been the so called Swarm-intelligence algorithms or Ant algorithms. It is basically a simple model of how ants behave when finding food. You can program just one single virtual ant with very simple rules: 1) Walk around, leaving behind a trail of pheromones 2) When you find a food source, go back to the nest 3) When walking around, give preference to a path already containing pheromones And that's it. With a large enough ant colony, you can easily find a shortest route to the food source... in other words, you can solve the travelling salesman problem to a very good approximation. The algorithm really does work like that, very simple and very efficient. A single virtual ant can't do anything, but put together enough of them, and they can solve quite complex problems.

John Harshman · 9 April 2016

It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.

harold · 10 April 2016

John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.

Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools. From the late 1960's through the late 1980's "creation science" gave equal attention to attacking the physical sciences and to attacking biological evolution. Edwards v. Aguillard made it clear that teaching "creation science" as science in public schools was a violation of the first amendment of the United States constitution. Creationists could always teach "creation science" in private schools, but the whole point of falsely equating sectarian dogma with science was to get it into public schools. So they decided to come up with a trick to sneak evolution denial into public schools. They had to avoid not only overt mention of God, but also overt mention of young Earth claims. This was because on numerous occasions "creation scientists" had been forced to admit in court that there was no reason, other than Biblical literalism, to claim a "young Earth". However, while avoiding overt mention of these things, they also had to use weaselly dog whistle code to imply these things. To meet these needs, ID was created. (Of course "Old Earth Creationism" also exists and is allied with the political right, but it's fringe movement mainly based around the personality of Canadian creationist Hugh Ross. Old Earth Creationism alienates many Young Earth Creationists. ID is intended to imply coded support for YEC. ID rarely directly contradicts OEC but is not the same thing. OEC advocates, who are few in number, overtly state that the Earth cannot be young, and is old. ID advocates carefully use language like "the Earth 'may' be old". This type of language panders to YEC, in the same way that someone saying "the sky 'may' be either blue or green" is pandering to green sky-ism. The sky is known to be blue, and if you say it 'may' be that, rather than saying that it is that, it's obvious that you're pandering to denial.) Right from the beginning, ID took mainly the following strategy - "Ignore all actual evidence for evolution, don't learn much or anything about biology (even if you ostensibly have formal training), and claim to have found something that 'proves from above' that evolution can't 'account for some feature of life, and that therefore ID (and by implication, YEC), wins by default". A well known example is the constant claim that the bacterial flagellum can't have evolved. To a rational mind, this claim is both false and irrelevant. In the creationist mind, though, creationism is the default. "Evolution" is just one of many attacks on creationism which must be defended against. Furthermore "evolution" is conceived of as an authoritarian ideology that always tries to explain everything. Therefore to a creationist "we don't know exactly how something evolved" is a good argument in favor of throwing up our hands and becoming authoritarian creationists. In the heady days between about 1999 and Dover, the popular media began taking ID seriously, even to the point that a figure like Dembski, now literally unable to hold a job at a Bible school or community college, was touted on mainstream news television as an "expert on intelligent design". In that transient atmosphere, Paul Nelson probably smelled opportunity and thought he could present himself as another "genius" who had "proven from above" that "evolution must be impossible". However, his efforts seem to have decreased since Dover reduced the monetary value of such antics. That may or may not be a coincidence.

TomS · 10 April 2016

I'd also suggest another motivation for "Intelligent Design", beyond the legal tactic. Young Earth Creationism had produced a number of patently ridiculous positions. Even people who had little exposure to science since high school could be uncomfortable with things like the "vapor canopy". But there would be the danger of alienating the YEC by explicitly accepting some traditional variation of OEC. The solution that was hit on was to postpone any discussion of things like the age of the Earth. Once "Darwinism" was defeated, then they could investigate such things, so the advocates of ID would tell us.

YEC, by the way, is an odd appearance, as most conservative Christians up until the mid-20th century had long abandoned it. YEC was a doctrine of the Seventh-Day Adventists, which were considered as not really Christians by more popular Protestants.

Bobsie · 10 April 2016

Another spinoff of "Intelligent Design" is that its a perfect Trojan Horse directed at mainstream religions.

What well-meaning religious person would deny their god was "intelligent" and was the ultimate "designer" of their reality. Thus the science naive religious person would be inclined to support a simplistic ID concept while innocently clueless with respect to its anti-science implications. And surely would be easily motivated to vote in support of ID public policy.

harold · 10 April 2016

Bobsie said: Another spinoff of "Intelligent Design" is that its a perfect Trojan Horse directed at mainstream religions. What well-meaning religious person would deny their god was "intelligent" and was the ultimate "designer" of their reality. Thus the science naive religious person would be inclined to support a simplistic ID concept while innocently clueless with respect to its anti-science implications. And surely would be easily motivated to vote in support of ID public policy.

I probably should have noted this in my brief historical summary above. The very name "Intelligent Design" is deceptive. All of us here are completely familiar with the fact that ID is just attempted "creation science made lawsuit-proof with cheap 'plausible deniability' tricks". In fact the attempt failed and the first judge to have those tricks attempted on him found against it. But yes, of course, the deceptive, weaselly nature of the name, which sounds like some innocuous New Age-y "spiritual" weak tea rather than the hard core right wing science denial it actually is, had a transient major impact. Mainstream journalists are generally not creationists. They are often naive and somewhat ill-informed, however. The science fiction/New Age sounding term "intelligent design" initially fooled a lot of them.

TomS · 10 April 2016

There is this observation from Cardinal John Henry Newman, in a letter to Brownlow, April 13, 1870

I have not insisted on the argument from design, because I am writing for the 19th Century, by which, as represented by its philosophers, design is not admitted as proved. And to tell the truth, though I should not wish to preach on the subject, for 40 years I have been unable to see the logical force of the argument myself. I believe in design because I believe in God; not in a God because I see design.

Mike Elzinga · 10 April 2016

Bobsie said: Another spinoff of "Intelligent Design" is that its a perfect Trojan Horse directed at mainstream religions. What well-meaning religious person would deny their god was "intelligent" and was the ultimate "designer" of their reality. Thus the science naive religious person would be inclined to support a simplistic ID concept while innocently clueless with respect to its anti-science implications. And surely would be easily motivated to vote in support of ID public policy.

This is an important point that is frequently overlooked. People like Ken Ham - who studied at the Institute for Creation Research under Morris and Gish - are constantly bashing other churches for their "giving in to accommodation with evolution." However, not as obvious is the fact the Intelligent Design movement spin-off from "scientific" creationism harbors considerable suppressed anger at mainline churches that have reject the ID/creationist's claims as being not only pseudoscience but as bad religion as well. Most recently - as was discussed here on Panda's Thumb - the Discovery Institute was hounding the Methodists to allow the DI to set up a booth peddling ID/creationism at this year's Methodist General Conference. The Methodists rejected the demand and the DI howled repeatedly without winning. There is little question that AiG, the ICR, and the DI continue to fume over the fact that many of the mainline churches have rejected their claims. I sometimes get the feeling after reading the ID/creationist diatribes against other churches that, if it weren't for secular laws restraining them, ID/creationists would be engaged in outright brutal warfare in attempting to conquer other churches; and there would be bloodshed. Recall the death threats against Judge John E. Jones after his ruling on Kitzmiller vs. Dover. I often get the impression that ID/creationists are angry, bitter people who believe secular society has subverted "True Christianity" and is out to get them; and they want desperately to settle imagined "old scores."

W. H. Heydt · 10 April 2016

Mike Elzinga said: I sometimes get the feeling after reading the ID/creationist diatribes against other churches that, if it weren't for secular laws restraining them, ID/creationists would be engaged in outright brutal warfare in attempting to conquer other churches; and there would be bloodshed. Recall the death threats against Judge John E. Jones after his ruling on Kitzmiller vs. Dover. I often get the impression that ID/creationists are angry, bitter people who believe secular society has subverted "True Christianity" and is out to get them; and they want desperately to settle imagined "old scores."

Which makes one suspect that they have a lot in common--or may actually be--fervent Trump supporters. (Though one would have expected them to support Cruz.)

DS · 10 April 2016

Maybe we should have a Floyd Lee day. He has been running away form many questions for years now, even some he promised to address. Perhaps we could list all the questions he has been avoiding once a year. But then again, that might give the impression that someone cares what he thinks.

KlausH · 10 April 2016

harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.

Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.

phhht · 10 April 2016

KlausH said:
harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.
Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, Klaus. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the Senate with the following tally: Democratic Party: 46â21 (69â31%) Republican Party: 27â6 (82â18%) (Wikipedia) so you must mean something else. Reference?

Teve Tory · 10 April 2016

Klaus either doesn't understand that the composition of the Democratic Party changed from 1964 to 2016, or he's pretending not to, to waste everyone's time.

harold · 10 April 2016

KlausH said:
harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.
Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

phhht · 10 April 2016

The Republican Party has been exploiting racial polarization to win elections and ignoring the black vote up at least to 2005, when Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for those practices. Now there is a general perception that the Republican party is trying to suppress minority votes.

Joel Eissenberg · 10 April 2016

KlausH said:
harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.
Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.

Folks, KlausH is a troll. Please don't feed the troll.

Just Bob · 10 April 2016

phhht said: Democratic Party: 46â21 (69â31%)

And that was before all the segregationist Dixiecrats jumped almost en masse to the Republican party. Now I wonder why they would do that. (One of my favorites was always Jesse Helms.)

DavidK · 10 April 2016

Many, many years ago a friend and I were playing with some dice, 11 to be exact, all identical, just throwing them for fun. One time I had an amazing throw, 11 snake eyes on one throw! Odds are roughly 362,797,056 to one for this to occur.

I just repeated this "experiment" with 11 dice, and what I came up with was in 7 series of throwing dice, I managed to easily throw 11 snake eyes with throws ranging from 11 to 20, or an average number of throws being 15.4 to get 11 snake eyes.

Which brings me to today's discussion. My throwing 11 snake eyes all at once is exactly what a creationist would claim is necessary to make up a DNA molecule (more than 11 dice of course), but the same notion that all must be thrown at the same time.

Not true for evolution, for every time one or more snake eyes appears, it does not disappear, but can be combined with other snake eyes until the total number of 11 is reached. Nature does not throw away its snake eyes, but they reside in the pool of available dice to be added to other snake eyes until a total of 11 is attained.

So this notion that to create a DNA molecule must occur with a single throw of the dice and requires some magical designer to "load" the dice is absolute nonsense, but it can simply be achieved by continuous throws of the dice and the resultant sum of dice evolves to 11, in this case, or am I off base?

Just Bob · 11 April 2016

DavidK said: So this notion that to create a DNA molecule must occur with a single throw of the dice and requires some magical designer to "load" the dice is absolute nonsense, but it can simply be achieved by continuous throws of the dice and the resultant sum of dice evolves to 11, in this case, or am I off base?

Something similar I wrote lo, these many years ago:

1,000 PENNIES Ten bucks worth of pennies is all it takes to show how fast a little selection can turn randomness into perfect order. (For fans of those tiny Chick Publications comic books: This is an analogy. If you donât know what that is, stop now.) Randomly scatter the pennies on a table. Apply a little ânaturalâ selection (after all, youâre not supernatural): pull out all that come up heads and set them aside (they will âsurviveâ). Flip all the tails again. Save the heads. Repeat until âperfect orderâ is achieved. How many âgenerationsâ will that take to âevolveâ the race of pennies from evenly mixed to pure heads? Nine or ten, with average luck. Make it slightly more realistic by giving the âfavored raceâ (Darwinâs term) just a slight survival advantage: save just two or three each time. You can still have all heads in less than an hour. All it takes is ârandom replicatorsâ (Dawkinsâs term) and a bit of selection pressure. The point is, a random system can become very organized, very fast, with just a little selection pressure.

Michael Fugate · 11 April 2016

Hey Klaus, what would be the vote today?

Frank J · 11 April 2016

Pardon my straying a bit from the topic, but the context of anti-evolution movement always helps not just newcomers, but even old-timers like me:

[After Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), promoters of creation "science"] had to avoid not only overt mention of God, but also overt mention of young Earth claims. This was because on numerous occasions "creation scientists" had been forced to admit in court that there was no reason, other than Biblical literalism, to claim a "young Earth".
— harold

Wait, this is big! Was that admission during the earlier (1982) McLean v. Arkansas case? Do you have any references to other occasions? I have no reason to doubt you, and in fact have long suspected as much. You might remember my long-time claim that, if anything, the necessity to omit "whodunit" gives them much more incentive to stick to the testable, "what happened when" claims. The only reason to backpedal, as they did, from what would be perfectly legal to teach no matter how much it reeked of Genesis, is lack of confidence that those claims could be supported with evidence. I have been long been convinced that the YEC activists of the 60s to 80s didn't just lack confidence, but simply did not personally believe that the evidence supported a young Earth (and thus recent abrupt appearance of many "kinds"). Though I allowed the possibility that they took that account "on faith" in spite of the evidence (Omphalos creationism). If they're on record as publicly admitting it, though, I find that even more significant than "cdesign proponentsists," in that it's an admission that creation "science" was a fraud from the beginning.

(Of course "Old Earth Creationism" also exists and is allied with the political right, but it's fringe movement mainly based around the personality of Canadian creationist Hugh Ross. Old Earth Creationism alienates many Young Earth Creationists. ID is intended to imply coded support for YEC. ID rarely directly contradicts OEC but is not the same thing. OEC advocates, who are few in number, overtly state that the Earth cannot be young, and is old. ID advocates carefully use language like "the Earth 'may' be old". This type of language panders to YEC, in the same way that someone saying "the sky 'may' be either blue or green" is pandering to green sky-ism. The sky is known to be blue, and if you say it 'may' be that, rather than saying that it is that, it's obvious that you're pandering to denial.)
— harold

Here too we agree, but I must add the little-known irony that, despite OEC activists being drowned out by YEC activists (further amplified by a media that likes the simplistic YEC-vs-evolution caricature), a slight majority of evolution-deniers-on-the-street nevertheless favors an OEC account (of which there are several) over "the" (heliocentric) YEC account (apparently even geocentrists outnumber YECs on the street). Granted, that's a "soft" OEC in which YEC is merely dismissed, not refuted. But when such deniers give more than 5 minutes' thought to the evidence, they lean even more toward OEC, and sometimes even concede common descent, at least that it "may be" true. ID promoters (IDers) have no problem with their audience believing, or even admitting old Earth and common descent. What they discourage is any attempt to refute any other anti-evolution position, however absurd they think it is. So while that makes IDers in effect friendliest to the most extreme anti-evolution positions, they would be perfectly fine, and probably even prefer, if YEC believers and YEC activists just went away. To bring it back to the topic of Paul Nelson, I guess I have to wait in line, because my unanswered question was only 8 years ago. But all I asked him for was a simple "yes or no" to the suggestion (by another commenter on the thread) that he might be an Omphalos creationist. A "yes" would mean that he honestly believes his account (apparently heliocentric YEC), despite no evidence; a "no" would mean that he truly believes he has evidence, in which case he would not need to waste time with "Ontogenetic Depth," which is no more favorable to YEC than to Behe's "OEC with common descent." Nelson answered later comments on the thread, so it's unlikely that he just missed mine.

Mike Elzinga · 11 April 2016

Frank J said: ... I have been long been convinced that the YEC activists of the 60s to 80s didn't just lack confidence, but simply did not personally believe that the evidence supported a young Earth (and thus recent abrupt appearance of many "kinds"). Though I allowed the possibility that they took that account "on faith" in spite of the evidence (Omphalos creationism). ...

I'm not sure one can say they lacked confidence; they seemed to be on a pretty focussed mission. One can make some inferences from the earlier publications coming from Morris and Gish at the Institute for Creation Research. The ICR published two versions of books they hoped would find their way into the classroom; one for the private, Christian schools, and another for the public schools. The former included lots of references to their bible and their god, the latter left out all references to religion. I may still have examples somewhere in my old files in the attic. One can also infer something from the cockiness of the "scientific" creationists; especially by Gish's behavior in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Gish would show up unannounced in public school biology classes and harrass the instructors in front of the students. In those days, all that was apparently required to show up in a classroom was an invitation by a student; often the teachers or administrators weren't informed. There was a lot about the early efforts of Morris and Gish that reeked of taunting; this apparently was their way of getting noticed and getting a free ride on the back of a scientist in public debates in which ID/creationists attempted to give the impression that they were offering a genuine alternative to secular science. The slides and overheads produced by the ICR were apparently meant to provoke; and they certainly did that. Other hints can be obtained from letters to the editors of local newspapers and from visits to the churches that were getting behind Morris and Gish. Those churches not only encouraged letter-writing campaigns to local news papers, they also really believed in the YEC version of history. I got the impression back then that these fundamentalists were on their usual proselytizing mission and were inflamed by the curriculum reforms that were implemented after Sputnik. Furthermore, this "new twist" of making young earth creationism "legitimate" using "science" being peddled by "genuine PhDs" seemed to generate a lot of grass-roots enthusiasm. And then many local newspapers gave them multipage spreads over a period of several years; so they got a lot of free advertising as well. The early "scientific" creationists were driven by a lot of passionate anger, and they did a lot of public scolding of teachers and the scientific community. Gish was a master at taunting and scolding.

harold · 11 April 2016

Wait, this is big! Was that admission during the earlier (1982) McLean v. Arkansas case? Do you have any references to other occasions? I have no reason to doubt you, and in fact have long suspected as much. You might remember my long-time claim that, if anything, the necessity to omit âwhodunitâ gives them much more incentive to stick to the testable, âwhat happened whenâ claims. The only reason to backpedal, as they did, from what would be perfectly legal to teach no matter how much it reeked of Genesis, is lack of confidence that those claims could be supported with evidence. I have been long been convinced that the YEC activists of the 60s to 80s didnât just lack confidence, but simply did not personally believe that the evidence supported a young Earth (and thus recent abrupt appearance of many âkindsâ). Though I allowed the possibility that they took that account âon faithâ in spite of the evidence (Omphalos creationism). If theyâre on record as publicly admitting it, though, I find that even more significant than âcdesign proponentsists,â in that itâs an admission that creation âscienceâ was a fraud from the beginning.

I have to admit I based that on memory and I could have been biased by the fact that Judge Jones so easily showed that the defendants had made their religious motivations clear in Dover. I am fairly sure there are earlier instances of creationists admitting that their motivation is religious, or having statements to that effect brought up in court. I can't document any with ease right now, though. However, I'm not saying they haven't, either. My money still says that if someone has time to go over court transcripts of MacLean and Aguillard there are plenty of examples there. For example, Wendell Bird was the attorney for Louisiana in Edwards. He later became staff attorney for ICR and the Association of Christian Schools International, as well as writing books pushing creationism in public schools. Here are the openly stated tenets of ICR http://www.icr.org/tenets While this isn't exactly an example of Mr. Bird stating under oath that his reason for believing in a Young Earth is the Bible, it is a set of circumstances that would make his denying this under oath highly suspect. He has an obvious, strong public record of making his religious affiliation and its relationship to his creationist beliefs very clear. I suspect that the most narrow and pedantic interpretation of what I said - actual court transcripts of creationist witnesses admitting on the stand that they hold their beliefs because of the Bible - is out there. At any rate, the important point is that they decided to disguise yet pander to in a coded way the YEC motivations of most who pay their bills. It doesn't matter if random people in the street who identify with the religious right are passively old Earth creationist (as you mention, almost everyone, presumably even Ken Ham, is a heliocentrist). They simply don't care about the details. They aren't protesting the Creation Museum because they obsessively believe that Ken Ham has mis-dated the age of the Earth. They're just going to it but don't care as much as Ken Ham about the exact dating. All they care about is the evolution denial. Actual active OEC, actually strongly believing in a motivated way that the Earth is old while still denying evolution, is a fairly rare stance. The reason is obvious, too. YEC and evolution denial go together like hand in glove. Earth too young for evolution! Once you start claiming that the Earth was sitting there doing nothing for a few billion years, you raise uncomfortable questions. It makes the most sense to accept science, and the second most "sense" to just be as consistently YEC as possible. OEC is the worst of both worlds, denying science while questioning a "literal" interpretation of the Bible (with the caveat that there is no true "literal" interpretation of a deliberately ambiguous and contradictory document, but it more obviously questions "literal" interpretation). I believe OEC is an anachronism - it was something that "liberal" churches floated to try make science more palatable back before WWII, when DNA hadn't been found to be the genetic material yet and so on. Mainstream churches moved on to just not denying science at all but a small group of crackpots are hard core OEC. Probably it won't much outlast Hugh Ross though. YEC is not an anachronism, it's a contemporary ideology. ID is an exponentially decaying legalistic disguised version of YEC that failed its legal test. As I have noted before, it cannot die out until the money that funds the DI runs out, but it is currently of interest to a few low traffic web sites, such as this one, PZ Meyers, UD, and EVN.

TomS · 11 April 2016

As far as OEC being a product of liberal churches.

Just about everybody had given up on the 6000 year history by the turn of the 20th century. As an example is the Scofield Reference Bible, a standard for "dispensationalism", which advocated the "gap theory" interpretation of Genesis 1, where there were indeterminate gaps between the days of creation. Another example is the testimony of Bryan at the Scopes Trial. It is worth mentioning that even some ancient Christians had troubles with accepting a simple-minded interpretation of the six days of creation.

The only holdouts for YEC seem to have been the Seventh Day Adventists, who had their own reasons - the visions of Ellen G. White - and conservative Protestants considered them as not Christians.

As far as the Arkansas trial, I remember that the "creation science" advocates brought Wickramasinghe to testify, and he didn't help when he dismissed any thought of less than a million years.

But I agree the fit of YEC with anti-evolution. Once one admits that there were millions of years of life before Adam, there seems to be no Biblical objection to evolution. I don't know whether that realization provided a motivation for YEC. The Omphalos Hypothesis is always a temptation to be avoided. I don't think that any evolution deniers want to talk about that.

harold · 12 April 2016

TomS said: As far as OEC being a product of liberal churches. Just about everybody had given up on the 6000 year history by the turn of the 20th century. As an example is the Scofield Reference Bible, a standard for "dispensationalism", which advocated the "gap theory" interpretation of Genesis 1, where there were indeterminate gaps between the days of creation. Another example is the testimony of Bryan at the Scopes Trial. It is worth mentioning that even some ancient Christians had troubles with accepting a simple-minded interpretation of the six days of creation. The only holdouts for YEC seem to have been the Seventh Day Adventists, who had their own reasons - the visions of Ellen G. White - and conservative Protestants considered them as not Christians. As far as the Arkansas trial, I remember that the "creation science" advocates brought Wickramasinghe to testify, and he didn't help when he dismissed any thought of less than a million years. But I agree the fit of YEC with anti-evolution. Once one admits that there were millions of years of life before Adam, there seems to be no Biblical objection to evolution. I don't know whether that realization provided a motivation for YEC. The Omphalos Hypothesis is always a temptation to be avoided. I don't think that any evolution deniers want to talk about that.

I used the term "liberal" churches broadly to mean churches not rigidly and ideologically allied with the political right. It's a stretch to call pre-WWII mainstream denominations "liberal" by modern standards. It's a very much a non-coincidence that Creation Science burst into prominence at a time when real science was exploding. There was plenty of evidence for evolution in 1920 - the fossil record of the time, comparative anatomy and physiology, light microscopic cell biology, and some knowledge of biochemistry. Nevertheless, basic molecular biology, and cell biology at the electron microscopy level were unknown. Both of those developed rapidly in the early post-WWII era. So in 1920, OEC had some mainstream appeal. "We decided to stop fighting against geology and physics, but we'll continue to claim that humans 'might' be descended from Adam and Eve and share no ancestry with other primates". But in the end OEC was, at that time, just a major league God of the Gaps argument, with the main gap being molecular biology. Now that we know a great deal about how genomes replicate, we know, first of all, that life has to be evolving, and that the process of evolution is adequate to explain the relatedness and diversity of the biosphere. We also obviously know that the genetic relationship between humans and other primates is exactly as common ancestry would predict. That reality badly damages any appeal of OEC. All contemporary forms of creationism attempt to rationalize away obvious evidence for evolution. The YEC framework does that best. Project your own biases onto your opponents and claim that the entire scientific community has everything wrong because they "presuppose atheism". (Actually an exact projection of what creationists do, they get everything wrong because they presuppose an emotionally motivated ideology.) While creationists do often contradict themselves, and while the "real scientists like physicists reject evolution" trope is sometimes inconsistently (and dishonestly) raised, science denial obviously makes more sense when the relative consistency of total denial is employed. "There was plenty of time for evolution, and by saying this I concede that Genesis uses unequivocally metaphorical language, but evolution just didn't happen" is not an appealing stance to anyone. "I know that 'liberal atheist' scientists are wrong because I know that the Bible is 'literally true', and therefore whatever 'evidence' they think they see is the product of their own biases and I don't even have to cause myself anxiety by looking at it" is more appealing as an ideological stance, for obvious reasons.

harold · 12 April 2016

TomS said: As far as OEC being a product of liberal churches. Just about everybody had given up on the 6000 year history by the turn of the 20th century. As an example is the Scofield Reference Bible, a standard for "dispensationalism", which advocated the "gap theory" interpretation of Genesis 1, where there were indeterminate gaps between the days of creation. Another example is the testimony of Bryan at the Scopes Trial. It is worth mentioning that even some ancient Christians had troubles with accepting a simple-minded interpretation of the six days of creation. The only holdouts for YEC seem to have been the Seventh Day Adventists, who had their own reasons - the visions of Ellen G. White - and conservative Protestants considered them as not Christians. As far as the Arkansas trial, I remember that the "creation science" advocates brought Wickramasinghe to testify, and he didn't help when he dismissed any thought of less than a million years. But I agree the fit of YEC with anti-evolution. Once one admits that there were millions of years of life before Adam, there seems to be no Biblical objection to evolution. I don't know whether that realization provided a motivation for YEC. The Omphalos Hypothesis is always a temptation to be avoided. I don't think that any evolution deniers want to talk about that.

You'll note that I didn't say that YEC was associated with illiberal right wing politics before the 1960's. That's because it wasn't. It was required dogma for only a few churches, such as Seventh Day Adventist, but was not that uncommon as a tolerated individual view among rural evangelicals. Ironically, Ben Carson, despite his personal flaws, is also a strong demonstration of the past progressive side of such traditions. Despite denying key elements of science, Seventh Day Adventists have traditionally encouraged education. Evangelical churches were most certainly not strongly associated with the political right, traditionally. I'll ask the rhetorical question, does anybody think that rural evangelicals were a big demographic for Herbert Hoover or Calvin Coolidge? The religious right appropriated and distorted the worst aspects of the evangelical tradition.

DS · 12 April 2016

harold said: Ironically, Ben Carson, despite his personal flaws, is also a strong demonstration of the past progressive side of such traditions. Despite denying key elements of science, Seventh Day Adventists have traditionally encouraged education.

Well that's a might tough row to hoe. How can you "encourage education" while at the same time denying all of the conclusions of science? Seems to me that you are just sowing the seeds of your own destruction. And you will definitely reap what you sow.

TomS · 12 April 2016

What I'm only interested in pointing out that YEC is an innovation of the 1960s. The idea of making up stuff with an air of science to it - and no theological or Biblical warrant - in order to support 6000 years of the Earth, and that that was central to Christianity.

harold · 12 April 2016

DS said:
harold said: Ironically, Ben Carson, despite his personal flaws, is also a strong demonstration of the past progressive side of such traditions. Despite denying key elements of science, Seventh Day Adventists have traditionally encouraged education.
Well that's a might tough row to hoe. How can you "encourage education" while at the same time denying all of the conclusions of science? Seems to me that you are just sowing the seeds of your own destruction. And you will definitely reap what you sow.

It is a bizarre paradox and I'm obviously not defending it. In this thread, I'm putting Paul Nelson's behavior in historical perspective. It's always been wrong to deny science but evangelical traditions were once something more than one dimensional right wing propaganda support. In the 1960's the "religious right" appropriated and distorted features found in evangelical traditions. They also concocted "creation science" to force their science denial into public schools. "Creation science" was defeated in court so they tried to disguise it as "Intelligent Design" through the use of dog whistle code and dissembling verbosity. The media was very transiently fooled by, or perhaps complicit in, this ruse, and for a brief period it looked as if ID bullshit artists were going to be on television and sell lots of books on a regular basis. I hypothesize that Paul Nelson decided to get in on that scam. But then Dover took the wind out of the sails of ID. It's now worth a great deal less to be an "ID advocate" than it was in 2003; I'm sure we can all agree on that. I suspect that the reduced market value of ID was one factor that caused Paul Nelson to reduce his ID activity.

TomS · 12 April 2016

I agree with harold.

But I'd suggest that it was a easier thing to be against evolution in the earlier 20th century. Even against "deep time". When was the source of the Sun's energy understood, so we could accept that it could be burning for billions, rather than only millions, of years?

It was only when the science began to be definitive about the age of the Earth that YEC became popular.

PZ Myers · 12 April 2016

It certainly was easier to be anti-evolution then -- has no one heard of the eclipse of Darwinism, the period between Darwin's death and the ~19teens, when the lack of and confusion about a credible mechanism for heredity caused a lot of justifiable doubt.

TomS · 12 April 2016

PZ Myers said: It certainly was easier to be anti-evolution then -- has no one heard of the eclipse of Darwinism, the period between Darwin's death and the ~19teens, when the lack of and confusion about a credible mechanism for heredity caused a lot of justifiable doubt.

I thought that the eclipse of Darwinism was a 20th century phenomenon - from the discovery of Mendel to the Modern Synthesis. I would appreciate correction on this point.

Robert Byers · 12 April 2016

PZ Myers said: It certainly was easier to be anti-evolution then -- has no one heard of the eclipse of Darwinism, the period between Darwin's death and the ~19teens, when the lack of and confusion about a credible mechanism for heredity caused a lot of justifiable doubt.

It was not easier back then. Back then the upper classes and the public to a small extent were very impressed with the nEW scientific accomplishments they could say had never happened before the 1800's. then . for many especially in europe, it was hard to question the educated classes. It was easy in mainstreet because so many folks denied evolution or were vague about it. I don't know percentages but surely most weekly church going protestants presumed Genesis was right. The tiny, tiny, circles that would know there was a mechanism issue would be irrelevant to a civilization. Creationism today from a organized intellectual aggresive movement led by YEC and later ID has made it easy for the common people or those who see themselves as more educated then the common mean to be anti-evolution, to some degree, and creationist depending on the tribe of it. This forum exists because of ID/YEC success in redifing the confidence in the evolution evidence. Doubt is very widespread and INDEED the appeal to courts to prove evolution PROVES the case is not and not expected to persuade enough people in N america. The dumb court cases will fall too. I insist they were dumb and its illegal for state censorship on conclusions of origins and especially if invoking the founding fathers constitution. Anyways. ID/YEC is high as a kite these days and only needs to gain audience. Schools must be opened to us but all of society if truth, human intellectual competence, and figuring things out , is the natural right of humanity. America was built on creation presumptions. its too be built more so ON it. Canada too.

Just Bob · 12 April 2016

Robert, try reading your posts back to yourself OUT LOUD before hitting SUBMIT. That always led my 10th graders to correct a great many errors before they turned in an essay.

DS · 12 April 2016

"ID/YEC is high as a kite these days..."

So apparently is booby.

Truer words were never written.

DavidK · 12 April 2016

RB said:

"intellectual aggresive(sic) movement"? A true oxymoron by RB. What indeed is intellectual about ID/creationism?

Rolf · 13 April 2016

DavidK said: RB said: "intellectual aggresive(sic) movement"? A true oxymoron by RB. What indeed is intellectual about ~~ID/creationism~~ ID/creationism/Robert Byers?

Fixed it.

Frank J · 13 April 2016

Iâm not sure one can say they lacked confidence; they seemed to be on a pretty focussed mission.
— Mike Elzinga

I don't mean that they lacked confidence that they could "convert" the masses. If anything they were, and still are, very confident of that. What I mean is that they had no confidence that the evidence would ever validate the particular origins account that they wanted to "sell." But they also knew, by the 1960s, if not before, that even a "pseudoskeptical" public would not always settle for "don't worry about the evidence, just believe!" So they knew that they had to at least pretend that some carefully selected out-of-context evidence "supported" their pre-selected alternate account, at least to nonscientists wanting to believe it. In contrast, the "species" that became ID peddlers knew 30+ years ago that even absurdly mined evidence would not convince many that were not already convinced. And worse, that it might call attention to the weaknesses, especially in the absurd young Earth accounts. So they just use that mined evidence, plus other word games, to promote unreasonable doubt of evolution, and left it to the audience to infer the rest.

Frank J · 13 April 2016

The YEC framework does that best.
— Harold

Actually geocentric YEC does that best, if the goal is strict Biblical literalism. And as I mentioned, there are more geocentrists than strict YECs in the general public. Though geocentrist beliefs are more due to science-illiteracy than to Biblical literalism. When heliocentric YEC was selected as the version for which to repackage as pseudoscience, activists must have known that it too was an arbitrary compromise, one that would be rejected by geocentrists as well as OECs. But they probably knew even then, that, peddlers of those competing pseudosciences were too few to worry about, and that the general public, even the committed evolution-deniers, does not care much about the age, shape and position of the Earth. They just want reassurances that some designer intervened somewhere, at some time, and that they "ain't no kin to no dog or cat." Since geocentrism required more evidence manipulation, further complicated by all those pictures of the solar system, the compromise was worth it.

TomS · 13 April 2016

I'm not sure that there was all thought put into a decision to promote heliocentric YEC.

I don't think that there was any decision made on heliocentrism. It didn't enter into the picture. Nobody, any more, is really uncomfortable with the Earth being in motion, and a planet similar to Mars. Are there any conspiracies about the Mars landings being faked? Yes, I know that there are Bible-based geocentrists today, but were there any in the 1960s or earlier? I'm going to posit that geocentrism was not an option open to Morris and Whitcomb.

The question that puzzles me is why they went so extreme in denying the physical relationship of humans to the rest of life on Earth. They didn't have to bring in the Flood story, for example.

And, on the other hand, why did they admit the reality of fossils? There were plenty of options open to them, such as tricks of Satan, or conspiracies of paleontologists.

harold · 13 April 2016

Frank J said:
The YEC framework does that best.
— Harold
Actually geocentric YEC does that best, if the goal is strict Biblical literalism. And as I mentioned, there are more geocentrists than strict YECs in the general public. Though geocentrist beliefs are more due to science-illiteracy than to Biblical literalism. When heliocentric YEC was selected as the version for which to repackage as pseudoscience, activists must have known that it too was an arbitrary compromise, one that would be rejected by geocentrists as well as OECs. But they probably knew even then, that, peddlers of those competing pseudosciences were too few to worry about, and that the general public, even the committed evolution-deniers, does not care much about the age, shape and position of the Earth. They just want reassurances that some designer intervened somewhere, at some time, and that they "ain't no kin to no dog or cat." Since geocentrism required more evidence manipulation, further complicated by all those pictures of the solar system, the compromise was worth it.

This is clearly true. It is also true that it is impossible to be a pure Biblical literalist. The Bible itself is not completely internally consistent and contains material that is presented as unmistakable metaphor or parable. If you did want to be "as close to a literalist as possible" you'd have to be a flat Earth fanatic, and possibly have to believe that pi = 3.00. Flat Earth is much more directly and emphatically implied in the Bible than any particular age of the Earth. Furthermore right wing racists occasionally used to be "pre-Adamites", claiming that some people were created before Adam and that their descendants don't count as human beings. The same political faction used to commonly adopt very anti-literalist views. Furthermore crackpot claims that the Bible isn't even as straightforward as it seems to a rational reader and is actually a giant "code" with some kind of secret meaning, the near opposite of Biblical literalism, has been popular among pseudo-scientists at times. Yet two facts remain - 1) Young Earth creationism "without geocentrism", promoted and possibly to some degree invented by Henry Morris and the other first cohort advocates of contemporary political creationism, is the "official" creationism of the religious right. It is the form of creationism that Republican presidential candidates either openly advocate or refuse to overtly deny, for example. 2) Maybe if there was a widely held form of Old Earth creationism "with geocentrism" (old flat Earth), OEC might be "as literalist as YEC", but there isn't. They have almost all abandoned flat Earth, even though there is no possible "Biblical literalist" rationale for that, and obviously they abandoned that because it's too extreme for their followers. But they're authoritarian ideologues not rational thinkers. They don't see things as a rational discussion, they see things as a power struggle. Somewhere along the line some authority who cannot be questioned said it was okay to be heliocentric. Nevertheless it is clear that "heliocentric YEC" is the ideology that is presented in disguised, "plausible deniability" format by ID, and "heliocentric OEC" is an isolated position.

I donât mean that they lacked confidence that they could âconvertâ the masses. If anything they were, and still are, very confident of that. What I mean is that they had no confidence that the evidence would ever validate the particular origins account that they wanted to âsell.â

Yes, you and Mike are both correct here in my opinion. Figures like Gish and Ham aren't characterized by lack of personal confidence. They obviously, at a deeper level, know perfectly well that they can't produce empirical evidence for their view - otherwise they would, instead of devoting themselves to dishonestly attacking all the evidence against their view. However, it is critical to understand that this doesn't bother authoritarians very much. To an authoritarian, beyond the most concrete short term nearby physical reality, all other "reality" is what whoever is the most powerful can force people to say it is. Ken Ham knows he can't produce real evidence for a literal world flood and Noah's ark or he'd be out looking for it. But he doesn't give a rat's ass. He doesn't need real evidence. His job is to pre-suppose that this is the case regardless of the evidence and use whatever coercive and propaganda tactics it takes to make others voluntarily or involuntarily officially adopt that view. All human brains are authoritarian to some degree and in all societies that have ever existed a fair number of people seem to have been authoritarian to a large degree. Striving to be objective and emotionally neutral and examine evidence is a common human stance, and has been since ancient times, but pre-supposing that an arbitrary but self-serving ideology must be accepted and imposing it on people, and reacting with hysteria and extreme aggression if it is questioned, is also common. Creationists aren't trying to honestly acknowledge the evidence in favor of their critics and make an honest case for creationism, they are, as the Wedge Document, the introductory pages of the AIG and ICR web sites, and numerous other easily noted things make clear, trying to "defeat evolution". They are like desperate defense attorneys, with a disadvantage and an advantage relative to real attorneys. The disadvantage is that they can never settle or compromise. The advantage is that the trial never ends, and no judge can ever shut them up in their own forums. So they can just go on an on and on attacking, distorting, and denying the evidence against them. And that's all they'll ever do.

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

TomS said: And, on the other hand, why did they admit the reality of fossils? There were plenty of options open to them, such as tricks of Satan, or conspiracies of paleontologists.

The "conspiracy of paleontologists" wouldn't work, because too many ordinary folks casually stumble across fossils if they spend any time in the outdoors. It would make your weltanschauung ~~seem silly~~ totally ridiculous if you had to imagine giant hidden factories where fake fossils are carved by the billions, and teams of paleontologists sneaking across the Bible Belt in black helicopters, planting trilobites and ammonites right where Baptist Bible Camp kiddies will find them.

TomS · 13 April 2016

Using the principle that parts of the Bible can be interpreted other than literally when they are obviously not meant literally:

On the one hand, some Christians from the earliest days accepedt that the Earth was a sphere, and interpreted the Bible accordingly.

On the other hand, as far as I know, no one ever suggested that the Bible was not asserting that the Sun was making a daily orbit of a stationary Earth, before the rise of modern science. This is testimony of 2000 years that it was not obvious that Bibical geocentric ism was not meant literally

The meaning of the six days of creation is an intermediate case, where there were various ancient interpretations, yet I think that it was universally accepted that the Earth was less than millions of years old.

There is also a principle - this was brought up by the Catholic Church in the case of Galileo - if there is sufficiently strong evidence that the Bible, interpreted traditionally, is wrong, then that traditional interpretation can be changed to fit the evidence. I think that that can be accepted in the case of the flat Earth, today.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 13 April 2016

Just Bob said:
TomS said: And, on the other hand, why did they admit the reality of fossils? There were plenty of options open to them, such as tricks of Satan, or conspiracies of paleontologists.
The "conspiracy of paleontologists" wouldn't work, because too many ordinary folks casually stumble across fossils if they spend any time in the outdoors. It would make your weltanschauung ~~seem silly~~ totally ridiculous if you had to imagine giant hidden factories where fake fossils are carved by the billions, and teams of paleontologists sneaking across the Bible Belt in black helicopters, planting trilobites and ammonites right where Baptist Bible Camp kiddies will find them.

Well I'm glad that they wouldn't believe in something totally ridiculous. Glen Davidson

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

TomS said: On the one hand, some Christians from the earliest days accepedt that the Earth was a sphere, and interpreted the Bible accordingly.

Really? Could you provide a source for that? By "earliest days" I assume you mean something within Jesus' to Paul's lifetimes.

Michael Fugate · 13 April 2016

Just Bob said:
TomS said: On the one hand, some Christians from the earliest days accepedt that the Earth was a sphere, and interpreted the Bible accordingly.
Really? Could you provide a source for that? By "earliest days" I assume you mean something within Jesus' to Paul's lifetimes.

Given that many early Christians would have been citizens of a Greek/Roman influenced world, this would not be surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

Michael Fugate said:
Just Bob said:
TomS said: On the one hand, some Christians from the earliest days accepedt that the Earth was a sphere, and interpreted the Bible accordingly.
Really? Could you provide a source for that? By "earliest days" I assume you mean something within Jesus' to Paul's lifetimes.
Given that many early Christians would have been citizens of a Greek/Roman influenced world, this would not be surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth

True enough. I'm wondering now if there was any early conflict between those enlightened views and the flat-earth bible.

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

Of course, the Bible, as we know it, certainly didn't even exist for the first few centuries of Christianity. I wonder how many Greek and Roman converts would have had any contact at all with what we call the Old Testament.

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

But even NT writings have things like that mountain from which all nations can be seen. Were there demands that that be taken literally in, say, 300CE?

John Harshman · 13 April 2016

Just Bob said: But even NT writings have things like that mountain from which all nations can be seen. Were there demands that that be taken literally in, say, 300CE?

Not a problem. It was generally assumed that there were no undiscovered lands. The unknown part of the world was all ocean. That's why Columbus thought he could reach the Indies (nothing in the way on a too-small earth) and why everyone else thought he would fail (no landfall within range on a correctly-sized earth).

TomS · 13 April 2016

Origen, who died in about 254, had to deal with pagan scholars who pointed out difficulties with the literal meaning of Scripture. And there were Christians that he had to deal with, too.

Michael Fugate · 13 April 2016

As many have pointed out Church leaders took care of interpreting Christianity until the Reformation. The reformers replaced the Church with the Bible as the ultimate authority - strangely in neither case is God the ultimate authority. Yeah, yeah, they will say the Bible was written by God or that the leaders are in bed with God, but its all bollocks. Its either living fallible humans or a dead book written by living fallible humans.

Frank J · 13 April 2016

What I'm only interested in pointing out that YEC is an innovation of the 1960s. The idea of making up stuff with an air of science to it - and no theological or Biblical warrant - in order to support 6000 years of the Earth, and that that was central to Christianity.
— TomS

Or as I like to put it, the 60s are when the anti-evolution movement completed its evolution from honest belief, and a sincere attempt to reconcile it with existing evidence, to full-blown pseudoscience. Activists during the "honest belief" phase underwent constant, sometimes painful, public concession to science, eventually abandoning all young Earth (& geocentric) interpretations, but still believing (hoping?) that evidence validated some literal interpretation of Genesis. So naturally they became OECs, even if that (especially the part that refutes YEC) was harder to explain to the general public. But they were gradually replaced by activists who were not so honest. They selected heliocentric YEC, and repackaged it as pseudoscience (start with a conclusion, then manipulate evidence to "support" it). Since these activists had even more inconvenient evidence to grapple with than their predecessors, and were apparently at least as educated, it's reasonable to suspect that they never seriously believed that the evidence supported a young Earth, and maybe not even independently originated "kinds." Rather they hand-picked that account for strategic reasons. At best they sincerely thought that a book overrules any conflicting evidence, which was supposedly there to "test their faith." But as I mentioned in a previous comment, they must have thought they'd be taken more seriously, even by a largely science-illiterate public, if they pretended that their conclusions were backed by independent evidence - which always happens to be an "approved" misleading subset. In any case, as you know, since the 60s, the pseudoscience itself evolved, and speciated, with both lineages characterized by curious retreating. Not toward OEC, either the "hard" variety that criticizes YEC, or the "soft" variety that peacefully coexists with it. Rather, one lineage (Ham's) has retreated from any pretense (if it ever had one) that it does anything but start with a conclusion, while the other has retreated from any official testable "what happened when" account, but just manipulates evidence to promote unreasonable doubt of evolution. Let's all remember that the latter retreat occurred before that lineage was forced to retreat from "whodunit" and sloppily morph into ID. Since most of the published specifics of the last half century involve heliocentric YEC, naturally it's considered the "default" position of the anti-evolution movement, as Harold often likes to remind us. Though the irony is that only a minority of snake oil buyers (Byers?) and sellers alike actually believe all of it. And what they do believe is never on evidence. But as long as the audience buys the key parts, it's a sale. Here and elsewhere I read that the ID strategy is dying. That plus the media obsession with Ken Ham (Nye debate, Creation Museum, Ark Park) suggests that a "direct YEC promotion" (as opposed to ID's indirect promotion by way of "anything but evolution") is making a comeback. If so, I predict that it's just temporary, and that in a few years, an evasive ID-like strategy will return as the most "fit" (if it isn't already, "under the radar"). After all, Ham's market is only the ~30% of adult Americans that are committed Biblical literalists, at least half of whom don't even buy the whole YE thing, despite being sympathetic to it. If you add non-committed literalists, and nonliteralists who doubt or are unsure of evolution, it's as much as 70%. Movement activists not only want to control the "supply" (what gets taught in public school) but also the "demand." Which means that they won't settle for a 30% minority when they can have a 70% majority. Speaking of "evasive," so as not to keep straying from the topic, I would greatly appreciate Paul Nelson's comments on the above.

KlausH · 13 April 2016

harold said:
KlausH said:
harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.
Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Ah yes, the "Southern Strategy", where political analysts found that the Republicans were doing poorly in the South BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT RACIST ENOUGH TO ATTRACT DEMOCRAT VOTERS, and the Democrats spun it to convince the "low information" voters that it meant the exact opposite.

Just Bob · 13 April 2016

What color is the sky in Klaus World?

eric · 14 April 2016

Its not so much a different world as it is he appears to believe our current parties are what they were in the 1950s. Yes its true back then that the Dems got more of the southern racist vote, because (1) during the civil war era the Democratic party was the one that supported a slow reduction to slavery while the GOP demanded it end immediately, with fully rights for former slaves, and because (2) the Dems pandered to those voters. But he seems to have forgotten what happened during the 1960s: the Democratic party stopped pandering to those voters, they in turn rejected the Democratic party platform, and the Republican party happily swooped in and took over the southern white racist niche.

The parties today are radically different than they were then. As just two examples, in the 1950s Republican President Eisenhower coined the phrase "military-industrial complex" as part of a speech where he argued strongly against having any sort of constant, long-term defense industry. And secondly, it was Nixon and the Republicans who spearheaded the formation of the EPA because it was the GOP that was primarily concerned about air quality and environmental damage from industry. Today, roles on those two issues have flipped 180 degrees: it is the Democrats that argue in favor of both those platforms, while it is the Republicans that argue vociferously against both the positions their party held in the mid 20th century.

harold · 14 April 2016

KlausH said:
harold said:
KlausH said:
harold said:
John Harshman said: It appears that Paul will not be visiting us this year.
Just in the unlikely event that there are any newcomers here, let's put Paul Nelson's boast of twelve years ago in historical perspective. During the Johnson administration a right wing backlash against developments like civil rights began. One aspect of that was the emergence of the contemporary "religious right" and "creation science". The single goal of "creation science" was to get sectarian science denial into taxpayer funded public schools.
Ah yes, the infamous "Right Wing Backlash". I guess it explains why the gang of 20 senators that tried to destroy the Civil Rights Act had 19 Democrats and was led by the noted KKK member Robert Byrd. It only passed because of very strong Republican support in both houses of Congress. Johnson also made his famous quote that if the Democrats falsely took credit for it âIâll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.â.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Ah yes, the "Southern Strategy", where political analysts found that the Republicans were doing poorly in the South BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT RACIST ENOUGH TO ATTRACT DEMOCRAT VOTERS, and the Democrats spun it to convince the "low information" voters that it meant the exact opposite.

Yes, Klaus, that is correct, prior to the 1964 Goldwater campaign the Republicans were, in fact, not racist enough to attract southern racist votes. They were pretty racist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily-white_movement, just not as openly so as southern racist Democrats. The Democrats actually began making inroads with African-Americans during the FDR administration. This led to FDR getting nearly 100% of the vote in some southern states (virtually all white voters and virtually all African-Americans who could vote, voted for him). Perhaps this influenced the Democrats to move away from racism. Obviously, the Democratic party moved away from racism, the Republican party embraced it, and in the post-1964 world, the Republicans are the brand of choice for racists. I'm not saying all Republicans are white racists; of course they aren't, I'm just saying that essentially all white racists prefer the Republicans over the Democrats. If you don't like racism and science denial, change parties. If you want crazy right wing economics, but without overt racism and without religious science denial, vote Libertarian. I don't and never would, but for hopelessly committed right wingers, it is an alternative.

TomS · 14 April 2016

May I suggest that discussion of racist troll be moved to the bathroom wall ... if not banned altogether.

Michael Fugate · 14 April 2016

This Wikipedia post has a list of African American representatives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_United_States_Representatives

All were Republicans until the 1930s - the last left office in 1935. From then on, all Democrats until 1991. In the last 80 years, only about 5 Republicans and near 100 Democrats.

The senate is interesting; 2 reconstruction Republicans, then the next elected in 1967 - a Republican from Massachusetts. Since then 6 total, 5 Democrats and 1 Republican.