Stones and Bones

More about Nazi Darwinists

2012-01-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

A nitwit on the Washington Post comment section wrote:

"Darwin’s theory is “godless” and that such thinking is linked to Nazi atrocities . . ."

This is ridiculed in this article.
What is the basis of the tie between Darwin and Hitler?
Darwin's cousin and devout follower was Galton.
Galton founded the science of Eugenics, that horrid 'science' that approved of steralizing or otherwise eliminating the 'undesirables' in society, thereby preventing the continuance of their 'inferior genetic material'.
Hitler adopted Galtons 'science', and carried it to it's logical conclusion.

That is all easily verifiable historic fact.

My reply:

The "easily verifiable historic fact(s)" offered by Trainor are all false with the exception that Francis Galton was Darwin's distant cousin, and he did found the Society for Eugenics.

1) Evolutionary biology, like chemistry, and geology are "godless." For that matter, plumbing, and automechanics are equally "godless."

2) There is no link between Darwin and Hilter, or the Nazis. In fact the Nazis banned to entire works of Darwin, and Ernst Haeckle, the leading German evolutionary theorist soon after taking power. Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).

Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)

3) Galton and Darwin differed strongly on the biological nature of heredibility. More significantly, Darwin tried to discourage Galton's Eugenics idea. The original concept was to create a trust fund that would pay some people to have children, and others not to have children. Darwin noted that such a program would undoubtedly fail, both in print and in private letters to Galton. In his January 4th, 1873 letter to Galton, C.R. Darwin wrote, "I am not, however, so hopeful as you. Your proposed Society would have awfully laborious work, and I doubt whether you could ever get efficient workers." and, "But the greatest difficulty, I think, would be in deciding who deserved to be on the ("preferred marriage," gh) register. How few are above mediocrity in health, strength, morals and intellect; and how difficult to judge on these latter heads. Darwin concluded that discussion with, "I do not see that an orthognathous face would cost more than a prognathous face; or a good morale than a bad one." By this, that "moral" worth was not a biological feature, and that there could be no difference between a European, jutting chin (prognathous), or an rounded (orthognathous) African one.

4) The Eugenics Society never promoted the notion of forced sterilization. We should note the following opinion of Major Lenard Darwin regarding the practice of Eugenics, "It is true that both infanticide and the subjection of women have been common enough in many countries and in all ages; but they will never be reintroduced into civilized countries. A highly developed moral sense and great freedom of choice are two of the most precious attributes of man, and the necessity for preserving them rules out these stockyard methods.” “What is Eugenics” (1928 pg. 23), THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EUGENICS New York, 1932) Major Leonard Darwin (1850 – 1943), Chairman of the British Eugenics Society between 1911-1928. Sadly, Major Darwin was too great an optimist.

The expression "stockyard methods" is particularly significant. The Nazi program was never informed by evolutionary theory, but did impliment agricultural methods on human breeding. We can find the same idea employed in ancient Sparta, with the same lack of success.

5) It was the American Eugenics movement motivated by late 19th century racism that promoted forced sterilization, and anti-immigration laws. Of particular importance was Republican king-maker Madison Grant. A multi-millionare, he had been Teddy Rosevelt's college roommate, and life long friend. Grant wrote a book, "The Passing of the Great Race," published in 1916, that was one of only two books by nonGermans allowed on the Nazi reading list for anthropology. I highly recommend Jonathan P. Shiro's recent biography of Madison Grant, "Defending the Master Race" (2009 University of Vermont Press).

6(and last) I would like to read how Trainor squirms out from Hitler's clearly stated belief in creationism- the fixed, immutable nature of created kinds, as created by God. There are pages of citations irrefutably showing that Hitler's private, and public presentations were explicitly creationist, and Christian. Just four examples follow;

"The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator." - Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier)

"From where do we get the right to believe that man was not from the very beginning what he is today.

A glance in Nature shows us, that changes and developments happen in the realm of plants and animals. But nowhere do we see inside a kind, a development of the size of the leap that Man must have made, if he supposedly has advanced from an ape-like condition to what he is(now)" Tabletalk entry for 27 February 1942

"For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x

“The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi

The Nazi Office of Racial Policy held thousands of public meetings a month promoting anti-semitism and attacking “muddle-headed humanitarianism” (Humanitätsduselei) or, what we call “liberalism” today. The theoretical models and dominant metaphors Hitler drew from did not include evolution at any event, but the Germ Theory of Disease, and Christianity. In 1938 the Nazi "Office of Racial Policy" publication "Inromationsdienst," Martin Luther’s advice on the “proper” treatment of Jews was given prominent display:

"... to put their synagogues and schools to fire, and what will not burn, to cover with earth and rubble so that no-one will ever again see anything there but cinders ... Second, one should tear down and destroy their houses, for they do also in there what they do in their schools and synagogues ... And third, one should confiscate their prayer books and Talmud, in which idolatry and lies, slander and blasphemy is taught” From Proctor 1988: 88.

The founder of Protestant Christianity was a greater inspiration to the Nazis than any scientist. Science, politicized by the same conditions that radicalized both Left, and Right in Germany, was used as justification for actions long advocated as “Christian.”

A good read in the morning

2012-01-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

I hope to go fishing today. But, this was a good news item to wake up with on my screen;

"Resurrecting extinct proteins shows how a machine evolves"

Another Steve leaves the Dark Side

2012-01-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Last October I noticed that Professor C. STEVEN Murphree wrote a letter-to-the-editor published today in the "Daily News Journal" of Rutherford County, Tennessee. Titled "Theistic evolution' can be an alternative for believers," Dr. Steve Murphree (Belmont University) wrote,

This was once my position (ID creationism, gh), one that I held until after I became a biology professor, and I do not fault Mr. Myers or others who came to hold it in much the same way that I did. I was at least as passionate though not as fearful about Darwinist control as Mr. Myers, and 10 years ago I signed the Discovery Institute's "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," a choice that I now genuinely regret.

I suggested at the time that Prof. Steve should consider becoming one of the "Project Steve" Steves.

Well, today he did, and is welcomed as the 1184th Steve. That is one more Steve for truth, and one less for the Discotute's bogus appeal to authority, the "Dissent from Darwinism."

A British creationist asked;

2011-12-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

A creationist recently posed to me the notion that "evolution" could not "explain" the following features of humans, while the Bible made it all so clear.

The union of one man and one woman

Biblical polygamy was common. Only in the writing of Paulists is there the (very late) late addition that Christian priests (Bishops, and Deacons) should be monogamous. (And don't forget this, 1 Corinthians 9:29. But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none; 30. and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess; 31. and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away. 32. But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; 33. but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34. and his interests are divided.

So, obviously you should not be married anyway.

The creation of man and woman

Which man and which woman? Homo erectus? Australopithecus? Ardipithecus? Earlier?

Creationists famously cannot tell us which Hominid fossils are "real humans" and which are "really just apes." Since in all scientific categories, we are apes, this seems something creationists need to work on a bit more.

The 'inner' witness of the law (conscience), & Morality and justice

Biblical morality changed dramatically of over time. Maybe it evolved. It seems we share core elements of this with other apes, and even rats;

Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, Peggy Mason
"Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats" Science 9 December 2011: Vol. 334 no. 6061 pp. 1427-1430

T. Romero, M. A. Castellanos, F. B. de Waal
2010 "Consolation as possible expression of sympathetic concern among chimpanzees" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 12110.

Alan G. Sanfey
2007 "Social Decision-Making: Insights from Game Theory and Neuroscience" Science 26 October 2007: Vol. 318 no. 5850 pp. 598-602
(The above are all publicly available, and are just a tiny introduction to a large literature).

In the same issue of Science as Bartal et al, is
Jaak Panksepp "Empathy and the Laws of Affect" (pp.1358-1359),

and

Marcus Alexander, Fotini Christia "Context Modularity of Human Altruism" (pp. 1392-1394).

Basically, most mammals are responsive to the distress of con-specifics, with Humans arguably the both the most altruistic, and the most vicious. Human altruism is fostered across ethnic boundaries by simple propinquity, or face-to-face interactions. Strictly mathematical analysis, Game Theory, provides a likely explanation why this has evolutionary advantage.

*Just published;
Catherine Crockford, Roman M. Wittig, Roger Mundry, and Klaus Zuberbühler
Wild Chimpanzees Inform Ignorant Group Members of Danger
Current Biology, December 29, 2011

Why we wear clothes

It was too hot, or too cold. In tropical climes, people wore very little. In traditional New Guinea, men wear little more than decorative items indicating social status. But they feel "naked" without them;

(A family group gathered to welcome Christian missionaries. Photo by Charmaine Tham, Feb. 14. 2007.
Used with permission).

Clothing always extends beyond health, or other utilitarian function, and instead represents social identities and status.

Why we build

Why do Beavers build, or birds build, or spiders build?

We humans do have instinctual segments that are much smaller, and being smaller are much more flexible in combination with each other.

Seven day week

The Seven-day, or planetary week is an astrological institution. Herodotus, wrote, "The Egyptians were the first to assign to each month, and each day a particular god." (The History, 5th century B.C.). The ancients recognized seven "planets" each associated with a particular god; Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupitor, Venus, and Saturn (listed in the presumed order used to name the days). We use these names even now.

Rabbi Averick and the origin of life

2011-12-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

Rabbi Moshe Averick writes a very right-wing, creationist opinion column for an on-line magazine for right-wing Jews (there are some) called The algeminer. His recent article featured a slam on Prof. Jerry Coyne's blog "Why Evolution is True," particularly Coyne's critique of creationist David Berlinski. There is some fun to be had reading the comments following the Rabbi's article, particularly amusing is that Terri-Lynn McCormick, personally takes Averick to task for misrepresenting her husband, Noble Laureate Jack Szostak.

There are a number of factual, and logical errors in Rabbi Averick's opinion piece. His aversion to science makes me hesitate about dealing with the factual errors. So, for the moment, let's consider just the statement that, "... there are only two possibilities. An unguided naturalistic process or a creator who is outside of the physical universe. There are no other options."

First, the existence of life resulting from, "An unguided naturalistic process," does not exclude the existence of a supernatural creator. One can just as easily posit a creator who wove into the creation the capacity, even inevitability, of life from the moment of creation. Similarly, the Earth could conceivably have been seeded with life, which ID creationists regularly trot out as an example of "non-religious ID." (I am glad that Rabbi Averick has at least acknowledged that this is a mere rhetorical figment to avoid the US Constitution). But, even the various formulations of 'panspermia' ideas could be interpreted so as not to conflict with the existence of a supreme creator somewhere.

So, since the Rabbi is obviously wrong that there are just his two possibilities, what does this leave of his next argument that, "If we conclude that the first living organism could only emerge through intelligent intervention, that itself is the evidence of the supernatural creator." Well, there is really nothing left of it. If the natural origin of life cannot dispose of the existence of a creator, then he must actually demonstrate the physical effects, and some mechanism of detection of these miracles. No mere critique (or denial of evidence) of abiogenesis is competent to "prove," or "disprove" the existence of god(s).

If we only look at the claim that if no natural source of first life is possible, then there are gods, I see even more problems. The first is that a negative argument can never be proven. What possible evidence could there be that the natural origin of life is impossible. We can accept, in the absence of direct evidence, that life is very improbable, but this is not ever resolvable to "impossible." Creationist guru William Dembski tries to invent a statistic he calls the "cosmic probability bound" A similar idea is found in the writing of William Craig Lane, but without Dembski's pseudo-mathematic flourishes. The notion is that the physical universe is finite, and so there must be some external infinity that contains it. Creationists posit god(s), but in a similar sense, the super string theorists posit infinite universes.

Rabbi Averick claims that his work is done just by misrepresenting the positions of several scientists, and saying that since they have not created life in the last few decades his particular deity has been validated. And this is the last, and more severe of Rabbi's errors. If he rejects the natural, he has not advanced the existence, or acceptance of his favorite mysticism. The entire effort is wasted. There are hundreds, if not thousands of godlings with followers happy to claim credit for the creation of the universe, and life. The Rabbi, even ignoring his errors and omissions, will still need to contend with them. Unless, his only goal is to damp down the unease of his co-religionists. The simple creationist literalism he proposes is terribly vulnerable to science; the universe is billions of years old; the Earth is billion of years old; the universe, Earth, etc were not created in 6 days; there was no global flood. Without a congregation, Rabbis need to find new jobs. I personally find it better to improve my understanding of scripture, and dismiss trivial literalism.

(So far, the Rabbi has blocked my comment)

I was apparently too late to the party.

As an experiment, I tried to post a link today to the Rabbi's most recent piece of E-crap. That has not appeared either.

For another exposure of Rabbi Averick's lies, see Faye Flam's excellent piece.

Dismissing "catastrophic plate tectonics"

2011-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

"Catastrophic plate tectonics" is a Young Earth Creationist Con-job. For the short description see Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History from the Institute for Creation Research.

We can dismiss "catastrophic plate tectonics" with just a few observations about inertia, and friction. If some single land mass were to break up and then the bits (Africa, Eurasia, North and South America, Australia, and Antarctica) go slamming across the globe like billiard balls, there are consequences. One of them being the heat necessarily generated by friction between the crustal rock, and the upper mantle. Were did this heat go? Because it would have been enough to have melted the crust, and boiled the oceans into steam. And, we can calculate an estimate of the energy needed to push up mountains all over the world as continents crash together. If this were to have occurred rapidly, again the heat generated would have melted the mountains, and not forced them into the air. (For public lectures have the audience rub their hands together for friction heating, and clap them together for impact heating).

If you free inertia by reducing the friction between the mantle and the crust so that they can move quickly without melting, then when you slam then together mountains splash into space- ridiculous.

Mantle transmits vibration just like sound through air, or water. We can use the same techniques as sonar to map the interior of the Earth. And, because vibration travels differently through cold matter (faster) than warm, we can map the interior temperature structure.;

Above is a map of cold crust sinking into the mantel, and below is one of warm mantel rock moving upwards by convection;

Both images above were from The Harvard Seismology Group
http://www.seismology.harvard.edu/index.html

These maps illustrate another reason for rejecting "the catastrophic plate" nonsense; the rapid movements of the continental crust would have swirled the mantle into a homogeneous mass, and the temperature separation we can clearly measure would have disappeared. Nor could creationist twaddle about rapid continental crust movement account for why convective plumes just happen to perfectly coincide with submarine spreading zones,oceanic mountains, or basalt traps.

There are other consequences as well. In the scientific study of continental movement, we learned that there are submarine spreading zones marked by intermittent basalt eruptions that force the continents apart. We also know that the Earth's magnetic field occasionally reverses polarity. As the rock of submarine basalt ridges cools, it records the magnetic polarity of the planet. Basalt on continents does the same thing, but not quite so well. Below is a map of the magnetic reversals recorded from a submarine spreading zone, and the corresponding map of these polarity changes from a stacked series of continental basalts;

North Cascades Geology: Sea-Floor Spreading Adapted from Raft and Mason (1961) and Tabor (1987). http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/noca/nocageol4c.html

There are some very interesting features, the magnetic signal from the submarine basalts is symmetric- the same on both sides of the fault. The magnetic signal weakens the further away we go from the spreading fault line due to fragmentation, and burial (more simply "erosion"). The continental basalt stack recorded the same polarity reversals, at the same times. There is the expected differences in physical spacing since the two formations are built from different flows.

There is another feature we find in the continental stacks of basalts illustrated in the photo below taken in Oregon, USA;

Paleosol developed on basalt in eastern Oregon.
Bruce Railsback, Professor, Department of Geology, University of Georgia
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/FieldImages/OrgeonBasaltPaleosol1.jpeg

(Educators are welcome to use these images in their teaching, so long as the images are not reproduced in publications and are not used for financial gain.) I think that permission covered this use. If you disagree, I have provided the sources and you are free to contact them.

Note the fractured, and oxidized red color were the lower basalt flow has been capped by a later one. That is the result of weathering. It was exposed to the action of plants, air, and water. Not possible in the middle of a flood.

This caught my eye, and you should read it too!

2011-11-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

Allen MacNeill is a professor of biology at Cornell University. He has a blog which recently made the following comment regarding new species.

At reasonably low concentrations, copper is toxic to many plant species. However, several plants have been seen to develop a tolerance to this metal (Macnair 1981). Macnair and Christie (1983) used this to examine the genetic basis of a postmating isolating mechanism in yellow monkey flower (Mimulus guttatus). When they crossed plants from the copper tolerant "Copperopolis" population with plants from the nontolerant "Cerig" population, they found that many of the hybrids were inviable. During early growth, just after the four leaf stage, the leaves of many of the hybrids turned yellow and became necrotic. Death followed this. This was seen only in hybrids between the two populations. Through mapping studies, the authors were able to show that the copper tolerance gene and the gene responsible for hybrid inviability were either the same gene or were very tightly linked. These results suggest that reproductive isolation may require changes in only a small number of genes.

Oops Redux

2011-11-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

The other day I wrote a short response to a foolish bit of creationist fluff published on-line by the Johannesburg, SA Times live. That piece by creationist Joseph Ulicki was trivial enough; Mr. Ulicki quoted a bit if Geneses, and then he wrote

"And Cutting-Edge Science tells us:

"The specific complexity of genetic information in the genome does not increase spontaneously. Therefore, there is no natural process whereby reptiles can turn into birds, land mammals into whales, or chimpanzees (or any other supposed common ancestor) into human beings".

Biblical creationism and Cutting-Edge Science are in agreement:

And I wondered what "Cutting-Edge" bullshit was this man smoking?

I found this particular bit of creatocrap was from the American Catholic website "The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation." So, I decided to write a short comment about genetic addition of "specified complexity" by various mechanisms. I called it Cutting edge or bleeding Idiot?. Submissions are by email only, and a day or two later the piece appeared. And, I saw that I had written, "One of the more obvious is simple duplication of a gene during mitosis."

Oh shite!

I wrote "mitosis" instead of "meiosis." There was no way to correct it. Then I thought, Oh shite, Oh shite! because I had actually been thinking of bacterial fission instead of eukaryote cellular division anyway. So, here is a short video on the difference between mitosis, and meiosis.

Play the video.

So, in meiosis there is just 1/2 of the genes of the parent organism in the resulting four haploid cells (ignoring for the moment sex differences). Then these cells can combine their genes with a 1/2 gene complement from another haploid cell to form a full complement, or diploid cell. In Mitosis, the entire gene complement is copied, and two diploid cells are produced, each with the entire set of genes. In both of these kinds of cellular reproduction, proteins called polar fibers, or "spindles" attach to the duplicated chromosomes and pull them to opposite ends of the cell prior to division. There is a fantastic resource that gives excellent definitions of all these terms, and more the Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms created by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Bacterial cell division is a very different process, as we understand it today. First, bacteria do not have their genes arranged into chromosomes in the same way as ours- the bacterial chromosome forms a circle of DNA. DNA duplication is followed with each chromosome attaching to the cell membrane, and the daughter cell "pinches off" from the mother cell, a process called "Cytokinesis."

This all is high school biology today (noted that people received Noble Prizes for what our high school students are expected to learn today- a blog for a future day). So how did I manage such a dumb mistake? Working back through my mistake this morning, I realized it was in a weird way rather sophisticated. ("polishing a turd" ain't it)?

What I was thinking was "Where/When does gene duplication actually happen?" My top of the head answer was wrong, but less now than I first thought.

Where does eukaryote gene duplication happen? In the adult gonad, there are both stem cells which multiply symmetrically- mitosis- growing the gonad matrix, and asymmetrically- meiosis yielding germ cells. The symmetrically reproducing cells form a cap surrounding the stem cells dividing by meiosis. So, what we see happening is that copying errors during meiosis make one chromosome with both copies of a gene, and one that lacked it. The resulting cell missing the gene will most likely be sterile. The one with the duplicated cell now has extra evolutionary resources. And this happens at the interface between stem cells that duplicate by mitosis, or meiosis. Since a sterile egg, or sperm cell is essentially free to the parent organism, the conferred evolutionary advantage is overwhelming. (Otherwise we human boys would never survive puberty). There is a long term cost when organisms get very elaborate (like us), and that is that asymmetric cell division at the wrong time, in the wrong organ will cause cancer. But that is the typical evolutionary solution; there is never any anticipation for future events or consequences. For an excellent current introduction to this, I recommend the review article;

Sean J. Morrison, Judith Kimble
2006 “Asymmetric and symmetric stem-cell divisions in development and cancer”
Nature 441(7097): 1068-1074.

Oops

2011-11-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

The other day, I wrote a reaction to a comment posted in the Johannesburg Times LIVE, South Africa. I titled it "Cutting edge or bleeding Idiot?"

Very clever, but I made a big mistake. I wrote, "We do of course know several natural mechanisms that add "specified complexity" to genomes. One of the more obvious is simple duplication of a gene during mitosis."

I was thinking, of course, of writing meiosis.

But that was not the BIG mistake. What I was really thinking about was bacterial fission, and not even meiosis at all!

I'll stick in more links and an explanation of why that was such a lame mistake tomorrow. (I wonder if anybody else will notice)?

The rest of the piece was OK, excluding a trivial typo.

Dragons, and gods, and dinos- Oh My!

2011-11-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following short study for a few reasons. It started out as a study of the textural origins of Psalm 89 provoked by something some creationist had said (I don’t recall who or what they had said). The second was that using the various names used biblically for the sea dragon, “Rahab,” or “Leviathan,” we can see how various biblical authors were drawing on each other, and earlier sacred traditions. Thirdly, it is a common fraud for creationists of link dinosaurs with these biblical monsters. As all of my blog pages, I consider this to be a draft of some later “dead tree” print article.

Psalm 89 is an exilic period prayer for the restoration of the Davidic Dynasty. The first section introduces the Psalm by praising God and reiterating the Davidic Covenant, vss 3-4. Verses 15-18 link the creation and supremacy of Yahweh with the Kingship of David.

Let's break it down to what is says, and what it is about.

(I will add some textual revisions from Dahood (1965-1970), Cross (1973), JPS (2004) indicated by bold:D, C, or JPS). Verse numbers follow the World English Bible rather than modern Hebrew texts. The line usually included as verse 53 is not part of the Psalm, but marks the end of the Third Book of Psalms in the Hebraic traditional codes. I have dropped the WEB "lovingkindness" in favor of the standard translation "love.")

World English Bible
Psalms 89

1. I will sing of the love of Yahweh forever. With my mouth, I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.
2. I indeed declare, "Love stands firm forever. You established the heavens. Your faithfulness is in them."
3. "I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant,
4. 'I will establish your seed forever, And build up your throne to all generations.'" Selah.

So, the opening is totally explicit about what the Psalm is about; The singer, Ethan- born in Judah, i.e. "native born" and not born in the Babylonian captivity- first affirms his devotion to God, and praises God for His steadfast faithfulness. And, Ethan not so subtlety reminds all listening that Yahweh has a covenant with David by paraphrasing the prophesy of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7: 15-16. (This is repeated in Ps 89:20-38 with a nearly exact repeat of 2 Sam 7: 14 in Ps 89:33).

Now, it is worth thinking about that the verses in Samuel were about the proper building of the Temple in Jerusalem and the consequent promise to David's kingship, in the Psalm's text the focus is on the Covenant implied to Hebrews through the Davidic Dynasty. This idea is repeated in verse 50 where God is reminded of His promise.

The Psalm then opens out with a considerably more ancient hymn of the creation which deserves some extended discussion, vss 5-14.

5. In the heavens they praise your wonders, Yahweh; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones.
6. For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like Yahweh,
7. A very awesome God (El) in the council of the holy ones, To be feared above all those who are around him?
8. Yahweh, God of Hosts, who is like you? Mighty Yah, your faithful ones surround you. : D
9. You rule from the back : D of the sea. When its waves rise up, you calm them.
10. You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11. The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; The world and its fullness. You have founded them.
12. The north (Zaphon) and the south (Amanus), you have created them. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name.
13. Yours is a mighty arm, O Warrior.
Your left hand is triumphant
Your right hand is raised in victory.
14. Justice and Right are the foundation of your throne. Love and Truth Stand before you : D

Ugarit was a very wealthy coastal city near what eventually became the northern border of Israel. The people of Ugarit spoke a Western Semitic language close to ancient Hebrew, and there are many exactly matching words called cognates. Like Ugarit, the Phoenician language was also Western Semitic and in common use with Hebrew for far longer. Like most of the Canaanites, their pantheon was headed by the god El, 'Il, and the lesser gods and goddesses were collectively called the council of gods. From a Phoenician hymn, the Arslan Tash, we can read;

The Eternal One (lit. Olam) has made covenant with us
Asherah has made a pact with us

And all the sons of El,
And the great Council of the Holy Ones
With oaths of Heaven and Ancient Earth

This inscription also corrects verse 3 to read; With my mouth I declare: "Eternal One, your love created the heavens, but you made your fidelity more steadfast than these." (Dahood 1968). Asherah is of course the consort, or wife of God (Dever 2005).

The opening lines of the praise hymn in Psalm 89, vss. 5-8, identify Yahweh by His renown within the "assembly of the holy ones" (v.5), the sons of the heavenly beings (v.6), the council of the holy ones (v.7), and in verse 8 God Yahweh is identified as the "God of hosts" "surrounded by his faithful." The name Yahweh in verse 8 balances the name El used in verse 7 (see also Gen 33:22 El elohe yisra'el literally "El, god of the patriarch Israel." The council/assembly/host/"sons of" are the very same bene elohim from Genesis 6:2, "the sons of God" providing an answer to the question of who God spoke to in Genesis 3:22. The Council of Yahweh is biblically also attested in Psalm 82, the 'adat El , or literally "Council of El." We can now see that the herald Ethan while praising God is reminding all, even Yahweh!, that the Divine Covenant was properly witnessed by the Council of the Gods.

Psalm 89
9. You rule from the back : D of the sea. When its waves rise up, you calm them.
10. You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11. The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; The world and its fullness. You have founded them.
12. The north (Zaphon) and the south (Amanus), you have created them. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name.
13. Yours is a mighty arm, O Warrior.
Your left hand is triumphant
Your right hand is raised in victory.
14. Justice and Right are the foundation of your throne. Love and Truth Stand before you : D

The verses above are very rich contextually, and together summarize the entire Canaanite creation myth. This is done largely by references to key phrases that would be recognized by the listener. Since this Hebrew poem had strict requirements of rhyme, and syllable counts per line, it is a superb literary achievement.

In verses 9 and 10 we have a short phrase that is used to refer to a larger, well known text or narrative, what might loosely be called an incipit. The referred to account is the defeat of the sea dragon by a god who then uses the body of the monster to create the Earth. The classical account is the Enuma Elish where the Babylonian deity Marduk kills the sea-dragon Tiamat using her body to create the world (Dalley 2000). In the Ugarit version, the supreme god El does not participate. Rather, the sea god Yamm (also called "Judge River" in a possible reference to the Code of Hammerabi) sends a challenge to the god Ba'l Haddu. Ba'l , biblical Baal, defeats Yamm using two clubs, one in each hand. Baal returns to the Council of the Gods and is proclaimed their king (Pardee 2002) . The first biblical parallel found in the text is of course in Genesis. This primordial sea is described as well in Genesis 1:2, when "the world was formless waste with darkness over the sea and only an awesome wind blew over the water." (see Speiser 1962). The same theme is found mentioned in Job 26:10, "He drew a boundary on the waters; At the extreme {edge} were Light and Darkness meet." But strictly within the current texts, verse 9 tells us that this is the God who defeated the sea which in Mesopotamian narrative was the primordial chaos. This primordial chaos is dominated by the God in verse 9 who "rules from the back of the sea."

This victory is further commented in Ps 89:10 where God crushed "Rahab" and dispersed his pieces. So, who was Rahab? We learn this in Isaiah 51:9-10,
"Was it not you who smashed Rahab the writhing dragon?
Was it not you who dried up Sea, the waters of the great deep?"
Also, Job 26: 12-13;
By His power He stilled the Sea.
By His skill He struck down Rahab.
By His wind the heavens were calmed.
His hand pierced the Elusive Serpent.

There are several key connections to be observed here. The obvious is that Rahab is the dragon of the sea that is also known as Leviathan. In Hebrew, Job 26:13b "Elusive Serpent" reads nahash bariah, if one translates "bariah" from Aramaic as "fleeing." However, this same word is elsewhere translated (cf. Exodus 26:24-29 as "straight rod" or "bar." The "straight serpent" is in Ugarit texts the dragon Lotan or the biblical Leviathan, the "bariah serpent with seven heads" (see also Isa. 27:1)(see JPS, 2004). The name Rahab is used poetically in Ps 87.4 to refer to Egypt judging by its context.

As elsewhere (Ps. 74: 12-17, Isa 51:7, etc.), the primeval sea dragons slain at the creation are used to attest to the power of God.

In Psalm 74:12-17 we read
12 O God El, my King from old,
who brings deliverance throughout the land;
13 it was You who drove back the sea with Your might,
who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters;
14 it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the "untranslatable"*
* The Hebrew phrase is lost. Conventionally this is rendered as "denizens of the desert" or "seafaring men." Neither translation has been attested elsewhere.

Why is this important? The psalm's hymn of praise has again revealed the deep connections between the Canaanite mythopoetic and the Bible's origins. The Babylonian exile brought the northern and southern Hebrew theologies closer together then they had been since the united monarchy, perhaps ever before.

The Canaanite source for this hymn in Psalm 89 is further demonstrated in verse 12;"12. The north (Zaphon) and the south (Amanus), you have created them. Tabor and Hermon sing with joy in Your presence" (following Dahood 1968). The four named locations, Zaphon, Amanus, Tabor and Hermon are each mountains that were the local seats of power for the principle Canaanite gods just as Mt. Zion became fixed as the seat of Yahweh. Mt. Zaphon is nearly due north of ancient Ugarit, and dominates the northern horizon viewed from the site. This is the traditional home of Ba'l Haddu, or Baal. Thus, it is no wonder that "Zaphon" became in Hebrew sapon or "north" and in later Hebraic use became equivalent with the "heavens." There is an excellent association here with Greek mythology as well. The Greek myth of the battle between the supreme god Zeus and the ancient sea power/god Typhon in Homer's epic Iliad and echoed in his Hymn to Apollo, also mirrors the Canaanite Ba'l Haddu epic. The sea dragon Typhon gives birth to Gaia or the Earth. She is defeated in battle by Zeus on Mount Cassios (cassios (Greek) -> hazi (Hittite) -> zaphon (Ugaritic).

The closing verses to this praise hymn are;

13. Yours is a mighty arm, O Warrior.
Your left hand is triumphant
Your right hand is raised in victory.
14. Justice and Right are the foundation of your throne. Love and Truth stand before you : D

The left and right arms of God (Triumph and Victory) in this context are clearly linked references to the clubs used by Ba'l Haddu to subdue the sea dragon/god, and the epithet "O Warrior" is commonly used for Baal. More interesting, Justice, Right(eousness), Love, and Truth are the "throne" and servants ("stand before You") of Yahweh. The Mesopotamian tradition uses these aspects as attributes and as guardians of the major gods and favored human kings.

In a theme that will later be written and added to the Bible as Genesis 1, the God of Israel, Yahweh or El (formal plural Elohim), is credited with the creation of the ancient powers of Heaven and Earth, the defeat of primordial chaos Yamm (the sea), and (in common with Canaanite El) the creation of all other gods and the Assembly of Gods (Friedman 1987, Smith 2003).

The sources for the entire praise hymn in Psalm 89:5-14 can be drawn back to the pre-monarchy, even pre-exodus period of 1,400-1,300 BC. The Ba'l Haddu epics are known from about that time, and they serve as the bulk of the later part of the hymn. The opening verses 5-8 are also part of that tradition, but reflect the association of Yahweh and the supreme Canaanite god El. The mixed use of El, and Yahweh within the hymn places this composition to around between 800 and 1,000 BCE. The next portion of the psalm brings the story forward from the pre-Exodus era to the time of the Davidic Covenant, or also about 1000 BCE. (See also Smith 2002).

Cross, Frank Moore
1973 Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Boston: Harvard University Press

Dahood, Mitchell
1965 Psalms I, 1-50: Introduction, Translation and Notes New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday

__________
1968 Psalms II, 51-100: Introduction, Translation and Notes New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday

___________
1970 Psalms III, 101-150: Introduction, Translation and Notes New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday (1995 paperback printing)

Dalley, Stephanie
2000 Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Revised Oxford: Oxford University Press

Dever, William
2005 “Did God Have A Wife? Archaeology And Folk Religion In Ancient Israel
Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Friedman, Richard Elliott
1987 Who Wrote the Bible? New York:Harper and Row

Jewish Publication Society
2004 “The Jewish Study Bible: TANAKA translation” Oxford University Press.

Pardee, Dennis
2002 Writings from the Ancient World Vol. 10: Ritual and Cult at Ugarit Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature

Pope, Marvin H.
1965 “Job: A new translation with Introduction and Commentary” Anchor Bible Vol. 15, New York: ABRL/Doubleday

Speiser, E. A.
1962 "Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes" New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday

Smith, Mark S.
2002 “The Early History of God 2nd ed.” Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing
___________
2003 “The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts” Oxford University Press.

Weikart, Gasmam, Darwin, Hitler, and JoJo the Clown

2011-10-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

Faye Flam writes a pro-science blog for the Philadelphia Inquirer called, “Planet of the Apes.” Her Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 post was “Severing the link between Darwin and Nazism”.

It was syndicated by the Standard-Examiner of Ogden, Utah The following discussions seem to have staggered to an end, so I'll post a bit of them here.

Prof. Richard Weikart, author of “From Darwin to Hitler” made a brief appearance to hype his books on the Philadelphia blog, and Darwin and Haeckel hater Prof Daniel Gasman, author of “The Scientific Origins of National Socialism,” did a “fart and dart’ post at the Ogden site.

Weikart, Gasman and Robert Richard were interviewed by Flam for her article. Prof. Richard is the author of an excellent book, “The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought” (2008 University Of Chicago Press). His most recent article, and one mentioned by Flam, is "Was Hitler a Darwinian?" (PDF)

Weikart made a pecluliar comment worth quoting,

Concerning one of the comments above about Darwin and Haeckel being banned in Nazi Germany, I should alert you that I have examined the official Nazi biology curriculum. Lo and behold, it contains extensive teaching on evolution, including human evolution (and it is by natural selection, so it is overtly Darwinian). Haeckel was a disputed figure among Nazis (but many Nazis approved of Haeckel, as I will prove in an article I'm working on).

I could go on and on, but since I've already written extensively on this, I will have to refer readers to my books.
— Richard Weikart
Posted 5:11 PM, 10/24/2011

The fact that Weikart is trying to avoid is that the Nazis did ban all the books and articles written by Darwin and Häckel.

Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).

6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).

Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)

I replied to Prof. Weikart,

Prof. Weikart has clearly stated his goal as a Fellow of the Discovery Institute is to eliminate "Darwinism" AKA evolutionary biology, and replace it with creationism. His sole contribution to this cause is to link the Holocaust with biologists. He misuses sources, particularly ignoring those that refute his position.

I would like to read how he squirms out from Hitler's clearly stated belief in creationism- the fixed, immutable nature of created kinds, as created by God. Just two examples follow;

"The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator." - Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier)

"From where do we get the right to believe that man was not from the very beginning what he is today.

A glance in Nature shows us, that changes and developments happen in the realm of plants and animals. But nowhere do we see inside a kind, a development of the size of the leap that Man must have made, if he supposedly has advanced from an ape-like condition to what he is(now)" Tabletalk entry for 27 February 1942

“The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi

Prof. Weikart is what we know in academia as a "fool with tenure."

I also added, In fact, Hitler was clearly a creationist. Note in the following that Hitler asserts that God made man immutably:

"For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x There are pages of citations irrefutably showing that Hitler's private, and public presentations were explicitly creationist, and Christian.

Gasman wrote on the Ogden site,

“Dr. Hurd might wish to read my review of Richards' Tragic Sense of Life in eskeptic [10 June 2009]. Richards' book is rooted in the outright fabrication and misrepresentation of key source material and therefore falls far short of being able to substantiate that there is no connection between Haeckel's science and Monism and the ideology of National Socialism.” 10/27/2011 03:02 AM

I merely asked him is he would declare his presuppositions as a creationist, and referred him back to “Was Hitler a Darwinian.” Here I'll add that Gasman is requesting the logically impossible proof of a negative.

The only commenter that really keyed me was a British clown called JoJo. His Ogden Standard post and my reply follow.

"Hitler is an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his actions" "The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution." Arthur Keith -Evolution and Ethics, 1947

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows"

- C. Darwin, med-school drop-out, son to Erasmus Darwin (who helped developed the ancient Greek precursor in the Scottish Lodge into evolution and passed it on to Charles to dress it up with naturalistic language and picked up by the heavily Freemasonic-run Royal Society and thrust into academia for generations of forced learning) and cousin to Francis Galton (the father of Eugenics Society, later headed up by Charles' son Leonard Darwin.)

Dr. Ernest Rudin, founder of Germany's Eugenics Society (Society for Racial Hygiene) received the Goethe Medal for Art and Science from Adolf Hitler "in recognition of his achievements in the development of German Racial Hygiene."

I wrote a bit on these quote mines that I might find useful on other occasions, so I'll post them here;

I can tell that creationist "Jojo" is a a poor candidate for teaching. Creationists use what are known as "quote mines" instead of attempting to think, or marshal evidence.

Take for example, medical anatomist Arthur Keith. The quote offered by "Jojo" was from a peculiar little book written by Keith near the end of his life, and that he privately printed. Unlike 'Jojo" I have actually read it. Keith had invented a personal theory of "political evolution," or "national evolution." Keith's "national evolution" has never been considered as a serious science proposal, but it is popular with creationists. His idea that each nation was an unique quasi-biological entity was without any scientific foundation, but, interestingly it was very close to ideas promoted by the French author Arthur Comte de Gobineau. Gobineau published his "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" in 2 volumes between 1853-1855. (Note well this is pre-Darwin). Fritz Lenz was the leading Nazi racial theorist in the 1900s. His 1917 article "The Rebirth of Ethics" directly brought the thinking of Arthur Comte de Gobineau into German racism. In fact, Gobineau was one of only two non-Germans listed in the Nazi official reading list for human biology. The other was the American racist Madison Grant. Madison Grant was a very powerful Republican 'king maker' active in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

JoJo is a very good clown name, and JoJo should stick to what he knows best.

JoJo the Clown makes several more errors of fact, and logic. Racism and bigotry are far older than Darwin, and older than the sciences. They have been justified by every sort of argument, mostly religious and nationalistic. These are often combined. And, when they are combined the result is often genocide. The earliest examples found in the Bible include the attempted extermination of the Canaanites, even when God was supposedly displeased that the Jews had allowed some children to survive (examples; 1 Samuel 15:1-35, Isaiah 13, Joshua 6:20-21, Deuteronomy 7:1-2, Deuteronomy 20:16, Numbers 31).

It was Alfred Ploetz who founded the Society for Racial Hygiene, (Gesellshaft für Rassenhygiene), in 1905. Ploetz together with F. Wollny and Fritz Lenz, organized a secret Nordic division ("Ring der Norda") within the Society for Race Hygiene from the very beginning. It is of course significant that Poletz's brother-in-law, psychiatrist Ernest Rüdin, received the Goethe Medal. The romantic philosophy of Goethe was presented as the spiritual antidote to the scientific materialism represented by men of science like Ernst Haeckel, or Charles Darwin. (See: Harrington, 1996)

What was of much greater significance, and uniquely German, was the domination of the racist Nordic movement by medical doctors, such as Rüdin. This had several important consequences, one being the prominence given to supposed inherited diseases, and secondly the willingness to take direct "curative action" as a public health program. Leading figures of the Nordic movement wrote for the "Politisch-anthropologish Revue" edited by Ludwig Wolttmaann, M.D. (e.g. Rüdin, Lentz, Fisher and Schallmayer). The right wing of the racial hygiene movement, the Nordic supremacists, that ultimately became the Nazi medical establishment was virtually the creation of medical publisher Julius Friedrich Lehmann. Lehmann joined the Nazi party in 1920, and was the first Nazi to receive the party's "Golden Medal of Honor" in 1934. Actually, by 1930 it was nearly impossible to distinguish between the Nordic/Nazi racists and the transformed Rassenhygiene movements. At that time, some people still attempted to separate what they viewed as the medical and scientific study of human genetics from the Nazi dominated Rassenhygiene, but within Germany they were entirely suppressed. (See; Lifton 1986, Proctor 1988).

Harrington, Anne
1996 “Re-Enchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler”
Princeton University Press

Lifton, Robert Jay,
1986 "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide" New York: Basic Books Inc.

Proctor, Robert N.
1988 "Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis" Boston: Harvard University Press.

It should surprise nobody that JoJo cut-off the Darwin quote. Presenting the entire thought would be the decent thing to do, and we cannot make that expectation certain with creationists. The rest of the paragraph reads, "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

But merely quote mining isn't the end of JoJo's falsehoods, and innuendo regarding Charles Darwin seems to be the larger intent. Darwin's education was much more extensive than the mis-leading dismissal as a "med-school dropout." I have written up a sketch of Darwin's quite exceptional educational background at: "Notes on Charles Darwin's Education."

There could have been few other men of his age, place and time to be as well equipped to undertake his voyage around the world, and what would become his life long career.

We can judge JoJo by his accuracy and attention to detail. For example, Dr. Erastmus Darwin was not Charles R. Darwin's father, but his grandfather. Dr. Darwin's many contributions included helping to fund both the American Revolution through his friendship with Benjamin Franklin, and his strong support to the anti-slavery movement. I recommend reading "Darwin’s Sacred Cause," by Adrian Desmond, and James More (2009 New York: Penguin Books).

I have no idea what to make of JoJo's paranoid ramblings about secret clubs. In that regard I am a Marxist, "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member!" Groucho Marx, 1959.

Charles Darwin was very dubious about Francis Galton's Eugenics" scheme, as he expressed in his January 4th, 1873 letter to Galton, C.R. Darwin wrote, "I am not, however, so hopeful as you. Your proposed Society would have awfully laborious work, and I doubt whether you could ever get efficient workers." and, "But the greatest difficulty, I think, would be in deciding who deserved to be on the ("preferred marriage," gh) register. How few are above mediocrity in health, strength, morals and intellect; and how difficult to judge on these latter heads. Darwin concluded that discussion with, "I do not see that an orthognathous face would cost more than a prognathous face; or a good morale than a bad one." By this, that "moral" worth was not a biological feature, and that there could be no difference between a European, jutting chin (prognathous), or an rounded (orthognathous) African one.

I think that we should note the following opinion of Major Lenard Darwin regarding the practice of Eugenics, "It is true that both infanticide and the subjection of women have been common enough in many countries and in all ages; but they will never be reintroduced into civilized countries. A highly developed moral sense and great freedom of choice are two of the most precious attributes of man, and the necessity for preserving them rules out these stockyard methods.” “What is Eugenics” (1928 pg. 23), THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EUGENICS New York, 1932) Major Leonard Darwin (1850 – 1943), Chairman of the British Eugenics Society between 1911-1928. Sadly, Major Darwin was too great an optimist.

What Charles Darwin had written nearly sixty years earlier was, "The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil." (The Descent of Man" pg. 168-169, 1871 London: John Murray, Vol. 1).

Mail order theology degrees

2011-10-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

I was a professor of psychiatry (1976-1985), and psychotherapy attracts a great number of frauds. I helped found a Seminar on Religion and Psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia in 1983. One of our goals was to try and repair the educational deficiencies of poorly trained “pastoral councilors.” Since I have seen firsthand the sort of damage so-called pastoral councilors can cause due to inadequate, or incompetent training, I have learned to read the backgrounds of these people very carefully. A recent newspaper Letter to the Editors, "Creationists doubt changes lead to new features", was written by creationist Graham Lovelady, of Ogden Utah. I was curious about who this person might be, particularly how they had learned so much science that they could dismiss hundreds of thousands of scientists. Among Mr. Lovelady's achievements were degrees for something called the "Biblical Life College and Seminary, where he studied something called "Teleios Therapy, and received a Masters in Theology. Since this "Teleios Therapy" was a) new to me, and b) associated with "pastoral counseling," I decided to look into it, and "Biblical Life College."

Biblical Life College and Seminary

The Biblical Life College and Seminary is accredited by the “American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions.” The “American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions” is entirely composed of “faith based” correspondence schools, and is not recognized by any other group. In addition to the “Biblical Life College” they also ‘accredited the notorious “Pacific International University” This “University” had no full-time faculty, or other accreditation, and offered doctorates for a lump sum payment. The fees ranged up to 2,500-3,000 USD for a Doctor of Theological Studies degree. Perhaps the best known alumnus of Pacific International University was Carl Baugh, who also held the title of “university president.” Carl Baugh is best known for attesting to numerous fraudulent “Flood Evidences” housed in his “Creation Evidences Museum” in Glenn Rose Tx. His most recent acquisition is the faked human and dinosaur foot prints he calls the “Alvis Delk Footprints.” I have detailed how we can be certain this is a fraud here at Collecting Carl Baugh.

So, an 'accreditation' from the “American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions” isn't worth the postage.

I think we ought to also consider the faculty at “Biblical Life College.” A good example is “Dr.” Gary A. Jung, “Professor of Biblical Counseling.” B.B.S. - Biblical Life College & Seminary | M.A. - Southwest Bible College and Seminary | Ph.D. - Southwest Bible College and Seminary | Ph.D. - Biblical Life College & Seminary

Dr. Jung is the creator of Teleios Therapy (more on that later) and serves on the Board of the Association of Biblical Life Educators. He is listed on the Biblical Life website as being the Senior Pastor of Hillside Alliance Church, an ordained ministry with the Christian Missionary Alliance, and as a professor at San Jose Christian College (accessed Friday, Oct. 14, 2011).

I easily learned that San Jose Christian College changed its name in 2003 to “William Jessup University.” They have no record of “Gary A. Jung” on their faculty.

The “Association of Biblical Life Educators” is a creation of the “Biblical Life College.” The “Christian Missionary Alliance” is a creation of the “Biblical Life College.”

Also on the Biblical Life College faculty is Dr. Bruce R. Booker, Associate Professor of Hebraic Heritage Studies (B.B.S. - Biblical Life College & Seminary, M.A. - Columbia Pacific University, Ph.D. - Columbia Pacific University, Th.D. - Biblical Life College & Seminary).

Colombia Pacific University (CPU) was closed by court order in 2000, but the court did not review degrees awarded between 1978 and mid-1997. The first implementation of the 1989 Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education Reform Act was in 1991. Columbia Pacific University was given a provisional "grandfather" status its degree programs, and faculty qualifications were reviewed. When this was done in 1996, this so-called school was found to fail minimal standards for a degree-granting institution.

So, “Doctor” Booker has quite a distinguished academic pedigree, one degree from an unaccredited correspondence school, two more from another unaccredited correspondence school that was ordered to cease and desist by the State of California for unethical, and unprofessional practices (i.e. awarding fake degrees), then back to the first correspondence “college” for another ‘doctorate,’ and then joining the faculty of his unaccredited alma mater.

We also find a “Dr.” Doyle E. Varvel on the Biblical Life College faculty, listed as “Professor of Chaplaincy Studies.” This individual’s training is entirely from a single institution, the “Evangelical Theological Seminary.” (Th.B. – Evangelical Theological Seminary | Th.M. – Evangelical Theological Seminary | D.Min. – Evangelical Theological Seminary).

We have no idea where this “Seminary” might be, or if it is affiliated with any recognizable religious institution, or church. There are several “Evangelical Theological Seminaries” that are known as diploma mills. I have noticed that the graduates of the two legitimate schools are very careful to identify them by their location, and/or church affiliation. Dr. Varvel has been the National Commander of the National Chaplains Association since 1985.

I don’t know why Mr. Lovelady didn’t pay full price and pick up a doctorate from the “Biblical Life College.” Perhaps he is modest. His bio for the St. Anne’s Center (an apparently excellent organization) did mention that Lovelady was also “a member of the National Chaplains Association.”

The National Chaplains Association is the wholly (and not Holy) owned franchise of the “Biblical Life College&Seminary.” The association awards military ranks to members based on their academic qualifications, and “service” to the association. Since they accept unaccredited degrees from correspondence schools, the only real criteria must be “service.” And I'll bet “service” can be measured in cold cash. The certification program includes instruction in something called the “Teleios Therapy Program — 3 SCHS.” Their description follows, “The Teleios Therapy Program provides a study of temperament, personality, character and spirituality and shows the student how to bridge the gap from where he is to where God wants him to be. This course provides Biblical psychometric testing instruments that can be used without royalties in ministry.”

This really translates to $180 for the credits, plus $225.00 for the “biblical psychometric testing materials.” But, there is an even better discount price if you buy through “God's Business Incorporated,” (A most appropriate, and shockingly honest name). They can get your credits for just $165, but “Dr.” Jung still wants full ticket for his “Teleios Therapy” paperwork.

The “Teleios Therapy Program,” turns out to be the invention of Biblical Life College faculty member, Gary A. Jung, menitoned above. We should review “professor” Jung’s qualifications again; B.B.S. - Biblical Life College & Seminary | M.A. - Southwest Bible College and Seminary | Ph.D. - Southwest Bible College and Seminary | Ph.D. - Biblical Life College & Seminary. So, unaccredited correspondence schools for two, count em’ folks TWO, unaccredited doctorates. I find it remarkable that when "Southwest Bible College&Seminary" moved from Jennings, Louisiana to Gainesville, Ga, they didn't need to do much more than change the post office box, and bank account. None of those nasty difficulties like packing books. "Southwest Bible College" is also accredited by the useless “American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions,” and lists Gary Jung as an adjunct faculty member. Plus, Gary Jung is the inventor of a classic example of an untested, unreviewed, and unlicensed “therapy.”

Insurance companies, and Federal programs such as Social Security, and Medicare take very dim views at anyone stupid enough to bill for such “therapies.” You would be probably safer billing for “lifestyle coaching services," Mr. Lovelady. I am not sure which is worse.

So, Mr. Lovelady has received a M Th. from a correspondence school staffed by people trained by correspondence schools. All and all, an incestuous academic house of cards. A well informed person would never claim such an affiliation.

Collecting Carl Baugh

2011-10-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd pull the items I wrote about Carl Baugh, and his purchase of the faked "human and dinosaur together" foot print, AKA the "Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint"

The list in the sequence I wrote them follows;

"Carl Baugh's latest Fake"

"Baugh's Fake Foot, Round 2"

"Playing footsy with the truth"

"Other views on Baugh's fake foot"

As it happened, I was so certain that there would be a faked patina on the carving that I "over interpreted" an early published photo of the fake foot prints. It turned out that a much better photo was published (by a creationist supporter of Baugh) which did clearly show the obvious result of an acid wash. A short while later, the granddaughter of one of the local foot print "artists" told a newspaper how her grandfather had faked human&dinosaur footprints, including the detail of using acid to "make it look old."

Right-Wingnut Randall Hoven: Stupid, Liar, or Lazy? Part III

2011-09-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

I dealt with two of the gross lies about vaccination, and medical research being spread by Randall Hoven, writing for the ironically named right-wing rag, “American Thinker.” Right-Wingnut Randall Hoven next makes the asinine assertion that,

“Do you know how many medical research papers were withdrawn from publication due to major errors or outright fraud in the last decade? The answer is 788.

That is, hundreds of medical research papers have errors so egregious that the papers had to be withdrawn completely. And half or more of the rest might have serious errors.

This pushed several of my out-rage buttons. First, the medical literature is very different from the normal science literature. In a scientific publication the originality and novelty of the research is hugely important. It is considered entirely unprofessional, and unethical to repeat a publication, or “self-plagiarize.” So, a research project will have the following minimal sets of publications, 1) a technical, or progress report to the funding source, 2) one or more conference Abstracts, 3) a journal publication, 4) a book chapter. Until you get to step 3) a journal, all the others are considered “prepublication,” and are not given much academic or scientific credit. Anyone publishing the same data, with the same analysis more than once will either be rejected from publication, or at least privately disparaged as a “publication whore.” Most large journals have specific instructions on prepublication. Since the number of publications a young professor has weighs so heavily toward their retention, or promotion, we used to joke (darkly) about the academic SPDS, or Smallest Publishable Data Set.

The medical literature is very different. This has two reasons. The first is that there are many more medical publications than for the sciences. This is because medical device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies spend many millions of dollars each year on advertisements. These millions of dollars underwrite many hundreds of magazines, and thousands of editors. Something has to fill in the pages between the ads, and that something is medical research. The second difference is that the medical literature serves as the post graduation source for clinical education. These magazines, visits from drug vendors, and “continuing medical education” requirements are how daily practice physicians, nurses, and all other adjunct clinicians learn what current practices are. This creates a tremendous market for medical research articles. This also means that for many medical magazines, the readers are not trained as scientists and are far more trusting of a table of statistics than are general scientists. So, if there is a paper circulated in the medical literature with multiple authors to multiple journals, and at least part of the data is bad, then there could be five or six papers that become “contaminated.”

The link Hoven gave is to another “PhysOrg” news item, “US scientists significantly more likely to publish fake research” November 16, 2010;

“The study author searched the PubMed database for every scientific research paper that had been withdrawn—and therefore officially expunged from the public record—between 2000 and 2010.

A total of 788 papers had been retracted during this period. Around three quarters of these papers had been withdrawn because of a serious error (545); the rest of the retractions were attributed to fraud (data fabrication or falsification).

There are a few problems here. First, we are given no idea of how important these 788 withdrawn papers are in the grand scheme. Second, there are many reasons a paper might be retracted. Not infrequently, a journal will retract an article because it was plagiarized, and the real authors have complained. The results could be totally acceptable- they probably are- but they were stolen. Then, authors might find that they cannot repeat their own earlier result. This can happen totally innocently. I knew one fellow graduate student who brewed up a potential cancer cure- a real one shot “magic bullet.” Worked great, except the second batch did nothing, and the third batch did nothing. Nothing he tried for the next 2 years worked at all, and then he dropped out of school and was drafted.

And what are these numbers? Consider that in 2010 alone nearly 38,000 papers were published on medical/clinical topics as indexed by PubMed. This turns out to be not too far from an average annual rate. Even for all retracted papers as in the number quoted above, this is barely 20 per 10,000 papers withdrawn for any reason between 2000 and 2010. As we will see below, this is about the same global result found from several independent studies. Mr. Hoven is blowing his mind over a 20/10,000 “crisis.” It turns out to be even smaller, as the rate for deliberate fraud falls to under 2 in ten thousand.

Another problem is that the PhysOrg news item never gave a valid citation. Where did these numbers come from? This is a common problem with this source, and a competent ‘reporter,’ which Mr. Hoven is clearly not, would refuse to use unattributed assertions. A database search of all articles published in the Journal of Medical Ethics revealed only one potential study with the same combination of numbers, “Retractions in the scientific literature: do authors deliberately commit research fraud?” J Med Ethics 2011;37:113-117 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.038125

There are, ironically, methodological issues that I would have as a reviewer of Dr. Steen's articles. For example, the author R. Grant Steen was the only person (apparently) to have read the articles and retraction notices. It is only his opinion as to the validity of the retraction. Plus, of all the reasons a paper might be retracted, he split the entire list in either “fraud,” or “other error.” And in a re-analysis of his own data, Steen discovered that just “… two repeat offender authors were responsible for 14% of all articles retracted for fraud over the last decade.” (“Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?” J Med Ethics 2011;37:249-253 Published Online First: 24 December 2010 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040923). I think it is worth pointing out that in this reanalysis, the number of retracted papers had also dropped to 742.

And, the author of this study, R. Grant Steen, has published five articles from the same data in the last year; four of them in the same magazine; the Journal of Medical Ethics. This is a perfect example of how multiple papers are published in the medical literature from a single piece of research. Dr. Steen is also the President of a private company “Medical Communication Consultants (MCC)” that is “… a full-service, medical writing firm designed to meet the needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.” (From their corporate website: http://medicomconsultants.com/ ). So, in addition to a noble desire to advance knowledge, Dr. Steen has a very legitimate goal of furthering the interests of his company.

Motivated by the reports of medical literature fraud published by Dr. Steen, Prof. T. A. Abinandanan conducted a study of retracted papers from the PubMed index for the same years. Abinandanan found the misconduct rate from India, his homeland to be 44 per one hundred thousand papers, as opposed to a global average of 17/100,000. (“Publish and perish” VT Yadugiri, CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 101, NO. 4, 25 AUGUST 2011 477). That’s correct, 1.7 frauds per ten thousand publications. And now recall that Dr. Steen found that “… two repeat offender authors were responsible for 14% of all articles retracted for fraud over the last decade.”

There was a considerably stronger paper on medical literature article retractions that was also recently published by the Journal of Medical Ethics; “Why and how do journals retract articles? An analysis of Medline retractions 1988–2008.” The authors, Elizabeth Wager, Peter Williams use a better data sample from Medline, used a more sensitive evaluation criteria, and were able check each other for rating bias. (J Med Ethics 2011;37:567-570 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040964). In all, the rated 312 examples of retracted papers out of a total of 870. I’ll quote their Methods, Results and Conclusion directly from the Journal;

Methods: We retrieved all available Medline retractions from 2005 to 2008 and a one-in-three random selection of those from 1988 to 2004. This yielded 312 retractions (from a total of 870). Details of the retraction including the reason for retraction were recorded by two investigators.

Results: Medline retractions have increased sharply since 1980 and currently represent 0.02% of included articles. Retractions were issued by authors (63%), editors (21%), journals (6%), publishers (2%) and institutions (1%). Reasons for retraction included honest error or non-replicable findings (40%), research misconduct (28%), redundant publication (17%) and unstated/unclear (5%). Some of the stated reasons might have been addressed by corrections.

Conclusions: Journals' retraction practices are not uniform. Some retractions fail to state the reason, and therefore fail to distinguish error from misconduct.”

So, to review for Mr. Hoven, the "Crisis" is fewer than 2 fraudulent papers per one hundred thousand. But, you idiot, YOU wrote,

That is, hundreds of medical research papers have errors so egregious that the papers had to be withdrawn completely. And half or more of the rest might have serious errors.

Where did "half or more of the rest might have serious errors," come from? RIGHT! That came from the other stupid errors you have made.

So, Mr. Hoven concludes that he and his should skip vaccinations, and leave all the associated costs and risks to others because, “We should not be treated like benighted troglodytes for being skeptical of medical "science.”

No, not troglodytes, Mr. Hoven- you should be treated like lazy, stupid, selfish, dishonest parasites.

What a dumb ass!

Randall Hoven is either stupid, or lying, Part II

2011-09-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

I dealt with the gross lies by Hoven regarding vaccinations earlier, but he doubled down with some bullshit about statistics in the medical literature. I have to admit this is a particularly sore issue with me. I tried for years to teach statistics to medical residents when I was a professor of medicine, and soon had more faculty attending my seminar than students. The trouble was that none of them would do their homework I assigned. They always used “my patient was dying!” excuse. I preferred the more credible third grader's “The dog ate it” excuse.

Randall Hoven grossly misrepresented a recent article in the scientific literature, “Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance” Sander Nieuwenhuis, Birte U Forstmann & Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, (Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 14, 1105–1107 (2011) doi:10.1038/nn.2886 ).

Here is what Randall Hoven had to say;

Do you know how many doctors, some literally brain surgeons, made an important statistical mistake in their studies? Half of them. These were studies trying to prove that some medical treatment was actually effective.

Yes, half the studies showing that some medical treatment is effective are in error. We just found that out this week (at least for neuroscience journals).

This is either stupid, or dishonest. I cannot tell anymore. Really; Stupid? Dishonest? Dishonest? Stupid? It is so hard.

Randall quoted a secondary news article, “Study finds statistical error in large numbers of neuroscience papers” by Bob Yirka (PhysOrg, September 13, 2011). The quote is,

Sander Nieuwenhuis and his associates from the Netherlands have done a study on one particular type of statistical error that apparently crops up in an inordinately large number of papers published in neuroscience journals. In their paper, published in Nature Neuroscience, they claim that up to half of all papers published in such journals contain the error.

Well, Bob is a jerk (see below). So, does that let Randall of the hook? Only if he is too lazy to read the original article, and he expects his readers to accept his grossly incompetent ability to read. Probably this is a safe assumption, since none of these Bozos seem able to read a scientific paper.

The authors of the Nature Neuroscience article actually had a fairly modest goal to teach that, “when making a comparison between two effects, researchers should report the statistical significance of their difference rather than the difference between their significance levels.”

So, there is some event, E, and it is the possible result of variables A, and B. You need to look at the independent causes A, and B, but also the interaction AB on E. (I offer the crude example of “attractiveness of date” = Horniness + Beer + (Horniness X Beer).” Each of the three have a statitistial probability, p, and by conventional practice, only variables with a probability less than five persent, p<0.05, are called "significant." The paper’s authors correctly place greater emphasis on the interaction effect, (Horniness X Beer). So, any paper they reviewed that didn’t make enough effort to examine the interactive effects was rated as “ERROR, Will Robinson, ERROR!” (Actually, I fully agree). But, here is the short form conclusion from the original article, “Are all these articles wrong about their main conclusions? We do not think so.”

” Are all these articles wrong about their main conclusions? We do not think so."

Before I continue with the stupid, dishonest, or lazy Mr. Hoven, I want to just spend a few electrons on what the real scientific paper had to say. It is interesting. Most researchers in medicine like to keep things very simple. I was a professor of medicine, but not a clinician- I am a scientist. The sort of people who make good clinical workers (or at least good medical students) mostly don’t like things that are abstract. So, I found that presenting research results as a series of “if … then …, if not … then …” decisions was very successful.

The “keep it simple” extends into the presentation of research statistics, to the overall detriment of the research. From the actual, original research this right-wing, fundamentalist jerkwad has mangled, out of thousands of published articles from five major journals, only 513 even fit the selection statistics criteria. Of these, in only

… 157 of these 513 articles (31%), the authors describe at least one situation in which they might be tempted to make the error. In 50% of these cases (78 articles), the authors used the correct approach: they reported a significant interaction. This may be followed by the report of the simple main effects (that is, separate analyses for the main effect of training in the mutant mice and control mice). In the other 50% of the cases (79 articles), the authors made at least one error of the type discussed here: they reported no interaction effect, but only the simple main effects, pointing out the qualitative difference between their significance values (for example, vehicle infusions were associated with a statistically significant increase in freezing behavior; muscimol infusions were not associated with a reliable increase in freezing behavior).”

Lets review those numbers, thousands of papers published, only 513 even had data that fit the topic. Of that fraction, only 157 had data that might be analyzed with an AB interactive effect, and of those, the “correct” analysis was used half the time. So at MOST, there were 15% of studies in a very narrow subdiscipline of neurology that used statistical methods that were weaker than recommended by the study authors.

That is way fucking better than I would have expected.

What Randall Hoven stupidly wonders is,

“So how much can we trust an NAS study that is a study of studies, when half of those underlying studies contain a major error? “

So, OK. Hoven fails to do even a minimal check on sources. Even an dumb undergraduate should know that you do not cite papers you have never even read. The article’s real position that I quoted above was on the first page of the Nature Neuroscience article, and it did not require any statistical, or scientific background to understand. Basic reading comprehension would have been adequate to grasp,

”Are all these articles wrong about their main conclusions? We do not think so.”

But, he expects us to apply his ignorant version of the Nature article to the NAS Institute of Medicine study on vaccination. And, he concludes that his kids (and his reader's kids) shouldn't be vaccinated.

What a dumb ass.

Randall Hoven IS either stupid, or a liar.

2011-09-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hoven writes for the rightwing rag “American Thinker.” A superb example of how this creature from the far-right ga-loon is not in any way a “Thinker” is his September 22, 2011, article called “Science for Stupid Idiots.”

I think he might have got that one part correct- he might have been referring to his rightwing pals as “stupid idiots,” in which case he was admirably direct and perspicacious. On the other hand, it could be titled “Stupid Idiot Mangled Sciences,” depending on your assessment of Mr. Hoven’s intellect and honesty. I put it low.

He makes a general attack on science, but takes particular aim at medical literature on vaccinations, dietary salt, physics/cosmology (dark matter, Big Bang), global warming, brontosaurus, museum aircraft displays, evolution, Steve Gould’s “Mismeasure of Man,” and the CERN search for the Higgs particle.

He might have had some valid points on museum airfoil displays, and Steve Gould. I don’t care. I’ll take on the rest of his bullshit in the order that he dropped it.

Starting with his anti-vaccination screed,

“Here's my thinking on a vaccine, before injecting one of my kids with one: what are the chances of harmful effects without the vaccine, and with the vaccine? I want two numbers. My nutty logic is that I want to minimize the chances of harmful effects on my child. To calculate that for a particular vaccine, I need those two numbers. An emotionless robot or computer would need those two numbers. Yet we are rarely given even one of those numbers, much less both. Not from my doctor. Not from the CDC. Not from geniuses who write articles about how dumb I am for not simply believing their repeated assurances. They tell me it's all about informed consent, but they don't inform me (with the two numbers I need), and they don't ask for my consent. (Sometimes you can opt out, but try that with Hep B shots for your kid.)”

The reason why this is apparently reasonable, but is really stupid will follow.

Case in point: a recent press release from the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS told us that "few health problems are caused by vaccines." That report was then used to tell idiots like me, "For Pete's Sake, Go Get Your Kids Vaccinated Already!"

The NAS did not put a number on "few." Even if it did, that would be only one of the two numbers needed. In fact, the NAS explicitly said it doesn't have those two numbers. It said this about its study committee. “It did not examine information that would have allowed it to draw conclusions about the ratio of benefits to risks.”

So the NAS cannot draw conclusions about the single thing of importance to a parent. But somehow everyone else can. You see, "fact-based" people can draw conclusions even where the NAS can't. And therefore, you are an idiot to not vaccinate your kid.

If you want us to be fact-based, you ought to provide us some facts.”

So, let us be so bold as to give Mr. Hoven some facts. In fact, we will give him facts from the very reports he either never bothered to read, or was too stupid to understand. (Alternately, Mr. Hoven is relying on the stupidity of his readers to cover for his, or he is lying). The first fact is that the 800 page full report is freely available on-line, and if Mr. Hoven has problems with the press release, he should read the full report. But, even the six page short form “Brief Report” is enough to show Mr. Hoven, and us why he is either stupid, or dishonest (Is morbidly lazy an option? Maybe).

I wouldn’t want Mr. Hoven to suffer from eye strain, so not only will I limit my comments to the Brief Report, I’ll only need Mr. Hoven to look at a single page of the six, the one with Table 1.

Can Mr. Hoven see why he is either dishonest, stupid, or morbidly lazy?

I’ll point it out.

The worst that can happen to a child, or adult receiving one of the vaccinations studied, is no greater than the risk of having the disease! I’ll rephrase, there is not any additional risk to receiving a vaccination compared to having the disease, and vaccinations will protect millions and millions of people without any adverse effect at all. The key provision is that nearly a majority of people will need to be vaccinated. And this is where Mr. Hoven stands out. People can freeload on vaccinations. Granted that vaccinations have less average risk than the pre-vaccination disease rate over a population of people, they cannot be made entirely risk free. If nearly everyone is vaccinated against a disease, then the disease cannot reproduce itself with enough social density to be a general danger. A freeloader like Mr. Hoven lets everyone else assume the risk and they count on taking all the advantage.

Right-wingers like Mr. Hoven want us to assume the risks for him, and absorb the costs for him, so he can get a free ride and then complain about how he is oppressed.

What a crooked dumb ass! And what a typical right-winger!

I continue my remarks regarding Mr. Hoven's lack of ability in Part II.

A new addition to the speciation list

2011-09-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

The list of new species documented in the act of evolution, "Emergence of new species," has grown by a newly emerging species of Sparrow.

A recent publication, “Hybrid speciation in sparrows I: phenotypic intermediacy, genetic admixture and barriers to gene flow” (JO S. HERMANSEN, STEIN A. SÆTHER, TORE O. ELGVIN, THOMAS BORGE, ELIN HJELLE, GLENN-PETER SÆTRE, Molecular Ecology, Volume 20, Issue 18, pages 3812–3822, September 2011) adds another observed example of a new species that has been documented emerging. What makes this particular example interesting is four fold. First, it is a bird species, and vertebrate examples are less common than plants, or invertebrates. Second, it resulted from a hybrid between two similar species which has not been considered a likely pathway to speciation in vertebrates. Third, the researchers have been able to identify the actual genetic differences between the three species. Finally, the event is incomplete, and still in process.

Beware False Piety

2011-09-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

(Note added 18, Sept. As of this morning, all of the formerly blocked comments at the Juneau Express were put on-line in an al-at-once data dump. No explanation was made).

Someone named Charley Larson wrote a letter to the Juneau Empire news paper. As I often do, I responded to the newspaper’s public forum. By 16 Sept. 2011, I became so frustrated with the Juneau Empire comment policies (disappearing posts critical of creationism), that I decided to put the whole file up here at Stones and Bones.

I was nearly finished with Charley anyway.

You can read Charley’s letter at this link.

I’ll start with Charley Larson’s letter by detailing the errors and outright falsehoodsin the order they were made.

“the theory of evolution is absolutely a belief. It has never been proven”

First, for those of us who actually do science, in the field, or in the lab, evolution is not a ‘belief’ in the sense of a faith. I accept the reality of evolution just as I accept the reality of gravity. In fact, evolution is easier to understand than Einstein’s theory of gravity, and is better supported. The physics people are spending billions of tax dollars a year hoping to demonstrate the existence of the Higgs particle that might, if found, fill the gap between Einstein’s theory, and quantum mechanics following Niels Bohr.

We don’t need billions to confirm evolution because this was done long ago. We do still argue about the fine points, most of which would seem incoherent to a non-specialist. The two newest big research areas are in evolutionary developmental biology (old school “embryology” brought up-to-date with modern molecular biology), and epigenetics, the surprising discovery of non-genetic phyletic inheritance (really, the odd ways that the environment alters genetic expression)((Even the egg has an internal environment!)).

But, for most of Darwin’s theory that is still retained we only need to point out that new species have been documents emerging from old species. This “proves” evolution as well as falling off a cliff “proves” gravity. I have compiled a list of observed speciation events at “Stones and Bones: Emergence of New Species”

Charley next spouts we should all go see, “No Intelligence Allowed” by Ben Stein.

It is a movie about many scientists who, through their varying research into a diverse array of scientific fields, have found such complexity and variety in what they were researching (their scientific search for the truth) that they came to the conclusion that what they found simply could not be a result of time and/or chance.“

I have already posted a link to “Expelled Exposed,” the propaganda film was titled “Expelled” Here is the link again:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

First thing to notice is that no scientist lost their jobs because they became creationists. The closest in “Expelled” was Guillermo Gonzalez. He became a creationist, and stopped writing grants, and never got his students to graduate. He lost his job. I was a professor, and IF I did not bring in the $$ from grants, and IF MY students couldn’t graduate, I would have lost my job too.

But the biggest fraud is that these twerps came to reject science because of their scientific research. They were all creationists first. In fact many went into science just to try and disprove the sciences. An example is Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells. He admits that he was ordered to pursue a degree in biology by his “messiah” and “Lord” Rev. Sun Moon. Why? Well, in his own words, “that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.” That is so unbiased and filled with the “search for truth,” don’t you think?

I am going to expand a bit on Charley’s rejection of “time and/or chance.” Creationists like to pretend (lie) that evolutionary science relies entirely on “time and/or chance,” or as they like to say “blind random chance.” We don’t

First we note that energy and matter have some very dependable, and limited behaviors. This is good because if energy and matter could act in any sort of random way, then literally nothing could exist. So, first of all, we scientists rely on the fact that energy and matter are not totally random. But, if energy and matter were too restricted, then life could not exist. Think about this as the difference between a snowflake and a protein; the snowflake is unique, and elaborate, but its ability to change and adapt to the environment is very limited. A protein is not at all unique, proteins vary greatly, but they have recognizable patterns across hundreds and thousands of different species. Proteins vary even within a single cell, and they are affected by the environment more than a snowflake. Snowflakes are not alive.

But, there are some strong “chance” features to the history of life on Earth. For example, is was not a “planned” event that sent a massive asteroid crashing into the Earth 65 million years ago leading to the extinction of millions of species. If it were not for evolution, all life would have ended long ago. But, evolution causes life to try to fill any available niche, from alpine lakes to super-salty lagoons, and mountain tops to the deepest sea trenches, ice fields to hot springs. Your body has three or four times more cells of bacteria, yeast, and fungi than “you.” And, they all have viruses of their own.

What evolution does not due is to plan in advance. In that sense, it is up to chance. But that is balanced by natural selection which is the opposite of chance.

Charley next claimed “While many of these scientists have not embraced the notion of a supreme, omnipotent God who created the universe, they do believe that the universe is not the result of chance but at the very least is the result of intelligent design.”

It is not true, Charley.

I already showed how Jon Wells’s first allegiance was to his ordained master, Rev. Sun Moon. But here are some more that the Intelligent Design Creationists have admitted;

Phillip Johnson
"This [the intelligent design movement] isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy." World Magazine, 30 November 1996

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." American Family Radio (10 January 2003)

William Dembski,
"Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." (“Signs of Intelligence,” 1999, Touchstone magazine).

"My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ." William Dembski, 'Intelligent Design', p 206

“…but let’s admit that our aim, as proponents of intelligent design, is to beat naturalistic evolution, and the scientific materialism that undergirds it, back to the Stone Age. “DEALING WITH THE BACKLASH AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN version 1.1, April 14, 2004”

Charley slings some more BS from “Expelled.” And again, these lies are all exposed at, “Expelled Exposed”
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

Some highlights are; Nobody was fired for their beliefs. Some people were not rehired after they refused to do their jobs. Go tell your boss that you don’t need to do your job because you “answer to a higher power.” Then whine about “discrimination” if you lose your job.

Charley described a scene from Expelled, “The very last scene in the movie has Stein interviewing Richard Dawkins, probably the best known atheist in the world. Under intensive questioning from Stein, Dawkins ultimately states he really doesn’t have a clue how life originated on Earth but then postulates that perhaps a super intelligent alien race from a far off planet came and planted life on Earth. This explanation makes far more sense than a creator we call God.”

Sorry Charley, that wasn’t the last scene. The last scene was Ben Stein talking to a faked audience at Pepperdine Bible University. The phony interview with Dawkins was a set-up. All the non-creationists interviewed were lied to by the production company. They were lied to about the title, goal, and funding of the movie. And the “intensive questioning” was faked. Did you notice Charley, that you never saw Stein and Dawkins through a whole question/answer series? And when Dawkins mentioned “intelligent aliens,” he was repeating an old Discovery Institute talking point that they didn’t specify that God was the Creator because it could have been intelligent aliens.

Additionally, the origin of life is logically, and factually separate from the origin of life. Even Darwin wrote in a 1871 letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker, "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are present, which could ever have been present. But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. "

Later in the same letter, he observed,

"It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter."

We do think today about the origin of matter, Cosmology, and the origin of life, Abiogenesis. I have compiled a short outline of recent research called, “A Short Outline of the Origin of life,” at;
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/12/origin-of-life-outline.html

Beware intellectual pride? Beware false sanctity.

Charley, ignorant of what science has discovered, and can hold as physical facts, the stones and bones that teach us the history and present state of the Earth, quotes to us the Bible. I’ll quote a bit for Charley who likes the Apostle Paul;

In Titus 1:14, Apostle Paul (or one his later followers) tells us to ignore Jewish fables. Wouldn't that mean much of the Pentateuch, if not all of Genesis? Elsewhere Paul wrote, Romans 7:6, “But now we are delivered from the Torah, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Also: 2 Corinthans 3:6 "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This is an powerful rejection of bibliolatry and literalism. This is extended in Titus 3: 9, "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Torah, for they are unprofitable and worthless."

But the earlier biblical sages also wrote regarding the physical creation as a testament.
Psalm 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge. (New American Standard Bible)

More clearly, Psalm 85:11 reads, “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven.” The Hebrew word translated here as “truth,” emet, basically means “certainty and dependability.”

The certainty and dependability, the emet of the Earth is that it is ancient, and that life evolved.

For some readings from serious Christians, written largely for Christians struggling with the facts of science and their faith, I recommend reading;

Young, Davis A., Ralf F. Stearley
2008 "The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth" Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press

Miller, Keith B. (editor)
2003 “Perspectives on an Evolving Creation” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing

Frye, Roland Mushat (editor)
1983 "Is God a Creationist?: The Religious Case Against Creation-Science" New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Inc.

16 Sept. 2011

Charley says that, “I also take exception to Olson’s characterization of my Christian belief of creation as “folklore.”

There are several issues here. First, the Christian part of the Bible calls the creation story part of the Bible, "… foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Torah, for they are unprofitable and worthless" Titus 3: 9. There are also the many “Christian” traditions which are in fact borrowed folklore, Christmas for example. The flood story was adapted from older Sumerian, and Babylonian traditions. For a very good book on the origins of most of the creation accounts in the Bible, see;

Smith, Mark S.
2002 “The Early History of God 2nd ed.” Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing

Charley argues that because his drug addiction was “cured” when he became ‘born again” that this lends credence to Christianity. There are of course billions of people in other religions who could make the same argument. And there are no doubt millions of drug, or alcohol abusers who have always been fervent believers in what ever religion they grew-up within. And, their addiction, or illness, or death should neither be used as a “proof” nor “denial” of the validity of any religion.

One last note, and I might be criticized as being insensitive, but Charley, Why in the world would I take the opinion of someone about the sciences who can only offer their 30 years of drugged stupor as a recommendation? Sorry Charley, I am glad you are sober, but don’t try to criticize sciences you know nothing about.

Seriously Folks. The Fishing Is Getting Better.

2011-09-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was on the Pacific Queen (good boat, good crew) the other day. We did alright, but my timing was pathetic; either too quck or too slow. I landed the two tuna I hooked, but I missed setting the hook in six others.

Gadget Template Meltdown

2011-09-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Once again, some programer has "improved" the blog software. This is the same as saying they screwed it up again. The pattern seems to be that the "improvement" will take a week or two to be repaired.

News about Climate

2011-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

The other day (August 27, 2011), someone calling themselves “ThomasPaine1” was yammering abut global warming on a newspaper comment section for The Ithica Times, and citing an article in the well respected scientific journal Forbes. The article was written by James M. Taylor of the Heartland Institute. These are the same biostitutes that promised that “real science” “proved” that tobacco smoking and nicotine could never kill you. They were well paid by the tobacco industry to say that, and their lies undoubted contributed to the deaths of many people. Today they take their money from the oil and coal industry, and they promise to earn that money just like they earned the tobacco industry money.

The original article that Taylor was referring to was, Spencer, Roy W.; Braswell, William D. 2011. "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance." Remote Sensing. 3, no. 8: 1603-1613. It is available free on the Internet.

It should be needless to say, but is apparently necessary, the article does not say what Mr. Taylor claimed it did. Oh, and global warming is real, and tobacco smoking will cause your death. I propose that all conservatives become very heavy smokers to prove that the Heartland Institute is telling the truth.

Now there is a follow-up

In a very surprising action, the Editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing, Wolfgang Wagner, has resigned from the journal. In his resignation letter, Dr. Wagner observed that,

"With this step I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements, e.g., in a press release of The University of Alabama in Huntsville from 27 July 2011 [2], the main author’s personal homepage [3], the story “New NASA data blow gaping hole in global warming alarmism” published by Forbes [4], and the story “Does NASA data show global warming lost in space?” published by Fox News [5], to name just a few."

True to a conspiracy theory mind set, Climate Change Denier Roy Spencer (and lead author of the disputed paper) blames the "IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] gatekeepers" for Wagner's resignation. He apparently is unfamiliar with people acting honorably.

I am so easily distracted by fishing

2011-08-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

I really appologise to anyone frustrated by my somewhat inconsistent follow-up on some posts.

I have an excuse!!!!111!!!

This was a very tasty, if small, bluefin tuna I caught fishing ~150 miles SW of San Diego, California. We were aboard the New Lo-An out from Point Loma. It was a good 1.5 day trip- good boat, good crew, and hungry fish. I returned home with about 50lbs of meat. Since fresh bluefin is selling retail for ~$27 a pound, I made better than retail on a $450 trip.

Next week I'll leave on the Pacific Queen for another shot at the tuna. One day will be my last off-shore trip, and then I'll be more diligent at writing.

Baleen whale evolution and creationists

2011-08-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

A rather obnoxious oral surgeon, Don Moeller DDS MD MA, recently posted a challenge to the effect of “where any mutation of the amelogenin gene or any other enamel protein has resulted in anything but a detrimental effect,” and, “explain to me how no less than twenty enamel subtypes appear in the fossil record with NO pathological enamel and no precursors,” and, “let me know why there is NO oral pathology ( eruption sequence, postion variation, developmental cysts, tumors etc) in ANY fossil.”

As for the later, I have seen fossils with tooth pathology, and osteopathies of the mandible and maxilla including impaction. Bone erosion, and tooth loss to bacterial infections are of course common. So there.

As it happens, I have been collecting articles on whale evolution for several years as a hobby. I indulge my hobbies, as they have often resulted in money making career paths, and work is more fun when it doesn’t seem like working. This also gives me the opportunity to educate Dr. Dr. Moeller, MA. However, I doubt he will be able to take advantage since the poor man is a creationist.

First, the general problem that creationists like Moeller present to Christian theology is that any gap, or open question in science is where they try to justify their belief in God. Here are a few hints that this is a stupid, and anti-scriptural effort; 1 Timothy 1: 3, 2 Corinthians 3: 5, Titus 3:9. In plain words, “Tis a dangerous thing to engage the authority of scripture in disputes about the natural world in opposition to reason; lest time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made scripture assert.” Telluris theoria sacra (1684 English edition, “The Sacred Theory of the Earth” Preface, pg. 10), Reverend Thomas Burnett (1635?-1715).

For more recent books, I suggest;

Miller, Keith B. (editor)
2003 “Perspectives on an Evolving Creation” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing

Hyers, Conrad
1984 “The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science” Atlanta: John Knox Press (Conrad Hyers has served as Professor of the History of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion at both Beloit College and at Gustavus Adolphus College. He is also an ordained Presbyterian minister)

Haught, John F.
2001 “Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution” New York: Paulist Press Haught is a Catholic theologian who testified as a plaintiff expert in the Dover, Pa “Intelligent Design” trial.

Frye, Roland Mushat (editor)
1983 "Is God a Creationist?: The Religious Case Against Creation-Science" New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Inc.

Rabbi Natan Slifkin gives a very interesting Orthodox Jewish perspective in “The Challenge of Creation: Judaism’s Encounter with Science, Cosmology and Evolution” (2008 New York: Zoo Torah and Yashar Books).

Every time a creationist’s demand for more evidence from science is met, their god argument grows weaker. This is the ultimate doom of all such "god of the gaps" theologies. And it is in fact an unnecessary argument. But, Dr. Moeller picked the fight, and here is the 1-2-3-4-5 “yer-out.” For now, I’ll just post the relevant articles, their abstracts, and a link to each. The hard part for me was making links to free texts.

Erich M.G Fitzgerald
2006 “A bizarre new toothed mysticete (Cetacea) from Australia and the early evolution of baleen whales” Proc. R. Soc. B 7 December 2006 vol. 273 no. 1604 2955-2963
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/273/1604/2955

Extant baleen whales (Cetacea, Mysticeti) are all large filter-feeding marine mammals that lack teeth as adults, instead possessing baleen, and feed on small marine animals in bulk. The early evolution of these superlative mammals, and their unique feeding method, has hitherto remained enigmatic. Here, I report a new toothed mysticete from the Late Oligocene of Australia that is more archaic than any previously described. Unlike all other mysticetes, this new whale was small, had enormous eyes and lacked derived adaptations for bulk filter-feeding. Several morphological features suggest that this mysticete was a macrophagous predator, being convergent on some Mesozoic marine reptiles and the extant leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx). It thus refutes the notions that all stem mysticetes were filter-feeders, and that the origins and initial radiation of mysticetes was linked to the evolution of filter-feeding. Mysticetes evidently radiated into a variety of disparate forms and feeding ecologies before the evolution of baleen or filter-feeding. The phylogenetic context of the new whale indicates that basal mysticetes were macrophagous predators that did not employ filter-feeding or echolocation, and that the evolution of characters associated with bulk filter-feeding was gradual.

Thomas A. DEMERE, Michael R. MCGOWEN, Annalisa BERTA, John GATESY
2008 “Morphological and Molecular Evidence for a Stepwise Evolutionary Transition from Teeth to Baleen in Mysticete Whales” Systematic biology, vol. 57, no1, pp. 15-37
http://en.scientificcommons.org/49323540

-The origin of baleen in mysticete whales represents a major transition in the phylogenetic history of Cetacea. This key specialization, a keratinous sieve that enables filter-feeding, permitted exploitation of a new ecological niche and heralded the evolution of modern baleen-bearing whales, the largest animals on Earth. To date, all formally described mysticete fossils conform to two types: toothed species from Oligocene-age rocks (~24 to 34 million years old) and toothless species that presumably utilized baleen to feed (Recent to ~30 million years old). Here, we show that several Oligocene toothed mysticetes have nutrient foramina and associated sulci on the lateral portions of their palates, homologous structures in extant mysticetes house vessels that nourish baleen. The simultaneous occurrence of teeth and nutrient foramina implies that both teeth and baleen were present in these early mysticetes. Phylogenetic analyses of a supermatrix that includes extinct taxa and new data for 11 nuclear genes consistently resolve relationships at the base of Mysticeti. The combined data set of 27,340 characters supports a stepwise transition from a toothed ancestor, to a mosaic intermediate with both teeth and baleen, to modern baleen whales that lack an adult dentition but retain developmental and genetic evidence of their ancestral toothed heritage. Comparative sequence data for ENAM (enamelin) and AMBN (ameloblastin) indicate that enamel-specific loci are present in Mysticeti but have degraded to pseudogenes in this group. The dramatic transformation in mysticete feeding anatomy documents an apparently rare, stepwise mode of evolution in which a composite phenotype bridged the gap between primitive and derived morphologies; a combination of fossil and molecular evidence provides a multifaceted record of this macroevolutionary pattern.

Toshiyuki Kimura* and Yoshikazu Hasegawa
2010 “A New Baleen Whale (Mysticeti: Cetotheriidae) from the Earliest Late Miocene of Japan and a Reconsideration of the Phylogeny of Cetotheres” Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30(2):577-591.
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1080/02724631003621912

A new, well-preserved mysticete fossil is described and diagnosed here as Joumocetus shimizui, gen. et sp. nov. The holotype specimen was recovered from the earliest Late Miocene, Haraichi Formation, Annaka Group, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Although many cetotheres have been found from the Pacific realm, the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto is relatively rare in terms of taxonomic diversity and also abundance of specimens. Joumocetus will be the fourth genus of the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto from the Pacific and the geologically earliest and most archaic Cetotheriidae sensu stricto yet reported. Joumocetus retains a number of primitive characteristics, and our phylogenetic analysis indicates that Joumocetus is placed basally among the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto. Our analysis clearly indicates a monophyly of the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto and of a clade that consists of Balaenopteridae, Eschrichtiidae, and cetotheres. The results also indicate the monophyly of the following two groups: cetotheres not belong to Cetotheriidae sensu stricto (= Isanacetus-group) and Cetotheriidae sensu lato (= Isanacetus-group + Cetotheriidae sensu stricto); however, the monophylies of these groups are not well supported by bootstrap analysis. Consequently, the relationships and definition of these mysticete taxa remain unclear. Based on the present study and a review of previous studies, we suggest that the Isanacetus-group is a paraphyletic taxon that includes the ancestors of two clades, Balaenopteridae + Eschrichtiidae and the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto.

Robert W. Meredith, John Gatesy, Joyce Cheng and Mark S. Springer
2011 “Pseudogenization of the tooth gene enamelysin (MMP20) in the common ancestor of extant baleen whales” Proc. R. Soc. B 7 April vol. 278 no. 1708: 993-1002
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1708/993.abstract

Whales in the suborder Mysticeti are filter feeders that use baleen to sift zooplankton and small fish from ocean waters. Adult mysticetes lack teeth, although tooth buds are present in foetal stages. Cladistic analyses suggest that functional teeth were lost in the common ancestor of crown-group Mysticeti. DNA sequences for the tooth-specific genes, ameloblastin (AMBN), enamelin (ENAM) and amelogenin (AMEL), have frameshift mutations and/or stop codons in this taxon, but none of these molecular cavities are shared by all extant mysticetes. Here, we provide the first evidence for pseudogenization of a tooth gene, enamelysin (MMP20), in the common ancestor of living baleen whales. Specifically, pseudogenization resulted from the insertion of a CHR-2 SINE retroposon in exon 2 of MMP20. Genomic and palaeontological data now provide congruent support for the loss of enamel-capped teeth on the common ancestral branch of crown-group mysticetes. The new data for MMP20 also document a polymorphic stop codon in exon 2 of the pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps), which has enamel-less teeth. These results, in conjunction with the evidence for pseudogenization of MMP20 in Hoffmann's two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), another enamel-less species, support the hypothesis that the only unique, non-overlapping function of the MMP20 gene is in enamel formation.

J. A. Jackson, C. S. Baker, M. Vant, D. J. Steel, L. Medrano-González and S. R. Palumbi
2011 “Big and Slow: Phylogenetic Estimates of Molecular Evolution in Baleen Whales (Suborder Mysticeti)” Mol Biol Evol (2009) 26 (11): 2427-2440.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/11/2427.short

Baleen whales are the largest animals that have ever lived. To develop an improved estimation of substitution rate for nuclear and mitochondrial DNA for this taxon, we implemented a relaxed-clock phylogenetic approach using three fossil calibration dates: the divergence between odontocetes and mysticetes ~34 million years ago (Ma), between the balaenids and balaenopterids ~28 Ma, and the time to most recent common ancestor within the Balaenopteridae ~12 Ma. We examined seven mitochondrial genomes, a large number of mitochondrial control region sequences (219 haplotypes for 465 bp) and nine nuclear introns representing five species of whales, within which multiple species-specific alleles were sequenced to account for within-species diversity (1–15 for each locus). The total data set represents >1.65 Mbp of mitogenome and nuclear genomic sequence. The estimated substitution rate for the humpback whale control region (3.9%/million years, My) was higher than previous estimates for baleen whales but slow relative to other mammal species with similar generation times (e.g., human–chimp mean rate > 20%/My). The mitogenomic third codon position rate was also slow relative to other mammals (mean estimate 1%/My compared with a mammalian average of 9.8%/My for the cytochrome b gene). The mean nuclear genomic substitution rate (0.05%/My) was substantially slower than average synonymous estimates for other mammals (0.21–0.37%/My across a range of studies). The nuclear and mitogenome rate estimates for baleen whales were thus roughly consistent with an 8- to 10-fold slowing due to a combination of large body size and long generation times. Surprisingly, despite the large data set of nuclear intron sequences, there was only weak and conflicting support for alternate hypotheses about the phylogeny of balaenopterid whales, suggesting that interspecies introgressions or a rapid radiation has obscured species relationships in the nuclear genome.

Note: As it happens, I live and work in an area particularly well suited for Miocene whale fossils. There is indeed a number of unpublished fossils, sitting in the warehouse of the museum I was formerly a director of, which physically support the “rapid radiation” of baleen whale evolution.

Edited to as a related citation;
Zhe Wang, Lihong Yuan, Stephen J. Rossiter, Xueguo Zuo, Binghua Ru, Hui Zhong, Naijian Han, Gareth Jones, Paul D. Jepson and Shuyi Zhang. 2009. Adaptive Evolution of 5′HoxD Genes in the Origin and Diversification of the Cetacean Flipper. Mol Biol Evol (2009) 26(3): 613-622 (http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/613.full).

A qualified, partial victory in Capistrano

2011-08-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just published their decision that Capistrano Unified School District’s high school teacher, James Corbett, was not vulnerable to the claim that his classroom statements violated the First Amendment rights of a former student, Chad Farnan. The suit was filed by his parents in 2009 while Chad was still a minor. The case has attracted considerable press attention, locally and nationally. It is also the topic of a number of online discussions, for example, "Lost Opportunity in San Juan Capistrano." In the original, and amended plaintiff complaints (all court documents are available on-line through the National Center for Science Education), there were a dozen or so statements Farnan claimed to have secretly recorded during Corbett’s classes. During the trial, several were found to have been so severely edited, and redacted by Farnan that their meaning had been totally altered.

Following the trial Judge’s decision, only a single statement made by Corbett, as alleged by Farnan, was found to be questionable.

Corbett,

“At that point, I stood up and said, “I’ll tell you what. I will sign a statement giving you — you do not have to defend me, but I will not leave John [Peloza] alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense... John wanted to talk about creation as a science and all that stuff, but you get involved in that argument, you just lose because it’s just nonsense. . . .”

The original law suit made a common error of equating creationism with Christianity. This is nonsense. Unfortunately, Corbett's legal team never challenged this error, and instead argued he had a First Amendment right that allowed him to be critical of creationism/religion. If Crobett, acting as a public employee, were to say as part of his public job that "Christianity is rubbish," or "Islam is rubbish," he would have been in violation of the Constitution, and his contract. To state that young earth creationism is rubbish is merely stating a fact that in no way attacks Christianity, or Islam, or any other religious sect. Where is the Church of Creationism? What are their sacraments? How do I know who is a member of the Church of Creationism?

There are Jewish, and Muslim creationists who maintain the same absurd, and false claims opposing the sciences of biology, geology, and astronomy directly, and even chemistry and physics indirectly, as do the garden variety Christian creationists. There are Neo-pagan, and Animist creationists. There are Native American creationists who insist that all sciences, especially archaeology, were invented merely to suppress Native Americans. There are Hindu creationists who insist that the Earth is infinitely old. So, Corbett's remarks regarding CTREATIONISM cannot be said to be "anti-Christian," and in fact there are thousands of Christian Clergy who reject creationist foolishness as well. Google "Clergy Letter Project."

Non-the-less, Corbett's remarks re: creationism were not directed against any religion in particular. In fact, Intelligent Design creationists try to pretend (unsuccessfully) they are free of any religious motivations.

To say that fear of black cats, or Friday the Thirteenth is superstitious nonsense is merely the truth. So to is saying that creationism is superstitious nonsense merely the truth. Creationism is not a religion. Creationism is not protected any more than fear of black cats, or Friday the Thirteenth, or fear of vaccinations.

At the same time, there is no creationist dogma that is not ultimately reducible to a religious doctrine held by the proponent of creationism. For this reason, creationism is not eligible to be taught in government sponsored, public schools. Creationism is used as a tool by the proponent to advance their personal religion through the coercive power of the State.

Why Americans will become more ignorant

2011-07-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

Why Americans will become more ignorant

This was in today’s Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, South Carolina);

Seminary plans creation lecture at Summer Institute (Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors”

Dr. Jonathan D. Sarfati will speak on "Design, Deluge, and Dilemma."

The institute will include lectures titled "Real Science Supports the Bible," "Creation and Bioethics," "Exegetical Defense of Creationism," "Incredible Design in Nature," "Are Miracles Scientific?" and more.

What keeps Americans ignorant?

2011-07-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

(Note added 7, Oct. 2011; After considerable delay, the Abilene Reporter did post the comments below).

Americans get more of their "news" from family and friends than from study, and broadly, the public news media is their only outside source for information. Americans rarely read scientific journals, or specialist books about science.

News papers are coming to realize that they must have Internet versions of themselves, and the advertisers pay by the page views. I have for several years made the effort to find and reply to these on-line news paper editorials when they broach on evolution v. creationism. There are various frustrations associated with this; separate registration forms, wildly varying user interface software, and typically limited opportunity to make outside links, or use any graphics.

But by far the most irritating thing I have encountered is simple censorship. There are news papers which block views that are informed, and critical of creationism and biblical literalism. They might at the same time allow weakly presented counter arguments. Of course, this blog post is motivated by just such an instance. The Abilene Reporter-News (Tx), just ran a Letter to the Editor by Clyde Berkeley, Letter: On debating the origin of life which I tried to respond to on three occasions.

None were allowed through the censorship queue.

So here they are;

I read this letter earlier today, and would have replied earlier, but I had an afternoon fishing trip planned. Over all, Clyde’s letter is rather amusing. First, I checked on his claim to be a scientist. Sorry Clyde, you have zero scientific publications. However, you do have one citation for an article about planning missionary trips to somewhere. Your profession, from information provided by yourself, is Missionary. You have also claimed to have worked for the National Reconnaissance Agency/Office. I have had some field work experiences with NRA people, and found them very competent. So, I wonder what your job there really was.

As to the origin of life; The theory of evolution is not at all dependent on any particular origin of life on earth. It is irrelevant to the truth of evolution, or as expressed by C. Darwin in his famous 1871 letter to botanist Joseph Hooker, "It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter." There are indeed several large remaining gaps in our precise understanding of the origin of life on earth, but the broad outline is available. In fact, I wrote a “Short Outline of the Origin of Life” which summarized what we knew as of 4 years ago. It is in sore need of updating, particularly in the origin, and chemistry of nucleotides. http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/12/origin-of-life-outline.html

Why “intelligent design” creationism is utterly useless is described in considerable detail in the 2004 book, “Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism.” My chapter in that book was used in the cross examination testimony of creationist Mike Behe during the Dover “Pandas Trial,” where ID creationism was found to be unconstitutional.

But, your most grotesque error is the long rebuked “appearance pf age” argument. This is theologically as bad as it is scientifically bad. For example, Psalm 19:1 reads, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork." Further, Psalm 85:11 reads, “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven.” The Hebrew word translated here as “truth,” emet, basically means “certainty and dependability.”

A faked ancient earth and universe, with faked fossils and geological structures that clearly point to an ancient earth and evolutionary transitions of life could never be honest, or described as giving “certainty and dependability.” The God of such a faked universe would be a perverse, and false god. This is also denied by Scripture. Consider James 1:13. “Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”

wbarloww#247077 writes:
I have a question for those that hold with evolution. Lets just use the four major groups: African, Mediterranean, Caucasian, and Asian. Did they develop simultaneously, or in a linear fashion.

The evolution of humans, and the relationship of that to “race,” is too large a subject to fully explore in 3,000 character snippets. First, regarding the notion that there are “four major groups” of humans- this is not true. As Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, London, 1871), "It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant." This was at the time many Christians argued that non-Europeans were not even human! The American slave owners had been assured by the "preAdamites" that God had created the Negro with the "beasts of the field" and that the sons of Adam (Whites) were only exercising their God ordained right to dominate sub-humans. Even “liberal” pro-slavery ministers such as the famous Rev. John Bachman (1790 – 1874), while acknowledging that Africans were human, argued that they were “too poorly developed” to rule themselves and that slavery was a “necessary institution.”

This sort of racism, originated in the defense of slavery, has shaped American perceptions of race for two centuries. It is long over due to be rejected. For the definitive scientific statement on human races, you will need to read “Biological Aspects of Race” adopted as the official statement on race of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists;
http://physanth.org/association/position-statements/biological-aspects-of-race

I also recommend the American Anthropological Association
Statement on "Race" available at:
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

The short form is that it is not scientifically supported to classify humans into geographical units such as suggested by wbarloww#247077.

wbarloww#247077 goes on to question where modern humans first appeared (or so it seems). They also wondered about the proposition, “that all four groups developed at the same time in one location from one pair of Apes?”

I’ll take the latter first, remembering that there is no validity to the notion of “four groups (of people), it is equally mistaken that humans descended from “one pair of Apes.” The conceptual breakthrough that merged genetics with evolutionary theory was called the “new synthesis,” or “neo-Darwinism.” This took place in the 1930s, and the critical insight was that evolution happens in populations, and not in individuals. The second realization was that, even in mammals, cross-species fertility was not a simple on/off situation. For example, the male Y chromosome is far more prone to mutation than the female’s X chromosome. And, the X chromosome can compensate many defective genes on the Y chromosome. So what you can see is that a male of species “A” could be able to successfully cross-breed a female of species “B,” even if a male from “B” is infertile when paired to a species “A” female. This is also how mutations can accumulate within populations across generations creating the potential for new species emerging.

For a clearer understanding of how humans have evolved, I suggest looking at, “Becoming Human,” http://www.becominghuman.org/

And, the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution;
http://humanorigins.si.edu/

The short form is that most of human evolution has occurred in Africa, but that this is the result of population level change rather than single individuals, or single mate pairs.

(The original comments were cut into ~ 3000 character chunks).

Satan made me do it

2011-07-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

I was going to save this for last, and I suppose that I have in spite of having 6 more of Rev. Miller’s headline reasons “Why Won't Creationists Just Give Up?” that I could take to the trash heap.

But here is the definitive reason against discussing reality with Miller, or his ilk;

“Because Satan has provided people with a way of looking at the world that doesn't need God (evolutionary theory), and we need to expose the weaknesses in that proposition rather than compromise with it.”

Rev. Adrian Miller seeks to avoid any critical thinking about his extreme claims for revelatory perfection by preemptively blaming Satan for any counter evidence, or objections. This makes it impossible for Miller to discuss anything at all in good faith. Anything he doesn’t like is because “Satan did it.” Anything that shows Miller to be a hypocrite, “Satan did it.” Anything that shows Miller to be an ignorant twit, “Satan did it.”

Is there any reason to finish Miller's objections to reality?

Do not miss this!

2011-07-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

This is big news!

Researchers Identify Seventh and Eighth Bases of DNA Hat tip to Lou Shackelton for posting this before I saw it. There are also variations in the genetic triplet code found particularly in marine bacteria. The over-all results show that the DNA code evolved with variations. This raises an interesting problem for Carl Woese's notion that indicriminant lateral gene transfer has erased any chance to rediscover the genetics of the Last Universal Common Ancestor, which he reviews in “The universal ancestor” PNAS Vol. 95, Issue 12, 6854-6859, 1998 June 9.

(I might go fishing Friday and give Rev. Adrian Miller another day to catch his breath. Then I'll post Part 4).

Adrian Miller, Part 3: What Wiser Christians Have Said

2011-07-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

To recap, an Anglican Priest the Reverend Adrian Miller, claimed his biblical gloss known as YECism was supported,

”Because we recognise the importance of revelation in our approach to knowing.”

And he knows this because, "In the past God spoke through prophets and now He speaks to us through Jesus." with textural support from the opening lines of The Epistle to the Hebrews.

The first revelation of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, demands that the physical universe is co-equal with the textural revelation. The second revelation, the New Testiment, generally affirms the old revelation regarding the revelation of nature (eg. Romans 1:20) with the added bit that “Jewish fables and genealogies” are expressly to be ignored as they are “unprofitable and worthless,” (Titus 3: 9). That pretty much finished the YEC cult “revelation” right there.

But, this was not my original insight. (Well, I learned later that it was not my original insight). There is a strong recent effort to salvage Christian theology from the YEC cult in the Christian Clergy Letter Project, which states,

“Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

Over 12,746 Christian clergy in America have affirmed this statement as of 6/24/11. But of course, THE PERFECT HOLY PREIST ADRIAN is far more pious, Christ-like, and educated than any of these thousands of clergy. But these are not new efforts to save Christianity from derision and irrelevance. For example, consider the following:

"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." (Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437).

That was a fairly recent admission occasioned by the scientific discoveries, not of Darwin, but of geology. It was in turn anticipated by,

“Tis a dangerous thing to engage the authority of scripture in disputes about the natural world in opposition to reason; lest time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made scripture assert.” Telluris theoria sacra (1684 English edition, “The Sacred Theory of the Earth” Preface, pg. 10), Reverend Thomas Burnett (1635?-1715)

But that is recent still as we have the testimony of Cardinal Baronius (1598) for the statement, "The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." This was cited by Galileo, not that it did him any good.

Still earlier we have John Calvin (1509 – 1564) writing on Genesis,

"For to my mind this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy and the other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.” And later he stated, “It must be remembered, that Moses does not speak with philosophical acuteness on occult mysteries, but states those things which are everywhere observed, even by the uncultivated, and which are in common use. (Genesis, I, 79 & 84 (1554).”

Why can’t Mr. Miller follow the logic of Calvin when he observed,

“ Lastly since the Spirit of God here opens a common school for all, it is not surprising that he should chiefly choose those subjects which would be intelligible to all. If the astronomer inquires respecting the actual dimensions of the stars, he will find the moon to be less than Saturn; but this is something abstruse, for to the sight it appears differently. Moses, therefore, rather adapts his discourse to common usage.” Calvin J., Genesis, Vol. I, Part 3 (1554).

I should hope that all YEC cultists give serious attention to Thomas Aquinas on science and faith, who wrote,

"In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing." Thomas Aquinas, c.a. 1225 - 1274, Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q68. Art 1. (1273).

Aquinas refers to the Christian father, Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) who advised Christians trying to interpret Scripture in the light of scientific knowledge in his work “The Literal Meaning of Genesis” (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim). The following translation is by J. H. Taylor in "Ancient Christian Writers," Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. {Augustine here has referred to 1 Timothy 1.7}”

Here we enter back into the Revelation that Mr. Adrian Miller wants to vouchsafe over the work of science. But, as before we find that this revelation rejects Mr. Miller and his YEC cult. Why did Aquinas, and Augustine warn against making “obstacles be placed to their believing?” They were warning any Christian who would try to enforce a denial of the physical revelation to support a false biblical interpretation. They were making a direct reference to Luke 17:1. (Jesus) said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! 2. "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Also, Matthew 18:7. "Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!” Or, as the Apostle Paul wrote, "determine this--not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way" (Romans 14:13).

I hope you, Mr. Miller, will read these Scriptures in their broader meaning and then give full consideration of my current favorite Scripture;

James 3:1. Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.

Personally I feel fine about this. If I were you Mr. Miller, I would shit my pants with terror because you are preaching lies. But, I don’t think you really believe any of this at all. Preaching is just easier than a real job.

(Edited 18 July to tone down what I think of Mr. Miller.)

Flood Geology and the Geological Society of America

2011-07-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

Earth magazine is published by the American Geological Institute. Geologist Steven Newton, programs and policy director for the National Center for Science Education, wrote this months cover story, “Creationism creeps into mainstream geology.” Steve discussed the presentations made by young earth creationists at the last annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA).

My compatriot Joe Meert was also at the meetings, and has recorded his observations and reactions on his personal blog, Science, AntiScience and Geology.

So, I think that I can go ahead and relate part of my involvement. Starting in Spring of 2009, the Calvary Chapel creationists wanted to have a “debate” on the Grand Canyon and the age of the earth. I agreed to present the scientific point of view. The Calvary Chapel people kept changing the scope of the topic, the dates, and even who I was supposed to debate with at their church. Ultimately, I was scheduled to debate with Steve Austin of the Institute for Creation Research. Austin was the editor, and principle contributor to “The Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe,” a YEC piece of work that attributes the Grand Canyon to the Noah’s Flood in Genesis 6-9.

I was already familiar with Austin, and his book. I had in fact predicted that if not Austin himself, the arguments he wrote would be the actual “debate” material from the creationists. When things seemed somewhat settled, I started an internet search to find any recent critiques of Austin’s work, and to see what he had been up to lately. That is when I saw that he was presenting field trips at the GSA meetings along with a bunch of other YEC “geologists.” I pulled together quick biographies of the YEC presenters, including their claims that the GSA had endorsed their “flood science,” and sent emails off to the meeting organizers, the GSA executive board, Joe Meert, and one that wound its way to Steve Newton at the NCSE.

I would like to share the emails, but I don't have permission. Basiclly it was CYA from the organizers. The whole situation really pissed me off- GSA was allowing these liars and frauds to use the meetings to sell the public the idea that their “flood science” was given peer support.

Adrian Miller, Part 2

2011-07-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

In Part 1, I provided some references from the Tanakh, or “Old Testament” that taught that the physical creation is a ‘revelation’ of God’s nature. For example, it was taught that the revelation of the Earth was “emet” or “certain and dependable” (Psalm 85). The Book of Job assures us that; the animals, the birds of the air, the earth, and the fish of the sea, can all inform us of God’s creative acts, and nature (Job 12:7-8).

But for Part 2, I want to focus on Part 2 of the Bible. And the first question is does the New Testament also regard the physical universe as a revelation of God’s nature? The obvious text is from Paul;
Romans 1:
20. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22. Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23. and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Obviously, verse 20 demands that Christians acknowledge the physical revelation; the same stones and bones, birds and fishes commended by Job, and the Psalms. Of particular note in the context of the anti-science program of creationism is verse 22. This fragment of the whole thought is very popular with creationists celebrating their abject ignorance of science and congratulating themselves for being unwise, but not fools. I have had exchanges with followers of YEC preachers like Ken Ham, or Kent Hovind who insisted that the “wise” who became “fools” was a prophetic text referring to ‘evilutionists.’ The "wise" in verse 22 referred to astrologers in particular, and verse 23 is reference to the deification of Roman emperors, and worship of Egyptian gods; e.g. Anubis with his jackal head, Horus with a hawk’s head, Sobek the crocodile, or Tawaret an amalgam of the head of a hippopotamus, arms and legs of a lion, the back and tail of a crocodile, and the breasts and stomach of a pregnant woman.

Here is a partial list of scriptures which assert the dual revelations of nature and scripture; Job 10:8-14, Job 12:7-8, Job 34:14-15, Job 38-41, Psalm 8, Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 50:6, Psalm 97:6, Psalm 98:2-3, Psalm 104, Psalm 139, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Habakkuk 3:3, Proverbs 8:22-31, Acts 17:24-31, Romans 1:20-23, Romans 2:14-15, Colossians 1:23.

But, the New Testament, particularly in the writing of Paul (or his followers), goes well beyond merely attesting to the physical revelation. Regarding the ancient, and perhaps confused biblical traditions, Paul advised Titus, "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Torah, for they are unprofitable and worthless. (Titus 3: 9).”

The young earth creation sect is wholly reliant on the tolodot or “generations” listed in various locations throughout the biblical texts for their "age of the Earth" computations. You cannot even get past Genesis 11 without some serious confusions, and textural contradictions. The Apostle Paul is entirely correct to advise against giving them any attention; they are “unprofitable and worthless." Paul’s advice is not limited to Titus, as this is a common refrain in his writing (or those of his followers). For example, Romans 7:6 “But now we are delivered from the Torah, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” And, even stronger, 2 Corinthans 3:6 "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter (Torah) but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." The YEC cult instead demands we deny the obvious truth (emet) of astronomy, geology, paleontology, anthropology and biology in favor of “fables and endless genealogies (1 Timothy 1:4).”

Adrian Miller, and a comment about comments.

2011-07-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Spammers a fond of making comments on blogs, particularly to old posts, and they seem to avoid moderation queues. It is much effort to go digging through the comment sections of old posts to delete spam. So, I altered the settings to the comments for “Stones and Bones” to allow unmoderated comments for 4 days following a post, and then all later comments are referred to a moderation queue.

I never made a point to explain this in the past, and it has now tangled two recent comments. One was a request for information/opinion prompted to a newspaper’s on-line discussion of creationism and evolution in schools.

The second was from Rev. Adrian Miller, a vicar in Norwich Diocese, GB. Miller is a Young Earth Creationist, and I have written 2 posts regarding his article "Why Won't Creationists Just Give Up?”. These were the Saturday, May 28, 2011 post, “When the crazy goes mainstream,” and Rev. Adrian Miller, Part 1.” Miller’s reply followed the latter.

So that I don’t need to mess around with moderation, I’ll pull Rev. Miller’s comment to the front, extend the open comment period, and request that the conversation continues in this thread. At the same time, I have “Part 2” about ready. This will extend my argument that the Bible is not supportive of science denying YECism.

Rev. Miller’s comment:

Thanks again for reading my article and taking the time to respond to it.

There was a time I was intimidated by evolutionist dogma, but after I studied evolution as part of my first degree, I realised how much philosophy is involved and how the evidence lends itself to widely different conclusions. I've simply sought to be open and honest in my search for truth.

What you've written doesn't cause me to doubt that I have good ground for my views on origins. You seem to have taken my headlines, written your own articles under them in my voice and then argued against yourself. I don't recognise my thinking in what you've said.

For example, I don't hate Darwin - in fact I admire him in many ways. I think his theology was faulty and I disagree with him on some points, but that's not the same thing.

When I mention revelation in knowing, I am not talking crazy - I am standing firmly in mainstream orthodox Christian tradition. A fully formed Christian epistemology accepts that we know some things through data coming via physical senses (empirical epistemology), we know some things through the use of our reason (rationalist epistemology), but there are also certain things we can only know through God revealing them (revelational epistemology). A key text would be Hebrews 1:1-2 - In the past God spoke through prophets and now He speaks to us through Jesus.

In fact, to adopt a view that accepts a Christian epistemology and yet is uncritical of science founded on a non-Christian epistemology is inconsistent - I would feel crazier doing that than adopting the consistent worldview that I am working with. The point of my article was to call Christian thinkers to engage deeper in conversation where there are disagreements, so that we might all be thinking consistently.

If you really want to rid the world of creationists, the way I see it, you have 2 choices. You can shout as loudly and intimidatingly as you can, which will cause a lot of those who are undecided about the issues to avoid creationism because they don't want to be victim to that. Or you can take us seriously, understand the philosophical issues that we're dealing with and give us sound reasons why our philosophical foundations are shaky. The latter is a more challenging route but would be more effective. No need to call us crazy.
3:41 AM PDT

My reply;

First, I have labeled these as clearly as I can to avoid the confusion you, Rev. Miller seem to have had. Earlier I had merely (and I thought clearly) quoted you and one of your “headline reasons” to reject science followed by my counter argument. That “headline” was that you reject science,

”Because we recognise the importance of revelation in our approach to knowing.”

The first part of my reply was largely devoted to the Tanakh sections that taught that in the biblical revelation you claim as True™ (or at least the parts you acknowledge) the physical creation is a “revelation” co-equal with textural accounts. I am arguing within your claims of truth here, Rev. Miller. For the moment we are accepting the biblical revelation as true and it is you who is ignoring it. My position might be more clear if I point out that it is easy for priests to edit, change, or delete a text, and currently impossible for anyone to edit stars, oceans or mountains. In that respect, I fully agree with the Bible stating that “Truth (emet, or “certainty and dependability”) springs from the earth …” Psalm 85:11.

If you are so confused on how to parse my use of English, how did you manage biblical Hebrew?

Next, I have no idea what you might have been taught about biology, geology, or any other science. Even had you been one of my undergraduates, I would not know what it was you thought you had learned. Otherwise, all my students would have received ‘outstanding,” and graduated Summa etc… (A few did, but only a few). At the moment, I am only discussing your fragmented acceptance of some of the Bible as revelation, but not all. So, if you want to provide some of these ‘evidences’ we can address them. I cannot be expected to know them implicitly.

The “talking crazy” is a significant issue that we ought to clear up. I was a professor of psychiatry for a number of years. Around 1982, I helped found a professional seminar on Religion and Psychiatry. It was attended monthly by students and faculty of the Medical College of Georgia where I was a professor. It was also attended by a number of clergy, with a surprising range of faiths and sects. Our students included Hindus, Jews, various Protestants, Catholics, Agnostics and Atheists. We had clergy participants from the Southern Baptists (of course), but also rabbis, Catholic, and Russian Orthodox priests, Unitarians, and unaffiliated evangelical ministers as well. We had two primary goals; to teach the medical residents that merely being religious was not de facto insane, and to try to teach the clergy some basics about psychiatry. If I could summarize this in a single sentence, “It is not insane to believe ghosts exist; it is insane if they often visit you.” You might be amused that a few students actually rediscovered their religious faith participating in our seminar.

So, Mr. Miller, I have been taking religions quite seriously (even yours) perhaps longer than you have. I don't know if you personally are crazy, the alternatives are in some ways worse.

EDIT 15 July: I corrected a few typos, and tried to clarify some sentence structure.

Smooth change in the fossil record

2011-07-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

While setting up to post examples of smooth change in fossils, I found that Don Lindsay's web pages are back up. So, click Here and go to his excellent examples of gradualism. Note that these are examples chosen to demonstrate a particular mode of evolutionary change- that of tiny changes accumulating across hundreds, and thousands of generations.

Blogger Gadgets

2011-07-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

The "follower" gadget seems to break every few days. Nobody shows up in the sidebar, but the software says there are now 18 "followers." At first I would waste a few hours trying to fix "my mistake," now I just wait for it to be fixed at the "home office." If you are a regular visitor, or might become one, I confess I gain motivation to make posts knowing you are out there in cyberville.

I have noticed an increase in page views over the last month or so. (I have also had a spate of creationist spam sent to my email). I hope that readers gain something, if only a moments distraction.

More Creatocrap from Mr. Caldwell

2011-07-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

I brush aside the trivial lie by Caldwell that his letter, “… had nothing to do with creationism, which is a separate subject,” by observing he implicitly is employing the false dichotomy of evolution v. God. None of his supporters have missed his real intent, nor have I.

However, his following creationist nonsense does demand a thorough refutation.

Third, I sketched out some of the specific objections to evolutionary theory, but they were not the best ones, being limited by the letter length requirements.

Caldwell had the option of selecting any “objection” he liked, or as many as he liked. Next, Caldwell spewed,

Expanding a bit, every scientific theory or fact must have the property of being able to be falsified. Darwin's theory is no different. In fact Darwin identified two ways for falsifying his theory. One would be if gradualism in the genome did not show up [it hadn't at the time], and if a mechinism(sic) in life could be found that absolutely could not have come into being through microevolutionary(sic) incremental steps.

But, Caldwell has no interest in even being self consistent. He now claims that Darwin identified measures that could falsify his theory while originally Caldwell insisted that “evolution is untestable, given its billions-of-years basis.”

What a load of manure! First, the concept of a “genome” did not exist in Darwin’s time. Darwin’s own ideas of how heredity functioned were entirely wrong. This was shown in the early 1900s with the rediscovery of Mendel’s genetics (Castle 1903). Research by early geneticists, such as Hardy(1908), and Weinberg(1908) was actually promoted as a refutation to Darwin’s evolutionary theory. It was in the 1930s that work by many mathematicians and biologists, most notably R. A. Fisher, Theodosius Dobzhansky, J. B. S. Haldane, and Ernst Mayr, unified genetics and evolutionary biology.

Castle, W. E. (1903). "The laws of Galton and Mendel and some laws governing race improvement by selection". Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci. 35: 233–242.

Hardy, Gh (Jul 1908). "MENDELIAN PROPORTIONS IN A MIXED POPULATION.". Science 28 (706): 49–50. doi:10.1126/science.28.706.49. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17779291

Weinberg, W. (1908). "Über den Nachweis der Vererbung beim Menschen". Jahreshefte des Vereins für vaterländische Naturkunde in Württemberg 64: 368–382.

I can not see the least reason not to continue exposing the self proclaimed ‘scientist,’ Mr. Caldwell, as a nincompoop. He now claims that far from being untestable, Darwin proposed tests of evolutionary theory, and that these tests have been falsified. Caldwell’s first false claim is,

”Gradualism does not show up in the fossil record, especially in the Cambrian, and this is affirmed by most evolutionists, then ignored. The Cambrian Explosion was known to Darwin even 150 years ago, and he stated at the time that if gradualism was not found to explain the sudden appearances of such a vast array of advanced life, his theory would die on the spot. Searching the Cambrian and PreCambrian, has revealed millions of fossils, but no gradualism.”

I dealt with the millions of years long Cambrian “explosion,” and the millions of years long precursor, the Ediacaran, twice already in just this one newspaper discussion, most recently on July 6, 2011 at 4:43 p.m. I see no need to repeat myself. Caldwell did ad a slight alteration, using the word, “gradualism.” We do of course have excellent examples of gradualism in the fossil record. But they are all from rather boring, stable organisms living I rather boring stable environments. They are marine snails, and little critters called foraminifera. The latter live in the billions in the Earth’s seas, and as they die, their calcified bodies drift down to the bottom of the sea. Happily for the oil industry, and evolutionary theory, the evolution of forams leaves a clear testament to gradual change in evolution. The other best example is also of a small class of many millions of marine snails that also live in a rather stable shallow, warm sea environment.

Since the oil industry needs to know which of these species tell them when they are near, or far from petroleum billion$, the classifications and evolution of these little critters is well funded. By well funded, I mean VERY WELL FUNDED; there is more money spent per year in petroleum exploration than in all other paleontology for all time. (We in the USA spend more on killing people per year than has been spent globally per year on saving them).

Mr. Neal Caldwell bloviates into the cybersphere

2011-07-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Background: I have spent some hours in writing comments to the "Letters to the Editors" pages of the Knoxville Times. One particular letter by Mr. Neal Caldwell has captured my attention. What follows are my reactions to his July 2, 2011 claim that I had not responded to him. Caldwell's words are in italics.

Why respond to these idiots? First, there is some benefit at searching out information to use refuting creationist stupidity. Second, there are the occasional readers that actually say they have learned something useful. This is hopefully true, and it is an ego boost at any rate. Thirdly, any neutral reader will at least know that the creationists cannot go unchallenged.

I read a recent comment several times in the discussion thread following Mr. Neal Caldwell June 21, Letter to the Editor, “Evolution doesn’t add up.” The comment was written by Mr. Caldwell on July 2, 2011, 2:04 AM. Each time I read it, I became more irritated at his dissimulation.

Mr. Caldwell first claimed (falsely) that his original objections have been ignored. In fact, they were clearly addressed, each and every one.

To review, in the June 21 letter Caldwell claimed;

“evolution is untestable, given its billions-of-years basis,”

The truth is that we observe the physical manifestation of evolution every day. Our pharmaceutical and agricultural industries are a daily application of evolutionary theory. Every day there are at least a dozen scientific journal articles on direct tests of some aspect of evolutionary theory. I have posted the link to a list of dozens of observed speciation events, http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2009/03/emergence-of-new-species.html . But, one test proposed in the 1930s by JRB Haldane still stands the test of time, “To disprove Evolution you need merely to find a fossil rabbit in a Cambrian deposit.” There is not a “billion-of-years-basis,” there is simply the fact that the Earth is 4.55 billion years old. Why should that be a problem?

Mr. Caldwell next claimed (falsely) that, “One-hundred and fifty years of digging has unearthed the very embarrassing counter-Darwinian “Cambrian explosion,” showing most major species appearing side-by-side instead of end-to-end as required, and in a most un-Darwinian time frame, thereafter remaining static instead of ever changing.”

This is actually six (6) separate lies. They are lies because anyone claiming the mantle of science, as Mr. Caldwell did, should know how to read, and use a library.

Fossils have been excavated and analyzed since the late 1700s. Fossils were observed, and displayed even in antiquity, see: Adrienne Mayor, “The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times,” (2000 Princeton University Press). Since the early 1800s, scientists recognized that fossils represented ancient, and extinct forms of life. Since 1830, geologists realized that neither a recent creation, nor a global flood could account for the fossil record.

The Cambrian “explosion” did not exhibit “most major species appearing side-by-side.” This is a ridiculous statement that labels Mr. Caldwell as an ignoramus. There are entire Phyla that have disappeared before, during, and after the so-called “explosion.” See: James W. Valentine, “On the Origin of Phyla” (2005 University of Chicago Press).

The stupidity of Mr. Caldwell’s writing, “end-to-end as required,” is the ignorant product of the PRE-evolutionary theory notion of the “Great Chain of Being,” that asserted that there was some particular goal of life, and that every species was “fixed” somewhere along the “chain.” The alternate version was that there was a “ladder” of species, and that every species had to have one “above” it that it could strive to become.

Regarding Mr. Caldwell’s lame assertion that there was “a most un-Darwinian time frame” for the Cambrian “explosion,” we first note that the “explosion” was 542 to 496 million years ago. For mathematicians like Caldwell, that is 58+96=154 million years. That is a very very long “explosion. And the “fuse” for the explosion was the Ediacaran Era, which saw the advent of the first complex metazoan life. This is currently dated from 630 million years ago to the start of the Cambrian Era, or for people unable to “add up,” 112 million years long. That is a very long fuse. Darwin had no idea that evolution had so many millions of years. See: G. Brent Dalrymple, “Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The age of the earth and its cosmic surroundings” (2005 Berkley: University of California Press).

Finally, lie number six (6) is that the Cambrian fauna’s “major species,” “remain(ed) static instead of ever changing.” As before, see Valentine 2005, and reflect for just a few seconds on the obvious examples of recent and continuing evolution.

Mr. Caldwell wrote the following, “He inappropriately solves his origin-of-life problem simplistically through expelling it from its biological home, into cosmological limbo.”

Well, I don’t know who “he” might be, Mr. Caldwell cannot be bothered with names. But, since Caldwell is so opposed to evolutionary biology, we can ask if the issue of the origin of life is essential to evolutionary biology.

It is obviously NOT.

In Darwin’s own estimation, the origin of life “hardly concerns us” (Origin of Species, Sixth Edition). In Darwin’s famous 1871 letter to Joseph Hooker, "It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter."

Interestingly, the origin of matter is the topic of Cosmology. If Mr. Caldwell were honestly interested in the origin of life, Abiogenesis, or Cosmology, the origin of matter, I would suggest he read;

Iris Fry,
2000 "The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview" Rutgers University Press

Deamer, David W.
2011 “First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began” University of California Press

(Both written for non-scientists, a very compressed version is my “A Short Outline of the Origin of Life,”
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/12/origin-of-life-outline.html )

and for Cosmology see:

Susskind, Leonard
2005 "The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design" New York: Little and Brown Publishers

Or on-line,
Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html

Mr. Caldwell continued, “the “simplest” life isn’t, and essential mechanisms discovered in the earliest cells are so unbelievably complex that they defy any reasonable evolutionary explanation.”

The “first cell” has never been discovered, so Mr. Caldwell’s claim they are “so unbelievably complex that they defy any reasonable evolutionary explanation” is pure manure. Go spread it on your roses, Mr. Caldwell. In the rather pessimistic opinion of a real scientist, we are not likely to ever be able to specify the “first cell.” See: Carl Woese,
1998 “The universal ancestor” PNAS Vol. 95, Issue 12, 6854-6859, June 9, and, 2002 “On the evolution of Cells” PNAS Vol. 99 13:8742-8747, June 25.

In addition to the references I gave before (ignored by Mr. Caldwell), truly interested people might listen in on “Program for Molecular Paleontology and Resurrection: Rewinding the Tape of Life” http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/ool-www/program

Nobody should be surprised that there are “reasonable evolutionary explanations.”

Here are the last of Mr. Caldwell’s not very original objections to evolutionary theory;

“Richard Dawkins admits the “finely-tuned-universe” is intelligent design’s best argument.”

“proven” (evolutionary) examples only support “micro-evolution” (minor changes within species), which no one questions. The controversy centers on still unproven “macro-evolution.” Darwinists presume that these huge disconnected leaps, appearing from nowhere, represent accumulations of billions of undiscovered micro-evolutionary changes. Applicable sciences utterly fail to support that presumption, often contradicting it.”

First, Cosmology is not Evolutionary Biology. Second, without an exact reference, I doubt that Prof. Dawkins said any such thing. Third, given Mr. Caldwell’s obvious lack of veracity, I doubt that he could provide any honest citation to Dawkins in any case.

And then, we have demonstrated emergence of new species from old. This is “macroevolution.” It is definitive. There should be no further argument against evolution.

Here is a long list of examples, some over 100 years old;
“Emergence of new species,”
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2009/03/emergence-of-new-species.html

If Mr. Caldwell is ignorant of what a species is, he should read:
“What is a Species, and What is Not?” By ERNST MAYR
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives/Mayr_1996_june.shtml

Mr. Caldwell wrote, “Permit me as physicist/mathematician scientifically and logically to doubt evolution’s ability to produce such unimaginably complex organisms having incomprehensible instincts beyond our analysis. Mathematically: “it don’t add up!”

I, unlike Mr. Caldwell, am a scientist. I have direct professional experience with the topics central to this discussion. And, like all most all scientists, I have a profound respect for the truth. There have been scientific frauds, and there are “scientists” who espouse creationist frauds.

I will not permit Caldwell to make this false claim. Mr. Caldwell claims he is a “physicist/mathematician.” A bit of Google and we learned he merely had undergraduate degrees, and never had professional training, nor scientific publications to support his claim. When it was to his advantage, Caldwell has claimed to be a mechanical engineer. Mr. Caldwell’s lack of imagination, or comprehension is not useful in assessing a scientific theory, particularly one he is obviously ignorant about. Even if Caldwell could claim familiarity with 35 year old physics, he has nothing in his writing or education to suggest any credibility about biology, or any other science. To claim otherwise is a fraud.

Mr. Benedict misrepresents Manfred Eigen

2011-07-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

Manfred Eigen, won the Nobel Prize in 1967 for his work measuring extremely fast chemical reactions brought about by energy pulses. Though proud to use the term evolution, his models of the origin of life are not based on chance but on self-organizing chemical reactions that cycle to higher and higher levels. He is also the author of Eigens Paradox that explains a critical problem in positing cycles of RNA that lead to DNA.

Mr. Benedict has this problem; he doesn’t have any idea of what “random” or “chance” or “random chance” mean in probability theory, chemistry, or how they might apply in evolutionary theory, or studies of the origin of life. When I have taught statistics and probability at the college level, I had the advantage of very intelligent students committed to learning. I doubt that this is currently the situation.

One of the greatest philosophical advances of all time was the notion that real life should be the basis for our understanding of the universe. This was in direct contradiction of Platonic ideas of some “perfect” reality which was beyond the perception of humanity. But, this appeal to reality is what makes science ‘work.’ In this specific context of the “Eigen’s Paradox,” we can default to real physical data which trumps philosophical speculation. The particular result I have in mind is;

Ádám Kun, Mauro Santos & Eörs Szathmáry
2005 “Real ribozymes suggest a relaxed error threshold” Nature Genetics 37, 1008 - 1011 Published online: 28 August 2005 | doi:10.1038/ng1621

Abstract: The error threshold for replication, the critical copying fidelity below which the fittest genotype deterministically disappears, limits the length of the genome that can be maintained by selection. Primordial replication must have been error-prone, and so early replicators are thought to have been necessarily short. The error threshold also depends on the fitness landscape. In an RNA world, many neutral and compensatory mutations can raise the threshold, below which the functional phenotype, rather than a particular sequence, is still present. Here we show, on the basis of comparative analysis of two extensively mutagenized ribozymes, that with a copying fidelity of 0.999 per digit per replication the phenotypic error threshold rises well above 7,000 nucleotides, which permits the selective maintenance of a functionally rich riboorganism with a genome of more than 100 different genes, the size of a tRNA. This requires an order of magnitude of improvement in the accuracy of in vitro–generated polymerase ribozymes. Incidentally, this genome size coincides with that estimated for a minimal cell achieved by top-down analysis, omitting the genes dealing with translation.

Mr. Benedict misrepresents Ilya Prigogine

2011-07-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ilya Prigogine, won his 1977 Nobel Prize for his theory that biological life self-assembled from inorganic non-life through the non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes. Again, random chance was abandoned, this time for the notion of an outside force arising in a thermodynamic process that, somehow, energized evolution. Such a force has never been identified.

Like every creationist I have ever encountered, Mr. Benedict is clueless about thermodynamics. There is no “outside force” invoked by Prigogine.
Two resources for Benedict to read are;

“The second law of thermodynamics and evolution”
http://2ndlaw.oxy.edu/evolution.html

C. Bustamante, J. Liphardt, F. Ritort
“The Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Small Systems”
Physics Today, vol. 58 (2005) 43-48
http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0511629

The "Laws" of thermodynamics only operate within boundary conditions, no different from Newton's "Laws" of motion. They are just dandy within their boundary conditions, but utterly fail beyond them. In particular, it is known that the 2nd law does not hold at extremely small scales, such as found within cells. The 1st law fails in quantum vacuums. This is real science, not superstition, or mysticism.

Mr. Benedict misrepresents Christian de Duve

2011-07-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

Mr. Benedict makes much of a list of scientists who, according to him, "recognize that random chance alone cannot have produced the simplest cellular life." I'll quote Benedict's remarks, and interpose corrections in

Blue

Christian de Duve, for example, a Nobel Prize winner, and in no way an advocate of Intelligent Design, has abandoned random chance as the agent of upwards evolution or the ascent of man. He envisions primordial planet earth as a chemical reaction

(secondary citation to de Duve, “Contingency and determinism” Pier Luigi Luisi, doi: 10.1098/rsta.2003.1189 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 2003 361, 1141-1147 )

waiting to happen. Recognizing that the odds of random chance being impossibly against

(Links to a 1995 OOL review article, "The Beginnings of Life on Earth" in American Scientist for general readers. De Duve did not make a single reference to any probability, or “odds” or “random chance” opposing the natural origin of life. Just the opposite, in fact. The main thrust of the article was de Duve’s well known argument for the centrality of thioester chemistry to the OOL, and that life will be- must be- ubiquitous in the universe. This is not a surprising error for a creationist like Mr. Benedict to have made, either from ignorance, or dishonesty)

the formation of a single cell, let alone man, he has ceaselessly been searching for the string of chemical reactions that, once started, must have inevitably and, without chance, led to mankind. So far... no luck.

De Duve, like Gould and others rejects the strict teleological argument that somehow humanity is the "goal" of evolution, or the Universe. Mr. Benedict seems to have no actual grasp of any of these issues which should have been clear if he had tried to read the references he scattered in his comment).

"Darwinism is Dead" Oh really?

2011-07-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

Monday, 4 July, 2011
There was a little essay, posted on the intertubes last Saturday by Paul Benedict that is a real creationist gem. It has all the low points, false premises, quote mines, citation bluffing, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics that creationists have spouted for over a generation. For example, as the title implies the main claim is that, “… for decades microbiologists have been abandoning Darwinism.” This is well known as, “The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism.”

In its own way, this essay was a sterling example of Googling for answers, but actually reading the cited papers reveals that Mr. Benedict is either incompetent to read them, or has purposely lied to his readers (no surprises there!). That’s not all, Folks! Mr. Benedict also likes his creationism with an ID spin; we are treated to vacuous “complexity” claims, the Discotute list of names, and Benedict closed with, “It's time to tell the kids: it is statistically impossible that Darwin's explanation of the origin of life is correct.”

Let’s look at that last sentence first.

First of all, there was never an explanation of the origin of life offered by Charles Darwin. In the “Origin of Species” Darwin directly observed that there was no logical connection between the origin of life, and how life had evolved. Evolutionary theory is based primarily on the observations of living species, their diversity, and distribution. In the “Origin,” Darwin makes only the general observation that,

"I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their cellular structure, their laws of growth, and their liability to injurious influences."

Later Darwin wrote a letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker (1871) noting that,

"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are present, which could ever have been present. But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."

Later in the same letter, he observed,

"It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter."

Since the entire thrust of Mr. Benedict’s little essay is that “Darwinism is Dead” because “random chance” isn’t an explanation of the origin of life, we know that Benedict understands nothing about evolutionary theory, probability theory, or current research on the origin of life.

I'll take up these issues below.

Oard's Moonbeam

2011-06-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

I wrote this a few years ago, and published it on John Stear's Australian website, No Answers in Genesis. John created the site specifically to refute the gross falsehoods published by "Answers in Genesis." John is very ill, and we don't know what might happen to his famous website. I'll be moving my early papers from his site to Stones and Bones over the next few days (weeks?).

An Answers in Genesis article by Michael J. Oard, "Problems for 'giant impact' origin of moon (2000), is sadly typical of their standard fare: there is never absolute certainty in science, and not every question is resolved in complete detail therefore science is bunk and God created everything just a few thousands of years ago. If that were not enough, AiG contributors rarely bother, or perhaps lack the ability to even get the scientific questions properly framed and presented.

Oard, a retired meteorologist, seems to have largely based his article on two scientific sources, one published in Nature, Lissauer (1997), and one from Science, Halliday & Drake (1999). As we shall see in a moment, he really took his paper from fellow creationist Jonathan Sarfati (1998). Oard gets it wrong in his first sentence, "Evolutionary astronomers have great trouble accounting for the origin of the moon." Evolution, or "evilution" in creationese, and astronomy are obviously quite separate sciences, although there are obvious interdisciplinary studies. Secondly, Oard has greatly exaggerated the magnitude of the conceptual and theoretical problems associated with the "accounting" he demands. Two errors of fact and reasoning per opening sentence are about par for AiG. For example see my "Dino Blood Redux" or "Boiled Creationist with a Side of Hexaglycine: Sarfati on Imai et al. (1999)".

Oard didn't do much better in his second sentence either, "There have generally been three competing hypotheses, but they all have serious physical problems: ..."

The critical error there is his use of the word "generally". Writing in 2000 CE no one informed on the then current astronomical understanding could have suggested that the hypotheses listed; the fission hypothesis (eg. proposed in 1879), the coaccretion hypothesis (called the Condensation, or co-creation theory by Oard), and the capture hypothesis, were anything other than historically rejected ideas. They had indeed been rejected in the early 1970s because, like all rejected scientific hypotheses, they had not succeeded in matching with independently observed phenomena, in particular the chemical compositions of the Earth and Moon (O.Neil, 1991), and the improved computational results for the physical dynamics of the Earth/Moon system. It was based on these observations that the Giant Impact Hypothesis was first proposed in the mid 1970s. This is of course Oard's next error of fact, because he claimed in his paper that the impactor hypothesis was only developed in the 1990s. These factual errors are not trivial, because they are all the result of Oard misrepresenting referenced scientific sources he supposedly used. This degree of error could not be by accident.

To explore how Oard abused science generally and Lissauer specifically, consider the following quotes:

Oard,

"He even cited an only half-joking statement in a university astronomy class about 20 years ago by Irwin Shapiro: since there were no good (naturalistic) explanations, the best explanation is that the moon is an illusion! This counts as strong evidence for the moon's special creation".

Lissauer,

"All in all, developing a theory of lunar origins that could make sense of data obtained from the Apollo lunar landing programme proved very difficult. So much so, in fact, that when I took a class on our planetary system from Irwin Shapiro two decades ago, he joked that the best explanation was observational error — the Moon does not exist".

The differences in intent and meaning (and humor) between Lissauer's own words and Oard's gross misrepresentation should be clear to the most naive observer. Plus, without explanation or any justification, Oard claims a remembered joke from the 1970s as, "... strong evidence for the moon's special creation". Could anyone other than a creationist make such a bizarre claim? (Well, yes there are crystal gazers, palm readers and astrologists, but other than people of that ilk)?

Oard also commits a form of academic slight-of-hand by mentioning that Lissauer is commenting on Shigeru Ida et al., which gives him another scientific reference, but one he never actually addressed. What did Ida et al. have to say about the origin of the Moon? From their abstract, "Theoretical simulations show that a single large moon can be produced from such a disk [circumterrestrial disk of debris generated by a giant impact on the Earth] in less than a year, and establish a direct relationship between the size of the accreted moon and the initial configuration of the debris disk".

Next Oard cites a paper by the universally acclaimed expert about everything, Herr Doktor Professor Anonymous. Written for Discover magazine in 1997, the anonymous article referred to some computational models which resulted in impact scenarios that failed, or as Oard wrote, "...the results have strained the hypothesis to the breaking point". The fundamental error Oard makes here is common to creationists - the testing of scientific hypotheses is always to the breaking point. In scientific work the goal is never to selectively pick bits and pieces of reality that can shore-up failed superstition, but to rigorously test every notion with every bit of available information. The history of science is littered with "beautiful theory destroyed by ugly fact".

Oard moves on to a paper by Halliday & Drake (1998) that appeared in Science magazine. This was a review of some papers presented to the "Origin of the Earth and Moon Conference", Monterey, December 1998. Halliday & Drake early in their paper said of the Giant Impact Hypothesis, "A recent conference in Monterey, California, showed that, although a general picture may be emerging, many issues remain hotly debated". Most of those issues raised have, in the intervening seven years, been resolved. See the review by Herbert Palme (2004), and atmospheric models by Genda & Abe (2003). In their review Halliday & Drake noted that, "In spite of a growing consensus, some workers still dislike the entire Giant Impact Theory, on both dynamical and geochemical grounds". None the less, they correctly concluded, "We have recently come a long way in obtaining hard constraints on the origin of Earth and the moon. The issues have changed from discussion of whether or not there was a giant moon-forming impact to debates about the accretion rates of the Earth and the chemical, isotopic, and physical effects of such catastrophic accretionary scenarios".

As an example of that conclusion, one paper presented at that important conference was, "Is There An Alternative For The Huge Impact-Generated Atmosphere?" Gerasimov et al. (1998). Their short answer = No, except ...! They also pointed out that significant contributions were apparently made to the Earth's composition from later, smaller impacts (for example see Chyba et al. 1990, Bada et al. 1994, Blank et al. 2001). Equally obvious are the later contributions of weathering and most importantly life itself, (Canfield et al. 2000, Catling et al. 2001, and for a strong background paper see Holland 1999).

Oard next mentioned briefly a paper by Ruzicka et al. (1998) and quoted from their conclusion that, "... there is no strong geochemical support for either the Giant Impact or Impact-triggered Fission hypotheses". Oard has presented this in a misleading manner leaving an average reader the impression that Ruzicka et al. reject both hypotheses. We need to read this with some care. First, Ruzicka et al. (1998) are arguing that the data available over seven years ago could not select between the "Giant Impact" and the "Impact-triggered Fission" hypotheses. The Impact-triggered Fission Hypothesis was a hybrid of the impact and 1879 fission hypotheses. As described by O'Neill in 1991, it proposed that a giant impact resulted in a Moon largely comprised of crustal Earth - a hypothesis that was later highly modified (see Wänke, 1999). Ruzicka et al. (1998) further argued that the amount of lunar material that derived from the protoEarth was extremely low (O'Neill had proposed up to 80%). A later paper by Ruzicka et al. (2001) goes even further and argues that a giant impact could have produced the Moon with negligible material derived from the protoEarth, overturning both O'Neill and Wänke as well as others. The geochemical questions regarding the origin of the Earth/Moon system are indeed complex. But this is how science works best - by more sensitive and accurate studies acquiring new data. The critical insights of the last decade are reviewed by Palme (2004) which will be discussed below.

Sarfati gets Plagiarized

The capping irony is that Michael Oard's "paper" is merely a trivial reworking of AiG creationist Jonathan Sarfati's 1998 bloviation, "The moon: the light that rules the night". I was a college professor for many years and I regretfully flunked more than one student for plagiarism less blatant than that of Oard. For example, both of these AiG hacks take issue with the "... the unsolved problem of losing the excess angular momentum". (Yes, Oard used that identical phrase and many more directly from Sarfati, he even took the distorted reference to Irwin Shapiro's humorous remark from Sarfati). Sarfati presented this "excess angular momentum" as a "proof" that the radiometric dating of the Moon's formation could not be correct, and that this for some reason disproved the theory of evolution. Oard seems happy just that it is a "problem" for them "evilusionists". But like all creation science, their "proofs" and "problems" are more apparent then real. As pointed out by Palme (2004):

An off-center collision of a Mars-sized projectile with Earth would produce the present high angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system and would eject enough material into Earth orbit so that the dust could accumulate to form the Moon.

Sarfati has his own problems with reality beyond those parroted by Oard. For example, Sarfati claims that there are special purposes behind the Divine creation of the Moon. The first of these is "... for the moon is to show the seasons which will allow the invention of calendars by man... so people could plant their crops at the best time of the year". The event of seasons is of course the combined result of the elliptic orbit of the Earth around the Sun, and the Earth's canted spin axis. The physical reality is that the Moon does not show the seasons, and as a simple point of archaeological and historical fact, agriculturalists employ solar calendrics. The contrasting use of Lunar and Solar calendars between nomads who can't employ solar observation, and sedentary agriculturists who do is even thought to be reflected in the biblical story of Samson and Delilah.

Current State of the Art

In his review "The Giant Impact Formation of the Moon", Science, Herbert Palme (2004) examined computational simulations of the proto-Earth/giant impactor collisions demonstrating that both bodies were differentiated into core/crust systems and that the bulk of the lunar mass is from the crust of the impactor.

It is important to read the opening paragraph of his paper which previews the main results of decades of scientific progress in lunar studies which he later discusses:

During the past 30 years, a scenario in which a giant object collided with Earth has emerged as the leading theory for Moon formation. An off-center collision of a Mars-sized projectile with Earth would produce the present high angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system and would eject enough material into Earth orbit so that the dust could accumulate to form the Moon. The first numerical simulations of this hypothesis nearly 20 years ago used about 3000 particles whose trajectories were followed through the entire collision. In a new set of simulations published in Icarus, Canup used up to 120,000 particles and a new equation of state that describes the behavior of material at extreme pressures and temperatures. Although the results are not very different from the earlier calculations of similar impacts, they include the most detailed predictions to date of the provenance of the material that makes up the Moon. This is crucial for geochemical arguments relating Earth mantle and Moon. [Original references deleted]

Several of Sarfati and Oard's key arguments are found to be rejected; 1) the Giant Impact Hypothesis is not a sudden phenomena of the 1990s, 2) the "angular momentum problem" is not a problem, 3) the "equations of state" that Oard claimed rendered the simulations unrealistic were vindicated (..."the results are not very different from the earlier calculations of similar impacts, ..."), 4) the impactor need not be larger than Mars (as opposed to 2X- Sarfati, or 3X- Oard), and as we see in the following material, 5) geochemical questions, largely about trace element isotope ratios, are resolved:

"The material that ends up in orbit around Earth and from which the Moon is made comes predominantly from the leading, outer regions of the projectile. These regions do not collide directly with Earth, and after the initial impact they expand to distances of several Earth radii where they are placed into stable Earth orbits by gravitational torque. The impactor core loses energy by its more direct collision with Earth, is thus more strongly decelerated, and (after distortion by gravitational forces) largely collides again with Earth." Palme (2004).

Origin of Moon material. Mapping of results of a giant impact simulation onto the original configuration of Earth and impactor; x and y axes are in units of 1000 km. (A) The red particles escape the system, the yellow-green particles end up in the orbiting disk from which the Moon is made, and the blue particles accrete to Earth. (B) The highest temperatures are reached for material at the location of the first collision. CREDIT: R. CANUP/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE. GIF image called from Science 2004.

Conclusion

What is the short form of the current hypothesis regarding the lunar origin? Simply, around 4.5 billion years ago, the proto-Earth was struck an off-center blow by a planetesimal about the size of Mars. Both objects had differentiated structures separated into cores and weathered complex mantels (for example, see Zolensky et al. (1999), and Whitby et al. (2000) for weathering products observed in meteorite). The majority of the lunar mass is formed from the mantel of the impactor, the core and the majority of the impactor's atmosphere became entrained as part of the Earth. Actually, the scientific argument is over - all that is left is the mopping up of the details.

Oard copied his "ideas" and much of his text from fellow AiG creationist Jonathan Sarfati. There is so much overlap that any debunking of Oard is also applicable to Sarfati. Sarfati acknowledged that much of his paper derived from a book by John C. Whitcomb and Donald B. DeYoung, The Moon: Its Creation, Form and Significance published in 1978. Today we find some of their arguments still recycled in the new creationism, Intelligent Design, as in the book The Privileged Planet (2004). This is notable because the ID creationists claim to be totally distinguished from the discredited "scientific creationism".

Oard's biggest, and most revolting lie was that the Giant Impact Hypothesis was proposed after the historical hypotheses of the Moon's origin were rejected because "They (we evilutionists) must have a naturalistic hypothesis for all origins, including the moon's, so will believe almost any hypothesis to fill the void". If scientists were at all inclined to "believe almost any hypothesis" there would never have been any disputes or the scientific rejection of the ideas that failed to fit with observed phenomena. This is the same striving for truth, and questioning of even minor details by scientists that feeds Oard with papers to distort. The willing rejection of reality exhibited by Oard is the hallmark of young Earth creationists and other fantasists.

References

Anonymous, Recipe for a moon, Discover 18(11):25–26, 1997.

Bada, Jeffrey. L., C. Bigham, Stanley L. Miller 1994 "Impact melting of frozen oceans on the early Earth: Implications for the origin of life", PNAS-USA v.91: 1248-1250

Canfield, Donald E. , Kirsten S. Habicht, and Bo Thamdrup 2000 "The Archean Sulfur Cycle and the Early History of Atmospheric Oxygen Science", April 28; 288: 658-661. (in Reports)

Catling, David C., Kevin J. Zahnle, Christopher P. McKay 2001 "Biogenic Methane, Hydrogen Escape, and the Irreversible Oxidation of Early Earth", Science 293 (5531): 839

Chyba, Christopher F., Paul J. Thomas, Leigh Brookshaw, Carl Sagan 1990 "Cometary Delivery of Organic Molecules to the Early Earth", Science Vol. 249:366-373

Blank, J.G., Gregory H. Miller, Michael J. Ahrens, Randall E. Winans 2001 "Experimental shock chemistry of aqueous amino acid solutions and the cometary delivery of prebiotic compounds", Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 31(1-2):
15-51, Feb-Apr

Genda, Hidenori & Abe, Yutaka 2003 "Survival of a proto-atmosphere through the stage of giant impacts: the mechanical aspects", Icarus 164, 149-162 (2003).

Gerasimov, M. V., Yu. P. Dikov, F. Wlotzka 1998 "Is There An Alternative For The Huge Impact-Generated Atmosphere?", abstract from Origin of the Earth and Moon Conference, Monterey, Dec.

Gonzalez, Guillermo, Jay Richards 2004 The Privileged Planet : How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Halliday, A.N. and Drake, M.J., 1999 "Colliding theories", Science 283:1861–1863, .

Holland, Heinrich D. 1999 "When did the Earth's atmosphere become oxic? A Reply", The Geochemical News #100: 20-22

Ida, Shigeru, Robin M. Canup, & Glen R. Stewart 1997 "Lunar accretion from an impact generated disk", Nature 389(6649):353–357.

Lissauer, J.J., 1997 "It's not easy to make the moon", correct reference: Nature 389, 327 - 328 (25 September 1997); AiG's page numbers in Oard (2000) refer to Shigeru Ida et al. (1997).

Oard, Michael 2000 "Problems for 'giant impact' origin of moon", Technical Journal 14(1):6–7 April
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/moon.asp

O'Neill, H. St. C. 1991 "The origin of the moon and the early history of the earth - A chemical model. I - The moon", Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (ISSN 0016-7037), vol. 55, April 1991, p. 1135-1157.

Palme, Herbert 2004 "The Giant Impact Formation of the Moon", Science Vol. 304 977-978
Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie, Universität zu Köln, 50674 Köln, Germany. E-mail: palme@gwp-min.min.uni-koeln.de

Pepin, R. O. 1997 "Evolution of Earth's Noble Gases: Consequences of Assuming Hydrodynamic Loss Driven by Giant Impact", Icarus 126, 148-156 (1997).

Ruzicka, A., Snyder, G.A. and Taylor, L.A., 1998 "Giant Impact and Fission Hypotheses for the origin of the moon: a critical review of some geochemical evidence", International Geology Review 40:851–864

Ruzicka, Alex, Gregory A. Snydera and Lawrence A. Taylora 2001 "Comparative geochemistry of basalts from the moon, earth, HED asteroid, and Mars: implications for the origin of the moon", Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Volume 65, Issue 6 , 15 March , Pages 979-997

Sarfati, Jonathan 1998 "The moon: the light that rules the night", Creation 20(4):36–39 September.

H. Wänke 1999 "Geochemical Evidence For A Close Genetic Relationship Of Earth And Moon", Earth, Moon, and Planets Volume 85-86, Number 0, January

Whitby, J., R. Burgess, G. Turner, J. Gilmore, J. Bridges 2000 "Extinct I-291 in Halite from a Primitive Meteorite: Evidence for Evaporite Formation in the Early Solar System", Science 288: 1819-1821

Whitcomb, John C., Donald B. DeYoung, 1978 The Moon: Its Creation, Form and Significance, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Zolensky, M. et al 1999 "Astroidal Water Within Fluid Inclusion-bearing Halite in an H5 Chondrite, Monahaus (1998)", Science 285: 1377-1379.

Faunal Taphonomy

2011-06-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is a slightly updated version of a web page I made for Valeri Craigle of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah. Original funding was provided by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, Grant #1 G08 LM05684-01A1.

Valeri created a significant resource for Forensic Anthropology that was used by researchers, criminal investigators, and students around the world. Unfortunately, short-sighted administrators prevented site maintenance after expiration of the grant, and have not even supported it as a static resource on their server. I have added additional photographs, and text, but have tried to leave the page "dated."

Faunal Taphonomy

One aspect of archaeological faunal analysis is determining the origins of recovered bone. The analysis of the processes which modify bone is called taphonomy, and is also of interest to forensic scientists as an aid to the investigation of homicides. Since 1989, Saddleback College students directed by Dr. Gary Hurd have studied the residue of deer predation by mountain lions. In the west, the major scavenger, or secondary predator, of the deer carcass is the coyote.

(The author (right) is assisting Duggin Wroe collecting DNA samples from a young male mountain lion. The animal was tagged and released).

There are several features of whole carcass changes that are worth noting. Forelimbs are generally the first anatomical unit to become disarticulated, followed by the hind limbs. the likelihood of removal is directly related to the degree of competition among scavengers at the carcass. There is a tendency towards lateralized bone consumption most easily observed in the bone loss from the ribs, and the lateral processes of the vertebrae.

Unlike the reports available for human carcasses, the deer skull is rarely relocated away from the primary kill site. The primary predator of the deer in the top photo was a mountain lion. The second animal was killed by an automobile. In that example, there was bone modification due to impact.

Trampling damage and tooth scaring on a deer scapula caused by coyote puppies. Puppies are weaned in the late spring-early summer. The adults return to their den with parts of carcasses for the puppies to teeth on, and wean. Tooth marks are limited to scoring. The foraging range for the coyotes will obviously vary depending on quality of the habitat. Note the polish on high spots from grasses. The primary predator is unknown.

Above is a slide showing trampling damage on a deer ulna. These marks were produced by predators moving the bone against stones. They lack parallel marks on the obverse of the bone found from tooth scoring, and are often rotated from a common origin.

Tooth scaring on deer bone; puncture with a radiating fracture (left: ulna), and compression (right: humerus).

Carrying damage to a deer metapoidal (cannon bone) caused by a coyote. These marks are diagnosed by parallel sets, spacing (appropriate to coyote dentition), and corresponding tooth mark sets on the obverse of the bone. These are particularly common on long bones, and sometimes show a "stepped" feature caused by parts of the limb snagging against brush.

Long bone splinters recovered from a coyote "bone yard" following a fuel rich wildfire. Notice that there is variation in the degree of burning which ranges from charred to calcined. Bone buried beneath as little as 4 cm of silt will be unburnt.

Gary S. Hurd graduated in 1976 with a Social Science Ph. D. degree from the University of California, Irvine. Following a ten year stint as a medical researcher in Psychiatry, he returned full time to archaeology. Currently, Dr. Hurd teaches anthropology courses at Saddleback College, and is Curator of Anthropology at the Orange County Natural History Association. He has been active in taphonomic research since 1989, and has also consulted with the Orange County Sheriff / Coroner's Office on bone modification, and evidence recovery related to suspected homicides.

(I was the Instructor of the Year, and given a Commendation of Excellence by the college Board of Trustees in 2001- the same year the anthropology department chair, Christen Brewer, canceled all my classes in revenge).

Rev. Adrian Miller, Part 1

2011-06-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Rev Adrian Miller is a vicar in Norfolk serving in Norwich Diocese, ordained in 2006. He is a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) and a member of the British Creationist Society for 13 years, long before he joined the priesthood. He recently published an article in the house journal of the British Creationist Society that was republished on-line as “Why Won't Creationists Just Give Up?“ originally from "Origins 54," the magazine of the Biblical Creationist Society.

Rev. Miller goes on at some length, but the opening eight reasons, his “Headline Reasons” seem enough to sink his enterprise. Miller summarized what he thinks he has said;

“All in all, there are good theological, philosophical, sociological, biological, geological, cosmological, anthropological, epistemological, missional, spiritual and scientific reasons why we creationists won't just give up.”

So, Miller presents himself as prepared for a universal defense of creationist cant against all the sciences and philosophy, theology, and “spirituality.” Miller will need to distinguish his version of spirituality from the commercial variants represented by Tarot Card readers, and Miss Dionne Warwick’s television “Psychic Friends Network.” And then he will need to justify his spirituality against that of probably more pious, and chaste, and poor Buddhist or Hindu monks and priests. In fact, I doubt that Miller can honestly boast of his superior “spirituality” contrasted with the thousands of Christian Clergy who have signed the “Clergy Letter Project.”

One of Miller’s opening reasons to believe in YEC is,

”Because we recognise the importance of revelation in our approach to knowing.”

The Rev. Miller wants us to believe that the voices in his head are God speaking to him, and that Miller is competent to transmit these voices to us perfectly and without any interpretive bias. However, in modern psychiatry we know that we can give you a pill to make the voices go away, and that there are other pills that will bring them back. This alone makes the voices of revelation highly suspect. In modern psychology we have learned that no individual is capable of totally unbiased anything, our cognition is the result of neural architecture, as that this is altered by experience, and culture.

If not the voices in his head, then voices in some dead guy’s head, which in the specific case of the Bible were “spoken” to a near savage. These ‘revelations’ were then; in cultures, and in languages only poorly known, translated and edited and re-translated and re-edited for thousands of years. That is all that a claim for the validity of “revelation” can mean. So, we must ask the Reverend if the act of translation, redacting and editing have over the millennia been also the subject of “revelation?” Is the Bible evolving? Is there a continuing revelation, or is mankind’s direct communion with God dead? Is biblical exegesis dead? How can you deny the fact of an evolving creation if you can grasp the fact of an evolving ‘revelation?”

Creationists like Rev. Miller like to hate Charles Darwin. In fact, Miller later makes the assertion that Darwin was inspired by Satan. Darwin was far kinder to men like Miller. Describing how he had only with great reluctance abandoned his orthodox Christian beliefs, Darwin wrote,

“The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,—is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, would he permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament. This appeared to me utterly incredible.” (Autobiography, 1958, pg, 86-87, Original publication 1910, written 1882).

But what if…

What if the Bible is really Revelation? What if the Bible is to be believed with the fervor and literalness of someone like Rev. Miller? Then the Bible fails to support his creationism as well, because the Bible clearly and firmly teaches that the Creation is equally valid as the Revelation, and that it is not new. First consider, Psalm 19:

1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge. (New American Standard Bible)

The Creation, the physical universe is a testament. It reveals the work of God, and (if read literally) it to reveals God’s nature. This theme is extended in Psalm 85 which reads, “11 “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven” (NASB). The Hebrew word used here for "truth," emet, basically means “certainty and dependability.” So, in the Revelation of the Bible which Rev. Miller professes, the Earth itself is attested as the source of truth, of “certainty” and “dependability.”

Are we really to pay attention to the physical creation? Ask Job. Job challenges doubters of God, “Ask the animals, they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.” — Job 12:7-8. How could this be if the sciences, particularly as all these sciences evoked by Job, Rev. Miller rejects as inspired by Satan? (Miller will falsely claim that there is a special “Creation Science” without the difficult cosmology problems like billions of years since the Big Bang, or the formation of the solar system. Miller will also deny the physical evidence from geology, paleontology, biology and anthropology).

Some of the most obvious Bible verses that illustrated an understanding of the unity of man and nature are in the book of Ecclesiastes. Eccles. 9:11 “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” (KJV)

The race is not always to the swift, otherwise a fast predator would totally destroy the prey. The predator would then obviously die without prey. The race is "not always to the swift!" And then to add, "but time and chance happeneth to them all." is just too perfect a summation of evolutionary gradualism I have ever read! What brilliant biblical "evidences" for evolution. Exactly what creationists like Rev. Miller deny is the action of “time and chance.” And yet they are instructed by their Bible that these are significant factors in the evolution of life on Earth.

Another fact that creationists like Miller like to avoid is that humans are directly linked to all life on Earth. They prefer to imagine that they are “special’ in the eyes of the biblical God. After all, humans are set apart from mere animals according to some readings of Genesis. But, in Eccl 3:18-20 “I said to myself concerning the sons of men, "God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts." For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. (NASU)” The specific reference in Eccl 3:19-20 to “breath,” and to “dust” relates back to Genesis where humanity is specially created in Genesis 2:7.

So far, Rev. Miller's Revelation is in opposition to his Creationism. We will next examine Rev. Miller's creationist dogmas about Genesis in the light of the New Testament.

How I spent my morning

2011-06-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

An article caught my eye this morning titled, “They’re ba-ack, creationists launch new attack on public education” written by Walter Pierce for The Independent Weekly of Lafayette, Louisiana. In an excellent brief item Mr. Pierce gave a synopsis of LA House Bill 580, a backdoor for religious fundamentalism to be taught in Louisiana’s public schools. Go see the article for the details.

As usual, I found the comments made by readers even more interesting than the original article. Two creationists stood out, and demanded replies. Their original comments are below followed by my relies;

written by JAT , June 14, 2011 - 01:10 pm

What is wrong with teaching creation. Is your science that you teach proven. Each day, new archeaological digs prove the bible correct. The information that is taught to our kids is so sub par to the rest of the world. We continue to drop the standards instead of raising them to push our kids. We do not need more scholars studying the problem. Start doing something about it. That is what is wrong with America.

written by Bob D. , June 14, 2011 - 06:43 pm

Darwin’s theory of evolution is false. The operative word is theory. There are many scholarly papers that show this theory to be false or weak and unproven at best. Basically there has never been a series of fossils that show anything ever evolved into something different. Even Darwin in later lifer stated that without such evidence his theory had no basis. Why is this theory ingrained as fact throughout our education system? Very simple – it would mean the secular humanists who have taken American education hostage would have to give consideration to the concept of God. Truly sad that America's education system suppresses critical thinking.

My relies;

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 08:24 am

In the comments to Mr. Pierce's news item, several creationists have made the same old errors of fact, and reasoning that were popularly refuted decades ago.

Taking Bob D. as a fine example of the breed, he began with an assertion as if it were fact, and then confused the meaning of “theory” with “just a guess.” Darwin’s original contributions to evolutionary theory were 1) common descent, and 2) natural selection. He later added entire books adding the concepts of 3) co-evolution (1862 fertilization of orchids by insects), and 4) behavioral selection (1871 “The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex”). In each of these contributions Darwin has been demonstrated by over a century of experiment and observation to have been correct. Darwin’s ideas about the specific mechanics of heredity were entirely wrong which was not entirely surprising as he (like most of his contemporaries) missed the significance of Gregor Mendel’s research on plant genetics.

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 08:58 am

Bob D. went on to deny that there is fossils evidence for speciation, particularly what is called “gradualism.” Paleontologist Steven Gould made a career for himself making the similar claim. Gould was not rejecting evolution, but arguing that the rate of evolutionary change was not constant. Darwin had already anticipated this, and had not himself thought that the rate of would be constant. However, we do indeed have long sequences which do show gradual transitions in morphology from one species into others. But these are best preserved in the microscopic marine organisms called foramifera, and rarely excite the public. Similarly, we have long series of aquatic snails which show centuries of tiny variations which accumulated to form new species. But, fossils are a poor substitute for directly observed living species that have undergone evolutionary transitions to new species. I have collected a list of dozens of examples from the scientific literature and posted them to “Emergence of New Species” at http://stonesnbones.blogspot.c...ecies.html

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 09:18 am

Bob D.’s next error was, “Even Darwin in later lifer (sic) stated that without such evidence his theory had no basis.”

This is a mishmash of two creationist claims. One is based on Darwin’s statement in “The Origin of Species,” Chapter VI, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” And the second “in later life” part is the echo of the “Lady Hope” fraud. Lady Hope was a British evangelist who falsely claimed, in great detail, how she attended Darwin on his deathbed in 1882, and led him to renounce science, and reconverted him to Christianity. This was a lie, as attested by Darwin’s wife Emma at the time, and later by his daughter Henrietta in 1922.

The fact is even if Darwin had come to doubt his work, it would not alter the validity of evolutionary theory in any way. The modern science of biology which Darwin contributed so much to is independently verified by observation and experiment, and not by personalities.

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 10:54 am

JAT makes some slightly different errors. They began with the claim that “new archaeological (sic) digs prove the bible correct.” I doubt that JAT reads archaeological journals, but I’ll make a few suggestions. (As a personal note, I am a professional archaeologist among other things). Here is a brief, easy to read news article; Andrew Lawler, “American Schools Of Oriental Research Annual Meeting: A Change of Biblical Proportions Strikes Mideast Archaeology” (Science 10 December 2010: Vol. 330 no. 6010 pp. 1472-1473). Basically, there has been precious little science in Biblical Archaeology since the first Christian missionary excavations in the 1800s. This has changed, beginning with the first ever systematic archaeological surveys conducted in post-1967 war Israel. For two book length reviews, a “prolegomenon” of sorts, see;

Dever, William
2001 “What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know IT?: What Archaeology can tell us about the reality of ancient Israel” Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Finkelstein, Israel, Neil Silberman
2001 “The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts” New York: The Free Press

These men have quite different ideas of how the Hebrew Bible, the “Old” Testament, can be employed in archaeological understanding, and historical reconstruction of the Ancient Mideast.

Many of the place names from the Bible and been located archaeologically, and this is the most common “proof” of the Bible offered by creationists. The Harry Potter books mention many real places, such as London. Finding London on a map does not “prove” that Harry Potter was a real boy wizard. What is archaeologically certain is that the claims that “digs prove the bible correct,” are nonsense invented to sell to the fundamentalist public.

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 11:26 am

JAT shows that they have no understanding at all of the educational trends in American public schools for the last three decades (the period my wife and I have been teachers). JAT wrote, “We continue to drop the standards instead of raising them to push our kids.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have in fact raised criteria, and loaded the curriculum. Second graders in California (and most other states) are learning algebra today when 30 years ago it was just long division and fractions. The “pass” criteria for the National Assessment of Educational Achievement was just arbitrarily shifted from 50/50 to 66/33 automatically dropping ~17 percent of student scores into the “failure” range. The real truth is that selling standardized tests is annually a multibillion dollar drain on public education.

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 11:46 am

JAT and Bob D. finally converge on what they are really after; the imposition of fundamentalist Christian religious training by the government in public schools. America’s founders knew what a religious totalitarian state was like, and they knew the power the State could use to control the population if they were allowed to claim that God ordained their rules and powers.

written by Dr. Gary Hurd , June 15, 2011 - 12:12 pm
JAT and Bob D. finally converge on what they are really after; the imposition of fundamentalist Christian religious training by the government in public schools. America’s founders knew what a religious totalitarian state was like, and they knew the power the State could use to control the population if they were allowed to claim that God ordained their rules and powers.

Sadly, the far-right seems determined to undermine, and destroy the Nation they claim to love, and so many patriots died to create. As Sinclair Lewis wrote, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” It is up to the real patriots to stop them before they can again enslave us.

Notes on Charles Darwin’s Education

2011-06-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

(This is more a draft than a finished piece. I'll poke bits and pieces in as they occur to me).

Darwin’s childhood education was at a classical school- much memorization of Greek and Latin, and some mathematics. He was also an avid collector of beetles, and minerals and studied the insect taxonomies of the time. (Darwin's facination with beetles returned when he was a Cambridge student). One of the significant early scientific experiences of Darwin's early life was the study of chemistry. As he wrote in his Autobiography,

"Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. He made all the gases and many com-

[page] 46 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN

pounds, and I read with care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes' Chemical Catechism. The subject interested me greatly, and we often used to go on working till rather late at night. This was the best part of my education at school, for it showed me practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nick-named "Gas." I was also once publicly rebuked by the head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time over such useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a "poco curante,"(1) and as I did not understand what he meant it seemed to me a fearful reproach."

1) A "poco curane" is interested in small things, while being indifferent to important things.

His formal medical education was in Edinburgh. At the same time, Darwin received practical instruction in taxidermy from a “blackamoor” named John who was the former slave of Charles Edmonstone. John had also traveled extensively as a servant and companion for the famous explorer Charles Waterton. In November of 1826, Darwin took a course from Robert Jameson in “Natural History” in addition to his medical studies. Jameson’s 200 page geological illustration addendum to his translation of Curvier’s Essay on the Theory of the Earth was part of Darwin’s reading that term. Darwin later wrote that he found Jameson’s lectures, “… incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology or in any way to study the science.” Darwin made several studies of marine life while at Edinburgh under the encouragement of Dr. Robert Edmund Grant, who shortly after became Professor of comparative anatomy and zoology at London University, (1827-1874). Grant referred in print to two of Darwin’s original discoveries made in 1826; that the so-called "ova of Flustra" were in fact larvæ, and that the little globular bodies which had been supposed to be the young state of Fucus loreus were the egg-cases of the worm-like Pontobdella muricata. Darwin had read papers on these observations to the student’s “Plinian Society” founded by Professor Jameson.

Two years later, Darwin had given-up medicine. He could not stand the sights, sounds, and smells of the surgery. Instead, his disappointed father sent him to Cambridge to prepare for the clergy. But more significantly, Darwin became closely acquainted with the Revd John Stevens Henslow, Professor of Botany, and the Revds Adam Sedgwick and William Whewell, respectively professors of geology and mineralogy. These men totally changed young Darwin’s early resolution to avoid geological science. Whewell sought to reform the practice of science into a more formal profession. In fact, he was the man who coined the word “scientist.” Sedgwick and Henslow both lead field trips that Darwin attended. Fieldwork is much superior to lectures for learning geology and what we would call ecology today. The famous voyage around the world Darwin took from 1831 to 1836 was through the recommendation of Henslow. It was Sedgwick who sent Darwin off on the HMS Beagle with a copy of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which Darwin said, “Allowed me to see with the eyes of Hutton.”

In the three volumes of “Principles of Geology” (1830–33) Lyell, as noted by Darwin, was the chief promoter and advocate of the Uniformitarian theory proposed by James Hutton. Uniformitarianism founded scientific geology. (Lyell also proposed that species of animals came and went throughout the geological record). An example of how Darwin applied Hutton's uniformitarianism as expounded by Lyell, was when in 1835 Darwin experienced a massive earthquake on the coast of Chile. Darwin observed that in a few momments the local coastline had shifted three to six feet higher. Reasoning that similar forces over large amounts of time would have resulted in thousands of feet of movement, Darwin realized that marine shells found on mountain tops were not evidence of a global flood.

By the time Darwin returned to England, he was considered a respected scientist- but as a geologist. Particularly well received was his theory on the formation of coral atolls and reefs. This work has been shown to be correct in every regard. While working on his “big book,” Darwin also spent years in the study of the biology of barnacles, publishing numerous papers and culminating in the still well regarded books; 1852 Living Cirripedia, A monograph on the sub-class Cirripedia, with figures of all the species. The Lepadidæ; or, pedunculated cirripedes, Volume 1 , and 1854, Living Cirripedia, The Balanidæ, (or sessile cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, Volume 2, London: The Ray Society.

All of this preceded the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution, which he had begun working on while still at sea on the HMS Beagle.

I got lured....

2011-06-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

I recently said I’d write replies to Rev. Miller, but I have been distracted by a real job offer. (Science, education, political bombshells- just my cupa’ And real money to go with the rest of the advantages).

And I have also got entrapped in a few Letters to the Editor debates. In one of these, a list of “questions that evolutionists cannot answer” was posted. Of course they were either incoherent, or trivial. The questions themselves turned out to be a cut-n-paste job from a creationist website, http://www.questionevolution.com/biology.html"> “Question Evolution: Biology.”

The website owner emailed me to say he was "to busy" to update, or respond, so my relies are below:

Voldad4life asked, “All you smarter-than-me people please answer these questions or dodge them as usual”

There are several problems with this, first being that if I direct you the answers to these questions; you will ignore the references and claim you are “unconvinced.” It is really a waste of time. Secondly, some of your questions are incoherent and cannot be answered. Thirdly, science does not have complete answers to every possible question, and I personally do not know every corner of every science; where I cannot answer a question you will loudly claim this “proves” scientists are wrong about everything and your superstition is True™.

Not all the questions are really that hard, but I doubt your honesty because I have debated with creationists for many years.

However, I have a free hour with nothing else to do, so here are a few remarks.

“How could wings have evolved? Or an eye?”

The obvious answer is the accumulation of small changes in form and function.

The specifics of eye are also straight forward. The chemistry of photoreceptors gives the first step, our eye’s photochemistry, the rhodopsins, began with bacterial photeodopsin. The primitive “eyes” of single celled organisms are merely areas with higher concentrations of photeodopsins which collect light energy. In the eyes of more advanced critters the light sensitive patch is made of multiple cells inside a shallow cup. There are about a dozen intermediate kinds of “eyes.” We know this because there are living examples of every one still used by some life form on Earth today. The famous example is the “box jelly,” which has 6 different eyes, and no brain.

Nilsson and Pelger,
1994 "A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve" Proceedings of the Royal Society 256: 53-58.

Dan-E. Nilsson, Lars Gislén, Melissa M. Coates, Charlotta Skogh & Anders Garm
2005 “Advanced optics in a jellyfish eye” Nature 435, 201-205 (12 May), doi:10.1038/nature03484;

Voldad4life claimed, "No actual column (Geological) is in one place. The largest sample is in the Grand Canyon, which is only 1 mile. The entire column should be about 100 miles thick.

This is a popular creationist lie. The "entire geological column," in sequence, exists in many places around the world. See;

"The Geologic Column"
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geoco...

PS: Wing evolution:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebra...

I saw nothing to add to their presentation.

Voldad4life asked, “Assuming a population growth of only 1/2% (1/4 the present rate) the current population can be reached in only 4,000 years. If one assumes a growth rate slow enough to account for the current population in 1 million years, there would have been 3,000 billion human bodies.”

This is one of the “incoherent” questions because it is built totally of false assumptions. Errors are; 1) “assuming a population growth” rate because population growth has never been constant. 2) why would we project a million year time for human populations to grow? Modern humans have existed only the last 150 to 200 thousand years. Genetic studies show a “bottle neck” of only about 100,000 individuals 60 to 80 thousand years ago in Africa, while there were probably a few isolated populations in Eurasia. Real population growth coincided with the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. We know historically that various plagues have reduced humans to as little 1/3 of pre-plague sizes. And finally, the key insight by Thomas Malthus was that unconstrained population growth was exponential.

Voldad4life asked, “Why can we classify animals?
Assuming that all animals evolved from a single cell, there should be no distinction between kinds. This would result in one branch rather than the tree of animals which zoologists have been able to classify.”

We can classify animals because they (we) have a shared common ancestry. Your question is so lost in confusion that I can only direct you to two resources:

“The Tree of Life Project”
http://tolweb.org/tree/

and,
“History of Life through Time”
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits...

Voldad4life asked, “What held the first cell's stuff (DNA, RNA, etc) together - a cell wall?

Without a cell wall of some kind, the delicately formed cell parts would have simply drifted apart, never to form life. A cell well speaks of fundamental building blocks far more complex than simply the parts alone.”

These are like popcorn.

The errors of thought, and fact are sooo mixed in this question that it belongs in a museum of illogic. First, DNA, was not a part of the first cells’ “Stuff.” RNA probably was, particularly very small RNA, or “micro-RNA” ribozymes.

Reader, J. S. and G. F. Joyce
2002 "A ribozyme composed of only two different nucleotides." Nature vol 420, pp 841-844.

Ekland, EH, JW Szostak, and DP Bartel
1995 "Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences" Science (21 July): Vol. 269. no. 5222, pp. 364 - 370

Matthew W. Powner, Béatrice Gerland & John D. Sutherland,
2009 "Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions" Nature 459, 239-242 (14 May)

Woese, Carl
2002 “On the evolution of Cells” PNAS Vol. 99 13:8742-8747, (June 25)

Also a likely part of the organic “stuff” was small enzymatic, and transmembrane peptides. See for example;

Anthony D. Keefe, Jack W. Szostak
2001 “Functional proteins from a random-sequence library”
Nature 410, 715-718 (5 April)

Deamer, David W.
2008 "Origins of life: How leaky were primitive cells?" Nature Vol 454 No. 7200

And, other essential parts of the first cells were minerals. For an extended discussion of the role of crystals in the origin of life see;

“Why Re-invent the Crystal?”
http://ncse.com/rncse/28/5-6/why-re-i...

I really need to get to my chores, but

Voldad4life asked, “ How could DNA have replicated without the enzymes which it controls?
DNA can only be reproduced with the help of certain enzymes which can only be produced by DNA which had to be produced by enzymes . . .”

This particular bit of creatocrap makes the false assumption that DNA was part of the original life on Earth. We know that it was not. Long before there were any DNA organisms there were RNA, and peptide replicators. See:

Yuttana Suwannachot and Bernd M. Rode
1999 “Mutual Amino Acid Catalysis in Salt-Induced Peptide Formation Supports this Mechanism's Role in Prebiotic Peptide Evolution” Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres Volume 29, Number 5, 463-471, DOI: 10.1023/A:1006583311808

Philipp Baaske, Franz M. Weinert, Stefan Duhr, Kono H. Lemke, Michael J. Russell, and Dieter Braun
2007 "Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems" PNAS | May 29, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 22 | 9346-9351

U. F. Müller
2006 "Re-creating an RNA world"
Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences (CMLS), 2006 - Volume 63, Number 11 / June,

Dworkin JP, Lazcano A, Miller SL
2003 “The roads to and from the RNA world” J Theor Biol. 2003 May 7;222(1):127-34

Voldad4life asked, “ Why would DNA evolve when its purpose is the keep just that from happening?

The basic function of DNA is to pass on a very complex and exact code or plan for development for the next generation.

This is an extension of the question Voldad4Life copied that I last answered. DNA is useful because it is more stable than RNA, or peptide nucleic acids. This does not mean that it is immutable. The most recent direction in OOL research on the origins of DNA replicators indicates that the shift from RNA to DNA happened in viruses. A good review is available in

Patrick Forterre
2006 “Three RNA cells for ribosomal lineages and three DNA viruses to replicate their genomes: A hypothesis for the origin of cellular domain” PNAS March 7, vol. 103 no. 10 3669-3674

Also at least scan the literature on Mimivirus, and other "giant" viruses. A fairly good place to start would be;

Mickaël Boyera, et al
2009 "Giant Marseillevirus highlights the role of amoebae as a melting pot in emergence of chimeric microorganisms" PNAS December 22, vol. 106 no. 51 21848-21853

Voldad4life asked, “ Why did some animals not evolve?

Evolutionists state that some animals (like the duck billed platypus) have remained unchanged for millions of years. Why were these animals left out of the almost universal improvements that nature had "planned"?

First lie is: “Evolutionists state that some animals (like the duck billed platypus) have remained unchanged for millions of years.” Even we humans are known to have recent mutations that have spread rapidly through the genome without major external changes. And these are the sorts of evolution that occur in populations that live in highly stable environments, or are able to continually migrate to similar environments through-out time. So, while some gross features have remained the same, or at least similar, for millions of years, it is incorrect to claim they are “unchanged.” The second lie is that mutations are always “improvements” since the vast majority of mutations are “silent” that is, they do absolutely nothing. Third, there is no direction, or “improvements that nature had planned.” A successful mutation is one that improved reproductive success, what is an mutational “improvement” in one environment could be a disaster in another.

Voldad4life asked (copied), “Why are there no animals in the salt flats?

The salt flats were probably caused by evaporation of a large salty lake, yet there are no fossils of the animals that lived there.

Hostile environments have fewer, and less diverse animal life. The fewer organisms, the less likely we are to find their fossils. There are several sources for “salt flats” mineralogically called “halite deposits.” Halite forms in stages, the last being a hyper-saline pond or lagoon. And they are in fact loaded with fossils;

Kathleen C. Benison
2008 “Petrography Reveals That Acid-Precipitated Halite and Gypsum Preserve Small Fossils Well” 2008 Joint Meeting of The Geological Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies with the Gulf Coast Section of SEPM

Kathleen C. Benison
2008 “Life And Death Around Acid-Saline Lakes” PALAIOS; September, v. 23; no. 9; p. 571-573; DOI: 10.2110/palo.2008.S05 © 2008 SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology

Voldad4life asked (copied), “Why are the missing links still missing?

From vertebrates to invertebrates, reptiles to birds there should be billions of animals. The transition from legs to wings alone should have included a countless number of animals, yet none can be found.

We find “missing links” by the thousands. To creationists, every new “link” is counted as two new “gaps.” There are limits to the sensitivity of fossils to detect evolutionary change. Very few individuals of any species will become fossils, certain environments are very bad at making, or preserving fossils, and we spend more per day on foreign wars than we spend on paleontology per year. The Iraq War alone has wasted more money that has ever been spent on paleontology. I have personally seen hundreds of thousands of fossils destroyed in road construction projects because there was no money to even store the material in a warehouse- let alone analyze the remains

There were more similar creatocrap questions on a par with the worst of

Kent Hovind, or Ken Ham, but I really do have chores to do.

Bring Back The Bean Ball.

2011-05-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

I know I just said that I would take the next eight posts to debunk the Rev. Miller.

BUT, the attack by Scott Cousins against SF Giants catcher Buster Posey is too outrageous to ignore.

Note that Cousins has crossed the baseline, he has dropped his shoulder, and pulled in his arms in order to strike Posey. He makes no effort to even near the home plate. He broke Posey's leg, and worse, tore three tendons in Posey's ankle. This is a potentially career ending injury.

When the crazy goes mainstream.

2011-05-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I came across this the other day. It is from Rev Adrian Miller, an Anglican vicar and a member of the Biblical Creation Society (British). He is giving his answer to a question he says he hears, "Why Won't Creationists Just Give Up?"

A FEW HEADLINE REASONS

- Because we see the empirical data from the sciences fitting so much better within a creationist framework and using creationist models.

- Because we see as inadequate any hermeneutic that treats Genesis as having nothing to say about earth history, biology, palaeo-anthropology, and so on.

- Because we recognise the deistic theology and naturalistic philosophy on which Darwin built his biological ideas, and which seeps into our thinking if we embrace Darwin.

- Because we recognise the importance of revelation in our approach to knowing.

- Because we appreciate the 'Emperor's New Clothes', sociological factors that pressurise members of our society - especially the intellectual elite -to conform to this world, in opposition to Paul's teaching in Romans 12:1-2.

- Because history tells us that where the church has embraced Darwin, it has been weakened.

- Because Satan has provided people with a way of looking at the world that doesn't need God, and we need to expose the weaknesses in that proposition rather than compromise with it.

- Because, far from being bad for mission, creationism provides the best apologetical approach, and makes for the deepest disciples. Incidentally, this isn't to say that we don't have our work cut out convincing 'Greek thinkers' that our message of the cross is not foolishness (1 Cor. 1:22f) - it just means that it's even more important that we present a united front on these issues.

So, eight big chunks of crazy. I think these should orient my next eight posts.

Laboratory induced speciation of vertebrates

2011-05-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

Worth noting I'll need to update Emergence of New Speceis.;

"Laboratory synthesis of an independently reproducing vertebrate species" Aracely A. Lutesa, Diana P. Baumann, William B. Neaves, and Peter Baumann (Published online before print PNAS May 4, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102811108)

Abstract

Speciation in animals commonly involves an extrinsic barrier to genetic exchange followed by the accumulation of sufficient genetic variation to impede subsequent productive interbreeding. All-female species of whiptail lizards, which originated by interspecific hybridization between sexual progenitors, are an exception to this rule. Here, the arising species instantaneously acquires a novel genotype combining distinctive alleles from two different species, and reproduction by parthenogenesis constitutes an effective intrinsic barrier to genetic exchange. Fertilization of diploid parthenogenetic females by males of sexual species has produced several triploid species, but these instantaneous speciation events have neither been observed in nature nor have they been reconstituted in the laboratory. Here we report the generation of four self-sustaining clonal lineages of a tetraploid species resulting from fertilization of triploid oocytes from a parthenogenetic Aspidoscelis exsanguis with haploid sperm from Aspidoscelis inornata. Molecular and cytological analysis confirmed the genetic identity of the hybrids and revealed that the females retain the capability of parthenogenetic reproduction characteristic of their triploid mothers. The tetraploid females have established self-perpetuating clonal lineages which are now in the third generation. Our results confirm the hypothesis that secondary hybridization events can lead to asexual lineages of increased ploidy when favorable combinations of parental genomes are assembled. We anticipate that these animals will be a critical tool in understanding the mechanisms underlying the origin and subsequent evolution of asexual amniotes.

Also discussed on the Web at Panda's Thumb, and Nobel Intent.

Did God Make The World, .... ?

2011-05-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

My Google news reader spotted an on-line magazine article called “Did God Make The World, and all that it contains?” by Arthur Lewin. Neither the magazine, “ThyBlackMan.com,” nor Dr. Lewin were known to me, so I took a look. I was disappointed and slightly irritated. In just under 500 words, Dr. Lewin (PhD in sociology from City University of New York) makes almost zero accurate statements. (Maybe you can find more than I could).

What follows are my comments posted to the website;

Mr. Lewin, in the day of Google, and Wikipedia your multiple errors are just not acceptable. First, Charles Darwin hardly addressed the origin of life at all, and at least in his published works accepted the possibility of a creator. Second, evolutionary biology has advanced a great deal in the last 150 years and Darwin’s books are of more historical than scientific interest.

You also suggest that creationism be taught merely because it is popular. Darwin wrote against slavery, and about the biological unity of mankind when most here insisted that slave ownership was a “god given right” of the White man, and even that the African slaves were soulless sub-humans. Facts are not altered by popularity, and at least in the sciences we try to stick to facts to build our theories.

As for some additional facts, John Scopes was never “exonerated.” The Tennessee Supreme Court found the Butler Act against teaching evolution constitutional. The court set aside the conviction because the Judge made a technical error by fining Scopes $100, when he was not permitted to go above $50, and the lower court decided not to retry the case.

Cartesian Duality is the notion that there is a non-material mind that is detached from the physical brain. Given the advances of neurochemistry, and application of new technologies such as functional MRI, we know that this was a false idea. (And it had little to do with any “science versus religious” conflicts).

Godel’s ideas about incompleteness apply to formal logic systems such as mathematics without any material constraints. The sciences rejected by creationists, especially biology, and geology, are already constrained by the physical realities we study, and so Godel’s theorem has no application. You had best try reading the original.

I want make a last observation to Dr. Lewin regarding his concluding statement, “And so we see that, ultimately, Evolution and Intelligent Design do not really contradict.”
They do most certainly conflict, if Dr. Lewin is using “intelligent design” in the same sense as its proponents, and in the sense it has in the various recent or impending legal cases (see Kitzmiller v Dover, or example). The scientific failure of Intelligent Design creationism has been explored by many scientists and philosophers. For two recommendations, see;

Mark Perakh
2003 “Unintelligent Design” New York: Prometheus Press

Matt Young, Taner Edis (Editors),
2004 “Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism” Rutgers University Press

I was one of the contributors to the latter book.

The suggestion made by Dr. Lewin that following the “big bang,” life emerged and evolved according to natural laws is roughly the same as “theistic evolution.” I don’t find it personally persuasive, but there is no particular scientific objection to this. It is often called the “strong Anthropic principle” by cosmologists. It is worth noting that it is rejected by most ID proponents at the Discovery Institute, and is strongly opposed by the common Young Earth creationists.

Two books I can recommend on theistic evolution are;

Frye, Roland Mushat (editor)
1983 “Is God a Creationist? The Religious Case Against Creation-Science” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons

Miller, Keith B. (editor)
2003 “Perspectives on an Evolving Creation” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company

They are a bit heavy theologically, but mostly readable.

Regarding the “fine tuning,” or “strong anthropic principle,” here is one in favor and one opposed;

McGrath, Alister E.
2009 “A Fine-Tuned Universe” Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press

Susskind, Leonard
2005 “The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design” New York: Little and Brown Publishers

Obviously McGrath is in favor of the idea that the “fact” the universe is “built” for us humans “proves” there must be a god. Actually he sidesteps the arguments made by Susskind (in fact he does not even mention Susskind, or the equally strong counter arguments of of my colleague Victor J. Stenger (2004, “Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Us?” in “Why Intelligent Design Fails,” 172-84). The best short refutation of the fine tuning case I have seen was by the science fiction author, Douglas Adams. In late 2000, he gave a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He compared us to a mud puddle that looks around and says, “What a nice hole in the ground – it’s made just for me! Look at how nicely it’s indentations fit my beautiful curves, and the depth and the radius are just right…”

PS: Take some time to read NASA’s “Universe 101: The Big Bang Theory”

The contest is over. I Win the Scotch! Kristine the Belly Dancing Librarian wins the Chocolate!

2011-04-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

What I had hoped for was like:

Lies, and gross errors of fact:

Transcript from Think Progress, "At the risk of drawing this out, which I hate to do(1), but I do know, as Rep. Dunn has mentioned, that I was taught things in science class in high school which have turned out not to be true.(14) I remember so many of us when we were seniors in high school, we gave up Aqua Net hairspray. You remember why we did that? Because it was causing global warming(2 a,b,c)! That aerosol in those cans(3) was causing global warming(4). Since then, scientists have said(5) maybe we shouldn’t have given up that aerosol can because that aerosol was actually absorbing(6) the earth’s rays(7) and keeping us from global warming(8).

So, so many things we learned in science class(14) have turned out not to be true.

What about eating chocolate? You know, I was told, don’t eat chocolate(9). Good dark chocolate is full of what? Anti-oxidants!(10) Some chocolate is good for you. So many things that we learned in science class.(14, and she flunked English too).

What this bill does is protects a teacher(11) — not mandates what a teacher teaches — it protects a teacher when a child asks a critical thought question about something like global warming or evolution(12). They have the right to ask that question, and the teacher has the right to not make them feel stupid for asking(13)!"

(1) She does not mind drawing things out at all,
(2 a, b, c) a, She was apparently a HS senior in the late 1960s (we are the same age); global warming was not yet considered an issue, the only possible issue was ozone depletion. b, Ozone depletion was not an issue in the late 1960s. c, CFCs used as propellants are weak greenhouse gases and had negligible effect on global warming.
(3) There is no aerosol in the cans, the aerosol is produced in the can’s nozzle.
(4) The hairspray contents, polyurethane, acetone, and CFCs, of the cans didn’t contribute directly to warming.
(5) “Scientists” have not said anything she has mentioned, or is about to mention.
(6) The hairspray aerosol (misted plastic) sprayed on girl’s hair does not absorb global warming “rays.”
(7) The Earth does not have global warming “rays.”
(8) Neither the hair spray components, nor the generated aerosol contribute to cooling. There are aerosols, like clouds, that do. Clouds are not like hairspray.
(9) I doubt this woman was told not to eat chocolate in science class because she seems to have never attended a science class.
(10) “Although a bar of chocolate exhibits strong antioxidant activity, the health benefits are still controversial because of the saturated fats present,” *1
(11) Teachers are already protected, and expected to teach “critical” thinking, and what is a “critical thought problem?” (Two alternating hypothesis left Philadelphia …).
(12) The bill is to teach creationism, and the bitch knows it.
(13) Teachers don’t need to be “protected” from “not making a child feel stupid.” A pattern of making a child “feel stupid” is abuse.
(14) Ms. Butt learned nothing in science class. Nothing a teacher could do would have prevented Ms. Butt form being stupid, regardless of how she feels about it. She does not seem to realize she is stupid, but she isn’t in school anymore (worse the luck).

*1 “Cocoa Has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Teas and Red Wine.” J. Agric. Food Chem., 2003, 51 (25), pp 7292–7295

Rep. Butt of Tennessee on Global Warming

2011-04-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

I want to commend Brad Johnson for collecting this clip, and send him some traffic at Think Progress.

I thought that it would be fun to have a contest on how many errors of fact are in Ms. Butt's load.

The format I thought up is in three parts; a "bidding" phase where we can put up the number, 4, 5, 6, etc... The second phase will be the highest bidder listing the errors they see, and the third will be a "wild card" prize if anyone can add extra errors in addition to the high bidder. The First Place winner gets the traditional bottle of single malt Scotch (I have a brand in mind). The Wild Card prize should be a box of chocolate full of anti-oxidants.

This is SOOOOO STUPIDDDDD that I cannot bring my self to break it down. Maybe after some beers.

An amended "Emergence of New Species"

2011-04-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

I added the following bit to my list of Emergecne of new species.

The former “Answers in Genesis” gang claims they have found a problem with using O. gigas as an example of polyploidal speciation. There are so many good examples of new species emerging, both in the wild, and in laboratories, that I would not want to use one that is incorrect.

The notorious creationist website “Creation Ministries,” disputes O. gigias as a valid example of polyplodial speciation. (Feedback, March 31, 2007 “Speciation Observed? Was this Evolution?” http://creation.com/evolution-by-fiat-and-faith#specob As I have found them to be grossly wrong on many occasions, I also checked their citation list. The creationist claim that O. gigas is not an example of speciation has only two supports; an article in 1943, and that they did not find botanical materials named O. gigias in on-line Botanical nomenclature reference collections. Oenothera names are a mess, but not as bad as Asteracea. O. gigias was apparently found to be a synonym, and is disused. This is trivial, and does nothing to change using the spontaneous emergence of the tetraploidal new species.

The “Creation Ministries International” phonies also cited a 1943 plant genetics article, “An amphidiploid in the F1 generation from the cross Oenothera franciscana x Oenothera biennis, and its progeny” (Davis, B.M., Genetics 28(4):275–285, July 1943). It is available on-line in PDF at: http://www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/28/4/275.pdf

Read it for yourselves, if you like. It has nothing relevant to de Vries, or his O. gigias being used as valid examples of speciation. This is the sort of misrepresentation typical from professional creationists, who expect their followers to lack either the education, or motivation to actually dig through the science.

For a more recent review of the role polyplodial plants play in evolution, read;
"Duplicate genes increase expression diversity in closely related species and allopolyploids" Misook Haa, Eun-Deok Kima and Z. Jeffrey Chen, PNAS February 17, 2009 vol. 106 no. 7 2295-2300
PDF: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/7/2295.full.pdf+html

And, here is a broader review on plant evolution and genome doubling that is also a bit easier to read;
"Genetic and epigenetic alterations after hybridization and genome doubling"
Ovidiu Paun, Michael F. Fay, Douglas E. Soltis, and Mark W. Chase, Taxon. 2007 August; 56(3): 649–56.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2980832/

Responding to creationists in newspaper forums

2011-04-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I have spent part of every day searching for, and replying to creationists in US newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, and newspaper discussion groups. There are others who do the same, including creationists. I recently was replying to a ID creationists named Lee Bowman on a Tennessee news site Metro Pulse; http://www.metropulse.com/news/2011/apr/06/critical-thinking-or-creationism-tennessee-classro/

I am posting the following to Stones and Bones because I had to spend some time searching the Dover trial transcripts for material, and will probably need them again. The two topics are Mike Behe's claim that even though ID "design detection" doesn't work in archaeology, as he had claimed, it would still work in "science fiction." The second part is from his cross-examination where he admits that "astrology is science" under the logical rules he would use to make ID a science.

Lee Bowman claims that, “academic freedom is my passion.” I don’t know whether to laugh, or snarl. Come to think on it, snarl is more appropriate. Mr. Bowman is an advocate for teaching creationism in schools. He is also a sloppy thinker, and reader. (Alternately, he misrepresents other posts on purpose). For example, he dismissed the clear assertions of religious intent from all the major ID creationism leaders, say that they were out dated. For example, he claimed falsely that Phillip Johnson, and Paul Nelson admitted that there is no ID theory in 1996. This was (as I cited) in 2006 by Johnson, and 2004 by Nelson. Were these statements even older, no ID creationists have ever retracted their clear assertions of religious doctrinaire goals, and motivations for ID creationism.

Bowman then lies about Behe’s testimony in the Dover trial, asserting falsely that Behe was attempting humor. Here is the transcript;

Dover, Behe Cross Examination, Afternoon Day 12;

(Rothschild) Q. So if the strength of an inference depends on the similarities, this is a pretty weak inference, isn't it, Dr. Behe?

(Behe) A. No, I disagree completely. Again if something showed strong marks of design, and even if a human designer could not have made it, then we nonetheless would think that something else had made it. Lots of science fiction movies are based on scenarios like that, and again the, I think the similarities between what we find in designed objects in our everyday world and the complex molecular machinery of the cell have actually a lot more in common than do explosions we see on earth such as cannon balls and so forth and the explosion of an entire universe, and that induction seems to have been fairly successful in trying to explain some features of the world. So I think it's not at all uncalled for to make a similar induction in this case.

Q. Science fiction movies are not science, are they, Professor Behe?

A. That's correct, they are not. But they certainly try to base themselves on what their audience would consider plausible within the genre, so they can offer useful illustrations at some points, for some points.

Obviously, Behe is floundering in his self contradictions, and searching for an “out.”

And, regarding astrology, which Behe defended as a “science,” here is a relevant portion of that testimony.

Dover, Behe Cross Examination, Afternoon Day 11;
Q (Rothschild) And using your definition, intelligent design is a
16 scientific theory, correct?
17 A (Behe) Yes.
18 Q Under that same definition astrology is a
19 scientific theory under your definition, correct?
20 A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a
21 proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical,
22 observable data and logical inferences. There are many
23 things throughout the history of science which we now think
24 to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that -- which
25 would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one,
1 and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and
2 many other -- many other theories as well.

And a moment later,

Q But you are clear, under your definition, the
7 definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is
8 also a scientific theory, correct?
9 A Yes, that’s correct. And let me explain under my
10 definition of the word "theory," it is -- a sense of the
11 word "theory" does not include the theory being true, it
12 means a proposition based on physical evidence to explain
13 some facts by logical inferences. There have been many
14 theories throughout the history of science which looked good
15 at the time which further progress has shown to be
16 incorrect. Nonetheless, we can t go back and say that
17 because they were incorrect they were not theories.

He said I said, but I didn't

2011-03-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

I think I'll go fishing this morning. But first, here is a little bit of editorial writing amusement. A creationist, Mr. Paul James, wrote a guest editorial for the Palm Beach Daily, published Feb. 9, 2011. After I made a few remarks in the discussion, I emailed the editor of the paper to offer a counter-point. After a couple of weeks, they ran my piece on Feb. 27. Just a few days later, Paul James is back with his response.

That isn't the "good part." The good part was that Mr. James has attributed to me a bigoted opinion written by another creationist. Mr. James took the quote from this blog entry, "ID Creationism in Minnesota," where I am critical of creationist Joe Cap.

But even better is the fact that a childish atheist called "Human Ape," AKA "bobbyxxxx" tried to join James in attacking me. (All of bobby's posts were deleted, BTW). Irony is not dead: A creationist (James) quoting a creationist (Cap) because he wants to embarrass a scientist (me) is supported by an atheist twit (bobby).

Scientific American nannybot objected to the following

2011-03-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

ZebulonJoe wrote in comment #60, “I have yet to find anyone here who has actually looked at those chapters in the book of Job, 38-41.”

We might as well take this up, and then call it done vis a vis Joe’s arguments.

The book of Job is indeed an interesting text as it is a very ancient in its source, and interpolated with more recent material. In particular, ZebulonJoe’s request to study chapters 38-41, begins with a theologically rich boasting of the southern storm god, Yahweh. The parallel texts are from the Ugarit creation myth (a Northwestern Semitic tradition), and the defeat of the sea god Yammu by the god Ba’lu (biblical Baal). In Job 38, the sea (biblical Hebrew Yam) is conquered by Yahweh (8- 11). Yahweh in the common storm god tradition is clothed in whirlwind and clouds, and speaks through the wind and thunder, causes rain, and lightening 38:1, 9, 22, 25-30, 35-38 (v.36 is emended).

Of additional interest is mention of the “B'nai HaElohim” in verse 7, commonly translated in the KJV as “sons of God,” or occasionally “hosts of God.” In late biblical texts this is recast as “angles,” or even human saints. The chief god of Ugarit, El, presides over his “council of gods” or “elohim.” It is this identical use we find in Job, beginning in Chapter 1 verse 6. (Elsewhere we find “el elohim Yahweh” or “Yahweh, the God of the gods”). Also give attention to the fact that “the satan” (biblical Hebrew il’shatan, God’s Satan) is appearing at the command, and under the direction of the God El in Chapter 1. This provides a rather amusing world play in 1:7 since Satan says he was “wandering about” and the name Satan derived from the Akkadean verb “sh-uut” = to wander, and later consonant shifts yield, "satan" = to accuse.

I would suggest that anyone interested in the Book of Job read;

Dahood, Mitchell
1965 Psalms I, 1-50: Introduction, Translation and Notes New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday

Jewish Publication Society
2004 “The Jewish Study Bible: TANAKA translation” Oxford University Press.

Matthews, Victor H., Don C. Benjamin
2006 “Old Testament Parallels: Law and Stories from the Ancient Near East” New York: The Paulist Press.

Pardee, Dennis
2002 "Writings from the Ancient World Vol. 10: Ritual and Cult at Ugarit" Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature

Pope, Marvin H.
1965 “Job: A new translation with Introduction and Commentary” Anchor Bible Vol. 15, New York: ABRL/Doubleday

Smith, Mark
2003 “The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts” Oxford University Press.

And be sure to keep a handy copy of Brown, Driver, and Briggs.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Creationists; Klinghoffer at the Washington Post

2011-02-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

Lies, Damn Lies, and Creationists

David Klinghoffer is an intelligent, and well educated man. That is why he has been given lots of money by the far-right, creationist Discovery Institute. He earns this money by misdirection and lying. I would not call him a liar if I thought he was stupid, or ignorant. An excellent example is his 2/22/2011 editorial for the Washington Post.

Klinghoffer begins by the false premise that Darwin is the key figure in modern evolutionary theory, or that what we feel emotionally about Darwin should have more than rhetorical value. He also wants us to ignore that for 30 years there has been a steady increase in the percentage of Americans who understand human evolution, and that this is equally taken away from biblical literalists, and “undecided.” What has been fixed is the ~38% of theistic evolutionists who acknowledge evolution, including humans, and attribute this to God’s will. This is the accepted standard of the Catholic church, and most mainline Protestant churches. There is another appropriate saying of Mark Twain’s, “Figures don't lie, but liars figure.”

But the misdirection builds higher. He wants us to ignore that it is the biblical literalists who have a religiously motivated rejection of not only evolution, but all sciences. To follow Klinghoffer’s request to ignore literalists, is to ignore that there is a conflict at all. (There are a tiny number of pantheist, neo-pagan, and other creationists. But, taken all together, they couldn’t fill a stadium). But, Klinghoffer’s pay rate as a Discotute depends on promoting Intelligent Design creationism, and their opposition to science. And it is all of the sciences that are rejected by mystical thinkers because scientific theories are exclusively materialist, and they really work. As Klinghoffer’s fellow Discotute, Wiliam Dembski wrote, “…but let’s admit that our aim, as proponents of intelligent design, is to beat naturalistic evolution, and the scientific materialism that undergirds it, back to the Stone Age,” April 14, 2004.

Klinghoffer then switched to hyping a book by another Discovery Institute hack about Alfred Russle Wallace. Wallace was a pantheist, and spiritualist, positions just as objectionable to Klinghoffer’s paymasters as Darwin. What does appeal to them is that Wallace can be misrepresented as an opponent to Darwin. This is a 2 for 1 lie; Wallace never viewed himself as opposed to Darwin, plus both Darwin and Wallace are very distant for evolutionary biology as taught today.

So, Klinghoffer has done his best for creationism, and earned another paycheck. The unresolved question is why the Washington Post facilitated him? Will we see commentary from Ken Ham, or Fred Flintstone next?

Posted by: GaryHurdPhD | February 23, 2011 5:52 PM
Report Offensive Comment

2011-02-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I went on my first long ocean trip from Friday to 11th, to Sunday the 13th. Excellent boat, good crew, fine weather, terrible fishing.

Enought of that for now.

I took a look at the old profile photo of me and a yellow tail that I caught on the Fury. Here is a contrasting, recent photo of me and a similar yellow tail that I caught last year aboard the San Diego out of Seaforth Landing.

ID Creationism in Minnesota

2011-02-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

February 9, 2011

Joe Cap commented in the Minnesota Post

I think young Earth creationism is wrong, and anything specifically invoking the supernatural should not be taught in science classes. With that said, this article shows the typical ignorance of Intelligent Design.

Professor Randy Moore: “They’ve had evolution classes, they choose to reject it in favor of religion.”

Three things are wrong with this statement.

(1) It implies that there is only one kind of evolution, the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on methodological naturalism (the a priori assumption that nature is all that there is), and (2) that if you don't believe the claims of this theory, the ONLY other choice is religion. I personally believe life evolved in a tree similar to what is taught in evolutionary biology classes, but could not have happened simply via random mutations and natural selection. Not nearly enough information search capability. This is not automatically imply that God or gods did it. Lastly, Mr. Moore implies (3) that those who choose evolution are not religious. I'm not even talking about theistic evolutionists (people who adhere to every inkling that evolutionary biology has to teach, and believe God did it). You're trying to tell me Richard Dawkins is not religious about his worldview? Militant, atheist evolutionary biologists are every bit as religious as a sweating, hollering young Earth creationist preacher from south Alabama.

Beth Hawkins: "And no, Intelligent Design does not qualify as a scientific theory."

I know this isn't an article intended to debate this issue in depth, but this type of hand waving is boring. For anyone truly interested in Intelligent Design, from either side of the fence, I encourage you to check out the series of posts on uncommondescent.com titled "ID Foundations". It is a fairly rigorous discussion of what ID is all about. Be sure to read the comments sections, too, as some very good discussion both both sides happens there.

(I placed the comment by Cap in italics, Mar. 10, since some people think that HIS words were mine).
+++++++++++++++++++++++

So, I replied;

Beth Hawkins did a good job within her limited word count. Joe Cap managed to pack a lot of nonsense into just over 300 words.

The original article published in last week’s Science magazine was “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom” by Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer. They found that ~28% of teachers nationally do correctly and enthusiastically teach the scientific basis of all biology, evolution. At the opposite end of the scale, 13-18% personally reject evolution, and actively subvert the curriculum, or explicitly teach creationism. One Minnesota teacher was quoted, “I don't teach the theory of evolution in my life science classes, nor do I teach the Big Bang Theory in my [E]arth [S]cience classes…. We do not have time to do something that is at best poor science.”

Berkman and Plutzer felt that the remaining teachers, ~54%, who were weak in their presentation of evolutionary biology lacked a proper background, and thus lacked the confidence, and competence to successfully present the curriculum. Prof. Moore disagrees, and cites his own data that the “unsure” teachers are were a mere 15%, and that up to 25% of teachers rejected evolution and taught religious creationism instead. Oddly, he has published 2003 data indicating that up to 52% of teachers felt they were inadequately prepared to teach evolution, “The Teaching of Evolution & Creationism in Minnesota” Randy Moore and Karen Kraemer, The American Biology Teacher. 67(8): 457–466. 2005.

Mr. Cap’s comment has no relevance to any of this. Not one of his objections to Prof. Moore’s observations is supported with facts, which I’ll come to presently.

Mr. Cap wrote, “(1) It implies that there is only one kind of evolution, the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on methodological naturalism (the a priori assumption that nature is all that there is).”

The theory of evolution was rephrased in the 1930s to meld the discoveries in genetics with Darwin’s notions of common descent, and selection. This relied heavily on the mathematical models of population genetics and weakened Darwin’s emphasis on individuals and “survival” in favor of populations and reproductive success. This was the “the neo-Darwinian synthesis” Mr. Cap referred to above. There have been two significant additions since then; Kimura’s neutral theory (see his 1985 book “The neutral theory of molecular evolution), and the observations by Gould, Eldredge, and Lewontin of rapid change in the fossil record which they generalized as “punctuated equilibrium” as opposed to Darwin’s gradualism( see: Gould SJ and Eldredge N 1977 Punctuated Equilibria: The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered; Paleobiology 3 115–151). We are currently anticipating further advances in developmental biology (mostly in embryology), and ecological theory which will in turn expand and improve evolutionary theory. It is highly unlikely that Randy Moore, a professor of biology, would think that the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Fisher, Haldane, and Huxley is the “only” kind of evolution.

In the same numbered objection, Mr. Cap confused “methodological naturalism” with “philosophical naturalism.” The latter holds that the material universe is exclusive. Scientists universally hold to “methodological materialism.” That is, scientific explanations, or theory, must always be based on observable phenomena and may only use natural law-like statements in their theories. You cannot toss miracles and undefined magical powers into your work to dodge difficulties and still pretend to be scientific. It is methodological materialism that allows the devout Hindu, or Christian to contribute good science equally along with the agnostics, and atheists. In this regard there is “only one kind of evolution” because there is only one kind of science period, that based on methodological materialism.

Mr. Cap wrote “(2) (Prof. Moore asserted gh) that if you don't believe the claims of this theory (evolutionary biology gh), the ONLY other choice is religion. I personally believe life evolved in a tree similar to what is taught in evolutionary biology classes, but could not have happened simply via random mutations and natural selection. Not nearly enough information search capability. This is not automatically imply that God or gods did it.”

Prof. Moore is speaking from his perspective from over a decade of opinion survey research. This research has shown that teacher rejection of evolutionary theory in favor of actually teaching creationism was religiously motivated. It was not an assumption, or opinion, it was an objective fact. But, Mr. Cap did use the opportunity to make an absurd claim of his own that the nested hierarchies of evolutionary biology are real, but that they didn’t happen by evolutionary means. His “argument: Not nearly enough information search capability.” This is a bit of classic Intelligent Design Creationism gibberish.

It is close to the argument made by ID creationist Mike Behe in his Dover testimony. Behe had cited his article with David Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues” Protein Science (2004), 13:2651–2664. Based on this paper, Behe asserted that there was “too little time” for a random process to have generated complex organisms. In cross-examination however, he was forced to admit that using realistic conditions his published result would have actually supported evolution. (see Behe cross examination, Day 12 Am. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day12am.html#day12am366 )

Mr. Cap claims that ID creationism does not have a religious foundation. Some obvious statements by ID leaders will settle this error;

Michael Behe
“In my estimation, although possible in a broadly permissive sense, it is not plausible that the original intelligent agent is a natural entity. … Thus, in my judgment it is implausible that the designer is a natural entity." From “Reply to My Critics,” Biology and Philosophy 16: 685–709, 2001.

William Dembski
In a 1999 article for the Christian magazine Touchstone “Signs of Intelligence,” Dembski confirmed the foundation of ID in John 1 when he assured readers that "Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."

"My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ." 'Intelligent Design', p 206

Phillip Johnson
"This [the intelligent design movement] isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy." World Magazine, 30 November 1996

"The Intelligent Design movement starts with the recognition that 'In the beginning was the Word,' and 'In the beginning God created.' Establishing that point isn't enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message." Foreword to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000)

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." American Family Radio (10 January 2003)

Jonathan Wells
"Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle" [Note: 'Father' refers to self-proclaimed Messiah, Rev. Sun Moon]. Date: 1996. Source: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.
Location: http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm

ID creationists Paul Nelson and Steve Meyer are also Young Earth Creationists, and William Dembski has recently been forced to recant his published opinion that the Genesis Flood was not a historical global event. His statement reads, “In a brief section on Genesis 4–11, I weigh in on the Flood, raising questions about its universality, without adequate study or reflection on my part. (referring to his book “The End of Christianity”). Before I write on this topic again, I have much exegetical, historical, and theological work to do. In any case, not only Genesis 6–9 but also Jesus in Matthew 24 and Peter in Second Peter seem clearly to teach that the Flood was universal. As a biblical inerrantist, I believe that what the Bible teaches is true and bow to the text, including its teaching about the Flood and its universality.”

We might was well finish up with Mr. Cap’s errors. I’ll skip his bigotry toward Young Earther’s, and southerners other than noting it seems as extreme as any atheist’s. The last gross error is that there is a “theory of intelligent design.” Again, I’ll let two of the ‘great’ minds of ID creationists take the stage;

Philip Johnson
"I also don't think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that's comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it's doable, but that's for them to prove...No product is ready for competition in the educational world." Berkley Science Review (Spring 2006).

Paul Nelson
Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory now, and that's a real problem. Without a theory it's very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now we've got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity" - but as yet no general theory of biological design. Date: July/August 2004 Source: Touchstone Magazine interview

There is no ID theory, and there never will be an ID theory. ID is relabeled creationism, and not a science of any kind.

While the fishing was slow, I did some fact checking

2010-10-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

I spent a day or two writing responses to an editorial that appeared in the Newark Advocate.

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20101003/OPINION02/10030316/What-are-we-teaching-at-taxpayers-expense-

Newark Advocate, OH 43055
3 Oct. 2010
Evolution is the dumbest and most dangerous religion in the world.
In the interest of full disclosure, I believe in the literal six-day creation of the universe as recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis. I freely admit that my acceptance of the Genesis account is purely by faith. I don't have to prove my beliefs nor do I have to defend them because I am not asking the taxpayer to fund the research of or the teaching of my beliefs in the public schools.
Evolution also is of faith. Sir Julian Huxley said, "I suppose the reason why we leapt at "The Origin of Species" was that the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores." Sir Arthur Keith, who wrote the forward to the 100th anniversary of Darwin's book, said, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable." George Wald, a Nobel Prize-winning evolutionist, said, "I will not accept creation philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible."

This country was founded on the basis of a creator who endowed mankind with certain unalienable rights, among which (but not limited to) are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution was drafted with the idea that government does not grant rights, but its greatest duty was to protect the rights of people. In contrast, evolution is the basis for humanism, the belief that I am my own final authority, and it removes the boundaries of governmental expansion and oppression.

Creationism is a religion of life while evolution is a religion of death. Evolution necessarily requires the death of the less evolved species. This is known as "survival of the fittest." With Darwin's book came the excuse for one "race" of people to eliminate another. Sir Arthur Keith wrote of Hitler, "The German Fuhrer ... has consistently sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution." Karl Marx tried to dedicate his book "The Communist Manifesto" to Darwin (although he declined). Joseph Stalin went to a Christian school until he read Darwin's book and became an atheist. He went on to kill between 60 and 100 million of his own people.
Dr. Leo Alexander, a holocaust survivor, said, "There is a difference between those who look upon their fellow human beings as common creatures of a common creator and those who look upon them as a conglomerate of biological chemicals."

While I have only begun to indict the theory of evolution, which has made no positive contribution to science, I hope you will begin to question what we are teaching our children. Do we even need to teach theories of the origin of the universe in public schools? Can we not just teach science and let each parent and each child decide what to believe?

In closing, I would like to ask those who believe in evolution this simple question, "If evolution is true, how do we determine right from wrong?"

Dahlke is a local pastor and resident of Perryton.

Reply (posted in ~1000 character chunks)
Re: Sir Arthur Keith

Rev. Dahlke has used several of the popular creationist attacks on science education. The first is the dishonest use of quotes out of context, or simply invented out of thin air. An excellent example of this dishonesty by Dahlke is the so-called quote from the “100th anniversary of Darwin's book” by Arthur Keith. The 100 anniversary of “The Origin of Species” was 1959. Arthur Keith died in 1955. He never wrote the words attributed to him by Dahlke. He did invent an idiosyncratic political theory he called “National Evolution” that he self published in a book he called “Evolution and Ethics.” This was the source of redacted quote regarding Hitler. The book is useless except to creationists.

In fact, Hitler was a creationist. Like Rev. Dahlke, Hitler rejected the evolution of humans, “From where do we get the right to believe that man was not from the very beginning what he is today? A glance in Nature shows us , that changes and developments happen in the realm of plants and animals. But nowhere do we see inside a kind, a development of the size of the leap that Man must have made, if he supposedly has advanced from an ape-like condition to what he is’ (now)” Hitler’s Tabletalk entry for 27 February 1942

And like creationists, Hitler rejected the evolution of species, “The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi

In fact, Hitler and Rev. Dahlke not doubt agree that, "The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator." - Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier). And, just like Rev. Dahlke, Hitler despised secular schooling: "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people." - Adolf Hitler, Speech, April 26, 1933.
But most telling is that the Nazi Party agreed with Rev. Dahlke when they banned the works of Charles Darwin from German schools and Libraries;

Die Bucherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published these collection evaluation "guidelines" during the second round of "purifications" (saüberung).

Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279;
6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel).
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false natural science enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)

**********************
Just as the “Introduction” by Arthur Keith was a total fraud, the Reverend’s “Quote” from George Wald is misleading. Wald wrote two popular articles on the origin of life for Scientific American, in 1954, and one in 1958. Creationists variously attribute this fabricated quote to one or the other. Here is a relevant quote from Wald’s 1958 article that I think shows that the creationists (at best) misrepresent his view, “What I have learned is that many educated persons now tend to equate their concept of God with their concept of the order of nature. This is not a new idea; I think it is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. When we as scientists say then that life originated inevitably as part of the order of our universe, we are using different words but do not necessary mean a different thing from what some others mean who say that God created life.” He concluded that, “…man's concept of God changes as he changes.”

The “quote” attributed to Sir Julian Huxley is another lie told by the Rev. Dahlke. Julian Huxley never said such a thing. This matter has been researched in great detail by Edward T. Babinski as he reports in “Lies Creationists Tell: The Julian Huxley Lie” (Aug. 11, 2004 revision). It was invented by either creationist Henry Morris, or James Kennedy.

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/julian_huxley_lie.html

***********************
The quote attributed to Dr. Leo Alexander appears in a recent book, “Faith under fire.” It was not even a direct quote by the author Steve Rabey, but supposedly based on the recollection of a third party, a Reverend Charles Carroll. In the quote, rather different from what Dahlke claimed, Dr. Alexander is identified merely as a “Jewish physician.” Dahlke pushes invention further, lying that Alexander was a Holocaust survivor. In fact, He was an American psychiatrist, who served under US Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, as an army medical investigator with the rank of Major. He participated in the Nuremberg War Crimes trial as chief medical advisor to the U.S. Chief of Counsel, and co-authored the Nuremberg Code.

In, "Medical Science under Dictatorship" (New England Journal of Medicine 1949, 241 (2): 39–47) he wrote, "science under dictatorship becomes subordinated to the guiding philosophy of the dictatorship." Apparently Dahlke subordinated truth to religious politics.

*********************************
From, “Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak”
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
Claim CA002.2: Karl Marx&Darwin
Darwin wrote a letter declining the dedication of an unnamed book on atheism, but he wrote it to Edward Aveling. Aveling's common-law wife was Elanor Marx, Karl's daughter, and she inherited his papers. They got mixed up with Karl Marx's papers, and the letter was assumed to have been to Marx. This view found ideological favor in Russia, so it was widely repeated. Later, a letter from Aveling, requesting permission to dedicate his book “The Student's Darwin” to Charles Darwin, was found among Darwin's papers. Darwin declined permission and argued that science should not address religious matters directly (Colp 1982; Carter 2000).
Darwin did have a copy of Das Kapital, but its pages were unseparated when he died, so he never read it.

**************************
A war time propaganda biography of Joseph Stalin is the source for the Darwin&Stalin story. Stalin was a seminary student for about 5 years. He was in serious disciplinary trouble from the start. In his 4th year, he formed a group of students to read books banned by the priests, including Marx, and Darwin, but also Martin Luther. It is rather obvious that he found in the western intellectuals ways to justify his rebellion against the Orthodox seminary which still taught the “divine rights of Kings.” A serious student of Darwin would find support opposing hereditary nobility, which he called “a great Evil.” Even today, people like Dahlke use Darwin as a prop for their political views rather than inspiration.

Darwin himself was not political. He continued support for the abolition movement begun by his Grandfather. Following the American Emancipation, his charitable gifts were largely confined to his local parish.

*************************************

It will come as a surprise to Dahlke that I totally agree with one thing he wrote, “Our Constitution was drafted with the idea that government does not grant rights, but its greatest duty was to protect the rights of people.” However, this came not from the Bible, but from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The Bible teaches we are to be servile to our Kings and Masters. 1 Peter 2:13-14, Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.” Matthew 24:45-46 "Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.” Ephesians 6:5. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
Dahlke, “Creationism is a religion of life while evolution is a religion of death. Evolution necessarily requires the death of the less evolved species. This is known as "survival of the fittest." With Darwin's book came the excuse for one "race" of people to eliminate another.”

**********************

In addition to inventing false quotes- actually mindlessly and carelessly repeating lies- Dahlke says some remarkably ignorant things about evolutionary theory. For example, he confuses it with Cosmology, the study of the universe. He thinks that science is a religion. He thinks that extinction only happens to “less evolved species.” This is just ignorance. But, most pernicious is the lie that biology justifies genocide. There has never been a single attempted genocide in history not based on religion or tribalism. The atrocities of the followers of Mao, Stalin or Pol Pot were all committed by a people against themselves to eliminate intellectuals, scientists and political opponents. The 20th century genocides from the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda, to the ongoing genocide in Darfur are religiously or tribally persecuted. Not one is attributable to any theory in biology.

**********************

The Constitution is the legal instrument that protects Rev. Dahlke from arrest for heretical, un-orthodox preaching. Do I know what he preaches- no. History taught the Founders that any belief, any preaching, any biblical interpretation could become persecuted as heresy. That is why the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents government institutions, including schools, from promoting religion. Rev. Dahlke wants the protection of the Constitution while denying it to others- all in the name of God. This is the man the Founders sought to block.
Dahlke closed asking, “If evolution is true, how do we determine right from wrong?”
One commenter tried to reply reasonably. I would ask Dahlke, How did you determine that lying was “right?” Why would any reasonable person imagine that your gross example of ignorance, arrogance, and dishonesty warrants a reply to that question?

**********************

Thomas Aquinas wrote, "In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing." Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q68. Art 1. (1273).

Aquinas refers to Apostle Paul who wrote, "determine this--not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way" (Romans 14:13), and Luke 17:1-2, He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

A reader of the Newspaper introjects:

Reaganeravoter
4:26 PM on October 3, 2010
I see the defenders of the silly notion of evolution are out in force. Everyone agrees with the definition of evolution of change over time such as animals adapting to their environment. However, what is being taught in schools is that billions of years ago nothing exploded and here we are. Evolution cannot explain the origin of the universe, it cannot explain the origin of scientific laws, it cannot explain how life came from non life, and it cannot explain what we see today as 'evidence' for evolution.

There are some who are carrying the propaganda ball of the reich that Hitler was a Christian or even sypothetic to Christianity. In fact, anyone who has read his own writings knows that he hated Christ (A Jew) and all who worshipped him. Furthermore, Hitler's book is filled with evolutionary propagada.

Dr_G_Hurd, could you please answer the question at the end of the article? If you believe in evolution, how do we know right from wrong?

******************

There are many errors in few words. Evolution is not at all involved with the origin of the universe. That is Cosmology. A good resource are;

NASA, Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html

Or,

Ned Wright’s Cosmology Tutorial at UCLA
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

There is also the interesting fact that creationists insisted that, according to their infallible biblical interpretations, there were no extra-solar planets.

Current Count 490 known planets orbiting 412 stars.
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/

***********************

(If I ever find some very hard mineral that easily degrades, I’ll call it “Raygunite”).
Reaganeravoter wonders at “the origin of scientific laws.” The scientific discussion is referred to under the “anthropic principle.” It is hard to find both an easy to read resource for the scientifically illiterate, and one that is not partisan.

I do recommend;

“The Anthropic Principle”
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lwilliam/sota/anth/anthropic_principle_index.html

and,

“VJ Stenger - The Anthropic Principle” (PFD)
www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/ant_encyc.pdf

I think Vic Strenger’s case that many possible sets of “natural laws” would lead to possible intelligent life, if they were all free to vary is much more important that the principle exponents of the String Theory variants of the Anthropic Principle have acknowledged.

**********************

Reaganeravoter wonders about, “how life came from non life.” First, evolutionary theory, since Darwin, is about the DIVERSITY of life, not the ORIGIN of life. The origin of life is called “abiogenesis,” or “astrobiology.” I think the latter name is lame, until we find life off Earth. I have a “Short Outline of the Origin of Life” already.

“Stones and Bones: A Short Outline of the Origin of Life”
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/12/origin-of-life-outline.html

It is a few years out of date, and the data are getting better al the time. The short answer is that there is no obstacle to the natural origin of life. This is not critical to evolutionary theory which is competent regardless of the origin of life. But, it does tick-off creationists.

******************

Reaganeravoter wonders at “what we see today as 'evidence' for evolution.”

The ultimate “evidence” for evolution is the directly observed emergence of new species. I have compiled a list of 20 or so speciation events from both laboratory, and natural settings, in organisms from bacterial to mammals.

“Emergence of New Species”
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2009/03/emergence-of-new-species.html

**********************

Reaganeravoter next moves on to Hitler. He false claimed, “…anyone who has read his own writings knows that he hated Christ (A Jew) and all who worshipped him.”

Like a creationist, Hitler claims Jesus as his inspiration: "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them." - Adolf Hitler, April 12 1922, “My New Order”

Hitler was inspired by "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Published in German in 1899, it presented Jesus as Aryan, and the Aryan “race” inherited all of the knowledge and glory of Rome.

Some recommended reading;
Bergen, Doris L.
1996 "Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich" University of N. Carolina Press

Heschel, Susannah
2008 The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany” Princeton University Press

************************

Starting in the 1940s, the radioactive decay of heavy metals in rocks were used to establish their absolute age. Like all new efforts, the early results were prone to errors. In fact, the majority of technical literature on chronometrics is what NOT to do, and how NOT to do it. Very few fossil materials can be directly dated by radiometric methods. Those that can currently be directly dated all rely on the differential solubility of uranium and thorium oxides, and must either be impervious to water penetration (Eg. tooth enamel), or to have once been saturated, but then permanently dessicated, or sealed (Eg. algal tuffa, or corals). For all other situations, we need to look for a mineral that has been melted (volcanic ash, AKA tuft), or deposited from solution (Eg. travertine).

Since we can order strata into a relative sequence, finding dateable layers allows us to estimate the calendar age of nearby strata. If after many independent studies have established that a particular fossil species existed within a particular time range, it is a safe bet that all rocks bearing those fossils are within that time range. We in fact do use this correlation when we either have no other means to estimate the age of a strata, or the more exact dates from expensive fieldwork and laboratory analysis are not worth the effort. In archaeology we call this "relative dating by seriation", and in paleontology it is called "biostratigraphy."

This should clarify the "fossils are dated by the age of the rock" and "rock layers are dated by the fossils" issue that is such a "problem" for creationists to understand.

usncbforever, I absolutely agree with you on this. The "Dominionists," "Christian Reconstructionists," “Christian Identitiy, “ and their "British Israeli Movement" are all examples of these "Non-Christian believer(s) and a deranged religious psychopath(s)." Except they are all “Christian,” and all politically active in the conservative movement.

This started in the 1800s;
Marvin Wheat
1862 “Proof of Slavery From the First Chapter of Genesis”

and even today by self styled Christians. For example the followers of,

Haberman, Fredrich
1934 “Tracing Our White Ancestors: White Roots” 1962 ed. Phoenix, Az: Lord’s Covenant Church
2009 reprinted as “Tracing Our Ancestors: Traces the European American Back to Father Abraham and Beyond” Muskogee, Ok: Artisan Publishers

Except, they are the core of the Christian Conservative movement in America. Read:

Hedges, Chris
2008 “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” New York: Free Press.

Are Constants Constant

2010-08-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a lot of writing, but all material I need to maintain total copyright control over. The book project is titled, "Someone to Blame: How Creationists Exploit the Holocaust." Largely targeted at Discotute Richard Weikart's crap, I pick up the trail with Arthur Comte de Gobineau, who published in the early 1850s.

But, here is a short piece I have found to be useful on the 'intertubes' debate sites.

Central to the problem of teaching science in America’s classrooms is the issue of creationists that are active in denying the validity of the sciences. Children are exposed to this dogma for years before they ever enter a science classroom.

The more commonly self-professed creationists believe that the universe was created about 6000 years ago based on the various “table of generations” (Hebrew toledot) scattered in the Bible. And this places them squarely against the sciences of geology, and astronomy which conclude that the universe is 13.73 billion years old (to within 1% accuracy, and the Earth was formed much later, 4.55 billion years ago (to within 1%) (1, 2).

Young Earth Creationists have attacked these results in several ways. They have argued that radioactive decay was much faster in the past invalidating radiometric dating methods such as the Uranium/Lead, or Potassium/Argon series (3). And they have argued that the speed of light was much faster in the past, making the distances from the Earth to far away stars misleading (4). There are many individual problems with these arguments. For example, if radioactive decay were sufficiently rapid for 4.5 billion years to appear like 6,000 years, enough energy would have been released that the Earth would still be a glowing cloud of gas. However, both of these arguments can be addressed within the single question, Is the Speed of Light Constant?

There is in fact a single answer, “Yes.”

The Fine Structure Constant Alpha is the strength of the electromagnetic force. It is expressed as Alpha = e^2/(h/2Pi)c, where e is the electron charge, Planck's constant h, divided by 2Pi, and c is the speed of light. So a direct measurement of the fine structure constant over time entails measuring the constancy of the speed of light. Creationist publications were the loudest promoting some preliminary results from a team led by John Webb, University of New South Wales, which reported in 1999 that the "fine-structure constant," appeared to have changed by about six parts in a million over the last 12 billion years (5). YE creationists saw this as confirmation their “YEC physics” of inconstant constants might be supported by real data.

The notion of inconstant constants was not only a theoretical challenge, there are critical technologies in electronics, and new “nano design” that are threatened. Teams of researchers sought to find the exact parameters of the fine structure constant. After years of effort they found that (to their relief) constants are constant. Alpha variation is limited by earth bound measurement to less than –1.9 +/- 2.3 X 10^16 per year (6). Astronomical measurements of quasar B0218+357 yield a variation in Alpha less than 1.8 x 10^–6 (95% confidence level) at approximately half the universe's current age, or ~6.2 billion years (7).

Compare two numbers, 0.00000018, the largest possible variation in the speed of light for the last 6.2 billion years, and 2,288,333 the factor that the speed of light must have gone faster for “Young Earth physics” to invalidate an ancient universe. They are over a million millions apart, which is the gap between science and creationism.

1) “Age of the Universe,” NASA, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

2) “Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The Age of Earth and its Cosmic Surroundings” Dalrymple, G. Brent, 2004 Stanford University Press

3) ”Scientific Creationism” Morris, Henry M. 1985, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, p. 139.

4) “The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time” Norman, Trevor G. and Barry Setterfield, 1987, Flinders University of South Australia, School of Mathematical Sciences, Technical Report. "Has the speed of light decayed?," Aardsma, Gerald E., 1988, Impact #179, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA.

5) See, "Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant "J. K. Webb, M. T. Murphy, V. V. Flambaum, V. A. Dzuba, J. D. Barrow, C. W. Churchill, J. X. Prochaska, and A. M. Wolfe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 091301 (2001) - Published August 9, 2001, "Changing Constants Cause Controversy" Charles Seife, Science 24 August 2001: Vol. 293. no. 5534, pp. 1410 - 1411 DOI: 10.1126/science.293.5534.1410b, and "Skewed Starlight Suggests Particle Masses Changed Over Eons" Adrian Cho, Science 21 April 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5772, p. 348 DOI: 0.1126/science.312.5772.348,

6) “Frequency Ratio of Al+ and Hg+ Single-Ion Optical Clocks; Metrology at the 17th Decimal Place” T. Rosenband, D. B. Hume, P. O. Schmidt, C. W. Chou, A. Brusch, L. Lorini, W. H. Oskay, R. E. Drullinger, T. M. Fortier, J. E. Stalnaker, S. A. Diddams, W. C. Swann, N. R. Newbury, W. M. Itano, D. J. Wineland, and J. C. Bergquist Science 28 March 2008 319: 1808-1812; published online 6 March 20086 March 2008 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1154622] (in Reports)

7) “ Strong Limit on a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio from Molecules in the Distant Universe” Michael T. Murphy, Victor V. Flambaum, Sébastien Muller, and Christian Henkel Science 20 June 2008 320: 1611-1613 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1156352] (in Reports)

Creationists in print.

2009-12-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

I have found that the "journalist" writing I have attempted at Examiner.com is unrewarding. Instead, I was again taken-over by the need to refute an idiot creationist. The creationist this time is a small town preacher with a blog, Jim Wilson

12/03/09

Famous creationist Duane Gish was very fond of debating scientists. He had perfected a technique of spewing so many misrepresentations, and bald-faced falsehoods in a few minutes that most scientists debating him were left gasping- unsure where to even begin untangling the web of lies.

James A. Wilson has not come up, or down, to the expert frauds of Duane Gish. But, he has made a serious attempt to maintain the same level of performance. First, the USA article was published months ago, August 10, 2009. Second, it is freely available at:

We believe in evolution — and God.

I mention this so that readers know that Wilson has apparently had considerable time to check his information and verify sources. Also, Wilson could have provided the actual source article URL. In the sciences, we are very careful to give proper sources.

The first falsehood, or at best a grossly incompetent statement, by Wilson is that Gilberson and Falk claimed that, “the argument between supporters of evolution and supporters of intelligent design is an argument between those who accept science and those who do not.”

What they wrote at the start of their article was, “Like most scientists who believe in God, we find no contradiction between the scientific understanding of the world, and the belief that God created that world.” And they included in this “scientific understanding” the theory of evolution. What Wilson claimed was directly opposite. Now, I urge all interested readers to go to the link to the real Gilberson and Falk article and search for the words “intelligent design.”

Did you find them?

Of course not, because that is the second part of Wilson’s falsehood. His entire response was to an argument that did exist.

12/04/09

Wilson wrote that Gilberson and Falk “claim and lament” that about 44% of Americans believe that “humanity came into being in the last 10,000 years because their fundamentalist pastors keep telling them so.”

What they actual said was, “Alas, a 2008 Gallup Poll showed that 44% of Americans reject evolution, believing instead that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." Gilberson and Falk are largely focused on the general rejection of nuclear physics, and geochemistry, as well as biology by a sizable number of Americans. The “fundamentalist pastors” part is only in Wilson’s imagination. And, a minor error by Wilson is that they made the “claim” that this was not so. In fact, Gilberson and Falk refer to a well respected professional polling firm. And like good scientists, they provided the direct citation and a link to the original study.

Wilson is very creative, if making up falsehoods is creative.

12/04/09

According to the Gallop Poll, 44% of adult Americans believe that, "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

Wilson seems to have been unable to grasp the meaning of such a simple statement of fact. I’ll try to break this down into simple parts; forty four percent of Americans believe; humans were created in their present form, this happened by divine fiat, this happened instantly, this was in the last 10,000 years.

Wilson next smokes some really weird cow manure. He presents a list of “flaws” of evolutionary theory which he thinks that we “theorists” are “frantic” to repair. First that, “brontosaurus being a composite of two animal species.” This is something I have seen recently enter the creationist alternate universe. Their problem is most charitably attributed to ignorance of scientific naming. In the naming of species begun by Carol Linnaeus in the 1700s, the rule was made that the first person to describe a species got to give it a name. What ever name was first given got to be the name, even if there were other people who had given later names to the same species.

How could that happen? Well, there are millions of different species, and thousands of different people who are finding new types of plants, or critters. It is very hard to keep up. So, sometimes a plant or animal is given more than one name because it is “discovered” by more than one person who may have not even lived at the same time.

In the case of the Brontosaurus, it was first named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879. However, in 1903, Elmer Riggs pointed out that “Brontosaurus” was nearly identical to Apatosaurus ajax. Apatosaurus had also been described first by Othniel Charles Marsh, but in 1877. Since the first name, Apatosaurus, was older by two years, it became the official name for all of the related fossils. This never reached the public, but the scientific literature stopped using “Brontosaurus” as a proper name over one hundred years ago.

This is the sort of “frantic flaw” that Wilson pathetically thinks damages evolutionary biology.

12/05/09

Wilson next soils his Kleenex by claiming that there is a, “complete lack of transitional species from - say - the proto horse to an actual horse.”

This counts as two really gross errors. First, there are mounds of transitional fossils. The higher in the naming structure, or “taxonomy,” the easier it is to find transitional fossils. It is only at the very finest grade that it is difficult. What creationists never admit, or don’t even know is that at this finest grade it is hard to tell one species from another even if they are living species available in the millions. I have personally stood on the side of a hill arguing with another scientist that one plant at our right was a different species than a very similar plant on our left. I lost the argument because science is very conservative- we are very resistant to naming new species.

The evolutionary record of the horses is very fascinating and very well documented. This should not even need mentioning as any half educated person should be able to use the internet to find one of the best reviews on the internet.

If you prefer the original scientific publications, I suggest starting with;
“Fossil Horses--Evidence for Evolution” Bruce J. MacFadden

We have horse transitional fossils literally by the tons. I have even got to chip a few loose from their rocky tombs as a project volunteer. Some of my former students have found world class transitional fossil species in other lineages.

12/05/09

Wilson is equally confused about human genetics. He imagines that there are, “DNA evidence pointing to a single human ancestor.” This is nonsense.

In the 1987, the late Allan Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley proposed the existence of a "mitochondrial Eve." The mitochondria are the energy centers of every cell and have their own DNA, mtDNA. Even more interesting is that we inherit our mitochondria only from our mothers. Allan Wilson, and his graduate students studied the sequences of mtDNA from human cells from around the world. They used statistical methods that indicated there was an ancestral form that had existed in Africa about 200,000 years ago. The idea was dubbed the “mitochondrial Eve."

Now, think for a moment how a particular mitochondrial lineage can be extinguished. It is rather easy if populations are small, say a few tens of thousands. Any woman who has all male offspring will have her mitochondrial heritage erased. Any woman who’s daughters either have all male children, or have non-reproducing daughters will have her mitochondrial heritage erased. This is exactly what did happen, and as a result all modern humans share the mtDNA derived from a single female lineage. There are of course many variations found around the world, mtDNA undergoes mutation and selection like all genetic material. Comparison of mitochondrial genes that that evolve slowly (we say they are highly conserved), indicate that Allan Wilson’s initial results were surprisingly accurate that the human mtDNA was from about 200,000 years ago. We are necessarily cautious, because it cannot be ruled out with certainty that there could not be other mtDNA lineages surviving somewhere in Africa today. Another point of caution comes from the discovery in the late 1990s that in rare instances, paternal mitochondria can actually recombine with the maternal. This might lead to an error in estimating the time of convergence.

However, there is additional evidence that humanity originated in Africa based on studies of the Y chromosome. This chromosome is transmitted exclusively from male to male. Since the mtDNA studies had called up the image of “Eve,” the Y chromosome studies were promptly labeled “the search for Adam.” However, this search was much more difficult. One problem was that the path of the Y chromosome “Adam” seems to have left Africa some 50,000 years later than mtDNA “Eve.” And then to complicate matters further, the Y chromosome was modified in Asia, and then reintroduced to Africa by a back migration. All the cautions regarding mtDNA “Eve” apply to Y chromosome “Adam,” and then some more. Particularly problematic is that the Y chromosome is much more vulnerable to mutations than the X chromosome. Then famously, some males are incapable of producing Y chromosome baring sperm (think of Henry the VIII) and so have all female off-spring. The following generations will have potentially a very different looking Y chromosome.

None of this can be distorted to support Jim Wilson’s absurd notion that DNA studies are a problem that require “the sometimes frantic efforts of theorists themselves to plug holes.”

12/06/09

Jim Wilson’s errors are in nearly every sentence he wrote. His assertion that a Zogby poll showed that, “78% of Americans believe the intellectual and scientific flaws in the theory of evolution should be taught in schools alongside the theory itself.”

There are multiple problems with this statement. First it is incomplete. The poll was commissioned by the creationist Discovery Institute. The DI is the leading center promoting “intelligent design” creationism. They are the same outfit that hyped the list of “Scientists who dissent from Darwinism." They got nearly 800 “scientists” to agree that the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory should always be considered.

In fact, I would have no problem with this, except that it was used to promote the false claim that this was support for creationist nonsense. Scientists are always looking for weaknesses in existing theory- that is how we earn a living by improving theories. If you cannot find a weakness, you cannot find your next publication, lecture or grant. However, the “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory are of the sort when we ask if sympatric evolution is common or rare? We ask if mutation to HoX genes are more significant than mutations to coding genes. We ask if epigenetic control of gene expression derives from the chemistry of bacterial bio-films? We ask if there are unique conditions that result in “purifying selection?”

These are the real open questions. They are not the stupidities commonly found from creationist websites, or Discovery Institute “fellows,” or those we see in Mr. Wilson’s editorial. What a group of us started when the Discovery Institute’s list was around one hundred “scientists,” was a counter list we called “Project Steve.” It was a list of real scientists in biology or closely related fields (the creationist lists allow engineers, dentists and weather men to claim to be experts in biology) who categorically indorsed the validity of evolutionary theory, and its exclusive place in education. The catch is that all signatories had to be named Steve, in honor of Steven Jay Gould. We did loosen the criteria to allow Nobel winners, such as Stephen W. Hawking, to become signatories. Project Steve currently is at #1127 signatures.

Wilson manages to admit there are young earth creationists, but hides from the fact they are the dominant faction in the creationist efforts to subvert science education in the United States today. He then suggests that there are alternate translations of the Hebrew word “yom,” evoking the day=age arguments of the early 1800s. For a substantive discussion of the theology and geology of Genesis, I recommend reading;

Young, Davis A.
1995 “The Biblical Flood: A case study of the Church’s Response to extrabiblical evidence” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, Paternoster Press

Young, Davis A., Ralf F. Stearley
2008 "The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth" Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press

Wilson seems unaware that the men he is criticizing are largely his colleagues- committed Christians who are quite in agreement with Wilson on the age of the earth, and so on. Their thinking and study has progressed, dare we say evolved, to understand that biology is no more a threat to the Bible than was geology. For example see, Karl W. Giberson’s latest book, 2008 “Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and believe in evolution” (2008 New York: HarperCollins). Giberson is a physicist, and I think that some of his historical and biological sections could be improved, but it is none-the-less an excellent account of how a Christian can reconcile their faith and biological science.

And this is the crux of Wilson’s dilemma- he wants to salvage Christianity from the presumed threat of evolutionary theory. Instead, he has weakened the argument in favor of Christianity by parading falsehoods as the basis for his faith. This is certainly not a new problem, Thomas Aquinas (c.a. 1225 – 1274) wrote in 1273CE, "In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing." Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q68. Art 1.

12/07/09

Mr. Wilson writes that, “a complex system like your eyeballs cannot develop over millennia from small mutations without killing off the species it is supposed to help survive.” This is definitely an example of “Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring(ing) untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions…” Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430).

The visual system of a light-receptor, and some sort of neural connection between it and the rest of the body is both ancient, and fairly easy to evolve. One indication that eyes are not hard to evolve is how many different solutions to the problem of seeing that the evolutionary process has produced. We find that the most basic of all eyes is just a patch of pigmented cells rich in molecules that absorb light energy and add it to an electron. (To fully discuss the evolution of these molecules, rhodopsins, really needs the support of the full classroom. We find them in bacteria, and the same core chemistry is found in every eye). The light-sensitive-patch eye is still found today in many organisms, the most familiar is the flatworm, or planaria.

Nilsson and Pelger, in their 1994 article "A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve," (Proceedings of the Royal Society 256: 53-58) isolated eight stages of eye evolution from the light-sensitive-patch to the most complex adjustable-camera-lens type eye we mammals have, as do squid. For every identified stage, there are living organisms with these kinds of eyes. There is even a group little critters called the Box Jellyfish that have six of the eight stages, and no brain at all. (The most notorious is Chironex fleckeri, the lethally stinging species found along northern Australian beaches). Nilsson and Pelger found that with minimal selective pressure the mammal type eye could have easily evolved in a mere few hundred thousands of generations. In terms of the years required, we need to remember that a “generation” even in many mammals is less than a year.

However, the point that explodes Wilson’s argument was that there are living organisms with eyes of every single evolutionary stage found by Nilsson and Pelger. If as Wilson falsely claimed, these simple eyes could not exist, “without killing off the species,” we would not find any of them today.

12/07/09

Wilson’s next mangling of reality is a bit complex. He first misrepresents what Gilberson and Falk wrote, then contradicts himself, and finishes with a totally inaccurate account of history and science. That is a creationist double quadruple gainer (but who’s counting).

Wilson writes, “The authors claim that early Darwinists lacked the equipment to date the earth, but humanist philosophers posited a theory of evolution decades before Darwin's 1859 voyage and decided the earth must be four billion years old to accomplish it. “

Is it merely a “claim” when you are categorically correct? When G&F wrote “no reliable way existed to determine the age of the Earth, and the physicists said it was too young to accommodate evolution” they were entirely, 100% correct. To sort his out will take several posts. First, what was the real history of estimates on the Earth’s age?

The history of efforts to scientifically determine the age of the earth really should start with Benoit de Maillet (1657-1738) who thought that the earth was constantly losing water to space, and that starting with a water covered surface, he could determine the rate of loss, and then calculate the age of the earth. He was so frightened of the Christian Church attack on the idea that non-biblical sources of information could be used to study this question, that his thesis was not published until ten years after his death. He was grossly wrong in his assumptions and calculations, but de Maillet was the first westerner to use physical rather than scriptural evidence for the age of the Earth. His minimum “age” of the earth was 2.4 million years old, but that on reasonable assumptions, as much as 2 billion years could have transpired.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) never directly proposed an age of the earth. He did however propose in 1687 that the Earth had begun in a molten state, and that the amount of time it would take to cool to modern temperature was +50,000 years based on the specific heat of iron. He offered no idea as to how long ago that might have been. Like Newton, his competitor Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz proposed that the specific heat (and hence the cooling rate) of molten iron could be used to estimate the age of the Earth. And, again like Newton, Leibniz never offered an actual number. Both men, aside from their intellectual abilities, both depended financially on government positions vulnerable to Church (Roman and Protestant) interference. This might explain why Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), was the first to directly test the speculations of Newton and Leibniz, and cast the results as a direct estimate of the age of the Earth. Buffon inheritied both a title and lands. Unlike many, he expanded his holdings and wealth through a number of brilliant forward looking innovations. He founded one of the world’s first commercial tree nurseries to support his timber and lumber business. He established a very successful iron foundry, which also contributed to his scientific as well as financial independence. Buffon was also one of the first western scientists to suggest that biological species were not fixed for all time.

Following the 1749 publication by de Mairan on the cooling of the Earth’s interior, Buffon had his iron foundry construct a series of ten iron spheres. When they were heated to “white hot” the time they took to cool to room temperature was carefully recorded. Based on these measurements, de Buffon concluded that the Earth was at least 168,123 years old. However, he had communicated to friends, and left manuscripts that suggested that adding the geological evidence of erosion and sedimentation, the Earth might have been even 3 billions years old. These estimates were not published until after a century after his death.

There is one other interesting early effort to determine the age of the Earth. It was proposed by Edmond Halley (1656-1742) in 1715, who suggested that the amount of salt in the oceans could be compared to that in lakes and rivers. The difference might be used to calculate the amount of time that the oceans (assumed to have been initially fresh water) had accumulated salt. There were no methods available at the time of Halley’s suggestion to actually measure the amount of salt in freshwater, and the idea was forgotten. What is very amusing is that modern creationists have recycled this old idea to “invalidate” an ancient Earth.

It was after the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” that William Thompson, later named Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) published the first of his estimates of the age of the Earth. From 1862 to his death, Kelvin published estimates from 20 to 400 million years. These were widely considered authoritative as Kelvin was the most popularly respected physicist living between Newton and Einstein. Geologists in general rejected Kelvin’s estimates as based on his using too simplistic assumptions, and inconsistence with geological data. Charles Darwin, who had studied geology at Cambridge under such greats as the Revds Adam Sedgwick and William Whewell, respectively professors of geology and mineralogy, thought that Kelvin was wrong, but deferred to the latter’s opinion. Darwin merely observed that evolution had happened in what ever amount of time was available.

In 1895, following the discovery of radioactive minerals, Kelvin privately acknowledged he had been most likely wrong, and that the Earth “might as well be 4 billion years old.”

It was not until the late 1970s following the development of radiometric dating, the Apollo Moon Mission, and the analysis of hundreds of meteorite samples that we came to a firm date of the origin of the Earth- 4.5 billion years old.

12/07/09

Wilson writes, “The authors claim that early Darwinists lacked the equipment to date the earth, but humanist philosophers posited a theory of evolution decades before Darwin's 1859 voyage and decided the earth must be four billion years old to accomplish it. “

So, what can we next try to correct? The weird use of “humanist” as a pejorative? No, that is very common among right-wing creationists. Best ignored.

That gross mistake of, “Darwin's 1859 voyage?”

Sure, The voyage of the HMS Beagle embarked in 1831, and returned in 1836. In 1859, Darwin was 50 years old, and rarely left his home in Downe, Kent where he and his family moved in 1842. These are such basic facts that I wonder that Mr. Wilson is allowed to wander out alone. 1859 was the year that Darwin published the famous, “On the Origin of Species.”

The early ideas about the “mutability of life,” later called evolution began with Comte de Buffon, as Darwin himself points out in “An Historical Sketch” in the front-pages of “On the Origin of Species.” But, most historians agree with Darwin that the first serious theory was proposed by Lamarck in his publications between 1809 and 1815. Darwin cites and discusses nearly a dozen authors, including his grandfather, who had some ideas about the change in species over time.

None of them, including Charles Darwin, made any estimate as to how long it might have take for evolutionary force to have produced the modern species. None of them suggested as per Mr. Wilson, “the earth must be four billion years old to accomplish it.”

12/08/09

Wilson wrote, “Current research dates the earth a good deal older while maintaining that a mere few million years passed between conditions for life ripening and the actual appearance of complex life.”

Lazcano & Miller wondered about how much time was available for life to have originated. They observed that, "stromatolite-building phototactic prokaryotes were already in existence 3.5 x 10(9) years ago. Late accretion impacts may have killed off life on our planet as late as 3.8 x 10(9) years ago. This leaves only 300 million years to go from the prebiotic soup to the RNA world and to cyanobacteria." And, they thought that this is further constrained “… because the intermediate compounds would have been destroyed due to the passage of the entire ocean through deep-sea vents every 10(7) years or in even less time. Therefore, it is likely that self-replicating systems capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution emerged in a period shorter than the destruction rates of its components.

12/11/09

Wilson wrote, “When dating methods were introduced researchers simply calibrated their equipment according to their theory.”

For a fan of Hugh Ross who is an Old Earth creationist, I am puzzled at Wilson’s ambiguous position regarding the age of the Earth, and how we know it. Even more since he was also insisting that, “the controversy over thousands versus millions of years is a straw man.” As a matter of fact, scientists did not simply calibrate their methods according to theory. For example, radiocarbon dating is calibrated against known annual events such as tree rings, lake varves, ice cores, and so on. Accuracy improved as our methods improved over the last 50 years of study.

A very good article on radiometric dating written for Christians by a Christian is, “Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective” by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

12/12/09

Wilson wrote, “Contemporary astrophysicists believe four billion years is not even in the ballpark as to how much time a genuinely randomized life would require to develop.

“There is no reason at all to pay attention to an “astrophysicist” about the biochemistry, and geochemistry of origin of life studies. It is possible that an individual could develop an interest and personally read enough professional scientific literature to gain a background, say Hugh Ross who happened to study astronomy once upon a time, and wrote a very bad book about the origin of life. I have read rather more about abiogenesis research than Hugh Ross, or his coauthor Fazale Rana. I invite you to read my review of their 2004 book, "Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off" (Colorado Springs: NavPress) at the National Center for Science Education.

What I have been amused by for a few days are mental images conjured by Wilson’s absurd phrase, “genuinely randomized life.” The “Bass-o-Matic” skit by Dan Aykroyd for “Saturday Night Live” comes closest. That was one randomized fish.

The age of the Earth was accurately determined to be 4.57 billion years ago only recently. The validity of evolutionary theory was acknowledged by rational people much earlier. Wilson's attempt to enlist legions of imaginary “Contemporary astrophysicists" opposed to abiogenesis is a best a silly exaggeration. One might as well ask if Wilson takes his car to be repaired by his dentist?

There are several good reviews of Origin of Life Research available for general readers. I recommend;
Schopf, J. William
1999 "Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils" , Princeton University Press

Iris Fry,
2000 "The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview" Rutgers University Press

Schopf, William (editor)
2002 "Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution" University of California Press

Hazen, RM
2005 "Gen-e-sis" Washington DC: Joseph Henry Press
If you have too much free time, and money to waste, read Rana and Ross's "Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off."

12/13/09

Wilson takes offence when Gilberson and Falk wrote, “Challenging accepted ideas is how America churns out Nobel Prize-winning science and patents that will drive tomorrow's technology. But challenging authority can also undermine this country's leadership in science, when citizens reject it.” I would have written Gilberson and Falk’s latter sentence better. “But challenging the validity of science as a way to understand nature can also undermine this country's leadership in science, when citizens reject it.”

Wilson’s reaction is to make a raft of false claims regarding recent science entirely unrelated to evolutionary theory which perfectly illustrated G&F’s observation. In fact, I count seven falsehoods in only five sentences.

First error: Wilson claimed G&F are “distorting history” (Wilson’s specialty) when they are actually making a prediction that the USA is squandering its scientific advantage by rejecting science in favor of superstitious nonsense like creationism.

Second, and third errors; Kendrick Frazier (not “Frasier”) is the editor of “Science Under Siege,” not the principle author. No where in the two short sections written by Frazier does he claim that climate change denial, or opposition to stem cell research “undermines our democracy.” In his introduction, Frazier wrote, “But debates in the public that concern science rarely involve the actual scientific content and frequently characterize and stereotype both scientists and the scientific process. In the public arena partisans increasingly misuse or misrepresent the science. This distorts the democratic process and leads to poorly informed decision making.” He favorably notes that the Obama administration has begun to reverse antiscience policies of the Bush era, including restrictions on stem cell research. The two short pieces written about climate change, both by Dr. Stuart Jordan, reviewed the arguments of denialists and argued that real climate scientists have an obligation to do a better job communicating to the public and to policy makers.

Fourth, error: Wilson, relying on a Zogby poll, claims that 80% of Americans want “more open-minded inquiry in public schools” and that to oppose this is “undermining democracy.” The Zogby poll was commissioned by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, the center of intelligent design creationism. The poll question was phrased in such a way that I could have answered with the majority. Here is the question,

Which statement comes closest to you opinion?

“Statement A: “Biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.”

Statement B: “Biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.”

Creationists, like Wilson, have been touting this as support for teaching creationism in public schools when there is nothing in the question that referred to creationism. The dishonesty goes deeper. What is taught in schools today is not Darwin’s theory of evolution. In the last 150 years of continuing research we have gone far beyond Darwin’s understanding, and have actually rejected large parts of his original theory. The question is meaningless.

Fifth error (in the same sentence): I would call violating the US Constitution “undermining democracy.” Since the 1970s, the Courts have consistently found creationism in all of its masks to be nothing other than religion. And, since we know that Wilson is advocating teaching religion in public school science classes, he is advocating that we abandon our Constitution. This is not democracy, it is mob rule.

(Wilson jokingly suggests that he is “crazy.” It is a real possibility, or perhaps he is merely dishonestly hoping to increase donations to his “ministry”).

Sixth error: “the globe has cooled by a couple of degrees in the past decade” Wilson supposedly has a copy of “Science Under Siege” and supposedly has read it. I suggest he re-read the chapter on climate denialists by Stuart Jordan. For a direct refutation of the “Global Cooling” nonsense written in a very simple style see, “Global cooling? Statisticians reject claims that climate trend is shifting” by Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press, Oct. 26, 2009.

12/14/09

Wilson wrote that, “stem cell researchers have spent billions of tax dollars without a shred of benefit to show for it. (Yet adult stem cells yield more than eighty successful therapies to date.) So much for scientific consensus - and so much for the objectivity of some scientists.”

Initially, I counted this as a single error, but really it is three lies, and two pernicious innuendos. Obviously, Wilson is making a distinction between embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. When you say embryo, many people think of some poor little baby, and their emotional reaction is “Save the Baby!” When an egg is fertilized, there is a start of cell division. The first series of divisions results in cells that are all identical to one another. They have not started to turn into a liver cell, or any other type of specialized cell. Each one could lead to any type of specialized cell. This is the point at which stem cell research is interested. At this point, there is merely a speck of cells. You lose more cells if you scrape your knee. Even before the Bush ban on human embryonic stem cells in medical research, the majority of embryonic studies were with fruit flies, mice, and zebra fish. But, these cannot by used to provide life-saving medical treatments, for that, only human embryonic cells will work.

But, won’t that tiny speck of cells become a human? No, it won’t. This is because all human embryonic stem cells used are from frozen surplus material from infertility treatments. These fertilization procedures typically produce extra fertilized eggs which are then discarded. The Bush ban didn’t save any embryos, they were simply wasted - in fact flushed.

So, Wilson next lied about how much funding human embryonic stem cell research had received from government sources. During the years of the Bush years, US funding for human embryonic stem cell research was a fairly steady 40 million dollars a year. This year and the next, funding is expected to double. Even if we took the highest spending levels prior to the Bush research ban, there were not “billions of tax dollars” spent on human embryonic stem cell research. Now that the ban has been lifted, we expect a rapid number of therapies to move forward. Neither in the past, now, nor in the projected 2010, 2011 Federal budgets does human embryonic stem cell research exceed 11% of all stem cell research, and is small fraction of one percent of all funded medical research. (National Institutes of Health budgets are all online).

So, the Bush ban on human embryonic stem cell research did not save anything. It did give several other nations a major step up in scientific research, two in particular, China and Singapore where human embryonic stem cell research went into high gear following the 2001 Bush ban. This is best seen in the pattern of US patents awarded for stem cell research products. This data source (I used Google Patent search) shows that the number of relevant patents, and applications shifted between 2000 and 2009 away from US start-up companies and universities, to Asian and multinational corporations. Way to go, George, you flushed the embryos and the economy!

The statement by Wilson that, “adult stem cells yield more than eighty successful therapies” is at best a fantasy, or something copied from some other person who simply made it up. The awarded patents for stem cell therapies number in the hundreds. But, careful reading shows that a single therapeutic technique can generate dozens of patents. There are far fewer than “eighty successful therapies” from stem cells of any type, period. A majority of current therapies with adult stem cells are bone marrow derived cells for enhancing hematopoiesis (blood cell production). A good review published June of this year in BMC Medicine is “New perspectives in human stem cell therapeutic research” by Dr. Trounson of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The majority of current therapies use the patients own blood marrow stem cells, and are the result of nearly thirty years experience. They are restricted to cells that can be recovered from the patient and are limited to a small number of tissues. It is expected that total human stem cell research will climb to well over 3 billion USD in the next year, with embryonic stem cell research accounting for a modest percentage.

The final jab Wilson takes is at all science, and scientists. This is such an unintended irony that it deserves its own post as it perfectly illustrated the argument found in the Gilberson and Falk essay that prompted this entire effort.

12/17/09

Wilson denies that abandoning the validity of science will damage America’s national security by ceding our scientific and technological advantage to other nations. Wilson claimed that the “the creative use of history” by Gilberson and Falk was “chilling.” He then proves Gilberson and Falk correct by spewing out a string of frauds and falsehoods, all of which he summarized as rejecting the objectivity and validity of science.

Now that is chilling.

And true to form, Wilson tries to back his falsehoods with a Bible quote, “the Heavens declare the glory of God.” But consider another of the Psalms, Psalm 85:11 reads, “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven.” The Hebrew word emet, translated as “truth,” basically means “certainty and dependability.” The Bible demands believers to acknowledge that God is truthful and forthright. The Bible also demands that believers acknowledge the Creation as an honest testament to God’s existence and nature. And in the Book of Job, Job challenges his scoffing friends, “Ask the animals, they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.” — Job 12:7-8.

The physical Creation, including the animals, birds and fish are a testament. And that testament categorically supports the evolutionary theory Wilson rejects.

The rejection of the Earth as testament is not a new problem. It was addressed by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) who advised Christians trying to interpret Scripture in the light of scientific knowledge in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim). The following translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” {Augustine here has referred to 1 Timothy 1.7}

The Protestant theologian, John Calvin wrote on Genesis, "For to my mind this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy and the other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.” And later he stated, “It must be remembered, that Moses does not speak with philosophical acuteness on occult mysteries, but states those things which are everywhere observed, even by the uncultivated, and which are in common use." (Genesis, I, 79 & 84 (1554)

Wilson would do well to listen to these words from his wiser brethren. While he seems to have grasped the reality of the age and expanse of the creation, he is oblivious to the realities of evolution occurring right under his nose.

I have made a second post

2009-09-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

to Examiner.com.

They are taking about 2 hours to produce, which means I am writing for about $1/hour.