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
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
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.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
ID Creationism in Minnesota
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.
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.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
While the fishing was slow, I did some fact checking
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.
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.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Are Constants Constant?
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). The most recent cosmic age is 13.82 billion years discovered by the Planck CMB Mission just concluded in 2013.
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 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)
Monday, December 28, 2009
Creationists in print.
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.
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.
Monday, September 14, 2009
I cannot think of a better excuse.
He "was in no haste to publish his theory; for he was one of those who are much more delighted with the contemplation of truth, than with the praise of having discovered it” John Playfair regarding James Hutton, 1805.
I'll employ it often.
I'll employ it often.
Monday, August 10, 2009
A new biographic note for the Center for Inquiry.
Gary S. Hurd received a doctorate in Social Science from the University of California, Irvine in 1976 (emphasis in Anthropology). He subsequently served on the faculties of the California College of Medicine (UCIMC), the Medical College of Georgia (Psychiatry), and held numerous adjunct appointments. In 1985, he returned to archaeology, the original focus of his early research. He has publications ranging from topics in psychiatry, mathematics and chemistry to insect frass, fish digestion, prehistoric ceremonialism and forensic taphonomy. He was also honored for including undergraduates in published research, and named teacher of the year.
Hurd became actively involved in the creationist anti-science debate over ten years ago while the Curator of Anthropology, and Director of Education for the Orange County Museum of Natural History. His critique of Intelligent Design Creationism was published in "Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism," 2004, Rutgers University Press, Matt Young and Taner Edis, editors. This chapter was used in the cross-examination of ID proponent Michael Behe, and cited by the Court’s decision in the famous 2005 Dover creationism trial.
Now a frequent academic guest lecturer, Hurd tries to reach popular audiences through such web sites as No Answers in Genesis;
“A Response to a Dubious Diluvium: A Tas Walker Creationist Fantasy”
“Oard's Moonbeam”
TalkOrigins;
“Dino-blood and the Young Earth”
“Dino Blood Redux”
“Ancient Molecules and Modern Myths”
The National Center for Science Education;
"Why Reinvent the Crystal?”
And science blog "The Panda’s Thumb," which he co-founded;
“Dembski's Five Questions: Number One”
His current projects include intermittent bursts of writing on three books;
“Someone to Blame: How Creationism Exploits the Holocaust”
“You’ve Got to Be Kidding: The Pious Frauds of Creationism”
“Where Did The Bible Say That?: How Creationism Violates Scripture”
Expertise:
Biblical and Koranic criticism
Evolution, creationism, and intelligent design
Religion and genocide
Science and religion
Science and pseudoscience
Archaeology and the Bible
Hurd became actively involved in the creationist anti-science debate over ten years ago while the Curator of Anthropology, and Director of Education for the Orange County Museum of Natural History. His critique of Intelligent Design Creationism was published in "Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism," 2004, Rutgers University Press, Matt Young and Taner Edis, editors. This chapter was used in the cross-examination of ID proponent Michael Behe, and cited by the Court’s decision in the famous 2005 Dover creationism trial.
Now a frequent academic guest lecturer, Hurd tries to reach popular audiences through such web sites as No Answers in Genesis;
“A Response to a Dubious Diluvium: A Tas Walker Creationist Fantasy”
“Oard's Moonbeam”
TalkOrigins;
“Dino-blood and the Young Earth”
“Dino Blood Redux”
“Ancient Molecules and Modern Myths”
The National Center for Science Education;
"Why Reinvent the Crystal?”
And science blog "The Panda’s Thumb," which he co-founded;
“Dembski's Five Questions: Number One”
His current projects include intermittent bursts of writing on three books;
“Someone to Blame: How Creationism Exploits the Holocaust”
“You’ve Got to Be Kidding: The Pious Frauds of Creationism”
“Where Did The Bible Say That?: How Creationism Violates Scripture”
Expertise:
Biblical and Koranic criticism
Evolution, creationism, and intelligent design
Religion and genocide
Science and religion
Science and pseudoscience
Archaeology and the Bible
Sunday, July 12, 2009
A day spent off-shore
I went out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego, California aboard the Eclipse. We had a great day of fishing.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Create the controversy
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press have released a report on the American public’s science knowledge and opinions regarding science and scientists. (Links are to the AAAS news release, and the Pew report).
While there is much of interest and for concern, the most interesting topics for the evol/creato activist are the questions related to human evolution.
The “teach the controversy” position pushed by the creationists needs for a controversy to actually exist, at least in the minds of the general public. This is a Big Lie approach straight from the playbook written by the tobacco industry. With only a handful of industry “scientists” funded through the Tobacco Institute, the industry created a story that “the science linking tobacco and cancer is disputed” and “there is legitimate controversy about the effects of tobacco smoking among scientists.” And there is evidence that this lie is working for creationists.
The AAAS/Pew survey found that among scientists, there is a 97% agreement that humans, and all living things have evolved via natural selection. Yet, 28% of the public believes that scientists are not in general agreement that evolution occurred. And, 43% of creationists (mostly White Evangelicals, and about 31% of the general public) claim there is no scientific consensus on evolution.
While there is much of interest and for concern, the most interesting topics for the evol/creato activist are the questions related to human evolution.
The “teach the controversy” position pushed by the creationists needs for a controversy to actually exist, at least in the minds of the general public. This is a Big Lie approach straight from the playbook written by the tobacco industry. With only a handful of industry “scientists” funded through the Tobacco Institute, the industry created a story that “the science linking tobacco and cancer is disputed” and “there is legitimate controversy about the effects of tobacco smoking among scientists.” And there is evidence that this lie is working for creationists.
The AAAS/Pew survey found that among scientists, there is a 97% agreement that humans, and all living things have evolved via natural selection. Yet, 28% of the public believes that scientists are not in general agreement that evolution occurred. And, 43% of creationists (mostly White Evangelicals, and about 31% of the general public) claim there is no scientific consensus on evolution.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Why Re-Invent the Crystal?
My short piece on the movie Expelled and cyrstals, written for the National Center for Science Education" has been posted to their website.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
“The End of Darwinism”
“The End of Darwinism” would have disappeared as another self published creationist screed had not Pat Buchanan puffed it on WingNutDaily. There have been a half dozen science bloggers who have taken Buchanan’s piece apart, but I waited until I could read Mr. Windchy’s book myself.
Windchy states that he had worked on this book since 1993. I found this very strange as he makes basic errors of fact that could be corrected with a few minutes of internet search. The errors begin immediately and they range from minor factual mistakes to gross mistakes in fact and scholarship.
One example of a minor error of fact is on page 14 when Windchy claimed that, “The German Darwin (Ernst Haeckel, gh) was convicted of fraud by a faculty court at the University of Jena, his employer in Prussia …” This is not true. In fact, there was never a “faculty court” in the first place. This particular creationist lie has been repeated in their echo chamber so often that it occasionally has appeared in the popular press. This has been pointed out by
Haeckel was accused of publishing drawings of embryos that were fraudulently presented, or altered to make his theoretical argument appear better supported. In only one instance did Haeckel need to issue a retraction. This was in his illustration of the “sandal stage” of “dog, chicken, and turtle” embryos in his first edition (1868) of “Natürlich Schöpfungsgeschlichte.” These were actually the same woodcut, apparently of the chicken embryo at this stage of development, that had been repeated. (To see the illustration in question, look at Fig. 7.12 of “The Tragic Sense of Life” by Robert J. Richards, 2008). This particularly outraged Ludwig Rütimeyer, and Wilhelm His.
Haeckel corrected this in the second and later editions. The point he had been making was that embryologists could not tell one species from another at that early stage of development, which was certainly true at the time, and had been earlier remarked on by other scientists such as von Baer well before Darwin ever wrote about evolution. In another instance it was the accuser, Arnold Brass, who had to retract his false claims of fraud in 1908-1909.
Haeckel’s pet theory of “recapitulation” or “biogenesis” was totally wrong and forms no part of evolutionary theory. He proposed that as organisms underwent embryonic development, the stages of the embryos replicated each of the adult forms of their evolutionary predecessors. However, his observations that embryonic development is more similar the more closely the species are related, and that the earlier development of vertebrate embryos are all very similar, were substantially correct. With our new ability to track the fate of individual cells in embryos, these observations are even stronger today than they were in 1870. Windchy has obviously not bothered to become informed about Haeckel, or his contributions to science, or what modern embryology is about. After supposedly spending 16 years, one would expect better. Instead, he regurgitates creationist lies and slanders- using century old controversies to try and obscure that science of evolution is the most successful explanation of life available.
Robert J. Richards
2008 “The Tragic Sense of Life” University of Chicago Press
Troy Britian
2001 Haeckel's Embryos Antievolution.org
Windchy states that he had worked on this book since 1993. I found this very strange as he makes basic errors of fact that could be corrected with a few minutes of internet search. The errors begin immediately and they range from minor factual mistakes to gross mistakes in fact and scholarship.
One example of a minor error of fact is on page 14 when Windchy claimed that, “The German Darwin (Ernst Haeckel, gh) was convicted of fraud by a faculty court at the University of Jena, his employer in Prussia …” This is not true. In fact, there was never a “faculty court” in the first place. This particular creationist lie has been repeated in their echo chamber so often that it occasionally has appeared in the popular press. This has been pointed out by
Haeckel was accused of publishing drawings of embryos that were fraudulently presented, or altered to make his theoretical argument appear better supported. In only one instance did Haeckel need to issue a retraction. This was in his illustration of the “sandal stage” of “dog, chicken, and turtle” embryos in his first edition (1868) of “Natürlich Schöpfungsgeschlichte.” These were actually the same woodcut, apparently of the chicken embryo at this stage of development, that had been repeated. (To see the illustration in question, look at Fig. 7.12 of “The Tragic Sense of Life” by Robert J. Richards, 2008). This particularly outraged Ludwig Rütimeyer, and Wilhelm His.
Haeckel corrected this in the second and later editions. The point he had been making was that embryologists could not tell one species from another at that early stage of development, which was certainly true at the time, and had been earlier remarked on by other scientists such as von Baer well before Darwin ever wrote about evolution. In another instance it was the accuser, Arnold Brass, who had to retract his false claims of fraud in 1908-1909.
Haeckel’s pet theory of “recapitulation” or “biogenesis” was totally wrong and forms no part of evolutionary theory. He proposed that as organisms underwent embryonic development, the stages of the embryos replicated each of the adult forms of their evolutionary predecessors. However, his observations that embryonic development is more similar the more closely the species are related, and that the earlier development of vertebrate embryos are all very similar, were substantially correct. With our new ability to track the fate of individual cells in embryos, these observations are even stronger today than they were in 1870. Windchy has obviously not bothered to become informed about Haeckel, or his contributions to science, or what modern embryology is about. After supposedly spending 16 years, one would expect better. Instead, he regurgitates creationist lies and slanders- using century old controversies to try and obscure that science of evolution is the most successful explanation of life available.
Robert J. Richards
2008 “The Tragic Sense of Life” University of Chicago Press
Troy Britian
2001 Haeckel's Embryos Antievolution.org
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
It is offical
I have been appointed to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science panel. What this is will be better explained by either their official website, or the Wikipedia page.
I have not totally disappeared
A creationist recently asked, (lame-ass - punctuation - as in the ORIGINAL !!11!!)
I’ll first eliminate the argument that Darwin was some how unqualified to do science. Darwin’s childhood education was at a classical school- much memorization of Greek and Latin, and some mathematics. However, he did assist his father in his father’s medical practice which involved a modicum of physical knowledge. He was also an avid collector of beetles, and studied the taxonomic literature of the time.
His formal medical education was in Edinburgh. 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 Dec. 27, 1831 to Oct. 2, 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.”
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.
Just one more - how well qualified was darwin to propose a theory - hundreds of years ago- that is still believed but not proven - he was a theologian - but was he a scientist or an amatuer taxonomist ? The average biology student knows more than Darwin who thought a cell was a blob. How come darwin did not need qualifications ?
I’ll first eliminate the argument that Darwin was some how unqualified to do science. Darwin’s childhood education was at a classical school- much memorization of Greek and Latin, and some mathematics. However, he did assist his father in his father’s medical practice which involved a modicum of physical knowledge. He was also an avid collector of beetles, and studied the taxonomic literature of the time.
His formal medical education was in Edinburgh. 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 Dec. 27, 1831 to Oct. 2, 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.”
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)