Pharyngula

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 2, 2012 1:42 PM

A 200-million-year-old crocodile is still a crocodile, a 300-million-year-old dragonfly is still a dragonfly, a 65-million-year-old bat

Granted, you need to look closely to find differences between 300-million-year-old dragonflies and today's. But 200-million-year-old crocodiles looked like this and this. Finally, no 65-million-year-old bats are known, and none may ever have existed; the only known 55-million-year-old bat famously looked like this.

Yep, like Harun Yahya who is so stupid he can't tell frogs and salamanders apart.

Posted by: Holbach | April 2, 2012 2:46 PM

What a waste of time and effort having to constantly refute these religious morons with their insane crud. It is so easy to blast them with a demand to show us your nonexistent god and let it go at that. To give them an audience only encourages them to spew their insanity all the more. Ignore them to be sure, but blast them with hard reason and ridicule when the oportunity is at hand. I would never back away from the chance to remind them that they are insane dreck.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 2, 2012 7:17 PM

Also, the wing vein pattern is obviously different at a glance between modern and 300 million year old dragonflies. The ancient ones have much denser veining.

In fact, as David M's link demonstrates, they are so different that we don't even call them dragonflies, we call them griffinflies.

Posted by: laurapyrzynski | April 3, 2012 8:12 AM

Thirteen expeditions, and he hasn't found anything yet. That says it all.

Posted by: Petzl | April 3, 2012 1:00 PM

The Bemidji Pioneer gives this glowing review to the ICR. It wasn't that they were "even-handed"-- which is, of course, akin to being tacitly pro-creationist. No, they were overtly pro-creationist. Very strange. Since it seems to be a north Minn news website(?)

Posted by: Egor | April 4, 2012 2:10 PM

Perhaps the reason that Creation Science persists is because evolution is not a complete theory. I believe in a divinely directed evolution. I believe this is the only possible way things could evolve as they have.

Evolution does not explain the origin of life, and while it makes sense that species adapt to their environment, it makes little sense that they evolve from one species into another for no apparent reason. I mean, if the environment changed so much that a fish would need to turn into a bird, it seems far more likely the fish would just go extinct before making a successful change into a bird.

I see no reason to believe in a God-less evolution over Creation Science. Neither are theories that seem plausible.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 4, 2012 4:49 PM

Evolution does not explain the origin of life,

Evolution is not MEANT to explain the origin of life. Evolution explains the DIVERSITY of life. (Not just the fact that there is diversity, but all the specific fine details of how that diversity is distributed).

and while it makes sense that species adapt to their environment, it makes little sense that they evolve from one species into another for no apparent reason.

See, the second follows AUTOMATICALLY from the first. Given a single species adapting to an environment that is capable of change (you do acknowledge that the environment changes, right?), as soon as you introduce a barrier to gene flow (and you do acknowledge that things like mountains, rivers, islands, and lakes, and so forth, exist, right?), speciation is an automatic and inevitable consequence.

I mean, if the environment changed so much that a fish would need to turn into a bird, it seems far more likely the fish would just go extinct before making a successful change into a bird

The earth is not a single biome planet, you know. And of all the lineages arising from the fishes, only one ended up producing birds. Most of the rest DID go extinct. Many of the others stayed fishes.

So yes, it is far more likely that any given fish lineage would go extinct in the face of an environmental challenge than making a successful change into a bird. And that is EXACTLY what happened. Only one out of the multitude of fish lineages ultimately transitioned into the birds.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 4, 2012 7:57 PM

evolution is not a complete theory

...says the person who is completely ignorant of 99% of what that theory contains.

another Dunning Krugerite feels the need to expound their "wisdom".

*sigh*

Posted by: Stanton | April 4, 2012 9:25 PM

my bad. There is only one answer for your idiotic red herring:

laughter.

Posted by: Stanton | April 4, 2012 10:41 PM

Another goddist has come to show us hir ignorance of evolution and willingness to parade that ignorance for all to see.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 4, 2012 10:58 PM

His website is a scream!

check it, here's a sample of his "logic":

But here’s the kicker: These creatures are only one cell; they have no brain; they have no nervous system; they have none of the hardware we think we use for the same purpose.

In other words, their obvious consciousness must come from outside of them. They have nothing in them to produce it. Where else could that consciousness come from except from the very consciousness that pervades the universe? That consciousness is God.

ROFLMAO

what a maroon.

Posted by: Egor | April 5, 2012 1:32 AM

You can explain the workings of evolution all day long. It doesn't matter. There are so many holes in the theory, so many missing links, so much speculation, that it simply makes no more sense to believe it than it does to believe Creation Science.

Not to mention the irreducible complexity of many biological systems simply can't be accounted for by evolution alone.

And I don't even believe creation science is true; AND, I want to believe evolution is true, because evolution implies order, and given the time frame of life on earth, it implies a consistent input of order upon it, in other words, Divinely-directed evolution.

But evolution simply isn't complete enough as a theory so I’m reluctant to use it as an argument for the existence of God.

And you all can be as insulting as you like. I expect nothing more from atheists.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 5, 2012 2:20 AM

creationist canards 101:

There are so many holes in the theory, so many missing links

links to what? be specific now. Do you know what an evolutionary sequence even is? Do you know how many have been found preserved as fossils?

be honest. You don't, do you.

so, in essence, you are lying.

Not to mention the irreducible complexity

irreducible complexity is a meaningless phrase made up by people who have nothing to support the idea at all.

Ask Behe. He's had decades to publish on his idea, to show than any specific trait you can name fits his notion of irreducible complexity.

hell, he failed at even showing a damn mousetrap is "irreducibly complex"

it's all meaningless gibberish, designed to confuse people just like yourself.

of many biological systems simply can't be accounted for by evolution alone.

name ONE trait that hasn't been able to be supported to have evolved via direct or indirect evidence.

ONE.

you can't.

not one of the examples Behe used in his book has not had dozens of articles published with direct or indirect evidence of their evolution.

NOT ONE. A fact that produced much chagrin when Behe was faced in a court of law with the mountains of published papers on exactly this issue, dumped essentially right in his lap.

Behe himself admitted he had not read hardly any of that literature.

You haven't either, obviously, so your conclusions are based on ignorance and authoritarianism, nothing more.

And I don't even believe creation science is true;

funny you keep spouting their arguments then.

AND, I want to believe evolution is true,

irrelevant, and likely a lie besides, because if you did, you would already know far more about it than you obviously do.

because evolution implies order,

how so? It's non goal-oriented, non-directional; the evolution of any given trait is modeled better using chaotic models instead of deterministic ones...

And you all can be as insulting as you like. I expect nothing more from atheists.

it's what you came here for.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 5, 2012 2:29 AM

here, this is a better reference for you to get started with; it approaches the subject at the level of your understanding of it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

maybe you can stop lying about things you don't understand?

meh, probably not.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 5, 2012 5:05 AM

yes, we already laughed at your "review".

carry on.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 5, 2012 8:20 AM

There are so many holes in the theory, so many missing links, so much speculation, that it simply makes no more sense to believe it than it does to believe Creation Science Religion.

I see no reason to believe in a God-less evolution over Creation Science. Neither are theories that seem plausible.

Evolution is a science, and can only be refuted by more science. That science is found in the libraries I linked to above. You can't refute science by unevidenced assertions and presuppositions. Evolution exists until you actually refute it properly. Whoever does so will win a Nobel Prize. But science isn't worried. All you have is delusional thinking, an imaginary deity, and a book of mythology/fiction you presuppose to be inerrant. Try again without your posturing, pomposity, arrogance, and stupidity.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 5, 2012 11:01 AM

Well, that's funny. Since I never mentioned what holes I'm talking about, I don't see how you could have ever tried to explain any of them in detail.

Oh, I see. In your post #13, your FIRST post here, you weren't actually mentioning holes in evolution theory, you were just pretending to.

And you review blogs by deliberately posting lying, dishonest, false representations of yourself to try and provoke a fully justified outraged response.

What a pathetic, dishonest fuckwit you are.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 5, 2012 12:09 PM

Evolution does not explain the origin of life,

Evolution, honeybunch, is descent with heritable modification.

Only entities that are capable of reproducing are capable of evolution.

The theory of evolution explains what happened once there was the first self-replicator. (It need not have been a cell, mind – it may have been a short RNA strand or something even simpler.) The way this first replicator came to be was by definition not evolution. It's a question for chemists, not for biologists.

and while it makes sense that species adapt to their environment, it makes little sense that they evolve from one species into another for no apparent reason.

Define "species".

Just to give you a little glimpse of what kind of question that is, let me mention that there are (as of February 2009) no less than 147 different definitions of "species" out there. When applied to reality, they all give different results: depending on the definition, there are from 101 to 249 endemic bird species in Mexico, for example.

So, please tell us what you mean by "species". Once that is clear, we can discuss.

I mean, if the environment changed so much that a fish would need to turn into a bird, it seems far more likely the fish would just go extinct before making a successful change into a bird.

What Amphiox said. Never has a fish turned directly into a bird. Between Guiyu and Confuciusornis lie almost three hundred million years... and a long list of transitional fossils. I could spend the rest of the day throwing names at you just off the top of my head; I'm serious.

Posted by: Stanton | April 5, 2012 7:15 PM

He's calling you stupid because you've made several posts betraying your stupidity.

Like, for example, where you claim that Evolution allegedly can not explain the origin of life, when it, in fact, explains the diversity of life. If you're not stupid, Egor, then why did you make such an obviously stupid mistake like that?

That, and why do you think that Professor Myers is obligated to treat you with respect when you have not earned any respect in the first place and when you sneer at the subject he teaches?

Posted by: Stanton | April 5, 2012 8:53 PM

Oho! Projecting godbot is projecting!

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 5, 2012 9:38 PM

Excuse me, but aren't you supposed to be a professor or something? And you're calling someone you don't even know, stupid and encouraging your regulars to verbally flay me? Seems kind of immature, don't you think?

Your stupidity has already been demonstrated by you. In your post #30 you claimed not to have mentioned any holes in evolution yet in your earlier post #13 you gave several holes. Either you couldn't remember what you wrote just over 12 hours before or you're stupid. Please note these two choices are not mutually exclusive.

We don't need Professor Myers' encouragement to flay you. His permission, long understood by the Pharyngula commentariat, is sufficient.

If you're looking for immaturity, then I recommend you find the nearest mirror. It takes a particularly stupid, immature person to argue about a subject you know nothing about with experts in the field.

Or is that the new definition of success in science these days (ala Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, even you): ridicule the religious?

We're not ridiculing the religious, we're ridiculing you. As long as you continue to arrogantly display your stupidity and ignorance, we'll continue to ridicule you.

Maybe we're at the end of science. Maybe any great discovery now is going to have to come from some other method of gaining knowledge. Maybe this adolescent behavior on the part of the neo-atheist community is just the death throes of science. Maybe you're running out of answers and thus running out of signifcance.

Science is increasing by leaps and bounds. You obviously don't understand how science works. You think it's like religion, rigorously and obstinately proclaiming a dogma which is required to be uncompromisingly followed by all members of the cult under pain of excommunication. Science questions its conclusions, testing them against new evidence and new interpretations. Science is self-correcting. Religion has a special word for modification and correction. That word is heresy.

I suggest you don't complain about the tone here. We are rude, crude and lewd when we feel that's appropriate. If we have a debating opponent worthy of respect then we'll be respectful. Trust me, you're not in this special category. Do you think you're the first creationist to confuse evolution and abiogenesis on this blog? You're not even in the first hundred.

Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the...uh...good work. :-)

You need to work on your smug condescension. While the arrogance is there, you don't bring the proper pomposity and hauteur needed. :-þ

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 5, 2012 11:37 PM

Your posts are ample enough evidence to call you stupid, Egor. All we need to know about you is there for all to read in the words you chose, of your own free will, to post here.

Or are you saying that these words you have freely chosen to post are NOT a reflection of the real you? That you are refusing to take personal responsibility for your own actions?

If so, then I will stop calling you stupid, and instead call you A COWARD.

Or are you saying that these words you have posted of your own free will were deliberately meant not to represent the true you?

If so, then I will stop calling you stupid, and instead name you by what you truly are, A LIAR.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 6, 2012 1:51 AM

Maybe you're running out of answers and thus running out of signifcance

have you considered the answers actually match the level of significance of your questions?

When you ask a good question, you'll get a good answer.

When you ask a stupid question, well, you should get the answer one would expect, don't you think?

the problem is you aren't even aware of HOW STUPID your questions are.

What is left to do but poke you with a stick?

Posted by: Egor | April 6, 2012 3:48 AM

I wish I had a dime for every time I've been called stupid since P.Z. called me stupid.

Since I'm so stupid, perhaps you could enlighten me on something: This post had 12 responsese before I came to it. Now it has 51. Why is that?

If I stay here long enough, perhaps Professor Myers can get back to the days long ago when he had huge amounts of comments to each post. I do tend to have that effect on blogs and forums. Call it a gift.

Having said that, let me say this: I'm all for evolution. I'm all for evolution in a chaotic medium. But evolution, by the very definition of the word implies an order within chaos, and in a truly chaotic medium, that is absurd. So which is it? Has God ordered the universe, or is he directing evolution?

I have learned one thing, however, after joining this forum: There is a difference between naturalists and atheists. You guys are definitely naturalists.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 6, 2012 6:43 AM

If I stay here long enough, perhaps Professor Myers can get back to the days long ago when he had huge amounts of comments to each post.

Oh, have you missed the existence of the other Pharyngula?

Are you sure you're not stupid?

evolution, by the very definition of the word implies an order within chaos

The fuck it does. The way we biologists use the word, evolution is defined as descent with heritable modification.

Why do you talk about things of which you've never learned even the basics? Are you perhaps... stupid?

So which is it? Has God ordered the universe, or is he directing evolution?

Because this question ignores a lot of other possibilities, it is... stupid.

There is a difference between naturalists and atheists. You guys are definitely naturalists.

Well, all naturalists are atheists by definition... but if you define "atheist" narrowly enough, not all atheists are naturalists.

Of course we're naturalists. We can't find any reason to believe in the existence of anything supernatural, so we're naturalists. :-|

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 6, 2012 8:39 AM

I wish I had a dime for every time I've been called stupid since P.Z. called me stupid.

Because you need some small change?

Since I'm so stupid, perhaps you could enlighten me on something: This post had 12 responsese before I came to it. Now it has 51. Why is that?

Because you're a successful troll?

If I stay here long enough, perhaps Professor Myers can get back to the days long ago when he had huge amounts of comments to each post. I do tend to have that effect on blogs and forums. Call it a gift.

Some people have a gift of eloquence. Others have a gift of intelligence. Others have a gift of humorous wit. Some have a combination of two or more of those gifts.

As you lack those gifts, I suppose having a gift of successful trolling must be the only thing you can take pride in.

But evolution, by the very definition of the word implies an order within chaos,

Not really. You're redefining the word "evolution", and then asserting that your redefinition implies something else about the word.

Or in other words, you're playing word games.

and in a truly chaotic medium,

What is this supposed "truly chaotic medium"?

that is absurd.

So you're making up a new definition of a word, asserting that it has another meaning, and then making up a situation where that sense is supposedly absurd.

Word games from start to finish.

So which is it? Has God ordered the universe, or is he directing evolution?

So, having played your word game, you now want to make up a supposed "fix" to the word game using an invisible person with magic powers.

What's your definition of "God"? That's always good for a laugh.

I have learned one thing, however, after joining this forum: There is a difference between naturalists and atheists. You guys are definitely naturalists.

What word games will you play with "naturalists" and "atheists"?

Posted by: SceptiKarl | April 6, 2012 12:22 PM

According to egor, God directed evolution. Considering that humans are supposed to be the cream of God's creation, I wonder why god directed evolution in favour of so many different human parasites?

Not a nice God at all!

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 6, 2012 1:15 PM

If I stay here long enough, perhaps Professor Myers can get back to the days long ago when he had huge amounts of comments to each post.

Methinks someone missed the link to Freethoughtblogs at the top of the page.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 6, 2012 1:20 PM

Has God ordered the universe, or is he directing evolution?

No.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 6, 2012 4:38 PM

I wish I had a dime for every time I've been called stupid since P.Z. called me stupid.

don't forget all the times we called you stupid before PZ jumped in.

bu then, if wishes were fishes...

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 6, 2012 5:02 PM

But evolution, by the very definition of the word implies an order within chaos

you must be using your own little private dictionary.

Do you live in your own private Idaho too?

Posted by: Holbach | April 6, 2012 9:09 PM

Egor will no longer respond as his head has imploded with incredulity at the unresponsiveness of his unknown god. An onslaught of reason and vitriol will work wonders at silencing religious morons.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 7, 2012 7:42 PM

You set your goals too low. I want a zero or even negative stars rating.

Posted by: mrpoxman | April 9, 2012 8:47 AM

Anyone who denies the masses of physical Evidence for evolution (fossils) AND DNA is a Monumental Tool, liar and probably religious.

I think it's about time American science text started clearly stating this as the clear fact it is.

Posted by: Expansive Mind | April 9, 2012 3:06 PM

I'm going to take a third party position on this debate, from the perspective of a philosopher/logician. One reason that this discussion in the comments turned into essentially a text-based barroom brawl is that the issues in question are poorly defined. People who support ID or creationism and people who support "science"/evolution tend to argue in terms of "Science versus Religion." Each side puts a mental capital on their own position. For example, the scientist sees himself/herself as defending not science the method of study but Science the Important Philosophical Principle.

This is important because there is no such thing as Science, the independent entity that many scientists seem to want to defend. Science is, by definition, a process, and it has no opinions of its own. All the facts we have learned from science the process are, in fact, subject to revision and change. Actually, the scientific method demands that we change them if new data is discovered that contradicts what we already know. What we often call "Science" in imprecise usage is actually the scientific community, or the opinions, however well informed, of some part of that community.

Religion is similar in that there is no religion unless people practice it. On the other hand, religion does exist as an object -- albeit a metaphysical one -- in that it contains a set of codes and rules for human behavior, and these rules are essentially independent of the people who promote them. Once they are recorded in some way, rules exist as ideas.

The difference is fundamentally in the way science defines knowledge. Scientific knowledge is very precise, at the cost of a limited scope. True science is a very sharp and useful tool with which humankind can explore our empirical experience, possibly more useful than religious or even metaphysical thought in that field. However, it is not the only tool in the toolbox; nor was it until very recently in human history that science was seen as a primary tool in human experience.

Theories of origin are technically outside the domain of empirical science. The biological theory of evolution is useful within its scope of study, but when we use it to argue for or against any theory of origin, we risk moving from the domain of established scientific fact to the domain of personal belief. Personal belief of this kind is an inherently religious topic, regardless of whether or not we make it sound scientific. The emotional investment of both sides when theories of origin are debated is evidence of underlying questions that cannot be answered by the scientific method (unless we could invent a time machine to go back and observe what happened).

As scientists, we should use whatever theory we have that is useful for advancing out current knowledge. Like the law of gravitation, the theory of evolution may prove to be enduringly useful to scientific investigation, or like the Thomson model of the atom, it may turn out to be just one small step that will be heavily revised or eventually abandoned.

In the long run, neither creationism nor evolutionary theory is a critical hypothesis in the advancement and continuation of the process of science.

Posted by: Stanton | April 9, 2012 4:09 PM

In the long run, neither creationism nor evolutionary theory is a critical hypothesis in the advancement and continuation of the process of science.

Or, if this assessment is wrong, then perhaps Expansive Mind can justify his claim that Evolutionary Theory is not "critical hypothesis," and somehow does not help in the "advancement and continuation of the process of science" even though literally all branches of the Life Sciences and many, many branches of Geology all rely on some permutation of Evolutionary Biology?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 9, 2012 4:55 PM

<quivers in fear>

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 9, 2012 6:58 PM

I'm going to take a third party position on this debate, from the perspective of a philosopher/logician.

Posted by: Holbach | April 9, 2012 8:32 PM

Expansive Mind @ 73 All your philosophical maunderings and logistical concepts and precepts will not change one iota the blatant reality of evolution and the illogical and uselessness of religion in any form or principle. Evolution is science at its best, and science is the best bulwark against the insanities of religion and all other forms of pseudo science. There is no gray areas when it comes to science explaining the realities of life. I will always side with science, and do whatever I am able to discredit and ridicule religion in its denunciation of reason. Science and evolution do not need philosophy; philosophy can explain religion, and there is the crux of its futility.

Posted by: Stanton | April 9, 2012 9:07 PM

Practitioners of the latter never bother with coherency and take the notification of errors as a grave insult, if they bother listening to their audience to begin with.

And Expansive Mind, based upon the nym, is which??? Not hard to figure it out.

"I asked my doctor to prescribe me a mind-expanding drug: he gave me an enema.

Posted by: txpiper | April 9, 2012 9:22 PM

"the scientific method demands that we change them if new data is discovered that contradicts what we already know"

New data can't contradict something that is truly 'known'.

Posted by: Stanton | April 9, 2012 10:17 PM

"the scientific method demands that we change them if new data is discovered that contradicts what we already know"

New data can't contradict something that is truly 'known'.

It used to be "known" that Arthropoda, Annelida, and Mollusca were closely related through comparative anatomy, and comparison of developmental growth. Then "new data" via genetic comparison contradicted this, and now Annelida and Mollusca are placed within the superphylum Lophotrochozoa, while Arthropoda is placed within Ecdysozoa.

Likewise, it was once "known" that the Mesonychid were the ancestors of whales due to the extreme similarities between the former's and primitive whales' dentition and skull anatomies. Now thanks to new, earlier fossils, and to new genetic analyses, whales are now considered to be artiodactyls closely related to hippopotamuses.

Not that you give a damn about it, txpiper.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 9, 2012 11:13 PM

New data can't contradict something that is truly 'known'.

Well look at this. texpip the liar crawls out of the woodwork with its transparently word games yet again.

If it is contradicted by new data, then it was never known, only mistakenly believed.

But we all know the texpip knows this already. It just pretends not to for dishonest rhetorical purposes.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 10, 2012 2:37 AM

"the scientific method demands that we change them if new data is discovered that contradicts what we already know"

New data can't contradict something that is truly 'known'.

Going by the narrow definition that knowledge is "true justified belief", this is correct. That is, if new data contradicts something believed, then it was never true, and the justification must have been flawed or wrong.

But from a practical perspective, science considers empirical knowledge to be provisional, and thus the above definition does not quite match the scientific definition of knowledge. So that definition might be better phrased as "falsifiable but not falsified justified belief" or "less wrong justified belief". Although that still leaves what was once thought known to not be knowledge once it is falsified/shown to be wrong.

Do you want to be less wrong, though? The preponderance of evidence, from the corpus of your own posts, strongly suggests otherwise.

Although I admit that it's interesting that you've gone from having long debates where you quote-mine the scientific literature and then express incredulity about the findings, to these terse one-liners.

Are you just busy, or have you pondered the possibility that you might be wrong, and found it scary enough that you're too shaken to argue much anymore?

Just curious.

Posted by: Cellgazer | April 10, 2012 11:47 AM

I don't know if it was pointed out before, but "Egor" started his own religion!
http://www.the-gordon-composition.com/aboutedward.html

Posted by: Cellgazer | April 10, 2012 2:55 PM

Eddie Gordon may be the next L. Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith. Not nearly as imaginative, though. It looks like his Holy Book, The "Veridican Gospel" is something of an amalgam of the synoptic and gnostic gospels with a new age twist. Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Veridican-Gospel-Jesus-Christ/dp/0983897131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid;=1331186180&sr;=8-1#_
Egor is not at all stupid. He is either a master con man, or seriously insane.
....But what if he's right? dws

Posted by: Cellgazer | April 10, 2012 3:56 PM

I'm sorry, I guess I assumed that everyone recognizes "dws" as meaning "dripping with sarcasm. "What if he's right?" - sarcastically throwing out the religious apologist argument of last resort. Mark me as a strong atheist please.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 10, 2012 4:45 PM

I've never seen "dws" before either.

I'm more used to seeing sarcasm marked with faux close html tags.

eg:

What if he's right?
</sarcasm>
[/sarcasm]
(or even just)
/sarcasm
(minimally)
/sarc

Or with hyper-emotive punctuation...
eg:
What if he's right?!!?!111?!?eleventyone!?!

Or just with over-the-top emotiveness:

eg:
Oooh! Hey, what if he's right? We athy athiests [sic] are so totally doomed with doomy doom!

Posted by: Cellgazer | April 10, 2012 5:35 PM

I do need better ways to express my sarcasm. But in the mean time I will study Veridicanism (whatever the hell that means) so that I won't suffer the damnation and doomy doom that I am destined to suffer as an extra athy atheist who has the audacity NOT to delieve in some desert cult deity who happened to be upgraded by a wacky Roman Emperor looking for a way to unite his crumbling empire through fear and ignorance. Eward Gordon please save my ass!

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 10, 2012 5:51 PM

It's interesting that the Verdican Gospel has been out for over a month and nobody has written a review of it. Public interest must be very muted.

I'm not interested enough in Gordon's special brand of Christianity to spend $9.98 + S&H; to get the book.

Posted by: Holbach | April 10, 2012 6:20 PM

A good method to convey a message of worth would be to write a review and have it advertised on a roll of toilet paper, perhaps with a blurb, "For What Ails You."

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 10, 2012 8:50 PM

I do not back down and I can outsmart most atheists in debate, not to mention I’m more than willing to let it get as heated as it has to.

He forgot to mention that his dick was bigger than ours and his dad could beat up our dads.

Posted by: Holbach | April 10, 2012 9:13 PM

Wow. Ergo is a lot more interesting than we figured. A bombast, poet, atheist destroyer, and a confident assurer to set the heat up high and tussle with rationalists who can not only outsmart him but leave him crawling among the slime mold of his illogical ilk. Can we ask for a better sparing victim than this, if he would only respond. Come on Ergo, outsmart and leave us groveling at your merciless heat.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 10, 2012 9:43 PM

txpiper, we've known for months that you're a stupid, ignorant creationist who doesn't know shit about evolution other than your religious masters have told you it's bad. Thank you for reminding us of your miserable, pathetic existence. You can go back under your rock now.

Posted by: Stanton | April 10, 2012 10:56 PM

"...have you pondered the possibility that you might be wrong, and found it scary enough that you're too shaken to argue much anymore?"

Ha ha...not quite. No amount of pondering is going to make the random mutations/selection idea look realistic.

Besides, tell us again why we have to trust your word over those of actual scientists, teachers and students who actually study Evolutionary Biology.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 11, 2012 12:32 AM

You can go back under your rock now.

txpiper has managed to inspire some fine SIWOTI-based collateral knowledge from David Marjanović, Nightjar, Amphiox, etc.

Sure, he's convinced of his own personal infallibility, and refuses to learn anything at all, but that describes almost every creationist.

At least he's not quite as repetitive and one-note in his incredulity and other logical fallacies as, say, Shiloh was.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 11, 2012 12:52 AM

Very.

But apparently not too busy to waste our time here.

Errors simply do not result in extraordinary complexity.

Still fixated on this transparently dishonest fake strawman, I see.

Pathetic.

No amount of pondering is going to make the random mutations/selection idea look realistic.

That's because no amount of pondering is needed, only the most basic of observation skills, and the smallest amount of honesty, to clearly see that random mutations and selection are FACT.

But the texpip doesn't do even the tiniest bit of honesty.

Pitiful.

You live in the same world I live in and you can use your mind critically and ask your own questions

Too bad the texpip doesn't practice what it preaches. Of course, doing so leads inexorably to the realization that evolutionary theory is correct, and the texpip can't admit that.

Odious hypocrite.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 11, 2012 12:56 AM

For instance, no new data can alter the tensile strength of a particular alloy at a certain temperature

No data can alter our KNOWLEDGE of the exact tensile strength of a particular allow at a certain temperature, making it more accurate and precise.

Note the dishonest and misleading manner in which the texpip phrases its statement.

The texpip does not post except to lie.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 11, 2012 12:58 AM

E pour si evolve, texpip.

Posted by: Stanton | April 11, 2012 1:08 AM

You live in the same world I live in and you can use your mind critically and ask your own questions

Too bad the texpip doesn't practice what it preaches. Of course, doing so leads inexorably to the realization that evolutionary theory is correct, and the texpip can't admit that.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 11, 2012 1:14 AM

Shiloh started out much, much more engaging and honest than the texpip.

Shiloh got banned first because he couldn't take the heat of our ridicule and melted down.

The texpip is merely more shameless.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 11, 2012 6:03 AM

Txpiper still hasn't presented any solid and conclusive physical evidence for its imaginary deity and mythical/fictional babble being inerrant. Without those there is no case for creationism. So Txpiper keeps tacitly admitting to the world that all it has is presupposition, a losing argument even in philosophy, and an non-starter in science where evidence is required.

Txpiper must evidence the case for its imaginary deity. If it can't do that,and it hasn't for almost a year now, one would think it would shut the fuck up if it had any honesty and integrity. We all know it isn't honest, and has no integrity, showing all creationist and godbots in bad light due to its obvious lack of morals. It shows it intellectual failure by thinking if it can disprove evolution, it proves creationism. That is a logical fallacy since creationism must be evidenced independently, starting with its imaginary creator. Trying to disprove evolution says nothing about the truth of creationism, and it knows that. But it continues anyway. Nothing but dishonesty all the way around.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 11, 2012 3:33 PM

I see Owlmirror and Amphiox are true connoisseurs of trolls.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 11, 2012 6:29 PM

In my case its really just Shiloh and the texpip.

I claim no special understanding of any of the MRA trolls, and quite frankly, Piltdown Man was a complete mystery to me.

Posted by: hotshoe | April 12, 2012 12:54 AM

With a little detachment and a little practice, you might actually have an original thought, even one that you have to defend with your own mentality if you have the sack for it.

One more shit characteristic and you'll win the trifecta.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 12, 2012 8:14 PM

So you're a sexist as well as an IDiot, txpiper. One more shit characteristic and you'll win the trifecta.

The texpip amply demonstrated its misogyny on an earlier MRA-themed thread, quite a while back. It also exposed itself as a homophobic bigot that gets all a-flutter over anything remotely related to reproduction that does not also involve the missionary position.

That was also the thread wherein I henceforth stopped addressing it by its full handle, as while I still afford that degree of respect to pure creo-IDiots (whose lunacies are not directed at actual people), I do not grant that privilege to odious misogynist bigots.

Posted by: txpiper | April 12, 2012 11:16 PM

Hotshoe,

"So you're a sexist..."

Oh gosh. Surely you aren't going to try to apply pop-culture ideas about equality to what natural selection has done with primates. There isn't much point in being upset about the boys being monotonously lucky in the mutations lottery. Where is your cool-headed, scientific dignity?

Posted by: hotshoe | April 13, 2012 2:01 AM

Hotshoe, "So you're a sexist..." Oh gosh. Surely you aren't going to try to apply pop-culture ideas about equality to what natural selection has done with primates. There isn't much point in being upset about the boys being monotonously lucky in the mutations lottery. Where is your cool-headed, scientific dignity?

Way to prove that "the sack for it" you (presumably) have between your legs is completely incapable of performing the "defend with your own mentality" act which you dreamed you were doing. I'll let you in on a little secret, just between us boys: those bobs between your legs are not for mentating with. They're for having sex with. Yeah, gee, how were you supposed to tell the difference!! Well, now you know: no need to thank me.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 13, 2012 2:34 AM

Note the glib use of the naturalistic fallacy by the texpip.

This is a recurrent pattern - it has happily, and utterly shamelessly, used evolutionary arguments to attempt to support its misogyny and bigotry (and climate change denialism!) when infesting those kinds of threads, even as it denounces those exact same evolutionary arguments on an evolution thread, not infrequently in sequential comments on the separate threads at the same time.

Thus demonstrating itself to be an intellectually dishonest reprobate, rather than "merely" a deluded fool.

Posted by: Stanton | April 13, 2012 9:20 AM

Don't forget blatant hypocrisy, either.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 13, 2012 10:34 AM

I think I remembered the txpiper was sincerely stupid -- and the fun SIWOTI responses to his stupidity -- but I'd forgotten that he was also sincerely a malevolent asshole. He was usually more cagey about that.

Surely you aren't going to try to apply pop-culture ideas about equality to what natural selection has done with primates. There isn't much point in being upset about the boys being monotonously lucky in the mutations lottery.

If this is all that you have time for in the midst of being "very" busy, you can fuck right off.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 13, 2012 10:02 PM

I just recognize that it can't do what you believe it is capable of.

Posted by: hotshoe | April 13, 2012 10:38 PM

Now granted, since I'm not an atheist, I don't see things the way silverbacks like you guys see them. But if I were, I don't think I would piss my life away on causes or egalitarian ideals. I would have to believe that ethics, morality and altruism are ultimately just human constructs. They are barely represented at all in nature.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 13, 2012 11:02 PM

I would have to believe that ethics, morality and altruism are ultimately just human constructs.

It is BECAUSE they are human constructs (except altruism - altruism is well represented throughout nature, evolutionary theory pretty much guarantees it to be so) and not some arbitrary dictates by fiat of some tyrant god that these things are valuable, precious, and worth preserving.

They are barely represented at all in nature.

Ethics and morality have been observed IN EVERY SINGLE SOCIAL SPECIES. Humans just happen to have the most developed, complex version of it. Altruism is EVERYWHERE in nature.

And this is EXACTLY what evolutionary theory predicts.

By the way, this naturalistic fallacy schtick is the third of the three arguments against evolution that the texpip has been recycling since it shows its ugly face here. Not a word of what it has posted on this thread is original.

The irony is that the liberturd espouses HIMSELF the kind of immorality that he claims (no, deliberately and dishonestly accuses of, even though he knows full well it is false) atheists do, in direct violation of the tenets of his own professed faith. Whereas the values humanists live by (atheism is value-neutral, but the dishonest texpip always deliberately conflates the two) an ethical system far more consistent with the word of Jesus Christ is written in the four gospels, though we arrive at it for different reasons.

Intellectual and ethical dishonesty, all the way down.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 14, 2012 1:18 AM

"like you who denies natural selection works"

Oh no, I don't deny that it works at all. I just recognize that it can't do what you believe it is capable of.

You don't "recognize" anything. You simply assert it, like a small child denying that Santa Claus is really yout parents..

"I don't deny that parents might do some micro-present-giving. I just recognize that they can't do the macro-present-giving that you believe them capable of."

Ants can build ant hills, but they didn't build the Himalayas.

You've used this stupid false analogy before.

I would ask why you think it's appropriate, but it's obvious that you are incapable of the analytical abilities to examine your own ideas and beliefs.

If natural selection is responsible for producing all kinds of inequity, it seems rather pointless to be constantly indignant about the results.

Your stupid reiteration of the naturalistic fallacy is noted.

I note that if "God" replaces "natural selection" in your sentence above, it still remains stupid, and makes unfairness a matter of divine fiat. Is that supposed to be somehow better?

With an abundance of things to observe that are superior or inferior, normal or abnormal, it seems like a total waste of time to constantly champion the less fit.

Either you believe that might makes right, or you don't.

If you believe that might makes right, then you're a malevolent asshole. Fuck off.

If you don't believe that might makes right, except for when you are the one with the might, then you're a mighty hypocrite and a malevolent asshole. Fuck off right now.

Now granted, since I'm not an atheist, I don't see things the way

You don't see things the way we do because you are a hypocritical moron.

I suspect that you'd still be a hypocritical moron even if you were an atheist.

silverbacks like you guys see them.

What the hell makes you think that all of your interlocutors are "silverbacks" or "guys", besides your sincere stupidity?

But if I were, I don't think I would piss my life away on causes or egalitarian ideals.

Or in other words, you'd be an overt malevolent asshole instead of a covert one?

I would have to believe that ethics, morality and altruism are ultimately just human constructs.

Even if God exists, ethics, morality and altruism are ultimately just human constructs. They have to be.

You've had the Euthyphro argument pointed out to you multiple times, but I guess you've been to stupid to read and understand it, or too evil to care.

They are barely represented at all in nature.

Fun fact: the total mass of all eusocial insects is far greater than the mass of all humanity. And that's not even going into the other social animal groups.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 14, 2012 11:51 AM

The Hoax is currently on Jadehawk's blog panicking over the Muslim culture conquering his own by immigration. He's scared shitless: of demons, Muslims, non-white immigrants, God, Satan, pretty much everyone actually.

It is only provisional in pursuits where subjectivity and belief are involved rather than conclusions based on empirical measurement. For instance, no new data can alter the tensile strength of a particular alloy at a certain temperature.

New data can easily alter our knowledge of the tensile strength.

At the very least, new data can add significant digits behind the comma!

Second, it isn't really that hard to notice that those 'mountains' you refer to, are more composed of proclamations and conjecture than they are facts.

Is it?

Then why don't I notice, even though I have a doctorate in that stuff and work on the origin of the modern amphibians?

Oh no, I don't deny that it works at all. I just recognize that it can't do what you believe it is capable of. Ants can build ant hills, but they didn't build the Himalayas.

Not everything that doesn't work is a metaphor.

Ants don't build mountains because they stop when they're done and because ant colonies are unlikely to live for very long. Natural selection is never done, and life hasn't died out in 4 billion years or so, so natural selection doesn't stop.

If natural selection is responsible for producing all kinds of inequity, it seems rather pointless to be constantly indignant about the results. With an abundance of things to observe that are superior or inferior, normal or abnormal, it seems like a total waste of time to constantly champion the less fit.

Mutation and selection produce all kinds of iniquity and inequality – but not every case of iniquity or inequality is caused by natural selection. Are you really too stupid to understand that?

"Fit" isn't defined the way you seem to believe it is. Fitness is the amount of surviving fertile offspring in a particular environment.

I would have to believe that ethics, morality and altruism are ultimately just human constructs.

Oh, they aren't laws of physics. Sure. But they're by far the easiest and most pleasant way to survive.

For altruism between individuals that aren't closely related, see vampire bats: because blood is such shitty food*, they need to eat (well, lick) extremely often, more often than they have a chance of successfully "hunting"; so, they share regurgitated blood at every occasion, with everyone. Five loaves and two fish.

* Water, protein, salt, and not much else.

What the hell makes you think that all of your interlocutors are "silverbacks" or "guys", besides your sincere stupidity?

Why "besides"? Don't underestimate the brute power of sincere stupidity. It can build anthills, and so far there's no reason to assume it can't build mountains.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 14, 2012 2:18 PM

What the hell makes you think that all of your interlocutors are "silverbacks" or "guys", besides your sincere stupidity?

Raging misogyny, of course. The texpip cannot conceive of a mere female responding to it, since it its worldview, only males are worthy of talking to it.

Fun fact: the total mass of all eusocial insects is far greater than the mass of all humanity. And that's not even going into the other social animal groups.

The total mass of all eusocial insects is far greater than the total mass of all the other insects combined, and the total mass of all the insects exceeds that of all the other land animals combined*. Meanwhile, the total mass of all humans on this planet exceeds the total mass of all the other mammals, and the total mass of all the other large animals bigger than 20kg, combined.

So, at least on land*, altruism and cooperation absolutely dominates life on earth.

*Not sure about the oceans, or where the oceanic krill fit in.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 14, 2012 3:32 PM

The Hoax is currently on Jadehawk's blog panicking over the Muslim culture conquering his own by immigration.

I went to Jadehawk's Blog and read a couple of interesting articles where she was disassociating herself from radical feminism because of their transphobia. It wasn't until I noticed the recent comments were on an older thread that I got to see The Hoax™ in all his shining ugliness.

Posted by: Stanton | April 14, 2012 8:05 PM

in all his shining ugliness

Bit like a train wreck, eh?

Posted by: txpiper | April 14, 2012 8:31 PM

Hotshoe,

“the most civilized, nicest, safest, and most caring societies are the predominantly atheistic Europeans”

Well, that’s mighty white of you to think so, but overall, I think Asians, even the poor ones, outclass the west in those categories. There are exceptions, but generally, they are more realistic and able to cope without going broke.

===

Owlmirror,

“What the hell makes you think that all of your interlocutors are "silverbacks" or "guys" “

Your reactions. In my experience, with notable exceptions, females are emotionally stronger than males.

===

David,

“Mutation and selection produce all kinds of iniquity and inequality…”

Well, given the nature of mutations, that is a realistic prediction. What is not realistic is thinking that failures and the natural removal of failures can result in extreme complexity. As I’ve tried to express many times, it is literally inconceivable how any given biological feature could incrementally develop on a random, accidental basis, and wind up super-functional. I think you just have to like that idea in order to believe it.

“but not every case of iniquity or inequality is caused by natural selection”

I would think the ‘causal’ partner in the tag-team would be the mutations.

Posted by: hotshoe | April 14, 2012 9:28 PM

Hotshoe,

“the most civilized, nicest, safest, and most caring societies are the predominantly atheistic Europeans”

Well, that’s mighty white of you to think so, but overall, I think Asians, even the poor ones, outclass the west in those categories. There are exceptions, but generally, they are more realistic and able to cope without going broke.

And in spite of your presumed advantage of having god on your side, your kind are not as able to cope. I know, I know, I've been watching christians like you go to pieces for decades now.
Not only that, the Asians you admit outclass you disbelieve in your god almost unanimously. So unless you want to speculate that the reason they're better than you is because they believe in a better god, then you just destroyed your whole worldview about how getting right with jesus makes you a better person.

Way to go, Tex. Maybe next time you should put away your gun before you shoot yourself in the foot, not after.

Let us know how your conversion to Buddhism works out. Okay, Tex?

Posted by: hotshoe | April 14, 2012 9:36 PM

Does anyone have a net to help catch and remove the surplus "the" which invaded my first sentence?

Posted by: Stanton | April 14, 2012 9:47 PM

Without one citation to back up OPINION.

Looks like Expansive Mind can be dismissed as bovine excrement, just like evidenceless Tex the fuckkwited creobot

After all, you can sprinkle bullshit in your garden to make plants grow.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 14, 2012 10:05 PM

txpiper #163

Well, that’s mighty white of you to think so

So txpip is a racist on top of everything else. Why am I not surprised?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 15, 2012 2:21 AM

What is not realistic is thinking that failures and the natural removal of failures can result in extreme complexity.

E pour si mutates.
E pour si selects.

E POUR SI EVOLVES.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 15, 2012 2:26 AM

it is literally inconceivable how any given biological feature could incrementally develop on a random, accidental basis, and wind up super-functional.

All this demonstrates is that the texpip's capacity of conceiving is pitifully small.

E pour si mutates.
E pour si selects.

E POUR SI EVOLVES.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 15, 2012 2:31 AM

After all, you can sprinkle bullshit in your garden to make plants grow.

It is also used as a fuel source for fires in the tundra. It literally saves lives.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 15, 2012 2:43 AM

What is a scientist? In the broadest strokes, a scientist is a person who seeks facts, wherever the facts may lead. Operationally defined, a scientist is a person who seeks empirical facts through the use of the scientific method, that is, observation, hypothesizing, theorizing, testing and further observation, and revision of previous hypotheses. Yes, I am a scientist.

In what field? Confabulatology? Everything you've written shows that you are either deliberately or inadvertently ignorant about biology, archaeology, cosmology, physics, and everything related to those fields.

There still are some factors that are poorly defined in this discussion, but one thing we have established is that science is an empirical exercise. It is based on observation, logic, and reduction (parsimony).

And falsifiability.

Owlmirror points out the short-lived nature of the Thompson model of the atom

It wasn't just short-lived; it was a falsifiable model which was subsequently falsified.

Anthropology reveals that human cultures, almost universally and basically since the inception of human culture, have included beliefs in some form of trans-empirical reality.

Anthropology also reveals that these beliefs are indistinguishable from the humans of the culture making shit up.

More bluntly, most human cultures have prominently featured religion

...and other made-up shit...

and modern non-supernaturalism is in the extreme minority.

Modern non-supernaturalism results from actually caring about whether something is made-up shit or not, and noting that "supernaturalism" is either incoherent, or (so far), indistinguishable from made-up shit.

Consider this hypothetical. Otalp the caveman reports meeting an entity that he categorizes as a god. Although we are incredulous, you, I, and Einstein, with all our knowledge of modern scientific fact, cannot factually disprove Otalp’s assertion that he really has met a god.

How is Otlap's assertion different from made-up shit? Even sincerely made-up shit, like a hallucination or lucid dream?

If there's no falsifiable component of his assertion that can be confirmed -- if this alleged "god" doesn't actually tell Otlap anything verifiable that Otlap doesn't already know -- then Otlap's assertion can be fucking well rejected as most likely being made-up shit.

(This, by the way, is how my comparison of ways of knowing is not a false equivalence but an equivalence.)

Bullshit. It's completely false equivalence. Otlap offers no method whatsoever to test or disconfirm his assertion.

Otalp’s explanation of the event may be true or it may be false, but from an evidentiary point of view, Otalp’s opinion is more valid than ours because he was there to gather data first-hand and we were not.

We have no basis whatsoever to think that Otlap did anything so formal as to "gather data", as opposed to ingesting some hallucinogen!

Geocentrism was just as well established a fact in its day as evolution is today

More bullshit false equivalence.

Geocentrism was based on naked-eye observations of very distant objects, and some very kludgey math. The whole thing was a horrendously complicated kludge, and it was just waiting for falsification in the form of better observations of planetary motion and better geometrical modeling of planetary sizes and distances.

and it was just as fiercely defended by its followers as evolution would be today, for many of the same reasons.

Even more bullshit false equivalence! Geocentrism was "defended" for religious reasons; evolution is defended because it is a fact and a theory based on facts.

Many of the most important scientific breakthroughs that occurred during the rise of modern science, occurred prior to the rise of evolutionary theory.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

The theory of Newtonian physics, for example, has been around roughly three times as long as the theory of evolution. It has been extended at the subatomic level in the twentieth century

"Extended"? Newtonian physics has been falsified by quantum mechanics, and by relativity!

but the original theory is still the best model we have of macroscopic physics.

Because the theory of relativity does not exist in your tiny little mind?

Science was making progress long before evolution became a popular theory, and is not inconceivable that it will do so again, if new data supports a revised or radically changed theory. This is what I meant when I said that evolution is not a critical hypothesis.

And you were completely full of shit when you said it, and you still are now when you repeat it. Evolution is as critical a theory as universal gravitation, and heliocentrism, and germ theory. It is the core of all biology, and you just want to dismiss it because, what, maybe it will change with new observations? Just as Newtonian mechanics changed with relativity and quantum mechanics; just as heliocentrism changed with the discovery of the Milky Way and the sun's position within it, and the modern cosmological model of the universe as a collection of galactic superclusters; just as germ theory changed with the discovery of viruses and prions?

For fuck's sake, what the hell is wrong with you?

Here's the core of the theory of evolution, as a set of falsifiable observations (originally from Jay Hosler's The Sandwalk Adventures).

  1.    Individuals within a species are variable.
  2.    Some of an individual's variations are passed onto its offspring.
  3.    More offspring are produced than survive.
  4.    Those offspring that survive and reproduce have inherited a variation that gives them an advantage.

That's the core. Falsifiable, but not falsified -- and confirmed with 140 years of observations.

Your bullshit fake science where evolution is not "critical" is fucking well a complete lie.

Can we factually invalidate the beliefs of past civilizations?

If they are falsifiable, they can be falsified -- or confirmed, as the case may sometimes be.

Are they not falsifiable at all? Then they can be relegated to being probably made-up shit.

We don’t have any empirical facts from their times with which to argue our case.

If we "don't have any empirical facts from their times", how are you assuming that this supposed civilization actually exists? Are you going all bullshit false equivalence on archaeology as well?

I only propose that seeing one's field in the context of other fields yields a broader perspective.

Since your field is bullshit, your "broader perspective" needs to go on a pasture somewhere.

Posted by: Militant Agnostic | April 15, 2012 5:53 AM

Expansive Mind blathering about Newtonian Physics

but the original theory is still the best an adequatemodel we have of macroscopic mesoscopic physics.

FTFY

Yes, Newtonian physics is good enough for what I do for a living as is the case for most engineers, but so what? This doesn't mean that the GPS system would work without relativistic corrections.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 15, 2012 6:08 AM

Consider this hypothetical. Otalp the caveman reports meeting an entity that he categorizes as a god. Although we are incredulous, you, I, and Einstein, with all our knowledge of modern scientific fact, cannot factually disprove Otalp’s assertion that he really has met a god.

Yet another example of the disproof-proof fallacy.

The burden of proof is on Otlap, not anyone else.

But here's the most important question - how would Otlap know that he is correct in his categorization of a god? How could he be sure what he saw was not just yesterday's fermenting lunch?

If Otlap cannot know if he is right or wrong, then Otlap DOESN'T KNOW. Without error-checking there is NO KNOWLEDGE. And that is why science is a method of knowing and none of these others are. They cannot self-correct.

Posted by: txpiper | April 15, 2012 8:23 AM

"It is also used as a fuel source for fires in the tundra. It literally saves lives."

You bet. They store it in igloos near the bull herds.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 15, 2012 10:38 AM

BTW, why do you list Mendelian genetics but not molecular genetics?

Besides "Expansive Mind" probably being completely ignorant of anything to do with modern biology, there's also the point that molecular genetics -- like relativity, which "Expansive Mind" also avoided mentioning -- came after the theory of evolution itself. And the thesis apparently being that old, well-established science is "good" and (more likely to be) "stable", and new-fangled non-critical science, like the theory of evolution, may suddenly be completely overturned real soon now!!!one!!

I would bet a cookie that "Expansive Mind" is a creationist shill; maybe one of the fake "scientists" working for the ICR/AIG, or someone affiliated with the Disco 'Tute.

Posted by: Militant Agnostic | April 15, 2012 1:06 PM

David Marjanović

Expansive Mind doesn't know why Newtonian physics is still used for such applications: because the math of relativity is so complex that the effort of calculating it all isn't worth improvements that wouldn't be measurable.

I can even ignore large chunks of Newtonian physics such as inertial effects most of the time, because the resulting errors are much less than measurement error.

Owlmirror

I would bet a cookie that "Expansive Mind" is a creationist shill; maybe one of the fake "scientists" working for the ICR/AIG, or someone affiliated with the Disco 'Tute.

I am thinking Discotute due to the level of Constipated Mind's sophistry.

Posted by: Stanton | April 16, 2012 12:19 AM

The genomes of icefish were compared with the genomes of their closest living relatives in South America. The icefish's antifreeze glycoprotein gene closely resembles a stretch of nonsense DNA found near a bile gene in said South American relatives' genomes. Why do you insist that it is impossible for an extra Start codon to be spliced next to nonsense DNA during gametogenesis?

Oh, wait, no, you're just splitting hairs and invoking the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy to justify your painfully limited imagination.

Tell us again why we must bow to your completely inane critiques of science? Because you'll accuse us of being stupid, mindless sheep for not mindlessly agreeing with your moronic judgments?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 16, 2012 1:50 AM

This is not science.

The self-professed-and-proud-of-it AMATEUR NOVICE is telling a professional scientist what is and is not science.

What pitiful arrogance.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 16, 2012 6:16 AM

This is not science.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 16, 2012 1:57 PM

txpiper:

So it isn't what you have explained, it is what you take for granted, that is the problem.

I know that your stupidity doesn't bother you, and I suppose your hypocrisy doesn't bother you either.

I mean, you don't demand that the compilers of your tensile strength reference give a complete atom-by-atom breakdown of the various alloys, and exactly what is happening at both the quantum and macroscopic levels that gives the alloy that particular tensile strength at that temperature, and that they prove that none of the atomic charges and weights and energy levels that are involved can possibly change over time.

No, you just take it all for granted.

If evolutionary biology "isn't science", then neither is materials science. In fact, nothing is science.

And I bet that even if there were a time viewer that let you track down exactly which icefish had the mutation in question, and watch the exact DNA replication fluke that led to the glycoprotein in question being produced, and watch how the mutation spread to the fish's descendants over time and spread through the population of icefish -- you would still stamp your tiny feet and shake your tiny fist, and demand that it be proven that it wasn't a magical invisible DNA pixie that did it.

You're just a stupid hypocrite.

Posted by: Militant Agnostic | April 16, 2012 9:14 PM

Owlmirror

I mean, you don't demand that the compilers of your tensile strength reference give a complete atom-by-atom breakdown of the various alloys, and exactly what is happening at both the quantum and macroscopic levels that gives the alloy that particular tensile strength at that temperature, and that they prove that none of the atomic charges and weights and energy levels that are involved can possibly change over time.

I think straw would be texpip's favoured structural material.

Posted by: Stanton | April 16, 2012 10:06 PM

Tell us again, txpiper, why you think that biologists do not give Evolutionary Biology any scrutiny?

Why do you think that Biology papers are not given any scrutiny by peer review?

And why do you think that beneficial mutations occurring are too miraculous to ever occur? Or that other cold-water marine organisms can not have alternative methods to survive freezing temperatures besides antifreeze glycoproteins?

Oh, wait, it's because you're a science-hating idiot who thinks we're all mindless morons because we do not bow down to your inanely dishonest dismissal of Evolution.

Posted by: txpiper | April 16, 2012 11:09 PM

"why you think that biologists do not give Evolutionary Biology any scrutiny?"

Because the religious confinement of the theory was entrenched before the molecular level stuff was ever discovered. You would have thought that when the information about replication enzymes started drifting in, it would have made people wonder about how seriously mutations should be taken, but the community at large never paused. This is not unusual. The establishment is very faith-structured and really, contrary to the claims, it does not like surprises unless they fit into the paradigm, comfortably or uncomfortably.

For instance, if bio-material is discovered, and convention demands that you accept that it is intact after 65-80 million years old, it is okay to discard everything known and normal. But you cannot question the dating methodology because the TOE requires millions of years for statistical miracles to work. The default will always favor the theory, and make it as elastic as necessary to accomodate the data.

Have ever played poker and been dealt a straight flush? Apply that to how new genes were formed. Can you see why gene duplication became a doctrine out of desperation?

"And why do you think that beneficial mutations occurring are too miraculous to ever occur?"

Well, for two reasons. The first is because if I ask you for examples, your list is 1) embarrassing, and 2) embarrassingly short. Surely you realize that you need countless billions of them. So it is not a matter of "too miraculous". It is the necessity of countless and consistent miracles.

"Or that other cold-water marine organisms can not have alternative methods to survive freezing temperatures besides antifreeze glycoproteins?"

Because it is only your impressive faith and imagination that accepts these methods. You are defending them on faith. You are a believer.

Posted by: Stanton | April 16, 2012 11:35 PM

Because the religious confinement of the theory was entrenched before the molecular level stuff was ever discovered.

Why can't you explain to us why we're stupid, mindless idiots when you have done no research, have no desire to educate yourself and demonstrate a strong aversion to even looking at evidence?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 16, 2012 11:47 PM

If antifreeze proteins were produced in Antarctic zoarcid fish on the basis of a chance gene duplication, and the copy altered by random events into a specialized function, then something similar, just as miraculous and unlikely, had to happen in every vertebrate and invertebrate cold water species.

The texpip pathetically attempting to be dishonest again. It already knows, because it was told, that not every cold water species HAS antifreeze proteins. There are more ways to deal with the challenge of living in cold waters than just that.

The texpip knows this, but of course the texpip just lies.

The first is because if I ask you for examples, your list is 1) embarrassing, and 2) embarrassingly short.

More lies from the texpip. It was given VAST numbers of examples, but it usually just ignores most of them.

Surely you realize that you need countless billions of them.

There are.

Have ever played poker and been dealt a straight flush? Apply that to how new genes were formed. Can you see why gene duplication became a doctrine out of desperation?

Another deliberately dishonest false analogy. A straight flush poker hand is more akin to a point mutation. It has no relevance whatsoever to gene duplications. And the texpip knows this, as card dealing was used as an analogy in previous discussions on previous threads.

(And the rate of straight flush draws, if that is the analogy one wants to make to point mutations, is plenty high enough to achieve evolutionary change.)

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 16, 2012 11:54 PM

We can also note that even as it rails against the supposed inadequacy of evolutionary theory to explain this or that dishonest strawman, the texpip cannot given even one example of a creationist explanation for anything that is not utterly unbelievable and totally, inconceivably ridiculous.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Stanton | April 16, 2012 11:57 PM

Have ever played poker and been dealt a straight flush? Apply that to how new genes were formed. Can you see why gene duplication became a doctrine out of desperation?

Another deliberately dishonest false analogy. A straight flush poker hand is more akin to a point mutation. It has no relevance whatsoever to gene duplications. And the texpip knows this, as card dealing was used as an analogy in previous discussions on previous threads. (And the rate of straight flush draws, if that is the analogy one wants to make to point mutations, is plenty high enough to achieve evolutionary change.)

Then again, what would we know? We're all apparently mindless idiots because we don't mindlessly agree with txpiper's blatant lies and hypocritical appeals to personal ignorance.

Posted by: Stanton | April 17, 2012 12:26 AM

Stanton, you are only fitting the observable into your theory. You have not, not, not ever, demonstrated how any of the things you listed, occurred as a result of random DNA replication screw-ups being acted on by a natural selection process which only removes the inferior. You have nothing in the way of evidence about how a gene would form; no realistic method, and no purpose.

And you do not do that by making up a bunch of mumbo jumbo new rules that have no worth outside of your head.

You have nothing.

If you are hell-bent on believing this nonsense, that is fine. To each his own, and to each his own fate. But you should at least have the wherewhithal to punish this prissy religious shit as hard as you would anything else. Consensus means nothing. The hoards are composed of suckers great and small.

Perhaps it's science-envy on your part, txpiper? Please clarify, as, after all, you keep telling me that I am a mindless idiot because I don't agree with your mental diarrhea. Oh, wait, no, you can't clarify: you're too busy to do so. (though, I find it strange, in a hypocritical sort of way, that you're never too busy to insult me for not agreeing with you)

Posted by: Stanton | April 17, 2012 12:43 AM

The texpip lies. It makes up stuff. It invents a distorted strawman caricature of evolutionary theory using loaded, inaccurate language, and argues against that (most of the time it fails at even this - evolutionary theory is so strong that even a distorted strawman caricature blows any and all design theories out of the water without effort). When it is corrected on its apparent misconceptions about evolutionary theory, it just ignores the corrections, demonstrating of course that these are not just mistakes, but deliberate, dishonest distortions. Intellectual dishonesty all the way down. Pitiful.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 17, 2012 12:47 AM

You forgot to mention that txpiper also demonizes the people who correct his deliberate distortions as being mindless idiots caught up in burgeoning peer pressure simply because they don't agree with his deliberate distortions.

Ah, but you see, my small intellect is simply not able to recall the entire voluminous record of the texpip's perfidy all at once.

After all, I am a mindless idiot caught up in burgeoning peer pressure.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 17, 2012 4:56 PM

If antifreeze proteins were produced in Antarctic zoarcid fish on the basis of a chance gene duplication, and the copy altered by random events into a specialized function, then something similar, just as miraculous and unlikely, had to happen in every vertebrate and invertebrate cold water species.

As far as I know, most cold-water species have no antifreeze proteins at all. There are other methods, you know.

If all cold-water organisms used the exact same method to prevent freezing, that would require a special explanation. But it's not the case.

You would have thought that when the information about replication enzymes started drifting in, it would have made people wonder about how seriously mutations should be taken, but the community at large never paused.

*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*

Please tell us all you know about DNA replication enzymes. All of it. I bet it fits into a few lines, and I bet half of it is plain wrong.

Hint: I was taught DNA replication and DNA repair in great detail as an undergrad in molecular biology. I bet you didn't know just how much DNA repair is going on all the time because DNA falls apart when stored in water.

The establishment is very faith-structured

How would you know? You wouldn't even know the establishment if it bit you in the ass.

and really, contrary to the claims, it does not like surprises unless they fit into the paradigm, comfortably or uncomfortably.

Yeah. It only rewards them with Nature papers and fucking Nobel prizes.

For instance, if bio-material is discovered, and convention demands that you accept that it is intact after 65-80 million years old, it is okay to discard everything known and normal.

Liar. We've shown you the great controversy over the claims by Schweitzer et al., and we've shown you the attempts to explain how small fragments of protein could be preserved for such long times.

We've shown you that protein is much more robust than DNA. You never got around to acknowledging that fact.

We've... not really shown you, because it's so damn obvious, that the science called taphonomy* is rich and varied; lots of different things can happen to a carcass, some leading to quick and complete destruction, some (much rarer ones) to exquisite preservation, and others to anything in between.

* Taphos = grave; nomos = law.

But you cannot question the dating methodology because the TOE requires millions of years for statistical miracles to work.

Liar. The dating methodologies, plural, all agree with each other and with physics, chemistry, what have you. The dates can only be wrong (beyond the usual error bars) if pretty much all of science is wrong, too; if you think that is the case, present something better. Show your work.

Have ever played poker and been dealt a straight flush?

Have you ever played poker twenty times a second for a year and still never been dealt a straight flush?

I said a-million-to-one odds happen 8 times a day in NYC. Your reply is that you're not in NYC – yet you haven't even tried to find out where you really are. You simply can't imagine that you're in NYC, so you claim you're not...

Apply that to how new genes were formed. Can you see why gene duplication became a doctrine out of desperation?

No. How often gene duplication happens is observable, you dolt.

"And why do you think that beneficial mutations occurring are too miraculous to ever occur?"

Well, for two reasons. The first is because if I ask you for examples, your list is 1) embarrassing, and 2) embarrassingly short. Surely you realize that you need countless billions of them. So it is not a matter of "too miraculous". It is the necessity of countless and consistent miracles.

1) Countless billions for what? The evolution of icefish antifreeze required perhaps ten mutations in total. In other words, it required that ten out of... how many mutations be along the required lines? Remember that you, you personally, have 100 to 200 mutations that both of your parents lack. All these mutations must have happened in your parents' germlines or when you were a zygote.

2) Did you seriously believe Stanton was giving you a complete list of known beneficial mutations? He didn't even mention the cecal valves of that Adriatic lizard, FFS. We're not going to do your homework for you and dredge the literature for days.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 17, 2012 6:50 PM

The establishment is very faith-structured and really, contrary to the claims, it does not like surprises unless they fit into the paradigm, comfortably or uncomfortably.

If you weren't such a stupid dishonest hypocrite YEC, you'd see that that explains, very nicely, how most non-atheists who accept evolution -- "the establishment", indeed -- are theistic evolutionists, not liking the "surprise" that we live in a world with no sign of a God that does anything. They insist that evolution fits into the "paradigm" of theism.

For instance, if bio-material is discovered, and convention demands that you accept that it is intact after 65-80 million years old,

Only a completely dishonest shitbag would repeat this stupid dishonest strawman when this was repeatedly covered, and your stupid dishonest hypocrisy was pointed out and refuted.

it is okay to discard everything known and normal.

What is this "everything known and normal" that is purportedly being "discarded", you dishonest asshole?

But you cannot question the dating methodology

No, you can indeed "question" the dates of the fucking Cretaceous, as long as you have actual empirical evidence in support of your "questions".

Do you? Like fuck you do.

because the TOE requires millions of years for statistical miracles to work.

The earth is about 4550 million years old. I'm sorry that you're such an idiot that you don't understand the science of radiometric dating. And the fact that the theory of evolution is consistent with this age is just a matter of science being internally consistent. I'm sorry you have an ideological commitment to being a stupid and dishonest asshole to the point where you cannot understand that, and refuse to allow yourself to understand that.

The default will always favor the theory, and make it as elastic as necessary to accomodate the data.

Yes, that's because the "default" is that which is consistent with empirical evidence, cumulative prior knowledge, and newly discovered facts. Any new theory would have to explain everything that the current theory does, and any new data as well.

I'm sorry you have an ideological commitment to being a stupid and dishonest asshole to the point where you cannot understand that, and refuse to allow yourself to understand that.

Can you see why gene duplication became a doctrine out of desperation?

The only doctrine of desperation is your doctrine of desperate stupidity and dishonesty.

Posted by: txpiper | April 18, 2012 6:11 AM

"Please tell us all you know about DNA replication enzymes."

Enough to recognize that there is no reason to ever supposed that they formed accidentally.

"I was taught DNA replication and DNA repair in great detail as an undergrad in molecular biology."

What they do is not the issue. It is about how they randomly 'evolved'. See, you didn't pause either.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 18, 2012 7:14 AM

It is about how they randomly 'evolved'.

Right...so the rep enzymes are actually causing the replication errors.

This is another one of those life-saving manure fires out there burning on the tundra.

Posted by: Stanton | April 18, 2012 8:52 AM

"1. precise mechanisms for how mutations can occur during replications directly from the actions of these enzymes and 2. the rate of mutations produced by these enzymes precisely matched the range of mutation rates that the theory of evolution predicted."

Right...so the rep enzymes are actually causing the replication errors. This is another one of those life-saving manure fires out there burning on the tundra.

What makes you think that your own deliberate, ignorance-induced disbelief trumps actual science?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 18, 2012 9:18 AM

This is another one of those life-saving manure fires out there burning on the tundra.

The early settlers of the northern prairies used cow manure for fire in the winters, since wood was so scarce. The reindeer herders of the Siberian Tundra used reindeer manure. The inuit, who build the igloos the texpip earlier referred to in its sad attempt at a racist joke, probably didn't, since they didn't have access to cows.

A simple google search of the terms "manure" and "fire" reveals countless recommendations for modern uses in various situations.

Of course the texpip is ignorant of this history, pathetic racist that it is.

Pitiful.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 18, 2012 9:25 AM

Enough to recognize that there is no reason to ever supposed that they formed accidentally.

And here we have yet another of the texpip's pitiful lies - it's continued use of the "formed accidentally" argument.

Natural selection is not accidental, and therefore the combined process of random mutation + natural selection is not random. This has already been explained to the texpip, but the liar again conveniently pretends to not have had that conversation.

What they do is not the issue.

Another lie. It is an issue since the texpip continues to lie about them, what they are capable of, and what they are not capable of.

It is about how they randomly 'evolved'.

Doubling down on the "random" lie.

E pour si mutates.
E pour si selects.

E POUR SI EVOLVES.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 18, 2012 11:45 AM

"Please tell us all you know about DNA replication enzymes."

Enough to recognize that there is no reason to ever supposed that they formed accidentally.

What exactly? Tell us.

"I was taught DNA replication and DNA repair in great detail as an undergrad in molecular biology."

What they do is not the issue. It is about how they randomly 'evolved'.

*sigh* Mutation is random, selection is not... genes for better replication enzymes have a great selective advantage, because they are reproduced more often.

What do you want? A detailed hypothesis about how proteins became involved in RNA replication in the first place?

See, you didn't pause either.

Pause for what? What do you mean?

Right...so the rep enzymes are actually causing the replication errors.

The replication enzymes are not perfect. They're very good*, but not perfect. Many mutations are nothing other than imperfect DNA replication. This is an observed fact.

And if you demented fuckwit knew anything, at a fucking highschool level, about DNA, you'd fucking know that already! Have you no shame at all!!!

What next? Will you write a textbook about turtle biology when all you know about turtles is Yertle the Turtle and try to mock all turtle biologists? Seriously, I'm not exaggerating, that's the magnitude of your Dunning/Kruger effect.

* Well, most of them. Under conditions of stress, less precise enzymes are used for DNA repair, for instance DNA polymerase V in bacteria. ...And if you don't know why replication enzymes are involved in repair, go read a fucking book or Wikipedia.

What makes you think that DNA replication is a process totally without flaw?

His complete and utter lack of knowledge of chemistry. That's what.

What kind of highschool did you go to, txpiper? Any at all?

E pour

I don't know if eppur or e pur is the better spelling (I've seen both), but ou isn't in there. It occurs in French, not in Italian.

(Both versions are pronounced the same; Standard Italian does distinguish long and short consonants, but consonants at the beginning of a word are automatically long.)

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 18, 2012 6:59 PM

The Inuit probably collected a variety of wild herbivore dung for fire purposes, but not having domesticated herbivores would have made that source unreliable in the depths of winter (the dung of carnivores, like the Inuit's huskies, being less ideal for fire due to lack of fibrous plant material).

I suspect that in winter the Inuit relied most on seal blubber for fuel for fires.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 18, 2012 11:11 PM

Natural selection occurs in populations. From what I've read, there are some who are convinced that it can occur at the molecular level in genes.

What makes you think that a group of genes is not a population, in the statistical sense?

There is no reason whatever, except the need for a fairy, to think that it has anything to do with the original formation of enzymes.

You need a fairy, therefore you think that a fairy had something to do with the original formation of enzymes?

You don't even care if you're making sense, do you?

Even if it did, it can't make things happen.

You don't even care if you're contradicting yourself...

It can only 'select' from accidents that happen. In the case of replication enzymes, very complex accidents.

Which don't have to happen simultaneously.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2012 12:15 AM

so... arguing evolution again with idiots that don't even understand the basics of it?

*sigh*

alright.

Natural selection occurs in populations. From what I've read, there are some who are convinced that it can occur at the molecular level in genes.

it occurs both within populations, and externally on populations. You should look at selective pressures as simply things which favor the expression of one phenotype over another wrt to how each increases the fitness of the bearer in a a specific population.

selection does not act on genes directly, but indirectly through the phenotypes expressed by those genes in reaction to development and environment.

Any effect on the expression of a specific gene that is heritable is selectable, but the pressure of that selection will be entirely dependent on how much influence that particular trait has on fitness.

so, yes, if a mutation arises that increases the efficiency of a specific enzyme for say, digesting complex sugars in hummingbirds, then indeed you will see a single gene change spread through the population of hummingbirds in that area very quickly.

if, OTOH, you get a modification of a gene that affects say, avoidance behavior of rattlesnakes... while certainly beneficial in the extremely rare circumstances where rattlesnakes might actually be able to eat a hummingbird, the fact that such a selective pressure as rattlesnake predation being quite rare, also means that such a gene change in behavior would likely, while still favorable, be overcome by simple drift.

so, in short:

No, selection does not act on genes, but on phenotypes. It does not make sense for selective pressures to act on anything but exhibited traits.

If you really can't understand this, then you can't understand the theory of natural selection, and should just fuck right off and stop bothering the nice people here.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2012 12:28 AM

This is another one of those life-saving manure fires out there burning on the tundra.

This oddly makes me curious.

what exactly is wrong with burning buffalo shit to stay warm?

The logic of using this phrase as a criticism eludes me...

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 19, 2012 12:44 AM

This oddly makes me curious. what exactly is wrong with burning buffalo shit to stay warm?

The texpip apparently thinks it isn't true. The pitiful racist seems to think that the Arctic tundra is populated by only igloo-making Eskimos who don't own cattle, and that cold northern regions exist only in North America, and that Europe and Siberia, along with their reindeer-herding indigenous cultures, don't exist, or something.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 19, 2012 10:10 AM

selection does not act on genes directly, but indirectly through the phenotypes expressed by those genes in reaction to development and environment.

But recall that what he's whining about (this time; he will no doubt shift the goalposts to something else) is "prove that a magic fairy didn't make DNA polymerase/replication enzymes". Obviously, those enzymes (and DNA itself) did not always exist. He wants the exact chemical evolution chain from, say, RNA + ribozymes (or more likely, basic chemicals) to → transcribed DNA+DNA replication enzymes.

(And if given all that, at every level of detail, would no doubt ignore it all and still whine "But you haven't proven that a magic fairy didn't do it!")

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 19, 2012 3:45 PM

He wants the exact chemical evolution chain from, say, RNA + ribozymes (or more likely, basic chemicals) to → transcribed DNA+DNA replication enzymes.

And if you give it that, it'll then demand to know where ribozymes and RNA came from (hell, this particular liar has already done that, having spent a fair bit of time on prior threads wanking about the RNA world hypotheses).

But if you turn around and ask it where its creator-entity came from, it just ignores you.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 19, 2012 3:55 PM

There is no reason whatever, except the need for a fairy, to think that it has anything to do with the original formation of enzymes.

Assume, for a moment, that we really did need a fairy to make our explanation work. Which is more parsimonious, a natural selection fairy, which is relatively simple, limited, with a specific set of capabilities (that can be described succintly in a single paragraph of text), or an all-powerful creator fairy, and entity of awesome magnitude, that has to be capable of stopping suns, moving moons, flooding planets, aborting Bathsheba's bastard fetus in a fit of misdirected pique, impregnating a virgin, being its own father, and drawing its face on toast.

Even in fairy-land, evolution by random mutation and natural selection beats out creator theory, every time.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2012 7:19 PM

He wants the exact chemical evolution chain from, say, RNA + ribozymes (or more likely, basic chemicals) to → transcribed DNA+DNA replication enzymes.

oh.

what a waste of time then.

I suppose we should respond with a request for his entire daily activity list since he was born?

what, you mean that's unreasonable?

You mean I can figure out what his life was like WITHOUT the complete list of every single thing he's done since birth?

no way!

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 19, 2012 7:50 PM

I'd like a fairy who only does natural selection and can make representations of itself in pieces of toast. That would be totally cool. It would be awesome if, besides toast, you could see it in dog's asses.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 20, 2012 12:08 AM

Now if someone were to show where (all of) the homochiral amino acids came from, how they all wound up in the same place, what concentrated them, and how they could bond into a long and complicated sequence that does something, all of this without any coercion, then I would have to consider that mutations (if you could call anything involved that) and natural selection, a very powerful combination.

You're lying. You would never consider any such thing, because you would have to actually read and understand all the papers, and you never read anything except creationist bullshit, and you don't understand anything that isn't creationist bullshit.

And back in 2006, you sneered and said just such a putative demonstration "would only be a mimic." You're still as much of an asshole now, and perhaps even a worse asshole.

But this looks more like just a belief to me, not so much different from the quest of the alchemists.

For fuck's sake.

Alchemists believed in magic.

You believe in magic.

Scientists don't believe in magic.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

"then demand to know where ribozymes and RNA came from"
Exactly.

Or in other words, you would never stop asking for proof that a magic fairy didn't do it. Because you believe in magic, and refuse to not believe in magic.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 20, 2012 4:39 AM

More mindless and evidenceless drivel from tex. No science, logic, or reason present, just inane hatred for an idea he an't refute.

When will it ever provide the solid and conclusive evidence it needs for its imaginary deity? That is the first thing creationists must do,. and it appears to be something they are incapable of. They irrationally and illogically believe all they have to do is to trash evolution. WRONG, FRACTALLY WRONG. They must prove their ideas with evidence, starting with their imagined deity. No presupposition allowed. Hard and conclusive evidence. But nothing but presupposition on their part. Dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Stanton | April 20, 2012 9:02 AM

Scientists don't believe in magic. What the fuck is wrong with you?

He believes we're intellectually dishonest. He believes we're so stupid that we've actually managed to overlook an issue on which we do believe in magic. Not only is he wrong, he's projecting. Projection is a common component of the Dunning/Kruger effect.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 20, 2012 6:02 PM

Now if someone were to show where (all of) the homochiral amino acids came from, how they all wound up in the same place, what concentrated them, and how they could bond into a long and complicated sequence that does something, all of this without any coercion, then I would have to consider that mutations (if you could call anything involved that) and natural selection, a very powerful combination.

Another pitiful lie by the texpip, following its same old pattern. It brought up the chirality question on previous threads, and was buried under a mountain of citations to the primary literature. Fact of the matter, someone HAS ALREADY shown the odious liar the answers to all its questions.

But of course, this is a new thread, so it lies about what happens in previous threads.

Pathetic.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 20, 2012 6:33 PM

But I just don’t accept stuff like that just because somebody says it.

And yet the texpip accepts everything it believes about a creator just because somebody says it.

HYPOCRITICAL pathetic liar too boot. (Not that we didn't already know this).

But this looks more like just a belief to me, not so much different from the quest of the alchemists.

Interesting that the texpip would bring up alchemy as an analogy. Alchemy, as a pre-science, shared some of the aspects of the scientific method. The ancient alchemists formulated hypotheses, tried to apply parsimony at least some of the time, TESTED their hypothesis, made observations and adjusted their hypotheses when new data became available. (They didn't do peer review, though, most individual alchemists were too afraid of their "secrets" being stolen by a rival to share them much).

The alchemists successfully discovered and categorized several of the major types of chemical reaction classes. They discovered (and delineated the properties thereof) quite a number of new elements (including oxygen, which several alchemists isolated before Priestley). They invented chemical techniques, like distillation, which chemistry still depends heavily on today. Practically every single piece of glassware seen in a modern chemistry lab has its roots in alchemy.

On purely practical grounds, alchemy blows creationism/design out of the water. Alchemists have done more good in this world, and were closer to being right about the fundamental nature of reality, than creationists and IDists have ever been, or ever will be. Even though some of its foundational premises were incorrect, alchemy actually helped advance the state of human knowledge, and contributed directly to the betterment of the human condition in this world.

Creationism/ID has done ZERO in this regard.

WHY, OH MIGHT MAKER, WHY???????

Posted by: Nightjar | April 20, 2012 7:23 PM

So, he believes that mutations and natural selection produced a whole suite of complex and complimentary enzymes. Not individuals in a population, and not genes, but very sophisticated, functional, role-specific molecules.

What? Saying that mutations modify/produce new enzymes is technically the same as saying that mutations modify/produce new genes (namely, the genes that encode those enzymes). And saying that mutations generate variation in a population of individuals is technically the same as saying that mutations modify/produce new proteins (like, say, enzymes) in some individuals making them slightly different from other individuals in the same population which don't carry that mutation.

I have to agree with David. I can't see why someone who knows that enzymes are encoded by genes and why different individuals are different would write the above. Unless that someone is just a dishonest troll, of course.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 21, 2012 3:07 AM

Well that must be a letdown for anyone still enthusiastic about the Miller-Urey experiment.

*headdesk*

The stupid burns like the sun!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 21, 2012 5:51 AM

Yawn, tex can't show his imaginary creator exists, and is just stupidly and ignorantly trolling. Abiogenesis happened. It is easy to show the steps happened in chemistry. It did so without your imaginary creator tex, unless you can show conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary creator. And you don't even try tex. Like you know it doesn't exist, and all you can do is whine and throw a temper tantrum like you are doing. Immature, tex.

Posted by: Stanton | April 21, 2012 10:09 AM

Can't you write a single sentence about any subject at all without leading people to the conclusion that you have no idea what you're talking about?

Posted by: Stanton | April 21, 2012 1:59 PM

Stop making arguments from personal lack of education.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 21, 2012 3:53 PM

Funny that the texpip should mention the Dead Sea. Funny thing about the Dead Sea, IT ACTUALLY EXISTS. And it's pretty big.

So the texpip is conceding that there are places on earth where chemicals can get concentrated by natural processes. It only takes one such place for abiogenesis to get going. Life will spread from there.

Nice to see the texpip conceding the whole argument, yet again.

Posted by: Nightjar | April 21, 2012 5:33 PM

Nightjar, it's interesting that you mention glyceraldehyde. Is D-glyceraldehyde generally involved in sugar synthesis? Because any sugars built by lengthening that chain would stay D.

In nature? Yes, that's pretty much how sugars are generally synthesized by organisms. It's activated form, D-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, is what comes off of the Calvin Cycle and other carbon assimilation pathways to be used in sugar synthesis, and heterotrophic organisms can also use it as the biosynthetic precursor to build 4, 5, 6 and 7-carbon sugars via the pentose phosphate pathway (non-oxidative). The chain isn't lengthened one carbon unit at a time, but the effect is the same. The enzymes involved are transaldolase and transketolase*, and it's all about aldol cleavages and condensations.

* Transketolase catalyses the transfer of a two-carbon unit from a ketose to an aldose, transaldolase does the same but with a three-carbon unit. If you want to begin from D-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate molecules only there are two more enzymes involved: an isomerase to convert one glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate to one dihydroxyacetone phosphate, and an aldolase to catalyse the aldol condensation between them and get frutose.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 21, 2012 8:09 PM

Well, it looks like we've come pretty much full circle.

Now you're just perverting the truth, since that very article links to the actual page on abiogenesis.

Why are you such a dishonest asshole?

You basically wrote, above, that if you didn't believe in God, you would be an asshole. But you already are an asshole.

So ... by your own twisted loopy logic, you don't believe in God.

Regardless of whether you believe in some Magic Fairy, you're being an asshole here because you believe most of all in being an enormous stinky asshole.

  And the Magic Fairy said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, which is a huge asshole: and let them be assholes all the damn time ... [...] And the Magic Fairy formed man of the shit of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the fart of life; and man became a huge asshole.
-- Abio-Genesis, according to txpiper/Phil Corn.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 21, 2012 8:34 PM

Well, it looks like we've come pretty much full circle.

Once people believed that light was made of particles. Then, a series of observations and arguments began that discredited this idea. Light, it turned out, was a wave. This advance in scientific understanding was met with much opposition, with personal beliefs and individual prejudices often obscuring the facts. But in the end the empirical results were clear. Light behaved like a wave.

And then, in turned out, with further investigation, that light was made of things that possessed the properties of both particles AND waves.

And thus has science advanced.

"Come pretty much full circle"?

An apt analogy. Stupid fools with no depth perception look and think they see a circle. Intellectually dishonest and lazy liars insist it MUST be a circle and refuse to look further.

Change your perspective slightly and you realize that it is not a circle. It is a helix - ever advancing.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 21, 2012 9:30 PM

Tex appears to do the same thing the other creobots do. He has his creobot wheel of topics to whine about, and to keep from looking too stupid keeps changing the topics of his whines in order. *l*n Cl*arke did that too. We could almost predict when the Michigan basin fucwittery would reappear. How long it tex's cycle of stupidity?

Posted by: txpiper | April 22, 2012 1:45 AM

"it is not a circle. It is a helix - ever advancing"

Perhaps both helical and circular, a classic Mobius strip, where you cover twice as much distance before you are right back where you started.

Posted by: Stanton | April 22, 2012 3:38 AM

Change your perspective slightly and you realize that it is not a circle. It is a helix - ever advancing.

He is an arrogant, science-hating narcissist who is far too comfortable with his own limited intellect, and smothering dishonesty.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 22, 2012 8:18 AM

Funny that the texpip should mention the Dead Sea. Funny thing about the Dead Sea, IT ACTUALLY EXISTS. And it's pretty big.

So the texpip is conceding that there are places on earth where chemicals can get concentrated by natural processes. It only takes one such place for abiogenesis to get going.

What is more, it only takes one such place in five hundred or more million years. There's a lot of time between the oldest known evidence for continents and oceans and the oldest known evidence for life.

Well, it looks like we've come pretty much full circle.

Not quite. We've shown that Gaia is just as unnecessary a hypothesis as Yahwe, and we've disproved a lot of hypotheses about how life originates and what conditions are necessary for that.

Now go and read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis. Come back when you've read it all. Yes, I know it's long. We can wait.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 22, 2012 9:15 AM

Caught redhanded? You [I] have a really peculiar way of looking at things Stanton.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 22, 2012 10:18 AM

This TalkOrigins article discusses Pasteur and spontaneous generation.

What Louis Pasteur and the others who denied spontaneous generation demonstrated is that life does not currently spontaneously arise in complex form from nonlife in nature; he did not demonstrate the impossibility of life arising in simple form from nonlife by way of a long and propitious series of chemical steps/selections. In particular, they did not show that life cannot arise once, and then evolve. Neither Pasteur, nor any other post-Darwin researcher in this field, denied the age of the earth or the fact of evolution. [emphasis in original]

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 22, 2012 11:41 AM

You claim you don't give a damn, but on the other hand, you complain whenever we point out your blatant dishonest to you, to the point where you always try to accuse us of being mindless idiots for not mindlessly agreeing with whatever dishonest nonsense you're foisting upon us.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 22, 2012 5:11 PM

Evidently the texpip was designed that way.

R.
W.
A.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 22, 2012 6:19 PM

txpiper, you're too superficial to understand anything. Ever.

You need to work on that.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 22, 2012 6:44 PM

Perhaps both helical and circular, a classic Mobius strip, where you cover twice as much distance before you are right back where you started.

On a Mobius strip, there is NO start.

Analogy fail, again.

A mobius cosmos, incidentally, is a closed time-like curve, and has no beginning, no end, and no need for creator or explanation.

How nice of the texpip to introduce yet another analogy that concedes the argument!

Posted by: Stanton | April 22, 2012 8:04 PM

txpiper, you're too superficial to understand anything. Ever. You need to work on that.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 23, 2012 12:47 AM

I don't think so David.

did you ever look up Dunning-Kruger syndrome like we asked you to?

From my point of view, you guys appraise things in terms of one set of exquisitve miracles after another.

add projection to the list of things you need to look up.

If you are really going to do science

I'd have to do a brain transplant on you for you to even understand what science is.

you're dumb. you're ignorant. you're ill-informed. you're obtuse. you're uneducated. you know nothing of which you speak.

Is any of this getting through that thick skull?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 23, 2012 1:15 AM

If it is genes, you throw gene duplication at the problem as if a mutant copy results in an automatically functional mutant, courtesy of more fortuitous accidents.

YET ANOTHER LIE from the texpip. NO ONE (except the texpip, of course) has EVER calimed that a mutant copy results in an "automatically functional mutant". In fact we have given the texpip extensive evidence concerning gene duplications, demonstrating the creation of both functional, unchanged copies, functional, mutated copies, and NONFUNCTIONAL copies broken by mutations (which we even told the texpip were the most common type, which end up making up a significant proportion of eukaryotic non-functional DNA)

More bearing of false witness against us by the texpip.

Pathetic, pitiful LIAR.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 23, 2012 5:28 AM

Still arrogant and Ignorant tex. Stop thinking you are smart and knowledgable. That is the start of real wisdom. You are one dumb fuck who lies and bullshits daily, both to yourself and us. Get yourself a real education. Start by renouncing your unevidenced and imaginary deity. After all, no deity, no creation by a deity.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 23, 2012 9:11 AM

If the subject is amino acids, you simply appeal to the cosmos,

What, "simply"? I'm talking about a paper I once saw. I'm too busy to do your homework, which is to find it.

...No, wait, actually I'm not. I just searched Google Scholar, a search engine that finds papers, for starlight chiral "amino acids". Within 0.29 seconds, I was presented with 144 results, each of them a paper about this topic. I had no idea there were that many.

If you'd like to read papers you don't have free access to, find me in Google Scholar and e-mail me.

and ignore probabilities and steer clear of the logistical and practical details.

Tell us the probabilities.

Yes, in numbers. Scary request, huh?

If it is beneficial mutations, they become instantly available on the whim of imagination, ignoring the realities about how rare they are, and that billions of them would have been necessary to account for that many supposed biological features and species, living and extinct.

Don't say "instantly" ,"rare", "billions" or "that many". Give us numbers.

Once you do, so will I.

If it is genes, you throw gene duplication at the problem as if a mutant copy results in an automatically functional mutant, courtesy of more fortuitous accidents.

Complete misunderstanding. Most duplicates become pseudogenes (look up what that means); very few escape. Ten percent of the human genome consist of pseudogenes; that's about 4 times as much as functional genes. But gene duplication is common enough for that in the long run. I'm sure there's an observed number published somewhere; go try to find it.

If you are really going to do science, you have to work very hard at sticking to the data

You, on the other hand, should learn what data there are out there.

You're not even trying.

did you ever look up Dunning-Kruger syndrome like we asked you to?

Of course he didn't. The Dunning/Kruger effect protects itself: txpiper believes he already knows enough and doesn't need to learn anything more.

Posted by: God | April 23, 2012 1:46 PM

WHY, OH MIGHTY MAKER, WHY?????

Because.

Posted by: God | April 23, 2012 1:51 PM

Or even: "Because I said so!", hm?

Feel free to provide a fuller exegesis of My word...

Posted by: God | April 23, 2012 2:18 PM

Therefore, the shitty behavior in question.
 
How's that?

Very nice!

I do like a good appeal to evo-psych.

However, I had in mind something... a little more theological, maybe.

Posted by: God | April 23, 2012 2:37 PM

What, something Calvinistic? Man is ever evil in his heart, and all that?

A little less indirect. Think: Why did I create You?

Posted by: stuv.myopenid.com | April 23, 2012 3:58 PM

Hey, by the way, David, Sastra, even heddle if you're here... look who's crapping all over an Orac thread.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 23, 2012 4:54 PM

Again, txpiper would sooner kill himself than contemplate doing this.

well, since the implication is there...

Well, Pipster?

need some helpful tips?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyKB1DSl1IY

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 23, 2012 5:04 PM

...see?

http://www.satanic-kindred.org/images/Bap2.gif

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 23, 2012 8:28 PM

"you're too superficial to understand anything"
I don't think so David.

But you're wrong.

From my point of view

Your point of view is wrong.

you guys appraise things in terms of one set of exquisitve miracles after another.

Or rather, you don't understand anything at all, and from your incomprehension, call evidence-based hypotheses "miracles". Or you call obvious distortions of the actual evidence-based facts "miracles".

It is your stupidity -- or perhaps, more likely, your failure to approach the science honestly -- that leads you to call science "miracles".

If the subject is amino acids, you simply appeal to the cosmos,

It's a fact that amino acids exist in meteorites.

It's a fact that amino acids in meteorites have slight preponderance of those that have the same chiral form as those on Earth.

It's a fact that the Earth was bombarded by meteorites early in its history.

and ignore probabilities

Which probabilities?

and steer clear of the logistical and practical details.

It's a hypothesis. It may not be the best hypothesis, but science has no problem with multiple hypotheses being proposed and tested. Certainly, "logistical and practical details" cannot be worked out unless the base idea is out there to be worked on.

Contrast with the magic-fairy conjecture, for which there is not even enough evidence to be considered a hypothesis.

If it is beneficial mutations, they become instantly available on the whim of imagination,

Now you're just lying.

It's a fact that mutations occur.

It's a fact that some quantity of them can be beneficial, based on the environment.

It's a fact that, now, looking at the DNA of organisms, it can be seen that mutations occurred (based on comparison with related organisms), and that some of the mutations were beneficial

ignoring the realities about how rare they are

No-one is ignoring that.

You are ignoring the reality that they do occur, and can propagate to descendants via natural selection.

and that billions of them would have been necessary to account for that many supposed biological features and species, living and extinct.

So what?

If it is genes, you throw gene duplication at the problem as if a mutant copy results in an automatically functional mutant, courtesy of more fortuitous accidents.

And you're lying again.

So in order to get "miracles", you have to be dishonest.

You and Nightjar are exceptional here, quite gifted in my estimation.

They're not just gifted. They are educated, in all of the fields that you do nothing but sneer at and lie about. They are not afraid to look stuff up, while you never do anything but occasionally skim looking for quotes to mine and sentences or paragraphs to distort and lie about. They try to rationally become less wrong, while you dishonestly characterize empirical epistemology as "the least asinine thing on a list of asinine things".

They are honest scientists. If you actually admire them, why don't you emulate them?

You should have a much higher threshold concerning evidence.

Your "threshold concerning evidence" is hypocritical: you have zero evidence for your magic fairy, but you insist on keeping it anyway.

Posted by: Militant Agnostic | April 23, 2012 10:32 PM

Tis Himself

Is McCarthy still trying to blame atheism for the Stalinist purges? We refuted that for him years ago.

Now he is blaming "materialism" for not only Stalin's purges, but all fascism as well. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco must have been atheists - who knew? Apparently, materialism eventually inevitably leads to fascism. As well, materialism, abiogenisis and multiverses are all "superstition".

I recommend investing in oatmeal futures because there will be shortage due to his continuous use of the No True Scotsman fallacy. He has been caught altering Richard Dawkins quotes. Txpip is a piker compared to AM. What a fooking loogan.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 24, 2012 9:23 AM

Hey, by the way, David, Sastra, even heddle if you're here... look who's crapping all over an Orac thread.

Too boring.

Bionumbers!

Awesome!

no fair, you use facts. You're supposed to just pull shit arguments out of your ass like scifi does!

+ 1

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 24, 2012 10:00 PM

Well, perhaps. The evidence for this is inferred, not direct. But there is still no reason to believe that the other dozen amino acids utilized in proteins were in those either, or that any of them were homochiral.

How would you suppose that everything necessary wound up in one molecule-sized place at the same time?

Posted by: txpiper | April 24, 2012 10:34 PM

"Anybody familiar with abiogenesis witll tell you"

ha ha...anybody familiar with abiogenesis will tell you anything you want to hear about something they don't know shit from apple butter about.

"Small peptides combine to form bigger peptides. We do that all the time in our chemistry labs"

Yes, but that is 'we' doing that. There wasn't any 'we' with an objective in abiogenesis. I can appreciate you invoking the need for a designer. But back to your random, unguided world, no matter how exquisite any accidental formation might have been, there would have been absolutely nothing for it to do.

By the way, you've defaulted to the very un-chic "proteins first" idea.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 25, 2012 1:56 AM

ha ha...anybody familiar with abiogenesis will tell you anything you want to hear about something they don't know shit from apple butter about.

How would you know? You don't read abiogenesis research. You just sneer at the researchers, because you're an asshole.

Posted by: Nightjar | April 25, 2012 7:34 AM

Well, yeah. If I recall, they've identified 80 or 90 in the Murchison. But only 8 of the 20 involved in life.

So what? It's not like they had to come all in one meteorite. It's not even like they had to come all from space. As Owlmirror points out, there are other hypotheses.

Yes, a small L bias, usually around 2% the last time I read anything about it.

A small bias is enough. See, for example: Levine, M., Kenesky, C.S., Mazori, D. & Breslow, R. (2008) Enantioselective Synthesis and Enantiomeric Amplification of Amino Acids under Prebiotic Conditions. Organic Letters 10:2433–2436. (Sorry it's not free, but I can send it to you if you want to take a look.)

Also, look what I found: Breslow, R. & Cheng, ZL. (2010) L-amino acids catalyze the formation of an excess of D-glyceraldehyde, and thus of other D sugars, under credible prebiotic conditions. PNAS 107, 5723-5725:

We, and others, showed that as little as a 1% excess of the L isomers could be amplified up to a 95/5 ratio of L over D on simple evaporation of a solution, so life could start with such a solution in which the dominant L isomers would be selectively chosen. We now find that the geometry of sugars referred to D, as in D-ribose or D-glucose, is not an independent mystery. D-glyceraldehyde, the simplest sugar with a D center, is the basic unit on which other sugars are built. We find that the synthesis of glyceraldehyde by reaction of formaldehyde with glycolaldehyde is catalyzed under prebiotic conditions to D/L ratios greater than 1, to as much as 60/40, by a representative group of L-amino acids (with the exception of L-proline). The D/L glyceraldehyde ratio in water solution is amplified to 92/8 using simple selective solubilities of the D and the DL forms. This D center would then be carried into the prebiotic syntheses of larger sugars.

So, you see, the "polarized light deal" may after all help with the homochirality observed in the sugars, too. Now, why do we have to do all the research for you, txpiper?

Posted by: Stanton | April 25, 2012 9:27 AM

Come on tex, show some honesty and integrity for a change.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 25, 2012 11:10 AM

"It's a fact that amino acids exist in meteorites."

Well, yeah. If I recall, they've identified 80 or 90 in the Murchison. But only 8 of the 20 involved in life.

So what? Life clearly didn't start with all 20. Even today there are bacteria in which glutamine and asparagine are synthesized on their tRNAs from glutamic and asparagic acid.

And that's before we get to selenocysteine and pyrrholysine.

"It's a fact that the Earth was bombarded by meteorites early in its history."

Well, perhaps. The evidence for this is inferred, not direct.

*facepalm*

All other rocky bodies in the solar system show unmistakable evidence of it, and it's predicted from all models of how the solar system could have formed. For that bombardment to spare the Earth would have required a miracle.

it is argued that the early atmosphere may have been more reducing than previously calculated (Tian F, Toon OB, Pavlov AA, De Sterck H (2005) A hydrogen-rich early Earth atmosphere. Science 308: 1014-1017), allowing for the local chemical formation of amino acids.

:-o

Thirty percent of hydrogen in the atmosphere! That's fucking fascinating! That's almost Miller/Urey territory!

Also, even a neutral atmosphere can result in more chemical formation of amino acids than previously thought (Cleaves HJ, Chalmers JH, Lazcano A, Miller SL, Bada JL (2008) A reassessment of prebiotic organic synthesis in neutral planetary atmospheres. Orig. Life Evol. Biosph.38:105-115).

That's even better.

For shits & giggles, it cites Jonathan Wells's book in the introduction! Goes on to refute it, of course.

And yes, the ocean did contain lots and lots of iron-II till oxygen from photosynthesis removed it all. Similar things hold for sulfide.

Check out what the paper says about oxygen on p. 112.

Breslow, R. & Cheng, ZL. (2010) L-amino acids catalyze the formation of an excess of D-glyceraldehyde, and thus of other D sugars, under credible prebiotic conditions. PNAS 107, 5723-5725

Flat-out awesome.

Now, txpiper, read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis. I dare you.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 25, 2012 5:36 PM

So what? Life clearly didn't start with all 20.

The genetic code itself is very strong evidence in support of this. The first two codons that specify for each amino acid are deterministic (only the third varies significantly). The first codon is tightly associated with the precursor molecule from which the amino acid is synthesized, and the second is strongly correlated to the degree of hydrophobicity of the amino acid.

Furthermore, the most common and simpler 16 amino acids hog the vast majority of the 64 possible codon combinations, while the last 4, rarest and more complex amino acids have to make do with only a few or even one codon combination each.

This is highly suggestive of the genetic code and amino acid synthesis evolving together in tandem - ie life started with fewer amino acids and a simpler genetic code (it could even be all the way down to 4 amino acids, each associated with one tRNA base, and new amino acids were added by evolutionary additions to the pre-existing synthesis pathways, wherein the existing pathway can be duplicated and altered to make a slightly different amino acid, or an additional step is added to turn a pre-existing amino acid into another, closely related one (allowing the same pathway to produce quantities of both amino acids). The hydrophobicity association suggests that transport of amino acids through cell membranes may have played some role in this evolutionary process.

And at some early point life may have stabilized for a while at 16 amino acids (or 15 and 1 stop codon), with a 2-letter code, followed by expansion to a 3 letter code in which the third letter carried no information but was just a placeholder (and something as simple as space considerations in protein synthesis could have favored this). Following this there was a period of codon-capture in which the 16 amino acids specified by the first two codons became associated with different 3rd codons, turning the code redundant, and at some point in this process, the last 4 amino acids were added (which became possible now that you had a redundant 3-letter code), but they were left with fewer free 3-letter codes among them, as the other pre-existing amino acids had already "claimed" most of the available combinations.*

Even today there are bacteria in which glutamine and asparagine are synthesized on their tRNAs from glutamic and asparagic acid.

Which further supports the idea of an association in synthesis between the amino acids and their tRNAs/specific codes.

*this is from the pertinent chapter of Lane's "Life Ascending"

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 25, 2012 5:40 PM

anybody familiar with abiogenesis will tell you anything you want to hear about something they don't know shit from apple butter about

And the texpip bears false witness against its neighbour yet again.

Pitiful hypocrite.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 25, 2012 5:49 PM

I don't see why you would think that there was some mysterious, random natural process.

On the one hand we have PARTIALLY unknown natural processes which are only PARTLY mysterious, but obey well known laws, which can be investigated and tested, glimpses of which we can actually see with our own eyes and evaluate as pieces in a puzzle to see if in aggregate they make sense together (which they do), with each step of investigation yielding more insight into the process, more USEFUL direction in terms of which specific questions we should ask next, and more DIRECTLY PRACTICAL applications to other real-world problems.

On the other hand we have WHY, OH MIGHTY MAKER, WHY??????

Which hypothesis is preferable?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 25, 2012 6:58 PM

The Chicxulub Crater is evidence that the Earth has been hit by asteroids and comets. Incidentally, this event is believed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 25, 2012 7:46 PM

If txpiper found himself, gun in hand, smoke trailing from the barrel, ears ringing from the bang, and a large, bleeding hole in his foot, no doubt he'd say that it was inferred that he'd shot himself, and not direct.

Maybe a magic fairy secretly did it.

Posted by: Stanton | April 25, 2012 8:17 PM

If txpiper found himself, gun in hand, smoke trailing from the barrel, ears ringing from the bang, and a large, bleeding hole in his foot, no doubt he'd say that it was inferred that he'd shot himself, and not direct. Maybe a magic fairy secretly did it.

Incidentally, this event(the Chicxulub impact) is believed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

Posted by: txpiper | April 25, 2012 10:20 PM

Nightjar,

The second paper you linked to I had found and perused over the weekend. I was going to post it, but I lost the tab I had it in when my browser shut down, and didn't have time to find it yet.

I will read the rest of the responses when I get a chance.

Posted by: Stanton | April 26, 2012 8:40 AM

No tex, you will find ways to lie and distort the evidence, rather than learning from it.

Your dishonesty, lies, and bullshit is legendary. Don't bother replying, as there won't be anything cogent or relevant there. Just fade into the bandwidth.

Posted by: Nightjar | April 26, 2012 2:42 PM

The second paper you linked to I had found and perused over the weekend.

Wait. You perused a paper over the weekend which said right there in the abstract:

We, and others, showed that as little as a 1% excess of the L isomers could be amplified up to a 95/5 ratio of L over D on simple evaporation of a solution

... and yet on Tuesday you were suggesting that a 2% excess of one enantiomer over the other was pretty much insignificant and not a "strong start" as far as abiogenesis research is concerned? How does that work?

Posted by: txpiper | April 26, 2012 5:39 PM

"on Tuesday you were suggesting that a 2% excess of one enantiomer over the other was pretty much insignificant and not a "strong start" as far as abiogenesis research is concerned? How does that work?"

The 2% was about the bias measured in the Murchison, not the results of the experiment the paper was about. Still haven't had time for more than a lookover of it. More when I have time.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 26, 2012 6:22 PM

More when I have time.

yes, I'm sure your contributions to the analysis of the paper will be extremely astute.

*rolleyes*

you do realize you're just a joke here, right?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 26, 2012 7:37 PM

.. and yet on Tuesday you were suggesting that a 2% excess of one enantiomer over the other was pretty much insignificant and not a "strong start" as far as abiogenesis research is concerned? How does that work?

The texpip is obviously privy to some super-duper-secret creationist engineering lore, wherein 1 is a vastly bigger number than 2.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 26, 2012 7:49 PM

Those flood basalt eruptions? Their main episode ended 100,000 years before the mass extinction. Even the temperature came back down again (the CO2 from the eruptions had raised it by 3 °C).

One wonders, though, if the sequelae of the flood basalt eruptions could have resulted in population bottlenecks that reduced diversity and perhaps species number (is the fossil record of the period fine-grained enough to determine this?), from which 100 000 years was an insufficient time to recover from, even if the environment had returned to "normal", and total population numbers had recovered as well, ending up in more homogenous populations with less variability being more vulnerable to the next hit, from the impact.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 27, 2012 8:19 AM

Oh, look.

William F. Bottke, David Vokrouhlický, David Minton, David Nesvorný, Alessandro Morbidelli, Ramon Brasser, Bruce Simonson & Harold F. Levison (online early): An Archaean heavy bombardment from a destabilized extension of the asteroid belt. Nature.

Abstract with references removed:

The barrage of comets and asteroids that produced many young lunar basins (craters over 300 kilometres in diameter) has frequently been called the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). Many assume the LHB ended about 3.7 to 3.8 billion years (Gyr) ago with the formation of Orientale basin. Evidence for LHB-sized blasts on Earth, however, extend into the Archaean and early Proterozoic eons, in the form of impact spherule beds: globally distributed ejecta layers created by Chicxulub-sized or larger cratering events. At least seven spherule beds have been found that formed between 3.23 and 3.47 Gyr ago, four between 2.49 and 2.63 Gyr ago, and one between 1.7 and 2.1 Gyr ago. Here we report that the LHB lasted much longer than previously thought, with most late impactors coming from the E belt, an extended and now largely extinct portion of the asteroid belt between 1.7 and 2.1 astronomical units from Earth. This region was destabilized by late giant planet migration. E-belt survivors now make up the high-inclination Hungaria asteroids. Scaling from the observed Hungaria asteroids, we find that E-belt projectiles made about ten lunar basins between 3.7 and 4.1 Gyr ago. They also produced about 15 terrestrial basins between 2.5 and 3.7 Gyr ago, as well as around 70 and four Chicxulub-sized or larger craters on the Earth and Moon, respectively, between 1.7 and 3.7 Gyr ago. These rates reproduce impact spherule bed and lunar crater constraints.

(Three Davids, two of them Czech, only one American. WTF.)

I have heard some claim that the dinosaurs themselves were already extinct when Chicxulub struck -

Research over the last 20 years has shown this resoundingly wrong.

One wonders, though, if the sequelae of the flood basalt eruptions could have resulted in population bottlenecks that reduced diversity and perhaps species number (is the fossil record of the period fine-grained enough to determine this?), from which 100 000 years was an insufficient time to recover from, even if the environment had returned to "normal", and total population numbers had recovered as well, ending up in more homogenous populations with less variability being more vulnerable to the next hit, from the impact.

The evidence is against it. The flood basalts don't seem to have caused anything but that transient increase in temperature.

Posted by: txpiper | April 27, 2012 7:30 PM

Not to change the subject, but wouldn't it be a shame for Dr. Canup's computer model and all those artists' conceptions to go whistling down the toilet.

"The prevailing view is that a planet named Theia entered out solar system and banged into our planet with sufficient force to push some of the molten material from our planet into orbit. Over time, that material coalesced to form the moon. Now, new research from geophysical scientist Junjun Zhang and colleagues, suggests that such thinking might be wrong. In their paper published in Nature Geoscience, they find that in comparing titanium isotopes from both the moon and the Earth, that the match is too close to support the theory that the moon could have been made partly of material from another planet."
http://phys.org/news/2012-03-provokes-moon.html

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | April 27, 2012 9:09 PM

Science is self-correcting. Here's a very simplistic explanation of how science works. People look at evidence and build an explanation, called a theory, to explain that evidence. If new evidence is found, then the theory is modified or even discarded and a new theory replaces the old one.

Unlike religion, there is no scientific dogma. There are no cries of heresy when someone offers a new theory to explain new evidence. Of course Christianity hasn't had any no evidence in a couple of thousand years, which is why goddists aren't used to thinking about the effects of new evidence.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 27, 2012 10:17 PM

Still no evidence for your imaginary deity/creator/designer TEX. In fact, no evidence for any of your claims being anything other than your evidenceless opinion, as that of a dishonest liar and bullshitter. Not doing very well at proving yourself right. In fact, the failure continues unabated since your first post many moons ago.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 27, 2012 10:42 PM

The texpip's continued harping on the "concentration problem" is yet another example of the intellectually dishonest rhetorical tricks it likes to use.

The concentration problem is one of the parameters that any life origin theory needs to explain.

But the texpip dishonestly applies the problem to only one side of the issue.

Abiogenesis hypotheses have proposed a large number of reasonable solutions to the concentration problem. We don't know which, if any, are actually correct.

However, creator hypotheses are UNABLE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION OF CONCENTRATION AT ALL. Not only does it provide absolutely no description of how any putative creator might go about concentrating stuff on the primordial earth, but the compounds the problem logarithmically by introducing a creator which is already a highly concentration highly specified collection of information (in whatever form one might choose to describe it).

A concentration "problem" is millions if not trillions of times harder in creator theory than in any abiogenesis theory.

Abiogenesis theories win hands down.

Posted by: txpiper | April 27, 2012 11:28 PM

"Abiogenesis hypotheses have proposed a large number of reasonable solutions to the concentration problem."

How large is that number of reasonable solutions? Can you explain say, three or four of those hypotheses?

Actually, I thought Bada did a rather concise job in summarizing what is a pretty profound problem. 0.000000000002 molecules per liter seems pretty unconcentrated to me. Doesn't it to you? Did you notice his astonishing incredulity when he was dissing asteroids and comets? "It is hard to imagine organic compounds surviving such a process." How freakin pompous can you get?

"presents this quote as if it were a citation of the primary literature"

Nah. I presented this quote because it came from the article I linked to. If you didn't like the it, you should be quarreling with phys.org. If I were you, I would write them a really blistering letter, and let them know how badly they upset you and made you emphasize things in all caps. You don't have to take that kind of crap.

Posted by: txpiper | April 28, 2012 12:42 AM

Sorry...0.000000000002 grams per liter.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:19 AM

The texpip continues its pathetic dishonest tactic of considering only one side of the concentration problem.

Until it starts to even mention exactly how creator hypotheses address the concentration problem, absolutely everything it says concerning concentration is irrelevant and can be safely ignored.

Intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:26 AM

If you didn't like the it, you should be quarreling with phys.org. If I were you, I would write them a really blistering letter, and let them know how badly they upset you and made you emphasize things in all caps.

Why should I? I have no problem with phys.org printing that.

My problem is specifically with the texpip's DELIBERATELY DISHONEST AND MISLEADING quotation of it, with DELIBERATE OMISSION OF THE PROPER CONTEXT, ON THIS BLOG.

Pathetic morally bankrupt dishonesty, all the way down.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 28, 2012 2:41 AM

Did you notice his astonishing incredulity when he was dissing asteroids and comets? "It is hard to imagine organic compounds surviving such a process." How freakin pompous can you get?

how freaking inane can you get?

argument from incredulity much?

goddamn but you're a waste of air.

Posted by: Nightjar | April 28, 2012 8:11 AM

Nightjar,

This briefly addresses the problem of concentration I've mentioned.

Oh, look. Competing hypotheses. Scientists pointing out flaws in the work of their colleagues. Uncertainty and unresolved problems in the origins of life field. Shocked, I tell you.

You're actually changing subject already. I'm not denying there is always a problem of concentration that should be taken into account whenever a prebiotic scenario is proposed (and if you were at all familiar with the literature you'd know authors generally do try to propose plausible concentration mechanisms). But that's not the part of your argument (if one can call it that) that I was specifically addressing. I was showing that a small L bias, no matter how you get it, is enough. Can you at least concede that part so we can move on, instead of pretending that you're somehow addressing my comments in particular with that link?

Not to change the subject, but

But there's only so much dissing of any given scientific field you can do before people starting asking for your alternatives, and we can't have that, now, can we? I mean, after telling me and David we should have a much higher threshold concerning evidence, I imagine you wouldn't want to admit just how low yours actually is.

0.000000000002 molecules per liter seems pretty unconcentrated to me

Grams, txpiper. Grams per liter. At least try to get the basics right. It's still pretty unconcentrated, of course, but then who said meteorites falling in a lake was a concentrating mechanism?

Did you notice his astonishing incredulity when he was dissing asteroids and comets? "It is hard to imagine organic compounds surviving such a process."

And yet they do. So much for incredulity.

Posted by: txpiper | April 28, 2012 8:58 AM

"This has already been explained in detail to the texpip in multiple previous threads."

No, it hasn't. Contrary to your proclamation, abiogenesis hypotheses have proposed neither a large number of solutions, nor any reasonable ones.

Your approach to science is flawed. No competing ideas have to be on the table in order to criticize a bad one. This is just making rules for yourself that guarantee winning with a loser.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 28, 2012 10:07 AM

The isotopic homogeneity of this highly refractory element suggests that lunar material was derived from the proto-Earth mantle, an origin that could be explained by efficient impact ejection, by an exchange of material between the Earth’s magma ocean and the protolunar disk, or by fission from a rapidly rotating post-impact Earth.

The actual authors of the actual primary literature offer three hypotheses for their finding. The first two are COMPLETELY CONSISTENT WITH THE GIANT IMPACTOR HYPOTHESIS OF LUNAR FORMATION. In fact, the first one IS, WORD FOR WORD, THE THEIA IMPACT HYPOTHESIS.

The second one supposes that the moon had already partly formed when Earth and Moon were exchanging material; it does not say that the protolunar disk wasn't created by an impact.

The third one talks about a "post-impact Earth"...

But more importantly, txpiper, if the Theia impact never happened, what makes you believe this would say anything about the general bombardment in the early history of the solar system??? We're talking about billions of impacts, and you say one of them may not have happened – the biggest and frankly least relevant one at that.

How large is that number of reasonable solutions? Can you explain say, three or four of those hypotheses?

*kicks txpiper in the belly*

How many more times to we need to send you to the Wikipedia article on this subject? Don't come back before you've read all of it. All of it.

Asshole.

My problem is specifically with the texpip's DELIBERATELY DISHONEST AND MISLEADING quotation of it, with DELIBERATE OMISSION OF THE PROPER CONTEXT, ON THIS BLOG.

Are you sure he can even tell the difference between an incompetent press release and a paper?

0.000000000002 molecules per liter seems pretty unconcentrated to me

Grams, txpiper. Grams per liter.

Oh for crying out loud.

The paragraph I quoted from was about asteroids, comets and interplanetary dust particles, as opposed to chondrites, as sources.

No. Chondrites are asteroids, and the article says that it's the impact, the heat and pressure of the impact, that amino acids are not expected to survive:

The impact of asteroids and comets is a highly energetic event, as is demonstrated by the K/T boundary impact that killed off the dinosaurs. It is hard to imagine organic compounds surviving such a process.

It's in the sentence right before the one you quote, asshole. "Such a process" is "the impact", "a highly energetic event".

Although it may be hard to imagine, the amino acids in the Murchison meteorite survived an impact. Now go read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis. If there's something in there you don't understand, come here and ask, but read the rest of the article first in case it explains it.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 28, 2012 10:14 AM

This from you[,] Tex, a non-scientist talking to real scientists who make their money doing science?

He's still trying to catch us at making contradictory assumptions.

If only he tried to start to catch himself at making contradictory assumptions, he'd learn something...

But first of all, he needs to read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis.

Posted by: Stanton | April 28, 2012 10:56 AM

"This has already been explained in detail to the texpip in multiple previous threads."

No, it hasn't. Contrary to your proclamation, abiogenesis hypotheses have proposed neither a large number of solutions, nor any reasonable ones.

Your approach to science is flawed.

No competing ideas have to be on the table in order to criticize a bad one.

This is just making rules for yourself that guarantee winning with a loser.

Posted by: Stanton | April 28, 2012 11:12 AM

This from you[,] Tex, a non-scientist talking to real scientists who make their money doing science?

He's still trying to catch us at making contradictory assumptions.

If only he tried to start to catch himself at making contradictory assumptions, he'd learn something... But first of all, he needs to read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 12:58 PM

No, it hasn't.

Yes it has.

Several, such as absorption onto a clay surface, were given in THIS VERY THREAD.

Pathetic bald-faced liar.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:10 PM

Sorry...0.000000000002 grams per liter.

Note again the deliberate dishonesty in presentation here, deliberately using units that require a lot of zeros to make the problem seem bigger than it actually is.

0.000000000002 g/L is 2 pg/L. Anyone with even passing familiarity with biochemistry, molecular biology and organic chemistry literature knows that 2 pg/L, while a little on the low side, is already within the low end of the range where spontaneous organic reactions occur today.

The texpip continues to barf up comparative comparison terms like "low", and "unlikely" while deliberately avoiding providing any context to compare those terms with, without which they are meaningless.

It KNOWS this is a dishonest, invalid tactic, as it has been informed of this multiple times in prior threads, but it just ignores that and continues to lie.

Utterly pathetic intellectual dishonesty all the way down.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:22 PM

"It is hard to imagine organic compounds surviving such a process."

E PUR SI SURVIVES.

In fact, in some NASA simulations of such collisions, they found that the energy of impact actually resulted in the synthesis of short polypeptides from the amino acids in their original meteor-simulating sample.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:31 PM

Regardless of what the paper said, the two researchers who authored it were pretty clear in the quotes attributed to them: "What we found is that the child does not look any different compared to the Earth," Dauphas said. "It's a child with only one parent, as far as we can tell." "We thought that the moon had two parents, but when we look at the composition of the moon, it looks like it has only one parent," Zhang said.

Still deliberately quoting from the lay press (and individual scientists ginnying up their results to the lay press to stir up controversy and interest in their paper is some that NEVER happens, right?), and avoiding the primary literature itself, which in fact demonstrates little to NO conflict with the giant impactor theory.

Still avoiding direct citation of the primary literature, which is THERE ON THE VERY PAGE LINKED TO.

Not only pathetic intellectual dishonesty on display here. Also pitiful COWARDICE.

And suppose these two researchers prove correct in their interpretation of the data. It just means less evidence in support of the giant impact theory and more in favor of the fission theory. The fission theory is one of three WHOLLY NATURAL theories of lunar origin, which has currently fallen into relative disfavor (compared to the impact theory). All three (along with the captured satellite theory) were proposed at roughly the same time, by scientists, decades ago. All three (except maybe the captured satellite theory) are still considered viable and not fully falsified.

So one must ask then, so what?

The texpip brings it up snarkily as if trying to show an example of science being "wrong". But that is not the case. It is simply an example of science continuing to investigate competing hypotheses and determining which hypothesis fits the available evidence the best.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 1:37 PM

He's still trying to catch us at making contradictory assumptions.

And if he does? Individual scientists make contradictory assumptions all the time. The scientific method is designed to determine whose assumptions are the correct ones and whose are not.

It's just another smoke-blowing deceptive intellectual dishonest rhetorical trick on the pathetic liar's part.

An old and transparent one.

Posted by: Ichthyic | April 28, 2012 5:05 PM

If incompetence or conflicting conclusions are involved, that is not my problem.

actually, you don't seem to grasp the fact that not only IS it your problem, by using the quotes uncritically and out of context, YOU made it your problem.

but then, grasping reality does not appear to be your strong suit.

denial?

check

projection?

check

comprehension?

nowhere to be found

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | April 28, 2012 6:16 PM

like I said, the pipster seems bound and determined to take an axe to science, but appears to be trying to chop down men of straw instead.

Its problem is that it always tries to use science as its axe against science. One can hardly blame it, since, of course, science is all there is.

It thinks it is locked and loaded.

It never seems to notice that the barrel is U-shaped.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 28, 2012 11:13 PM

if this is really how he spends his free time, I feel quite sorry for him. I'm sure he seems a genius to his "peers" though?

Back in 2006, he pointed to crev.info as a site which has "analyses of the tech journals by people who are not enthusiastic about Darwinism." Or in other words, creationists being assholes about scientific papers. Or maybe one creationist (David Coppedge) being an asshole about scientific papers, and occasional creationist commentators mindlessly agreeing.

I am pretty sure that's where txpiper gets all of his "science" from. I note that the site currently has an entry for the lunar formation as the second most recent blog entry. "Not to change the subject". Hah.

The most recent one is all about Alan Feduccia's BANDitry. Oh, yay.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 29, 2012 7:46 AM

I agree with comment 410.

Regardless of what the paper said, the two researchers who authored it were pretty clear in the quotes attributed to them:

Science journalists always rip quotes out of context, especially when they don't understand them. Now go away and read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis.

If incompetence or conflicting conclusions are involved, that is not my problem.

Of course it is, when it leads you to drawing wrong conclusions!!!

Why isn't this obvious!

The scientific method is designed to determine whose assumptions are the correct ones and whose are not.

Specifially not whose, but which ones. Science is not about people – an important point which the pipster regularly forgets.

The most recent one is all about Alan Feduccia's BANDitry. Oh, yay.

*facepalm*

Feduccia is quite the crank, but he's by no means a creationist. He just disagrees with people who care about the evidence about the shape of the tree.

Well yes, that was deliberate enough, since the authors simply summarized their conclusions in a post-publication interview.

And then the journalists took an hour of interview and cut it down to two sentences.

Have you no idea how journalism works!?!

Go read the Wikipedia article on abiogenesis.

Posted by: Stanton | April 29, 2012 10:05 AM

If incompetence or conflicting conclusions are involved, that is not my problem.

Of course it is, when it leads you to drawing wrong conclusions!!! Why isn't this obvious!

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 29, 2012 1:26 PM

The most recent one is all about Alan Feduccia's BANDitry. Oh, yay.

*facepalm*

Feduccia is quite the crank, but he's by no means a creationist. He just disagrees with people who care about the evidence about the shape of the tree.

He's using his crankery about feathered dinosaurs (in a recent article published in, oh look, New Scientist. Feh.) as a stick to beat palaeontology ("Not feathers! Decayed collagen fibres!"), but he's also up-front that he has as much contempt for Feduccia as for more mainstream palaeontologists.

So are you better off with Feduccia, de Beer and Owen than you were with Thomas Huxley and Xing Xu?  Feduccia still believes that non-flying archosaurs evolved into birds.  He just feels it is less biophysically improbable that the “sophisticated avian flight architecture, including aerodynamic wings and specialised brain structures” came from animals jumping in trees rather than running along the ground.  Look, Dr. Feduccia, if it is “practically non-Darwinian” to imagine theropods generating these sophisticated structures from the ground up, it is just as “non-Darwinian” and “biophysically improbable” to imagine archosaurs generating them while jumping out of the trees.

Actually, both Feduccia’s and Xu’s positions are 100% Darwinian.  That’s because the essence of Darwinism is the Stuff Happens Law.  If an animal develops flight, it’s because stuff happens.  If an animal doesn’t develop flight, it’s because stuff happens.  Darwinians don’t need evidence; they need imagination.  The play is the thing.  The scattered fossils from China, Germany and wherever don’t tell one story; they are scattered pieces of evidence that can be interpreted multiple ways. In Darwinism, data are mere props for imaginary scenarios.

You can see txpiper's style of assholery right there. He either picked up, or donated, the same or similar sneering stock phrases.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 29, 2012 1:44 PM

Oh, and I left off the fractally ironic conclusion:

Feduccia’s usefulness for thinking people, therefore, is merely to point out the anti-scientific power of dogmatic paradigms.  He is a maverick within the Darwinian camp.  Those outside the camp can use him like the hero in the fairy tale Seven at One Blow, a logically thinking tailor, who slew the giants by getting them to finish each other off.

Creationists do like their fairy-tales, don't they?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 29, 2012 7:51 PM

I wondered if there was a response to Feduccia's NS article yet, and found nothing. But I did find this:

Brian Switek vs. Feduccia

Posted by: Stanton | April 30, 2012 9:28 AM

(T)hat just shows he didn't care about the difference between ancestors and sister-groups.

Seriously, I love it when you get into the nitty-gritty of taxonomy, it's almost as satisfying as listening to Barry White read cheesecake recipes.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 1, 2012 1:08 PM

PZ, in your new Freethoughtblogs the new Pharyngula! find some new commenters who don't make your blogs a laughing stock to the scientific community.

Posted by: apokryltaros | May 1, 2012 1:47 PM

You have an agenda.

Yes we do! To have scientists not look like a bunch of spoiled little whining infants the way your commenter do to here.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 1, 2012 2:00 PM

JustPassingby, if you want to see the kinds of replies you appear to want, you can go back to the archived threads involving the texpip from 2 or 3 years ago. We all lost interest in engaging in actual discussion with that pathetic liar long ago. From that point forward we are just amusing ourselves.

Otherwise, your concern is noted, and you would be advised to consider the entire historic context of these kinds of threads in the future before opening your mouth and exposing yourself as a self-righteous and ignorant fool.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 1, 2012 2:06 PM

Trolls like the texpip have earned the treatment they receive here through years and years of diligence. It is quite arrogant of you, JustPassingBy, to think you can come, just passing by, with zero understanding of the history and context of the subject, and deny them their hard-earned reward.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 1, 2012 2:15 PM

PZ, as the assistant to a professor of biochemistry I wanted to give you some feedback of which you may find helpful.

And why are you not giving that feedback in e-mail?

As a class

As a class, where? What size? How many individuals were involved in this particular alleged review?

we viewed some of your threads specifically pertaining to debating creationism

Which threads? Please be specific. How far back in time did you go?

They constantly react to simple questions with inappropriate, borderline bipolar anger instead of providing professional, scientific dialog.

I'm curious: If you provided "professional, scientific dialog" to a creationist, and still got standard ceationist questions from the same creationist that demonstrated repeatedly that they were ignoring your "professional, scientific dialog", time after time after time, what exactly would you do? No hint of anger would escape into your comments, ever?

When proven wrong

Where, exactly, has this occurred? Cite posts and comment numbers, and if applicable, the nature of the proof.

They often act infuriated and attacked when asked simple, non offensive scientific questions.

If you were repeatedly told that DNA polymerase was obviously intelligently designed, you would remain consistently calm, no matter how often it happened, right?

The more we looked, we realized that throughout the atheists community, your blog is pretty much a joke, due to the antics of your regular commenters.

Got any evidence in support of this?

If PZ's blog is a joke, why is PZ invited to so many atheist events in the atheist community?

I will give you my contact info to give you some much better options for commenters.

You're running a discount commenter brokerage on the side? What are your rates?

For that matter, why do you need to settle for being commenters on someone else's blog? Since you're so awesome and great at debating, why don't you, instead, create a blog or forum of your own -- something like wearesomuchbetterthaneveryoneelseatdebatingcreationists.com, maybe -- and demonstrate your awesome creationist debating skillz.

I'm sure that, once you have some nice comment threads, filled strictly with "professional, scientific dialog", PZ will be glad to post links to you. Creationists will no doubt beg to be allowed to comment and recieve some nice "professional, scientific dialog" in response to their claims and questions. You would be famous, and not a joke at all.

Or, hey! Why not wander over to crev.info, and try and draw out the creationists there? I'd be fascinated to see how that goes!

I just wanted your commenters to have a chance to see this, react to it and thus prove the validity of my post.

How does requesting that you back up your claims "prove the validity" of your post?

Posted by: JustPassingBy | May 1, 2012 2:26 PM

Here you go PZ. This is what it's all about here:

we treat invincibly stupid liars who hate and fear science?

why is it so terrible to scold arrogant idiots who

creobots trolls like tex what he is. A liar and bullshitter and a dishonest person.

a Liar For Jesus is also a Hypocrite For Jesus and or a Moron For Jesus is wrong and rude.

Once again, your commenters carefully chosen words, and mastery of the English language are a true testament to intelligent scientific discourse and ooze a high level degree and education. I can’t imagine from this predisposition how your blogs haven’t won the respect of fellow scientist and creationist alike. Very eloquent. . You make us all so proud…………
Thank you, Thank you! You are giving us all a good laugh here. You made our point exactly.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 1, 2012 2:51 PM

You are giving us all a good laugh here.

"Us" being you, and the mouse in your pocket, eh?

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 1, 2012 2:56 PM

Our whole class is in stitches watching how you guys "debate"

I could create a couple of fake accounts and post using them, too.

Can any of "you" respond to the questions I asked @#439?

Will you all give suspiciously similar responses, or will any of you give responses that actually demonstrate individual and idiosyncratic knowledge?

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 1, 2012 3:22 PM

Pretend "we" don't exist and therefore none of these comment are real

The comments are real; the plurality of alleged readers/commentators is what is in question. Why don't you acknowledge that and respond to that? It's dishonest -- as dishonest as creationists often are -- to distort what I wrote that way.

Why can't you -- any of the alleged "you" -- answer the questions in #439?

and you don't have to deal with the truth that's being continuously shown herein.

The truth that's being continually shown is that you're trolling.

Yes, I see that truth.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | May 1, 2012 4:18 PM

JustPassingBy,

Your concern is noted.

If all you're going to do is whine at us for not playing nice with texpip, then you are cordially invited to fuck yourself. And please do it silently so we are no longer disturbed by your priggish, pedantic assholery.

Posted by: justjoined2dayFolks | May 1, 2012 5:22 PM

JustPassingBy,

Your concern is noted.

If all you're going to do is whine at us for not playing nice with texpip, then you are cordially invited to fuck yourself. And please do it silently so we are no longer disturbed by your priggish, pedantic assholery.

It's good to know that your pathetic excuses for rebuttal and insults are not only exclusive to Godbots but now you're telling fellow scientists & atheists to go fuck themselves. Classy PZ! You must be scraping the bottom in your search for commentators. I'm available too if you wanna step it up. PM me.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 1, 2012 5:48 PM

It's good to know that your pathetic excuses for rebuttal and insults are not only exclusive to Godbots but now you're telling fellow scientists & atheists to go fuck themselves.

Please note that while 'Tis Himself was indeed very rude, he was rude conditionally.

"  If all you're going to do is whine at us for not playing nice with texpip,
  then you are cordially invited to fuck yourself."

Obviously, if you had something substantive to say other than whining at us for not playing nice, well, the invitation would not then apply, now would it?

Reading comprehension is important, you know.

You must be scraping the bottom in your search for commentators.

I'm sorry, what?

Do you think that PZ has to actively hold some sort of call for commentators? "Please, please comment on my blog, or each post will be bare and naked, and creationists will run amok with no-one to post civil, scientific, carefully crafted and worded rebuttals"?

Really?

Hee hee!

I'm available too if you wanna step it up.

I think you need better reading comprehension before PZ will actually want to have you around. Thicker skin would be nice too, although I admit, that might be hard when the rudeness gets really blunt.

How are you at dealing with being told that you're under the influence of Satan?

Posted by: Stanton | May 1, 2012 8:43 PM

Actually an insult at this point would prove more intelligent as oppose to being a Psychologist.

So, now you want to insult the field of psychology, and you think that this is "intelligent". This is how you plan on debating creationists?

Because that's not nice, apparently.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 1, 2012 10:11 PM

I note that JustPassingBy has still demonstrated no evidence whatsoever of having even tried to check the archives for those old posts where we DID respond honestly to the texpip, only to have him spit in our faces and reveal his pitiful dishonesty for all to see. Or those posts where the texpip turned around and USED the same arguments it was dismissing in terms of evolution, in an attempt to debunk anthropogenic climate change. Or the posts where the texpip exposed itself as a bigot and misogynist.

But I suppose it is too much to ask of JustPassingBy to recognize intellectual dishonesty in others, since it obviously cannot recognize or curtail such behavior in itself.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 2, 2012 12:19 AM

I will grant txpiper this: as much as he is an asshole about science, he's never -- to my knowledge and memory -- whined about being insulted, or made an issue of the way people addressed him, during the discussion, the way that the tone trolls (with the understanding that the plurality may be fictive) have on his behalf.

While it's a bit suspicious that the tone trolls have come to wag their fingers and clutch their pearls in this thread, of all threads, it is presumably on their own initiative.

Although I reserve the right to be wrong.

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 2, 2012 1:51 AM

Long time lurker. I was just directed to this old thread because suddenly there seems to be a lot of attention on it.. I don't have the same problem with rude behavior as JustPassingBy (and accompanying puppets) do. They should have just addressed you PZ ass-kissers in your own language and told you that, apart from him, you're all a fucking joke to everyone who reads all your ranting bullshit bitching about creationists. That's what they were trying to say, but don't quite have the balls to communicate properly. PZ is the goods here, the rest of you are a bunch of bad breath. You think the atheist community gives a fuck what you say. We don't claim you.
You cry like a bunch of bitches when you debate on this subject. You take insults from comments that don't even have a hint of insult.

Owlmirror I have read many posts from you talking about people whining when you yourself are bitching about..

being told that you're under the influence of Satan?

Or Stanton crying about…

incredibly insulting implications

Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake | May 2, 2012 4:18 AM

JustPassingBy @#452:

Actually an insult at this point would prove more intelligent as oppose to being a Psychologist.

They constantly react to simple questions with inappropriate, borderline bipolar anger

At best, the comments of your commenters are a case study for some type of autistic spectrum or psychological disorder.

borderline psychotic behavior.

After throwing the names of every psychological disorder xe's ever heard of at the commenters here, JustPassingBy accuses Owlmirror of playing psychologist for inferring a meaning from a statement. I think I can guess why JPB is so strongly against harsh criticism of hypocrites.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 2, 2012 8:51 AM

Seriously, why does this concern troll and his inane sockpuppets think he can shame us with his own hypocrisy?

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 2, 2012 2:24 PM

I write

You cry like a bunch of bitches when you debate on this subject.

Your misogyny is noted.

hey dumbass a bitch is a dog and
Misogyny - is the hatred of women or girls,
not men whining like bitches like you. Since you're so quick to always judge others on their understand of the english language and reading comprehension.

As you corrected the troll..

What's this in reference to? Your use of English is poor, and needs clarification./blockquote>
Hypocrite, illiterate, bitch…

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 2, 2012 4:24 PM

Maximus the pathetic transparent misogynist jerk said "cry like a bunch of bitches" and then had the pitiful shamelessness to claim that a "bitch is a dog", then goes on to add the statement "men whining like bitches".

Newsflash for Maximus who claims to understand english but clearly does not, "bitch" is not just a dog, it is specifically a FEMALE dog. It is a DEHUMANIZING insult directed at women, implying that they are animals.

Now to the statement "cry like bitches", do dogs cry? Is there a stereotype about dogs always crying? Like there is with women?

Now to the statement "men whining like bitches", is there an established stereotype for dogs whining?

And Maximus has the nerve to claim it is not being misogynistic.

I said this on Freethoughtblogs and I will say it again here: the moment that the texpip ceased being someone I respected enough to engage and debate and became someone fit only for insults and ridicule was the day the odious liar proved itself to be a misogynist and a bigot. Its stupid and intellectually dishonest creationism was only a minor factor in this. Creationism

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 2, 2012 5:42 PM

Misogyny is my line in the sand. Those who cross it are no longer entitled to be respected as human beings, nor deserving of being engaged in civilized discussion. They also lose the privilege of being addressed with a human pronoun when I refer to them.

a pathetic, dishonest fuckwit you are.

Odious hypocrite.

It is a liar and a coward.

irrelevancy from the smarmy liar.

How do you determine your insult rating system and where is this "line in the sand". Do your fellow posters follow your sudden moral code for insults as well. You and everyone here think nothing of shitting on someone's religious beliefs, insulting their Deities, attacking their character but now there is a all of the sudden a "line in the sand". By which moral standard is this line derived. It is certainly not religious. Hmm Is it the Pharyngula code of conduct by which you operate? You are a flaming hypocrite! Even funnier, if Misogyny is defined by he use of the word bitch then you must be an enemy of world (especially hip hop). It begs the question, has ANYONE here called anyone a bitch. If so, stone them so as not to be a hypocrite!
Incidentally, my wife called you guys bitches before I did. She din't seem to have a problem with it. Why do you?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 2, 2012 6:05 PM

Incidentally, my wife called you guys bitches before I did. She din't seem to have a problem with it. Why do you?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | May 2, 2012 7:18 PM

You and everyone here think nothing of shitting on someone's religious beliefs, insulting their Deities, attacking their character

You say that like it's a bad thing.

By which moral standard is this line derived.

The moral standard that says you don't shit on people. Shitting on beliefs is one thing. The delusional belief in The Big Guy In The Sky™ is a prime target for shitting on. The person who holds that belief isn't.

However, when some asshole shows he's a bigot, then he becomes eligible to be shit upon because of his behavior towards other people.

You used a misogynist word. We called you on it. You tried to blow it off, pretending that calling people "bitches" wasn't misogynist. That, asshole, laid you open to be shit upon.

So fuck you and your misogyny. If you don't like it, that's too fucking bad.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 2, 2012 7:24 PM

hey dumbass a bitch is a dog and
Misogyny - is the hatred of women or girls,
not men whining like bitches like you

Your continued misogyny is noted.

Since you're so quick to always judge others on their understand of the english language and reading comprehension.

You suck at reading and writing, and at not being an asshole misogynist.

Wow Amphiox, me thinks you must be female.

Because you're a misogynist?

How do you determine your insult rating system and where is this "line in the sand".

Gendered insults.

By which moral standard is this line derived.

Not dehumanizing anyone for being the gender that they are.

Incidentally, my wife called you guys bitches before I did. She din't seem to have a problem with it.

Assuming that any of this is even true, women are perfectly capable of being misogynists. She agrees that those of a particular gender should be dehumanized.

Posted by: Stanton | May 2, 2012 7:34 PM

Incidentally, my wife called you guys bitches before I did. She din't seem to have a problem with it. Why do you?

Then again, it doesn't seem odd that the current concern troll married one of his own sockpuppet trolls.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 2, 2012 7:43 PM

You used a misogynist word. We called you on it. You tried to blow it off,

Indeed.

Maxipuddle is not judged a misogynist just because he used that word. The use of that word is misogynistic behavior, but that does not necessarily mean a misogynist. Behaviors can be done in error.

Maxipuddle proved it is a misogyny by the way it reacted to being criticized over its use of that word.

If it had simply apologized for causing inadvertent offense and promised not to use that word in that context again, all would have been well.

But of course, as a misogynist, it wouldn't do that.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 2, 2012 7:47 PM

If it had simply apologized for causing inadvertent offense and promised not to use that word in that context again, all would have been well.

But of course, as a misogynist, it wouldn't do that.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 2, 2012 8:01 PM

He's stopped being a concern troll, and started being a slagging troll.

Or rather, he's now a slagging troll first, and a concern troll second.

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 2, 2012 11:36 PM

Nerd of Redhead, OM writes:

Actually, almost all the regulars have a problem with the word [BITCH}. It isn't used here, and is one of the reasons PZ might banhammer your ass.

Hey Nerd, You mean "not used" like this:

Science, It works bitches
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/it_works_bitches.php

or this:

Encephalon #3 is your bitch : Neurotopia
scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/.../encephalon_3_is_your_bitch.php

Sassy Bitches of Science: Rita Levi-Montalcini : Oscillator
scienceblogs.com/oscillator/2010/03/sassy_bitches_of_science.php

Let's Get this Bitch to Mount Doom : Living the Scientific Life ...
scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/.../lets_get_this_bitch_to_mount_d.php

"... it pays to stop being a good girl and just unleash her Inner Bitch."
http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2007/09/unleashing_scientiae.php

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 3, 2012 12:45 AM

So this "bitchaphobia" is not even universally agreed within ScienceBlogs, only here in Pharyngula with "the regulars". Does PZ even have a say in this? I mean you say he was made aware of his misogynistic words and yet he still has the word posted for all to see. He could have simply removed it if he wished to. Interesting..

almost all the regulars have a problem with the word [BITCH}. It isn't used here,

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 3, 2012 1:18 AM

Even though, clearly, from all the Scienceblogs articles I posted above (and more)the rest of the world doesn't agree that the use of this word indicates misogynistic behavior.

Consciousness raising is a slow and difficult business. In your case, since you are perverse and stupid, it may not be possible.

Furthermore, in the mean time, you are free to say whatever the fuck you want to everyone else

Ah, but not gendered insults.

You may be stupid because you're stupid; you may be an asshole because you're an asshole. But you being a stupid asshole is distinct from you having a penis.

despite their possible personal offense over a certain word

The objection to gendered insults is not over personal offense. It's about rejecting the denigration of half the human race for their genital configuration.

without giving them an apology.

You don't merit an apology for being called a stupid asshole when you've done your best to behave like a stupid asshole.

Posted by: MaximusXVI | May 3, 2012 1:28 AM

Owlmirror writes:

You may be stupid because you're stupid; you may be an asshole because you're an asshole. But you being a stupid asshole is distinct from you having a penis.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 3, 2012 1:46 AM

So you say I could take 20 men, line them up and call the stupid, worthless, idiotic fuckups and they would remain unhurt and calm but when I add the term, "because you are a man" then it becomes wrong and their feelings suddenly are hurt.

No, when you call them "dicks" and "cocks", you're denigrating them for their genitalia.

Stupidity and idiocy can be overcome with knowledge and a willingness to learn; worthlessness and being a fuckup can be overcome by hard work at self-improvement. But how can you change your genitalia? And if you do change it, being insulted and denigrated for the new configuration?

You're a fucking idiot.

Ah, but I'm not a bitch anymore, now am I?

Maybe you are capable of learning.

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 3, 2012 1:59 AM

The fact is, I am not a misogynist or a bigot.

What a pitiful, worthless denial.

Misogynist Maximud is as misogynist Maximud does, and posts. The misogyny is clear and obvious in everything the odious worm has posted so far. It cannot run away from what it has already posted.

Hmmm So would you apologize if one of those lurking creationist took offense to a word you used in your arguments with them.

Utterly missing the point, again. It is not the fact that insults are used that matters, IT IS WHAT THE CONTENT OF THOSE INSULTS ARE.

Pitiful.

I have put the needs of women above myself my whole life.

A standard misogynist "defence", a claim that cannot be corroborated, and even if true, is irrelevant to the misogynist's manifest behavior HERE.

Truly pathetic.

Posted by: Owlmirror | May 3, 2012 2:08 AM

And yet, when you suddenly decided that you needed insults, the first ones you reached for were ones which bluntly assert that having testicles is good and not having testicles is somehow bad, and that being a certain type of female is bad.

I never said anything remotely like that.

OK, maybe I was wrong about you being able to learn.

What makes "bitch" an insult, if not the fact that it refers to being female?

What do "That's what they were trying to say, but don't quite have the balls" and "Grow some balls!" mean, if not that you are implying that the ones referenced do not have them, and that that's bad, and that having them is good?

Take my comments to anyone outside this blog and NO ONE would deduce that from my comment.

Like I wrote, consciousness raising is slow and difficult.

You just make up this shit up to fit your pathetic, ocd fixation with genitals

My fixation with genitals, Mr. "Grow some balls!"?

Who do you have in mind? Are you planning to remove your sockpuppet?

what the fuck are you talking about with this shit.

I guess that would be a "no", then.

Posted by: David Marjanović | May 3, 2012 8:23 AM

It is interesting to note how Maximuffed immediately jumped from my personal description of my personal beliefs to "it must be the ethical code for all Pharyngula".

This seems to be a standard feature of the bigot brain - the inability, or refusal, to see an individual as an individual, and compulsion to think of everything and everyone in terms of groups and labels.

They cannot relate to individuals, any individuals, except as objects.

QFT!

Does PZ even have a say in this? I mean you say he was made aware of his misogynistic words and yet he still has the word posted for all to see.

I'm so looking forward to PZ's response when he comes back.

Hint: PZ can see your IP address.

He could have simply removed it if he wished to. Interesting..

PZ doesn't like faking history. He's honest.

Bullshit Amphiox, this is your personal, obsessive fixation that you are unnaturally, overly sensitive to. The fact is, I am not a misogynist or a bigot.

Then why do you behave like one?

Your whole method of insulting assumes that it's bad to be a woman and therefore bad to be compared to one. That's misogynistic, duh.

I have put the needs of women above myself my whole life.

Translation: Some of my best friends are black! I even let them use my bathroom!

What if you truly insulted them as a person and not just as a creationist

We're not against insults here. We're against misogyny.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Posted by: Amphiox, OM | May 3, 2012 10:40 AM

And isn't predictable, like clockwork, that the first defense offered is invariably "I have female [friend, spouse, sibling, offspring, etc] and they don't have a problem with my behavior" and the second defense is always some version of "I like women/I treat women even better than myself/I think this stereotype makes women actually preferable to men(the raja over at FTB certainly liked this one)"

In other words, various versions of putting women on pedestals.

You put OBJECTS on pedestals, not people.

It is another manifestation of the same disease, especially in the context where they only bring it up after an accusation of misogyny.