Feedback for August 2005

1. We are damned and going to hell.

2. We are anti-God and refuse to listen.

3. Evolution isn't science.

4. What about [insert canard here]?

5. Were we there?

6. God is all-powerful and can do anything He wants to.

7. We are [insert obscenity here].

8. The respondent will beat us up if [usually] he ever meets us.

9. We are fags.

10 We are anti-American.

11. [Insert wacko theory here - not usually creationists].

etc. That is why Mark Isaak has produced the Index to Creationist Claims, now available as a book.

2. We aren't sure.

3. Absolutely no idea.

These are strange questions to be asking. It's perfectly clear to all sides that the origin of life, or abiogenesis, is something where we don't have clear answers. The only point in these questions is to make some kind of capital out of that fact; so I would suggest just being frank. Science has no claim to having all the answers, and let's not pretend otherwise.

It's not relevant as a criticism of evolutionary biology. Evolution works exactly the same no matter how life got started.

On the other hand, if anyone is genuinely interested in the research relevant to processes that may have been involved in the origin of life, then I have been told that a good reference is The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview, by Iris Fry (Rutgers Uni Press, 2000)

As for Dembski and Behe, we have a wide collection of articles concerning their views. You can find those articles by searching for their names; you could examine the index or the site outline; or you can browse this site and browse Talkdesign.org.

Therefore the appropriate response is to make it known publicly as a scientist that ID is non-science. Write to your local paper, your local representative at all levels of government, and to talk to schools, teachers, public forums and neighbours to ensure that ignorance and religious bigotry do not take over. But always remember that this is not a crusade against religious beliefs, but in favour of knowledge and good education.

See also NCSE's Analysis of the Discovery Institute's "Bibliography of Supplementary Resources for Ohio Science Instruction", about the DI claiming that several papers show challenges to evolution, but papers' authors say the DI misrepresented them.

And if you like you could also make a donation to the Talk.Origins Archive.

There were no pliable ligaments. There were no ligaments, but to read some creationists, the critter was practically running around.

Enjoy.

As usually understood, "ape" means "something that looks like a chimp, or a gorilla, or an orangutan". But in scientific terms, "ape" means something rather more like "the last common ancestor of a gorilla and an orangutan, and all its descendents". The latter definition includes us. The former definition, well, that also depends on how closely you look.

Originally, all apes were part of the genus Homo when defined by the creationist Linnaeus in the 18th century. He was strongly criticised and they were moved out of that genus by a later writer, so that humans were the sole species. But anatomists cannot ignore the extremely strong similarities between the other apes and humans, and most now think we fall into the same general group.

So, what was the last common ancestor of all apes and us? It probably looked something like this:

Ape Ancestor in Spain.

A few creationists (very few, I think, but including some of the most visible) are probably charlatans. Money, not God, is their master.

Many creationists are taught that a literal interpretation is essential for salvation. Thus, any threat to creationism is perceived as a threat to their very soul. When the stakes are that high, one might go to extreme lengths to defend one's beliefs.

Others have been so indoctrinated in creationism that they honestly think they are always right. Since evolution is wrong (their fundamental premise), then anything that says evolution is wrong has to be right. I have seen creationists confronted with an obviously out-of-context quote reply simply by repeating that the quote was accurate. The fact that it plainly did not reflect the author's intent did not matter. The author, to the creationist, was wrong about everything else, including his intent, except for that one quote.

Finally, some creationism has effectively nothing to do with religion. The so-called Intelligent Design movement is a political movement, intent on political power and using religion to that end. They already contradict mainstream Christian beliefs with, among other things, their belief in a slow, incremental creation. They are willing to lie for more power.

It does matter that your description of the second law (I cannot call it a definition) is inadequate to apply to the energetics of complex molecules. This is perhaps why you feel that the 2ndL precludes the origin of life. There are several resources that can help with your question.

Here at TalkOrigins there is The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability.

Another good discussion is, The second law of thermodynamics and evolution. The author, Prof. Frank Lambert, actually discusses the same "definition" that you have used.

And for those who want a Christian perspective, I recommend The Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Context of the Christian Faith.

In addition your three racial groups are simplistic and outmoded. The concept of race is far more complicated than the 19th century grouping that you are using allowed for. These three groups must be broken down into several groups and sub-groups, and more added besides, to even get close to an accurate picture of human diversity. On top of this the concept is further complicated by the migration throughout history, intermarriage and geographical overlap of different groups. In fact the boundaries are so blurry and differences so minor that many biologists deny that races even exist in humans.

More simplistic and outmoded still are the racist, typological, ideas about the inherent inferiority or superiority of different races.

There are claims that some “races” score slightly higher on IQ tests than others, however such claims are controversial because besides innate intelligence there are numerous environmental factors that can effect how individuals perform on such tests. Then there is the question as to whether IQ tests are even an adequate measure of that complex thing we call intelligence.

The thing to bear in mind here is that races do not have an IQ, people do. So even if the claims about race and IQ are correct and even if IQ is an accurate measure of intelligence we are still only talking about statistical differences between large groups and one can not judge individuals based simply upon whatever group they might belong to.

In other words there are, for example, smart white people and not-so-smart white people, and there are smart black people and not-so-smart black people, but you can't tell which is which just by looking at their skin (again even if the big if’s about IQ are true).

So as a matter of practicality we should to take people as individuals not groups, and as a matter of law and American philosophy (the ideals of the Declaration and Constitution) we should treat everyone equally and equally under the law.

Some relevant links:

• The Race FAQ by John Goodrum
• IQ Intelligence: The Surprising Truth by Stephen Ceci
• BBC - Science & Nature - Hot Topics - Intelligence

To one who calls himself a scientist, figuring out how and why a dating method sometimes fails is an interesting pursuit. It is part of the process of understanding the limitations of the dating technique. It leads to rules for when the methods shouldn't be applied, and to independent tests that help assess the likelihood of getting a valid result.

See this archive's January '99 feedback, fourth entry from the top, for a longer discussion of mine on this topic. Note in particular the failure of young-Earthers to give a sensible explanation for the data that they try to handwave away. Creationists want to pretend all dating results are merely individual values in isolation, because even they know that they can't make a believable case against the strength of multiple consistent results from a context where independent cues suggest reliability.

Finally, Austin's result is a contrived failure, and for that reason not relevant to the issue of reliability when one is not attempting to misuse the methodology. See Young-Earth Creationist 'Dating' of a Mt. St. Helens Dacite: The Failure of Austin and Swenson to Recognize Obviously Ancient Minerals by Kevin R. Henke, for details.

Polonium is a decay product of radon, which comes from uranium, which has a very long half-life, so polonium halos do not indicate a young age. See CF201.

See the rest of the Index to Creationist Claims to get an idea of how far removed other creationist claims are from the actual evidence. Pay especial attention to the claims about religion and science being somehow incompatible. Creationism is anti-relgion (unless that religion is the one official authorized version, as amended), but evolution is not. Over 7,000 clergy of the Clergy Letter Project have stated that Christianity is fully compatible with evolution.

If you (or anyone else) do get motivated to write such a page, here are the Submission Guidelines.

1. Change and remain the same number (mutation)

2. Duplicate (it's quite common) and subsequently be "repurposed" by selection

3. Duplicate, remain the same, and be additive by making more of the protein they code, which increases the "dosage", as it were

4. Reduce in number (reducing the dosage)

and many changes are "silent", meaning they are invisible to selection at the time they occur. This means a lot of molecular change of DNA is neutral, and spreads by chance. It can become useful later, although most of it doesn't.

Despite the high school textbooks, genes are not like a zipper, nedding to pair up exactly. And in any event, slightly mispaired DNA can spread through a population, with light loss of fitness, and then "meet up" with copies of itself, regaining that fitness.

A proper understanding requires a complicated explanation, so I'll just refer you to

Beginner's Guide to Molecular Biology

Molecular Biology textbook (warning - large PDF)

See Glen’s main page The Texas Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy

And Mark Isaak’s Index to Creationist Claims-Claim CC101: Human and dinosaur footprints have been found together in the Glen Rose formation at Paluxy River, Texas

The Paluxy man tracks claim is one of the antievolution arguments that just won’t die no matter how often if is debunked or by who. It is nosferatu, it is un-dead…

I don’t know what you saw Shannon, but if we are lying about this then so are a lot of creationists.

The current President of the Institute for Creation Research, John Morris, had this to say about the status of the Paluxy man tracks:

Another research project of some note involved the alleged discovery of human and dinosaur footprints in the Paluxy River, central Texas. Having been nominally involved since the late 1960's, I undertook a major role in 1975 from nearby Oklahoma, culminating in a summary book, Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs, and the People Who Knew Them, in 1980. This book was withdrawn in 1985 when further research called the original interpretation into question. Research continues, but I am of the opinion that the evidence is, at best, ambiguous and unusable as an anti-evolutionary argument at the present time. Source: Back to Genesis #87, Mar 1, 1996, ”ICR and The Future (IX: ICR, For Such A Time As This)”

During the Q&A of a debate between Curtis Clark of Cal Poly Pomona and the ICR’s Senior Vice President Duane Gish at Cal Poly Pomona on 10/20/99, Dr. Gish said the following in response to a question about the Paluxy tracks:

Q: How do you explain the footprint of a human inside, and along side of a dinosaur in a riverbed in Texas? This was scientifically proven, it is not a hoax.

Gish: I'll just answer that first.

This is a claim that has been made in the past, and creationists have cited this evidence. The later conclusions, the evidence indicates that they were probably not human tracks. Dr. Morris at our institute published a book in which he…[garbled, possibly "interpreted them as human"] He has withdrawn that book. The evidence now indicates that it doesn't show any human tracks. Now there are dinosaur tracks down on the Paluxy riverbed in Texas, and there are tracks that in some ways to people look like human tracks. But a, it is so questionable, and so disputable, I don't think, we just don't use that sort of evidence. So I don't think we even need to debate that question.

Ken Ham’s group Answers in Genesis lists the Paluxy man tracks on it’s list of Arguments they think creationists should NOT use

The Geoscience Research Institute (a creationist group at Loma Linda University (Loma Linda, CA) has the following on their web site regarding the Paluxy tracks:

2. Are human and dinosaur footprints found together?

No. There was a claim that they were found together in the riverbed of the Paluxy River of Texas, but this claim seems to have been abandoned by all scientifically trained creationists. The dinosaur footprints are genuine, but the human footprints are not.

See also on the GSRI site:

Dinosaur Tracks and Giant Men by Berney Neufeld

Of Dinosaurs and Men by Art Chadwick

And finally the British creationist group The Biblical Creation Society has an article on it’s web site titled Dinosaur & alleged Human Trackways which condemns some of the tactics used by the few remaining professional creationists who use this argument (Baugh, Hovind etc.).

Be sure to e-mail all these creationists and tell them they are lying as well.

[Now where did I leave that garlic…]

The reason scientists think dinosaurs (the non-avian ones) became extinct so long ago is simply because we do not find any of their fossils in rocks from later than the end of the cretaceous period and we don’t see any still alive today. It has nothing to do with evolutionary theory.

In fact not only would scientists not be embarrassed by the finding of a still living species dinosaur (again, of the non-bird sort), as antievolutionists often insinuate, many paleontologists would probably give their eye-teeth (or a left testis/ovary) for a chance to see one alive.

Now before some antievolutionist out there complains that the very existence of the cretaceous period is some sort of evolutionary assumption let me point out that the geologic column was worked out, by men who were mostly old earth creationist catastrophists, long before Darwin brought evolution into the scientific mainstream in 1859 with the publication of the Origin of Species. As for the cretaceous it was named in 1822 by Belgian geologist D'Omalius d'Halloy (who I understand, not that it should matter, was a Catholic).

The fact that antievolutionists are under the misapprehension that there is some sort of connection between dinosaur extinction and evolutionary theory is probably due to their apparent belief that any of the theories and/or observations of mainstream science which contradicts their theology are all somehow based in evolution. This is nonsense of course and highlights the fact that antievolutionists are really not only against evolutionary theory but are in fact against practically all of science.

I note that you have no objection to my description of this reality. Is that because the "bias" charge is a last resort when you can not fault the facts?

I am not doing this for an employer. I am having fun. The real world is a wonderful place. I highly recommend it to anyone thinking of visiting.

But for any trait that is highly adaptive, and that usually means very efficient in making a living, such as an eye in humans, or a wing in songbirds, each step must be at least as fit as its predecessors, or only a slight amount less fit.

This is best described in terms of Sewall Wright's notion of an "Adaptive Landscape". In this, Wright, a founder of population genetics, supposed that different combinations of gene variants (alleles) would have different fitnesses, which, if you mapped it as a contour landscape, would have peaks and valleys. Under a strong selection, once you have climbed a fitness peak, you are stuck there. Wright pointed out that if the population is subject to a bit of random fluctuation, and this will happen if the population is small or has internal structure, then some organisms can move down the slope to be able to climb another peak.

This is pretty well standard evolutionary biology these days.

I Hope that helps.

"Biased genetic drift" would be stochastic sampling errors on a skewed distribution of alleles. There's nothing "religious" about this, unless you happen to worship statistics. In which case, you are in for disappointment...

But why is there any conflict? If God created any physical process that can be explained without mentioning Him, then He may have created evolutionary processes. Science can't say anything about that, but that doesn't mean science rules God out.

If God created, God created everything, including all the things of the present moment. I can think of many options for a religious believer to accept both God and science, so long as theology is not permitted to overrule empirical data.

You correctly point out that there are two somewhat orthogonal considerations: religious (Christians vs. atheists), and scientific ("evolutionists" vs "young-Earth creationists"). I think of the division of Christians/atheists as opposite ends on the "religious axis" of the problem space. On the "science axis" the division is different: on one end there are both Christians and atheists who accept where the evidence leads, and on the other end there are those who demand that the evidence be hammered -- no matter how poor the fit -- into the history dictated by their religious belief.

This site isn't for religious debate, so we ignore the religious axis and concentrate on the science one. While I try to be good about using "young-Earth creationists" or "YECs," the former is verbose and the latter obscure to the general public. Those folks call themselves "creationists," and the label has stuck. I wouldn't write off all mis-use of the term as being due to YECs and evolutionary materialists -- I'm guilty of it myself, and like you I am an ACG member.

But I think you have confused Pinocchio with evolutionary theory.

On facts: a fact is the subject of much philosophical debate, but alls cientists know what a fact is - it's a measurement derived from observation. Measurements have an in-built error, and sometimes that error can lead to conclusions that need to be revised. Mistakes can be made in science; it's one of it's human aspects.

Conclusions drawn from widely accepted standards of measurement can get called facts as well, and sometimes they need to be overturned. The method has changed, however, not the measurements (use the old method and you will still get the same measurements, more or less). The conclusions about the facts have changed, not the facts themselves (we should now be able to explain the measurements of the discredited method - it might be that we under- or over-estimated the dates it gave).

On randomness and chance: I have given an argument about this, but I think something more needs to be said. A little bit above this response you'll see me claim that "random" means simply that a group of things are distributed over a standard bell curve. However, in this context, "chance" simply means that what happens in mutation isn't correlated with what happens in selection. And no, selection is not a chance phenomenon; it is quite the contrary. Selection is the removal of chance based on what works best.

"Purpose" is always related to something a human being thinks in science. To say "the purpose of trait T is to do X" is to say that a scientist has a model of T in which doing X explains why it is there (through selection, in my view - all biological purpose is selection-based. Same for "function", "goal", "reason" and so on).

Genes do not "have" purposes - we assign purposes based on what happens to be the best theoretical account we can give them. In short, they have purposes only in that account. The genes themselves just do what they do, and the organisms and environment do what they do, and we end up with what we see.

The agent-centric notion of "purpose" is a philosophical, and usually theologically-inspired, notion, not one that matters in biology (apart from the psychology of biological organisms that are agents).