It makes me sad every time...

[Swa]

I never said bias cannot be involved. But you're effectively saying every scientist on the planet who's convinced by the veracity of the theory of evolution is doing so because they are obviously biased and unable to look at the evidence objectively. This is monumentally arrogant.

It's reality. The study confirms what researchers have accepted for decades, that nobody is truly capable of unbiased thinking. I didn't claim that bias is the only factor but it is a large part of it. What you can't get away from is that theists can consider natural causes but atheists can ONLY consider natural causes. You are reluctant to accept that. The real arrogance here is in thinking that consensus determines truth rather than the facts.

That's why falsification is important. The issue is that the people who so gleefully proclaim that evolution is bunk are unable to substantiate why, and the vast majority of scientists agree on this.

We've been perfectly able to substantiate it. You want it to be disproven however before even accepting there are serious problems with it.

No, I'm saying it's not only chance. Natural selection is key, and it isn't random.

If you're saying an intelligence is involved, then show us how that has been shown by observation and experiment. How do you test for intelligent design? How could it be falsified?

Well then what is natural selection? As Tom Bethell points out in the July/August 2007 issue of The American Spectator:
"The truth is that Darwinism is so shapeless that it can be enlisted in support of any cause whatsoever. Steven Hayward, a resident scholar at AEI, made this clear in his admirable introduction. Darwinism has over the years been championed by eugenicists, social Darwinists, racialists, free-market economists, liberals galore, Wilsonian progressives, and National Socialists, to give only a partial list. Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer, Communists and libertarians, and almost anyone in between, have at times found Darwinism to their liking...

The underlying problem is that a key Darwinian term is not defined. Darwinism supposedly explains how organisms become more “fit,” or better adapted to their environment. But fitness is not and cannot be defined except in terms of existence. If an animal exists, it is “fit” (otherwise it wouldn’t exist). It is not possible to specify all the useful parts of that animal in order to give an exhaustive causal account of fitness. If an organism possesses features that appear on the surface to be inconvenient-such as the peacock’s tail or the top-heavy antlers of a stag-the existence of stags and peacocks proves that these animals are in fact fit.

So the Darwinian theory is not falsifiable by any observation. It “explains” everything, and therefore nothing. It barely qualifies as a scientific theory for that reason..."

When he asked John Derbyshire what would falsify Darwinism. He replied "I think miraculous creation would do it. The miraculous appearance of an entirely new species."

That is not science it is dogmatism. The whole concept of "survival of the fittest" is completely untestable and unfalsifiable. Natural selection can only "explain" post hoc but without a test for fitness it can't be claimed that those that survive and those that don't are anything but accidental or random occurrences.

Larry Laudan agrees that ID is falsifiable but errs in thinking it's been falsified. The error he makes is seeing it as claiming that "intelligence must be the cause" where it actually claims that "intelligence is more likely the cause." Suppose someone finds two rocks lying next to each other. This can be the result of someone arranging them but we also know that rocks are likely to end up next to each other due to natural processes and even that it is more likely because most people don't take the time to arrange rocks. The statement that it is more likely the result of intelligence would thus be falsified.

On the other hand suppose there are ten rocks arranged at the same distance from each other in a perfect circle. It is possible that this is the result of natural processes but that would only falsify that it must be the result of intelligence and not that it is more likely the result of intelligence. To falsify it it must be shown that there are natural processes that are more likely to make ten rocks and arrange them at equal distance in a circle. He skips this step and goes straight from "nature may have done it" to "there's therefor no reason to consider intelligence."

Uhm, no. Religious people only have one explanation to offer. '<insert whatever deity> did it.' That's always the explanation. Saying they 'have no reason to accept anything but a natural origin' is inaccurate. It says nothing about them changing their minds in the future, given evidence gathered. Nothing in the evidence we've obtained thus far points to a supernatural or divine origin.

Look at the people driving Intelligent Design. They're practically all Christians. The Discovery Institute, the ICR, Answers In Genesis, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Casey Luskin. All of them. Read about the Wedge Document, for example. It's christian creationism in a new set of clothes.

And by the way, Ken Miller is a Roman Catholic.

That's another misrepresentation. Cause is not the same as explanation. That straw man has been debunked ages ago. "X did it" is not the end of knowledge but only the start. The Apollo space program director Sam Phillips was quoted as saying that he did not think America would have reached the moon as quickly without Wernher von Braun's help. Later he amended it to saying that he didn't think they would have reached the moon at all. Benjamin Carson was featured by a Time U.S. issue titled "America's Best" as "Super Surgeon" and awarded the highest civilian accolade, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by George Bush. He is a creationist as well. Francis Bacon who developed the foundation for the modern scientific method and Newton who used his methods to describe how gravity works as God's creation were both YECs.

For people with a naturalistic view to change their minds is unlikely when they can choose to interpret all the evidence through a naturalistic lens. Your refusal to even look at the evidence that points to a non-naturalistic origin is a testament to this and a good example of the 70% of people the study was talking about. What you're trying to show with the affiliations of ID is a mystery however. It's relatively new so of course it's going to be represented mainly by the groups that developed it. Welcome to the genetic fallacy.

Proper references that show that it was Intelligent Design that predicted these things, please.

"Intelligent design provides a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of large amounts of information, since we have considerable experience of intelligent agents generating informational configurations of matter." (Meyer S. C. et. al., "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang" in "Darwinism, Design, and Public Education")
"If it is true that a vast amount of the DNA in higher organisms is in fact junk, then this would indeed pose a very serious challenge to the idea of directed evolution or any teleological model of evolution.... Indeed, if it were true that the genomes of higher organisms contained vast quantities of junk the whole argument of this book would collapse.... On any teleological model of evolution, most, perhaps all the DNA in the genomes of higher organisms should have some function." (Michael Denton, "Nature's Destiny")
"An intelligent cause may reuse or redeploy the same module in different systems, without there necessarily being any material or physical connection between those systems. Even more simply, intelligent causes can generate identical patterns independently:" (Nelson and Wells, "Homology in Biology" in "Darwinism, Design, and Public Education," pg. 316)
"Agents can arrange matter with distant goals in mind. In their use of language, they routinely 'find' highly isolated and improbable functional sequences amid vast spaces of combinatorial possibilities." (Stephen C. Meyer, "The Cambrian Information Explosion" in "Debating Design," pg. 388)

 

[Swa]

Look at Ahlberg's first post. He says "Casey Luskin is not even worth addressing." This indicates a repeated pattern of behaviour. He left out the important parts of Ahlberg and Coates' words, misrepresenting them. He claims they're saying the quality of Tiktaalik as a fossil is poor, which is not what they're saying.

Boisvert clarifies: "As you know, the “Discovery” Institute tactic is not to go to the primary literature in order to understand it but rather to use quotations from secondary, even tertiary sources, reorganise or use them out of context opportunistically to their own convenience. In this case, they used an article where the journalists unfortunately misunderstood me. Tiktaalik’s material is in fact exquisite, it is very well preserved, basically uncrushed and can be prepared out to be examined in three dimensions. I never said the quality was poor. I have simply explained that the morphology of the fin of Panderichthys is more tetrapod-like than that of Tiktaalik, which has nothing to do with the quality of the material."

Ahlberg clarifies: "Is there a problem with the way Tiktaalik has been hyped? Yes, there is. Does this mean that it has been "dethroned" by Panderichthys, or that it is no longer relevant to the question of tetrapod origins? No it doesn't."

This contradicts his claim that it is being dethroned. He misrepresented them. Just admit it. Read that whole post properly.

He also attacked Ken Miller in 3-parts: here, here and here. Miller responded, delivering quite a blow to poor old deluded Luskin. Also in 3 parts: here, here and here. Seems Nick Matzke and Ian Musgrave also tear him apart. Hilariously, Michael Behe also comes out looking more of a fool, at the hands of his own fellow ID'er.

Well that is usually the response we get. Something that's pretty ironic in light of him then admitting that it's basically true. This just seems like semantics: "It's only the distal radials. That's just a minor detail. Let's ignore that we're basing the entire transition from water to land on it because the fossil itself is exceptional." Yeah right, pull the other one.

I don't know why you continue with the misidentified quote. It was rectified and looking at the article itself it also doesn't claim that she said it. In fact it has multiple sources. I don't know wtf the continued claim that she's being misrepresented. Actually it's Coates that admits they might be "fragments of damaged bone" which contradicts her claim that it's "exquisite" and well preserved, as well as the fact that there's no hind fins or tail so clearly something happened to this fish.

As for Ken Miller, hilariously Behe himself shows how he shamelessly misrepresents his argument in Black Box. Luskin responded to Miller's "blow delivering" distortion of the facts here, here, here and here. Miller's reply...

So in light of your disapproval I have to ask why is it ok to misrepresent creationists and IDers?

No, it wasn't a dead end. I'd suggest listening to what the actual scientists involved in the work are saying rather than Luskin and his misinformation.

I do look at what the actual scientists say and in this case it was commonly accepted to be a dead end even before the most recent discoveries.

Why is it not a prediction of evolution? He predicted how a creature fitting similar criteria might have evolved similarly. It panned out. What more do you want? Here's a paper on the topic.

I don't know how else to say this except plainly and simply, just because an evolutionist makes a prediction based on structural similarity doesn't make it a prediction that flows from evolutionary theory. What you fail to realise is that other than dogmatically saying it might evolve to fit the criteria, which I showed is akin to saying it might be created to fit the criteria, no evolutionary thinking was shown to be involved. So iow someone drew a picture of the closest living thing that fits the criteria, was told that scientists were already studying it for about a decade, and claimed it the result of his paradigm. Except that in his lectures evolution was largely irrelevant. I showed how he came up with his criteria based on structure instead.

Back on the subject of his criteria. Not to withhold credit where it is due but even Alexander's own colleague Paul Sherman has noted that eusociality occurs to an extent in other mammals and even birds though they don't fit most of his 12 points. It does beg the question of what the actual chance of finding a eusocial animal is if criteria are arbitrarily chosen. Considering it in that light even if it was a prediction of evolution does it stack up better than a tarot card reading against even more specific predictions that fail time and again? Astrology would have a very good track record then.

The actual studies weren't done based on photographs, they were done on scientific data. Majerus was aware of the criticism, and made sure to address it in his own experiments.

As for Wells, read what Grant wrote about him.

Disputed scientific data. Majerus didn't address all of the criticisms. Most notably the fact that the moths tend to not rest on tree trunks during the day. So it's still unknown how selective predation would be achieved but it's not on tree trunks. I also doubt he didn't disturb their natural behaviour because as Mikkola noted "night-active moths, released in an illumination bright enough for the human eye, may well choose their resting sites as soon as possible and most probably atypically."

What a misrepresentation of Wells' work.

Experiment and investigation of how it evolved. This helped them. That's what they're saying themselves. Why do you know better than the people who actually did the experiments?

Great so they have to experiment and investigate "how it evolved." You make my point evolution is of no guidance to them. Read the article by the late Prof. Philip Skell again: "Additionally, I have queried biologists working in areas where one might have thought the Darwinian paradigm could guide research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I learned that evolutionary theory provides no guidance when it comes to choosing the experimental designs. Rather, after the breakthrough discoveries, it is brought in as a narrative gloss." That IS from the people who "actually did the experiments."

Quite a bit of that hype mentioned earlier in that article, too.

It hasn't been published yet, and the guy himself isn't sure of the outcome. As it says "If it turns out that the traditional mammal tree is right, Peterson won't see that result as a defeat for microRNAs. It would just mean that something odd happened with mammalian microRNAs."

So let's wait for them to finish their work before jumping up and down. Nevertheless, interesting stuff.

Good article on that.

No it doesn't matter which one is "right." What's important is that they contradict one another. That is contrary to what was expected or predicted but it's completely expected if common descent is rubbish. Asher is somewhat mistaken. It's not just taking a top branch and moving it to the root. As if that isn't bad enough it's also moving a branch near the bottom to the top. But he's failing on the fact that the tree isn't showing divergence but only relatedness. If this is also presented entire forks need to be moved and even branches from one fork to another. The Nature article thus isn't exaggerating much and Asher seems to be trying to understate the issue.