Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
What can you do but laugh about a statement like this:
After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution."Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."
Of course. Because the first person I turn to for information about science is a man who thinks that Adam and Eve's children put a saddle on a stegosaurus and rode them around.
Comments
Ed - I suggest a wedge strategy, to help keep the evil Children of Ham in their place, by teaching the controversy: Western or English Saddles in the Garden Of Eden?
Since God is on America's side, he made sure that they only rode Western Saddles on their Stegos. Those damn limey poofter bastards had better realize that only teh gays rode English saddles.
I am sure this is in Genesis.
Posted by: J-Dog | February 10, 2008 10:39 AM
If Evolution is losing in "the battle," then how come I've never been taught Creationism outside of reading the BuyBull?
This Ken Ham guy is clearly out of his mind on the subject, as well as his followers.
Posted by: Flora | February 10, 2008 10:56 AM
>>>Of course. Because the first person I turn to for information about science is a man who thinks that Adam and Eve's children put a saddle on a stegosaurus and rode them around.
Maybe they were heading over to Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm's house for a play date.
Posted by: CHV | February 10, 2008 11:06 AM
That would probably be his interpretation, he thinks "the Flintstones" was a documentary.
Posted by: Jeff | February 10, 2008 12:18 PM
OK, I slept late, and am not yet fully awake,but.... when I read the article I find it pretty frightening.
These asswipes are truly "fighting a war" over this stuff, and now we see it is in fact a global war.
Berlesconi demanded creationism was to be taught in Italian schools.
According to a study by John Miller of Michigan State, published in August 2006, only 40% of those in the U.S. believe in evolution. (http://www.data360.org/graph_group.aspx?Graph_Group_Id=286)
Significantly more people in Romania believe in evolution than in the U.S.!
Of the 34 or so countries surveyed, the mean % of population who believed in evolution was only about 65%.
We are falling into the Dark Ages all right, even with our iphones and HD TV's.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | February 10, 2008 12:57 PM
These sickos can't get their nonsense published anywhere respectable, so they fob it off on little kids. Creationism is becoming a major world problem. It's more widespread and dangerous than ever. It's only a matter of time before it appears in our public schools as well. About two more supreme court justices is all it will take. If McCain is elected, he will be under tremendous pressure from the wingnuts, and he has already vowed to elect very conservative judges.
Posted by: jeff | February 10, 2008 1:32 PM
Creationism is a problem for schools? Hmm. It's liberal education which asks "If math were a color, what color would it be?" It was the Marxist Noam Chomsky who said The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.
Collin
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 1:51 PM
Of course. Because the first person I turn to for information about science is a man who thinks that Adam and Eve's children put a saddle on a stegosaurus and rode them around.
And a man who probably thinks that Jesus was the inventor of things like swords, thrones, chariots, the wheel, and whatever else Jesus has up there in heaven. Surely Ham would have to think so because Jesus would never copy that stuff from people. Perish the thought!
Posted by: 386sx | February 10, 2008 2:02 PM
Collin,
1) What point are you trying to make when you say, "it's liberal education which asks, 'if math were a color, what color would it be?'" That some curriculum somewhere asked a question you think is silly? That that question was the result of "education" being "liberal?" That all of "liberal education" is therefore worthless? What is your point? Can you back it up?
2) When Chomsky says "the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum," he is describing a state of affairs that he objects to. He believes the spectrum of acceptable opinion should be much wider than it is. Do you not understand that, or are you trying to deliberately misrepresent his ideas by quoting him without context?
Posted by: Chris | February 10, 2008 2:13 PM
*cough*
Posted by: Skemono | February 10, 2008 2:56 PM
If the best they can do is to get a British cabbie to call evolution "a lie", then Ken Ham has still got a bit of work to do before before he begins to shake the foundations of evolutionary biology.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | February 10, 2008 3:01 PM
Colin writes... "It was the Marxist Noam Chomsky who said The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
Colin,
When it comes to public school science curricula, there is a big difference in limiting opinions to a narrow few and limiting opinions to those that are correct.
We keep Creationism out of the science curriculum, not because it is unwanted, but because it is not science. This is the same reason, for example, that we don't teach Biblical principles of mathematics in math class (feeding thousands from a handful of loaves of bread, for example). The reason is that it doesn't work.
So, if you mounted a political lobbying campaign to teach "loaves and fishes" mathematics in public school math class, you would see the same kind of behavior from the educators and the mathematicians that you see from educators and biologists regarding Creationism.
You might want to call "loaves and fishes" mathematics "another point of view", but the rest of the rational world would simply call it "wrong".
In summary: There is a big difference between an open mind and a badly informed one.
Posted by: Chiefley | February 10, 2008 3:02 PM
There is no controversy to teach because they rode English saddles in the Garden of Eden. Western saddles were designed specifically for cattle ranching. Since all the creatures were vegetarians in the Garden (T. Rex used those teeth to crack open coconuts, donchaknow), there was obviously no cattle ranching. Therefore, since Western Saddles had to be invented after The Fall, Adam would have had to use an English saddle.
Think I should submit this to the new Answers science journal?
Posted by: carlsonjok | February 10, 2008 3:15 PM
You guys can't even decide the difference between randomness and determinism. You've a system that is filled with both philosophical and scientific contradictions, so many that even you may not know what they are. When faced with the question of time the evolutionist comes up with Directed Transspermia (aliens). When faced with the question of rapid transitions the response is Hopeful Monster/Punctuated Equilibrium (it was consistent except when it was inconsistent -- the John Kerry scientific method). When faced with a first cause the response is to create the Transcendent Impersonal being of some sort (a secular god of some sort).
Simple "creationism" has its issues. But don't pretend that your solution is anything like complete, coherent, and codifiable.
What if a curriculum merely criticized evolution, even without presenting the concept of special creation -- would that be acceptable? No, it would not because the current evolution proponents consider it axiomatic, despite its many shortcomings. That fits Chomsky's framework nicely, without misrepresentation.
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 4:06 PM
Collin Brendemuehl wrote:
Panspermia is an idea advocated by a very small group of scientists. It may actually end up being true, of course, but it's hardly scientific orthodoxy. And it has absolutely nothing to do with "the question of time." You seem to be babbling about things you have no understanding of.
And here you've proven beyond any doubt that you're babbling about things you have no understanding of. The "hopeful monster" idea of saltationism was advocated by one - ONE - geneticist in the first half of the 20th century. It was rejected by his fellow scientists at the time and still is, and now is of interest only to historians of science and ignorant creationists. And it has precisely nothing to do with punctuated equilibrium, which is not related to saltationism nor does it require any sort of macromutation hypothesis. And this notion that speciation can't occur at different rates is simply idiotic. In the real world, speciation can happen in several different ways depending on the circumstances and can take place over a very long period of time or a relatively short period of time (when Gould and Eldredge spoke of rapid speciation they were talking about time scales in the tens of thousands of years, a vast period of time on the scale of human history but a geological microsecond). This is something that those who are actually educated on these issues understand; those, like you apparently, who only learned about them from creationist pamphlets, only succeed in revealing your ignorance when you spout off about them.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 4:31 PM
Thanks, Ed. I was just about to post some similar comments. Seems like this guy's just repeating some phrases he's heard without understanding the first thing about them--sort of a creationist Tourette's situation, I think.
Posted by: Doug | February 10, 2008 4:39 PM
Ed,
Yes, Hopeful Monster was a century ago. But Punctuated Equilibrium is modern, and functionally the same. It does not depend upon mutation but upon the presumption of speed. It attempts to answer the very same question with a variation on the mechanism.
Directed Transspermia/Panspermia is also lesser-held theory. I understand these things. No argument.
My point is that they are attempts to answer hard questions -- questions that some in the rest of the scientific community would rather write off as mere nonsense ("they're just creationists trying to cause trouble") and show their ignorance, as you just did. Forget logic, reason, and science -- just put down the person asking the question. You followed suit.
Instead of answering the hard questions, did you come with scientific proofs? No. You just brought in what might happen, what can happen, not what did happen. So instead of showing your intelligence you continue to show your ignorance of the logic necessary for dealing with the core issue -- that hard questions are not to be avoided.
The point, which you made clear and with which I agree, is that there is no concensus. Those who are willing to tackle criticism are generally out of the mainstream, for a variety of reasons. Hard answers are hard work. Name-calling is easy.
So much for a science of logic.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 4:50 PM
"You guys can't even decide the difference between randomness and determinism."
In the case of evolution, it's not an either/or scenario. Variation is statistically random with regard to fitness, while selection is non-random. Process can have both deterministic and non-deterministic elements, think of a game of Backgammon.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | February 10, 2008 5:03 PM
Collin Brendemuehl wrote:
I'm sorry but your rank ignorance is showing again. No, PE is not only not "functionally the same" as Goldschmidt's saltationism, it isn't even related to it. PE does not posit any different mechanism of speciation than the Darwinian synthesis already accepted. The only thing PE did was apply Mayr's work on allopatric speciation to paleontology and ask: if most speciation is allopatric in nature, what kind of evidence would this leave behind in the fossil record? The answer is that it would look very much like it does. Again, this is something that those who actually understand PE know and those who learn about it only from creationist pamphlets do not. So widespread is this misunderstanding that Gould wrote an essay explaining this, yet ignorami like you continue to repeat this same utter bullshit because, frankly, you just don't know any better. Here's what Gould himself said about the distortion you're peddling:
If you're going to continue to mindlessly repeat the bullshit you read in creationist pamphlets like this, you're only going to succeed in getting laughed at.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 5:06 PM
Ed,
Did you even read your own quote?
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation ...
The function is the same (to explain rapid transformation). The question is the same (to answer the question of rapid transformation). The mechanism is different.
I do not read creationist material. I disagree with Ken Ham's 6000-year framework. He engages in too much popular excitement. But that said, you've not answered the hard questions of Time, Rapid Transformation, and Determinism/Randomness. Or would you rather resort to vulgarity?
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 5:17 PM
Collin-
What exactly are you proposing here? That evolution is false? After 150 years of people slinging crap at it the theory still holds and is very useful to modern science.
What exactly do you wish to accomplish here? Ed has already highlighted your obvious misunderstanding and lack of education on this topic.
He just typed out Gould's answer to your misrepresentation and you go lalalala.
What hard question are you asking? The mechanism is essentially the same. Again what do you seek to accomplish here? Evolution isn't going away because it's correct. The better question is why haven't you taken the time to learn and understand the theory rather than sling absurd poo?
Posted by: GH | February 10, 2008 5:43 PM
"The function is the same (to explain rapid transformation). The question is the same (to answer the question of rapid transformation). The mechanism is different."
I don't understand why you think lying helps your case when the statement is there for anyone to read. The quote, in full:
"We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane."
The relevant parts are in bold.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | February 10, 2008 5:50 PM
BTW Collin, what exactly is your question with regard to determinism and randomness?
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | February 10, 2008 5:53 PM
GH,
Fair questions.
As I stated earlier, the current framework for evolution appears inadequate to answer these questions. It seems necessary for evolutionists to develop a new framework for their "answers" because their "answers" are often devoid of logic. They do present some real challenges to special creation, but ones that are not at all impossible to overcome because of the weaknesses of the systematic.
Science (naturalism as posited here) does not occur in a vaccuum; science requires a set of presuppositions. Those who avoid dealing with these presuppositions (the systematic) may know a lot of detail but do not understand the larger picture.
Ed only highlighted his inadequate reading of his very proof. Oh, but he did prove that vulgarity trumps answers.
Don't confuse "useful" and "true". That's the postmodern version of science and it is doing great damage these days.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 6:00 PM
Tyler,
Fair question: We live in an open system. Hence there is a God, free will, and Choice. The concept of randomness requires some explanation, more than what we could discuss here. Needless to say, my view is developing outside of our current Hellenistic system. (We are all more Platonists than we might realize.)
Collin
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 6:05 PM
Re Ed Brayton
1. One of the problems with attempting to have a discussion with Mr. Brendemuehl is that he refuses to concede the fact that the theory of the evolution of life has nothing to do with any theory of the origin of life. This is obvious when one considers his mention of the panspermia theory which is an origin of life concept and has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. When confronted with the fact of the distinction between evolution and origins on Jason Rosenhouses' blog, he brushed it off as mere sophistry.
2. As Mr. diPietro pointed out, there is a distinction between the random component of evolution (e.g. genetic variability) and the deterministic component of evolution (e.g. natural selection). This is another concept that Mr. Brandemuehl either does not understand or refuses to accept.
3. Mr. Brayton has very carefully explained the concept of punctuated equilibrium and has, in my opinion, shown great patience with Mr. Brandemuehl who responds by accusing the former of behaving in a beastly manner towards him.
4. When confronted with the notion, on Jason Rosenhouses' blog, that chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor, Mr. Brandemuehl responded with the totally irrelevant comment that Darwin was a racist.
I would suggest that Mr. Brandemuehl pay a visit to his local library and check out the 2000 addition of Ernst Mayrs' book, "What Evolution is." Therein he will find the answers to many of the points he has raised and may even learn something that will allow him not to look like a jackass on this blog.
Posted by: SLC | February 10, 2008 6:07 PM
Collin Brendemuehl quotes this from Gould:
And says:
The first rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging. It is painfully obvious that you are abysmally ignorant on this subject. You really should stop digging. Goldschmidt's hopeful monster idea was not created to explain "rapid transformation." Your claim about similar function and question is utter nonsense. Gould said exactly what I said, that PE was developed to explain the paleontological data in light of what we knew about the dominant form of speciation. That's what he means by "pervasive trends in the fossil record." Specifically, they were referring to a common trend seen in the fossil record where speciation takes place in a small, geographically and reproductively isolated portion of an ancestral plane - that's what allopatric speciation means - and then the new species spreads rapidly and drives the ancestral species to extinction due to the new species being better adapted. In the fossil record, this can appear to be quite "rapid" - in a geological sense - but they're talking about scales of tens of thousands of years, time frames on the outer limits of our ability to date radiometrically.
PE did not propose any new mechanism at all. None. The mechanisms at work in allopatric speciation are the same mechanisms at work in any other form of speciation - natural selection, genetic drift, founder effect, and so forth. Goldschmidt's hopeful monster did indeed propose a whole new mechanism, saltational macromutation, but that has nothing at all to do with PE. There is no connection between PE and the hopeful monster hypothesis. Absolutely none. They have nothing to do with one another. The only people who think they are the same are those, like you, who have clearly not bothered to actually read any of Gould's work on the subject, or Goldschmidt's either. Seriously, you're making a fool of yourself. I suggest you stop digging.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 6:08 PM
"The concept of randomness requires some explanation, more than what we could discuss here."
Then why are you bringing it up?
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | February 10, 2008 6:09 PM
SLC,
I see you're trolling again.
1. So was there no randomness in the formation and development of the "primordial soup", whatever it was? You can't escape necessary randomness no matter how hard you try.
2. The distinction is one with which I differ.
3. Now that's just plain silly.
4. The earlier posts in the thread will show that to be an intended ironly.
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 6:12 PM
"The distinction is one with which I differ."
So what you are essentially claiming is that deterministic processes can never interact with random ones?
If so, then you are as ignorant of statistics and probability as you are of evolution and biology.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | February 10, 2008 6:22 PM
Ed,
PE did not propose any new mechanism at all. None.
Yes it did. (Though we may be using the term mechanism differently.) It proposed an alternative to mutation theory for speciation and a description of the fossil record.
I may not understand PE thoroughly as you, but at least I understand the English language.
Collin
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 6:31 PM
Re Collin Brandemuehl
1. What does randomness in the "primordial soup" have to do with anything?
2. Gee, Mr. Brandemuehl begs to differ. Who cares?
3. Mr. Brandemuehl is a poopyhead.
4. What the hell is ironly?
Richard Dawkins once stated that those who deny evolution are either ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked (but he didn't want to consider that). Mr. Brandemuehl is all of the above.
Posted by: SLC | February 10, 2008 6:34 PM
Perhaps Collin should write his wonderful theories up, publish them, win the Nobel Prize and put us all to shame...
What's stopping you Collin?
Posted by: sonic1blue | February 10, 2008 6:44 PM
Collin wrote:
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Collin, you do not have a clue what you're talking about here. Find me one quote from any of the Gould/Eldredge/Stanley papers on PE that says PE requires an "alternative to mutation theory for speciation." I'll bet you a thousand dollars you can't find one. There are two types of mechanisms in evolutionary theory, mechanisms by which variation is introduced into a population (mutation, recombination, etc) and mechanisms by which a particular variation might get fixed in a population (natural selection, genetic drift, etc). The mechanisms for PE are exactly the same mechanisms proposed by the Darwinian synthesis some some 70 years ago.
What you have proven here, Collin, is that you do not have a shred of intellectual honesty. An intellectually honest person does not spout off about subjects they don't understand. And it is painfully clear here that you have never read a single paper on PE other than creationist tracts. No one who was actually educated on this subject would spout the utter bullshit you're spouting; only the badly educated would. This is precisely what I meant in my C-Span speech when I distinguished between mundane and virulent ignorance. Your ignorance is virulent because you think you know what you're talking about when you don't.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 7:09 PM
"What's stopping you Collin?"
You mean other than a complete lack of evidence? :)
Posted by: Chayanov | February 10, 2008 7:12 PM
Now, Ed, you're getting irrational. The discussion that you quoted was to refute the false premise that PE and Hopeful Monster were the same. I never maintained that error (use my email address for sending the money via PayPal, please); I only surmised that they had a component in common (being variant explanations for the same apparent condition) and also (at the beginning) that both were subject to the same critique. If you insist on raising all of your theories above criticism, them I'm afraid that Chomsky's statement applies.
Have a good evening.
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 7:31 PM
Useful is true in this case, it wouldn't be so if it was false.
You talk about evolution with reams of evidence being unproven and then bring this to the table?
You are just so........wrong. Ed is correct on this. I really don't know what you hope to gain by poo flinging when you haven't an idea what you talking about.
Posted by: GH | February 10, 2008 7:35 PM
Cabbie? They're quoting a London taxi driver?
I think his enlarged hippocampus is putting a great deal of pressure on the rest of his brain.
Posted by: drxblog@gmail.com | February 10, 2008 7:43 PM
"It seems necessary for evolutionists to develop a new framework for their "answers" because their "answers" are often devoid of logic"
ah, yeah, I'm sure they will get right on that...
you being so important and all...
Posted by: Kevin | February 10, 2008 7:50 PM
Collin wrote:
Let me quote you directly. Here's the first one:
Clearly you thought the two were the same idea. Here's the second one:
You have claimed that PE is the same as hopeful monster and you claimed that PE has a mechanism other than mutation. Those are both complete and total bullshit. And now on top of displaying your ignorance, you have shown yourself to be a liar as well as an ignoramus. For crying out loud, your words are right above here for every reader to check for themselves. You can't erase what you said. Quite a performance for you this evening. I suggest slinking off to a forum where people are considerably dumber than they are here; you'll have better luck pretending to know what you're talking about.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 8:01 PM
Functionally: They share the same purpose, working to accomplish the same goal, the same explanation that I gave before. Yes, it's there, it's consistent, and it's not at all what you suggest.
You make up things that suit your own purpose. You didn't like what I had to say about that perpetual liar, so you censored the remark. Can't take criticism, so you nuance to suit your own ends. Can't take criticism so you put words in my mouth. Can't accept an explanation so you resort to vulgarity. What you want me to have meant and what I said and explained are clearly different. You lie like Fred Clarkson.
Posted by: Collin Brendemuehl | February 10, 2008 9:16 PM
Collin wrote:
Even if that is what you said - and it's not - it's still wrong. They did not have the same goal at all. I've already explained that but you're too stupid to understand it. And you've worn out your welcome here. Goodbye.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2008 9:23 PM
God has appeared to me in a vision, and told me that Collin is an Agent Of Satan, and is clearly trying to distract us from Teaching The Controversy. Carlsonjock is just as clearly heading down Satan's Slippery Slope to H E Double Toothpicks for his "English Saddles In Eden" Heresy.
It states in the Bible, Book of Gerbil, Verse 7, The Sermon On The Mounted - "Blessed are those that wear chaps, for theirs is the kingdom of saddle Horns, unlike Limey Poofters that ride side-saddle on Velociraptors.".
HTH :)
Posted by: J-Dog | February 10, 2008 9:49 PM
Oh, ho-hum, when does Collin jump on his dino and yell, "Hi-ho, Silvasaurus!" and ride across the pond to slay the evil evo dragon? That's the good part. Chicks love that. All the rest is exposition.
Posted by: Kristine | February 10, 2008 11:35 PM
Can I just make a historical point here?
Churchill did not "wage war" in WWII, he talked about waging war. If making speeches is waging war then JFK was the first man to walk on the moon.
Now Churchill did wage war in WWI, but I doubt that's a model they want to repeat. To replicate Churchill's effort at Gallipoli they would need to get a bunch of New Zealand and Australian fundies together and get a large number of them killed in an entirely pointless battle for no strategic gain.
Now if they really want to to that, I'm sure we can lend them the few evangelicals we have. We probably won't miss them.
Posted by: James K | February 10, 2008 11:46 PM
Ed, if it makes you feel any better, your six year old nephew had an interesting discussion about evolution, with a friend who has creationist parents recently. I'm pretty sure his parents put him up to it, but his buddy brought up the evolution discussion, with the claim that people didn't evolve from monkeys. His response; "Duh, we evolved from germy bugs."
While he may not have the big words, I'm pretty sure he could take Collin down.
Posted by: DuWayne | February 11, 2008 12:37 AM
Collin, 7:31 PM:
The discussion that you quoted was to refute the false premise that PE and Hopeful Monster were the same. I never maintained that error...
Collin, 4:06 PM:
When faced with the question of rapid transitions the response is Hopeful Monster/Punctuated Equilibrium...
Collin, 4:50 PM:
Yes, Hopeful Monster was a century ago. But Punctuated Equilibrium is modern, and functionally the same...
...huh.
Posted by: Coin | February 11, 2008 1:04 AM
Let's face Winston was a inspiring speaker and a master of media manipulation but as a military thinker he was a dud. Lucky he was smart enough to let the military handle military stuff. Ohter examples of Churcillian military genius include: Narvik, Tobruk (the whole Desert Campaign really), Monte Cassino and the Greco-Cretan adventure; all WWII. Not even touching his part in the Middle-Eastern situation after WWI.
Touching on Gallipoli - the campaign did not achieve the strategic or tactical aims but it was not entirely pointless. It pushed Australia away from the "mother country", shaped the formation of modern Turkey and it kept the Axis Powers busy thus weakened the Western Front.
"Sometimes shit happens" - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | February 11, 2008 1:28 AM
If you're going to send your religious crazies over here we may have to even the score and send Ian Paisley by return of post.
Posted by: Matt | February 11, 2008 6:20 AM
Re Winston Churchill and the Gallipoli campaign.
Although this is way off topic, since it has been brought up, I am going to put in my two cents worth.
Strategically, there was nothing wrong with the idea behind the Turkish campaign. In fact,had it succeeded, it would probably have shortened the war, negating the entrance of the US, because Britain and France would have been able to resupply the Russian armies through the Dardenelles, which they could not do as long as Turkey was in the war on the German side. Had the resupply been operative, the Brusilov offensive in 1916 would not have halted because it ran out of munitions and enough German troops would have been diverted to the Eastern front to allow a successful Somme offensive by the British.
The problem was in the execution. The original idea was to have a joint army/navy assault on the forts above the Bosporus. However, the participation of army troops was vetoed by the British high command which left only a Naval bombardment by British and French battleships. The guns of the forts were actually silenced but, in the absence of a land offensive which would have occupied them, it went for naught. Subsequently, the high command finally approved a land assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula but that too was mismanaged by the commanders on the ground who failed to take the high ground after troops had landed, even though there were virtually no Turkish troops within 2 or 3 days march of the area.
If Churchill can be faulted, it was for agreeing to the naval bombardment unsupported by army troops. Unfortunately, Churchill was not the British defense minister, only the First Lord of the Admiralty and had no control over the use of army troops.
Although alternate histories are always speculative, a plausible argument can be made that a German defeat in 1916 might have resulted in no Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1918 and possibly even no subsequent Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933. Had both of those outcomes occurred, there would have probably been no WW 2 as it is unlikely that Japan would have attacked the US in the absence of German participation in any future conflict.
Posted by: SLC | February 11, 2008 8:08 AM
you've not answered the hard questions of Time, Rapid Transformation, and Determinism/Randomness.
Neither have you, because you seem to completely fail to understand them.
Posted by: Graculus | February 11, 2008 8:57 AM
LOL!
Bullshit. There's time aplenty on Earth -- the oldest evidence for life is 3.85 Ga old, but there were already continents and oceans 4.4 Ga ago. That leaves seven hundred fifty million years.
What, you don't even know that the Hopeful Monster and punk eek are not the same?!?
Oh dude. Punk eek is a model of speciation: new species arise from small isolated populations, and because they are small, mutations get fixed faster than usual. Punk eek is a very small-scale phenomenon. It's not about cats and dogs, but about brown bears and polar bears.
Now the funny thing: in most of the few cases where the fossil record has a high enough resolution to show speciation, it shows punk eek. The exceptions are cases where geographic isolation is impossible, such as diatoms in the equatorial Pacific. Google for "speciation in the fossil record", and you'll find the review paper.
The Hopeful Monster was the laughable idea that an earthworm could lay eggs of which a trilobite could hatch. It has been extinct for several decades.
Bullshit. That's a religion, not science. Quantum physics eliminated the "first cause" problem 100 years ago.
Besides, I can't see how a god solves any "first cause" "problem". Why does the creator exist? Who created the creator?
Don't pretend that you actually knew anything. Go spend a few days in Google.
Bullshit, see above.
Bullshit, see above.
We aren't even talking about directed panspermia, we're talking about panspermia in general. Almost no biologists think the idea of panspermia is necessary to explain anything.
Newsflash: There is no such thing as scientific proof. Science cannot prove, only disprove. Proof is for math.
As mentioned, science cannot prove -- so if we find the truth, we can't prove that what we have found is indeed the truth.
So we have to resort to another criterion. Everything we see in biology is predicted by the theory of evolution -- and some of it (much, actually) is (so far) only predicted by the theory of evolution. That's what we mean by saying "the theory is useful".
What you have to do is to find something that evolution doesn't predict and then come up with a theory that predicts everything that evolution predicts plus the new observation that evolution doesn't predict. Go ahead. We're waiting.
Yet again you show you don't know what you're talking about. Science requires one single presupposition: that the world is largely coherent -- that miracles don't happen too often and at too unpredictable intervals in too unpredictable ways. The joke is that this presupposition is itself a scientific = testable hypothesis! It is being tested in every single observation (of an experiment or anything else) every day, and it has never been disproven.
Please do explain.
Posted by: David Marjanović | February 11, 2008 9:28 AM
Again, the argument used is "evolution is wrong because, (fill in whatever batshit crazy idea that pops into your mind here), so godditit is the default position.
When any of the religious whacko's come up with ANY realistic substantial evidence that goddidit, scientists would LEAP to be the first to proove/disproove the presented information.
Imagine the Nobel prizes! To be lauded as the greatest mind in history, above Einstein, Newton, and yes, Darwin. And yes, rich beyond avarice from book sales and speaking tours, etc., etc. !
Got any provable, repeatable evidence?
Anything??
Come on, anything???
The sound of crickets.............
Posted by: RAM | February 11, 2008 5:05 PM
Colin:
But fortunately, someone wholly unfamiliar with the scientific literature does know what all the contradictions are. Thank you, Colin, we've been waiting for your wisdom.
Once again, the argument boils down to this: Scientists don't know anything about evolution, only non-scientists do.
Compelling, so compelling. Before I publish my next research article dealing with evolution, I'll be sure to avoid Journal of Theoretical Biology, and just give Colin a shout.
Posted by: James Hanley | February 11, 2008 8:45 PM
Collin- Chomsky isn't a Marxist. He's an anarchist. Its usually a good idea to learn about someone before you label them.
Posted by: guthrie | February 12, 2008 6:58 AM