Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Someone named Ben left a comment on an almost 2 year old thread, so I'm moving it up here to answer it so it doesn't get lost. Ben shows the typical ignorance, both mundane and virulent, that we've come to expect from creationists. To wit:
If there are all these missing links that had to have happened and all these trial and errors in life, where are all the fossils? There should be a vast number of them. How come there's only a few found?
This is a good example of ignorance that is both mundane and virulent. The ignorance of the reality of the fossil record is mundane; the memorized platitude that there should be a vast number of such fossils is virulent - a ridiculous claim that is accepted credulously by creationists precisely because of their mundane ignorance of paleontology.
This whole notion of the "missing link" is just plain silly. There are lots of gaps in the fossil record, of course, and there always will be. Fossilization is relatively rare; we have fossils of only a small percentage of all the species that have ever lived. But all of the fossils we do have are found in very specific patterns predicted by evolution. That is compelling evidence for common descent. I will repeat here the challenge I have offered to every creationist who has posted here, without a single one of them even attempting to try and answer it:
If evolution is true, and each of these major animal groups split off from the previous one, then what would we expect? Well, we would expect that since each of these new groups split off from an already existing one, the order of appearance within those groups should be as conspicuous as the order of appearance in general. If the first amphibians split off from fish, then the first amphibians could only be slightly different than fish; if birds evolved from reptiles, then the first birds must have been very similar to reptiles; and so forth. And what does the fossil record show? Precisely that. The first amphibians to appear are the most fish-like, so much so that they retained internal gills and were still primarily aquatic. Over time, amphibians become more and more diversified and less fish-like, with later forms being successively more terrestrial and less aquatic. The first birds to appear are so reptile-like that they would be classified as theropod dinosaurs if not for the feathers. We now have multiple feathered theropod species to bridge the gap, and they all appear very early and share most of their traits with reptiles, not with modern birds. Over time, they diversified and became less reptile-like. The same can be said of the first mammals, which are so identical to the therapsid reptiles that they evolved from that where exactly you draw the line between the two groups is largely academic. And just like the other lineages, they start out with only one or two species that looks just like their presumed ancestor, then over time new branches appear that are successively less like those ancestors and more like modern mammals. This is exactly what evolution would predict. Indeed, if it wasn't that way, evolution would be falsified. If modern birds appeared all at once in the fossil record, with entirely avian skeletal structure and feathers and fully adapted for powered flight, there would be no way to link them to reptiles, and the same is true of every other major animal group. But they don't appear that way, and the order in which they do appear is precisely what evolution predicts.This is called "biostratigraphy". As you go up the geologic column, from older strata to more recent strata, the types of plants and animals that you find fossilized within them change rather dramatically, but they change in a very specific pattern. In the oldest rocks you find nothing but bacteria and the chemical traces thereof, and that continues for over 2 billion years of the earth's history. Then you find simple multi-celled organisms in the form of algal stromatolites. Then in the late Precambrian, more complex life forms begin to appear, all marine invertebrates. The pattern continues in this basic order: hemichordates --> chordates -->jawless fishes --> jawed fishes --> amphibians --> reptiles --> birds and mammals. That's a very rough overview, of course, and there is a lot of detail to be filled in. But the important fact here is that the order of appearance is exactly what one would predict if evolution is true, and within each of those major animal groups we find the same predicted order. Now, from the perspective of a young earth creationist, what is the explanation for this order of appearance?
Good luck, Ben. You're gonna need it.
Ben continues:
Now say it took evolution 10 trys (vastly more of course, but for sake of argument...) to get each limb in the right place on a lizard. That's AT LEAST 40 skeletons. Now say it took 10 trys for each one of those types to get two eyes in the right spot (assuming already they are pretty much human). That's 400. Now weather or not the lizards got eaten because they had no eyes is besides the point right now. Now say those 400 lizards were then all going to evolve out of having tails. Well if they went from tail to no tail (the fastest method) we would then have over 800 examples of evolutionary proof right? The fact is that there isn't really any proof.
This is pretty much pure ignorance. Ben seems to think that evolution is like someone sitting in a lab trying to build each species from scratch, but that is obviously nonsense. Evolution works by constant modification of genomes that already exist, it does not start from scratch. There is no will or goal, only random variation and non-random selection based on the local environment.
The best argument I've heard for evolutionary proof is about the finches in the Galapagos Islands. Darwin said that because during periods of less resources, the birds with the less adaptable beaks died off while the ones with larger beaks lived on because they could eat other things. They in turn bred with the only other birds alive, the large beaked. Now while this is a GREAT example of microevolution, it is NOT macroevolution. Yes they did change, but no new DNA was added. The birds had bigger beaks but after the recourses became plentiful again, the birds devolved back into what they looked like from the beginning. They didn't evolve into having a strand of hair or even keep the large beaks. They exhibited adaptation, not macroevolution.
If this is the best argument you've heard, I suggest seeking out other arguments. And then I suggest paying attention to them rather than building straw men caricatures of them. The Galapagos finches are not used as evidence of "macroevolution", they are examples of natural selection only. And that is all they are ever used as. Your criticism, that this example doesn't prove what it was never intended to prove, is simply inane.
How come all we have found are fully formed fossils yet not a dog/cat or fish/ lizard, or even a fish/frog?
Funny you should mention the fish to amphibian transition, as it is not only one of the best documented transitions it is also a perfect example of evolution making accurate predictions. No one would expect a dog/cat transition because cats did not evolve from dogs, not did lizards evolve from fish. But amphibians did evolve from fish and the evidence of how and when that transition took place is simply undeniable.
We have a very well documented series of fossils in precisely the right anatomical and temporal sequence showing the gradual transition of lobe-finned fishes living in shallow water environments to amphibious tetrapods living part of the time out of the water. That series of fossils shows the transition in every key trait - the shape of the head, the position of the nostrils, the structure of the ear, the stiffening of the limbs and the rib cage to be able to support the animal's weight, and so forth.
In fact, there was a "missing link" in that series, a gap for which we had no fossil evidence, up until about 3 years ago. Paleontologists could predict what that transitional form must have looked like, the age of the rocks in which it must be found and the type of sediments it would be found in if it left fossils behind. And that's exactly where they found it. The species is called Tiktaalik roseae and it fills that gap perfectly. This is what people who actually know the science know that creationist trolls do not.
Comments
Ben also seems convinced, as are all the creationists I've encountered, that evolution must proceed in a strictly linear fashion or not at all. This simplistic kind of idea always baffles me. As for the "micro" versus "macro" evolution, I've always wanted to ask a creationist: how many micros are there, exactly, in a macro? It's like this argument is somehow a magic force field against speciation.
Posted by: Dan | March 2, 2008 9:47 AM
Creationist often claim that modern evolutionary theory has an entropy problem (because they don't really understand the theory). The irony is that YECs really do have an entropy problem, in accounting for the geological and fossil record.
Posted by: Divalent | March 2, 2008 9:58 AM
Ed asks:
Easy answer: "Goddidit". Can you prove otherwise??
Sorry, but I'm trying to think like an ID/creationist here. But this is pretty typical of such an exchange. It all boils down to their faith in God and their particular interpretation of the Bible.
A rational person can try, like Ed just did, to explain some of the intricate details of evolution in an attempt to show that there's a more complicated, but more reasonable, explanation than what the creationist is looking for. But if they aren't curious about the world around them and aren't willing to learn something that just might conflict with their religious beliefs... then they are going to be completely and utterly satisfied with "Goddidit" as an answer.
So Ed, I think you'll be waiting a long time for this creationist to logically, much less successfully, address your comments about common descent.
Posted by: doctorgoo | March 2, 2008 9:58 AM
Hey Ed, are you ever going to do anything covering that lulzery of a movie by Ben Stein, since we're on the subject?
Oh, and good stuff, good stuff.
Posted by: Jeff | March 2, 2008 11:16 AM
Re: Doctorgoo"
I agree that it is unlikely that Ed will change Ben's opinions. Why then should we bother to post responses to creationist claims?
I saw an answer to that question over at the Panda's thumb a while back. I think that Ed was involved in the establishment of that site.
A respondent made exactly the same point that you did; why try to explain things to people who won't listen anyway? The individual who had posted the refutation of the creationist nonsense noted that although he had little hope of changing the opinion of the benighted creationist, other people also read the blog. These individuals might be open to change and would benefit from the explanation offered, even if people like Ben never did.
I think that is justification enough to continue to attempt to refute assertions made by people like Ben.
Ed, nice job. Please keep up the good work. Your blog is the first one that I read each day.
Posted by: NJ Osprey | March 2, 2008 12:29 PM
This struck me as moreso what creationism must... God building each species from nothing and completely formed from the beginning. Isn't this what Genesis tells us happened?
Posted by: Tony | March 2, 2008 12:31 PM
Unfortunately he probably found that post through a search engine and probably won't be responding to this thread.
Posted by: FutureMD | March 2, 2008 12:38 PM
Jeff wrote:
I've written about it several times, actually. And when the movie is actually released, I'm going to have an article in Skeptic debunking the claims about Richard Sternberg in the movie.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 2, 2008 12:42 PM
YECs also seem to think that every physical/biological differences in species must be the result of one specific evolutionary change that only affected the one physical/biological attribute. What they don't realize or refuse to understand is that one change in DNA can result in several different, and often unexpected, physical differences. I am thinking specifically about a documentary I saw on the evolution of wolves into domesticated dogs. Research by Soviet scientists exiled to Siberia showed a lot of the physical differences between wolves and dogs, and the much broader variation in physical characterstics of dogs (as opposed to wolves, who tend to be very similar) can be traced to one cause - lower levels of adrenaline production in dogs.
It is also interesting to me that creationists, particularly YECs (I have relatives of the Southern Baptist persuasion who subscribe to YEC thinking) do not reject the same science of physics and biology when their own healthcare is at stake. If one does not believe, for instance, in the results of radio-isotope dating of rocks, how can one trust the results of X-rays or nuclear medicine treatment?
Posted by: CPT_Doom | March 2, 2008 12:43 PM
In addition to all of the above, the creationists seem unable or unwilling to take into consideration how unlikely it is that any individual organisim will fossilize. Probably the most surprising thing is how many "links" there are available for study, given the unliklihood that a fossil will form and the added unliklihood that once it has formed it will be found.
Posted by: Elaine | March 2, 2008 1:08 PM
Bemnhas his head so far up his ass he can't see for the you what in his eyes. Evolution does not take place in a straight line, there nare many branches from the tree of life, to bad his branch broke
Posted by: Ex Partiate | March 2, 2008 1:23 PM
doctorgoo wrote:
Perhaps we should ask Dembski to calculate the probability of "new information" being added to the bad arguments against evolution.
We could use that to narrow down a time frame when we need to check back. You know, before or after the heat death of the universe, just a rough guess.
Posted by: Leni | March 2, 2008 1:26 PM
All this Science jargon is confusing to the average person. To generalize and simply things, the whole creationist or intelligent design argument hinges on one thing: Can life come from non-life in a macro sense or micro sense? I do not think most people have any problem with micro evolution. I disagree that we were common ancestors with apes but Genesis does not preclude this or an old earth. It starts with in the beginning...
Where does Science say this beginning came from and where is the proof? I understand that you could say the same to me. My proof would be verifying the historical accuracy of the Bible which is not Science I understand. What is your proof?
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 2, 2008 2:22 PM
This is exactly what I meant by what ID/creationsists are thinking when I summarized the bulk of Ed's query with "blah blah blah... ".
Did you ever think, King, that science wouldn't be confusing to the average person if science, and not theology, were allowed to be taught to our children in high school?
Posted by: doctorgoo | March 2, 2008 2:32 PM
King of Ireland said:
I don't believe this is accurate. I believe what's behind the actual creationist sentiment is that humans could not have evolved from earlier life forms, just as you yourself have admitted. I think "life from lifelessness" is an issue, but not the one that really chaps off most creationists, it's "I didn't come from a monkey!" that is the deal-breaker.
And on that score, the scientific evidence is absolutely rock solid: Modern humans evolved from earlier forms of life, specifically from an early ape-like ancestor that also gave rise to chimps and other great apes. Check here for a synopsis of just the fossil evidence. And that doesn't even consider the DNA footprints left by viruses, or the chromosome damage evidence between chimps and humans, or any of the other multiple lines of evidence from other disciplines.
Human evolution from our early common ancestor with the apes is only the latest act in a very, very long sequence of events. Because creationists cannot accept this last tail end of the story, they reject the entire premise, ignoring the vast amount of evidence that Ed has pointed to.
The problem isn't abiogenesis, the problem is a gut-level rejection of the idea that we weren't poofed into existence.
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | March 2, 2008 2:47 PM
To generalize and simply things, the whole creationist or intelligent design argument hinges on one thing: Can life come from non-life in a macro sense or micro sense?
If that is honestly all the creationist/ID argument hinges on, then they really need to find a new theory to attempt to discredit. The theory of evolution doesn't deal with abiogenesis. One can speculate on the origin of life, but TOE describes and predicts what happens after life begins. It doesn't matter one bit to the theory of evolution how that first single celled life form came to exist. It could have came into being by natural methods, been poofed into existence by capital G god or by any number of gods, or been left here by an alien species. Once life appears, that's when evolution takes over.
Of course, the origin of life isn't the main problem creationists/IDists have with evolution.
*shrug*
Posted by: Foster Disbelief | March 2, 2008 3:23 PM
King - Science doesn't say anything one way or another about what an ultimate beginning was. There are plenty of scientists who are theists and would answer that the ultimate cause was God. Personally I'm an atheist but I'd answer that there doesn't need to be specific first cause, some things just are, which is probably not too different from how most people would respond if they were asked why there's a God.
All science can has explanations for is what has happened since there has been something. In the case of evolution it wouldn't matter how life got started, we still have very clear evidence of how it has evolved since then. All Ed's challenge is saying is that the fossils we've found all fit into a pattern that is consistent with all life having a common ancestor. Some changes may be more filled in with details than others, but there aren't things that don't fit into a pattern at all. The jargon is just the details explaining specific examples that we've found.
As for saying that most people accept microevolution, just not macro - that's a pretty meaningless distinction. It's all just evolution, there doesn't seem to be magical barriers that prevent species from evolving more than some set amount. Macroevolution generally seems to just mean "evolution that a creationist doesn't think has happened yet"
Posted by: mcmillan | March 2, 2008 3:23 PM
Ed, "The Galapagos finches are not used as evidence of "macroevolution", they are examples of natural selection only. And that is all they are ever used as."?? While your creo chum was babbling nonsense, Darwin collected birds he identified as a mixture of "blackbirds", "gros-beaks", "wrens" and finches, and on his return from the voyage was told by Gould that they were, in fact, thirteen separate species of finches. By some definitions that's "macroevolution", though of course a creationist would retort that they're not "kinds", and none had evolved into a dog.
Posted by: dave | March 2, 2008 3:25 PM
King of Ireland wrote:
No, no, no. The last sentence is simply gibberish - what in the world is macro or micro even doing in that sentence? They mean nothing in that context. Either the first life form on earth came about through a natural, abiogenetic process or it did not; there is no macro or micro to it. But either way, this is an entirely separate question from the theory of evolution. Even if we presume that the first self-replicating life form was planted on Earth by God, the theory of evolution (which means the theory of common descent) remains true and valid and supported by the evidence. Regardless of how the first self-replicating life form got here, all modern life forms are derived from it via descent with modification.
The book of Genesis has precisely zero relevance to this or any other scientific question. The Hebrew creation myth carries no more evidential weight than the Hindu, Norse or Dogon creation myths - and they all carry none at all. Even if Genesis did "preclude" those things, it would make them no less true.
Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of anything other than biodiversity on earth. It says nothing at all about the origin of the universe, the origin of the planet or even the origin of life on this planet. Period. Those are all interesting questions, but the theory of evolution remains true no matter what you believe about those things.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 2, 2008 3:29 PM
McMillan wrote:
Just to be clear, the argument is actually considerably stronger than that. It's not just that those patterns fit a pattern that is consistent with evolution, it's that those patterns fit what absolutely must be true if evolution is true. If life on earth shares a common ancestor then we must find the pattern that we find - we must see a pattern of increasing complexity beginning with relatively simple creatures; we must see that the first of each major taxa looks nearly identical to its presumed ancestor, and it must show increasing diversity and differentiation from the ancestral species over time. If those patterns were not there, evolution would be dead in the water. Creationism, on the other hand, can explain any possible pattern; whatever the order the various life forms appeared in, hey, that's the way God decided to create them. So it's not just that the patterns in the fossil record are consistent with evolution, it's that those patterns are the only way they could possibly be if evolution is a valid explanation, while the alternative could explain anything at all.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 2, 2008 3:35 PM
America wants to know if Ben was home schooled or if he attended public school in Texas. Someone ought to shine a flashlight in his ear to make his eyes sparkle.
I think the second biggest impediment to people accepting evolution as a rational explanation for biodiversity is ignorance of the basic data--the living forms that are so, well, diverse and how some are more similar than others; and the natural biological processes that allow and promote evolution. If Darwin and Wallace had stayed home playing checkers, they never would have speculated about natural selection.
Posted by: mark | March 2, 2008 4:08 PM
I know you aren't being entirely serious, but I work with someone who has a BS in biochemistry who thinks that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time. She went to a an average state university. Not a great one, but there's nothing remarkably bad about it either.
So sadly, it isn't just home-schoolers and people from the depths of the bible belt, it's everywhere.
Posted by: Leni | March 2, 2008 5:02 PM
Posted by: Taz | March 2, 2008 5:13 PM
Ben the Creationist is apparently visualizing evolution by using the game Cootie as his model.
King of Ireland wrote:
First of all, life from non-life: you see it all the time. None of the atoms in your body is alive. None of the molecules in your body is alive. None of the chemicals in your body is alive. Taken apart, no single tiny part of you is alive. You're alive.
Sperm is not alive. An egg is not alive. A fetus is alive.
Both common examples of life coming from non-life. There's no "vital essence" or life force. Nothing magic or supernatural has to happen. Whether something is living or not living has to do with the way dead, non-living chemicals move around and come together in patterns. King-of-Ireland put through a blender is made of the same stuff as King-of-Ireland thankfully not put through a blender.
Second, micro vs. macro: it's all micro - the macro is only an arbitrary division made from a distance, after the fact.
Consider a growing baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult. They grow day by day -- micro-changes. The stages are the "macro" changes. Sure, the differences between those different categories are real differences, but it's fuzzy at the borders when stages are next to each other. The "transition" between a toddler and a child is going to be a three or four year old -- and some will say "that's a toddler," others say "no, that's a child." The transition between the Macro-stage of Toddler and the Macro-stage of Child is NOT going to be an eight-year-old with the arms of a two-year-old.
Think of these common, everyday experiences of life/non-life, micro/macro -- and apply it to evolution. Evolution used the same sorts of ordinary processes which still happen every day.
Posted by: Sastra | March 2, 2008 5:33 PM
Sue... Unless you meant something unobvious, I must mention that both sperm and eggs are living cells.
Posted by: doctorgoo | March 2, 2008 5:47 PM
"Sperm is not alive. An egg is not alive."
Say WHAT!???
The best thing about arguments in favor of evolution is the robustness of multiple lines of evidence. Don't like the fossil record? No problem. The DNA evidence is compelling. Don't like the DNA evidence? Simply looking at how organisms are classified is evidence of evolution. If common descent were not true, then nested hierarchies would be impossible. Buildings can't be classified that way. Motor vehicles can't be classified that way. Only living things, because they are descended from common ancestors, can be classified in a nested hierarchical way.
Why do all birds have feathers? Not just by definition, but because the common ancestor of birds had feathers. If it were a matter of definition, you could (in principal) find an animal with feathers that nurses its young. But the common ancestor of mammals had hair, not feathers.
Posted by: BaldApe | March 2, 2008 6:11 PM
"Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of anything other than biodiversity on earth. It says nothing at all about the origin of the universe, the origin of the planet or even the origin of life on this planet. Period. Those are all interesting questions, but the theory of evolution remains true no matter what you believe about those things."
Then why the problem with ID?
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 2, 2008 6:26 PM
Re Dave
"Darwin collected birds he identified as a mixture of "blackbirds", "gros-beaks", "wrens" and finches, and on his return from the voyage was told by Gould that they were, in fact, thirteen separate species of finches."
Stephen Jay Gould was born 120+ years after Darwin returned from the Beagle voyage. I believe that it was Richard Owen who provided the information that the birds were separate species of finches.
Posted by: SLC | March 2, 2008 6:36 PM
Posted by: Taz | March 2, 2008 6:42 PM
doctorgoo wrote:
Argh, my apologies -- I should have made the case that they weren't living individuals or something -- a transition takes place from one kind of life to another very different form of life, without magic -- but I got sloppy and didn't do that. My bad, ditto to BaldApe.
Richard Dawkins once wrote that one of the major impediments to understanding evolution was the "discontinuous mind," which has a tendency to divide everything into distinct, discrete categories of either/or. Nature, on the other hand is not about abrupt transitions, but small ones, gradual shifts, unremarkable when seen up close, and astonishing when seen at a distance. Watch a sperm and egg unite and it's interesting, but there are no trumpets and bolts of lightning.
I think the idea that there is some "leap" between micro/macro and life/non-life comes out of the tendency the human brain has to look for differences, and make much of them, and assume everything is separated by lines in Nature. But I've taken maps, and gone to the borders between states, and searched -- and they're just not there. I think Rand McNally just makes them up.
Posted by: Sastra | March 2, 2008 6:53 PM
Aside from what Taz just pointed out, concepts like irreducible complexity are antithetical to the scientific approach.
It in effect says "stop looking for answers here", where "here" is a point determined by what we do not know, rather than what we do know.
In other words, it's an argument from ignorance, which is unacceptable on its own. Notice that this is independent from any other possible theory, not just abiogenesis or evolution.
Posted by: Leni | March 2, 2008 6:55 PM
Huh? Of course they are. They can die, and we can watch them die. Any cell can do that.
This, however, is spot-on.
--------------------------
If that's your definition, Tyrannosaurus is a bird. I'm just saying.
--------------------------
...not the only Gould to ever go into biology. There was a famous ornithologist called Gould in the 19th century...
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 2, 2008 7:03 PM
King:
Better question: Why does ID have a problem with evolution? It is because of the science, or some other reason?
Posted by: Flavin | March 2, 2008 8:47 PM
Okay, a few points.
First, the terms macroevolution and microevolution referred, in science, to two different proposed mechanisms of evolution that were meant to get around the perceived "speciation problem", namely that when "species" was seen as an imperiable barrier, the evolution of new species was seen as difficult, requiring some "trick" of evolution to accomplish. With more information, we realized that the barriers between species are extremely plastic and the "problem" went away in a puff of ether.
For the scientists, (when they were used at all) the terms simply mean:
Macroevolution: Evolution past the species barrier (which we now know doesn't really exist).
Microevolution: Evolution of a lesser sort.
Creationists leapt on the terms with wild abandon, reinventing their meanings as follows:
Microevolution: Evolution so painfully obvious to have happened that even we can no longer deny it.
Macroevolution: Evolution that, while proven beyond any reasonable doubt, is not proven beyond the realm of utterly unreasonable doubt.
Creationists frequently define the words in terms of the "created kind", a concept they refuse to define in any testible fashion. After decades of asking them, I have yet to encounter a single definition of "created kind" that was testible and not already disproven (many creationists continue to insist that new species cannot evolve, despite what that would do to the Ark nonsense). Most of them stick with some vague boundary that they can never find, allowing them to infinitely move the goalposts. "But it's still a fish!" they declare, unaware that if "fish" consitute a kind, that is a far larger acceptance of evolution than is necessary to get man from monkeys.
ID is the "theory" that at some point, somewhere, something happened somehow in some fashion that in some way must have required intelligence.
"Intelligence somewhere!" isn't a theory. It isn't even a hypothesis. It isn't even a decent assertion. it's just to vapid to be allowed to live.
Science is rigorous. Science is about exposing ideas to a brutal gauntlet of scepticism and forcing them to live up to the highest expectations. A world where that ID drivel constitutes science is a world in which science is dead. Telling school children that ID is science is lying to them, plain and simple.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, ii | March 2, 2008 9:01 PM
that's your definition, Tyrannosaurus is a bird. I'm just saying.
I don't have a problem with that.
The original taxonomies were done by Creationists, as they are somewhat before Darwin. They onlydealt with modern forms. So we can either try to stuff things into those outdated maps, or say "Bollocks" and re-draw it.
I'm in favour of re-drawing it, as it is more accurate ans less likely to be misunderstood.
Posted by: Graculus | March 2, 2008 10:08 PM
King of Ireland wrote:
I don't know what you mean. Do you think that ID is an argument against abiogenesis? It's not. ID is nothing more than a set of long-debunked arguments against evolution, all of them taken from older creationist material.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 2, 2008 11:18 PM
Because ID is not science. ID claims the "god did it" stance. As soon as you say that, whats the point in further investigation. You can claim that anytime the actual reason hasn't been found and stop searching. It assumes a supernatural source. It is not science period.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbCHimp | March 3, 2008 12:14 AM
Gould the ornithologist produced a wonderful set of books of Australian birds - hand-coloured lithographs of great beauty. Individual pages are extremely valuable, while a complete set would be close to priceless (at least from my point of view - I just found all 8 volumes for sale for $US550,000).
Posted by: David | March 3, 2008 12:21 AM
One argument that I have very rarely seen when creationsts complain about the paltry [to their very limited knowledge} number of fossils is:
There are more than 60 million cats in the US alone. In the last century there must have been well over 300 million cats in the US. And many billions worldwide in the last 4 millenia. How many fossil [or fosssilizing] pussy cats have been found? Then why do you expect there to be scads of anything else found?
Posted by: natural cynic | March 3, 2008 1:48 AM
SLC, the finches were identified as such by the ornithologist John Gould, who subsequently went to Australia and, as David says, produced books on the birds and mammals of Australia. Before Gould took on describing the bird collections Darwin had made on the Beagle voyage, David Owen described the South American fossils, showing that these gigantic creatures were related to modern species in the same geographical area, and not the same "design" as large African animals. In particular Owen named the Glyptodon, a gigantic armadillo. All of which confirmed Darwin's increasing doubts that species were fixed and immutable, and pushed him on to studying transmutation of species... or as we'd say nowadays, evolution.
Posted by: dave | March 3, 2008 5:27 AM
If I remember right some palaeontologists use macroevolution to mean evolution over a sufficiently long time scale that some of the questions asked can't be answered using the same methods as for observed evolution (which includes speciation).
The only example I can think of is, 'why do some lineages produce more species than others?' but I'm sure someone more knowledgable could come up with others.
Am I right that the distinction does get made this way by genuine researchers, and if so should this be pointed out in addition to the 'any evolution that includes speciation' definiton generally given?
Posted by: Matt | March 3, 2008 6:15 AM
It's almost like you just aren't listening. Read again:
Now can you see what the problem with ID is? With evolution, we can get answers to questions like, "why do humans and chimps share endogenous retroviral DNA?" See, watch:
Q: "Why do humans and chimps share endogenous retroviral DNA?"
A: "Because humans and chimps have a common ancestor who caught that retrovirus."
Q: "Okay, that makes sense."
Q: "Why do humans and chimps share endogenous retroviral DNA?"
A: "Because that's the way God wanted things to be."
Q: "But why would God want things to be that way and not another way?"
A: "I don't know, he just did."
Q: "That doesn't sound like an explanation."
Do you get it? I'll spell it out again, because I don't trust you to address the actual point being made: Intelligent Design, as a hypothesis, has no explanatory power whatsoever, because it cannot say why one event should be more likely to occur than another event, and thus it cannot make any predictions about what scientists should expect to find (because, hint hint, it's not science).
Posted by: Grammar RWA | March 3, 2008 7:09 AM
As a homeschooling father I take a bit of offense at the implication that all homeschoolers are creo-idiots. My wife and I HS because the school system where we live is over-crowded, has stuffed children in currently decaying "temporary" trailers and would most likely drug our son after classifying him as ADD. Add to that a rampant drug culture in the high school, along with three teachers (1 male, 2 females) accused of "inapproriateness" with their students.
I am lucky enough to be able to support my family while my wife schools our children. We provide a strictly secular education based on curricula we obtain through an evaluation of available resources - and there are many - excluding the BJU and similar ilk.
We do not hide in our homes, pull down the curtains and read the Bible all day long. Many, many organizations, museums, historic sites, etc now host "home school" days and we take advantage of everything we can. Just some of the opportunities here on the east coast: Colonial Williamsburg VA hosts a weeklong series of lectures, demos and skits on life during the colonial era, including such subjects as slavery; both the Franklin Institute and the Liberty Science Center host yearly science seminars for all ages; the Grounds for Sculpture Art Museum in Trenton NJ hosts a home school art appreciation day yearly; plus we are engaged in an "Archaeology Dig" put on yearly by a retired Arch. professor who salts a field with actual relics that the kids spend a week digging for, classifying and researching - all the while as he is teaching them.
So please, don't label us all as bible thumping idiots. Some of us want a better education for our children that our broken public school system provides.
I'll get off my soapbox now and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Posted by: Pineyman | March 3, 2008 10:54 AM
I second Pineyman's emotion: My grade-school was created by generally-liberal and college-educated parents who shared serious dissatisfaction with the public schools of their time; so that kinda puts me about one or two steps away from being home-schooled -- especially when you add the fact that they formed the school long before they could find a permanent building, so for some weeks the whole class was shuffled from one family's basement to another.
The problem, Pineyman, is that within the home-school movement, your kind (and my parents') tend to be outshouted by the radical escapist wingnuts, whose complaints about the public schools are more lurid and less rational (and less honest) than yours. Also, I've heard that one of the biggest home-schooler-support organizations tends to focus its resources, curriculum and atention toward the wingnuts; which doesn't do home-schoolers' image a lot of good.
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 3, 2008 11:55 AM
The creationist "kinds" seem to adhere most closely to the cognitive psychology concept of the "basic level", first detailed in the 1976 Rosch paper "Basic Objects in Natural Categories".
Rosch loosely defined the basic level in practical terms, as the term that springs to mind first when a human is trying to classify an object. It was later refined by Tversky and Hemenway in the 1984 paper "Objects, Parts, and Categories" to a stricter standard - the "basic level" is the most abstract level in the mental hierarchy where the category exemplars all share physical features. Rosch observed an operational level different from the basic level in her study - an airplane mechanic will name photos of airplanes as their model rather than just "airplane" - but didn't elaborate much on the difference.
I submit that what a creationist means by "kind" is simply a basic-level category, either a genuine basic level or the creationist's personal operational level. But even the genuine basic level is still fuzzy around the edges - objects with weaker category membership, such as the Biblical example of bats in the bird category, may be categorized differently by different people. So a species can jump from one "created kind" to another in zero generations if it's on the edge of a "kind" category already - just ask a different person to classify it.
Posted by: Glazius | March 3, 2008 12:13 PM
"Better question: Why does ID have a problem with evolution? It is because of the science, or some other reason?"
I think there are two questions: 1. Where did the Universe come from? 2. Where did man come from? I think the first is legitimate inquiry for Science class. Is there order in the Universe that could be traced to some sort of intelligent design?
The second question is more troublesome from a liberty standpoint. Ed is right when he says that if we let one Creation story in we have to let them all in. Science definetly points to evolution being true. My beef is does it explain the origins of life? Leave the Bible out of it and just take the Science does it do it?
On a more philosophical level is Science the only means of obtaining knowledge? Many would say yes. If we cannot find a natural explanation we have to keep looking because the supernatural cannot explain things they would say. All knowledge must be measured in the natural and tested they say.
I say that that does not work. Both sides get into it and both say prove it. The Bible is either true or it is not. The two greatest tests are the historical test and the miracle test. I agree the second could never be measured in Science other than people who have been prayed for and then go to the Doctor and their sickness is gone. Most think it a coincidence and I agree you cannot prove it for sure by Science standards.
I guess I am saying that I will not stop at the natural and explainable in searching for knowledge and truth. Nor will I throw Science out. We need Science and the progress it brings to society. I just think where it cannot explain things it should stay silent. Many do use it to say there is not Creator and then the next sentence say well it is inconclusive and not something we can measure.
I still ask why is there so much order in something that many think came about by chance? Can I do tests to prove God exists? No but you cannot do tests to prove He does not.
On a legal note, I think some of you may be so blinded by this issue that you look at who is saying things instead of what they are saying and why? Just because it is Christians that are pushing ID does not mean it should be thrown out. That seems to be the test. The Dover case from what I read that was the whole argument. It was who is saying this and why? It was not what does the order we see in DNA, the second law of thermodynamics, and other things we can study say about design in nature and where this came from?
This is a legitimate question and get thrown out because some are afraid that gay bashing preacher will one day take over the government and make us all go back to the Dark Ages. That is the fear. That religion will take over. Why go into the discussion with assumptions. From what I understand the science is new in ID. Why not give it time and see where it takes us? I would think a good scientist would want to see this order in ways never availible before and begin to ask why it is there?
I hope I answered your question. I think we lump both of my questions at the top into one lump and both sides do it and it should not be done.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 12:55 PM
"I don't know what you mean. Do you think that ID is an argument against abiogenesis? It's not. ID is nothing more than a set of long-debunked arguments against evolution, all of them taken from older creationist material."
Leave aside the war for the schools here for a moment and step out and answer this question: Does the design that we can see in nature and is tested and verifiable point to a designer or not? First explain the Universe and then Man. Can we know for sure? If we cannot then you admit be definition that Science cannot explain everything which is exactly the point. If it cannot explain everything then kids should be told that. There is not harm in that.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 1:09 PM
King said:
The "science" of ID was thoroughly explored and found utterly lacking during the Dover trial. A little bit of research on Ed's site alone would've revealed that.
Please provide examples of the tested and verifiable design in nature that you refer to.
You seem to be saying that if science cannot explain everything about the universe right this very instant, then there's no possibility that it will ever be able to. This strikes me as rather foolish.
I'm not sure what point you're referring to, but the "point" of ID is not that science can't explain everything, it's that they want to teach the creation myth in science class, and ID is the latest attempt.
Posted by: Jason I. | March 3, 2008 1:22 PM
King of Ireland wrote:
Both are valid questions in science. Evolution answers the second. The first is not relevant to the discussion of evolution.
I answer that with the Anthropic Principle: That the universe appears ordered only because if it were not so, you wouldn't be here to ask why it isn't.
In other words, you can only ask that question because the universe just happened to develop in a way that is friendly to life. There is no reason it should or shouldn't have. Creationists then point to the fact that it DID as evidence of God, but again, that merely begs the question.
You're not talking about science, you're talking about epistemology - the study of knowledge. Science is not concerned with 'truth', assuming we could actually agree on a definition of it. Truth is an epistemological concept, not a scientific one. What would science do with 'truth' if it were ever to discover such a thing? Put it on a shelf and admire it?
Science is and can only be about asking the right questions and then searching out evidence for various answers. Truth is a concept synthesized by human minds, not by a litany of facts, and that is all science can give you.
You can't prove a negative. Consequently, the onus is on the person making the positive assertion to prove that it is true. Ergo, it is up to creationists to prove the existence of God, not on scientists to disprove it.
But that's not the point - we don't want ID thrown out because Christians are pushing it, we want it thrown out because it's not a scientific theory, is not rigorous, and does a great disservice to children by curtailing their scientific growth at the exact moment in their lives when it needs to be most fostered.
Posted by: Patrick | March 3, 2008 1:28 PM
'Please provide examples of the tested and verifiable design in nature that you refer to."
DNA, second law of thermodynamics, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 1:40 PM
KoI: "DNA, second law of thermodynamics, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun."
How are those examples of design? What tests were done and by whom?
Posted by: jba | March 3, 2008 1:46 PM
"You seem to be saying that if science cannot explain everything about the universe right this very instant, then there's no possibility that it will ever be able to. This strikes me as rather foolish.
I'm not sure what point you're referring to, but the "point" of ID is not that science can't explain everything, it's that they want to teach the creation myth in science class, and ID is the latest attempt."
The first point is not what I was saying. I am saying that Scientists come and say all the time that "Science" proves Genesis wrong. They say it like it is a fact but it is an opinion based on tests they have done that cannot know for sure. If we do not know for sure it is an opinion. Maybe we will know in the future. But until someone proves that the supernatural does not exist then when there is no natural explanation that we can know for sure then why not at least ask the question?
The second point is well taken. But this seems to again state that we are rejecting this more based on who is doing it than on the merits of it. Neither side wants to give an inch based on the fact that they see an agenda on the other side that will follow each little victory. It is a pissing contest and when this happens learning usually is hurt.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 1:47 PM
"How are those examples of design? What tests were done and by whom?"
Again the average person, including me does not want to get bogged down in a discussion full of jargon that others use to sound good but do not add to the discussion. Christians do it all the time and look at people weird who have not idea what they are talking about. To effect society we have to bring it down to Joe six pack level.
If you are willing to do this then I will discuss this. If we are going to get into terms and studies that I would need a PHd to participate in the conversation then I am not interested.
With that said, my understanding of DNA is that it shows incredible order and complexity that we never thought possible before. I am questioning if this order and complexity can come about through millions of years of chance circumstances? I would think that order and design would point toward intelligence. The fact that we say there are laws to nature would seem to point to some sort of order as well.
Look I have said a million times on here that I am no Scientist. Neither is 99.9% of the world. I am not going to take things just because you guys say it anymore than you would from me about the Bible. We can complicate things and use big theological terms and keep the average person from participating as well. It was done and it was called the Dark Ages. It has to be simplified.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 1:57 PM
King said:
Which part of Genesis are you referring to? The creation story? The one where all the animals that ever existed were created in a matter of two days? Hundreds of years of scientific tests and evidence show that's wrong. If that's your idea of "an opinion", then I really don't know what else you expect.
Again, you're asking to prove a negative. There is no proof that any sort of deity exists. If people want to believe in one, or many, that's fine. But that belief has no place in a science classroom. And to reiterate Patrick's point from earlier, the onus of disproving god's existence isn't on science, or anyone else. The onus of proof lies with the claimant.
Posted by: Jason I. | March 3, 2008 2:34 PM
King of Ireland wrote:
Just for the record, there are Hindus, Muslims, New-Agey Spirituality types and postmodernist groups out there which are also attacking or distorting evolution -- along with mangling physics, medicine, history, etc. When any form of virulent pseudoscience pokes itself into the public arena it gets reamed, and as far as I can tell no scientist really cares if it came from a Ken Ham or a Deepak Chopra.
Posted by: Sastra | March 3, 2008 2:38 PM
KoI,
I think your comments, regardless of the scientific accuracy of them, indicates you're all over the place. Let's answer one question at a time.
The root of your questions was "Then why the problem with ID?". This is very *very* easy to answer, because ID is *not* science. And, in fact, no one here would really have a thing to say about ID unless proponents of it didn't try to peddle it as science and teach it in high school science class.
Now, before you go on railing about everyone being "blinded", you might want to stop and ask "Why isn't ID science?". You may be enlightened by the answer and in the process, learn what science is.
And, on a side note: I don't know what you got that characterization of the Dover decision, but I suggest you actually read the decision itself. It goes into great detail explaining why the judge made the decision he did. No where does he say "Because Christians said it". Really, if this were the case, then school boards couldn't make any decisions about what to teach, since they are almost all predominantly Christian.
And, once you understand a little bit more about science, you will understand that it doesn't matter a bit who proposes something. The Big Bang Theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest and today it is the dominant theory. It wasn't discounted because a Christian proposed it and the reason is because it is science, it makes predictions and because there is evidence.
Posted by: MyPetSlug | March 3, 2008 2:44 PM
I am not going to take things just because you guys say it anymore than you would from me about the Bible. We can complicate things and use big theological terms and keep the average person from participating as well. It was done and it was called the Dark Ages. It has to be simplified.
Um...that's horsemuffins. People need to be educated to be able to cope with the complexity they will find in their world. That's how we got out of the Dark Ages. If the Gods created a complicated Universe -- and the available evidence sugests they did -- then there's no way we mortals can demand that it be "simplified."
And please don't insult our intelligence by equating the complicated concepts of science with the purely made-up absractions that fill most of what passes for theological discourse. Just because they're equally unreal to you, does not make them equal in any objective sense.
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 3, 2008 2:49 PM
"The onus of proof lies with the claimant"
This can be said to all the "naturalists" out there who want to explain everything through nature only, thus ruling out the supernatural. But a valid challenge to Bible believers. Have you ever tested the Bible with History?
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 3:02 PM
"why do humans and chimps share endogenous retroviral DNA
Common ancestor or common creator?
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 3:05 PM
KoI "I am not going to take things just because you guys say it anymore than you would from me about the Bible."
Not for nothing, but no one is asking you to just take someones word for it. I remember at least one person pointing you towards TalkOrigins, there is scads of evidence and information there and most of it is easily understandable by the layman. Have you looked into it? I myself am not a scientist, I never even went to college and I didn't have a problem with it.
Posted by: jba | March 3, 2008 3:21 PM
"Um...that's horsemuffins. People need to be educated to be able to cope with the complexity they will find in their world. That's how we got out of the Dark Ages. If the Gods created a complicated Universe -- and the available evidence sugests they did -- then there's no way we mortals can demand that it be "simplified.""
Conversations filled with jargon will never produce your desired effect. The first Dude to stand up to the Catholic Church and say that the common people need to be educated was Luther. He wrote to the common people. Anyone wishing to have an impact on society should do the same. I understand for the most part what Science is. It is a study of nature. I am all for it.
I like the comment about Epistemology. Who says that in the realm of academia that Science is king? Who says that Science is the only way of truly knowing? That is my issue. What goes on in Science class is not so much my conern as what credence we give to each discipline. That is not to say that your guys definition of Science should stand.
I would be an idiot and probably have been many times on here, to argue with Scientists about Science. As an educator I can have a discussion about the breadth of academia. Ed brings many other issues into this blog besides Science. That is why I like it. I may sound like I am trying to be "virulent" in my ignorance. I could say the same with the way some interpret the Bible on here. But everyone cannot be an expert on everything. Especially when it gets so technical.
I guess I am saying if you want me to understand what in the hell you are talking about you need to break it down more for regular people to understand.
Posted by: King of Ireland | March 3, 2008 3:24 PM
"Common ancestor or common creator?"
Which one of these explanations explains a real world observation and which one explains any possible set of observations?
What you continue to miss is that there very well may be a common creator, science can't rule it out, but *that doesn't make it a scientific explanation*. We can't call it science. The reason is that saying "A common creator" explains both shared DNA or completely unshared DNA or no DNA at all or *anything you can thing of*. When something explains anything, it explains nothing as it cannot be tested.
Furthermore, what can you predict by saying there is a "common designer"? Nothing. Intellectually, it's a dead end. Who knows why a designer put a endogenous retroviral insert into in the same place in our's and chimp's DNA.
Common ancestry on the other hand is a scientific explanation because if the DNA looked differently, the explanation would be invalid. If the DNA between chimps and, say, frogs what closer than humans, we'd have to go back to the drawing board. Using common ancestry as an explanation also leads to useful predictions, like where we might find transitional forms between the common ancestor between chimps and humans in the fossil record and what those forms probably looked like.
This is precisely the difference between ID and evolution and why one is science and the other is not. It doesn't make ID untrue (except for it's bogus antievolution claims), it just makes it not science. All claims to the contrary are why we "have a problem with ID".
Posted by: MyPetSlug | March 3, 2008 3:36 PM
Jba:
I have looked into some of these sights. I have read more about this in the last year than all of my life. Like anything else you have to take it a l