Myers, Musgrave, Attacked by Wells

Posted by Greg Laden on March 5, 2008
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Jonathan Wells has launched a nasty attack on PZ Myers and Ian Musgrave on the discredited Discovery Institute web site.

Darwinist bloggers P. Z. Myers and Ian Musgrave hate me. In fact, Myers writes, “My animus for Jonathan Wells knows no bounds.”…

The most recent outbursts by Myers and Musgrave were provoked by my February 29 blog on Evolution News & Views, in which I predicted that Darwinists would try to take credit for a recent French discovery regarding antibiotic resistance. And indeed they did.

In the course of claiming credit for Darwinism, Musgrave claims that I completely misrepresent evolution, molecular biology, genetics and history….

The main points in my original blog post were these:

I. Darwinism provides no explanation for the origin of complex enzymes…

II. Darwinism played no role in the current research. …

So the researchers used artificial selection to good advantage. But artificial selection is not Darwinism. …

The question remains whether our understanding of antibiotic resistance would owe anything to Darwinian theory even in the limited (and true) sense that selection operates in natural populations. …

So I repeat the question with which I concluded my original blog post: “How, exactly, is Darwinian evolution essential to understanding and overcoming antibiotic resistance — as the Darwinists claim it is?”

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Comments

  1. #1 Jason Failes
    March 5, 2008

    He lost me at “Darwinist”.

    Hey, Wells, stop projecting your single-person-is-a-special-messiah beliefs on science, and maybe read the last, I dunno, 150 years or so of evolutionary research since Darwin.

    No one is a “Darwinist”, and somehow faulting him for not knowing about enzymatic action is like blaming Newton for not describing extra-solar planets. I mean, WTF? What is your problem, Wells?
    Your particular beliefs are refuted by everyday old history, and there’s no reason why a deist God wouldn’t be smart enough to make a universe that makes itself, via many processes including evolution. I don’t feel that there’s a need to invoke such a being, but evolution does not equal atheism. Like just about every other scientific field, it merely contradicts false ideas, including your bronze-age delusions.

  2. #2 Ian
    March 5, 2008

    Hasn’t Orac been there and done that (on more than one occasion?) Wells needs to get out more and take off his blinkers.

  3. #3 J-Dog
    March 5, 2008

    Moonie Wells is such a turd-eater. I do think however, that “Darwinism” plays no part in describing how Wells can function with his head placed firmly up his rectum.

  4. #4 Badger3k
    March 5, 2008

    His rectum was intelligently designed to hold his head, of course. It’s all part of the unnamed designers plan – okay, let’s be honest, it’s part of the new messiah Rev Moon’s plan.

  5. #5 Virgil Samms
    March 5, 2008

    So the researchers used artificial selection to good advantage. But artificial selection is not Darwinism. …

    An attempt to recover from the author of the article weighing in.

  6. #6 bc
    March 5, 2008

    So why isn’t artificial selection “Darwinism” or evolution? Doesn’t it use principles explained by the
    TOE? Seems to me these people are going to redo the science by redefining the words – sort of like the current administration.

  7. #7 mark
    March 5, 2008

    Perhaps Wells can take comfort in knowing that I, for one, do not hate him. I do, however, consider him to be a lying, hypocritical ass.

  8. #8 the real cmf
    March 5, 2008

    Ian: its “blinders” not “blinkers”…blinkers are those brightly colored low-cut blouses that Christian women wear to church when they need salivation from their pastors…