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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« Working together to crush the Christianists | Main | Sexiest man living? »
Category: Creationism
Posted on: November 16, 2006 10:16 PM, by PZ Myers
One of the characters who frequents the ID blog Uncommon Descent is the smarm-meister Sal Cordova, an utterly clueless little git with a talent for being simultaneously oleaginous and snide. He has just posted an astonishingly foolish commentary on the apparent impossibility of evolving regeneration, and I promise, you'll enjoy reading Mark Chu-Carroll's reply. Cordova gets everything wrong.
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Comments
oleaginous?
why how utterly slick of you, PZ.
I've never seen it used before, but it does seem to have unique applicability to Sal.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 16, 2006 10:25 PM
I would have gone with obsequious and unctuous.
Posted by: Pastor Ted | November 16, 2006 11:33 PM
I think PZ was trying to get at the "greasy" nature of Sal with the oleaginous reference.
both the primary and secondary usage of it apply equally well, IMO.
I believe unctuous is considered a synonym of the secondary defininiton of oleaginous.
I've always just used demented sleazeball, myself, when describing Sal.
what's really funny is when you read Allen MacNeill from Cornell describe Sal as "polite and courteous" and that those on the evolution side of sanity would do well to consider his demeanor when arguing our points.
LOL.
I think Allen has since learned differently as to what constitutes "polite and courteous".
if snakes could smile...
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 16, 2006 11:43 PM
Note that Sal's post has been disappeared. :)
Posted by: RBH | November 16, 2006 11:49 PM
Indeed, Sal's post is complete bullshit. However, I would appreciate if you would post something on tissue regeneration and its relation to ontogeny. But you really must not mention scordova in that post.
Posted by: sparc | November 16, 2006 11:56 PM
What I don't get is how ID would be any more feasible an answer. Just another case of bad/lazy design? Why do some fish and reptiles get regeneration and we don't?
Posted by: Groffly | November 17, 2006 12:29 AM
just FYI, mark got the link to Sal's drivel wrong, he added a 6 at the end that shouldn't be there.
here is the correct link:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/archives/1781
not that I'm doing Slaveador any favors by correcting the link.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 12:42 AM
In fact, I can only think of two alternatives:
1. 6000 year creation - We were made without it. Surely god could have given us a little healing factor.
2. ID over time/common ancestor - The designer must have removed this feature at some time. Intelligently.
So - If god or the designer didn't think we needed regeneration, then why is it a problem if evolution misplaces that bit of information?
Posted by: Groffly | November 17, 2006 12:44 AM
Why do some fish and reptiles get regeneration and we don't?
One likely postulate is that it's due to selection for a linked trait that resulted in dropping regeneration in favor of something else. Selection is always a balancing act, after all, and entirely dependent at any given time to whatever the biggest pressures are on any given trait.
Mark used the excellent example of feline tase sensors for "sweet" as an example as well, though arguably the negative impact of "not able to taste sweet" would be less than not being able to regenerate.
I think mark (or somebody in that thread) gave the example of a potential gene related to reducing rates of cancer being linked to the genes for regeneration, as a hypothetical that's plausible.
It's likely there are evidences of linked traits in the separate linneages that are more relevant, but I'm not up on the literature in this specific area.
related species show differing levels of regeneration, however, so I'm sure somebody has been trying to tease this out. The problem is, often it's hard to tell what the selective pressures were that led to one trait being favored over another, but we can get clues from the relative genomes, like with how the Vitamin C psuedogene is broken in exactly the same way in both Chimps and humans.
Moreover, we can conduct new experiments in selection to see how traits are affected in the field, and even make predictions based on evolutionary theory, as to exactly which direction they will go based on knowledge or control of various selective pressures.
these are some of my favorite studies in fact.
I would recommend reading some of John Endler's work on the evolution of color and fin shape in poecilliids as a great example of field-testing predictions about selective pressures.
even PBS uses his work on the evolution section of their site.
great stuff.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 12:56 AM
BTW, if you are really interested (?), you might try reading this article, which was published in 1992, and then using the Science Citation Index to see who cited it since to get a clue as to the present state of research in this area:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1294847&dopt=Citation
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 1:04 AM
... and you might also look at a specific case study from the same period:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=1729386
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 1:07 AM
In fact, I can only think of two alternatives:
this is why creationism is so vacuous.
such limited thought processes.
check out real science, man.
it'll blow your mind.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 1:09 AM
Whoa, settle down there dude, same side.
I was just wondering why Sal would think this was a good thing to knock when the alternatives for him aren't that pretty either.
Cool links though.
Posted by: Groffly | November 17, 2006 1:21 AM
Whoa, settle down there dude, same side.
I wasn't sure, but thought it best to point out how vacuous the ideas presented from the creationist viewpoint were anyway.
no offense meant; I recently spent an hour arguing with a completely delusional AIG representative who putatively claimed to have a PhD in genetics from Yale, but couldn't even parse the most simple of questions about molecular or population genetics. Sad what happens when cognitive dissonance destroys the mind's ability to form coherent arguments.
It tends to leave a very sour impression in one's mind.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 17, 2006 1:27 AM
seemingly a must read in Genes and Development:
Posted by: sparc | November 20, 2006 2:17 PM