…and this is a 
I get email
Category: Creationism
Posted on: April 2, 2008 4:42 PM, by PZ Myers
My criticism of Mark Armitage's "research" published in the ICR "journal" seems to have struck a nerve — he just sent me (and his colleagues at the ICR) an angry letter in which I think he is attempting sarcasm, he just isn't very good at at it. Poor baby. Here it is:
I am SO THANKFUL and indebted to Paul Myers for the carefully crafted and dispassionate published critique (above) of my work on the complexity of certain trematodes. I especially appreciate the way it was pubished in a peer-reviewed journal such as Parasitology Research or the Journal of Parasitology (oops - I got that wrong didn't I, a blog is just a rag isn't it?). Well the ICC is coming up again in August and he is only a 16 hour drive away, so maybe he will mount a critique there...
In addition, I find his comments about the r versus K strategy discussion most illuminating (again oops - he ignored all that didn't he?). It sure seems logical to me now that evolution would send an organism through three different hosts in order to finally make babies - that being the most expedient method and all....
Finally, I did not know that "Complexity not only fails to be a strike against evolution, it's an expected outcome of evolution." This was at once all heartwarming and equally shocking. Evolution is so plastic - it can explain everything! Such a grand unifying theory! To think that a stochastic, mechanistic random shuffling of genes can work such miracles of complexity - thank you Paul Myers!
Oh well, I will keep my eye on the journals for his work on this, and will look for him in Pittsburgh.
With kind regards to all.
Mark H. Armitage, M.S., Ed.S
Van Andel Creation Research Center
Creation Research Society
Let's deal with this paragraph by paragraph.
Since Complex life cycles in heterophyid trematodes: structural and developmental design in the ascocotyle complex of species was not worthy to be published in Parasitology Research or the Journal of Parasitology, I hardly think a dismissal of its poor quality requires the prestige of those worthy journals. Oh, how it must rankle that only a single lowly professor self-publishing in an online rag took the time to read and criticize his work. Did you submit it to the legitimate parasitology journals? How loud was the laughter from the editors?
There is one paragraph in the paper on r- and K-strategists. I didn't pay too much attention to it because it did not break through my consciousness that this was the first paper ever to study the development-reproduction tradeoff in long-term ecological adaptation by studying neither development nor reproduction nor ecology nor evolution, and that analyzed the strategic options of populations with no population data at all. Who would have thought one could study that with a few SEMs of individual trematodes? My hat is off to you, sir. I would have thought it impossible, unrealistic, and irrelevant, but you have convinced yourself that you have done it.
(Pssst. Evolution isn't about expediency. You should know that.)
Mr Armitage was shocked? Why? Look at the date on this paper:
H. J. Muller (1939) Reversibility in Evolution Considered from the Standpoint of Genetics. Biological Reviews 14: 261-80.
You know, "stochastic, mechanistic random shuffling of genes" certainly will produce amazing amounts of complexity, far more than we see in organisms. Fortunately, we also have this non-random process called "selection" that constrains rampant randomness to a more limited functionality. That was an idea that was figured out in 1859. Maybe Mr Armitage needs to work a little harder on keeping up with the contemporary literature.
I am sorry, but I won't be joining Armitage and his peers at the International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh. I'm also sorry to say that no scientists will be attending that meeting. Look on the bright side, though: there won't be anybody there to see the obvious deficiencies of the ICR's pretense at research! Do try to include some of those little things called "results" in your presentation, though.
Comments
We need to come up with a third strategy to describe what Creationists do. It's neither r nor K: they make millions of "babies" (crazy ideas) and NONE of them survive to maturity.
Posted by: Coturnix | April 2, 2008 4:51 PM
Nice hair, Mark!
Posted by: David vun Kannon, FCD | April 2, 2008 4:52 PM
1859 or 1939?
Posted by: zwa | April 2, 2008 4:54 PM
So is the shuffling of genes stochastic, or is it mechanistic?
Posted by: notthedroids | April 2, 2008 4:54 PM
"This was at once all heartwarming and equally shocking.
EvolutionGoddidit is so plastic - it can explain everything! Such a grand unifying theory!"Posted by: Ted D | April 2, 2008 4:54 PM
Armitage seems a bit angry. possibly they don't teach sarcasm past the age of 10 at Bible college.
Posted by: alex | April 2, 2008 4:57 PM
Oh well, I will keep my eye on the journals for his work on this, and will look for him in Pittsburgh.
I must have missed where his "paper" is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal for it to HAVE published criticism, of any type.
man, these folks are just bugfuck nuts!
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 4:57 PM
Sigh. Evolution truly has the power to create all the diversity and novelty we see in the life around us. Cultists like Armitage must shut their eyes to that reality and pretend that it can't happen. They do this just so they can continue to believe that their god is necessary. I can understand why Armitage is so angry and frustrated. How taxing it must be to have to ceaselessly advocate for such an impotent, irrelevant deity. My, how he must long for the Day of Judgement when he can set down his burden and reap the reward of the faithful. Yes, then he'll be proven correct. We'll see. He god is real. Just wait. It's gonna happen any day now...
Posted by: H.H. | April 2, 2008 4:58 PM
Once again, the idiot judges evolution as he would a designer, and fails to judge what he calls "design" by any sort of expected design criteria at all.
Oh well, he's just another droning moron. It's just nice to see him squirm and hear him yell as his inadequacies are exposed.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 2, 2008 5:00 PM
Ted D
I got the same feeling from this passage:
"It sure seems logical to me now that
evolutionGoddidit would send an organism through three different hosts in order to finally make babies - that being the most expedient method and all...."Posted by: idahogie | April 2, 2008 5:01 PM
Looking back at his original paper's references, I didn't see a single one from the current century and only a handful from the past twenty years. Some are more than fifty years old. The one critical reference he omitted from the list is (sad too, since it is the basis for all his conclusions) is over 2000 years old.
Posted by: Ray S. | April 2, 2008 5:04 PM
That was an excellent battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
Looking at his resume, the dude doesn't even have a bachelor's in biology from a accredited institution. Book learnin' is hard.
But I do have to agree, nice hair!
Posted by: mark | April 2, 2008 5:04 PM
It just makes you want to take them by the shoulders, shake them vigorously and shout "didn't you listen to what you just said" into their astonished little faces.
Posted by: Ted D | April 2, 2008 5:07 PM
Yet another example of all you have to do is give themselves enough rope to hang themselves with. I can't wait for his response to your response!
Posted by: Carlie | April 2, 2008 5:10 PM
In his attempt to sarcastically backhand evolution by stating that the life-cycle of these organisms is in fact not very expedient or logical, isn't he second handedly insulting the designer for doing such a cocked-up job on the design of the life-cycle for the heterophyid trematodes.
"Everyone knows that evolution says that everything should be shortest-path-between-two-points expedient and efficient. Obviously this apparently wastefully complicated life-cycle is the sure sign of the divine hand of our half-wit creator!"
Posted by: HumanisticJones | April 2, 2008 5:12 PM
Evolution is plastic?
Friend, the Bible is the everchanging plastic panacea:
Genocide is great! Except when it's not. Slavery is okay! But not any more. Monogamy is the only way to go! Except for polygamy. God is jealous and angry! God is loving and kind!
Apparent contradictions? No problem: invent dispensationalism!
As a former young-earth evangelical who found the light in the Geology department of Wheaton College (well, most of the light... atheism was a years-later byproduct) of all places, my head still reels...
Posted by: saladyears | April 2, 2008 5:17 PM
Finally, I did not know that "Complexity not only fails to be a strike against evolution, it's an expected outcome of evolution."
Hell, even I knew that.
Posted by: Cheezits | April 2, 2008 5:18 PM
Oh, thanks, Carlie. Now if he sees that he'll never respond, just to teach us all a lesson. Shhhh.
Oh, I hope he doesn't hurt PZ again! I'm starting to doubt evolution! Really.
Posted by: Sastra | April 2, 2008 5:21 PM
That was fast.
Isn't it heartwarming to see such a grande researcher take time out of his busy schedule to reply to a "lowly professor self-publishing in an online rag"?
Isn't Science a wonderful leveller? One is tempted to call it almost
Christiansocialist.Posted by: Sili | April 2, 2008 5:22 PM
HumanisticJones, that just goes to show what little respect the creationists have for their supposedly omnipotent designer god.
Posted by: Chayanov | April 2, 2008 5:24 PM
Am I mistaken or the figures 3 and 4 show illustrations on the back of main figure, indicating that they're probably photocopies from Stein (1968) and not redraw "after Stein". Notwihstanding the copyrigths questions, it would talk a lot about the professional "design" of this (wannabe) "scientific" Journal.
Desnes
Posted by: Desnes Diev | April 2, 2008 5:25 PM
Behold! The proof that tells me of
A True Creator's touch.
The evidence is all around
In trematodes and such.
Three hosts for reproduction
That could clearly not evolve:
God left it as a puzzle, for a
Scientist to solve.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | April 2, 2008 5:26 PM
Am I mistaken or the figures 3 and 4 show illustrations on the back of main figure, indicating that they're probably photocopies from Stein (1968) and not redraw "after Stein".
boy, that Ben Stein sure gets around...
who knew he was a scientist before he was a speechwriter for Nixon?
:p
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 5:27 PM
PZ wrote:
> I'm also sorry to say that no scientists will be attending that meeting.
Actually, I'm beginning to think we should. You know, gatecrashing can be fun.
Just imagine a couple of scientists enter the building and those IDiots start running around like headless chicken...
Posted by: Chris | April 2, 2008 5:33 PM
They mobilize against the ideas of biological evolution because they don't want them to be true, not because they can show those ideas are false. All they will ever be able to do are fancy dances and elaborate hand-waving. What they fail to appreciate is that the mindless sheep that accept their every word do not need such elaborate efforts of convincing. The only people that will properly investigate the substance of these kinds of "research" attempts are those who actually know the science and will call these charlatans out on their feeble, idiotic, attempt to earn scientific credibility for their nonsensical ideas.
Posted by: Alex | April 2, 2008 5:33 PM
It's funny how often creationists use teleological language when talking about evolution, as if evolution should have "known better" than to do things the way it did. Even when talking about a clearly non-intelligent process, they can't resist the temptation to co-opt the patina of intelligent design. Does it not occur to them that things that look to crazy to have evolved are orders of magnitude more crazy to have been DESIGNED? I've mentioned it before, but something like the right recurrent laryngeal nerve makes no sense as a design, but their MO would seem to be that anything that seems suboptimal, inefficient, and jury-rigged is evidence for a designer, when any rational person can infer just the opposite.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | April 2, 2008 5:35 PM
You know, gatecrashing can be fun.
that's just what they want!
then they can claim we came "uninvited"...
poster boy Armitage's invitation notwithstanding, of course.
:p
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 5:38 PM
"Finally, I did not know that "Complexity not only fails to be a strike against evolution, it's an expected outcome of evolution.""
Clearly.
Posted by: Alex | April 2, 2008 5:38 PM
I don't get it--why bother doing all this ::ahem:: "creation research" when they can just ask the creator? Let me know what you guys think of this abstract I'm working on for the ICR journal:
Posted by: Justin H. | April 2, 2008 5:40 PM
Missing the most important point.
Did he have enough bible verses in the text and references?
They have to be careful or they could get hauled up in front of an Inquistion. Or even, gasp horrors, excommunicated.
Posted by: raven | April 2, 2008 5:40 PM
It's funny how often creationists use teleological language when talking about evolution, as if evolution should have "known better" than to do things the way it did.
actually, it's quite expected, given that everything they do is based on projection.
their idea of god acting in the world is nothing BUT teleology.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 5:40 PM
Oh for...LEFT recurrent, not right. Sorry. I hope they don't find out about that at the ICR Journal or they'll never publish my paper on "fresh coprolites" as evidence of design.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | April 2, 2008 5:40 PM
"How Loud Was the Laughter: The Rise and Fall of Creation 'Science' in the US, 1987-2008"
Posted by: SC | April 2, 2008 5:42 PM
What's up with this guy?
His credentials
http://www.icr.org/research/index/research_biosci_armitage/
show that he's so proud of his alma mater Liberty University (A fundy Baptist school) that he lists his 164 hours of undergrad at UF? He's got a masters from his fake institution, and he's getting his PHd from Liberty. PZ shouldn't even bother replying to this guy. He's not even a pretend scientist. I don't want to be poisoning wells, but come on.
Posted by: Jordan Schliem | April 2, 2008 5:44 PM
I think if they allow it, a qualified group should go and sit in at Pittsburgh. Only if it amounts to documenting the travesty occurring in the name of "science". They will be hard-pressed to deal with it at any level, let alone an actual debate, which would be interesting. Pretty much all of their debate "techniques" (i.e. Gish gallop, the gap game, hide the missing-link, etc.) are understood and can be called out as soon as they resort to them. At the very least, even without confrontation, the effort will disrupt their entire agenda.
Posted by: Alex | April 2, 2008 5:46 PM
Speaking of party-crashing... Roadtrip to Pittsburgh, anyone?
Posted by: Alex | April 2, 2008 5:46 PM
#34 - 'poisoning wells'
Isn't he another creationist idiot? I know these guys are nuts, but murder seems a bit extreme...
Posted by: Stuart Ritchie | April 2, 2008 5:49 PM
So it's published, in full (not just an abstract) on the web, but it's inappropriate to respond via the web? There's something wrong with saying "hey, this is messed up" unless that statement is peer-reviewed and officially published? By that standard, isn't it also wrong for him to respond to you directly?
Posted by: TheOtherOne135 | April 2, 2008 5:51 PM
Wait a second...
"164 undergrad hours in Biology, University of Florida, 1973-78"
Does this mean that after FIVE years and 164 hours in Biology at the University of Florida, he was never awarded an actual degree?!?
Posted by: Alex R | April 2, 2008 5:52 PM
Greg Peterson #26 wrote:
Evidently not -- no more than it occurs to them that things that are well adapted to live in their environment are not evidence for a miracle. Show us fish, birds, or other organisms that live and reproduce in an environment in which they are not in any way equipped to survive in -- and then maybe we'll start talking about a need to invoke supernatural forces. A complicated reproductive cycle does not impress on the same level as reproduction without any possible way they could be reproducing and yet they are ... ooooo!
Posted by: Sastra | April 2, 2008 5:52 PM
By that standard, isn't it also wrong for him to respond to you directly?
c'mon, you really expect consistency?
NUTS
remember?
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 5:52 PM
Oh, yeah, Sastra, you're right.
WOW, that was such a LAME response by PZ! I sure hope someone will SET HIM STRAIGHT!
Posted by: Carlie | April 2, 2008 5:54 PM
I'd like to know how Mark H. Armitage, "M.S." reacted to this:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/mark.htm
I'm surprised he has the guts to "publish" anything after that evisceration.
Posted by: geolub | April 2, 2008 5:55 PM
I am SO THANKFUL and indebted to Paul Myers for the carefully crafted and dispassionate published critique (above) of my work on the complexity of certain trematodes. I especially appreciate the way it was pubished in a peer-reviewed journal such as Parasitology Research or the Journal of Parasitology (oops - I got that wrong didn't I, a blog is just a rag isn't it?). Well the ICC is coming up again in August and he is only a 16 hour drive away, so maybe he will mount a critique there...
Given the quality and extent of his "research", this is like complaining that the disproof of his claim that 2+2=7 was not published in the International Journal of Number Theory.
Posted by: JohnW | April 2, 2008 5:57 PM
Waitaminnit...164 hours in biology? Just biology? Cripes, that's more hours than you need for a degree all rolled up into one subject. Unless he's talking about how many actual clock hours he spent in class...
Posted by: Pineyman | April 2, 2008 6:00 PM
If they'd just come out and say that their designer deliberately and perfectly (he's omnipotent, after all) mimics natural mechanisms in all his design projects in order to create an illusion of non-design, then they'd instantaneously be able to claim all the evidence in support of evolution as supporting their theory too.
Granted they'd have to ignore a twenty ton machete hanging over their heads known as Occam's Razor, but ignoring the obvious is one of things they do best.
Posted by: amphiox | April 2, 2008 6:01 PM
If they'd just come out and say that their designer deliberately and perfectly (he's omnipotent, after all) mimics natural mechanisms in all his design projects in order to create an illusion of non-design, then they'd instantaneously be able to claim all the evidence in support of evolution as supporting their theory too.
who says that they haven't tried that already?
both Dembski and Behe claim common descent as not inconsistent with "ID" already.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 6:02 PM
Unless he's talking about how many actual clock hours he spent in class...
*bing*
could be the amount of time he spent doing homework for quizzes and tests, too.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 6:04 PM
Geolub -
That's cuz with all those biology hours, he missed out on the geology ones.
Posted by: Pineyman | April 2, 2008 6:05 PM
These are the dates of the references:
1899, 1930, 1955, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1963, 1968, 1956, 1974, 1965, 1950, 1956, 1984, 1964, 1976, 1992, 1993, 1924, 1968, 1959, 1970, 1997, 1970, 1989, 1975, 1975, 1993, 1960, 1971, 1971, 1984, 1996.
Average age = 1967
Could someone who has experience with real peer-reviewed research comment on the difference between these references and the average scientific paper?
Does this guy think that he's a historian?
Posted by: Damian | April 2, 2008 6:12 PM
Geolub @#43--I don't know who Kurt Hollocher is, but I might have to lay a big wet kiss on him if I ever meet him in person.
Sadly, though, the fact that Armitage is still out there publishing his odious lies is illustrative of the mulishness that plagues all of the Creation Scientists we've ever come across. They are undaunted by the pesky plethora of contrary facts that would compel a more rational person to rethink his or her position.
Posted by: DanioPhD | April 2, 2008 6:13 PM
For Cthulhu's sake, PZ, you're not supposed to be publishing any of that stuff. What if it gets out? Don't you remember the c-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y? I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when the BS (Big Science) hits the fan.
Posted by: Bunk | April 2, 2008 6:13 PM
Holy crap, geolub, that Kurt Hollocher guy took Armitage to SCHOOL, didn't he?
Posted by: Greg Peterson | April 2, 2008 6:14 PM
This little exchange is pretty much a microcosm of the broader evolution-creationism conflict. The creationist side is so busy fiddling with their spitballs and dog poo on sticks, they don't even look up when the thermonuclear warhead comes whistling in from the stratosphere...
Posted by: Dr. Matt | April 2, 2008 6:15 PM
Alex (#39)
That seems to be the case. I wonder how many of those hours were actual biology classes and not courses that went toward a biology degree (like the Englishes and Social Sciences)
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | April 2, 2008 6:17 PM
Could someone who has experience with real peer-reviewed research comment on the difference between these references and the average scientific paper?
meh, it's not always relevant (sometimes there really aren't more recent relevant articles for a particular topic), but typically that would be considered an unusually old set of literature to rely on.
Yes, it would raise an immediate red flag.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 6:19 PM
The name Van Andel rang a bell. A little googling showed that, sure enough, this 'Research Center' was set up by the late Jay Van Andel, co-founder of Amway. So if you buy Amway products you're helping to fund this bulldust!
Posted by: bassmanpete | April 2, 2008 6:21 PM
Sastra wrote: Show us fish, birds, or other organisms that live and reproduce in an environment in which they are not in any way equipped to survive in -- and then maybe we'll start talking about a need to invoke supernatural forces.
If things progress/proceed as the climatologists now seem inclined to believe, we should have plenty of experimental evidence in something approaching 75-100 years. But the invocation mayn't be very hosannah-ish; mebbe more int the tradition of "God-fucking DA--blub, blub, blu...
Posted by: woody, tokin librul | April 2, 2008 6:22 PM
About two weeks ago I went to a departmental seminar at Sheffield University by Geoff Parker on 'The evolution of complex life cycles in helminth parasites'. Armitage would have done better to spend his money on a flight to England for that rather than whatever money he spent on this 'research', since that basically answered all of his questions in the discussion. A lot of the modelling went over my head, but from what I understood a lot of the time parasite life cycles become more complex because if their host gets eaten and they can survive within the new host they do better than ones that die.
Posted by: Lisa | April 2, 2008 6:23 PM
mebbe more int the tradition of "God-fucking DA--blub, blub, blu...
Dagon hopes you will take this bit of prescience as an indicator of which god to turn to when the time comes.
I mean, you DO want to be eaten first, right?
;)
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 6:24 PM
The name Van Andel rang a bell. A little googling showed that, sure enough, this 'Research Center' was set up by the late Jay Van Andel, co-founder of Amway. So if you buy Amway products you're helping to fund this bulldust!
that's ID:
one big fucking pyramid scheme.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 6:27 PM
quote" It sure seems logical to me now that evolution would send an organism through three different hosts in order to finally make babies - that being the most expedient method and all...."
errm.....I think hes got this the wrong way round yes????
evolution could send it through 50 different hosts or a different one every time (like alien!) as long as it survived the meander it really wouldnt matter. im sure theres a nice line of variation in numbers of host from those with 1 (the minimum and the most common?) to those with more and more, the ones with more hosts perhaps are less numerous as species????? but oh my god, THREE!!!!
the question he should be asking is why would a very clever god send it squirming and burrowing through three different hosts, why not 2, why not 4???? see how simplistic the creationist mind is: 'to make babies' just which part is the baby part with these cool critters????
Posted by: extatyzoma | April 2, 2008 6:27 PM
This paper by the "creation scientist Mark H. Armitage, M.S., Ed.S is childish beyond words (even sciency ones).
These cute little "creation scientists" just love to play dress up, put on a lab coat, and churn out some pointless drivel.
Then, when they get called on it, the cute little "creation scientists" morph into whiney little bitches.
Posted by: waldteufel | April 2, 2008 6:29 PM
Makes sense. I don't know about trematodes but a lot of parasites have two modes of reproduction, asexual cloning at various stages and sexual recombination at the end.
Posted by: raven | April 2, 2008 6:47 PM
Stupid design.
No, no -- both:
"It is referred to as 'recurrent' because the branches of the nerve innervate the laryngeal muscles in the neck through a rather circuitous route: they descend down into the thorax before rising up between the trachea and esophagus to reach the neck.
The left branch loops under and around the arch of the aorta (ligamentum arteriosum) before ascending, whereas the right branch loops around the right subclavian artery.
The nerve splits into anterior and posterior rami before supplying muscles in the voice box -- it supplies all laryngeal muscles except for the cricothyroid, which is innervated by the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve
If it were a real scientific paper in this kind of field in biology, the vast majority of the references would be no more than 20 years old, and over half would probably be no more than 5 years old. If you like, I can send you my first paper (with all appendices -- they have their own references) so you can do statistics.
The number of references is also rather small, but given the fact that it's just a review paper -- no results -- that restricts itself to reviewing old research and adds "Goddidit", this is not unexpected...
Wow. That's fun to read. :-D
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 2, 2008 7:04 PM
I bet Mark Armitage disaproves of this, too.
Posted by: idahogie | April 2, 2008 7:06 PM
God-fucking DA--blub, blub, blu
When I first read that, it took me a minute to parse it out - for some reason I read it as a triumphant variant of "Ta-dah!" changed to give all credit to God, rather than the first half of a longer expletive. Now whenever I read a creationist 'argument', I'll be visualizing them saying "God-dah!" with jazz hands.
Posted by: Carlie | April 2, 2008 7:08 PM
Re 64: and reading his article more carefully he does say in the introduction:
'It is at this point in the life cycle, that predation upon the infected fish by herons, egrets, or raccoons and other mammals, must occur in order that the definitive host can become infected and the worm can sexually mature.'
I don't know enough about parasite evolution to say anything why the second intermediate host gets infected by the first since that is through faeces, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a theory as to why that occurs since this guy clearly hasn't read any of the literature. My guess, but it is just a guess, is that perhaps faeces was used as a transmission from snail->snail, but occasionally a fish would get infected from this and again it pays to be able to survive in the fish. The trematode might then get adapted to the fish, and so eventually it would pay it to seek out the fish rather than just to wait (depending on a trade off between using up your energy seeking and risking not finding anything etc.). Even if that theory is totally wrong and someone else has done research to show differently, either this Armitage guy should explore this kind of theory or alternate theories rather than just going straight for 'goddidit'
Posted by: Lisa | April 2, 2008 7:09 PM
Oops, your right. He could go to hell for that. That should be bi-parential reductive gametogeneis fusion recombinatorial multiplying. But only if they are married.
Posted by: raven | April 2, 2008 7:13 PM
I have something of an oddball question (I was not in the US during the Dover trial, so perhaps this has been addressed before):
What's the deal with Pennsylvania?
I grew up in New England, and we always considered it something of a kindred state, culturally speaking. Were we wrong? Has the decline of its industrial base in the years since led to an increase in the hopeless conditions (described well by Hedges in American Fascists, despite the book's and Hedges' other failings) in which people tend to fall prey to this nonsense? Or, am I just more attuned to events in PA, like this upcoming conference, because of my earlier impressions of the state, thus overestimating the hold of irrationalism there?
Posted by: SC | April 2, 2008 7:13 PM
Yes -- but articles with such reference lists typically contain lots of new results that finally revive a field that has laid dormant since 1935. Not zero new results like this one.
A question worth pondering.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 2, 2008 7:14 PM
extatyzoma #62 wrote:
"On a beautiful fall day, as I was wading through the wetlands looking for parasites ... the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I dug down and scooped up the trematodes, I saw a beautiful and unexpected reproductive cycle squirming and burrowing through three different hosts -- clearly signifying the Trinity. I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the swampy muck and sunk slowly down as the sun rose and I surrendered to Jesus Christ."
Posted by: Sastra | April 2, 2008 7:17 PM
So, all those creationists are going to be in one place at the same time. If I were evil, I'd... but no. It's too terrible to contemplate.
Posted by: ZorkFox | April 2, 2008 7:18 PM
That's one of the saddest things I've ever seen.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | April 2, 2008 7:21 PM
Yes -- but articles with such reference lists typically contain lots of new results that finally revive a field that has laid dormant since 1935. Not zero new results like this one.
but that's an entirely separate issue, and was the red flag PZ raised in his initial contribution.
as an example, when i started working on onotogenetic color change in fishes, there simply weren't any articles on it more recent than Fricke's work in the 60's. At best, there were anecdotal evidences and ideas postulated in books like "Reproduction in Reef Fishes" by Thresher.
nobody had simply bothered (yet) to even go out and test any of the ideas postulated.
true, that's an exception, rather than the common case, but it does happen.
In hindsight, I would also strongly warn prospective grad students about pursuing topics that have so little literature published on them.
It gets REALLY hard to figure out where to go next if you get stuck!
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 7:26 PM
Forgive the naivete, but can someone pause and confirm a basic for me...
Are not the peer reviewers supposed to be skeptical, at least a bit? Is there some sciency term for starting-out-a-tad-skeptical-no-matter-what? Isn't the point of science to create a systematic skepticism? In all endeavors it's clear that if you read your work and revise it with the certainty that it's right and brilliant, you'll likely discover it to be right and brilliant. Master Armitage seems miffed at the general notion that someone would strive to find fault with his research. Of course, he might naturally expect PZ to find fault with his work, since PZ is in the employ of Satan, but are they so naive as to believe that faith alone qualifies their work? I think there are few examples of peer-reviewed research that takes a Creationist bent, but are there any examples of Creationist-bent research that Creationist peer-reviewers rejected? That would be interesting. To me.
Ok--you can go back to talking about intelligent stuff.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | April 2, 2008 7:27 PM
Are not the peer reviewers supposed to be skeptical, at least a bit? Is there some sciency term for starting-out-a-tad-skeptical-no-matter-what?
yes, it's called "criticism".
of course it's the case that reviewers are supposed to hammer on something to find the weak spots, then send it back to the author to address them. If the problems noted are valid, but fixable, the paper will likely still get published. If they are valid but NOT fixable, it likely won't.
doesn't always work, but that's the idea, anyway.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 7:32 PM
Sounds like this guy couldn't cut it at UF, so he transferred to Bible School for a degree in godsmack. Pathetic Loser.
Posted by: QED | April 2, 2008 7:33 PM
... btw, sometimes the process can take a LONG time.
I had a drawn out argument with some statisticians on a small paper I was trying to publish that didn't resolve itself for about 2 years.
I won that particular battle after some serious debate and about 12 revisions.
yay me!
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 2, 2008 7:35 PM
At least now it's going through the long-overdue jeer review.
Posted by: SC | April 2, 2008 7:39 PM
Theistards....creationist conference....in Pittsburgh....venue 15 minutes away from where I am....
I am totally going to be there!
*evil grin*
Posted by: Evolved Rationalist | April 2, 2008 7:43 PM
ice9 #76 wrote:
Although this doesn't really address your question on peer-review research journals, I vaguely remember that many years ago one of the intrepid researchers who had claimed to discover Noah's ark was first lauded and promoted by the Young Earth Creationist groups -- and then quietly and discretely dropped when he went on to claim that he had also discovered the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Lost Tribes of Israel, the baby clothes of Jesus, the magic sword Excalibur, and so on and so forth. Ok, I forget the details on just what he claimed, but I do remember that the narratives got wilder and wilder, like Indiana Jones meets Kent Hovind. He was lowering himself into undiscovered tombs on ropes. The skeptic groups had great fun with it.
Not so much with the crackpot himself -- he was probably at least a little insane -- but at the idea that finally, at long last, there was someone so loony that even Young Earth Creationists who expect the immanent discovery of Noah's Ark think there's something fishy about his science reports.
Posted by: Sastra | April 2, 2008 7:48 PM
Oh for Cthulhu's sake. I put trematode in pubmed and got 22434 hits. Trematode reproductive cycle got 71. Schistosomiasis is one such, an important human pathogen.
And there are asexual and
sexual reproductivebi-parental reductive gametogenic fusion recombinatorial multiplication stages.There is a fair amount of work done on these pathogens. Anyone wanting to know more, pubmed.gov and read. That leaves the creos out.
Posted by: raven | April 2, 2008 7:53 PM
As a quick exercise, I pulled the Annual Review of Entomology for 1997 off my bookshelf, figuring a review article would have a references cited section with a date distribution closest to that of Mark's 'work.' I flipped the volume open and turned to the first group of citations I came to (pp 313-15). Averaging the first 50 (of 189 references)gives the year 1988 with the oldest reference 1969. Interesting that the oldest reference in this review article is only two years younger than the average reference date in Mark's tear sheet, and a difference of more than 20 years from the average date posted for Mark (see #50) hmmm. . . Cherry trees must have been more abundant in the recent past.
Why would Mark question a parasite having passage through THREE hosts (father, son, and holy g-host and how is that parasite transmitted)? It is sooo rewarding to examine the dynamic publications of intrepid creation scientists, such polyhistors (polymaths?) as to be capable of publishing highly technical articles in two disparate fields. We know where his head was when examining trematodes and we know which way the microscope was 'pointing' when he examined the microrocks.
Posted by: mothra | April 2, 2008 7:59 PM
Wanna know a fun fact? Some people are very, very stupid! Now you know!
Posted by: Trent Eady | April 2, 2008 8:10 PM
QED -
Please don't slander a perfectly good metal band like that.