William Gibbons has written another reply, which you can see at the bottom of this post. I don't have time to reply at the moment, but when I do I will likely move it up here to the top. The reply was actually written last night, but for some reason it was blocked by the spam software and I had to dig through over 1000 comments to find it and approve it. I'll be back home shortly and will likely have a reply up by tomorrow.
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(Now that I look at the title, that sounds like an incredibly tepid harness-team command. "On, Moderation! Forward, with prudent speed!" I could clear that up by adding "Comment" in the middle, but I kind of like the image...)
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Now we can see why it took him so long to reply.
If this is part of his reply, you really have to wonder at his reasoning ability:
"I challenge you to give me clear examples of the transitional ancestors of the Cambrian fossils, that show a continuous and unbroken lineage from simple single cell life forms to complex invertebrates with the step-by-step transitional forms that would have undoubtedly have existed in their millions, if not billions."
I know of many instances of fossilized tracks and other indications of microorganisms (chemical traces, for instance), but how would he suppose that a single-celled creature be fossilized? Does he have any conception of how fossilization works, at all?
I am not going to believe any part of the Bible until you show me every single manuscript from when it was first written until now, the name of the copyist and the name of the animal used for the parchment.
Here is an entry on PZ's site about a book that deals with pre-cambrian fossils. This is a must read for me when I have the money.
"On the Origin of Phyla" by James W. Valentine
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/the_cambrian_as_an_evolutionary_exemplar/
I think that this would be useful for Gibbons if he really wanted to know what scientists think about the cambrian.
I wrote: "You're dealing with laymen of various faiths, and varying education/experience in the sciences, who seem to share a strong scepticism regarding the intelligence, logic, and honesty of the ID movement. What more do you need to know about us?"
And Gibbons misrepresented what I said thusly: "So, you are all committed to the concept of a self-creating universe, and life springing from non-living chemicals on earth regardless of what the evidence actually tells us."
No, we believe what the evidence tells us, and we're sceptical of people who repeatedly ignore, deny, misunderstand, and misrepresent it. The evolutionists have a coherent explanation, and you don't.
And by the way, how much money have you and your colleagues spent on actual research and/or repeatable experiments demonstrating the existence of a supreme intelligence, an actual disproof of the process of evolution, or a nuts-and-bolts alternative explanation of the available evidence?
Raging Bee at August 25, 2005 10:47 AM
Just to point out.
The IDers should present a cogent proposition (a "proto-theory," if you will).
And they should present evidence for the proposition. They never have. And it's probable that they never will. Apparently, they have never attempted to.
Until they do present evidence in favor of a theory that they have yet to put forward, why should any sentient being take them seriously?