The Intellectual Cowardice of Michael Egnor

While criticizing someone who does not understand the difference between artificial and natural selection--something I've successfully communicated to high school students and undergraduates--is like picking on the slow kid, his repeated nitpicking of ScienceBlogling Mike Dunford's post about the topic is illustrative of how creationists, whether they be young earth or intelligent design, operate.

Instead of dealing with Orac's or my response, Egnor quibbles with Mike over exactly what he meant. It's trolling, masquerading as intellectual discussion (and I had the same style of idiocy show up in the comments of my post, even though it's quite obvious what I meant).

If Egnor were serious, he would offer a serious response to Orac or me.

He can't.

But what's more pathetic is that Egnor is at Stony Brook University, which has one of the perennially top-ranked Ecology and Evolution departments in the country. In five minutes, he could walk over to the Life Sciences Building, and discuss the issue. I'm sure the faculty, including Dan Dykhuizen, Walt Eanes, Doug Futuyma, or Jeff Levinton, might be able to help him out*. In particular, Dan Dykhuizen, who has been studying experimental evolution for over three decades, just might be able to clarify for Egnor the difference between artificial and natural selection.

But, of course, Egnor won't do this because any of the mentioned faculty (or for that matter, any of their colleagues, including the students) would flatten him in seconds. Instead, he quibbles with graduate students about word choice in blog posts.

Next: Egnor and the Creationists: Partying Like It's 1859.

*I like them, and have no desire to inflict an arrogant, pompous ass like Egnor of any of them, so I hope he doesn't actually do this....