Carl Zimmer has this lovely post on the Lenski lab work on E. coli evolution, and look! The first author on that paper, Zachary Blount, showed up with an offer to answer any questions!
But sadly, you should also look at who the first person to take him up on the offer is: Larry Fafarman. If you don't know of him, you're fortunate. He's a mentally ill, permanently obtuse, persistent freakazoid creationist who, given a chance, will run the rational discussion right off the rails.
If you're interested, get on over there and counter Loony Fafarman with some intelligent discussion, 'k?
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An offer I can't refuse.
Now that I think about it, yes, I think I can.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Thanks PZ, I will definitely partake of this! I'm no expert in biology by any stretch (my fields are physics and computer science) but evolution is certainly one of my favorite topics. I'm mostly self-educated on the topic of evolution, and I've participated in many online debates over the past few years. The one thing I've learned by dealing with these creationist types is that you're not going to change their minds. But it's fun to argue anyway, as long as you don't take it personally. It's also very good practice and a great way to refine your debate points, which can be very effective when you are talking to a layperson, somebody who is on the fence.
His stupid makes my brain hurt.
A mention of Fafarman in post?
Where's wòót when you need him.
The funny thing is Larry is UD's resident "legal expert", yet even a layman can see he knows even less about law than he does about biology.
He was arguing on ERVs blog a while ago that the XVIVO animation was not covered by copyright protection, because it did not include a copyright notice. Where has this legal expert been since 1989?
Aaah, basement creationists. I love it when they hide in the shadows, hitting reload on various websites obsessively, and then gloat to post their nonsense whenever they see the word "Evolution!"
I love Larry. He's an Internet legend.
Welp, Larry for the longest time was a troller-er-er-er on the Florida Citizens for Science webpage. S.Scott and I and a few other managed to run him off. IMO< PZ is being was too nice in his description of Larry.
I should note that Larry holds the position he didn't learn it in high school then it is not valid.
This should be fun to watch. Free beer for the first person to back him into the "goddidit" corner.
I particularly like his (Larry's) refusal to kowtow to the "dogma" of the Holocaust (in his blog description), yet in the comments section (from other posts he has) he refuses to correct the problem of evolution leading to the holocaust.
One could get lost in this train of non-thought.
I recently made a blog post on this and Michael Behe's reaction to it:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com
-Ryan
As if this week wasn't bad enough for these guys Ken Miller's new book came out yesterday! And Dembski's pissed. Splitters!
This is one of many wondrous things about Larry. He agrees that Darwinism led to the Holocaust, which didn't happen.
OMG. I just read a few comments from Larry and the Evo Devo deniers and I want to slam my head in the door repeatedly. Thank you to David M., Owlmirror, Tiny Frog a other regular commenters on this blog for steering the other thread back to reality.
PZ, I don't think you were clear enough on how extremely obtuse Larry can be - now all these innocent fans of yours are going to go over there and beat their foreheads all bloody. I cannot say I approve of your sense of humor on this one.
It's interesting how many of the "crusaders" against the theory of Evolution are quite obviously mentally ill.
FYI - TOTN Science Friday has a section on Teaching Evolution today with Ken Miller.
Re #13 ('and Dembski's psised')
This comment from one of his sheeple on that thread is just *classic*
//
You know, it's funny how the TE's [theistic evolutionists] like to throw the "methodological naturalism" or "god-of-the-gaps" arguments to "refute ID" when, if those same (flawed) arguments were applied to the account of Christ's resurrection, would completely destroy Christianity.
These guys are simply "useful idiots."
//
Larry's a lot of fun. He loves to pick up buzzwords like "genetic opportunity" and make up ones like "widespread fixed physical features of the environment like water, air, and land" and run with them as if he's scored a point. You can tell he understands things at a rudimentary level but doesn't realize (or can't accept) how rudimentary it is.
Moses, you won the post on the other site with this gem about Larry: "I equate Larry to the South Pole of a magnet, wherever he points, you can find the truth in the opposite direction."
Genius
persistent freakazoid creationist...PZ on Larry
Yea, Larry is persistent, nobody can accuse him of backing down. Hasn't Michael Behe another favorite of PZ...lol... responded to the E-Coli experiment? I think he has already, back on June 6 in his blog located in Amazon.com. So Larry hasn't been the only one...
This is great. Dembski has run completely off the rails, and isn't even trying to pretend to act like he's claiming that ID isn't primarily a religious propaganda movement.
Nerull @ #5
I think Larry has been banned from UD for over a month now. Not that that somehow exonerates UD from the rest of their garbage. I guess even the IDers get tired of some of their own crackpots when they don't heel on command.
-DU-
Hah, Nerull, commented on the Loom before I read your post. My sentiments exactly.
Bryan (11), I believe the phrase is, "He's losing his train of blank."
Steven (19), I love it! I with they'd let my comment through:
"And your point is?"
Zachary has been really good responding to questions and what not over there. Can't wait to see the new post he is putting together for Carl. They also put up the paper of the experiment in pdf, if you haven't read it yet I defiantly recommend it.
This sucks. It's obvious Larry is setting up a situation where he can claim he backed one of the authors of the paper into a corner, and couldn't get a straight answer, even though the author gave him more than necessary to figure it out on his own, and then several subsequent posters kindly gave him the answers he claimed to be looking for. And the US being the land of the willfully, proudly ignorant (particularly post-2001), he'd probably win in a popularity contest.
It was funny the first few times I stumbled upon the works of Christian trolls, but lately it just makes me tired.