All about Brad McFall.

You mean, "the dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed."? Truly amazing.

Yep, I agree. One of my favorite McFall quotations of all time has got to be: Pretty much sums up what being in the "McFall Zone" is like.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Heheh, I predict that Brad will respond, name-drop Gould, and perhaps mention The Mismeasure of Man in passing. No one will make sense of it.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm not sure what you mean, but I'll answer the question as I've understood it. I've been a lurker here at for a few years now. I registered over a month ago as a result of that new procedure whereby you had to sign in before gaining access to the forums. Basically, I got annoyed with signing in as a guest every time. In reality, I never planned on posting, but the issue of Brad is of particular interest to me. I have a friend who's writing is very similar to Brad's (stream-of-consciousness, lack of punctuation, etc.). He honestly puts in a lot of effort into his writing but his thoughts just don't translate well onto paper. This doesn't mean he isn't intelligent, however. In fact, when it came time for presentations, he could clearly present his ideas to the class, and they made sense. The same ideas were in his paper (according to him, at least), but it was essentially unreadable--about on par with Brad's writing.I wonder whether this is the case with Brad, and I hoped that perhaps he'd clue us in as to what the real deal is in this thread. He writes posts that make sense once in a blue moon, and I hoped for one of those gems here, explaining the issue.There seems to be an accusatory tone underlying the content of your post, as if you were questioning my motives, but I'll chalk that up to my own paranoia . Thanks. It was about as unoriginal as I could get.

I'm glad this was the case. Nope, I hadn't said anything upthread. I've already read both of them in the past, but thanks for going through the trouble digging them up.

First of all, who is your grandfather? You often refer to him, but I don’t think you’ve ever given a name. I don’t know. Maybe you are. That may be the case, I don’t know. I need to know your grandfather’s name first. I don’t know what you’re referring to here, are you talking about some sort of mutation as the cause of all your problems, or that Monod may have based his ideas on your grandfather’s work?Brad, please write a concise response.Edited to add:
Nevermind Brad, I figured out that your grandfather is Willard Francis Stanley.This message has been edited by Snikwad, 08-07-2004 05:51 PM

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

That was quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever read. Here’s a question Brad: did you try to explain yourself, and how successful were you?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

So what you want is for Monod’s idea to be attributed to your grandfather? Well, maybe you have some rare insight as to what your grandfather was talking about that Monod also possessed. The point is that Monod propounded it in a clearer manner. If no one else can abstract it from your grandfather’s work, of what use is it?Brad, if you have some revolutionary scientific idea, but you do a poor job of putting it forth in writing, that no one can understand, but I manage to glean meaning from it, and propound it in a much more comprehensible manner, who do you think it will be attributed to? Is this what your gripe with Monod is?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

No problem, Brad. I’m going to assume that you’re not being sarcastic--it’s pretty difficult to tell. Then may I ask why it is not attributed to your grandfather? This is what your problem is, isn’t it? You want your father to get the credit for Monod’s idea, right? This is what I’ve gotten from your posts: Monod derived his idea from your grandfather’s work. You claim that your grandfather said the exact same thing, but that it required a bit of abstraction in order to get. If your grandfather’s work was as clear, if not clearer, than Monod’s, why doesn’t your grandfather get the credit? Furthermore, why does the idea need to be abstracted from your grandfather’s work if it is clearer?But you still haven’t answered the most important question. This is the only one I really want answered: why do you write posts that are so difficult to decipher, and do you honestly attempt to make sense?I’ll make it even easier: do you actually put in effort into making sense when you write your posts? Just that simple question. Answer it yes or no. I don’t need any other commentary--just yes or no. I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about here. You seem to be trying to emphasize the importance of taking physics into consideration when discussing genetics. Then you proceed to name drop Feynman, and I am officially lost. You tell me to wait, but don’t bother, you’re referring to mathematics that I’m not familiar with (I have no clue what set theory is) , so the knowledge you would attempt to impart to me would surely be lost. Brad, seriously, enough with the name dropping. I don’t see how Schrodinger is relevant to Monod’s work. Perhaps if you clarified, I’d understand. And what the heck is superabundantaddendus? Ok Brad, I get it. Relax, or you’ll have an aneurysm. I am not familiar with Gladyshev’s work, although I believe that you have mentioned that it has to do with macrothermodynamics. This is what we’re talking about with respect to the name-dropping, You can’t just reference Gladyshev’s work and assume that I’m going to know what you’re talking about. What about Gladyshev’s work are you referring to, specifically? A concise description would be nice. Heh, if you’re a math fly guy you’re going to have to dumb things down for me or omit them entirely--the only mathematics I know is up to, and including, calculus. Heheh, I predict the existence of McFall’s Last Theorem, which will require mathematics that has not been developed yet in order to prove. Good luck with that.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Wow. Why would you spend so much time writing that much? I told you that all I really wanted answered was one question. It didn’t require much thought. It was a yes or no answer. You successfully managed to evade my question. Nowhere in your post do you answer it. Let me repeat it in the hope that in your next post you will answer it. Just that, Brad. I really don’t even care if you answer any of the other questions in this post. This one is the most important one. Do not neglect answering it! Ok, great. Foreplay to calculus. I laughed for like ten minutes after I read that, but I have no clue what you’re talking about. Seriously.Your entire seventh paragraph makes no sense to me. I tried, Brad. Really, I did. I’m no expert in molecular biology, so that makes it even more difficult for me to even try to comprehend. Ok, then what is your gripe with Monod? I think I’m lost again. Again, simply name-dropping Gladyshev isn’t going to make your point clear. What is Gladyshev’s approach? I know the type, my former biology teacher was the same way. He’s why I got into the evolution versus creationism debate, incidentally. Oh, no. From this point onward, your post is basically indecipherable. I really tried. Sorry. Somewhere in there you reiterated the importance of incorporating physical principles into biology. I don’t know what you’re getting at. Do you see the sciences as being too compartmentalized, so to speak?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Whoa, I must have missed this the first time I read through this thread. I see what you’re saying. I think you should consider this, however: when the conversation gets to a point where you want to toss in some of your ideas, forget for a moment that the conversation will continue, and just focus on writing up your post. Don’t think about where the conversation might be going while you’re writing, do not check to see where it’s been going since you first started writing your post, and DO NOT try to change the content of your post accordingly. I think this may be the reason that your posts are so fractured. Just get your original idea down on paper, and then proceed to post it. It’s also important not to feel pressured to post it right away in order to feel that it will be considered. Trust me, if you suddenly began propounding your ideas in a clear manner, the people here at EvC would surely take notice.Brad, if you want people to consider your arguments for creationism, they actually have to make sense first. You admitted it yourself: sometimes you can’t even decipher some of your own posts! Why would you expect anyone else to?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

First of all, I’d like to apologize for my tardy response, I’ve been a bit busy as of late. You may feel that you are done talking with what you’ve written, but the problem is that no one is able to understand what it is you have written. What is the point in writing such lengthy posts if no one will understand them? The problem is that no one can disagree with you because your posts make no sense for the most part. How are people supposed to disagree with you if they do not understand what it is that you are arguing? No, Brad, this didn’t help at all. At all. I mean, you still haven’t answered the question I originally posed back in post #79. I will no longer repeat it, as I am almost positively sure that you will not answer it. Oh well, I tried. After this point, it descends into an incoherent mess.Edited to remove unnecessary comma.This message has been edited by Snikwad, 08-16-2004 04:37 AM

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

What does that even mean? I have no clue. On the other hand, thanks for the link, Brad, I'll look into Gladyshev.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

I thank you immensely. That's a strange question. Monod's death? No one is accusing your grandfather of being the cause of Monod's death. What I was asking is why is Monod's idea not attributed to your grandfather, as previously you claimed you could abstract that idea from your grandfather's work? It was as if you were accusing Monod of stealing your grandfather's idea. But now you're saying that you're not even sure that Monod even read your grandfather's work.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Brad,Sorry for the delayed response: I lost my password, so I couldn’t log on to post messages. I wasn’t trying to clip your wings. What I was trying to do was take this one step at a time. However, rereading my previous posts, I understand how you would have gotten the idea that I was attempting to clip your wings. I assumed we were on the same page when you agreed to take things step-by-step. For example, in post #97 you said, I apologize for any misunderstanding. I wanted a yes or no answer in order to understand your future elaboration on the matter. Incidentally, you answered a few of my questions in your response to Tony650 located here. That post was what I was looking for in response to me-I’m glad it’s out there now. I’m glad you haven’t taken anything I’ve said to heart, because I was merely trying to get the truth out from you. It really wasn’t (and still isn’t) meant to be taken in a negative manner. Oh, I see what you were doing now. I didn’t know it at the time-you could have been clearer. Fine, I’ll select a point now. Enlighten me as to the relationship between your grandfather and allostery-option two. Nice analogy, Brad. Yes, it is obvious that we all learn differently, but in your case, it is radically different. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it makes the communication of ideas difficult. I strongly suggest you take Tony650’s advice, as I’m sure it would help you make clearer posts. I think there may be a joke in there involving your initials, and BS. If that’s the case: LOL. Keep in mind, however, that I’m not NosyNed. I don’t believe that there’s BS in your posts-I believe you have difficulty getting your ideas down in writing. Out of curiosity, what does the S in Brad S. McFall stand for?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker