Is there anything up with the "Altenberg 16"?

I read the Mazur article a couple of weeks ago. Journalists are adept at making their pieces sound more interesting and important than they actually are, and the phrase quoted above illustrates this. We see it all the time in relation to science. If there are slightly surprising results to an experiment, the slightly surprised researchers will become "astounded" or "flabbergasted" or "shocked", etc.The research related to evolutionary biology done and published this year will have far more influence on its future than all the conferences held this year, including this one, and I think that the sixteen "biologists and philosophers of rock star stature" would agree with me on that.

Sure. But how often does new evidence emerge from people meeting, rather than research? "Improved insight" is more likely, but I wonder if physical meetings are as important as they used to be.The sixteen can all exchange ideas easily and instantly whenever they choose to in this age of electronic communication, after all.It's possible that this meeting will be widely remembered as long as Woodstock, but I still think the suggestion is probably journalese.

That's certainly possible. I used to drink a lot, and when criticized for it, would come out with a pseudo-theory that western civilization, both the arts and sciences, would not exist without alcohol to stimulate great minds and to drive it forward. Prohibition was why the Islamic world slipped behind us etc.In vino veritas and in vino cognoscere.

So, the claim that the earth was created less than ten thousand years ago is a factual claim which is accurate and reliable in your opinion? Good. Now, explain to us why, in your experience you find that reliable.If you don't find it reliable and accurate, why were you lying above?

So, the claim that the earth was created less than ten thousand years ago is a factual claim which is accurate and reliable in your opinion? Good. Now, explain to us why, in your experience you find that reliable.If you don't find it reliable and accurate, why were you lying above? To spell it out simply. in your experience, creationists have been far more accurate and reliable in their factual claims than evosSo, the claim that the earth was created less than ten thousand years ago is a factual claim which is accurate and reliable in your opinion? Good. Now, explain to us why, in your experience you find that reliable.It's easy, son. All you have to do is describe your experience which leads you to believe in the accurate factual claims of creationists.Never be shy. Just tell us about your experience. As you say, in your experience, the factual claims that......Have you got photographs? Or were these just.... err... experiences.

Some preliminary descriptions of what went on at the Altenberg conference from Massimo Pigliucci. hereSo far as I've read, there's stuff on contingency and the importance of the order in which mutations happen, fitness landscapes, sympatric evolution, evolution of lactose tolerance, epigenetic inheritance, niche construction and inheritance, and many other things. I didn't notice any surprises, but lots of interesting stuff.The author of the O.P. of this thread will find little comfort in the proceedings, unless it's in historical contingency seemingly limiting the importance of natural selection in favour of drift. The intelligent designer doesn't get a look in, apart from a brief mention of Lyle's views in the nineteenth century.