Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Evolving the Musculoskeletal System
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 286 of 527 (581743)
09-17-2010 10:12 AM
Reply to: Message 285 by ICdesign
09-17-2010 9:42 AM


Re: Round two
ICDESIGN writes:
It seems to be no problem to blaspheme the Holy Spirit left and right around here but hey, don't you ever post information without showing where it came from.
You didn't "post information without showing where it came from."
You cut-n-pasted someone else's text verbatim into your own message without giving any indication whatsoever that the words were not your own.
It's called plagiarism.
Yes I do. I would have a stroke if I ever heard one of you evolutionists admit to being wrong about anything or admitting there is something you don't know.
Why would an evolutionist ever be wrong about evolution in a conversation with you? You're at such a basic level that getting something wrong would be akin to an adult getting the alphabet wrong when teaching it to a 5-year old.
Most of your problem with understanding evolution, and the reason why your understanding remains rudimentary even after all you're participation here, is that you accept or believe little of what we tell you. We've told you over and over and over again that evolution doesn't make sudden leaps, but you keep arguing, "Evolution is wrong because new functions can't come into existence all at once." Today we saw this once again with your citation of Koonin's "spontaneous formation" argument.
About ear lobes, is there something difficult to believe about gradual change in the shape of the cartilage around the ear hole?
About eyelids, they're just flaps of flesh. Is there something difficult to believe about gradual change in the flesh around the eye?
About the nose, fish have noses, though apparently they're called nares.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 285 by ICdesign, posted 09-17-2010 9:42 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 287 of 527 (581745)
09-17-2010 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 285 by ICdesign
09-17-2010 9:42 AM


All I can say is WOW!!!
You have been found to be committing plagiarism. You presented the data as peer-reviewed and it was not. You completely misrepresented the data.
When called on it all you can say is that you didn't do it on purpose and evolutionists are just as bad.
You are truly a vile person. A truly honest person would admit to their faults and mistakes, but you completely refuse to take any responsibility. None of your arguments are honest, none of the ideas or thoughts you present are your own. You should be ashamed of yourself, but you have no shame. You seem to truly belief that anything is correct and right if you do it for the purpose of your god. Shame on you.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 285 by ICdesign, posted 09-17-2010 9:42 AM ICdesign has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 291 by nwr, posted 09-17-2010 12:54 PM Theodoric has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 288 of 527 (581748)
09-17-2010 10:46 AM


Belief vs. evidence
I think what we are seeing here is the difference between a belief-based and an evidence-based "worldview."
Among scientists, evidence is the underlying principle of everything we do. False "evidence" is not only meaningless, it is detrimental to advancement. This is why we care so much about gathering, testing, and then explaining the evidence, and using predictions to lead to new evidence. And this is why we are so careful about how we cite the evidence. We must be sure we are not getting bad data mixed in with good data.
Creationists rely on belief, so scientific evidence is secondary--at best. Their "evidence" comes from scripture, revelation and other such sources and is not subject to the same tests that scientific data would be. Because they don't rely on scientific evidence, as we do, they don't take the care with it that we do. It is just not a part of their training.
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled debate.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


Message 289 of 527 (581750)
09-17-2010 10:52 AM
Reply to: Message 285 by ICdesign
09-17-2010 9:42 AM


Re: Round two
ICDESIGN writes:
Yes I do. I would have a stroke if I ever heard one of you evolutionists admit to being wrong about anything or admitting there is something you don't know.
I don't know what happened beforeto t=10-43.
Better call an ambulance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 285 by ICdesign, posted 09-17-2010 9:42 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 290 of 527 (581759)
09-17-2010 11:52 AM
Reply to: Message 284 by Percy
09-17-2010 8:51 AM


Peer review
I know Koonin's website calls them peer reviews, but those are just reviews. Peer reviews are conducted prior to publication and play a significant role in whether a paper is published, the reviewers are anonymous, and their comments are not made public. Plus Koonin is editor-in-chief of Biology Direct.
What is your problem that you see no shenanigans? Has anyone else here ever cited a paper whose author was also editor-in-chief of the journal that published it? Just you so far, right?
I don't really see any reason to cast aspersions on Biology Direct and its review process. I certainly don't see why you think the review wasn't done before publication or why you consider it not to consititute peer review. It also seems a bit misleading to call it Koonin's website if you mean the Biology Direct site hosted by Biomed Central.
Biology Direct has an open review process because anonymous reviews have their own associated issues and many of the new online open access journals are trying alternative approaches.
How it works is the article's author suggests members of the editorial board that they think would be suitable to review their work. In the interests of openness the reviewer's comments and the author's responses are also published.
One thing I think might have improved this is some comment from the editor who gave the article's publication the go ahead as to how they reached that decision since some of the reviews are pretty critical and Koonin's responses seem more argumentative than anything else. I've drafted arsey responses to reviewer's myself but I get the feeling that when he was writing them Koonin was very aware that these were going to be part of the public record rather than just an internal discussion between himself, the reviewers and the editor. It would also go some way towards obviating concerns, like yours, that one of the joint editors in chief might have been giving an easy ride on a pretty flakey article.
I don't see any problem in general with people publishing in Journals on which they are a senior member of the editorial board, provided they don't handle their own submissions. It seems a bit unfair if someone with an international reputation couldn't publish in Nature because they were also an editor.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. Having opened up this can of worms I may not be able to contribute anything further for a while as I am going to be on holiday for the next 2 weeks.
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 284 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 8:51 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 292 by Omnivorous, posted 09-17-2010 1:01 PM Wounded King has replied
 Message 293 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 1:11 PM Wounded King has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


(1)
Message 291 of 527 (581772)
09-17-2010 12:54 PM
Reply to: Message 287 by Theodoric
09-17-2010 10:23 AM


Re: All I can say is WOW!!!
Theodoric writes:
You are truly a vile person.
That seems a bit over the top.
Theodoric writes:
You have been found to be committing plagiarism.
Indeed, he has. But maybe ICdesign is an auto mechanic or a plumber or a gardener - that is, maybe he doesn't work in an area where the standards of scholarship apply, so perhaps was not fully aware of what was expected.
I do hope he will do better in future posts.
I occasionally read the Uncommon Descent blog (an ID blog). And I see post after post saying that evolution is obviously wrong, and some particular biological thing just had to have been intelligently designed. As far as I can tell, the people who write that obviously believe what they are saying. They clearly do not understand the theory of evolution, yet it is just as clear that they believe that they do understand it. One might think that when they are is strong disagreement with most biologists, they would begin to question whether their understanding of evolution is correct. But they don't.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 287 by Theodoric, posted 09-17-2010 10:23 AM Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 295 by Theodoric, posted 09-17-2010 1:27 PM nwr has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 292 of 527 (581774)
09-17-2010 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 290 by Wounded King
09-17-2010 11:52 AM


Re: Peer review
Have a great vacation.
Do you really think that a review process that entails the author/editor picking his reviewers, knowing that their comments will be made public, will result in as vigorous a review process as anonymous reviews?
I can see that anonymous reviews are sometimes abused--axes ground, etc.--but surely those occasional opportunities for mischief in the anonymous process would be outnumbered by the ever-present opportunities for reviewer timidity in an open process.

Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello
Real things always push back.
-William James

This message is a reply to:
 Message 290 by Wounded King, posted 09-17-2010 11:52 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 294 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 1:19 PM Omnivorous has not replied
 Message 309 by Wounded King, posted 09-30-2010 2:25 PM Omnivorous has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 293 of 527 (581777)
09-17-2010 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 290 by Wounded King
09-17-2010 11:52 AM


Re: Peer review
WK,
We disagree that it was "a pretty flakey article." Could you maybe meet me halfway and go as far as "extremely flakey?"
The key point is that a read of that paper indicates that Koonin thinks "spontaneous formation" of something extremely complex is a necessary prerequisite for life, and he does what creationists do here all the time, make up an incredibly tiny probability out of thin air. My bullshit alarm bells are going off like crazy, and I'm wondering why yours aren't, too.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 290 by Wounded King, posted 09-17-2010 11:52 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 299 by bluegenes, posted 09-17-2010 4:17 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 310 by Wounded King, posted 09-30-2010 2:43 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 294 of 527 (581780)
09-17-2010 1:19 PM
Reply to: Message 292 by Omnivorous
09-17-2010 1:01 PM


Re: Peer review
Omnivorous writes:
Do you really think that a review process that entails the author/editor picking his reviewers, knowing that their comments will be made public, will result in as vigorous a review process as anonymous reviews?
I didn't want to get into a discussion about specifics so I didn't respond about the review process when I replied to WK, but what you say sums up my views pretty well, too. I know I'd feel pretty weird submitting a paper to a process where I knew who the reviewers were and that the reviews, often made before another round of changes, would be made public.
So since I'm addressing this I may as well respond to WK's question about why I assumed the reviews occurred after publication. I of course don't know when the paper and reviews were put up at the website, and I made no comment about it, but since the author's comments appear on the reviews, and *not* the other way around with the reviewers comments on the paper, obviously Biology Direct's process is backwards.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 292 by Omnivorous, posted 09-17-2010 1:01 PM Omnivorous has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 295 of 527 (581782)
09-17-2010 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 291 by nwr
09-17-2010 12:54 PM


Re: All I can say is WOW!!!
Did you read his post? Do you see how he still refuses to accept any responsibility? His argument is that other people are worse than him. He lies and has no remorse. If that is not the definition of a vile person I do not know what is.
He was been told before about his cut and pastes. He refused to admit he stole it until he was confronted and even then refuses to admit to plagiarizing. Just a lame excuse about he didn't know better.
But maybe ICDESIGN is an auto mechanic or a plumber or a gardener
Why are you insulting mechanics, plumbers and gardeners? Anyone that went through middle school in the US knows about plagiarism. Plagiarism is not something that is reserved for the lofty halls of academia. All I have is a lowly bachelors in history, I currently work construction. Am I incapable of understanding where the standards of scholarship apply?
This is a fairly academic and scholarly forum. If a person does not understand rules of scholarship they probably shouldn't post here. Ignorance of rules is no excuse. When a person is called on plagiarism and then tries to turn things around and say his accusers are guilty of something else, that is truly vile.
Edited by Theodoric, : punctuation

This message is a reply to:
 Message 291 by nwr, posted 09-17-2010 12:54 PM nwr has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 297 by nwr, posted 09-17-2010 2:56 PM Theodoric has not replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 296 of 527 (581783)
09-17-2010 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 285 by ICdesign
09-17-2010 9:42 AM


Re: Round two
Yes I do. I would have a stroke if I ever heard one of you evolutionists admit to being wrong about anything or admitting there is something you don't know.
I doubt I have enough fingers to count the number of times I've admitted that I was wrong on just this forum. Your trouble is that you're so wrong that you get nowhere near the point of reaching where I'm wrong.
I don't know everything. I don't know everything. As I said to you in another thread the thing I've learnt most from doing a degree in Biology is just how little I know. The trouble you have is that you don't even want to spend the time learning what we do know. Do that and you'd get to the stuff we don't know; keep repeating drivel from Creationist lie-sites and you'll keep on frothing up ignorance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 285 by ICdesign, posted 09-17-2010 9:42 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 297 of 527 (581791)
09-17-2010 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 295 by Theodoric
09-17-2010 1:27 PM


Re: All I can say is WOW!!!
Theodoric writes:
He lies and has no remorse.
From his point of view, it is we evilutionists who lie without remorse, and he sees himself as a messenger for the truth.
Theodoric writes:
If that is not the definition of a vile person I do not know what is.
That still seems over the top to me, and particularly so when I check the forum rules.
If you want to say that he comes from a vile subculture, I could agree with that. He is presumably part of a fundamentalist cult that calls itself "Christian" yet seems to be thoroughly anti-Christian.
Theodoric writes:
Anyone that went through middle school in the US knows about plagiarism.
They may know about it in the abstract, but many don't fully understand it.
Theodoric writes:
This is a fairly academic and scholarly forum.
Indeed, it is. But most creationists don't come from an academic and scholarly background, and they belong to a cultic subgroup where "lying for Jesus" is considered well within the norms of acceptable behavior. We should be attempting to educate them on the proper standards for a scholarly forum, and name calling doesn't help with that. It's better to criticize the behavior, not the person.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 295 by Theodoric, posted 09-17-2010 1:27 PM Theodoric has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 298 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 3:18 PM nwr has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 298 of 527 (581798)
09-17-2010 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 297 by nwr
09-17-2010 2:56 PM


Re: All I can say is WOW!!!
nwr writes:
From his point of view, it is we evilutionists who lie without remorse, and he sees himself as a messenger for the truth.
Well, yes, but he has no evidence that we're lying. He blames evolutionists for his many misunderstandings about evolution when the source of these misunderstandings is either himself or creationist sources. Every time we correct him he concludes that either we're lying now or we were lying before. In reality he's far too frustrated and confused to reach any reliable conclusions about veracity.
Theodoric writes:
If that is not the definition of a vile person I do not know what is.
That still seems over the top to me, and particularly so when I check the forum rules.
Yeah, it struck me the same way, but I found that the sentiments resonated with me. I admit I was pretty disgusted at ICDESIGN's blas attitude about it. Most of us here are probably fairly similar in that we find it terribly embarrassing to be caught in some significant faux pas (unwitting or not), and it's bit startling to encounter someone who doesn't react that way.
We should be attempting to educate them on the proper standards for a scholarly forum, and name calling doesn't help with that. It's better to criticize the behavior, not the person.
Right you are!
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 297 by nwr, posted 09-17-2010 2:56 PM nwr has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 300 by nwr, posted 09-17-2010 5:20 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 299 of 527 (581810)
09-17-2010 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 293 by Percy
09-17-2010 1:11 PM


Koonin's worlds.
Percy writes:
The key point is that a read of that paper indicates that Koonin thinks "spontaneous formation" of something extremely complex is a necessary prerequisite for life, and he does what creationists do here all the time, make up an incredibly tiny probability out of thin air. My bullshit alarm bells are going off like crazy, and I'm wondering why yours aren't, too.
To say fair, Koonin does point out that there could well be far more probable ways in which life could arise. Indeed, as I read it, he's just saying that we haven't yet worked them out.
He does overstate his case, arguably, but that's because he's trying to make the point that, even if you took one of the apparently extremely improbable examples of how life could have arisen naturally in a finite universe, in the currently popular "many world's" scenario, even that way of life originating is inevitably going to happen.
His argument implies that, if the many world's hypothesis is correct, the intelligent design folk can forget their intelligent designer as being necessary for any observed phenomena in our known sector of the universe, so long as it doesn't break any physical laws, no matter how unlikely it may seem.
Interestingly, this would mean that if life arose here by some unknown but much more probable process (in the many worlds scenario, that would just mean more common), it would still have arisen elsewhere by the process he describes, as well as arising elsewhere by the same means as here, and by any other possible means.
So, he's not saying that his apparently highly improbable way of life arising is the only way, but that if it were, life is still inevitable under the many worlds hypothesis.
The most interesting thing to me about the paper is not about OOL, particularly, but about how we would approach probabilities in a "many worlds" cosmology.
I don't think your bullshit alarm is necessary, as the paper is very, very pro naturalistic OOL in its implications, and Koonin's certainly not claiming that there aren't more probable ways than his for life to arise. If ICDesign was capable of understanding it, he wouldn't have brought it up, but he did so because Koonin is being quotemined by creationists elsewhere (something one of the papers reviewers predicted, to my amusement!).
As for the calculations in the appendix, he describes these as "naive" earlier in the paper.
{I know this post is off topic, but I thought the paper was interesting, even if slightly flakey. If ICDesign expresses incredulity about any detail in the evolution of the skeleton, and you're getting pissed off, you can always say to him that, according to his friend Koonin, if it's physically possible, it's inevitable that it would have happened in one of the many worlds. }

This message is a reply to:
 Message 293 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 1:11 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 300 of 527 (581819)
09-17-2010 5:20 PM
Reply to: Message 298 by Percy
09-17-2010 3:18 PM


Re: All I can say is WOW!!!
Percy writes:
Well, yes, but he has no evidence that we're lying.
Granted, though it is probably a steady drum beat in creationist circles.
nwr writes:
That still seems over the top to me, and particularly so when I check the forum rules.
Percy writes:
Yeah, it struck me the same way, but I found that the sentiments resonated with me. I admit I was pretty disgusted at ICDESIGN's blas attitude about it.
I am no admirer of the way that ICdesign has behaved on this forum.
If creationists want to have crazy beliefs, I guess that's up to them. But when they call themselves "Christian", yet behave in ways that violate our normal understanding of what "Christian" implies, I find that very troubling.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 298 by Percy, posted 09-17-2010 3:18 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 301 by Theodoric, posted 09-17-2010 6:09 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024