Summations Only

In addition to what Genomicus said, when a research hypothesis is proposed the burden of proof is to support the hypothesis, not to prove the null hypothesis. So it is like this:H₁: The bacterial flagella is an irreducibly complex system
H₀: The bacterial flagella is NOT an irreducibly complex systemThe burden is on demonstrating that the system IS irreducibly complex not that it evolved in any particular way. All one has to do is propose a plausible way which the flagella could have evolved in a step-wise manner and the research hypothesis is not supported, or you cannot reject the null hypothesis.If the research hypothesis was that the bacterial flagella evolved in this particular way, then the burden would be on the researchers to support that hypothesis and show that it DID evolve in that way. However, the null hypothesis in this case would not be "irreducible complexity," but would be "did NOT evolve in this specific way."Design hypotheses need to be supported on their own weight. It is not that it can't be proven that this evolved in any specific way, therefore design. It doesn't work that way.HBD

Even if Irreducible Complexity actually existed it would not be evidence of anything but the fact that irreducible complexity existed; it would NOT be evidence of design or any designer.Sorry Faith but for something other than natural causes to be considered you need to present evidence there are causes other than natural ones and NO ONE has ever presented any such evidence.

I mean the totality of evolutionary mechanisms that fall under the umbrella of the modern evolutionary synthesis; these mechanisms include random mutation (beneficial, detrimental, and neutral with respect to fitness), natural and sexual selection, genetic drift, lateral gene transfer, etc. Consider the below example of a Roman arch. Remove any of the pieces, and the arch collapses. The function is eliminated. So this arch is irreducibly complex. But it was made by using a scaffold: the parts were first laid out on top of a structure in the middle. Once all the parts were in place, the scaffold was removed. Once the scaffold is removed, the structure becomes irreducibly complex. Similarly, biological structures can be rendered irreducibly complex over the course of their evolution if their parts evolve on a "scaffold" which is then eliminated by selective forces. Well, what those different forms of eyes really demonstrate is that an eye without all of its (human) parts can still function in a biological context and provide a selective advantage. So it's biological evidence that the eye is not an un-evolvable structure; this, coupled with other lines of evidence (molecular, paleontological, etc.), all work together to point to the conclusion that the eye evolved. It's called a bacterial flagellum, and is found in a variety of bacteria. So while removal of some parts of bacterial flagella in, say, gram-negative bacteria does render the system functionless as a motility system, there are systems out there (e.g., the type III secretion system) which suggest that precursor flagella could have had prior functions.In fact, during assembly, flagella do act as secretion systems -- and before the pili are assembled, the system acts as a protein channel. So all these stages have functional utility, suggesting that the IC-ness of the bacterial flagellum -- in itself -- is not evidence that it could not have evolved.Once again, this evidence that the flagellum can function in different contexts is not evidence that it DID evolve. For that, one must look to other lines of evidence. I, for one, find the arguments for the Neo-Darwinian origin of bacterial flagella suspect, based on several lines of reasoning. But it's irreducible complexity isn't something that speaks of design; Behe's irreducible complexity argument as a linchpin piece of evidence for design is fatally flawed. No, because evolutionary mechanisms can result in irreducibly complex systems.

Discovered I had overlooked a couple of your posts: Well, if the Flood does account for the strata and the fossil record as I believe is patently obvious, then I have no choice but to say that the apparent evolutionary order was somehow the result of it, yes. I also have to suspect that the order is far from as perfect as you all claim it to be but I don't have the means to find out without spending more time than I have left in this life doing research both within and without the academic institutions that study these things. But I do think that the claims of evolution of say the reptilian to the mammalian ear ARE outlandishly impossible when you spend time looking at the structures themselves and imagining the path evolution would have to take between them, but of course that sort of contemplation doesn't amount to proof, so it helps to point out that all you have on your side is the same sort of conjectural contemplation and no proof whatsoever that it actually occurred or could occur, or to use Dawn's distinction between direct and indirect evidence you have no direct evidence. Well, consider that this pattern is purely an artifact of your imagination, of subjective classifications (of what is a "more derived" form for instance) that in themselves can't be evidence, and this is really all that evolutionary theory is based on, accumulations of subjective judgments and classifications that is at best the most rudimentary stage of any true Science, but in this case it is ALL you have and all you can EVER have. Subjectivities that are open to other interpretations no matter HOW well they appear to you to "track" through the geological column. And may I also point out that this particular example seems to be especially popular probably because there aren't any others that can be said to track this well? You pounce on one that seems to fit your evolutionary expectations and pronounce it evidence way beyond its actual value as evidence just because it does track so well, while meanwhile dozens of other examples that don't track so well are set aside? 'And again, if this is referring to the illustrations of the supposed evolution of the mammalian ear from the reptilian that were presented on that other thread my judgment of the tracking is that it doesn't track very well at all because too much has to happen that mutation isn't up to making happen. (I wish I COULD do the calculations Dr. A asked of me and I've looked at lots of estimates of the rate of mutations, deleterious versus beneficial, somatic versus reproductive, likelihood of getting all the right stuff in the right place in the right order, all from random mistakes in DNA replication, and I'm convinced it's mathematically impossible but the math is beyond me.) What do "non-coding" sequences have to do with what I said? I'm talking about normal inheritance through coding DNA. You are now engaged in a species of mystification I can't follow, otherwise known as a "snow job," which is no doubt your intention. Why "population structure?" Aren't we talking about the organisms as they are arranged on the "tree" chart? If you care about communicating anything to me in that welter of jargon, please try again. Well, you've failed to convey the evidence you are claiming here, so if you think you've got some real evidence you're going to have to try again to make me see it too. I don't try to define the Kinds by observation, which is what you seem to be talking about (but who knows?) though I do believe that you could find out pretty rapidly by isolating small groups and tracking the result both phenotypically and genotypically. Well, I don't happen to see anything that "looks evolved" myself, and I think you do only because you habitually think in those terms.Yes it is more a philosophical type argument, but to that I now make use of Dawn's distinction between direct and indirect evidence and answer that your evidence isn't any more direct or scientific or persuasive even though you are convinced it is. You've got a huge consensus on your side but that isn't evidence either, just argument from authority.Since you allow for design somewhere in this process I'm not sure your arguments count a lot here. Maybe they do but it adds an ingredient others here wouldn't accept.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So, you believe that it's "patently obvious" that the Flood accounted for the fossil record ... but you couldn't explain, when we asked you, how the Flood accounts for the fossil record. And now you add that you don't have the time or inclination to find out what the fossil record actually looks like.This must be some new meaning of the words "patently obvious" of which I was hitherto unaware. How can it be "obvious" to you that A accounts for B, if you neither know how A could account for B nor what B is?

This is of course an example of what Dawn has been getting at, requiring of the creationist far more or better quality evidence than you require of yourself. There are creationists of course who have studied the relevant sciences and can be expected to come up with better evidence than we amateurs at EvC can, but I don't think that excuses the basic attitude of demanding from us what you can't provide yourselves.I’ve certainly TRIED to find out the actual facts about the fossil record but what’s out there is mostly an exercise in evolutionary apologetics, declaring this or that interpretation of some ancient scenario to be fact when what I want to know is what ACTUAL facts are involved, not the popular interpretation of them. Textbooks don’t give this information either, even textbooks that start out telling you they intend to explain how they know what they know. They don’t. They present the usual scenario as if it were absolute fact, this happened, that happened, despite their having not one iota of witness evidence or anything more than a collection of fossils here, some kinds of stone there, the mark of a water level and so on.They inform me of what sort of living things roamed the earth at what period in time and what the climate was like then and so on, when what I want to know is what was actually found in the strata that they are basing their interpretation on, how many of what kind of fossil have been discovered in what layer in what part of the world for instance. I’m sure that information is out there somewhere but it isn’t within easy enough reach for me to use. How many fossils of a particular creature have been found and where, how many fossils of OTHER creatures are also found in that layer that often go unmentioned perhaps? I need more of an inventory, not a fairytale concocted out of the inventory. Fact, phenomena, not story.A billion or so nautiloids in one sandstone layer in southwestern USA is NOT very convincing evidence of the OE/evolution scenario, but it’s really good evidence for a mass kill by sediment-heavy sea water. What other fossils are found with them? Are you going to say that the entire scope of life on the planet at that particular place and time period was composed of those and only those living things?Or what ELSE is found with the dinosaurs? Of course if some life form that was abundant in earlier layers isn’t in a particular layer at all, that shows that there was an extinction. What if just reflects what happened to be buried by the Flood in that place at that level? We don’t have enough facts to find out, do we? We have to accept the extinction interpretation or know we’ve been cheated of the facts and roll our eyes at what passes for science.Rather than reading about the Sauk Transgression and its geographic extent and what the supposed climate was at the time and where the equator was, I want to know what the evidence is that led them to that interpretation that there WAS such a transgression at all, and all the clues in the strata that contribute to the interpretation. It’s going to turn out that all the facts support a Flood just as well or better of course.I also want to know what clues lead to the common statements about such and such an event supposedly happening in such and such a time period. There are lots of these but at the moment I’m drawing a blank. I’ll have to come back to this.You could not get away with this stuff in a real science but you can in a science where it’s all interpretation and not testable or replicable. And you’d think they’d know this and respect the people they want to teach enough to present the actual facts in great detail along with their interpretations. No, you cannot get away with saying they have to defraud students of this information that would allow them to think things through, on the ground that that sort of information would be too much in a textbook and they can find it by research if they are motivated. They aren’t going to do that because they aren’t going to have the time to do it and only those who are going on to be theoreticians in the field would have the motivation anyway. Maybe they’ll get to that level of knowledge when they’re finally retired or maybe they’ll have been too busy all along to ever get to it. And besides, most are going to interpret it along the party line anyway, it’s only us outsiders and dissidents like creationists who would want to rethink it all from the facts up, and nobody cares about us because we’re likely to come up with all kinds of nonsense you don’t want to be bothered with, right? Tell us to go back to college or something. There’s nothing more obvious than that billions of dead things buried in stratified sediments under conditions conducive to fossilization, is the likely result of the worldwide Flood. It would easily account for the stratification of sediments (because water does stratify sediments, such as by rivers building up layers in deltas or the layering by rising and falling sea levels that Walther's Law describes for instance) which OE theory has to account for by many risings and fallings of sea level based on teeny weeny little clues. If you fnd one flood that covers continents to be impossible to explain it's really strange that you don't find six such floods impossible to explain. And a bazillion dead things fossiled therein which is perfect evidence of what the Flood was supposed to do — kill all living things.But no, this obvious evidence has to be interpreted to arrange the dead things according to the preconceived hierarchy that seems to prove evolution. Of course it seems to justify that interpretation as far as the facts are presented (which, sorry, due to the flimflam I’m describing here I don’t believe is the whole story), but honestly, more than it justifies a Flood that was intended to kill all life on the land? Really?

No, Faith. I do know how real processes account for the fossil record; and I know what the fossil record looks like. To me, it really is "patently obvious" that real processes caused the fossil record, because it is patently obvious how they did so. This makes me different from you and your inability to even begin to say how your hypothesis could even conceivably account for the facts.

I really doubt that Creationists know what evidence is or how conclusions are really reached despite their avowal that they do know the meanings and processes.But in reality, it's really not very complex and not all that many assumptions are needed.The basics are that if you find a fossil buried and there are no signs of intentional burial (the material around the object similar to the material in the general area) that the critter died at that location and was buried at that location. The corollary to that is that the critter likely was alive in the general area where it was found and that the other fossils found in that area indicate the environment at the time.Second, unless there are clear signs of disturbance a higher layer is younger than a lower layer.Both of these and all the other conclusions reached are based on reality.We see new layers being put down on top of earlier layers.We see things that are living now dying now and being buried in the current layer.We see that intentional burial puts disturbed soil around the burial that can be distinguished from the surrounding undisturbed soil.And everywhere we have looked, in every area of research, in all the different fields of knowledge all that has ever been observed are natural causes.No non-natural cause has EVER been observed.

The evidence you are referring to here is found in the primary literature. It is usually available if you know where to look. The problem is it is written for people who are familiar with the particular discipline being discussed, not written for laypersons.When we try to discuss the actual evidence you complain about a "snow job." This stuff is not simple. I have tried to have a discussion about how generic processes work but you are not interested. You expect the details of very complicated processes to be simple. It takes years of study to have a good grip on these concepts. I am 2/3 of the way through my Master's program and I don't consider myself to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But basically my full time job is studying these concepts (genetics, plant/pathogen interations, fungal biology to be specific), it's not just a hobby. I say that just to point out that there is ALOT to learn and it is not easy.If you are looking for more technical descriptions of fossil evidence for example, start searching on Google Scholar instead of regular google.You could also try less disdain for those who are trying to explain very difficult concepts to you. I personally try hard to explain things in a way I think you would understand. I don't intentionally try to "snow job" - that is just an insult you like to throw around so you don't have to consider my arguments.Most of your argument against evolution is just incredulity - it doesn't add up to you so it must be false, which is fine. But others, including myself, have examined the evidence extensively and it makes sense to us. And since it makes sense and all seems to add up, I accept evolution as the best explanation of how life on earth has diversified.HBD

OK. I'm not sure the label helps much though, I regard all these things as just "evolution." OK, the concept is clear, but you haven't shown how it applies to biological structures. Certainly, given the assumption of evolution it would show that there are many sorts of eyes that can "function in a biological context and provide a selective advantage;" but without the evolutionary assumption all it shows is that there are many different designs that serve the visual needs of different creatures. Defining these as "parts" or analogous to parts, of the human eye, is to impose an interpretation on them based wholly on the ToE. Also it's just an assertion from where I sit and makes me wonder just HOW similar to the various parts of the human eye these different eye designs really are, because of course I'm used to finding out that the ToE usually fudges its facts to fit the theory. But of course no living system is un-evolvable by evolution theory, is it? You'd claim the eye evolved with or without this imaginary sequence of possible steps of course, and I do suspect, sorry but I do, that the sequence you can imagine from all these disparate types of eyes is maybe even less convincing than the imagined genetic sequence of the fossil record itself, mostly a demonstration of the cleverness of the human mind in constructing patterns. All of which is indirect, conjectural, inferential evidence that is constructed purely mentally because there is no way to observe any of it directly. Oh right, I kept thinking it was an insect but knew that wasn't right. I'm glad you said "could have" because it is usually presented as an absolute certainty that they had prior functions. I don't know what you mean by "during assembly."But again, it seems to be very hard to prove anything could NOT have evolved. But at last your description is a lot less definite than most I've read suggesting it isn't exactly open and shut that it did evolve.All this is of course similar to the way the fossil record seems to be arranged, and the nested hierarchy and all that, all very suggestive patterns of stages and levels and hierarchies, but it's nevertheless all conjectural, all imagined, all interpretive. Very suggestive, yes, but not direct evidence. Thank you. Now you've got me baffled. First you suggest it all really doesn't come together as ironclad evidence of evolution, but then you go on to make this leap you haven't supported anywhere here, to the idea that design isn't implicated in its irreducible complexity. Why not? You haven't said. All you've said is that it might be possible to account for it by evolutionary assumptions. But even if evolution can piece together a plausible theory to explain these things, there's nothing in that fact that makes other interpretations impossible. It really gives you no grounds to declare Behe's argument "fatally flawed." What you've given of evolution's attempt to explain it is certainly as flawed as Behe's argument. First, what you've said above has certainly not made that case. At best it's suggestive like all the other elements of the ToE, and totally based on mental constructs and patterns. Second, even if you could make the case that evolutionary mechanisms CAN RESULT in irreducibly complex systems, that doesn't rule out the possibility that there's a better interpretation. When it comes to theories that rely entirely on imaginative constructs and can't be observed (demonstrated, replicated, tested etc) you can't say your construct beats your opponent's construct with the kind of certainty evolutionists like to do and you are doing here.

Which I pretty much said and consider it a form of deceit because it allows a mere interpretation to be treated as fact and makes it as difficult as possible for any other interpretation of the actual phenomena to be constructed. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, but like many in the process of learning a difficult discipline you don't know that you are relying on jargon that isn't necessary and in fact interferes with getting across the facts we need in order to discuss these things. I'm sure you don't mean to be doing a snow job but that is what you are doing in spite of yourself. It may take more experience than you have -- or perhaps a different personality? -- to distinguish between the essential facts and unnecessary detail and jargon. It isn't just discussing the actual evidence you are doing at all, you are piling up technical details that do not contribute to communication. Sorry HBD but that's what you are doing. NO, I DO NOT WANT "more technical descriptions," I want simple descriptions of simple facts and I really don't think it's fair to refer anyone in a discussion such as we have at EvC to anything more scholarly than a straight presentation of simple facts. I'm complaining that these are NOT available in ordinary literature intended for the layman, or even for the beginning student. Isn't the layman allowed to think about this stuff, or the beginning student? (but I bet the more scholarly stuff doesn't aid thinking anyway, it's just more mystification). No, I'm sorry but I am being quite honest, I'm not just throwing around insults. I know you don't intentionally do this, I'm sure you are honestly trying to be clear, but you have trouble judging what's appropriate and what isn't and you do end up burying a person under a mountain of jargon and irrelevant details. I'm sure it's hard to judge what level to aim for in such a discussion, but I'm not just slinging insults, I'm trying to define the level I'm looking for, and really it's just very simple facts, nothing scholarly or technical at all. This is not fair at all. Fine you are fairly convinced of evolution, but you are being very unfair to me to whom the evidence does NOT work, and my arguments are really pretty good.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

We have no direct evidence that DNA forms a helical structure, or that the sun is made up of hydrogen gas, or that the temperature on the surface of Venus is 460 deg C, or for most cellular processes, or that I have a heart beating in my chest (all the evidence that there is a heart in my chest is indirect since no one has ever cut my chest open looked inside to actually see my heart), or... need I go on? Why does no one rant against those facts as nonscientific?Treating indirect evidence as inferior or suspect is BS. It's how evidence addresses the issue that is important. The best evidence comes from a test of a specific hypothesis regardless if it is direct or indirect. I don't know what "welter" means, just jargon designed to confuse us non English majors. Well I didn't claim evidence, I said "argument." My experience is that you don't really want to consider the evidence - it is too readily dismissed Haven't argued from authoriry, have i? How does that make my arguments irrelevant? What does it matter what others here would accect? What a strange dismissal.HBD

Well, the removal of a scaffold is precisely the same as the elimination of functional redundancy. And there are plenty of biological systems chock-full with functionally redundant parts; and if those parts are lost over time, the system will become irreducibly complex. Here's for starters if you want an actual biological example:(1) Some bacteria have a molecular machine known as the ExbB-ExbD system. Basically, this little machine is part of a system that allows the bacteria cells to transport iron ions across their cell membranes.(2) Now, in cyanobacteria, there are three sets of ExbB-ExbD systems. If you eliminate one of them, the cell doesn't die. If you eliminate both of them, the cell doesn't die. Only if you eliminate all 3 sets of ExbB-ExbD machines will the cell die.(3) So here we see functional redundancy in the cyanobacteria iron uptake system.(4) Thus, the cyanobacteria iron uptake system could become irreducibly complex by elimination of the two redundant ExbB-ExbD systems. No rational designer needed. What the different eye morphologies show, in fact, is that eyes across the animal kingdom don't have to have a certain number or types of parts. In other words, the human eye's irreducible complexity doesn't mean the eye is un-evolvable, because we know that light-detecting systems in animals can have fewer parts. This is not imposing an evolutionary (or design) interpretation on biology; it is simply stating the observation that animal eyes can use different parts and don't have to have all parts in the human eye in order to be of use to an organism. But I didn't say the eye was not un-evolvable "because evolutionary theory says so." I said that the eye was not un-evolvable because there's a large number of eye types, which use different biological parts, among animals -- and this shows that eye functionality across animals is flexible and doesn't have to have a certain number and types of parts to function. This, in turn, means that the eye could have evolved, as there isn't a lack of a selective pathway for the origin of eyes in mammals. Well, we can't observe atoms directly, but I am very, very certain that you subscribe to some form of atomic theory. But you could always surprise me, you know. Well, cells need to build molecular machines (the molecular machines don't just pop out of nowhere, of course). So cells build flagella, step-by-step, starting with a protein channel, then creating a secretion system -- and this process of assembly ends up as a flagellum. Kinda like how humans assemble houses, cells follow a genetic blueprint that tells them how to assemble the flagellum part-by-part. These patterns go beyond mere suggestiveness; the totality of these patterns all lead to the incontrovertible conclusion of common descent. Like, there's some stuff that can't be explained any other way -- and more importantly, is perfectly explained by the common ancestry perspective. When everything is taken into consideration, then, the common ancestry explanation for the origin of species is as rock-solid as the atomic theory of matter. The question of irreducible complexity is not whether IC systems are ironclad pieces of evidence for evolution; the question of IC is whether or not Neo-Darwinian processes can account for their origin. I have rather extensively supported the argument that Neo-Darwinian mechanisms can explain the origin of IC systems; second, rational design is not implicated by irreducible complexity because such evolutionary mechanisms can explain IC systems. No, I've said that evolutionary mechanisms are very adequate for explaining the origin of IC systems. My critique of the Neo-Darwinian perspective for the origin of early-branching molecular machines like flagella has little to do with irreducible complexity. That's not the point. Evolutionary mechanisms can yield irreducibly complex systems, so why point to IC systems as hallmarks of design, when you can just as easily point to non-IC systems and claim this as evidence of design? You were the one who brought up IC systems as evidence of design because evolution could not explain them; but evolutionary mechanisms can, in fact, result in IC systems, so this is the fatal flaw in Behe's argument. Umm, evolutionary hypotheses can be tested, replicated, and demonstrated just as much as the predictions of the atomic theory of matter can be demonstrated, replicated, and tested. Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

Well, there are natural processes that will move organic remains. Rivers and turbidity currents, for example. Fortunately their depositional environments are rather distinctive. Then there's scavengers, of course, but they won't move bones very far, in geological terms.

No, but you have lots of laboratory data on it that is shared by a lot of laboratory people who can assess the evidence and I have no doubt it is coherent objective evidence unlike the kinds of evidence given on this thread for evolution. Now you are going to make me try to define the difference and I'm hoping it's obvious. Anything you can replicate in the laboratory is a whole different thing. Even if you can't see the DNA directly you can see the data that comes together as indisputable proof of the double helix form. This is not the kind of interpretation that interprets some fossils in a layer of sedimentary rock into an entire Time Period in which animals roamed around, or interprets some incidental clues in the rocks as a transgression of the sea. Please tell me you can see the difference. Same kind of thing. The hard sciences, the laboratory sciences, astronomy, have actual hard data they can refer to that leads to a clear conclusion once it is understood. There is no such process in old earthism or evolutionary science where you read the rocks like you read tea leaves -- I do believe that's what it amounts to but let me see if I can find a better comparison. You are imagining whole worlds and whole scenarios into the rocks, it's far from the same thing as finding out what is fueling the sun. It takes some scientific sleuthing to find that out of course, but unless there's a serious unrecognized flaw in the thinking or something left out of the investigation it's going to hold up as a real fact, UNLIKE the imaginative interpretations of the Time Periods of the strata that conjure whole worlds out of an arrangement of wet tea leaves a few dead things and a kind of rock and some abrasion or rubble and so on and so forth. Somebody who knows exactly what went into identifying the DNA molecule or the sun's chemical composition could make this case a lot better than I can. Because they are not indirect in the same sense we are talking about.And besides, the point wasn't to vilify indirect evidence so much as to protest that evolutionists demand direct evidence of creationists while having only indirect evidence themselves. See above, that's not really the point, the point is that you can't expect creationists to produce direct evidence when all you have is indirect evidence.But since you've given those examples of the hard sciences I see we need a better definition because nobody doubts that you can arrive at solid scientific conclusions from that kind of indirect information. What's the difference? I've been trying to say, not doing a great job of it yet. Something to do with being able to replicate a series of tests, something about a clear understanding of the meaning of all the steps involved. When ALL you have is an interpretation that's ALL you have. You can learn the interpretation but it's always possible for someone else to come look at your rock and your fossils and your rubble and whatnot and come up with a different conclusion.You don't have a lot of flexibility with the hard sciences where the knowledge itself leads you to the conclusion. OK, maybe this is clearer: the conclusion in the hard sciences is usually a very simple physical fact: the shape of the DNA molecule, the element in the sun. Evolution on the other hand writes complex fairytales about whole eras of time based on a few artifacts dug out of the earth the meaning of which is NOT shared by all those contemplating them. There is no inevitable conclusion from the mustering of facts in the historical context of evolution and the Old Earth as there is in the hard sciences where the conclusion is inevitable once you get the right facts assembled.I think I'm getting closer. See above. The terms need some refinement. Fair enough. I know I sometimes use literary type language, if that's the right term, or odd idioms, and I really don't know where it all comes from. I'm not looking for it, it just comes to mind to say what I want to say. How about "hodgepodge of jargon." But I really don't want to be insulting, but that one paragraph of yours was totally incomprehensible to me. Perhaps I'm just on the defensive because I'm a creationist and you a very determined evolutionist who wants to smack me down, in which case I should try to be less defensive for the sake of peace. Now that is an empty accusation from my point of view because I don't know what you are thinking of and you don't say. I'm used to such accusations here but they don't convey anything to me about what I'm supposedly doing and my experience of asking is that I usually get more of a smack-down in response, so I have little motivation to ask again. No, I was just pointing to something that could be claimed as evidence on your side. I shouldn't have said it isn't evidence at all because I think a consensus of authorities is pretty good evidence normally, it's just that in this context of treating interpretation as fact I'm already convinced that the consensus is deceived. Because I need to have a unified set of arguments to argue against so I won't be arguing with something that doesn't matter to most people. But having said that I think your arguments probably are shared by others here so I'll take back what I said.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.