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| Author | Topic: There are easy creationist answers to problems evolutionists pose | |||||||||||||
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dwise1 Member  Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
I seem to recall that some members have tried to participate on his forum, Bot Verification
In that circle-jerk he complains bitterly about how he's always mistreated here:
quote: and then after getting fluffed by a fellow YEC
quote: Jeez! What a loser!
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Hey you farking icehole, why don't you pull your head out and look for a change? Referring back to Mikey's forum, there's this (Bot Verification):
quote: That's from 11 May 2019. Is that recent enough for you? And that link at the bottom is to Eric Hovind's site which is still current and still pumping out all those old YEC claims that you think no longer exist. Actually, those were his dad's claims, but Eric has taken over all of them and claim them as his own after Daddy (Kent Hovind) nearly landed Mommy in federal prison for fraud (Daddy served a 10-year sentence). Those "old" claims are still current and are still in heavy use. Each new generation of creationists is still being fed them. The very fact that such old and repeatedly refuted claims are still being used is just a further condemnation of creationism and its use of lies and deception. But the whole point of examining those "old" claims is to examine how creationism operates. Which is to demonstrate their gross dishonesty. Even if they were to come up with all new claims, those new claims would still all be lies concocted the same way as the old ones. Please, just pull your head out already!
ABE: I forgot to point out that Mike the Whizzer opened this topic up with an old long-refuted claim: the amount of sodium (ie, salt) in the oceans. Then he followed up with a few more false claims that he avoided talking about. One of those is yet another old claim about carbon-14 being found in diamonds and other formations. So then if it weren't for these "old claims that nobody uses anymore", this very topic would not be here. Because Mike does still use them as do most of the rest of you creationists. BTW, when I was on another forum a creationist used that sea salt claim so I took him through the refutation of it. He reached the point where he had to admit that that claim was false, that he understood why it was false, and he said he would never use it again. Then a few months later there he was writing to a new member and presenting that false claim that he knew to be false and had admitted that it was false. IOW, he was deliberately lying! I reminded him of what he had promised and he immediately ran away. I don't remember him ever returning. What is it about you creationists that you are driven to lie all the time? Edited by dwise1, : ABE
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
If you read dwise1's message again you'll see that he's characterizing the differences between scientists and creationists. In service of this effort he was describing his interactions with creationists that took place at a time when creationists were still actively promoting the moon dust idea. His experience illustrated their dishonesty, duplicity and lack of scholarship. He definitely was not saying the moon dust idea is current among knowledgable creationists. As noted, that was my Message 41, in which I was indeed giving an example of creationist "dishonesty, duplicity and lack of scholarship", though it was primarily to illustrate where one particular aspect of their lack of scholarship, which is claiming other creationists' "sources" as their own without ever making any attempt to verify that "source" let alone even looking at it. As I wrote when I introduced that very section in Message 41:
DWise1 writes: For another case of what happens when creationists claim their actual sources' sources as their own, refer to my page, MOON DUST, which details my own original research into a creationist claim which included corresponding with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Now, when WookieeB followed that link and went to my MOON DUST page in order to see what I was actually saying about that claim (Oh! He didn't bother to? Typical creationist!), then he would have read this:
quote: First, the "retraction" of the moon dust claim was completely insufficient. Brief mention in the preface or foreword of a single book? And OBTW, WookieeB, I did mention that that claim had been retracted! You want to deny that? Then read it again! Second and far more importantly, that inadequate retraction has had practically no effect! Knowledge of the retraction is practically non-existent. Instead almost every creationist book still includes it! Especially books by the ICR who had issued the retraction. Go into a Christian bookstore and pull a Masters Book (ICR's publishing house" off the shelf and look inside it. Most of them have the same appendix, "Uniformitarian Estimates -- Age of the Earth". One of those estimates would be "Accumulation of dust on the moon"; that should be number 36. For that matter, pull a copy of Dr. H. Morris' book, Scientific Creationism off the shelf and open it to page 152 (2nd edition should still be the current one. Read both the text and the footnotes where Morris lists that NASA document with the false publishing date (the crux of the error). And the non-ICR creationists are in even worse shape since they have not been informed of the retraction. Which is why we continue to find that claim on the web as I noted on my web page. The problem as I have repeatedly described it is that the creationist literature just keeps recycling the same old refuted and even retracted false claims to each new generation of creationists, misinforming and misleading them all with dire consequences. They need to stop that. And if WookieeB had bothered to follow Message 41's first link, DWISE1'S CREATION / EVOLUTION PAGE: Earth's Rotation is Slowing, he would have found the section, A Proposed Dialog, which I had formatted in the form of a typical fundamentalist tract's dialogue wherein a third party asks questions of a creationist and me. The last question (third party's questions are in bold): quote: WookieeB writes:
If you find some new creationist ideas then you should describe them here. His examples also appear to be as I described them, fringe. Those arguments might have been more 'creationist' accepted long ago, but today they are not mentioned and/or rejected by contemporary creationists. Precisely. And yet, being a typical dishonest creationist, he avoids doing so. Ironically, in Message 99 he goes to the defense of "basic created kinds". From what I can see, that claim goes back to 1971. Guess that would make it at least half a century old. The moon dust "retraction" that WookieeB is so hot and bothered about dates back a couple decades and here he is clinging to an "oldy moldy" like basic created kinds? Talk about a double standard! For that matter, Mike the Whizz started this entire topic with that hoary old "sea salt" claim which is certainly much older. The earliest creationist reference I found (in Dr. Morris' Scientific Creationism, BTW) was 1973. However, measuring such things as the amount of salt and other minerals in the ocean was an early attempt at estimating the age of the ocean dating back into the 19th century, which means that those processes and problems with the estimates are well known by scientists. I have no doubt that the modern sea-salt claims arise from a century of Seventh Day Adventist YEC claims. And yet WookieeB fails to take Mikey to task for using such an old and obsolete claim. Typical, creationists never fail to stick by other creationists ... unless their theology isn't exactly right, that is.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Sunday, May 9, 2021 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM PDT on ZOOM Dr. Eugenie Scott: What people get wrong – and sometimes right – about evolution quote: I apologize for letting two months to pass before writing my review of Dr. Eugenie Scott's 09 May 21 ZOOM presentation. While I did take notes, most of the following will be from memory. The quality will suffer, but I'll do the best I can. In the following, I will be describing Dr. Scott's presentation, but at times I will want to include information that I had gotten from elsewhere and so should not be confused to what she said. I will try to make my own comments distinctly different. The title of the presentation was "What people get wrong – and sometimes right – about evolution." I posted the notice because it bore on the issue under discussion that creationists argue against their own misunderstanding of evolution and of the rest of science, hence what they get wrong about evolution. Dr. Scott started by mentioning a recent creation bill in Arkansas that failed to make it out of a State Senate committee. Of course that directly refutes WookieeB's false assertion that creationism is a thing of the past and that such things no longer happen. No, WookieeB, they do still happen. Dr. Scott's first example of something that people get wrong was the infamous "Well if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?" There are so many things wrong with that one, but rather than take it completely apart, I think that she was using it as a springboard for discussion of her other subjects. Here's what I remember of her actual discussion of the claim:
{ DWISE1:
Whenever I would mention this old creationist claim to a creationist, he would immediately attack me for having just made that up, creating a strawman argument just to make creationists look stupid, and swore vehemently and adamantly that no creationist would ever say something so stupid.
} However, I have seen it used in earnest by creationists in the wild. Only a few times within as many decades, but still used nonetheless. The first time was on a radio talk show (Ray Briem Show in Los Angeles) in 1983 featuring as guests creationist Dr. Duane Gish and humanist Fred Edwords. A woman called into the show with a question, that question, to challenge Edwords. It was the creationist who explained to her why her question was wrong. Another time was when I read what I think was AiG's (Answers in Genesis) first "Claims We Wish Creationists Would Not Use" article (c. 2001). This "why are there still monkeys" claim was on that list along with the claim that men have one rib less than women do (because Eve was created from a rib taken out of Adam ... ), that a NASA computer in the mid-60's found Joshua's Lost Day (one of the first creationist claims I was given c. 1970 and which I immediately recognized as completely bogus, hence proving how bogus creationism is). I have come to the conclusion that the major point of confusion for creationists is that they're using a very simplistic view of natural selection that requires a new species to out-compete the old one thus driving the old species into extinction. Dr. Scott may have mentioned this, but I don't quite remember. However, she does get into a discussion of the non-Darwinian phrase, "survival of the fittest".
Dr. Scott talks at length about the evolutionary view being a branching bush or tree in contrast to the old Aristotalian "Great Chain of Being", also called "Ladder of Life" (which I understand to be part of Lamarckism). She displayed Darwin's sketch in his notes of that branching bush.
{ DWISE1:
I have posted a few times on this forum a discussion I had had on CompuServe about the book by Dr. Michael Denton, MD, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which proved conclusively how little he understood about evolution (a cautionary tale for MDs who are so full of themselves and their own intelligence that they dare to pontificate on matters they know nothing about). In particular, at one point Denton gave a Ladder of Life presentation of protein differences between higher taxa:
}DWise1 writes:
Shows what happens when one, especially an MD, decides to play "expert" without knowing the subject matter.
It seems that Denton made the typical creationist mistake of using "Ladder of Life" thinking (which, BTW, is Lamarckian, not Darwinian) -- i.e. assuming that all modern "primitive" organisms are identical to the earliest copies and that neither they nor their proteins have evolved since that group first appeared in the fossil record. Then he proceeds to compare the proteins of various groups of species looking for a linear progression and complaining when he does not find it. For example, on page 284 of his book, Denton compares hemoglobin sequences of the lamprey and five other species (carp, frog, chicken, kangaroo, and human) and fails to find the linear progression of [cyclostome --> fish --> amphibian --> reptile --> mammal] that HE expects. The same thing happens when he makes the comparison based on cytochrome c. But based on the cytochrome c data, he also constructs a Venn diagram which divides the species into classes and subclasses -- a set of nested areas which are not supposed to be a phylogenetic tree. I have copied that diagram here from page 286 (rendered in text graphics -- if your e-mail viewer uses a proportional font, then it will probably garbles this up; change the font to a monospace font, like Courier New):
Very interesting. Both trees fit the evolutionary view to a "T". Of course, the linear view, the "Ladder of Life," is both wrong and unwarranted. Why should we expect ALL change to stop for the "more primitive" forms? The more correct way to view the data, the way in which biologists actually view it, is as I have told you already and as Denton finally describes it on page 294: "The only way to explain this [pattern of protein differences] inevolutionary terms is to propose that since all the different lines of a group diverged each particular protein, such as haemoglobin or cytochrome C, has continued to evolve in each of the lines at its own characteristic uniform rate." Scientists have known that all along. Even Darwin said the same thing, that the longer it has been since two organisms shared a common ancestor, the greater would be the differences between them. Furthermore, this is what we find in "green" fossils, fossil leafs which have not petrified and which still contain their proteins and DNA: while the form (morphology) of the fossil leaves was virtually indistinguishable from modern leaves, their biochemistry was very different and those differences are very orderly and allow scientists to construct phylogenetic trees. Also on page 294, Denton plots a phylogenetic tree based on cytochrome sequence differences and for which the numbers fit very well. But now that Denton has finally stumbled onto a correct explanation, he spends the rest of the chapter trying to explain it away. For example, he discounts the possibility that the proteins could have continued to change because he cannot think of a mechanism that would direct those changes, even though he does mention, and discount out of hand, the "molecular clock" idea of the accumulation of neutral mutations. My problem is the opposite of Denton's; I cannot think of a mechanism outside of natural selection that would freeze a protein's sequence, which would not happen in the case of neutral mutations (ie, by definition a neutral mutation would not change the expression of that gene, thus giving natural selection nothing with which to distinguish the mutated gene from the unmutated gene). The question of race came up and Dr. Scott argued that Darwin, being a product of his times and of the British Empire, shared some of those prejudices and vocabulary of his culture. However, it turns out that Darwin was less racist than his contemporaries and the principles of Darwinian evolution run counter to popular racist sentiment and "theory". Here are two new terms regarding race and the origins of the races:
Dr. Scott pointed out that within evolution there is no such concept as race. It simply does not exist. Rather they speak of demes, local breeding populations or groups. Some demes can be isolated from the others or you can have demes that interbreed. She also pointed out that Darwinism is monogenetic in that Darwin had explained racial differences as being variations as different human groups descended from a common human ancestor. That is in sharp contrast to the more racist use of polygenesis to argue that those other races entirely different critters from us "real humans".
{ DWISE1:
Out of curiosity about a decade or two ago I would try to find presentation and exposition of Nazi race theory but with little success. To put it in political terms as explained by a historian on Rick Steves' episode on the growth of fascism in Europe, a socialist's/Marxist's bookshelf would be full of dense books (I hear that Das Kapital itself is a real doosey chock full of statistics analysing the horrific working conditions (and deaths and crippling injuries caused thereby, including to young children) ). In contrast, the Nazi's bookshelf held only one book, Mein Kampf, which was written so horribly that nobody could ever read it all.
} But the about a decade ago I did find one site (URL forgotten) which quoted extensively from Nazi literature on race theory (rather than current neo-Nazi propaganda, it was a study of historical writings). It was based on polygenesis and was creationist! Basically, Aryans (the true and superior humans) came from one Creation while all the other "sub-human" races were from an entirely different and separate Creation. Viewed from that perspective, all kinds of attitudes could be justified or rationalized. It also solves one of the big problems with converting a raw recruit into someone who could kill: you need to dehumanize "the enemy" (primarily by referring to him only as "the enemy" and describing the horrible things that "the enemy" wants to do to you). You also see that being done visually in propaganda (including cartoons and comic books) with rat-faced Japs and the brutish Hun (check out the WWII cover art of Captain America). Beyond over-emphasizing their differences, if you can also sneak in the premise that they are actually a different species than you, then you are well on your way to dehumanizing them. I had found that well over a decade ago. Then within the past year or two, I heard the exact same polygenesis wording being used in connection to traditional American racism against blacks. But to reiterate, the Darwinian view is that all races are closely related to each other through their common ancestor. Traditional racists believe there is no common ancestor for all humans and that the other races were created separately. Therefore, creationist attempts to blame evolution as being responsible for racism is completely and utterly false, basically the pot calling the silverware black. Furthermore, it is clearly false to blame evolution for Nazism since the Nazis were very clearly creationists, believing as they did not only in "Gott mit uns" but also in separate acts of creation. Yes, Nazi propaganda did make much of "Macht macht Recht" and "survival of the fittest", but those ideas grew out from Herbert Spencer, not from Darwin. Spencer's ideas also gave rise to that perversion, Social Darwinism, which the GQP seems to still be promoting.
Dr. Scott covered demes making extensive use of her graphical aids. Kind of hard to take notes from graphics. She had a number of graphics depicting population ranges with markers for individual demes (small populations of interbreeding individuals). She spoke of local open genetic groups and of inter-breeding groups. As the song goes, "Love the one you're with." (not her metaphor) When you breed, you will do so with one (or more, depending on what kind of species you are) individual(s) nearest to you. So you can have demes that are close enough to each other to still interbreed, while there are others who are too far away to intermingle and which therefore may eventually become more isolated and more highly differentiated (and eventually speciated). Dr. Scott made reference to two populations of squirrels on either side of the Grand Canyon who are obviously related but who have diverged from each other while isolated from each other by the Grand Canyon -- we read about those in my late-60's high school biology class. A lot of her work with demes demonstrated the fundamental problems with the "why are there still monkeys?" claim as well as to provide a proper explanation of the reality of population dynamics and how populations (demes) will interact and diversify. My notes say "canalized -- trait retained" I even went so far as to check the spelling at the time, so I must have thought it to be important. Sadly, I don't remember what she was talking about there. Sorry. I guess it had to have been about what it takes for a particular trait to be retained as a species evolves.
{ ABE:
Watching the video which I just found, at about 53:30 she introduces "canalized -- trait retained". It's in discussion of traditional ideas about race and in racism and how they are not supported by evolution.
} Basically, while you can find several variations in phenotype, when it comes to traits that are needed for survival then those traits will be canalized, will be retained and show very little variation. The first example she gives is giraffes. There are many variations among subspecies of giraffe in their appearance, especially in the patterns in the markings of their fur. But in those traits that are needed for survival -- eg, long necks, teeth and tongue suitable for browsing in trees -- there are very few differences between subspecies. The primary human trait for survival is our central nervous systems; ie, our brains. Therefore we would expect very little variation in human intelligence between different "races", which goes directly against racist attitudes that "them others" would be inferior in intelligence.
{ DWISE1:
I will comment that Darwin's biggest problem was heredity. He just could never figure it out. Yes, these traits could arise somehow. And once they arise, they can be selected for or against. But how were they passed on? How does heredity work? And if they were to accumulate over generations until they became useful (no idea whether Darwin had gotten that far), then how could they still be present to be acted upon? How were they canalized?
} And part of that problem is the need to accumulate new traits and retain them until they prove useful and be retained through natural selection. That created problems for him too. Darwin's model for the incorporation of new traits was with an analogy of mixing paint. These were analog quantities that would blend in with all the other quantities and traits. If you were to suddenly have a new trait appear, then it would then become so diluted in the ensuing paint mixture as to be lost. So how could a new trait be conserved? Darwin didn't know. Much has been made of the presence in Darwin's library of Gregor Mendel's monograph on genetics and the irony is that the answers were there if Darwin had only read it. At the end Darwin ended up reverting back to a kind of Lamarckian concept of pangenetics in which new traits would arise through interactions with the environment. But then that was disproven by the discovery and study of Mendel's genetics which led to the discovery and study of mutations. As a result, creationists have a quote-mining gold mine of early 20th century scientists proclaiming the Darwinism had been disproven -- in reality, it was Darwin's pangenetic theories that had been disproven, not his earlier work. But then after decades of Darwin bashing, scientists such as Fisher and Haldane realized that genetics was the answer that Darwin had sought and so circa 1940 created neo-Darwinism, the Grand Synthesis of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics.
Dr. Scott mentioned that the phrase that most people associate with Darwin, "survival of the fittest", did not originate with Darwin but rather with Herbert Spencer -- Darwin did borrow the phrase from Spencer and incorporated it in his later works. The main problem with that phrase is that it does not describe with fitness is, so it keeps people from understanding evolution. Furthermore, Spencer's ideas came to be used to justify exploitation of the poor, which came to be called "Social Darwinism". She also noted that the infamous 1920's opponent of evolution, William Jennings Bryan, opposed evolution in large part because he opposed the evils of Social Darwinism.
{ DWISE1:
From Wikipedia:
}quote: I will be looking for a video of Dr. Scott's presentation. When I find it, I will post a link to it. That way you can see how well I remembered it. Edited by dwise1, : ABEEdited by dwise1, : Added the "NASA computer found Joshua's Lost Day" claim to AiG's list of "please don't use this false claim"
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6077 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Sunday, May 9, 2021 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM PDT on ZOOM Dr. Eugenie Scott: What people get wrong – and sometimes right – about evolution quote: I finally found the video of the presentation! You will find it much better and far more interesting than my review of it above in Message 110. Eugenie Scott: "What People Get Wrong--And Sometimes Right--About Evolution." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80VWDi4Z_JM):
The first eight minutes or so are mainly the meeting's host -- Dr. Scott begins a few seconds before the 9-minute mark. And of course she covers a lot more than I described in my review in Message 110. And she does so far better than I ever could.
Share and enjoy! Edited by dwise1, : Added original announcement for context and continuity
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