Mokele

Well, the paper is crap, as expected, and I have no idea why they published something so clearly beneath their standards. I call them what they are. If you don't like it, since you're evidently a similarly intellectually dishonest crackpot, I suggest you leave. If I claimed to refute relativity and wrote books about it, I would be a crackpot, because, while I know a bit about it, I have *zero* formal education in it, and would undoubtedly make numerous slipups that can easily be corrected. Similarly, I have read both the works of Behe and Wells. They lack basic understanding of evolution, and are totally unfamiliar with modern thought on the subject. Every single one of the "arguements" can be *easily* refuted by anyone who has bothered to educate themselves even at the most pedestrian level. They fail to take into account ideas that have been so important in evolutionary theory (such as exaptation, neutral genes and evo-devo) that the only possible explanations are either total lack of knowledge of the primary literature (which means they are speaking from ignorance) or willful ignorance (aka intellectual dishonesty). So either they're liars or poor researchers, and from either of those, they can be adequately classed as 'cranks'. Yes, believe it or not, I have. I have been mean and rude, but in a *very* restrained way. You do NOT want to see me lose my temper. And I was right. Bullshit. You come into a science forum and post your BS *SOLEY* to preach. Your entire participation has been limited to this thread, in which you do nothing *but* preach your discredited views. You have done nothing *but* preach, and your entire posting history here amounts to trolling. I have already recommended to the admins you be permanently banned for this. You presented false information (the video). Either you are a liar or a moron. Pick one. As for my credentials, hands up everyone here who's actually got a degree in biology. Oh, gee, gregw74, why is your hand down while mine is up? Maybe it's because I actually *learned* about evolution from *reputable* sources (namely, sources who don't lie). What facts? Put up or shut up, kid. They're the same thing. Oh, wait, you have to lie and cover that up, or your pathetic ploy to get Jesusology taught in public schools will fail. We've witnessed speciation. I win. Next feeble objection. Strawman, for which you have been warned. Evolution is *NOT* abiogenesis. You have had this explained to you before, in detail. If you don't like being called intellectually dishonest, stop doing it. Not a single instance of which has *EVER* been demonstrated. As I said earlier, the gaps are minor questions of mechanism, not significant flaws in the theory. Claiming that they refute evolution is like claiming that, because we don't completely and 100% understand turbulent flow, all of aerodynamcis is crap and planes are really held up by angels. As for fact, evolution is a fact. A fact is something that has been empirically observed. Guess what we've seen, but below and above the species level. Therefore it is fact. Second strawman, abiogenesis again. I'm being nice and not sending in another warning. Arguement from ignorance. Just because we don't *currently* know something does not mean there is no explanation, nor does that mean that you can just plug in God to fill that gap and claim it's scientific. Go to school, kid. You have a lot left to learn. Yes, and their questions are invaraibly crap. On the other hand, REAL scientists are actually examining speciation by *experiment* and *observation*, rather than sitting in their offices mastrubating to the Answers in Genesis website. Bullshit, pure and simple. ID was *created* to find a loophole around the Supreme Court's decision that creationism in schools violated the 1st ammendment. If I'm wrong, why did ID first appear a) in the literature of the Discovery Institute, a *creationist* think-thank (though 'think' is a debatable word for these people), and b) why it appears *immediately* after the 1982 court decision? Sorry, we aren't as stupid as you are. We can see through the transparent lies. The only biologists (and there are *very* few such ignorant zealots) who reject evolution are those whose prior education in the subject and whose general knowledge of it are very lacking. See above: Behe didn't even know what exaptation was until the term jumped up and bit him in the ass, destroying his 'irreducible complexity' bullshit, yet the term was around for more than 15 years before he put forth his hogwash. If these people cannot do a simple journal search and briing themselves up to date on the subject, how can they be considered qualified to speak on it? You can have a PhD in bio and not have ever taken a single evolution course or ever gained an understanding of it or the data. This is especially true to people at the molecular level of things. Tough shit, it's correct, whether you like it or not. Just like evolution. Now stop your infantile whining, act like a logical adult, and face facts. Bullshit. Prove it. ID is limited to psuedoscience. Now, hopefully I won't have to see any more of your drivel, either because I leave saturday morning for fieldwork in Guam (fieldwork, it's something us *real* biologists do) or because you have been banned. The latter would be ideal (and is only a matter of time, I assure you), but the former means at least I won't have to listen to your intellectually dishonest and ignorance bullshit for 2 weeks (plus however long it takes to recover from jetlag). Now, go play somewhere else, kid. It should be painfully apparent by now that we see through your lies and moronic claims. You are not welcome here. Mokele

While I don't have anything out at the moment, that's definitely going to change soon (and my prof is leaning on me *hard* to make sure that's the case). When I do publish, I'll be sure to post links here. It's basically all going to be about snake locomotion. Mokele

Just to clarify, I think an econ thread or even forum would be nice, especially since I wouldn't mind learning something on the subject myself. Just that it's probably not well placed in this sub-forum (though I'd definitely enjoy more issues of economy meets conservation; look up crocodile farms for an interesting success story on that front). Mokele

Actually, I'm technically right. The moment someone lets ideology and belief rule over data and logic, they are no longer a scientist. Therefore there are *no* creationist scientists, as being a creationist necessitates a mindset that is utterly contradictory to being truly a scientist. However, even if we leave that aside, all you've given are a list of 400 crackpots who can't see evidence that's staring them in face. They are a *tiny* fraction of scientists. Furthermore, it's the evidence that matters, not the people. And evidence has spoken clearly and decisively. You just don't want to listen. Well, first, it's Wells, who is a third-rate hack of a biologist, and wouldn't understand real biology if it jumped up and bit him in the ass. Second, the "Journal" is a tiny Italian journal that seems to have been mostly defunct for decades. I've certainly never seen anything cited from it. I find it very telling that a *US* biologist could not get published anywhere except a third-rate, mostly defunct Italian journal when it involves ID. Can anyone read italian? I'll bet they don't have peer-review, and thus my statement stands. Hell, I'll bet they'll take anything anyone sends them, so long as they can translate it. That's the logical equivalent of citing someone's HS essays as "publications". Show me a publication in a journal that is peer reviewed and, more importantly, actually has standards and readers. Scrawling on a napkin is not "publishing a paper". It's like any subject; there are levels. To use my work for example: Elementary school: Snakes have bones and muscles High school: snakes have skull bones, vertebrae, ribs and various muscles. College: The vast majority of muscle c/s area in snakes is composed of three epaxial muscle groups. Post-grad specialization in the field: (insert incredibly complicated slew of information about the 20-odd muscle groups in any given snake). However, it's more a problem of the individual. Many creationist or ID arguements seem convincing and legit when presented, but upon digging into the scientific side, you find they are invariably full of shit, and that science has long since answered their objection. Some people will go and dig into the science to see if the ID arguement stands, others won't, and it's mostly a case of scientific mindset. Doctors, frankly, have a very poor scientific mindset, and only limited in-depth knowledge of biology as a whole. Mostly they simply memorize shit, diagnose, and repeat. Innovation is rare and typically trial-and-error. As such, they read some ID arguement, it fits into their worldview, and they accept it, without ever trying to see if it's really right. 7 years of just rote memorization from textbooks seems to have its downside. If you'll search this forum's archives, you'll notice that we have answered every single point any creationist has raised. Often, we have pulled enough data that their arguement isn't just countered, but demolished. So, given that *EVERY* arguement ID or creationism have ever put forth has been satisfactorially answered by science, why shouldn't we just dismiss you as another crackpot? The plain fact of the matter is that evolution happens. The plain fact is that macroevolution happens (we've directly observed it). The plain fact is that there is so much evidence, you would have to be either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid to somehow think ID is supportable. Face facts, kid. Are there disputes in evolution, yes. But these are about mechanisms of speciation, the effect of developmental constraints, and such. I'm actually in the middle of reading a very interesting paper on the effect of simple function mechanics in allowing for diversification of taxa. This is about how it happens, not if it happens. No sensible person can look at the evidence and still claim evolution does not happen. The fact that only a tiny, lunatic fringe of the people who have the best grasp of the evidence deny it should tell you something. Here's another statistic: the percantage who believe in creationism or ID goes *down* with increasing educational levels (and this isn't even restricted to science majors). The more someone knows, the less likely they are to believe your ID bullshit. Think hard about that before posting again. Mokele

I'd say economics should be split into a different forum than this one. While it does have applications and impacts on ecology and suchlike, so do thermodynamics (global warming, level of solar radiation affecting productivity of an ecosystem) and astronomy (big death-rocks from space), and I wouldn't suggest those be subsumed in here either. The way I see it, the chief concern of economics isn't terribly compatible with this sub-forum, thus warrants it's own forum. Of course, that's not to say that integrations of the two would not be good, but I do think it would be a bit of an odd grouping as you suggest it. Mokele

I have a list of 585 biologists who think that ID and creationism are bullshit. The catch? The list has self-handicapped by only allowing biologists named Steve to sign on. The point is that, while 400 sounds like a lot, it's actually only a *tiny* fraction of the total, since it's easily out-weighed by a list of Steves. Secondly, how many are biologists? Of those, how many aren't just biochemists (who, in my experience, often have a poor understanding of evolution, with Behe being a prime example)? Project Steve As for the doctors and the chemist you mention, none have a sufficient understanding or education in evolution. In my undergrad evolution class, there were almost no pre-med people, because they were all taking things like medical botany and microbiology instead. So far as I know, evolution is not required for pre-meds, and definitely not for chemists, so simply put, unless they educated themselves independently, they have very little idea what they're talking about. Why don't you list how many *biologists* and *paleontologists* are IDers, as a percentage of the whole? Because it would be embarassing to see your side holds less than 0.00001% of the people who actually know about the subject in depth and are familiar with the evidence? Also, if it's so respectable, why are all these people to cowardly to even submit a paper to a real journal about it? Oh, that's right, because they don't have any arguements that don't fall apart upon even cursory examination, and have absolutely zero evidence. Mokele

At the very least, you relayed false (and worse, deliberately falsified) information by posting that video clip. As others have said, this is flat-out untrue. First, nobody uses "darwinism" anymore, in part because evolution has been reformulated multiple times to take into account the discoveries of Mendel and then the advent of modern genetics. Second, the support for evolution among biologists is 100%, with the only dissenting voices being from a few crackpots like Behe who clearly have never even taken an undergrad course in it. In fact, there was a survey done recently on ID in science. They found a total of *zero* publications in *all* the major journals citing ID. Then, to counter the predictible responses of 'you're just refusing to print it', they asked all the editors about submissions, and guess what? Not a single ID paper has ever been *submitted*. IDers aren't even *trying* to put forth their supposedly scientific idea in the proper venues, because they *know* it'll only result in humiliation for them. First, there is conclusive evidence, and plenty of it. The fossil record, for one. Then, we've observed speciation and morphological changes within nature, so we've *watched* macro-evolution happen. Second, there's the small problem that you *cannot* separate the two. The micro- and macro- distinctions are mere terminology so scientists can more easily talk about what aspects of evolution they study, and do *not* reflect a genuine divide. Micro-evolution's veracity *necessitates* macro-evolution, and vice versa. If one is true, both are, no if's, and's or but's. Pretty much. Evolution basically deals with how populations change over time (or don't, which can be interesting too). Where the animals came from is pretty much irrelevant. Whether they arose from primordial soup, or God, or alien colonists doesn't matter. All that matters is there is heritable variation in reproductive sucess. Plus, well, abiogenesis is basically organic chemistry, and most biologist have to take that class and hated it (it's a big "weeder course"). I didn't find it that bad, but I could never really get enthused about it (I'm more an organism-level guy). Even many of the cellular, genetic and biochem people tend to lose interest when there's not a straightforward application to living things. There's some exceptions, of course, but abiogenesis is mostly chemistry, and biology is merely the end result, and personally puts me to sleep. And the RNA catalase can auto-zzzzzzz......... The two concepts are logically distinct, though. Abio doesn't require evolution, nor vice versa. Even if you bought the idea of God creating everything 10,000 years ago, evolution would *still* be true, as living things have been varying and having varying reproductive sucess since then. As my evolution prof once said, part of Darwin's genius was not just recognizing that a few simple factors (heritable variation, variable reproductive output, more kids than could survive) would result in natural selection, which in turn would produce evolution, but that in just about all natural setting, these factors are present and that evolution is almost impossible to avoid. Mokele

If the results attract more attention than you expected, yes, though it's usually not published in full form (like in "letters to Nature", which are often summaries of findings published in lest prestigious journals). I think there's *something* about submission versus publication (also because some journals publish every month, some every week, some every 3 months, etc) in terms of who gets the credit, but I think it's often decided on a per-case basis. Mokele

You support ID. No intellectually honest person can, as they would be forced by the incredible weight of data to acknowledge evolution. Therefore, you are intellectualy dishonest. QED. Really, at least make it *hard* to prove.... Bullshit. You can *clearly* see the cuts between scenes. Either they turned the camera off at choice moments (intellectual dishonesty and falsely representing what actually happened) or they were edited afterwards into that atrocity (also intellectual dishonesty and falsely representing what actually happened). Unless you are so completely stupid (and probably blind) that you cannot see the *obvious* cuts between clips, you are stuck between two options, both showing the dishonesty of you and your ilk. Your feeble attempt at deception failed. Suck it up and deal with it. No, the truth of the matter is you or your ilk edited the clip to defame him. Frankly, I'm amazed he's not suing for slander. Open *any* sophomore-level genetics textbook, and read "unequal crossing over". Oh, wait, you don't read books. All that evidence might disrupt your pretty little delusions. Blatantly false. Scientific *results* are not supposed to be influenced by the moral implications a result, but the *process* of science adheres very strongly to intellectual honesty and rigor, honestly representing the data as they see it regardless of what that means. (Which is more than I can say for you and your slanderous, delusional ilk.) Mokele

Or, more frequently, unequal crossing-over.

That sounds pretty much like biology. You have journals that have specialities, and various levels of prestige. For instance, I'm going to be publishing a paper on locomotion soon, so it'll hopefully go into the Journal of Experimental Biology (which has a strongly organism-physiology focus). I'll write it up, and then submit it to the peer reviewers, who will accept or reject it with various reasons. I have to then either make changes (if they are valid criticisms), or respond refuting the criticism (if I feel it's invalid). Then the editor decides to accept or reject it. If it's accepted, it gets published. As simple (NOT!) as that. Mokele

::Takes a deep breath:: Osteolepis Eusthenerpeton panderichthys hynerpeton acanthostega ichthyostega Pholidogaster (and numerous other labrynthodonts) Proterogyrinus Solenodonsaurus Hylonomus Paleothyris Protoclepsydrops Varanops Haptodus Sphenacodon Biarmosuchia Procynosuchus Thrinaxodon Cynognathus Probelesodon Probainognathus Exaeretodon Adelobasileus Morganucodon Peramus Endotherium Kennalestes Procerberus Palaechthon Cantius Pelycodus Amphipithecus Propliopithecus Aegyptopithecus Proconsul africanus Dryopithecus Kenyapithecus Australopithecus africanus Homo habilis Homo erectus Homo sapiens ::Pants:: Is that enough? Want more? Because I left more than 60% of the list (found here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html ) out for the sake of brevity.... ...and that's *just* the transition between fish and humans. We've got *PLENTY* more for other taxa. Want to know where crocodiles came from? Or how about birds? Or frogs? Or maybe some invertebrates? Name it and we have transitional fossils for it. Now, can you *seriously* tell me that there are "insufficient" transitional fossils? Remember, that's a *SHORT* list. We have over a dozen skeletons showing in excruciating detail the transition between land-living mesonychid carnivores and modern whales (though it's been a while since I checked up on this, and I'm sure more species have been found since). So, ready to admit that the ID claim of "not enough transitional fossils" is a flat-out lie? Or are you going to engage in fallacious 'shifting goalposts', and show your ignorance of basic paleontology by asking for more in between those? Mokele

No, I'm sure he did, because every sophomore biology major knows the answer. What *really* happened is that you edited the original video and swapped his answer with another. In fact, it's transparently obvious you did so. Of course, this is the typical sort of intellectual dishonesty one gets from creationists. If you don't have anything to post that's true, don't post at all. Mokele

I've got no idea there. Molecular really isn't my thing, and I don't keep up to date with it. Mokele

I dunno about the dual-function enzyme, but the process by which gene duplications allow the copy to mutate into a new function is well know. Indeed, many genes are studies as part of "gene families", with an excellent example of this being hemoglobin and myoglobin genes. Mokele

Well, from the 20th of august until the 4th of september, I'm going to be out of contact while in Guam for fieldwork on the Brown Tree Snake (the invasive species that's porked its way through half the island's native fauna), specifically it's locomotion and biomechanics. I'll be posting until then, and hopefully you can live without me for two weeks. (I'll pretend I didn't hear that cheering... ) Mokele

Because mutations can and do occur in asexual reproduction too (just less frequently). Actually, they're much more common than we used to think, as are beneficial mutations. In eukaryotes, the vast bulk of mutations are simply neutral, and don't event affect the final structure of the protiens. However, when one comes along that *does* cause the final structure to change, it might change quite a bit because of the accumulated changes in neutral areas (which are now no longer neutral). Yes, mutation itself doesn't cause large changes in the overall population's genetics, but it *does* allow natural selection to eliminate or replicate the mutant allele, and *that's* where the big effects come from. Think of evolution like a car. There's an engine (natural selection) which runs on gas (mutations). The car can be stationary of moving if the engine is running, but without the engine running, it goes nowhere. The engine runs on the fuel, and when that runs out, it stops. Mutation is the process of filling up the gas tank, and the engine is what's really doing the work and moving the car. Mokele

There was actually a group of fishes (whose name I have forgotten) from the devonian period who had more than 4 fins (eight to ten, iirc), and, had these made it onto land, we might well have vertebrate decopods. However, they died out before anything but bugs and a few plants were on land, so they never got to give it a shot. Mokele

True, but the ability of sponge cells to de-differentiate, as well as the limited number of cell types, makes them a good model for early multicellular life. Not actually. Like everything, photosynethesis costs energy in term of protiens and such. How much you get out of it depends on many things, like light intensity, surface area, etc. And actually, it doesn't really generate that much energy. In order to make a living at it, plants have basically modified just about every part of their anatomy into light-collecting leaves, maximizing surface area relative to the volume of body they need to maintain. For an animal not prepared to make that level of commitment, the energy gained would actually be less than the cost of protiens. If you think about it, what a small animal eats in a day take a moderate-sized plant weeks to grow. Mokele

Let's add Buzsaw to this list, as an intellectually dishonest, strawmanning moron.

That's because they are intellectually dishonest. If they actually, oh, say, LOOKED AT THE EVIDENCE, namely the fossil record, they would see an *abundance* of transitional forms. But, of course, they're all either morons or liars, so they continue parroting their lies about there being few transitional fossils. People might actual start respecting IDers if they didn't, you know, lie all the time... Mokele

Lucid pretty much has it, and the fossil record seems to support it: The first multicellular anything bigger than colonial algae were what's called the "Vendian fauna" (though it's debatable whether they were plants, animals, the precursor to both, or what). They've very simple things, look like branching ferns, but the 'leaves' are the whole organism. They disappear shortly after the Cambrian explosion, which is believed to have been caused by gene-duplication events allowing more complex developmental patterns to arise, leading to 'animals' proper. Mokele

Yes, most likely they were shaped by sexual selection, specifically the competition among males for mates.

It seems mostly to be a matter of developmental constraints. Most fish have "4 limbs" (the pelvic and pectoral fins), and the only lineage that had more died out a long time ago. Why this is the case is probably that, for some reason, mutations to developmental genes that result in more than 4 limbs also do other things which negatively affect the organism (the same reason 6 fingers never caught on, though in that case we know that the downside is that it comes with genital malformations). A lot of evolution is actually constrianed by the organism's development. For instance, hoofed mammals have independently evolved multiple times, but never in marsupials, because marsupial babies need well-developed, dextrous forelimbs to climb into the mother's pouch. The developmental pathway constrains the possible evolution of the taxon. That's also why anthropods have done so well: they seem to be able to vary just about any segment of their body and any part of the limbs without much affect on the rest, giving them a mix-and-match body that's allowed them to become the most speciose phylum on the planet. Mokele

Hollow bones are, in fact, common to all pterosaurs (of which pteranodon is one, and which are not actually dinosaurs but rather a close relative), as well as to numerous fossil species that have flown or even just seen the need for lighter bones in other contexts. For instance, theropods had hollow bones in the neck and some degree of hollowing in the skull (presumably to make strikes faster), while sauropods had hollow neck bones, so that it took less effort to keep their necks up. Numerous living animals that glide (such as Draco lizards, flying squirrels, lemurs, etc) also have hollow bones. As for the crest, that's probably not for aerodynamics, or you'd see it in all pterosaurs. In fact, most were crestless, and within genus Pteranodon, you see many distinct crest shapes: P. ingens is the one you always see, with the long, backwards crest, while P. sternbergi had an upright, almost square crest. More info on them is here: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html Mokele