The existence of god in biology and science? Isn’t Biology a science?
The theory of biology? What’s that?
blfsays
Isn’t Biology a science?
Nah. It’s full of things with sharp teeth that wanna eat you. And rarely explode. Basically, it’s Dr Seuss for grown-ups.
Al Dentesays
Isn’t Biology a science?
I thought biology was the green and wiggly thing. Chemistry is the stinky thing and math is the thing with numbers and sometimes no numbers.
Svensays
Holy cow, were the people in the sound booth drunk?!
Loftysays
Sven
were the people in the sound booth drunk?!
No, just devoutly christian.
Menyambalsays
Well, according to didgeman, commenting over in the Fargo thread from before this debate, and who claims to be in the same group with Rana, all of Biology is a giant conspiracy to deny God by pretending Darwin was right. So everything else is a science – Biology is batshit. He won’t say how that works, despite our repeated requests.
brinderwaltsays
So everything else is a science – Biology is batshit.
Batshit seems to pretty squarely fall within the biology category to me.
jehksays
Your stomped this guy on the science. He put you on the defensive and you blocked every blow. I would have liked to see you put him on the ropes (at least during the dialogue).
“Science can’t fully account for the Cambrian Explosion?” Oh really? How then? WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE? HUH?
Well, according to didgeman, commenting over in the Fargo thread from before this debate, and who claims to be in the same group with Rana, all of Biology is a giant conspiracy to deny God by pretending Darwin was right. So everything else is a science – Biology is batshit. He won’t say how that works, despite our repeated requests.
Oh he sort of did. Apparently outdated textbooks are part of the conspiracy. Of course he’s not able to describe the books’ flaws (or even name one single textbook currently in use, much less outline its deficiencies), but yeah, totes, biology’s managed to wall itself off from literally every other science and enforces Darwinian dogma like North Korea (yes, those who weren’t privy to didge’s wisdom, he actually said that).
Anyway, I’ll quit the OT chatter now and watch the debate. Maybe Rana’s got a much greater handle on the grand, global, ancient bio-conspiracy involving millions of people and outdated textbooks and I’ll be a creationist when it’s over. Because that’s how you win people to your point of view, right? By revealing Dark Truths about the other side and not bothering to provide actual evidence to support your own?
Any plans to put the audio in a downloadable format anywhere? Maybe an “RD Extra” on Reasonable Doubts? I’d love to hear this on my commute, rather than asking my wife to stay quiet with the TV off for a couple hours…
drownersays
I’m no conspiracy theorist BUTTTTTT what a curious point of Dr. Myers’ opening statement for the sound to become nearly inaudible, right? *sigh*
Callinectessays
Every time I hear one of these debates the same argument comes up from the loyal opposition. In this case it manifested as: “God created life, the evidence that there is a god is the miracles he does, one such miracle is the origin of life.” Perfect circle. The conclusion is contained within the premise, thus all that follows from it is invalid. Everything Dr Rana said skipped right over this fantastic problem and was thus meaningless. There he is trying to show how the nature of the world reveals the creator’s personality, and he even recognised right at the end that Christians trying to get aspects of their faith into science aren’t willing to do the work that that demands.
I’m about halfway through, and so far Fuz has fallen flat on his face. He never, at any time, provides any positive evidence for his claim. It’s a long-winded Argument from Ignorance fallacy. I don’t know why I expected anything different. I was rather shocked to see Fuz using long-discredited arguments that were delivered a knockout blow in court (or so I’d hoped) during Kitzmiller v. Dover ten years ago. I guess creationists don’t give a damn that an argument has been demolished, they just go right on using it.
P.Z. did a wonderful job by co-opting the painting trope that’s often used by creationists, turning it on its head very effectively.
The audio glitches are very short-lived, and appear to happen to both PZ and Fuz, so I don’t think any malice was involved.
The fault is mine, I was worried that with #4 Sven’s comment that readers might think the audio was so bad it wasn’t worth watching, I think you conveyed your mockery perfectly!
I have already saved the audio as an mp3 file, and I would be happy to upload it to Soundcloud or someplace like it, but I’d want to be sure that doing so wouldn’t rustle anyone’s jimmies.
grandolddeitysays
As sound as sound can be with what we know. Why is “I don’t know” such a hard concept for so many? PZ stomped him, but I’ll give props for the conciliatory approach by both participants (less for PZ…nice offense).
madtom1999says
#10 Bob get some headphones! Or if you watch the internet on your TV have a look at getting a RaspberryPi 2 – you can have a pretty powerful PC for not very much! And headphones!
There. Is. No. Need. For. An. Explanation. Of. The. Origin. of. Life. For. Evolution. To. Be. True.
I am so fucking sick of that shit from creationists! I know why they do it, but it’s probably the number one reason I could never actually do one of these debates; because the second they bring that shit up, I will halt the debate and punch them in the face.
didgemansays
@20:
I will halt the debate and punch them in the face.
Indeed very convincing arguments! MK 47 Kalashnikov is normally the next argument level, which is used in scientific debates. Oh sorry, I mixed it up with religious extremism. Why do atheists react like cult members or fundamentalists? Are there any similarities?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Why do atheists react like cult members or fundamentalists? Are there any similarities?
Why do godbots keep acting like their ignorance of science is an argument for their imaginary deity? And look world-wide. Religious folk kill each other like crazy. You have some aggressive issues about those not in your tribe that your religion needs to address.
David Marjanovićsays
Complaining about one comment? Is that all you have to say about the entire debate, didgeman?
azhaelsays
@23 David
Yes, it is. Just like complaining about naughty words is all he has in the other thread.
The again, when you have no science and no argument, but you are steadfastely attached to dogma which you can’t possibly doubt, i suposse this is all you have left. Well, this and lies, looooooots of lies, always the same ones too…repeated over and over…draining the will to live away from anyone listening to the inanity….
twas brillig (stevem)says
There. Is. No. Need. For. An. Explanation. Of. The. Origin. of. Life. For. Evolution. To. Be. True.
The Accomodationistic Theists say, “Yes evolution happened, just happened on the raw materials Gawd created. HE then just sat back and watched the sciencey stuff happen (as in: He wrote the rules of Physics, to watch what happens in the atomic billiards game). HE pops in once in a while when things need to be severely corrected. Maybe Noah didn’t Literally happen as written, BUT it was a Metaphor for God stepping in and smiting how wayward so many people had become without his guidance. So he washed the earth like we wash our hands of all the grime our hands get covered with. Etc. Etc.
… THAT is why the Creatords always focus on abiogenesis, because when Scientists say, “dunno”, the Creos can have no arguments about jumping in and saying, “Gotcha, goddidit.” Cuz then they don’t get the science guys saying “this clearly evolved from this, and this from this…”, and the creos don’t have to twist the story into “literal, figurative, metaphor, parable, moral teachings, etc.”
Al Dentesays
didgeman @21
NateHevens was expressing frustration that creationists all too often use logical fallacies, generally the same logical fallacies, in these debates.
Evolution says nothing about the origin of life on Earth. Evolution is how life forms change into different life forms with different characteristics than their ancestors. So it’s not a failing of evolution that the exact, specific way that life began on Earth is not known. This has been explained to creationists many, many times but they still use it to “disprove” evolution.
Another frustrating thing, one which Dr. Rana and you both indulge in, is the idea that evolution and creationism is a zero-sum game. You think if evolution loses then creationism automatically wins. You guys pushing GODDIDIT not only have to disprove evolution but you have to show that your conjecture (it doesn’t even rate being a hypothesis) is right. Arguments from ignorance and incredulity aren’t evidence.
“Yes evolution happened, just happened on the raw materials Gawd created. HE then just sat back and watched the sciencey stuff happen (as in: He wrote the rules of Physics, to watch what happens in the atomic billiards game)
Yup, one day gawd was uncorking a new Black Hole Farm(tm) (“Watch black holes form and grow and collide and merge before your eyes!!!!”) and, like most gods, utterly ignored the little bits of foam that formed when the toy started up.
savantsays
didgeman @21
Hyperbole. Hyperbole. A rhetorical device to create a strong impression. Not to be taken literally. Can be used to indicate distress (specific: anger), such as in use above.
You know it was a hyperbolic statement. Do you have no arguments of substance, so are left with this?
You can do better. I believe in you.
woozysays
There. Is. No. Need. For. An. Explanation. Of. The. Origin. of. Life. For. Evolution. To. Be. True.
Um, okay. But this was not a debate about whether evolution is true or not (I assume both parties agree that it is) but whether there is evidence for god. Rana says life’s origins is such evidence and Myers says no it isn’t. On either side of the issue there is a right way and a wrong way to argue.
In this debate both Rana and Myers argued correctly (Rana avoided using gaps to conclude goddidit, and Myers avoided we don’t know thus we can’t discuss it and must sweep it under the rug [and thus give the appearance it’s a truth we’re afraid to face]). Rana claimed life itself was evidence of supernatural as it didn’t fit naturalistic expectations and Myers argued that, no, there was nothing that didn’t fit naturalistic explanations.
I think I’ve mentioned in these blogs enough times that I don’t have the greatest control over my rage response. I was pointing out the main reason I don’t and won’t get in to these debates; that lack of control.
That said, no, I wouldn’t actually punch them in the face.
The reality is, if I were in a debate about whether or not evolution is true, and my opponent brought up abiogenesis, I would stop the debate, point out that a theory of abiogenesis is not required for evolution to be a fact, and thus is off-topic for the debate, and then refuse to continue until my opponent promised not to bring it up again. I would do the same if they brought up the Bible (but give them the out of proving scientifically that the Bible is an accurate factual account of history). And of course I will demand that they can scientifically prove the existence of their creator, of course not using the Bible.
Really, PZ was right. These debates are ultimately pointless because:
1) Creationists cannot argue against evolution without pointing out that we don’t know how life originated (which is not actually required for evolution)
2) Creationists rely on the Bible which is, at this point, no better that a few-thousand-years-old collection of myths and fairy tales
3) They cannot provide scientific proof that their specific creator even exists
So that’s why I wouldn’t participate in these debates… because they would never even get started.
Ooh! I forgot the 4th reason these debates are pointless:
4) As PZ points out, the outcome of the debate with not change the fact that evolution is a scientifically established fact (the theory being how it happens)
blfsays
You know it was a hyperbolic statement.
I rather doubt she/he does. Nothing I’ve seen from her/him indicates an understanding of anything other than lying. She/he presumes everyone else is lying, and is notorious for doing so her/himself.
David Marjanovićsays
Evolution says nothing about the origin of life on Earth.
Unless your definition of “life” is narrow enough. :-)
Evolution says nothing about the origin of the first self-replicator. As soon as descent with heritable modification is possible, it happens, so there’s evolution from the point on that the first self-replicator exists; but not everyone is happy to call a ribozyme or a cycle of chemical reactions “life”. That’s where the term “chemical evolution” comes from.
savantsays
blf@32
Most habitual liars still know what honesty is, and feel some measure of guilt about lying (willing to accept contest on that point, no sources, just my inclination). I’m willing to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they have the faculty of guilt to appeal to. You’re right, though, might be pointless.
nate@30
PZ and a number of others (first to come to mind is Bill Nye) have said in the past that the point hasn’t ever been to convince the creationists – it’s to convince the audience listening. Many won’t change, but some may be receptive to reason. Those people are worth it!
savantsays
David@33
I wonder what ‘kind’ a pseudoribosome belongs to? Perhaps a kind of caterpillar?
didgemansays
@30:
Creationists cannot argue against evolution without pointing out that we don’t know how life originated (which is not actually required for evolution)
O.K., the first part is a reasonable point. Probably, our logic prevent us from speculating about thing, which will never happen, if you haven’t solved abiogenesis.
But I think, combining abiogenesis with macroevolution in one argument for missing source of complex construction plans is less misleading, than mixing up microevolution and macroevolution and trying to make people believe, microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
Al Dentesays
didgeman @36
microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
What;s dishonest about it? That’s exactly how evolution works. Time and incremental changes result in life forms which differ from their ancestors.
PS. Show your work.
savantsays
Probably, our logic prevent us from speculating about thing, which will never happen, if you haven’t solved abiogenesis.
Why is it that evolution can’t happen without abiogenesis? Assuming that a magic man did zap all of living things into creation, that doesn’t at all imply that evolution doesn’t happen over both long and short scales of time. They’re related concepts, but they’re not dependent.
microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
Small changes accrue over time. How could they not? Can you demonstrate some mechanism that shows that these small changes don’t build up into divergence over time? You need some mechanism that prevents this from happening for your statement to hold. Can you point to one?
@blf
It’s looking like you may be right. We’ll see I guess!
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
than mixing up microevolution and macroevolution and trying to make people believe, microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
A journey of a thousand miles (macroevolution) begins with a single step (microevolution). What the fuck is your problem with that? Other than you can’t get rid of your imaginary deity as an explanation? That is mother fucking dishonest, if you can’t shown your imaginary deity exists. And you admit you can’t.
Dishonesty all the way down by theists.
daevrojnsays
The thing that always bothers me about the kind of people who used to be atheists but then found “evidence” of design in nature, or what have you, is that they never explain how that evidence of design is proof of a Christian god, or specifically a Catholic/Protestant/Whatever god. Almost always they leap from suddenly accepting a god to believing in an entire library of theology.
Was there any point in his conversion to theism that he contemplated other religions or denominations? What was the scientific evidence that led him to believe in the Trinity or that Jesus was the son of god?
Owlmirrorsays
But I think, combining abiogenesis with macroevolution in one argument for missing source of complex construction plans is less misleading, than mixing up microevolution and macroevolution and trying to make people believe, microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
Hm.
Microgeology + time = macrogeology.
Micromotion + time = macromotion.
Microchange + time = macrochange
Microgrowth + time = macrogrowth
Please feel free to expand your microassertion into a macroassertion. Take your time.
savantsays
daevrojn @ 40,
I can sort of understand that part, myself. Brains are very good at filling in gaps with whatever garbage happens to be hanging around. Give a person a gap in their knowledge, the sense that faith is a good idea, and the ego to assume that their perspective is the most important, and the recency bias will fill in the hole.
Doesn’t mean I think it’s excusable, though! I just figure that the root’s a lot deeper than the specifics of what a person believes, moreso why they think they’re justified in believing it.
They’re not being “mixed up” (again with the conspiracy theory!). They are essentially the same thing.
There simply appears to be nothing you properly understand about evolution.
But do attempt to enlighten us: what and where exactly is the barrier between micro and macro? How does it work? What is it about the structure and function of DNA that permits changes within a population but prevents speciation?
I look forward to what I expect will be your pasted/paraphrased answer from – or link to – an ID apologetics site.
To be completely honest, I don’t believe him. Whenever a Creationist (note: not a generic religious person, but specifically a science-denying fanatic) claims to have once been an atheist who accepted evolution, I call bullshit.
Every.
Time.
There is no logical pathway from “I accept evolution” to “the earth is only 6000 years old and was created in 6 days by Jesus Christ”. So either they are still atheists who accept evolution and just found an easy way to make loads of money, or they were always science-denying fanatics and are lying about once having been atheists who accepted science, because they are under the impression that it gives them credence with followers (unfortunately, this is indeed true, at least in some circles).
Either way it’s a load of bullshit.
I can accept atheists becoming theists. That’s totally fine.
But if you are now a Young-Earth Creationist, then no. You were never an atheist. You never accepted science.
Maybe… maybe… religion wasn’t all that important in your life prior to whatever point you were “born again”, but you cannot deny science so obviously and then try to tell me that you were once an atheist who accepted science. Fuck you, liar. No you weren’t.
Or if you were, then you still are, and you should be ashamed of yourself stealing people’s money like that.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Whenever a Creationist (note: not a generic religious person, but specifically a science-denying fanatic) claims to have once been an atheist who accepted evolution, I call bullshit.
Yeah, it’s right out of the missionary handbook, try to find a way to make those you are preaching to feel a connect to you and what you have to say. On the Fargo Thread, Dadsen tried to use the Redhead to get that connection. Since I am well aware of the technique, I essentially told Xim to fuck off.
What I find amusing is that they think they are the first people to try their arguments/fuckwittery here. I think the phrase “been there, done that” applies to all godbots and creobots after folks have been lurking for a year. Those of use who have been around around longer get a lot of laughs at their expense.
woozysays
@44:
Well, to be fair, Rana is not a young-earth creationist. And he claimed that he was an agnostic and never actually an atheist. He claims of his wild pre-God days that he “never really thought about it” and “I felt embarrassed for my friends who believed”. I’m not sure how he went from science with agnosticism to science with theist accomodationist “old world creationist” and I’m not sure I believe his agnosticism was as cynical and callow as he claims. He claims it was the “fine tuning” and “information nature” of the cell, but he doesn’t explain why he now believes this to be the Christian god,which he apparently does, if his agnosticism was as general and pervasive as he claims. But if he had a religious conversion, which you seem to accept happens, he hasn’t seemed to have “abandoned science”. Or so he claims.
Then again, I’m not him so I don’t know what’s in his fuzzy head.
woozysays
NateHevens;
The guy’s bio is here. I’m not sure where you got the idea he was a young-earth creationist. His science degrees *do* exist but, you are right, he did become a God of the Gaps Guys due to the lack of a theory of abiogenesis (which, as you state, isn’t a failing of, nor has anything to do with, evolution). He did seem to have a complete and thorough spiritual conversion to Christianity (his father was muslim) but he didn’t go to young-earth-ism. He’s one of those “Science *proves* God” born-agains. He’s a rare one in that he claims to dispute intelligent design.
Gah. Y’all will have to forgive me. For some reason I thought the conversation my rant was in response to was about our resident CreIDiot troll, not Dr. Rana. If our local troll hasn’t claimed to have once been an atheist, then my rant is embarrassingly out of place.
Sorry ’bout that…
As for Dr. Rana, I am admittedly still skeptical. Even the old-earth variety is still science-denying at the end of the day, so I’m still having trouble with the leap. Maybe not as wide a chasm, but still a really wide chasm.
woozysays
Gah. Y’all will have to forgive me. For some reason I thought the conversation my rant was in response to was about our resident CreIDiot troll, not Dr. Rana.
Oh.
Maybe it was. If so, it’s my mistake that I thought you were talking about Dr. Rana.
My apologies.
If our local troll hasn’t claimed to have once been an atheist, then my rant is embarrassingly out of place.
I don’t know whether he or she did or not. Are we supposed to pay attention to our trolls’ backgrounds?
…
oh, wait. I remember. He’s an old word creationist who doesn’t believe in evolution at all (which is kind of bizarre, as it’d require millions of acts of creation over hundreds of millions of years and … well, what’s the point?)
As for Dr. Rana, I am admittedly still skeptical. Even the old-earth variety is still science-denying at the end of the day, so I’m still having trouble with the leap. Maybe not as wide a chasm, but still a really wide chasm.
Yeah, well… but I guess if we accept, at all, scientists being believers then old-world creationism or accomodationism kind of makes sense (in the god’s will being manifest via science and evolution– not didgeree-dodge’s no common descent no matter what). sort of. Dr. Rana seems fairly sincere and honest as far as it goes.
Ugh.. Want a good argument against the “it looks designed” one. Its possible to get it backwards. From Velcro to the pyramids, we started out with something “natural”, then attempted to duplicate the results. Airplanes – came from observing birds. Ships – basically just wood, for rafts, then someone had to figure out that one rotted with a hole worked too, or even cut one, to hold things and then wondered “what if the whole thing was just a hole?” There is almost nothing we our selves “create”, or “design”, which isn’t bloody based on something we previously observed, in nature. We, at best “found” these things, and worked out ways to improve them. So, to argue that our design means a god designs… would actually imply what? That their god either a) doesn’t need to do what we do, and just invented shit out of nothing, or b) he, as a designer, had to do the exact same thing we did – observe things, then adapt them into more, personally, useful designs. Somehow, the former seems to sort of.. be a non-starter, because its ***not*** how we “design” at all. And the latter, wouldn’t be all that god like, would it?
The rest of his stuff is just as bad. I can’t remember, or keep track of enough of it, to make arguments against every point, but every point I could refute, with examples where he was just dead wrong, making assumptions that he shouldn’t have, or otherwise just not giving any evidence worth jack in favor of some bald assertion, and I am… vastly less qualified than PZ, and just as unlikely to be able to “debate” someone, where actually presenting such refutations of their arguments demand time to think about how to address them, which is, really, the **core** problem with debates, imho.
Same with this absurd assertion that lab experiments are “rigged” to do things a certain way. Right.. because you can rig such a thing, without knowing the answer in the first place, as apposed to.. gosh… trying everything you can throw at it, until you start getting results, then try every variation of that possibility, to find the one that works, etc., etc. This isn’t “rigging”, and more than someone digging a bloody hole in the ground, not finding anything, moving a bit, digging again, finding an artifact, then concentrating all their digging on the bloody spot they found the bloody artifact means they “rigged” the digging, so they would somehow intentionally discover a buried ruin. The suggestion that you can’t find a working solution by doing this is…. incoherent. To use his own argument, when he tried to defend the absurd idea that analogy, by itself, can lead to profound knowledge, “This is the way we bloody do things all the time, every day.” Or, maybe he just figures we we analogize the location of archeological digs, and other discoveries?
But, you pegged it 100% right – assert, assert, claim its all Christian, then walk around in circles.
Ugh.. And his last “answer”… “Christian theology says…. (its not actually in the Bible that it says any of this, but, lots and lots and lots, and lots of people made this shit up, since, so,) Christian theology says…”, except for all the other Christians with some mildly, to wildly, different interpretation of the same non-existent “facts”. lol
saganitesays
Nah, if the audio problems were around because the technician was Christian, then they’d only have affected PZ. But they also happened during Fuz’ time.
Muzsays
What a pleasant show that was.
David Marjanovićsays
He’s an old word creationist who doesn’t believe in evolution at all (which is kind of bizarre, as it’d require millions of acts of creation over hundreds of millions of years and … well, what’s the point?)
“Continuous creation” is a thing in Catholic theology. It makes God oh-so-much more wonderful than a Deist button-pusher, you see.
Michael Kimmittsays
Nah, it’s just another excuse for privilege. Everything is privilege, to those who have decided to dedicate their lives to preserving it.
Anrisays
didgeman @ 36:
Ok, we’re having some problem with terms here, so I’d appreciate if you’d clarify things for me.
If you could be a bit more specific about microevolution vs. macroevolution, that would be good. Ideally, show us the specific dividing point: The largest possibly change that’s ‘micro’ and therefore evolutionary, and the smallest possible change that’s ‘macro’ and therefore must come from outside. Real-life examples would be best, just so we can keep things as concrete as possible.
Just lay out for us what relationships you think are possible and which are impossible and why. Are different types of ducks (for example) related? How about ducks and geese? Ducks and swans? Ducks and cormorants? Ducks and eagles? Ducks and monitor lizards?
If you show us the hard dividing line between macro and micro, we can actually have a talk about the subject. Remember, you’re the one who’s insisting on the divide. If you can’t define it and show why your definition is supported by real-world evidence, that’s a very serious problem for your insistence.
didgemansays
savant @ 38:
Can you demonstrate some mechanism that shows that these small changes don’t build up into divergence over time? You need some mechanism that prevents this from happening for your statement to hold. Can you point to one?
The fossil record is the best evidence, that it does not work. No small transitions over time, but rapid explosions, followed by nearly study state and extinction, then again explosion. No gradualism at all. I would rather expect, that yo show a mechanism, that show evidence for macroevolution, despite the fact, that all intermediate form are missing in the fossil record and when there are some “transitional forms”, they do not follow the correct sequence (e.g. fossil tracks of first land animals, which are older that so called transitional fossils from water to land.
Dr. Rana accepts microevolution (e.g. breeding of domestic animals or peppered moth), speciation (microevolution combined with later geographical separation (e.g. Darwin finches), and microbial evolution (limited number of mutations in very large populations with quite moderate changes, e.g. acquiring antibiotic resistance or new digest). But he is explicitly skeptical about macroevolution (gaining new body plans or new features with larger complexity) and of course also about the special case of abiogenesis (chemical evolution).
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
The fossil record is the best evidence, that it does not work.
It works, and it is back up by the genomes, showing that what is described in the fossil record shows up in DNA. Scientific fact, only refuted by more science. Your personal opinion, bible, or other theists opinions doesn’t count as evidence. Only your opinions. Which are wrong.
Dr. Rana accepts microevolution
Who the fuck cares about the opinion of lying delusional fool? No serious scientist. We’ve been through this before liar and bullshitter. Macroevolution is to microevolution as walking ten miles is to one step. You get there one step at a time. Just many steps are required. You are on stupid shithead who doesn’t understand what evidence is.
Let me give you a rating on evidence:
1) Peer reviewed scientific literature.
2) Reviews of the literature written by scientists
3) Book for popular discourse.
What isn’t evidence.
1) Personal opinion of a layman.
2) The words of a known perjurer.
And even worse
3) The words of a proselytizer for their imaginary deity (like you) who thinks their testament is anything other than their personal delusional opinion. When told something isn’t evidence but you keep repeating it, you make yourself look worse than a known perjurer. At least they tell the truth every so often, and know that they lie. You don’t.
savantsays
didgeman @ 57;
Thank you for the reply! Succinct, but fairly dense. Let’s unpack things a little.
No small transitions over time, but rapid explosions, followed by nearly study state and extinction, then again explosion. No gradualism at all.
Gradualism was replaced by punctuated equilibrium some time ago to my understanding – when I was in university quite some time ago we were talking about the two competing ideas. Punctuated equilibrium, which you’re talking about here, is very much in accordance with evolution. Sorry, macro- and micro-evolution, if you must have the distinction.
all intermediate form are missing in the fossil record and when there are some “transitional forms”, they do not follow the correct sequence (e.g. fossil tracks of first land animals, which are older that so called transitional fossils from water to land.
I don’t know how anyone can looks at something like the evolution of the whale from terrestrial mammal ancestor, with it’s beautifully detailed record in the fossil record, and conclude what you’re concluding. And, well. We expect there to be gaps in the fossil record. It’s not as if the animals all decided to die one next to the other in buckets of formaldehyde. We have to go find them! Of course there are gaps. That we have such a beautifully continuous line of fossils as we do is a joy!
As for your “out-of-order fossils” issue, I don’t know what you’re talking about there. Do you mean this, versus the age of Tiktaalik? That fits perfectly – if this is your issue, then there is no issue, because you’re confusing the first arthropodal land colonizers versus the first tetrapod land colonizers. Otherwise, you’ll have to be more clear.
Dr. Rana accepts microevolution … and microbial evolution … But he is explicitly skeptical about macroevolution … and of course also about the special case of abiogenesis
I don’t accept him as an authority to be heeded without question. Frankly though, he said (explicitly, in the video) that he rejects Intelligent Design as a science until such point as they have a working theory. I actually respect the guy – we don’t agree on quite a bit, and I find he’s got fuzzy thinking on some important points, but he’s got the integrity to say that Intelligent Design doesn’t have a leg to stand on, no matter how much he might like that to not be the case.
Frankly, didgeman, the problem is here:
I would rather expect …
This is the problem with your line of reasoning – it’s based on what you expect. Science comes up with the unexpected very, very regularly – and almost always comes up with the unexpected when dealing with deep time, slow processes, and /or exponentiation or logarithmic rates. Evolution features all three of these.
The first step to understanding is to discard your expectations. Expectations only clutter your thinking and colour your perception.
The next step to understanding is to realize that you can’t discard your expectations, you’re only human, and building expectations is what we do. So you look for ways to cancel out your expectations and the colour in your perceptions.
Those ways are called science.
Al Dentesays
didgeman @57
But he [Dr. Rana] is explicitly skeptical about macroevolution (gaining new body plans or new features with larger complexity) and of course also about the special case of abiogenesis (chemical evolution).
As I’ve told you several times before, personal incredulity is not an argument for or against anything.
As I’ve told [didgeman] several times before, personal incredulity is not an argument for or against anything.
True. I’m completely incredulous regarding didgeman’s hypothesis that the entire field of biology has isolated itself from the rest of the scientific community solely in order to perpetrate the largest, most detailed and most successful global hoax since Catholicism. How, I thought, could an entire field of scientific inquiry manage to do that when it intersects on countless levels and at countless points with its sister sciences?
Knowing, then, that my personal incredulity wasn’t an argument against the conspiracy I asked, first for generalities later for details, how this conspiracy functions and how it could have been implemented. A couple of answers came back but they were as vague and implausible as the original assertion (“phoned in” or “half-arsed” would be appropriate terms). Clarification was sought but was not forthcoming as didgeman appears content to gloss over or simply ignore any request he can’t answer with apologetics (or with references to somebody else’s apologetics). This wasn’t unexpected; we all know creationists aren’t used to being meaningfully challenged or asked to show their work in the insular little Truth™-bubbles they inflate for themselves.
Anyway, it’s really something of a shame. Some otherwise very intelligent people subscribe to various flavours of creationism and I can’t help but imagine the progress they could make if they stopped misspending their mental energy propping up a notion that has no empirical support (and masses of contradictory evidence) and used it to ask honest questions – y’know, like people do in real science.
woozysays
Hmmm… so what exactly to old-world common descent deniers claim to believe? Do they believe in geological ages? I assume they do. Do they believe in the fossil records; i.e. certain animals existed at certain times? I assume they do (otherwise they wouldn’t keep pointing to explosions). But they believe, for example, that once there was a time that there were no ducks and then there was a time that there were ducks. But they do not believe that the ducks had a predecessor? So one day the ducks just appeared? Okay, but … what did that *look* like? What happened? One day they crawled out of bubbling earth? Spontaneous generation as Pasteur demonstrated never happens? Or they hatched out of some other animals eggs without sharing any genetic material with their foster parents? I’m not trying to be facetious but old-earth creationist claim they believe something so I assume they at least have and thought about something happening. What do they imagine happened? Are we going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly find a new animal that never existed before?
So one day the ducks just appeared? Okay, but … what did that *look* like? What happened? One day they crawled out of bubbling earth? Spontaneous generation as Pasteur demonstrated never happens? Or they hatched out of some other animals eggs without sharing any genetic material with their foster parents? I’m not trying to be facetious but old-earth creationist claim they believe something so I assume they at least have and thought about something happening. What do they imagine happened? Are we going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly find a new animal that never existed before?
It’d be interesting to see an answer to this. If the scientifically-demonstrated direct ancestral link to dinosaurs isn’t a sufficient explanation for the origin of ducks (and/or birds in general), there’s an opportunity for someone to provide an alternate explanation that’s better supported by the evidence.
And the same would go for literally every other extant species. Whale evolution, for example, is lucky enough to be supported by a very detailed fossil record stretching back many millions of years to four-legged canine-like mammals whose descendant populations gradually developed more and more aquatic lifestyles as selection and other pressures favoured swimming ability – but if common descent is false, creationists need to explain why there is a family of carnivores in the ocean that breathes air, suckles their live-born young with milk, communicates & hunts using sound and shares many of the same skeletal & other anatomical traits as their fellow mammals.
TL;DR: Why is God running around creating marine animals that have to drink milk and can’t breathe underwater?
David Marjanovićsays
The fossil record is the best evidence, that it does not work. No small transitions over time, but rapid explosions, followed by nearly study state and extinction, then again explosion. No gradualism at all.
False.
Go look it up; google for speciation in the fossil record and read the first result. I’ll wait.
The fossil record is the best evidence, that it does not work. No small transitions over time, but rapid explosions, followed by nearly [steady] state and extinction, then again explosion. No gradualism at all.
That’s precisely the opposite of what the fossils, if you actually read them like someone who honestly wants to learn something as opposed to finding apologetics to prop up what you (or your parents) decided in advance is true, say.
“Explosions”, such as the famously-misunderstood Cambrian, took place over tens of millions of years. The word “explosion” is obviously a relative term.
Steady state? No evidence supports that – not fossil, not molecular, not genetic. The absence of a significant speciation event within a given time frame does not imply that mutation and selection pressures and drift and transfer and all the other evolutionary mechanisms cease operating. You might, for example, think that humans are in some “steady state” phase, but modern H. sapiens, as we understand ourselves, are maybe 200,000 years old at most – which is a tiny fraction of the time over which the Cambrian explosion took place. And we’re quite different to those ancient humans, even after such a short time.
[Aside: if I could, I’d like to check with humanity again in a Cambrian-like time frame of 50 million years – if they’re still around – and compare the differences. We changed our lifestyles dramatically from hunt & gather to farm & harvest 12,000-ish years ago and there are already significant differences between those recent humans and us; give us 50 million years and I’m sure there’d be even more to talk about (though the language barrier would no doubt be significant). After all, via artificial selection we’ve managed to evolve thousands of different breeds of dog, all within the same species, within perhaps 20,000 years. I’d say that within the next five decades we’ll start actively modifying our own traits; once we get a handle on that, the possibilities are endless. Even if we left ourselves alone, I can confidently predict that normal old natural evolution would deliver a surprise or two within 50 million years.]
Extinction? Well, the majority of species to ever live on Earth are now extinct. However, extinction events don’t always lead to explosive speciation, because extinctions aren’t always large-scale catastrophes like the relatively sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs and subsequent rise of the mammals. Extinctions aren’t holocausts that wipe out millions in a stroke, leaving vast swathes of ecological opportunity and leading to explosive speciation events; very often the species or groups of species concerned simply fade from the record while surviving species carry on. Throughout human history we ourselves have witnessed and directly caused many extinctions; quite often, the full ramifications of the loss of just a single species don’t become apparent until much, much later (google “How wolves change rivers” to see the rapid & dramatic results of re-introducing just one species into an ecosystem that hasn’t had them for many decades).
Finally, gradualism is precisely what you see in the fossil record if you take off your God-goggles. The presence of relatively rapid changes here and there doesn’t belie that; in fact, periods of relatively rapid speciation in the aftermath of catastrophes or in response to new ecological opportunities is precisely what you should expect in a dynamic biosphere populated with subtly changing populations of organisms all subject to natural selection, drift, horizontal gene transfer and the other demonstrated and well-understood mechanisms of evolution (as for the mechanisms that aren’t well-understood – well, the desire to understand is precisely why people study science in the first place). One of the governing factors of evolutionary “speed” is the stability of the surrounding environment. The status quo is gradual and incremental (perhaps even insignificant) change over long periods; shake up a stable ecology that has stable inter-species interaction with, for example, sudden tectonic activity, change in climate, an unexpected predator invasion, a sudden growth in population (say, after unusual rain that spikes available resources) and you can separate a given population and kick off speciation relatively rapidly. This is what fossils tell us and it is confirmed by genetic, geological and molecular data.
—
BTW: even if evolution was conclusively proven false tomorrow, it would still be more plausible than an immortal self-creating (or always-existing) entity inexplicably designing fish-shaped milk-drinking mammals that can drown. Creationism isn’t the default assumption until its shown to be false (which most reasonable adults would agree has already happened, but that’s not the point). It’s simply not enough to poke holes in evolution and assume creationism will fill them; you have to actually and actively demonstrate creationism.
Our creationist outbreak seems to have been a self-limiting condition. Disappointing. I expected this latest defender of the faith to be a little more resilient.
The existence of god in biology and science? Isn’t Biology a science?
The theory of biology? What’s that?
Nah. It’s full of things with sharp teeth that wanna eat you. And rarely explode. Basically, it’s Dr Seuss for grown-ups.
I thought biology was the green and wiggly thing. Chemistry is the stinky thing and math is the thing with numbers and sometimes no numbers.
Holy cow, were the people in the sound booth drunk?!
Sven
No, just devoutly christian.
Well, according to didgeman, commenting over in the Fargo thread from before this debate, and who claims to be in the same group with Rana, all of Biology is a giant conspiracy to deny God by pretending Darwin was right. So everything else is a science – Biology is batshit. He won’t say how that works, despite our repeated requests.
Batshit seems to pretty squarely fall within the biology category to me.
Your stomped this guy on the science. He put you on the defensive and you blocked every blow. I would have liked to see you put him on the ropes (at least during the dialogue).
“Science can’t fully account for the Cambrian Explosion?” Oh really? How then? WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE? HUH?
@Menyambal #6:
Oh he sort of did. Apparently outdated textbooks are part of the conspiracy. Of course he’s not able to describe the books’ flaws (or even name one single textbook currently in use, much less outline its deficiencies), but yeah, totes, biology’s managed to wall itself off from literally every other science and enforces Darwinian dogma like North Korea (yes, those who weren’t privy to didge’s wisdom, he actually said that).
Anyway, I’ll quit the OT chatter now and watch the debate. Maybe Rana’s got a much greater handle on the grand, global, ancient bio-conspiracy involving millions of people and outdated textbooks and I’ll be a creationist when it’s over. Because that’s how you win people to your point of view, right? By revealing Dark Truths about the other side and not bothering to provide actual evidence to support your own?
—
[Link to thread in question http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/02/13/my-darwin-day-debate-in-fargo/comment-page-1/#comment-914976%5D
Any plans to put the audio in a downloadable format anywhere? Maybe an “RD Extra” on Reasonable Doubts? I’d love to hear this on my commute, rather than asking my wife to stay quiet with the TV off for a couple hours…
I’m no conspiracy theorist BUTTTTTT what a curious point of Dr. Myers’ opening statement for the sound to become nearly inaudible, right? *sigh*
Every time I hear one of these debates the same argument comes up from the loyal opposition. In this case it manifested as: “God created life, the evidence that there is a god is the miracles he does, one such miracle is the origin of life.” Perfect circle. The conclusion is contained within the premise, thus all that follows from it is invalid. Everything Dr Rana said skipped right over this fantastic problem and was thus meaningless. There he is trying to show how the nature of the world reveals the creator’s personality, and he even recognised right at the end that Christians trying to get aspects of their faith into science aren’t willing to do the work that that demands.
I’m about halfway through, and so far Fuz has fallen flat on his face. He never, at any time, provides any positive evidence for his claim. It’s a long-winded Argument from Ignorance fallacy. I don’t know why I expected anything different. I was rather shocked to see Fuz using long-discredited arguments that were delivered a knockout blow in court (or so I’d hoped) during Kitzmiller v. Dover ten years ago. I guess creationists don’t give a damn that an argument has been demolished, they just go right on using it.
P.Z. did a wonderful job by co-opting the painting trope that’s often used by creationists, turning it on its head very effectively.
The audio glitches are very short-lived, and appear to happen to both PZ and Fuz, so I don’t think any malice was involved.
You might enjoy reading a very effective takedown of Fuz Rana’s book written by Frank Steiner of the NCSE.
@Robert Westbrook:
I agree both with your assessment of Fuz and the glitchy audio. I was kind of mocking some of the JAQers I see and I failed at conveying that. Sorry.
@14 drowner:
The fault is mine, I was worried that with #4 Sven’s comment that readers might think the audio was so bad it wasn’t worth watching, I think you conveyed your mockery perfectly!
BobApril #10
There are several services that will rip the sound from a youtube video and make an mp3 for you. Just google.
#10 BobApril:
I have already saved the audio as an mp3 file, and I would be happy to upload it to Soundcloud or someplace like it, but I’d want to be sure that doing so wouldn’t rustle anyone’s jimmies.
As sound as sound can be with what we know. Why is “I don’t know” such a hard concept for so many? PZ stomped him, but I’ll give props for the conciliatory approach by both participants (less for PZ…nice offense).
#10 Bob get some headphones! Or if you watch the internet on your TV have a look at getting a RaspberryPi 2 – you can have a pretty powerful PC for not very much! And headphones!
Good fucking god!
There. Is. No. Need. For. An. Explanation. Of. The. Origin. of. Life. For. Evolution. To. Be. True.
I am so fucking sick of that shit from creationists! I know why they do it, but it’s probably the number one reason I could never actually do one of these debates; because the second they bring that shit up, I will halt the debate and punch them in the face.
@20:
Indeed very convincing arguments! MK 47 Kalashnikov is normally the next argument level, which is used in scientific debates. Oh sorry, I mixed it up with religious extremism. Why do atheists react like cult members or fundamentalists? Are there any similarities?
Why do godbots keep acting like their ignorance of science is an argument for their imaginary deity? And look world-wide. Religious folk kill each other like crazy. You have some aggressive issues about those not in your tribe that your religion needs to address.
Complaining about one comment? Is that all you have to say about the entire debate, didgeman?
@23 David
Yes, it is. Just like complaining about naughty words is all he has in the other thread.
The again, when you have no science and no argument, but you are steadfastely attached to dogma which you can’t possibly doubt, i suposse this is all you have left. Well, this and lies, looooooots of lies, always the same ones too…repeated over and over…draining the will to live away from anyone listening to the inanity….
The Accomodationistic Theists say, “Yes evolution happened, just happened on the raw materials Gawd created. HE then just sat back and watched the sciencey stuff happen (as in: He wrote the rules of Physics, to watch what happens in the atomic billiards game). HE pops in once in a while when things need to be severely corrected. Maybe Noah didn’t Literally happen as written, BUT it was a Metaphor for God stepping in and smiting how wayward so many people had become without his guidance. So he washed the earth like we wash our hands of all the grime our hands get covered with. Etc. Etc.
… THAT is why the Creatords always focus on abiogenesis, because when Scientists say, “dunno”, the Creos can have no arguments about jumping in and saying, “Gotcha, goddidit.” Cuz then they don’t get the science guys saying “this clearly evolved from this, and this from this…”, and the creos don’t have to twist the story into “literal, figurative, metaphor, parable, moral teachings, etc.”
didgeman @21
NateHevens was expressing frustration that creationists all too often use logical fallacies, generally the same logical fallacies, in these debates.
Evolution says nothing about the origin of life on Earth. Evolution is how life forms change into different life forms with different characteristics than their ancestors. So it’s not a failing of evolution that the exact, specific way that life began on Earth is not known. This has been explained to creationists many, many times but they still use it to “disprove” evolution.
Another frustrating thing, one which Dr. Rana and you both indulge in, is the idea that evolution and creationism is a zero-sum game. You think if evolution loses then creationism automatically wins. You guys pushing GODDIDIT not only have to disprove evolution but you have to show that your conjecture (it doesn’t even rate being a hypothesis) is right. Arguments from ignorance and incredulity aren’t evidence.
Yup, one day gawd was uncorking a new Black Hole Farm(tm) (“Watch black holes form and grow and collide and merge before your eyes!!!!”) and, like most gods, utterly ignored the little bits of foam that formed when the toy started up.
didgeman @21
Hyperbole. Hyperbole. A rhetorical device to create a strong impression. Not to be taken literally. Can be used to indicate distress (specific: anger), such as in use above.
You know it was a hyperbolic statement. Do you have no arguments of substance, so are left with this?
You can do better. I believe in you.
Um, okay. But this was not a debate about whether evolution is true or not (I assume both parties agree that it is) but whether there is evidence for god. Rana says life’s origins is such evidence and Myers says no it isn’t. On either side of the issue there is a right way and a wrong way to argue.
In this debate both Rana and Myers argued correctly (Rana avoided using gaps to conclude goddidit, and Myers avoided we don’t know thus we can’t discuss it and must sweep it under the rug [and thus give the appearance it’s a truth we’re afraid to face]). Rana claimed life itself was evidence of supernatural as it didn’t fit naturalistic expectations and Myers argued that, no, there was nothing that didn’t fit naturalistic explanations.
savant @ #28:
But was it hyperbole?
Yes. Yes it was.
I think I’ve mentioned in these blogs enough times that I don’t have the greatest control over my rage response. I was pointing out the main reason I don’t and won’t get in to these debates; that lack of control.
That said, no, I wouldn’t actually punch them in the face.
The reality is, if I were in a debate about whether or not evolution is true, and my opponent brought up abiogenesis, I would stop the debate, point out that a theory of abiogenesis is not required for evolution to be a fact, and thus is off-topic for the debate, and then refuse to continue until my opponent promised not to bring it up again. I would do the same if they brought up the Bible (but give them the out of proving scientifically that the Bible is an accurate factual account of history). And of course I will demand that they can scientifically prove the existence of their creator, of course not using the Bible.
Really, PZ was right. These debates are ultimately pointless because:
1) Creationists cannot argue against evolution without pointing out that we don’t know how life originated (which is not actually required for evolution)
2) Creationists rely on the Bible which is, at this point, no better that a few-thousand-years-old collection of myths and fairy tales
3) They cannot provide scientific proof that their specific creator even exists
So that’s why I wouldn’t participate in these debates… because they would never even get started.
Ooh! I forgot the 4th reason these debates are pointless:
4) As PZ points out, the outcome of the debate with not change the fact that evolution is a scientifically established fact (the theory being how it happens)
I rather doubt she/he does. Nothing I’ve seen from her/him indicates an understanding of anything other than lying. She/he presumes everyone else is lying, and is notorious for doing so her/himself.
Unless your definition of “life” is narrow enough. :-)
Evolution says nothing about the origin of the first self-replicator. As soon as descent with heritable modification is possible, it happens, so there’s evolution from the point on that the first self-replicator exists; but not everyone is happy to call a ribozyme or a cycle of chemical reactions “life”. That’s where the term “chemical evolution” comes from.
blf@32
Most habitual liars still know what honesty is, and feel some measure of guilt about lying (willing to accept contest on that point, no sources, just my inclination). I’m willing to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they have the faculty of guilt to appeal to. You’re right, though, might be pointless.
nate@30
PZ and a number of others (first to come to mind is Bill Nye) have said in the past that the point hasn’t ever been to convince the creationists – it’s to convince the audience listening. Many won’t change, but some may be receptive to reason. Those people are worth it!
David@33
I wonder what ‘kind’ a pseudoribosome belongs to? Perhaps a kind of caterpillar?
@30:
O.K., the first part is a reasonable point. Probably, our logic prevent us from speculating about thing, which will never happen, if you haven’t solved abiogenesis.
But I think, combining abiogenesis with macroevolution in one argument for missing source of complex construction plans is less misleading, than mixing up microevolution and macroevolution and trying to make people believe, microevolution + time = macroevolution. This is misleading and dishonest.
didgeman @36
What;s dishonest about it? That’s exactly how evolution works. Time and incremental changes result in life forms which differ from their ancestors.
PS. Show your work.
Why is it that evolution can’t happen without abiogenesis? Assuming that a magic man did zap all of living things into creation, that doesn’t at all imply that evolution doesn’t happen over both long and short scales of time. They’re related concepts, but they’re not dependent.
Small changes accrue over time. How could they not? Can you demonstrate some mechanism that shows that these small changes don’t build up into divergence over time? You need some mechanism that prevents this from happening for your statement to hold. Can you point to one?
@blf
It’s looking like you may be right. We’ll see I guess!
A journey of a thousand miles (macroevolution) begins with a single step (microevolution). What the fuck is your problem with that? Other than you can’t get rid of your imaginary deity as an explanation? That is mother fucking dishonest, if you can’t shown your imaginary deity exists. And you admit you can’t.
Dishonesty all the way down by theists.
The thing that always bothers me about the kind of people who used to be atheists but then found “evidence” of design in nature, or what have you, is that they never explain how that evidence of design is proof of a Christian god, or specifically a Catholic/Protestant/Whatever god. Almost always they leap from suddenly accepting a god to believing in an entire library of theology.
Was there any point in his conversion to theism that he contemplated other religions or denominations? What was the scientific evidence that led him to believe in the Trinity or that Jesus was the son of god?
Hm.
Microgeology + time = macrogeology.
Micromotion + time = macromotion.
Microchange + time = macrochange
Microgrowth + time = macrogrowth
Please feel free to expand your microassertion into a macroassertion. Take your time.
daevrojn @ 40,
I can sort of understand that part, myself. Brains are very good at filling in gaps with whatever garbage happens to be hanging around. Give a person a gap in their knowledge, the sense that faith is a good idea, and the ego to assume that their perspective is the most important, and the recency bias will fill in the hole.
Doesn’t mean I think it’s excusable, though! I just figure that the root’s a lot deeper than the specifics of what a person believes, moreso why they think they’re justified in believing it.
Sigh, didge
They’re not being “mixed up” (again with the conspiracy theory!). They are essentially the same thing.
There simply appears to be nothing you properly understand about evolution.
But do attempt to enlighten us: what and where exactly is the barrier between micro and macro? How does it work? What is it about the structure and function of DNA that permits changes within a population but prevents speciation?
I look forward to what I expect will be your pasted/paraphrased answer from – or link to – an ID apologetics site.
To be completely honest, I don’t believe him. Whenever a Creationist (note: not a generic religious person, but specifically a science-denying fanatic) claims to have once been an atheist who accepted evolution, I call bullshit.
Every.
Time.
There is no logical pathway from “I accept evolution” to “the earth is only 6000 years old and was created in 6 days by Jesus Christ”. So either they are still atheists who accept evolution and just found an easy way to make loads of money, or they were always science-denying fanatics and are lying about once having been atheists who accepted science, because they are under the impression that it gives them credence with followers (unfortunately, this is indeed true, at least in some circles).
Either way it’s a load of bullshit.
I can accept atheists becoming theists. That’s totally fine.
But if you are now a Young-Earth Creationist, then no. You were never an atheist. You never accepted science.
Maybe… maybe… religion wasn’t all that important in your life prior to whatever point you were “born again”, but you cannot deny science so obviously and then try to tell me that you were once an atheist who accepted science. Fuck you, liar. No you weren’t.
Or if you were, then you still are, and you should be ashamed of yourself stealing people’s money like that.
Yeah, it’s right out of the missionary handbook, try to find a way to make those you are preaching to feel a connect to you and what you have to say. On the Fargo Thread, Dadsen tried to use the Redhead to get that connection. Since I am well aware of the technique, I essentially told Xim to fuck off.
What I find amusing is that they think they are the first people to try their arguments/fuckwittery here. I think the phrase “been there, done that” applies to all godbots and creobots after folks have been lurking for a year. Those of use who have been around around longer get a lot of laughs at their expense.
@44:
Well, to be fair, Rana is not a young-earth creationist. And he claimed that he was an agnostic and never actually an atheist. He claims of his wild pre-God days that he “never really thought about it” and “I felt embarrassed for my friends who believed”. I’m not sure how he went from science with agnosticism to science with theist accomodationist “old world creationist” and I’m not sure I believe his agnosticism was as cynical and callow as he claims. He claims it was the “fine tuning” and “information nature” of the cell, but he doesn’t explain why he now believes this to be the Christian god,which he apparently does, if his agnosticism was as general and pervasive as he claims. But if he had a religious conversion, which you seem to accept happens, he hasn’t seemed to have “abandoned science”. Or so he claims.
Then again, I’m not him so I don’t know what’s in his fuzzy head.
NateHevens;
The guy’s bio is here. I’m not sure where you got the idea he was a young-earth creationist. His science degrees *do* exist but, you are right, he did become a God of the Gaps Guys due to the lack of a theory of abiogenesis (which, as you state, isn’t a failing of, nor has anything to do with, evolution). He did seem to have a complete and thorough spiritual conversion to Christianity (his father was muslim) but he didn’t go to young-earth-ism. He’s one of those “Science *proves* God” born-agains. He’s a rare one in that he claims to dispute intelligent design.
Gah. Y’all will have to forgive me. For some reason I thought the conversation my rant was in response to was about our resident CreIDiot troll, not Dr. Rana. If our local troll hasn’t claimed to have once been an atheist, then my rant is embarrassingly out of place.
Sorry ’bout that…
As for Dr. Rana, I am admittedly still skeptical. Even the old-earth variety is still science-denying at the end of the day, so I’m still having trouble with the leap. Maybe not as wide a chasm, but still a really wide chasm.
Oh.
Maybe it was. If so, it’s my mistake that I thought you were talking about Dr. Rana.
My apologies.
I don’t know whether he or she did or not. Are we supposed to pay attention to our trolls’ backgrounds?
…
oh, wait. I remember. He’s an old word creationist who doesn’t believe in evolution at all (which is kind of bizarre, as it’d require millions of acts of creation over hundreds of millions of years and … well, what’s the point?)
Yeah, well… but I guess if we accept, at all, scientists being believers then old-world creationism or accomodationism kind of makes sense (in the god’s will being manifest via science and evolution– not didgeree-dodge’s no common descent no matter what). sort of. Dr. Rana seems fairly sincere and honest as far as it goes.
Ugh.. Want a good argument against the “it looks designed” one. Its possible to get it backwards. From Velcro to the pyramids, we started out with something “natural”, then attempted to duplicate the results. Airplanes – came from observing birds. Ships – basically just wood, for rafts, then someone had to figure out that one rotted with a hole worked too, or even cut one, to hold things and then wondered “what if the whole thing was just a hole?” There is almost nothing we our selves “create”, or “design”, which isn’t bloody based on something we previously observed, in nature. We, at best “found” these things, and worked out ways to improve them. So, to argue that our design means a god designs… would actually imply what? That their god either a) doesn’t need to do what we do, and just invented shit out of nothing, or b) he, as a designer, had to do the exact same thing we did – observe things, then adapt them into more, personally, useful designs. Somehow, the former seems to sort of.. be a non-starter, because its ***not*** how we “design” at all. And the latter, wouldn’t be all that god like, would it?
The rest of his stuff is just as bad. I can’t remember, or keep track of enough of it, to make arguments against every point, but every point I could refute, with examples where he was just dead wrong, making assumptions that he shouldn’t have, or otherwise just not giving any evidence worth jack in favor of some bald assertion, and I am… vastly less qualified than PZ, and just as unlikely to be able to “debate” someone, where actually presenting such refutations of their arguments demand time to think about how to address them, which is, really, the **core** problem with debates, imho.
Same with this absurd assertion that lab experiments are “rigged” to do things a certain way. Right.. because you can rig such a thing, without knowing the answer in the first place, as apposed to.. gosh… trying everything you can throw at it, until you start getting results, then try every variation of that possibility, to find the one that works, etc., etc. This isn’t “rigging”, and more than someone digging a bloody hole in the ground, not finding anything, moving a bit, digging again, finding an artifact, then concentrating all their digging on the bloody spot they found the bloody artifact means they “rigged” the digging, so they would somehow intentionally discover a buried ruin. The suggestion that you can’t find a working solution by doing this is…. incoherent. To use his own argument, when he tried to defend the absurd idea that analogy, by itself, can lead to profound knowledge, “This is the way we bloody do things all the time, every day.” Or, maybe he just figures we we analogize the location of archeological digs, and other discoveries?
But, you pegged it 100% right – assert, assert, claim its all Christian, then walk around in circles.
Ugh.. And his last “answer”… “Christian theology says…. (its not actually in the Bible that it says any of this, but, lots and lots and lots, and lots of people made this shit up, since, so,) Christian theology says…”, except for all the other Christians with some mildly, to wildly, different interpretation of the same non-existent “facts”. lol
Nah, if the audio problems were around because the technician was Christian, then they’d only have affected PZ. But they also happened during Fuz’ time.
What a pleasant show that was.
“Continuous creation” is a thing in Catholic theology. It makes God oh-so-much more wonderful than a Deist button-pusher, you see.
Nah, it’s just another excuse for privilege. Everything is privilege, to those who have decided to dedicate their lives to preserving it.
didgeman @ 36:
Ok, we’re having some problem with terms here, so I’d appreciate if you’d clarify things for me.
If you could be a bit more specific about microevolution vs. macroevolution, that would be good. Ideally, show us the specific dividing point: The largest possibly change that’s ‘micro’ and therefore evolutionary, and the smallest possible change that’s ‘macro’ and therefore must come from outside. Real-life examples would be best, just so we can keep things as concrete as possible.
Just lay out for us what relationships you think are possible and which are impossible and why. Are different types of ducks (for example) related? How about ducks and geese? Ducks and swans? Ducks and cormorants? Ducks and eagles? Ducks and monitor lizards?
If you show us the hard dividing line between macro and micro, we can actually have a talk about the subject. Remember, you’re the one who’s insisting on the divide. If you can’t define it and show why your definition is supported by real-world evidence, that’s a very serious problem for your insistence.
savant @ 38:
The fossil record is the best evidence, that it does not work. No small transitions over time, but rapid explosions, followed by nearly study state and extinction, then again explosion. No gradualism at all. I would rather expect, that yo show a mechanism, that show evidence for macroevolution, despite the fact, that all intermediate form are missing in the fossil record and when there are some “transitional forms”, they do not follow the correct sequence (e.g. fossil tracks of first land animals, which are older that so called transitional fossils from water to land.
Dr. Rana accepts microevolution (e.g. breeding of domestic animals or peppered moth), speciation (microevolution combined with later geographical separation (e.g. Darwin finches), and microbial evolution (limited number of mutations in very large populations with quite moderate changes, e.g. acquiring antibiotic resistance or new digest). But he is explicitly skeptical about macroevolution (gaining new body plans or new features with larger complexity) and of course also about the special case of abiogenesis (chemical evolution).
It works, and it is back up by the genomes, showing that what is described in the fossil record shows up in DNA. Scientific fact, only refuted by more science. Your personal opinion, bible, or other theists opinions doesn’t count as evidence. Only your opinions. Which are wrong.
Who the fuck cares about the opinion of lying delusional fool? No serious scientist. We’ve been through this before liar and bullshitter. Macroevolution is to microevolution as walking ten miles is to one step. You get there one step at a time. Just many steps are required. You are on stupid shithead who doesn’t understand what evidence is.
Let me give you a rating on evidence:
1) Peer reviewed scientific literature.
2) Reviews of the literature written by scientists
3) Book for popular discourse.
What isn’t evidence.
1) Personal opinion of a layman.
2) The words of a known perjurer.
And even worse
3) The words of a proselytizer for their imaginary deity (like you) who thinks their testament is anything other than their personal delusional opinion. When told something isn’t evidence but you keep repeating it, you make yourself look worse than a known perjurer. At least they tell the truth every so often, and know that they lie. You don’t.
didgeman @ 57;
Thank you for the reply! Succinct, but fairly dense. Let’s unpack things a little.
Gradualism was replaced by punctuated equilibrium some time ago to my understanding – when I was in university quite some time ago we were talking about the two competing ideas. Punctuated equilibrium, which you’re talking about here, is very much in accordance with evolution. Sorry, macro- and micro-evolution, if you must have the distinction.
I don’t know how anyone can looks at something like the evolution of the whale from terrestrial mammal ancestor, with it’s beautifully detailed record in the fossil record, and conclude what you’re concluding. And, well. We expect there to be gaps in the fossil record. It’s not as if the animals all decided to die one next to the other in buckets of formaldehyde. We have to go find them! Of course there are gaps. That we have such a beautifully continuous line of fossils as we do is a joy!
As for your “out-of-order fossils” issue, I don’t know what you’re talking about there. Do you mean this, versus the age of Tiktaalik? That fits perfectly – if this is your issue, then there is no issue, because you’re confusing the first arthropodal land colonizers versus the first tetrapod land colonizers. Otherwise, you’ll have to be more clear.
I don’t accept him as an authority to be heeded without question. Frankly though, he said (explicitly, in the video) that he rejects Intelligent Design as a science until such point as they have a working theory. I actually respect the guy – we don’t agree on quite a bit, and I find he’s got fuzzy thinking on some important points, but he’s got the integrity to say that Intelligent Design doesn’t have a leg to stand on, no matter how much he might like that to not be the case.
Frankly, didgeman, the problem is here:
This is the problem with your line of reasoning – it’s based on what you expect. Science comes up with the unexpected very, very regularly – and almost always comes up with the unexpected when dealing with deep time, slow processes, and /or exponentiation or logarithmic rates. Evolution features all three of these.
The first step to understanding is to discard your expectations. Expectations only clutter your thinking and colour your perception.
The next step to understanding is to realize that you can’t discard your expectations, you’re only human, and building expectations is what we do. So you look for ways to cancel out your expectations and the colour in your perceptions.
Those ways are called science.
didgeman @57
As I’ve told you several times before, personal incredulity is not an argument for or against anything.
@60 Al Dente
True. I’m completely incredulous regarding didgeman’s hypothesis that the entire field of biology has isolated itself from the rest of the scientific community solely in order to perpetrate the largest, most detailed and most successful global hoax since Catholicism. How, I thought, could an entire field of scientific inquiry manage to do that when it intersects on countless levels and at countless points with its sister sciences?
Knowing, then, that my personal incredulity wasn’t an argument against the conspiracy I asked, first for generalities later for details, how this conspiracy functions and how it could have been implemented. A couple of answers came back but they were as vague and implausible as the original assertion (“phoned in” or “half-arsed” would be appropriate terms). Clarification was sought but was not forthcoming as didgeman appears content to gloss over or simply ignore any request he can’t answer with apologetics (or with references to somebody else’s apologetics). This wasn’t unexpected; we all know creationists aren’t used to being meaningfully challenged or asked to show their work in the insular little Truth™-bubbles they inflate for themselves.
Anyway, it’s really something of a shame. Some otherwise very intelligent people subscribe to various flavours of creationism and I can’t help but imagine the progress they could make if they stopped misspending their mental energy propping up a notion that has no empirical support (and masses of contradictory evidence) and used it to ask honest questions – y’know, like people do in real science.
Hmmm… so what exactly to old-world common descent deniers claim to believe? Do they believe in geological ages? I assume they do. Do they believe in the fossil records; i.e. certain animals existed at certain times? I assume they do (otherwise they wouldn’t keep pointing to explosions). But they believe, for example, that once there was a time that there were no ducks and then there was a time that there were ducks. But they do not believe that the ducks had a predecessor? So one day the ducks just appeared? Okay, but … what did that *look* like? What happened? One day they crawled out of bubbling earth? Spontaneous generation as Pasteur demonstrated never happens? Or they hatched out of some other animals eggs without sharing any genetic material with their foster parents? I’m not trying to be facetious but old-earth creationist claim they believe something so I assume they at least have and thought about something happening. What do they imagine happened? Are we going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly find a new animal that never existed before?
62, woozy:
It’d be interesting to see an answer to this. If the scientifically-demonstrated direct ancestral link to dinosaurs isn’t a sufficient explanation for the origin of ducks (and/or birds in general), there’s an opportunity for someone to provide an alternate explanation that’s better supported by the evidence.
And the same would go for literally every other extant species. Whale evolution, for example, is lucky enough to be supported by a very detailed fossil record stretching back many millions of years to four-legged canine-like mammals whose descendant populations gradually developed more and more aquatic lifestyles as selection and other pressures favoured swimming ability – but if common descent is false, creationists need to explain why there is a family of carnivores in the ocean that breathes air, suckles their live-born young with milk, communicates & hunts using sound and shares many of the same skeletal & other anatomical traits as their fellow mammals.
TL;DR: Why is God running around creating marine animals that have to drink milk and can’t breathe underwater?
False.
Go look it up; google for speciation in the fossil record and read the first result. I’ll wait.
Quoted passage in David M’s #64:
That’s precisely the opposite of what the fossils, if you actually read them like someone who honestly wants to learn something as opposed to finding apologetics to prop up what you (or your parents) decided in advance is true, say.
“Explosions”, such as the famously-misunderstood Cambrian, took place over tens of millions of years. The word “explosion” is obviously a relative term.
Steady state? No evidence supports that – not fossil, not molecular, not genetic. The absence of a significant speciation event within a given time frame does not imply that mutation and selection pressures and drift and transfer and all the other evolutionary mechanisms cease operating. You might, for example, think that humans are in some “steady state” phase, but modern H. sapiens, as we understand ourselves, are maybe 200,000 years old at most – which is a tiny fraction of the time over which the Cambrian explosion took place. And we’re quite different to those ancient humans, even after such a short time.
[Aside: if I could, I’d like to check with humanity again in a Cambrian-like time frame of 50 million years – if they’re still around – and compare the differences. We changed our lifestyles dramatically from hunt & gather to farm & harvest 12,000-ish years ago and there are already significant differences between those recent humans and us; give us 50 million years and I’m sure there’d be even more to talk about (though the language barrier would no doubt be significant). After all, via artificial selection we’ve managed to evolve thousands of different breeds of dog, all within the same species, within perhaps 20,000 years. I’d say that within the next five decades we’ll start actively modifying our own traits; once we get a handle on that, the possibilities are endless. Even if we left ourselves alone, I can confidently predict that normal old natural evolution would deliver a surprise or two within 50 million years.]
Extinction? Well, the majority of species to ever live on Earth are now extinct. However, extinction events don’t always lead to explosive speciation, because extinctions aren’t always large-scale catastrophes like the relatively sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs and subsequent rise of the mammals. Extinctions aren’t holocausts that wipe out millions in a stroke, leaving vast swathes of ecological opportunity and leading to explosive speciation events; very often the species or groups of species concerned simply fade from the record while surviving species carry on. Throughout human history we ourselves have witnessed and directly caused many extinctions; quite often, the full ramifications of the loss of just a single species don’t become apparent until much, much later (google “How wolves change rivers” to see the rapid & dramatic results of re-introducing just one species into an ecosystem that hasn’t had them for many decades).
Finally, gradualism is precisely what you see in the fossil record if you take off your God-goggles. The presence of relatively rapid changes here and there doesn’t belie that; in fact, periods of relatively rapid speciation in the aftermath of catastrophes or in response to new ecological opportunities is precisely what you should expect in a dynamic biosphere populated with subtly changing populations of organisms all subject to natural selection, drift, horizontal gene transfer and the other demonstrated and well-understood mechanisms of evolution (as for the mechanisms that aren’t well-understood – well, the desire to understand is precisely why people study science in the first place). One of the governing factors of evolutionary “speed” is the stability of the surrounding environment. The status quo is gradual and incremental (perhaps even insignificant) change over long periods; shake up a stable ecology that has stable inter-species interaction with, for example, sudden tectonic activity, change in climate, an unexpected predator invasion, a sudden growth in population (say, after unusual rain that spikes available resources) and you can separate a given population and kick off speciation relatively rapidly. This is what fossils tell us and it is confirmed by genetic, geological and molecular data.
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BTW: even if evolution was conclusively proven false tomorrow, it would still be more plausible than an immortal self-creating (or always-existing) entity inexplicably designing fish-shaped milk-drinking mammals that can drown. Creationism isn’t the default assumption until its shown to be false (which most reasonable adults would agree has already happened, but that’s not the point). It’s simply not enough to poke holes in evolution and assume creationism will fill them; you have to actually and actively demonstrate creationism.
Our creationist outbreak seems to have been a self-limiting condition. Disappointing. I expected this latest defender of the faith to be a little more resilient.
Yeah, that’s that?
Pity.