Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Oh, and I should also say that I fully accept that science professors can get attached to a dogma, religious or otherwise, and irrationally defend it (saying nothing about the prevalence). I simply think that in the case of a few prominent IDers, the generalization doesn't hold: their premise is a bit dishonest from the get-go, and they're a bit more dishonest even than their creationist cousins like Gish. To repeat, this doesn't mean they're utterly insincere even about thinking there's a designer/God or that they are vaguely rational in their ideas.

Not only science professors. There are actually a large number of teachers and professors making a living spreading falsehoods about language. It astonishes me how one can go through an entire career continually mouthing these falsehoods when they are so fatuous, so easily knocked apart.

You're correct -- I was thinking of horizontal gene transfer which creates a web between the branches of the tree of life. Genetic drift is almost entirely out of realm of what Darwin observed and does not directly affect natural selection.

Hate to interrupt this interesting exchange, but did you see the fish with a transparent head? If not, I can post a picture of it.

Here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/fish-transparent-head-barreleye-picture/index.html

Lamarkian"inheritance of acquired characteristics" and Nat Selection (as conceived by Darwin) are BOTH classically incorrect in that the concept of pangenesis as defined by Darwin , was a similarly wrong answer to the struggle that DArwin had with heritable variation. Darwin concieved of "gemmules" which were theoretical particles that were borne by living organisms and were changed by the "life experiences" of their bearers. These gemmules sent representatives into the offspring of the next generation. DArwin , like Lamarck simply punted on where these heritable variants came from > He had no mechanism, like LAmarck. However, even though this was an area for which weve always forgiven DArwin , it still stood there like a wart in the mans work, and weve merely dismissed it.
Thats the only similarity that Darwin and LAmarck shared, in my mind. Darwin was all mechanisms underpinned by observation and trial. Lamarck was not even close.
Research in epigenetics and evolution is being funded for the NIH, several universities and by Venters group(as I understand, where theres a concerted effort at unravelling the chromatin). As far as "crap" science, I dont think Id group the research into that category. I think we should reserve judgements until much of the work is out there and mecanisms are tested. If this is not what you meant, just pass it off as my poor understanding of your post


We pretty much agree, however, Gould and ELdredge NEVER proposed PE to be a replacement for nat selection , only a "special case" in which stasis was measurable over significant geologic times.(Their mistake was to claim that their Formations were actually representative of significant geologic times when they perhaps, werent as extensive as fist presented) Their own case was based upon a specific allopatric "Spirifer" that occured within a formation that contained all the earmarks of displaying PE. Subsequent to PE's "marketing", several Paleoecologists had gone back to Goulds own outcrops and , by using detailed micro sampling, and accounting for mini unconformities and paraconformities within the rock units themselves, (Chiu, et al) They discovered that the species did not jump ahead as much as originally claimed by Gould and Eldredge. Gould merely stated that the "tracks" of the spirifers allopatric development were seemingly missing within the unconformable zones. Chiu found out that the spirifer wasnt as "allopatric" as first thought, and they could trace the "intermediate forms" in other contiguous Formations of similar genesis. (Many times several formation names are used for similar rock units because they were mapped for contiguity from different starting places.
Gould never satisfactorily commented on this discovery in his last work,(which he called "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory"). He just handled it with silence and so the PE discussions continue .Ive never been a fan of the evidence , especially since, as Darwin said "The geologic record is always imperfect"

This all sounds a trifle floppy.

Don't epigenetic considerations open up all sorts of possibilities. Commological happenings (astrology) for example. Also variable and temporary states of organisms caused by environmental and social factors.

I have in mind a female organism flushed with religious ecstasy after an Easter Sunday service or one having just returned from a shift in an industrial unit where rumours of job losses are rife and there's a house to pay for on top of a load of other matters creating high levels of nervous tension. Could such factors affect the egg and the complex process by which it chooses one of the 200,000,000 sperms delivered to its front door by the vinegar stroke of a chap who has just had his car repossessed.

Or when the sperm, produced by a wank under circumstances it might be well to skirt around, Darwinlike, has been selected by men in white coats after being stored for a few years in liquid nitrogen, thawed out, viewed under a microscope, approved by peer-reviewers who haven't a ******* clue despite their constant assertions to the contrary and who are working on some simple mechanical process like icing a Christmas cake, is squirted into a lady in a tense condition located at the other end of the arousal spectrum from that of a gang bang in a disused garage round the back of the pub.

Have I got the basic principles of epigenetics effemm? I think all these technical terms are some soirt of snowstorm in aid of money making and status quanta.

However, it is only the mechanism is "non-Darwinian." The effect, if ever this is one, is very certainly Darwinian. At any such time as there is a reproductive advantage, natural selections kicks in with a vengeance.

This is something on which the creationists batten, making a big deal of the lack of "missing links." You see in that, as well, the lack of a scientific attitude. Many people writing in history or ethnology, for example, will discuss the advent of domesticated plants and animals, and speak with confidence of the dates when plants and animals were domesticated in this or that area. That is not a strictly scientific way of looking at the issue, though. The only thing which can be said with certainty about evidence of domestic plants and animals is that such and such a date is the earliest evidence we have for that domestication. Numerous glaring inconsistencies arise. Historians and ethnologists will, for example, say with confidence that fruits were not domesticated any earlier than 8,000 ybp. But that only means that the earliest evidence we have of it was 8000 ybp. There is now convincing evidence that figs were domesticated 11,500 ybp, which would mean that, based on the available evidence, figs in fact were domesticated before any other plants were domesticated, and therefore that fruit was the first vegetal domesticate. I am sometimes discouraged to see how easily historians, ethnologists and anthropologists are seduced by a desire to found their theories on statements redolent of a certitude they cannot possibly have.

Dogs and horses are another example of this. It is claimed in the majority opinion of historians anthropologists that the dog is the only exception to the rule that animals were domesticated after plants, and that dogs were domesticated only shortly before plants--the date is usually set at about 12,000 ybp. But there is convincing evidence from Norway that there were domestic dogs going back as far as 13,000 ybp, and of course, that is itself just the earliest date which can be advanced with (relative) assurance. The domestication of horses is rather strongly asserted to have taken place no earlier than 6000 ybp, and probably as late as 4500 ybp. But in the case of both dogs and horses, both of which animals were eaten as well as used as domesticates, it is entirely possible that they were long human companions in their original forms (morphologically speaking), and that the dates we ascribe for their domestication are actually only the earliest dates at which there was a noticable morphological change in the direction of what we think of as domestic animals. The same may well be true of "ur-plants" such as einkorn wheat or emmer wheat, or barley. All of those grasses may well have been tended in situ in what we would recognize as an agricultural method, but we don't see it because they weren't transplanted, and fields such as we recognize were not laid out.

It is not only the geological record which is imperfect, the archaeological record is imperfect, too. The most that can be said with confidence in either case is that such and such a date is the earliest known date for the appearance of this or that. And, given the paucity of the geologic and archaeologic records, entire hosts of data may remain hidden from us.

Thanks for that stunning display of scientific flapdoodle Set.

The only trouble is that plants and animals don't do religion because they are not human beings and it is only human beings which do religion and are wont to offer challenges to the teaching of evolution which plants and animals would never think of doing. Even domesticated ones.

But I'm sure the less intelligent of our viewers will be impressed by your dazzling display of incoherent and inconclusive bullshit and believe themselves to have been improved in some mysterious way.

I hope that any historians, ethnologists and anthropologists who are easily seduced by a desire to found their theories on statements redolent of a certitude they cannot possibly have don't feel too dejected to hear that you are sometimes discouraged by their sad plight and that they will resolve to do better in the future after reading your ridiculous and pompous admonishments.

That was the point I was getting at but didn't delve into the detail. Because mechanisms discovered in the last 100 or so years were neither in Darwin's necessary speculation of the time, or entirely absent from his theory, they are just details as far as natural selection and the tree of life. The IDiots want so wipe out any evolution that occurred from the oceans to the land, when, in fact, if they wanted to appear more credible they would describe the single-celled animals in the ocean as placed their by a designer programmed to do exactly what they did. That's too simple for them, so they complicate it by coming up with homo sapiens fully designed on the ID entity's celestial drafting board just plopped down on Earth with the fully designed Panda. They will never admit that humankind's existence depended on evolving from a lower form of life. I guess they do not consider the Neanderthals a lower form of homo sapiens, or Lucy and her clan of many in Africa. I'm sure Cro-magnon man is okay by them?

Any past human form that looks too much like a Universal Pictures 1930's - 1940's horror film is verboten.

Geological and archaeological records are primarilly imperfect because of the small gaps still yet to be discovered. They're working at it, just give them time. The IDiots geology is also devised from these "think tanks," more likely each of them getting into an isolation tank a la "Altered States," turning them into more primitive scientists. As far as archaeology, the ID think tanks try not to be bothered with archaeology.

There is no point you are getting at in relation to this thread. The point you are invading the thread with is related to seeking the admiration of our esteemed viewers with a load of half-witted, quasi and psuedo science codswallop you have woven together from bits and pieces from here and there.

Look how words like "epigenisis" and "paraconformities" are bandied about as badges of rank and as soon as I present a scientific hypothesis on those very matters, in language everybody can understand and which I like to think is entertaining them as it elightens them, and which posits a connection between psychological states of mind and procreation, a matter of someimportance to adolescents, and away you go steering a wide berth round it with that well known and tried and tested original fanshite.

Epigenesis is a very complex subject and well known long before Darwin. The "love child" is a literary cliche. Tom Jones was a love child. Mr Allworthy sister having been taken advantage of to her eternal shame. And only confessing at the end and allowing Tom to fall on his feet after his prospects had seemed so hopeless so many times. Sophie having forgiven him his lapses of good taste as any woman would a man she loves.

Heathcliffe was a love child. So was Spendius. In fact I was myself.

"epi" means "in addition to" . Other possibilities besides the simple gene stuff.

It is a big moment in everyone's lives as is the psychological state of Mom during that long period when her blood is sustaining the little mite growing inside her.

No wonder you lot reject irreducible complexity. You daren't even look at it. It's just a word to you. A semantic conceit.

A pespectable scientist must be appalled to see you dragging the name of science through the gutter.

After than pompous, pontificating mind fart, I wouldn't be thinking any scientist or even clergyman would take you seriously. In fact, how was it in the isolation tank, Spendi? Do they serve ale? You're writing is an example of irreducible sophistry.

That means nothing at all LW.

You would know, Pope Spendius I.

You just insulted all popes.

Ha! That was the desired effect.

Jindal is so obviously in bed with the North Louisiana conservative Protestants who are his constituents and he needs their votes for re-election.

Oh no. Millions of people would know that the post meant nothing. My sympathies and prayers go out for the ones who thought it meant something.

It's the nature of politicians LW. Are you not aware of that?

And it should be "Gov. Jindal" or at least "Mr Jindal".