Evolution: What Real Scientists Have to Say

jl is one of the sane ones, farmer and set. I don't think he could ever be fooled by such doubletalk.

Unfortunatelly I can't read such long tetxtes, when they start with wrong statements (In 140 BC, a Greek known as Crates of Mallus built what can be called first globe in history. And when you look at the charts of that time, you can be sure that must Greeks knew a lot about the "earth ball"!).


But as I keep on saying to my wife:
ad 1) The earth is a disc
ad 2) males are always right.

truth
Yeah, Walter. Always take refuge in the axioms. But of course, different cultures, different axioms. Here in the U.S. I take refuge, when talking to my wife, with
(1) the earth is spherical, and
(2) females are always right.

BBB
Actually, the earth is just a beat up, oddly rounded old rock that lost its way in a good neighborhood.

BBB

Medved,

I don't know why you posted all of that. It was painfully long and obviously took some time to put together. Yet, it didn't say very much of value.

There are a lot of real scientists right here. If you want to know what we have to say, why not ask us?

Sorry, JLN, i ought to have known better--and was perplexed by your response.

truth
That's all right, Setanta. Now we're even.

truth
Oh, and thanks to Edgar, a man who never perplexes me.

Medved is russian for "bear". I know how everyone was curious.

Damn;suckered me JL. You know, sometimes when you hang out withh this crowd, you (menaing of course, I) tend to count on respect for knowledge from a whhole bunch of the members. Youre always one that Ive counted on in that category JL, so, I too, was more than perplexed. Is it April yet?

I found 2 more of those medved quotes "In context" .(I have no idea why Im taking this intellectual sloppiness so seriously) Ill take some time and try to pull out the context of the partial quotes above. It is, as I originally guessed, they were discussing honestly, in most cases, the problems with standard Gradualism in evolution as conceived by Darwin (its one of Darwins 3 major bricks of his theory) The biggest problem has always been an imperfect fossil record (even though in the 90s, the concepr of cladogenesis or "budding" of entire lines from a parental line has explained much of this and DNA has helped this understanding immensely) Cladogenesis has explained the fact that groups of whales were seen in the fossil record along with their "parental"lines, so have horses, and so did man (the brewhaha re Neanderthals and H sapiens is an example). So, even though its novel idea is already 30 yers old, Punctuated equilibrium DOES explain many data gaps.
As bo Go Wo implied, Yes , evolution is a worriesome theory unless its compared to all the others. If medved would be intellectually honest, his argument would require a batch of special creation for every species that occurs in every special niche on the planet.
Was the line of convergent marsupials specially created on the Melanesian and Australian islands done in anticipation of a comfortable niche left devoid of all predators? If thats the case, lets talk evidence. When you talk evidence (and genetics) medveds argument just breaks down. So, getting back to misapplying out of context statements by noted "evolutionists" requires the context be established, and thats where the bubba factor comes in as setanta said.
Context? I dont need no steenken context.

Re: Evolution: What Real Scientists Have to Say


Medved, you display a deficent background in basic historical and scientific knowledge from your very first statement. That the earth is a sphere and has a circumference of 7900 mile has been known since the 3rd century BC when Eratosthenes carried out his classic experiment. Here are two web sites for high school students, which should make the concept easily understandable.

Eratosthenes Finds Diameter of Earth!
A papyrus from 230 B.C. :
http://math.rice.edu/~ddonovan/Lessons/eratos.html

A short history of Eratosthenes
http://www.wikisearch.net/en/wikipedia/e/er/eratosthenes.html

The earliest globe was constructed by the Greek geographer Crates in the 2nd century BC. Ptolemy left instructions on how to construct one but never did so. The earliest surviving globe was made by Martin Behaim in 1492,. It was completed 6 months before Columbus sailed and is still on display in Nuremberg Germany.

Globe
http://cn.slider.com/enc/22000/globe.htm

Martin Behaim's Globe 1492
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/258.html\

This lack of basic knowledge of western intellectual history right from your first statement, suggests that everything else you have to say is equally lacking in basic knowledge necessary to engage in this kind of disscussion..

I don't know why anyone else bothers with you. From the rest of you post in seems you are beyond a lack of general back ground and understanding and deep into willful ignorance.

OK, goys and birls, i just wasted a bunch of time, but perhaps not wasted. In scanning through the tripe which Medved posted at the outset, i noticed right away a quote attributed to one M. Grosse, of the "French Academie des Science." Well, des means "of the," and is plural, so, one would write, in French, l'Academie des Sciences. The omission of the final "s," could of course, be simply a typo; but, as this is obviously a cut-and-paste job, that means that any such typo would have come from the original source.

About a year ago, one erstwhile member here was posting a lot of crapola about evidence for alien visitations from a French study. Walter eventually posted a link for a statement from the authors of the study referred to, but in the meantime, i had dug into the source of this individual's contentions about the French study, and every source listed was traceable back to the web site of a young Frenchman, which quoted the study, after heavy editing to add statements which did not appear in the original. Additionally, the links which Walter posted included a statement by the authors of the French study to the effect that they had never supported a contention of alien visitations, nor even considered the subject in their study. In every case but one, the sites which the ranting member had linked had lifted the text of the young French crackpot's site wholesale in a shameless cut-and-paste job.

So, i began to wonder how hard it would be to do the same with this tripe that Medved has pasted. Not far down the all too long rant which begins this thread is a reference to L. D. Sunderland. Luther D. Sunderland has published "refutations" of "atheistic evolutionism." And, as all roads lead to Rome (so to speak, of course), and all of the "alien visitation" roads in the incident last year lead to the site of the ranting young Frenchman, so it is with Medved's rant. Google L. D. Sunderland, and you will very quickly find CSE Ministry--Creation Science Evangelism Ministry. This is really hilarious. First, Medved had vociferously avoided any reference to it's personal religious beliefs, and refuses to get into a religious discussion, because it's rant is allegedly predicated upon a "scientific" refutation of the theory of evolution. You really should check out CSE Ministry sometime, if you have some time to kill--it is amusing, and it is sad.

There is at the upper left the CSE Ministry logo, with a rather bad drawing of triceratops. Below is the standard navigation bar, with, to the right: "Home," "Ministry," "Shopping," "Science." Take note of the "button" for shopping. The navigation bar below reads, from left to right: "articles | cart | contact us | itinerary | science | seminar online | shopping | testimonies | homeschool |" In that example, we have both the shopping cart, as well as another link to "shopping." On the left, below that navigation bar is another link window, reading, from top to bottom: "Science," "Shopping," and "Seminars." Shopping gets a prominent place on this web page, and they offer "videos," "books," "kids stuff" [sic], "fossils" (? ! ? ! ?) and "compact discs." So not only do we have a site which is intended to disseminate the "creation science" propaganda, but one which hopes to sell you lots of stuff. Any bets about how many pockets get lined in the process? As with the member who was touting alien visitations last year, and all of whose links could be traced to a well-known and scurrilous UFO huckster, you kind of have to feel sorry for someone who likely has put down hard earned money on this nonsense. Very likely, Medved is more victim than victimizer, more sinned against than sinner. It is now fairly obvious not only that Medved has been treating us to sad cut-and-paste jobs, but also what the source is.

Thanks, Set - I really didn't want to do that again!

It's sad,
as you said.

Having read Dentons book many years sgo,I remember it recieved great praise from the Creationists and concern from the science establishment. Denton has been famous for posting "Arguments from Personal Incredulity". For example, if we didnt have an explanation for aparticular phenomena at the moment, he would state that there cannot ever possibly be one.
his)Dentons) genetic argument that medved posted was a famous "out of context" misquote from a still earlier molecular biologist Emile Zuckerkrandl. Denton quoted him as saying that advanced functional proteins cannot intercovert directly. (Therefore changes in DNA that result in evolutionary changes dont happen , according to Dentons "personal incredulity") but the misquote failed to mention that proteins can achieve great changes through gradual steps, ie evolution.
Dentons book, and remember its almost 20 years old also makes sweeping statements that are almost stupidly critical of the fossil record(this was my area) He had stated that archeopteryx is not an intermediate transitional fossil because its "fully formed and the soft parts arent fossilized" He failed to recognize that the skeleton of this "Bird" was reptilian , it contained teeth, and had feathers, if thhat isnt suggestive of an intermediate, fossil I dont know what is . He again dipped into his supply of "personal incredulity" by this sweeping statement.
Also, since his book that medved quoted is almost 20 years old, many advances in science have occured that Denton, a "Theistic evolution scientist" may have to modify his original statements about the significant gaps of the fossil record. SInce the early 90s Dentons criticism of "the lack of intermediate fossils of the whale" has been addressed by the results of the slow course of field paleo. Denton was aware of 2 end members of whale and proto whale fossils. He knew of Zeuglodon ,pakicetus and the modern whale. Since thhe early nineties (after his book) field scientists have discovered eocetus, ambulocetus, protocetus, basilocetus rhodocetus , all in sequences (with many of these fossils overlapping in the record according to Gould /Eldredge theory)
Also, the discovery of genetic actuator mechanisms (the example of which Walter and set posted a few days ago about thhe turning off of specific actuator enzymes that control musculature differences between apes and man) in the genomes that show homologous structures are happening at an increasing clip.
Denton, alas, has suffered from some poor timing by posting his sweeping incredullous statements at a time just beHfore great advances in evolutionary sciences had occured..
Denton stipulates to natural selection and the mechanisms of micro and macroevolution (he recognized that the concept of punctuated equilibrium could, by virtue of its evidence in the fossil record, be equally embraced by a scientist like him , who merely wants to reserve a place for God in his own personal hypothesis.

set, many of the "scientists" that medved has s highlited are pocket Creation preachesr who are fond of sweeping statements whichh then, gets picked up by successive generations of Creation scientists. But the fact that many of the guys like the "creation geologists" who state that the Grand Canyon is all full of deep water sediment , or Cohens moronic statement about "the argument between creation and Evolution should have come to a screeching halt" is just pure distortion of the way things really are and , Im not so forgiving of medved for NOT DOING HIS OWN RESEARCH into some or many of his quotes to discover the "out of context" nature of thequotes from "real" scientists , mixed in with distortions and outright lies posted by the "Creation scientists" who are trying to have their crap taught in high schools. (It is amazingly self evident that , if all these scientists who medved seems to claim are having doubts about their own sciences, they have not modified their own theories or research one jot. Raup still feels that the fossil record is evidence for evolutionary stages, Gould published a huuuge book just before his death, which ridicules the entire creationist movement as an exercise in paleothinking, and richard leakey had published his own accounts of hominid evolution that wre merely critical of Johannsen and "Lucy" . Most of medveds other quotes were by creationists who either try to distort knowledge (Sunderland was famous for his flood views) or they just arent good scientists llike Woodmorappe or Chadwick. These two are well published creationist clowns whove been , like Gish and White and Wise, living large on the money of the conservative Christian "phone -in your pledge" crowd

Sorry, but I haven't seen any evidence of that so far.

he he

Mead ('myod' in Russian) is the ordinary IndoEuropean word for honey, vyed is the same as the 'vid' in ' video', vision, view etc., i.e. he who watches or knows where the honey is stashed or hidden. The ordinary IE words for a bear are 'bear' and 'urse' but those became tabu words in slavic languages at some early point and the term 'medvyed' came into use.

What do you consider a "real scientist" then?

I'll field that one: Medved considers a "real" scientist to be anyone who supports the "creation science evangelism" agenda, without regard to credentials.