Is Richard Dawkins a scientist?

Look inward.

You are the teabag.

Imagine trying that one in a conference or a court(Rules of evidence pertaining).

"It is because a god says it is, and thats the way it is" Please -note that there was not a bit of pertinent, relevant "Evidence" in your statement. It was just a bigass bumper-sticker.

Not according to Bertie Russell, Leddy. The teabag is stuck into a teapot, which is orbiting the earth somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, as I recall. It's out there, baby. It aint in Farmer.

Russell was trying to make some kind of point about evidence, as I recall. Never knew what it was, exactly, before now. Now I get it. It's this: Farmer aint no teabag.

One more bumper sticker:

In this trial - You get to make all the rules of evidence - you are the only one you need to convince.

I'm starting to think he doesn't even like tea either.

So you feel that there are no rules of evidence?

Then why even have the word? Its silly without a metric.
You can go around "believing" whatever you wish, but you cannot invent facts to support your beliefs. Thats the definition of fantasy. Then you should try to keep your fantasies in your pocket (unless you give a disclaimer that youre a cartoonist or sci fi writer)

Didn't say there were no rules but this trial is too important to let anyone else set the rules for you. It's a trial without proof positive in either direction so chosing them requires careful consideration. You are free to toss reason and logic out the window if you like (and many do) but I'm not comfortable with that.

You seem to be the one engaging in "dont look at the man behind the curtain", not me. The rules of evidence are quite simple and , of course I cannot always convince myself of the correctness of the data that derives from experiment and discovery. However, no matter your protestations to the contrry, youve not been able to surround yourself with any real facts or discoveries that attend your worldview.
You seem to base your entire conclusions upon a credo, unyielding, unwavering, and unfalsifiable .

I belong to a gang of folks who derive conclusions solely from evidence and the evidence often requires that we modify our theory. You seem to belong to a gang that, despite any evidence, your conclusion ("theory") is eternally unchangeable.

Im really amazed at how you seem to think that you dont toss logic "Out the window" . Your colleagues at the Discovery Institute have. Theyve quietly given up on "Writing convincing papers" on the presence of intelligence that is "driving life in the universe"
Their "wedge plan" seems to have lost its edge that was so certqin when it was announced almost 20 yers ago. Yet the IDers still insist on trying to edge under the tent and teach ID "theory" (whatever that means), to kids in public school science classes.

Im busy enough keeping that Midieval mindset from invading the public schools of my state. Now the IDers, since theyve lost in court two times in the last 15 years, have taken to sneaking their "theory" into charter schools (which receive at least half of their curricular money from the state)

SOunds boring as hell, your way.

I remember that there one time when I was a kid and me and some homeboys was hangin out on the back porch talkin about God and ****. We was makin fun of his sorry ass, bigtime. Course, every now and again, I would look up in the sky to make sure there wasn't no lightning bolts headin my way.

My Mama overheard a lot of it. Afterwards she sat my little ass down at the kitchen table, and said: "Looky here, Layboy: It's good if you want to hang out with people who seek the truth. But be sure to run like hell if you ever run across someone who has found it. Remember that, boy."

I still remember, like she done told me to. One reason I kinda shy away from Richard Dawkins, I spoze.

I just shy away (after I read his latest works) cause hes an embarrasment.
I read his stuff with just the same interest that have when I slow down for a car wreck.

farmerman: "... when the mutationists have a way to explain away the retention of "fossil genes" that memorialize the mother species (say in geographically isolated species or those that adapt to extreme environments or those that have "descended" from dinosaurs), Ill be first in line to listen and discuss."

If a mutation confers some advantage, but it occurs in a specimen that, for entirely unrelated reasons, doesn't have reproductive priority, it won't get passed along enough to spread through the population at large.

For example, improved vision that allows deer to see predators better, but which occurs as a mutation in a smaller or less aggressive buck, won't become widespread because mating is a privilege reserved for large aggressive bucks who are able to dominate their rivals in ritual combat determining mating privileges.

So we might expect a large number of adaptive advantages to be lost this way, since mutations are random but alpha males are by definition rare.

A population local to an alpha male who develops an advantageous mutation is likely to spread it as widely as his seed, since his genes will be passed on to an increasingly large part of the herd with each new generation.

An isolated population is unlikely to independently develop the same random mutation, particularly if it is smaller than the main group, as is frequently the case with geographically isolated niche populations, as well as niche populations making the most of extreme environments.

So far as I know, almost all dinosaur species were wiped out in the extinction event.

As for old (inactive) genetic material, "memorialize" suggests some far-sighted intent on the part of molecules. We could say more objectively that old genetic material is retained (not necessarily in a "backup" format, but usually with a lot of corruption and overwriting, much like old sectors of a hard drive that are no longer linked to the file directory).

I also wonder why, as an adaptationist, you don't describe these "fossil genes" as non-adaptive, since they've been retired in favor of mutational versions or new genes altogether, and by the ipso facto logic of adaptationism, that must mean they're adaptationally inferior. (Though I myself see nothing opposing the idea that genes which perform superiorly relative to a particular environment may go out of service for reasons unrelated to their adaptational utility.)

So, we could rephrase the question: Why is (putatively non-adaptive) genetic material retained?

Pretty clearly for reasons involving molecular biology. A better question is, why would you expect them to be snipped out rather than carried along? Molecular biology isn't goal driven, it's driven by blind mechanical processes. There is no wise editor, there are biochemical reactions that cause a greater deal of no longer useful genetic material to be accumulated over time.

Quote from Dawkins:



http://www.thewire.com/global/2013/09/richard-dawkins-defends-mild-pedophilia-again-and-again/69269/

The man needs EVIDENCE!

In the meantime, he has an "expectation" of what is "probable," especially if... It's possible his "expectation" is well-founded, of course. But, without "evidence from psychologists" who can possibly know?

I think you can speak with greater certainty. Actually I was talking about chickens .

We cant ignore "fossil genes" since they seem to parallel an environment that occured during the parent species "heyday". Im thinking geograpghic isolaqtes where several species have "jumped" genera as they evolved .
Extinction is only getting its true day in the field in the same fshion that epigenetics are "todays flavor".

Mutations provide a nice "bank" of genic variability that can be selcted in or out ,.

One thing that supports an adaptational viewpoint is that evolution (whether selection based or not) ALWAYS works on an existing morphological feature of the phenotype. This suggests that the gene does NOT create the morphological or physiological feature, it merely records it.

farmerman: " We have entire orders and classes that have gone extinct. I would say that ALL of these classes have demonstrated a MINUS 0.1 adaptation coefficient as a minimum."

The extinction event wiped out pretty much everything on land that wasn't small at the time. How a fluke asteroid that exterminated all of the species hardy and well adapted enough to flourish up to that point, demonstrates poor adaptation, I don't know. I guess if your mathematical definition sets that coefficient negative in response to such an event, simply because they have been exterminated, it's more of a synthetic, tautological proposition than an empirical measure.

We've also seen a number of species exterminated because of nothing more than hunting fads and cultural superstitions (e.g., orientals who create a demand for rhino horn).

How does that support an adaptational viewpoint, Farmer?

Someone once said that
"A SPECIES THAT IS SO WELL ADAPTED TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT IS ALSO HELD PRISONER TO IT"

A SPECIES THAT IS SO WELL ADAPTED TO ITS PRESENT ENVIRONMENT IS ALSO HELD PRISONER TO IT

And one that aint well-adapted? I guess they're "held prisoner" to their non-existence, eh?

I suppose I aint "well-adapted" to the possibility of heading out to live on the planet Venus for a good-long spell. I HATE when that happens! It would be so cool...... As it is, I'm just a prisoner to the planet earth.

No wonder people reject God, ya know? He's so cruel.

If God made me, and if he was truly omnipotent, he coulda made me so I was adapted to live anywhere I wanted. Venus, Jupiter, the Sun, the center of a black hole, so I could mosey around and check things out, alla that.

If he was a good guy, then he woulda done that.

Tells ya all ya need to be knowin about whether God made me, right there, don't it? I don't need ask no creationist nuthin.

farmerman: " One thing that supports an adaptational viewpoint is that evolution (whether selection based or not) ALWAYS works on an existing morphological feature of the phenotype."

I'm not following you here. The sickle cell trait genes that confer increased immunity to certain communicable diseases which are (or were) common to sub-saharan Africa also confer increased vulnerability to genetic disease based anemia. The mutation would thus appear to be simultaneously advantageous and disadvantageous, in different respects. And neither the immunity nor the vulnerability to disease is something I would characterize as morphological, a term I would reserve for alterations of physical form.

"... This suggests that the gene does NOT create the morphological or physiological feature, it merely records it."

Again, I don't follow you. It's quite universally agreed since the time of Lamarck that the phenotype is an expression of the genotype: if I start with an ordinary physique and become a bodybuilder, my enhanced musculature isn't written into my genes much less passed on to my progeny.

The exception would be environmental factors (some chemicals, radioactivity, etc.) which cause gametic damage or damage to cells performing administrative or regulatory functions related to reproduction.

Ya think, PP? Darwin himself believed that acquired characteristics were heritable.

In the 1950's, a rather distinguished evolutionary biologist called Waddington came up with a theory of "genetic assimilation." More or less the same idea.

These days, most every theorist agrees that epigenetic traits are heritable.

Now, if you're trying to say that such impossibility was posited as a fundamental, inviolable basic tenet of Neo-Darwinism, then of course you're right (the Wiesmann barrier, Crick's "Central Dogma," and alla that there)