Scientific Urban Legends

I think you missed the same point as farmer.

Why the hell would the order matter?
I’d be just as dubious if you claimed a whale became a small land dweller instead of the other way round.

Sounds on point to me. Sorry if it ruffles your feathers.

Hey, how come nobody has mentioned the myth about the white/black spotted moth evolution myth during the industrial revolution?

A classic case of forcing the 'evidence' to fit the theory.

Well, that is what this particular piece of data would suggest.

And since you said they were just about identical genetically, what does that say? Macro horizontal gene transfer? Pretty fucked up Genera I’d say.

Genetics and your interpretation of bones do not match up.

Really? that is your conclusion?? At what point do you quit reading things that challenge your worldview, and why do you do it??. Remember, you are the one who loudly stated tht MACRO EVOLUTION was an impossibility and all Ive done was to provide one example of where modern genomic reading has concluded that, wooly mammoths, late mastodons, and modern elephants are of the SAME biological family but each represents a separate genus and several separate species. It seems to me that most of the scientists who know of what theyre seeking, feel that , if one were to make an elephant, starting with a mammoth genome isnt exactly "Starting with a catfish now is it"??

Svante Paabo did an op ed about cloning nd evolutionary mechanics, using the newly sequenced Neanderthal genome (It was called "Nenderthals are People Too'', implying thqt uwing the genome where availble, hq reveled a lot bout volutionary mchanics.

If Ive read your posts accurately, youve said that ID was more a creative force (my words), that occured at the start of life qnd was "pre programmed" (Again my words).

Doesnt the creation of mammoths(or any other genus ) by ID require a constant intervention since the adaptive environment keeps changing by rules of geology.?? Where do you fit on that now?
Since the DNA has been sequenced from Mamut, Mamuthus, Loxidontia, and Elephas, we see an almost identical sequence, and the rules of volution seem to apply pretty well, Mammoths didnt succeed in the generational wars but Elephants did.

The Proboscideans , which we have good evidence as the entire Order of animals that contained and evolved the elephants are a structurally related group that extends back to the late Eocene and all share several key structurl fetures in their "piles of bones". These structures are so good that we use em as geological markers for beds that, throughout the world, contain specific minerals of interest.

So, doesnt the geologic fact that all the animals of the order, superseded each other and disappear with time, never to return.Instead they leave us remnants of themselves in a later "common ancestor" in a related order and family populated by derived species eg Moreotheria to Palaeomastodon who are clearly the common ancestor of over 600 species of proboscidieans through the Oligocene to the Pleistocene(Qt least to most practicing paleontologists . (The interesting things about those times is that they parallel worldwide climate and vegetation changes growth of temperate forests , appearnaces of huge grasslands and savannas and abrupt changes in species to include animals of open ranges (and of later periglacial areas)

When I fit the EVIDENCE of time, geology, as well as fossils and now genetics, Im flumoxed to see how people still fail to grab up the available data and marvel at what we ve learnt in 150 years.

Id suggest that you may wish to get a copy of Ben Mezrichs popular book,WOOLY and Beth Shapiro'sHow to Clone a Mammoth-Th e Science of De-extinction (Its a little more techy but approachable,).
I dont know what to say about your :disbelief" in fossil evidence. Ive been on its peryphery for 40 years and am still amazed at how we utilize the science daily to find deposits of certain types of petroleum ("wet gas", natural "additive", .As well as specific alkalis and uranyls).
The tools of paleontology have been instrumental in taking our "hit rate" in drilling for oils from about 20% in the 1930's to nearly 98% , and our hit rate of rock lithium to 100% today.

Horizontal gene transfer does NOT renounce cience, its a transposon mechanism that can be found in the quick acquisition of stuff like immunity or susceptibility (in the non-neutral asppect)
Also Im not sure where you were going when you invoked MACRO-HGT

Sorry about the Macro HGT thing, that was an attempted joke. I thought you would be the only one to get it.

Everyone is affected by confimational bias to some extent and we are looking at two extremes in our case : ) But this is great fun.

I'm just as flumoxed by you failing to see the logic in my first reply above. Here we have two animals from two different Generas (by your bones method) and yet they share the same genome. This does not make sense in evolutionary terms. There should be massive genetic differences if the belong to different Genera.
You jokingly implied that it would only make sense if an intelligent designer decided that he needed a modified version of the first and made a slightly modified version.
I was agreeing with you because that IS logical. Not saying it is fact, but it is logical.

Have said this many times before - I don't 'disbelieve' the fossil record. I only disagree with the currently popular interpretation of it.

And I am no less impressed with our ability to discover things than you. All those coal, oil, lithium, etc. deposits are so ******* handy! It's almost like they were arranged for us. It would have been a bitch if we had been around before that stuff was ready.

I'm willing to accept ALL the evidence but not the so called 'settled science' conclusions without question.

No thread about car movies?

That was a joke, no need to go start a thread.


If you want to rescue the thread, you'll probably need to wait until the tangent dies down, then start making on-topic posts at that point.

He didn’t even bite on the Peppered Moth Myth.
I don’t think he’s seriously interested.

The two different animals from two different genera (but same higher taxa), doesnt at all say anything but that they are related by omething in their distant paths. Youseem to lan toward special indiviual Creation where I think that data and evidence strongly explains their evolutionary relationship.
Te genome of the mammpth is different by only a few areas than the moern elephant. AND, as youd probably guess, the differences are ADDITIVE and EXAPTIVE. That is, all changes made in the modern elephant genome were changes or additions TO the genome of the mammoth. There are a few (like 4 out of the total 2B base pairs) that are entirely new but the "fossil" mammoth genes still exist in the genome (Like the remaining portions of exons that lie in the human genome on xhromosome 1 that are remainders of genes of chromosome 1 and 2) of a bonobo (In fact almost the whole chromosome 2 has been incorporated into chromosome 1)

The biggst "splice" in the modern elephant is the incorporation of sveral hundred base pairs onto a mammoths code for haemoglobin.

You would expect that in either of our POVs.

IOW, true, true, but irrelevant.

what does "biting" on a peppered moth story prove. IT IS a mere example of selection , from among three already EXISTING forms of moth. I always am amazed at how many folks still believe theres a gotcha in there.
When Ehrlich first posted about industrial melanism, he hoped folks qould recognize that the 3 forms of peppered moths already existed.
Im amazed at how that fact, herein first blathered about by gungasnake, was seemingly missed by the Creationists.
Whatever ya want to know about Erhlich and peppered moths, lemme know, Ive got a greaat bibliography of seemingly bright non bio or geo scientists whove totally missed the point.

The 'biting' post was only tangentially related to the moth.
The subject was really about Max.
What can you tell me about him. I’m more interested in people.

But I call BS on your 'everybody knew about the moths'. There was quite a stir about it at the time.

Oh! I just remembered your favorite myth bust.
There was NO Cambrian Explosion!

Yep, It wS more of a CAmbrian "fusee", (we use really weak deflagration light offs to collect ganister rock so it can be broken from other layers.


I say that "everybody knew" with a degree of caution I suppose. When Id ever give the question bout what it all meant. most of my kids "d give me the answer Id discussed with em and had em read about. (It really was NOT an important aspect of a semesters study, it was maybe 15 minutes of "How we can get two opposing answers out of one phenom". Now which one would you think is right??

I was beating my head in to try to explain the obvious to gungasnake ( re Biston betularia and how populations of the various color phases of this critter were due to industrial atmospheric effects. It was studied to death and the Creationists tried to use it as a mans to deny tht evolution occured (When the whole process was never used by The authors (Ehrlich and Holm) to conclude that evolution had occurred. The evolution into the tri colored forms had already occured prior to the industrial revolution.

As far as MAX-hes a physicist nd I believe was involved in education also. I think hes now in industry or research. I often agree and less often disagree, but Im not sure why someone like Izzy seems to be stalking him . I think those two wont wanna go have a drink .

Totally. They'll probably be besties in the next life.

The idea that water running down a sink would turn in a different direction depending on whether located on the north or south hemisphere has been proven false. The Coriolis force is not strong enough to have an effect on that.

It's mostly based on the shape of the basin.

A pity... The story was so beautiful.

One scientific urban legend that I kinda like, is the idea that science is necessarily deterministic, whereas in fact modern science -- e.g. quantum mechanics or biology -- is non-deterministic.