Creationist complaints about Darwinists wanting to stife debate is more a reflection of projection than it is of reality. Take for instance this recent report at the DI Media Complaints Division. In it Rob Crowther complains that “some Darwinists are seeking to stifle debate.” This statement was made on a blog that has disabled its comment feature. To me, the lack of comments on the DI’s blogs signals that they are not interested in running a true blog, but in pretending that they do. It is much like how they like to pretend to be doing science.
Creationist are using this and other marketing tactics to brand what they do as “science.” and to re-brand science as something like a religion. Remember, they are waging a marketing campaign. There is little else they can do with no evidence on their side. It should upset you.
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What’s the big deal? It’s quite unscientific to discard theories…I mean, we embraced the theory that a Martian flood carved that landscape, when their isn’t a drop of liquid water on the planet, yet we reject out of hand the idea of a global flood on earth, on which 70% of the planet is covered by the stuff? That’s got to be funny to any resonable person. And let’s face it, evolution isn’t the slam dunk we think it is. I’ve been to their sites and have seen the quotes of some of the great evolutionists of our (and all) time that they use in defense of their theories.…and there’s problems. Why not bring the problems out in the open so we can solve them. Wouldn’t a doctoral candidate be more likely to tackle an evolutionary problem if that problem were in the forefront of scientific thought, and if a resolution of that problem would assuredly bring fame, fortune, and lots of research grants?
I’m no scientist, but I love science, and subscribe to every scientific mag that’s not over my head. What I do know is that we’ve killed about a million generations of fruit flys in the lab trying to replicate (with all of our intelligence) something that looks like evolution, and all we’ve got to show for it is more flys.
Let’s put it out there! Maybe the publicity will stimulate some movement in the areas that we’ve been shoving to the back of the closet.
Evolution isn’t the slam dunk we think it is? Reed, what are you thinking?!?!?!
Dave, it is entirely scientific to discard theories. That is what science is about, discarding explainations when they no longer work. We discard a global flood as the explaination for geological features because not only is there no evidence that it ever happened but there is evidence against it having occured.
Evolution is based on physical evidence. You won’t find this evidence lurking in quotations or popular science mags. You find this in real scientific papers.
You talk about fruit flies. But have you ever actually worked with fruit flies? Fruit flies are their own highly structured genus. Your statement is like saying that despite millions of generations of our ancestors, we are still apes. Nothing new there.
Evolution never claims that fruit flies will ever stop being fruit flies, just like we haven’t stopped being primates.
Fruit flies are still fruit files; they are also still dipterids, insects, arthropods, bilaterans, animals, and biotes.
Humans are still humans; we are also still great apes, primates, mammals, amniotes, tetrapods, osteichthyes, gnathostomes, vertebrates, chordates, deuterostomes, bilaterans, animals, and biotes.
Reed:
You lost me on dipterids…but I get the general gist and think I understand your point. And I’m in agreement that there is a lot of technical and non-technical evidence that points to evolution. My frustration lies with the apparent(to me)retreat by evolutionists in the media. I’ve watched many news segments over the past three months that have expert (supposedly)guests on both sides.
The creationists, ID boys, whoever, get up to the mike and say they’ve “observed” that complexity is a clear trait of intelligence. Well, I’m a MechE, and you know what, I observe that too, every day. Nothing that I’ve ever observed builds itself. The fine people at Seti know that when they get a complex signal there will be intelligence behind it. That makes sense to me.
Then it’s our turn at the podium, and our guy can do nothing but babble on about religious zealots, separation of church and state, school prayer, etc., etc. So they give each guy 20 seconds, and our boys look ill prepared, and they usually completely dodge the questions, and the other side comes off looking like the rational ones.
So my point now, as with my original…when we get the 20 seconds…why aren’t we talking about evidence? Wouldn’t evidence crush the movement?
And if there isn’t enough there to snuff the question…how is saying “nature created” any less dogmatic than saying “a supreme being created”?
So until there’s a better answer to the question, “How did nature create?”, that can be understood by the general public, I say lets hear it all…both sides…good and bad.
It may not be a retreat from the media by scientists, it may be retreat from scientists by the media. CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC chooses who they invite to comment on their “broadcasts”, which more accurately could be refferred to as “narrowcasts” these days.
My area of expertise is criminology, so I know it goes on in that arena. Everytime anyone wants to talk about Megan’s Laws they interview John Walsh or Marc Klaas: both fathers of victims, not criminologists. And they both say Megan’s Laws are GREAT! When in truth they are terribly broken wastes of time and money that often increase rather than decrease the danger to children. But nobody will ever learn that through the popular media. Not because Criminologists shy away from the limelight, but because the media doesn’t want real scientists, they don’t want Professors from John Jay, they want the charismatic and sympathetic fathers of victimized children. They don’t want the truth, they want the sensation.
That is why media evolution debate centers on prayer and not on science, middle america changes the channel when they hear science, but they put down the remote for sex, violence, and god. It’s what sells.
Wouldn’t a doctoral candidate be more likely to tackle an evolutionary problem if that problem were in the forefront of scientific thought, and if a resolution of that problem would assuredly bring fame, fortune, and lots of research grants?
I think you’re on to something here. But I think that doctoral candidates immersed in the study of evolutionary theory probably have a pretty good grasp of both issues at the forefront of scientific thought AND those lurking around the fringes. More so than the lay public, at any rate. So. What does it tell you when doctoral students and professors (of evolutionary biology) aren’t leaping at these “problems”? Because you are definitely right about one thing–if you could show large chunks of evolutionary theory wrong, you would be a superstar.
Tiffany wrote: So. What does it tell you when doctoral students and professors (of evolutionary biology) aren’t leaping at these “problems”?
That’s why I’m encouraging the debate. Could it be that mainstream evolutionists have ditched micro evolution for macro evolution?
The latest material I’ve read from the world of microbiology suggests that the DNA/RNA mechanism rejects mutation. Research seems to indicate that nature does everything in her power to keep her cells static. Adaptability and variation are strong and robust, but mutations which would lead to new body designs and organ structures are, observationally speaking, rejected.
So, from a non scientist perspective, the “how” question in the evolutionary mainstream is being ignored in favor of “lookey here…see what evolution did!”
I’m much more interested in “how” we arrived at the incredible diversity of life in the cambrian when scientific study is showing stasis as the driving paradigm in observational microbiology.
Hopefully, the debate will lead to more microbiological reaserch in favor of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol archeological studies. Archeology has more media appeal, but isn’t it time to figure out the how and why?
I am a geneticist, and I have no idea what you are trying to get at. There are complexes which identify and correct errors in DNA replication. This reduces the mutation rate, but does not eliminate it. (Eliminating mutation is not a good trait.) This has been known for a very long time.
I hear this often from anti-evolutionists, but I have yet to find one that could tell me what would qualify as a “new body design” or a “new organ structure.” Evolution is not a process that constructs features de novo. Everything it produces is derived from existing features.
Reed:
Perhaps you could direct us to some papers that deal with this issue. These are the topics that need to be discussed in the media, IMO.
We need experimental evidence for:
1)An existing feature that evolved into another feature.
2) A existing feature in bacteria or single cell organisms that could lead to bones, brains, etc.. For instance, it seems reasonable that a cell wall could evolve into skin…we’ve all heard about the light sensitive spot/eye connection…but what about the other cells…where is the starting point?
It just seems to me that if evolution is the explanation of all life…it should be robust, active and fairly reproducible in lab situations, at least at the cellular level. And, if it’s not reproducible in the laboratory, perhaps you could give us an indication of why.
I’ve been down this road with several people before. They all denied that what was shown was another feature. Unless you can give me exact criteria for distinguishing “existing” from “another,” I’m not going to spend my time trying to satisfying goalposts that can be moved.
You’re asking for evidence, yet you don’t know enough about the science to even ask a meaningful question. This question makes no sense. Bones and brains did not evolve in bacteria or single celled organisms, why are you looking for their precursors there? Ion pumps are probably the best connection of bacteria to bones and brains that I can think of right now.
It is not reasonable that a cell wall could evolve into skin, because not only is skin a complex organ of dead and living cells, but it like all animal cells lacks cell walls.
Reed:
I’m sorry…I probably shouldn’t have posted so often here…and I’ll leave you scientists to your science.
I still support the debate…because evolution is not at all clear to me, and it seems that if evolutionary theory is as strong as scientists make it out to be, pointing out the strengths to the general public in an open environment should be encouraged.
Stifling the debate seems to be having an adverse effect in court of public opinion.
Dave, you should be supporting science education, not a political debate in which fake science is givin more standing than actual science.
Thanks for the tip Reed. I’ll just move blindly forward, swallowing all the tripe the scientific community serves up on the platter.
My apologies for opening my mind to other possibilities. I was unaware that scientific inquiry should be restricted to the prevailing theories (we all know scientific theories have never been proven wrong). I didn’t think that truth was a question of majority rule.
Reed, why do I have a tailbone? Did God put it there to punish me for being Polish, so that everytime I fall on my ass there is something for me to break?
Dave, an open mind is wonderful. The problem is that you have demonstrated a serious lack of understanding about modern biology. As an educator, I see nothing wrong with that. It gives me something to work with.
However, you seem to not understand this about your self. This lack of knowledge leaves you open to manipulation by people who want to use politics and religion to manipulate how the public sees science. They use fake science to trick you into believing that there is something to their movement. That they have an alternative idea that needs to be heard. There is simply no scientific basis and no scientific effort behind anti-evolution. Evolutionary biologists have examined the claims of ID and have concluded that they are little different from Paley’s natural theology, which Darwin helped establish as baseless.
You’re a Mechanical Engineer, correct? What if I were to tell you that mechanical engineering needs to be open to the idea that machines don’t require power to run, but can be run on prayers. Mechanical engineering should be open to studying the ability of machines to run on prayers. Wouldn’t that be a very affordable way to solve our energy crisis?
Machines running on prayer? That’s almost as odd an idea as precision nano-machinery self assembling itself from randomly strewn about raw materials using an undirected energy source. Oh, wait…
P. B.,
I find it funny that you appear to want to take a dig at evolution, yet have so little clue about what it actually entails that you can not do it properly.
“self assembling itself”? I’m curious, could you self assemble someone else?
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