Wholly Natrualistic Alternative To Neo-Darwinism?

[Reality Check]

Except here the fraud was being continually exposed by creationists but also others and yet evos still kept using Haeckel and relying on his claims.

Wrong: the fraud was being continually exposed by scientists from the day that they were first published or at least from 20 years later - Sedgewick (1894).

Wrong: Evolutionary theory has never relied on Haeckel's faked images. That was 1 set of images in a few editions of his book (fixed by the 1896 edition).
Evolutionary theory does examine embryonic images. These are from a large number of sources including Haeckel's accurate images and modern photos.

It is only creationists who are insanely obsessed with the fraud and the debunked "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" theory.

It is only creationists who are so ignorant that they do not bother to read the books that use Haeckel's faked images to illustrate his fraud !

 

[Reality Check]

Yet according to textbook authors, Levine and Miller, one of which is or was a biology professor at Brown, they were unaware that the drawings were faked?

Levine and Miller, one of which is or was a biology professor at Brown were aware that these drawings were faked, and that his theory was debunked.
N.B. Their textbook does not include Haeckel's actual drawings.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Haeckel and his Embryos (Update written on 12/21/97 by Ken Miller )[/FONT]

As you read this, you may wonder why evolution should be limited to changes tacked on at the end of the process of development. So did evolutionary biologists, and Haeckel's idea was quickly discarded. In fact, evolution can affect all phases of development, removing developmental steps as well as adding them, and therefore embryology is not a strict replay of ancestry. Nonetheless, many of the stages that embryos pass through can indeed be understood as remnants of their evolutionary past....
This idea has been pushed back into the news recently by the news that Haeckel's drawings of embryonic similarities were not correct. British embryologist Michael Richardson and his colleages published an important paper in the August 1997 issue of Anatomy & Embryology showing that Haeckel had fudged his drawings to make the early stages of embryos appear more alike than they actually are! As it turns out, Haeckel's contemporaries had spotted the fraud during his lifetime, and got him to admit it. However, his drawings nonetheless became the source material for diagrams of comparative embryology in nearly every biology textbook, including ours!

(emphasis added)​

 

[Reality Check]

So why were they used then? Moreover, why did even a Brown biology professor continue to use them in his textbooks when there was widespread criticism and evidence the drawings were fakes for over 130 years?

That is because this Brown biology professor dioes not use Haeckel's actual drawings in his textbooks.
This Brown biology professor drew his own drawings based on Haeckel's drawings in his explanation of what seems to be comparative embryology not evolution.
ETA Page 283 is actually about how evolution influences comparative embryology, i.e. that "The similarities of vertebrate embryos show that similar genes are at work."

This Brown biology professor then realized that there were better images and fixed it

In 1998 we rewrote page 283 of the 5th edition to better reflect the scientific evidence. Our books now contain accurate drawings of the embryos made from detailed photomicrographs:

 

[Reality Check]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12475051
...
Think about it.

You need to think about it, i.e. think about what you read.
Haeckel's ABC of evolution and development is not a paper about Haeckel single set of faked images that was addressed and fixed within a few decades.
Haeckel's ABC of evolution and development is a paper about Haeckel's entire body of work which is maybe thousands of images. These (and his corrected images) for evidence for evolution, i.e. the embryos start off similar to each other and that the different development paths are evidence of the evolution of these paths.

I will also point out that this is you repeating your inability to learn as in the other threads on the topic:
Humans Didn't evolve from Apes - How Do We Know?
ID/Creationism challenge
Evolution a hoax?
Stupid Christian Article on Evolution
and of course ANTPogo excruciatingly detailed thread Ernst Haeckel's embryological diagrams and biology textbooks

 

[Acleron]

No, I laid out very specific and substantial reasons to doubt ND as a sufficient paradigm to explain the emergence, evolution or creation of complex genomes.

Oh no you didn't. You have mentioned topics such as complexity and macroevolution, which you don't understand. That's reasonable because you obtained them from creationist sites and they don't understand them either.

The ultimate theory for me is not the issue. The issue is how one approaches and understands data. Science is limited but useful and this core, basic principle should not be corrupted. It's fine to have different models but the treatment of data is even more fundamental to good science.

And even here, you get it wrong. Science is not limited.

And you haven't shown any ability to understand data and evidence. Here and in other threads you have had evidence and data explained to you and why some of it can be accepted with high confidence and other parts are not so reliable. You have totally ignored those explanations and just dragged out the next topic from your checklist.

Then, some time later, you just trot out the same misconceptions, cherry picked data and quote mines.

You say that the ultimate theory is not the issue. Well, I'm not convinced that is the truth. If it was, you would deal more honestly with the points made.

 

[randman]

That is because this Brown biology professor dioes not use Haeckel's actual drawings in his textbooks.
This Brown biology professor drew his own drawings based on Haeckel's drawings in his explanation of what seems to be comparative embryology not evolution.
ETA Page 283 is actually about how evolution influences comparative embryology, i.e. that "The similarities of vertebrate embryos show that similar genes are at work."

This Brown biology professor then realized that there were better images and fixed it

So you agree. They WERE used just as I stated.

 

[randman]

Levine and Miller, one of which is or was a biology professor at Brown were aware that these drawings were faked, and that his theory was debunked.

No, they were not aware. They apologized and said like nearly every textbook, the images were used but took them out after the Richardson study and when they became aware of the fraud.

You keep saying they don't use the images. Yea, that's right. They did until 1997. They admit it. Why are you trying to whitewash that?

 

[Aridas]

By definition, eh?

Let's just assume for sake of argument that there is a Creator and Designer. Can we do that?

Or is that hypothesis ruled out "by definition"? If so, is that brainwashing?

That all depends. First, your argument/definition isn't remotely stringent enough to test. Try adding to it enough that testable and falsifiable predictions could actually be made. The generally proclaimed untestable, completely supernatural versions? Those don't even reach the level of a hypothesis in the first place. It could be true, but science cannot say anything either way. In short, possible, but totally unscientific. So, no. It's not and cannot remotely be brainwashing.

Let's assume that there is a Designer and the evidence suggests that or indicates that. If we are committed to saying it is anti-science to even consider such a proposition, are we then creating a fallacy that science cannot go where the evidence leads?

See above.

If your argument is that science can accept a Designer if there is evidence, then say that. Science can entail Intelligent Design but you don't think the evidence is there, and then we can talk about the evidence.

You know, this is really getting tiresome, especially since you're derailing the thread, entirely. Either way, again, see above.

Really? Is that a scientific comment? If God exists, by definition in science terms as part of reality, you'd have to say the concept of God is by definition natural, right?

Funny, you're betraying your lack of a basic understanding of what science is... and demonstrating a rather limited mind, in the first place.

By theological definitions or doctrine, one can say God is supernatural, but by scientific ones, the concept is a natural one.

Amusing. If it's untestable and unfalsifiable, it's not something science can say anything about. If it conceptually meets the definition of the word supernatural, it's supernatural.

This illustrates the juvenile nature of many in science. They adopt a theological and even specifically theological definition and apply that to science incorrectly without thinking. It's really sad because by definition, if there is a God or Designer that has done anything in the natural world, by definition the concept of God at that point is not a supernatural one, at least from a scientific perspective.

Amusing attempt to toy with words. Sadly, you seem to fail to understand the concepts behind them.

Maybe God is supernatural outside that range of activity but the whole concept of God intervening means from a science definition, that it is a potential area of study for science.

Not really. A potential area of study? Sure! Science? Hardly.

The idea God isn't by definition not real is a major error and corruption of science by evos.

Umm... What? I'm just going to assume that you meant is, not isn't, for clarity's sake and the sake of sentence construction. And no. Science doesn't say anything about God, except, at best, that such a being or beings may be unnecessary. Logic, on the other hand, has ripped quite a few God concepts to shreds. And shown that most of the others are so inherently unlikely as to have no good reason to believe in them.

Oh no you didn't. You have mentioned topics such as complexity and macroevolution, which you don't understand. That's reasonable because you obtained them from creationist sites and they don't understand them either.

Sounds about right.

And even here, you get it wrong. Science is not limited.

Actually, he got it right. By accident or recitation, presumably, since he really hasn't shown that he knows the basics, unfortunately. Science is limited to things that can be tested, for example. If something, by definition, can't be tested, it's not something that science can say anything about. This is actually one of the reasons why science is so useful, and why ID fundamentally fails any attempt to have itself called a science.

 

[Kotatsu]

Problem is everyone should have known Haeckel was a fraud.

Let me stop you there, and remind you of the last time we discussed this topic. I refer, specifically, to this thread, in which a collective effort was made to actually look through a number of biology textbooks that had been used at various universities, initiated by a formidable effort by ANTPogo.

I notice, incidentally, that your first appearance in that thread is to say that

It took over 130 years of sustained criticism just to get evos to finally admit the drawings were faked and even then they say they didn't know until 1997 or thereabouts.

which I understand to mean that although you can get all worked up and angry about evos not immediately admitting something was a fake and a fraud 130 years ago and drop this line of evidence for the validity of evolution and evolutionary theory, you yourself is not above clinging on to a claim that is proven to be false for eight months.

Where is the cut-off? How long, in your opinion, is a person allowed to cling on to claims that have been shown to be false? We know that 130 years is apparently too long, but 8 months is apparently alright. Further, we know -- or at least can assume, as your post contained no evidence for these authors being creationists or even "critics of mainstream evo practices" -- that for some reason, evos having criticized this Haeckel's evidence as fraudulent 26 years after their publication (Sedgewick, 1894), 51 years after their publication (Lillie, 1919), and 93 years after their publication (de Beer, 1951) somehow doesn't count towards criticizing Haeckel's drawings or as evidence that at least part of the evo community had admitted that they were at least partially fraudulent.

This leaves us with the following timescale for what you, randman, believes should happen with a claim once it is shown to be false (the starting point, except for randman, is 1868, with the publication of The Natural History of Creation):
8 months -- alright
26 years -- ignored/data unavailable
51 year -- ignored/data unavailable
93 years -- ignored/data unavailable
139 years -- outrageous!

However, there is more. From ANTPogo's excellent thread we learn that the following people had also disclaimed or criticized Haeckel's drawings:

Grove and Newell (1944); posts 9, 11
Meyer and Buchanan (Eds) (1968); post 24
Haeckel (1891); post 31
Rütimeyer (1868); post 34
His (1874); post 34, though the year was not provided in ANTPogo's thread. Randman gave it in post 1632 of this thread.
Bock (1969); post 62
Gould (1977); several posts

Naturally you would know about these examples, randman, as you have been shown them before. This alters the timeline above to:

0 years (months unknown) -- ignored/no data (Rütimeyer)
8 months -- alright (randman)
6 years -- ignored/no data (His)
23 years -- ignored/no data (Haeckel)
26 years -- ignored/no data (Sedgewick)
51 year -- ignored/no data(Lillie)
76 years -- ignored/no data (Grove and Newell)
93 years -- ignored/no data (de Beer)
100 years -- ignored/no data (Meyer and Buchanan)
101 years -- ignored/no data (Bock)
109 years -- ignored/no data (Gould)
139 years -- outrageous! (Richardsson et al.)

Unless this forms some sort of acceptable/unacceptable sine curve (and I cannot be bothered to plot this to test) where the "ignored/no data" merely represents the points at which the curve crosses the x-axis, and a paper published in between these data points would have been acceptable/unacceptable -- and I personally find this unlikely -- this suggests that there is a window of opportunity at work here. If a claim is found to be false, it is still acceptable to cling on to it (at least) eight months afterwards, but if you accept that it is false 6 years after the event, this will get you nowhere; it won't even register. However, when 139 years has passed, we come into another window of opportunity, where your criticism will register, and will be approved of.

Now, if you could just help me narrow this down a bit, randman. When does the first window of opportunity, when it is still acceptable to cling to a claim shown to be false, end? How long after a claim has been show to be false it is still alright, according to you, to maintain that it is correct? When does the period of being ignored begin? Will we have to wait 139 years before it gets unacceptable that you continue to cling to false claims?

When the internet came out, articles derided Haeckel as a fraud, and I had folks like you guys here insist it wasn't.

It would certainly have to be "folks like [us]", as I believe all the claims on who is fraud in this, as well as the previous, discussion(s) are twofold, and almost unanimously point in the same directions. Haeckel is one of them, however I cannot comfortably name the other individual until I have read up on the forum rules, and propriety will probably prevent me from doing so even if I would, technically, be allowed.

Evos stonewalled and insisted there was no fraud until 1997 and as you can see on this thread, evos are still stonewalling and smearing their critics falsely and trying to downplay the fraud both in FAKED DATA AND IDEAS.

Certainly, the collected papers referred to above, published by evos and criticizing Haeckel's pictures, if transcribed onto stone and suitably put together, would amount to a wall large enough to be seen from several nearby celestial objects. I do not find the fact that Haeckel is constantly referred to as having gradually changed his drawings in subsequent editions of Anthropogenie in response to criticism as convincing evidence that evos didn't criticize Haeckel's drawings until 139 years after they were published, until you provide evidence that all the people whose criticism Haeckel took into account when he changed his drawings in those subsequent editions, as well as the people referred to above, were creationists or, at least, "critics of mainstream evo practices", or, alternatively, you can show evidence that Haeckel didn't successively change his illustrations. If you have such evidence, feel free to present it at any time.

catsmate, exactly where have I lied? The fraud was continually exposed for over 130 years, first in the 1800s from numerous scientists including the staunch opponent to Darwin and Haeckel, Louis Agassiz.

And your claim, with regards to this, is that these numerous scientists who continually exposed Haeckel's fraud from the 1800s and onwards were all creationists or, at least, "critics of mainstream evo practices"? If so, please provide evidence for your claim.

So why were they used then?

You will find the answer to this question for at least some textbooks in ANTPogo's thread referenced above.

If it takes 130 years just to get them to listen and admit some data they are using is faked, what does that say about the field in general?

I refer you to the (sadly incomplete) timeline above, which shows that according to your own examples, as well as others I expect you are familiar with, as they were raised the last time we discussed this, it didn't take 130 years, but 0 years. Likely, by the analysis above, it is less than 12 months [because otherwise the criticism wouldn't have been published the same year (1868) as Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation"] but not less than 8 months, because that is the lowest known number of months when it is still alright, according to you, to cling to claims that have been shown to be false.

Keep in mind, evos didn't first expose Haeckel. That criticism stemmed from the creationist camp or scientists that would be called ID theorists today.

I take this to be an admission that either you have evidence either that Rütimeyer was a creationist or at least a "would be called ID theorists today", or that there were other critics of Haeckel before Rütimeyer published his critique in the same year as Haeckel published his "Natural History of Creation", as this seems to be the first critic of Haeckel you have referred to (in post 34 of ANTPogo's thread, linked to above).

If there were other critics before Rütimeyer, please list them. If it is Rütimeyer you refer to when you claim that the first exposure of Haeckel came from the creationist camp, or from scientists that would be called ID theorists today, please provide evidence for this claim. If you refer to someone who exposed Haeckel after Rütimeyer in 1868, I would very much appreciate it if you named that person and the year in which he/she published his/her exposure of the fraudulent activities of Haeckel.

Published by Richardson MK, Keuck G. in 2002. Richardson stated the following before the uproar of creationists and IDers saying I told you so.

Interesting that you should reference this article, which I assume you have read. In the list on page 511, Richardson and Keuck list the following published authors as having criticized Haeckel's drawings as fakes:
Rütimeyer (1868)
His (1874)
Brass (1909)
Keibel (1909)
Balfour (1876)

We recognize the two first two, of course, but the three last are new. They also mention that Marshall (1893) and Nordenskiöld (1929) also criticized Haeckel's drawing, but give no details. If we add them to the timeline above, we get the following:

0 years (months unknown, but between 8 and 12) -- ignored/no data (Rütimeyer)
8 months -- alright (randman)
6 years -- ignored/no data (His)
8 years -- ignored/no data (Balfour)
23 years -- ignored/no data (Haeckel)
25 years -- ignored/no data (Marshall)
26 years -- ignored/no data (Sedgewick)
41 years -- ignored/no data (Brass)
41 years -- ignored/no data (Keibel)
51 year -- ignored/no data(Lillie)
61 years -- ignored/no data (Nordenskiöld)
76 years -- ignored/no data (Grove and Newell)
93 years -- ignored/no data (de Beer)
100 years -- ignored/no data (Meyer and Buchanan)
101 years -- ignored/no data (Bock)
109 years -- ignored/no data (Gould)
139 years -- outrageous! (Richardsson et al.)

Thus, in order to be able to claim, as you do, that it took "130 years" for evos to start admitting that Haeckel had faked his drawings, while the first criticism of them came from the creationist camp, or from scientists that would be seen as belonging in this came, were they alive today, you will need to provide evidence that all these people listed above were either creationists or would at least be seen as such with modern eyes. I don't know about most of these people, but good look with Gould.

To me, that is more critical because all the theories in the world don't make real science if you have a pattern of accepting and promoting false data, for whatever reason.

So I assume you have abandoned Davison's god-based idea of front-loading, then?

No, I laid out very specific and substantial reasons to doubt ND as a sufficient paradigm to explain the emergence, evolution or creation of complex genomes.

You have also presented Davison's god-based ideas as an acceptable, or even preferable, alternative. This is the man, remember, who relies on ignoring all molecular and other biological data published after 1973 for his mechanism to work, and who believed that the process of giving the same name in English to two structures in vastly different organisms is evidence that they share a common genetic background, the genes for which are present in all organisms and have been since time immemorial, possibly because God put it there. The man, you will remember, who doesn't know what "homology" and "analogy" means.

On the question of alternatives, sure. Maybe there the data does not fully support any model, or maybe does, but it's hard to discuss unless the people involved know how to assess and deal with data.

Ah, this again. I thought I explained to you in minute detail when we spoke in March that our potential failure to understand data you present should have no logical influence on whether or not you should be able to present evidence for your claims. Only your understanding of the data on which your claims are based can possibly influence the selection you make for which evidence supports your claims. Whether or not anyone else is capable of understanding the evidence you have based your claims on is immaterial.

 

[Dancing David]

Let's just assume for sake of argument that there is a Creator and Designer. Can we do that?

No the burden is on you to show the evidence of design and creation if life is designed it was done so by a piss poor designer who made a huge number of errors and mistakes.

 

[Dancing David]

Really? Is that a scientific comment? If God exists, by definition in science terms as part of reality, you'd have to say the concept of God is by definition natural, right?

Not until you come up with a coherent theory and definition of god, then show how it reflects the data.

 

[Dancing David]

The idea God isn't by definition not real is a major error and corruption of science by evos.

The idea Harry Potter isn't by definition not real is a major error and corruption of science by evos.

 

[randman]

ANTpogo at first claimed the drawings were not used in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and then had to admit they were but said they were used in the 90s but not 70s and 80s but I showed textbooks and quotes from evolutionists admitting they were. Fact is haeckel's faked drawings were widely used just as Miller and Levine admitted until the 1997 Richardson study and they were even used in the scientific literature according to them.

Is there really any excuse for that?

Some textbooks have continued to use haeckel's drawings and his mistaken ideas as well.

Also, the fact that some evos also admitted they were fakes and said so doesn't help your cause. It shows the tenacity with which evos cling to myth-making as a community.

In terms of early critics, most were opposed to Darwinism and would be classified as either creationists or ID theorists today.

 

[steenkh]

ANTpogo at first claimed the drawings were not used in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and then had to admit they were but said they were used in the 90s but not 70s and 80s but I showed textbooks and quotes from evolutionists admitting they were. Fact is haeckel's faked drawings were widely used just as Miller and Levine admitted until the 1997 Richardson study and they were even used in the scientific literature according to them.

Is there really any excuse for that?

What is your problem with all of this? It has been shown that the fakes have been exposed a long time ago. If anybody are still using them, it surely is not the fault of the theory of evolution, because evolution is not at all dependent on them. If you could show some consequence for the theory of evolution of the use of these faked drawings, I could understand why you feel this derail is worthwhile.

As it stands, it just looks as if you want to use character assassination as scientific evidence against evolution, which it is not. It reminds me of those who seriously think that evolution must be wrong if Darwin was a racist.

 

[Lowpro]

What's even more annoying is that using the faked drawings doesn't mean they're presenting the idea of Ont Recap Phyl. The drawings aren't all fake either so what that really means is most of Haeckel's drawings are fine, a few are fudged. They DO provide good learning tools because of their nature of a timeline of embryo development as Richardson said in his paper.

There's a huge difference in the argument of "fake drawings" and "teaching lies" here, which is why seeing them conflated is a bit on the dishonest side to argue, but if it's all you got, baby I'm fine with that.

 

[Kotatsu]

Is there really any excuse for that?

I will give you a good excuse for that as soon as you give me a good excuse for not answering any of my questions or providing evidence for any of your claims. In particular, I am interested in whether or not Rütimeyer was a creationist (or would be considered one if he lived today), or if in the short time period between the publication of Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation" and Hütimeyers critique thereof there was a published critique by a person we can unambiguously assign to the category "creationist, or person who would be considered a creationist if he/she lived today". Do you have evidence for either of these possible solutions to the inconsistencies in your claims?

Some textbooks have continued to use haeckel's drawings and his mistaken ideas as well.

If so, I must assume from your blatant lack of comment on my last post, these drawings and ideas of Haeckel's are used in textbooks in spite of evolutionary science knowing and having known since the same year they were first published that they are faked. Evolutionary science cannot be blamed for this. The publishing industry and the individual authors of those textbooks can.

What the lists I included in my last post implies, is that at the very least, evos exposed and criticized Haeckel's drawings and conclusions 15 times before Richardson's et al. (1997) study [Rütimeyer, 1868; His, 1874; Balfour, 1876; Haeckel, 1891; Marshall, 1893; Sedgewick, 1894; Brass, 1909; Keibel, 1909; Lillie, 1919; Nordenskiöld, 1929; Grove and Newell, 1944; de Beer, 1951; Meyer and Buchanan (Eds), 1968; Bock, 1969; Gould, 1977]. Despite this, textbooks continued to include Haeckel's drawings. I will say that again: despite scientists having exposed Haeckel's drawings as falsifications as early as the same year they were published, textbooks persisted in including these drawings.

Note: you can still wriggle out of this by providing evidence that all of these people were actually creationists, criticized "mainstream evo practices", or would have been counted as creationists if they had lived today.

Also, the fact that some evos also admitted they were fakes and said so doesn't help your cause. It shows the tenacity with which evos cling to myth-making as a community.

Does it, now? So how many people active in a discipline have to have explicitly exposed a certain set of fake data before you are satisfied that the discipline-community have satisfactorily exposed it as faked? 1%? 10%? 100%?

Note, please, that your answer to this question, if you chose to give one, is immaterial. Your claim is twofold: criticism against and exposure of Haeckel's falsified drawings came from within the creationist camp (or from people who would be counted as creationists today), and evos took 130 years (more accurately 129, as I miscalculated in my last post) in order to acknowledge this.

The list I compiled in my last post adequately shows that many scientists did, contrary to your claims, criticize and expose Haeckel's drawings as fakes, as early as the very same year they were published. As you have provided no evidence whatsoever that any of these people listed in my previous post and above were creationists or would have been called so, had they lived today, I can only conclude, albeit tentatively, that this is not the case. Therefore, until such evidence is provided, I will hold that many evos criticized and exposed Haeckel's drawings as fakes, as early as the very same year they were published, which effectively counters your criticism that it took 130 years for evos to acknowledge that Haeckel's drawings were faked.

The matter then transforms from one of evos not criticizing into one of the criticism of evos not being sufficiently disseminated throughout the evo community. That is what your persistence in your claims, shown to be false 8 months ago, amounts to. Criticism existed, but not all textbook writers, textbook reviewers and textbook publishers, not all of whom were necessarily evos, were aware of it. This is certainly an unfortunate historical fact, but not one that can be blamed on evolutionary scientists.

In terms of early critics, most were opposed to Darwinism and would be classified as either creationists or ID theorists today.

So you claim, but I see very little evidence that Hütimeyer, His, Balfour, Marshall, and Sedgewick, Brass, Keibel, and Lillie -- to limit the list to authors who published when Haeckel was still alive -- were actually creationists, or held views on the origin of species that today would put them in the creationist camp. It may be sufficient in the Davison world where you live to simply claim something outrageous and it magically becomes the truth, but that is not the case here, randman. If you are to continue to claim that the first criticism against and exposure of Haeckel's drawings came from the creationist camp of from people who would today be classified as creationists, you need to either show the evidence that this is true, or simply write "I make facts up as I go along, so don't take me seriously" in your signature line. Al other responses lie firmly within the demesne of dishonesty.

 

[Wowbagger]

randman: It seems almost all of your arguments are negative towards evo theory. And, none of them are going anywhere.

Perhaps it would be better to build up positive arguments for your alternative framework or mechanism. I would like to see what I.D. or Front-Loading or Logos or whatever can accomplish without resorting to negative ad campaigns.

 

[randman]

randman: It seems almost all of your arguments are negative towards evo theory. And, none of them are going anywhere.

Perhaps it would be better to build up positive arguments for your alternative framework or mechanism. I would like to see what I.D. or Front-Loading or Logos or whatever can accomplish without resorting to negative ad campaigns.

There's really no use if you guys won't concede to what standard, mainstream evo theory is, such as natural selection, genetic drift and subgroup isolation being mechanisms by themselves reducing genetic diversity.

If you won't agree with such basic concepts, how can we move to new stuff?

For example, if we were to talk of front loading, the evidence for somewhat extreme genomic complexity very early on, compared to the organism, is positive evidence for that, but if you won't admit the data suggests that, what can we do? You gotta at least accept basic facts if we are going to assess different models for those facts.

As far as ID, it has proven more useful because it treats things like so-called "junk DNA" as likely to be functional, and of course, they were right on that. The predictive aspects of ID, meaning it's best to view things as designed, is much more useful than the ideas of NeoDarwinists, that things essentially arrive ultimately by chance through non-designed mechanisms.

I know you guys don't like the word "chance" but that's what you are saying. Sure, there are real mechanisms but no direction. ETA: I believe and many scientists like Grasse and others pointed out the same thing; that marsupial and placental pairs are obvious evidence for direction and so design, even if just some sort internal mechanism.

 

[catsmate]

When the internet came out, articles derided Haeckel as a fraud, and I had folks like you guys here insist it wasn't. Evos stonewalled and insisted there was no fraud until 1997 and as you can see on this thread, evos are still stonewalling and smearing their critics falsely and trying to downplay the fraud both in FAKED DATA AND IDEAS.

Citations required. You claims are worthless without substantiating evidence, given your habitual lies and distortions.

 

[Lowpro]

Randman, if that's what front loading is, that's not even evidence for ID, that's evidence for evolution. Consider an early organism that used early proteins which are easily assembled from readily available amino acids. IF this organism were anything like a bacteria, such as archaea, then its genome is going to be full of redundant genes for the same amino acids; that's just how bacteria do their thing.

Now, mutations can occur on any of the genes and possibly (actually, probably) alter one of the redundant genes into a new gene, and that's passed on easily. Continue this one, and let evolution keep working and you'll have a gestalt of what front loading is. Only, it's not as if these bacteria were "handed" these genes by anything in particular, it's just that natural selection and mutation WORK and holds true for the theory of evolution; the theory of front loading is just a misunderstanding of a gestalt appearance.

That makes MORE sense, doesn't require ID, obeys evolution, AND is theoretically demonstrable.

As for "junk DNA" that is a misnomer from IDiots who don't understand what DNA does. MANY people thought (biologists, evolutionists, IDers, ANYONE who doesn't understand molecular genetics actually) thought that if it doesn't code for proteins, then it is "junk" but that's just a lack of study. Evolutionary speaking if the DNA is there it probably does something. miRNA is encoded from introns which are excised from the sequence during mRNA processing. They aren't junk. If creationists want to say that's THEIR discovery, then I know many molecular biologists who will raise their eyebrows. I doubt neodarwinists will treat junk DNA with abandon but you've got to admit, when it comes to miRNA selectivity makes sense for the miRNA sequence of its gene that it's actually a part of, but then that same miR can also affect other protein translation sequences as well. There is a selective advantage, but it's not as commonly related as selective advantages found in cladistics, but then again molecular biology is a bit of a different beast with different rules; the rules of biochemistry, which allows 18-22nt long strands to attach to its antisense and degrade mRNA or halt protein synthesis, because that's just how biochemistry works.