Explain this, creationists...a Liger!

[Art Vandelay]

The continuing problem is that all mutations to date that that we can actually study (rather than theorize about -- using of course "evaluation of evidence and application of reason") are micro not macro.

Of course; that's by definition. If we can study something, creationists put it in the "micro" category. We will never be able to study "macro" evolution because as soon as something considered "macro" is explained, it goes into the "micro" category, rather than being a "macro" thing that is explained. It is simply a God of the gaps argument given slightly different terminology.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I've always wondered, when you people talk about "macro-evolution" what do you mean? Do you mean the same thing as "speciation"? If not, what do you mean? I find it in nearly all creationist spam, but without a definition. Is it a secret? Like the definition of "species" I propmted you for? The crickets have been deafening ever since.

I think it is used by them as a Get Out Of Jail Free card. It is played whenever an obvious laboratory or field observation shows evolution happening. At this point the card is played in the attempt to cut this piece of information out from what is defined a priori by them to be the insoluble conundrum of speciation. At the moment the card is played, I don't think it "means" anything at all in the semantic sense of conveying information it is a tool designed to end the conversation before real thinking might be required.

I, too, would be fascinated to see a creationist's definition of species/kind/macroevolved form because, given a firm definition the counter-examples and refutations of their position can then be produced. I think they may genuinely believe that speciation cannot be explained so use their GOOJF card in the firm conviction that it is legitimate. Where the hypocrisy enters is the point at which they are asked for a properly defined hypothesis which can be tested, when the ignorant are not honest enough to admit they don't know how to answer and the wilfully disingenuous refuse to give a satisfactory answer.

I found the following on my hard drive, I wrote it a couple of years ago and posted it at the BBC Science forums. Reading it again, and though I say so myself, I think it is a good refutation of Creationism drawn from its own words. As with some of the best arguments against homeopathy, often the neatest way to do the job is to take their own views seriously and follow them through to their logical consequences. Both woo medicine and Creationism can be shown quite easily to contradict simple everyday observations of the real world without the need for copious and subtle experimental and observational data.

"We still have no proper answer to the number of "kinds" on the Ark, but the subject is being explored as part of the new pseudoscience of ‘baraminology’ in which the term baramin has been invented to conceal the problematical concept of a "kind". So now the Ark contained a certain number of baramins instead.

Lets us take as a given for now the following estimate of the number of baramins...;

>>How many holobaramins will there be3,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, or more? At this time the best very tentative answer is, "probably in the low thousands"<< From The Creation Research Society. Where "holobaramin" is the particular term for creatures connected by common ancestry. In other words, this is the maximum number of independent roots for all of the current branches of living creatures.

Today we have many millions of separate species. So there has been a radiation in diversity from "the low thousands" to many millions in the last 4500 years. This is a several thousand-fold increase in diversity! Evolutionary theory has no problem with increasing diversity by many-fold, because we have millions of years for it to occur. Creationists require that this happens in 4500 years.

1. This radiation has occurred during historically recorded times! Of this there is no evidence.

2. Creationists complain about the lack of "transitional forms". Never mind that this is a spurious argument when applied to evolution over millions of years, it is certainly a problem if you have species in flux over mere thousands of years. There should be transitional forms everywhere. There are not.

3. What is the alternative? New species would have to spring fully formed in either one or a few steps over a handful of generations. The creationists have a big problem with any mutations, because they keep telling us that they "reduce information content", cannot imagine how they might be advantageous, and keep saying that evolution has a problem by requiring multiple synchronised mutations to occur when a new species forms. Now we have them either having some hugely rapid evolution or new forms springing forth with all their adaptive changes in place at one go, multiplying what they claim to be problems by many orders of magnitude!

So, the creationists require all the same things to happen as do rational scientists, but require that their "microevolution" achieves this from their base stock of Ark "kinds" in 4500 years. Of course it’s actually less time than that because reliable records now extend back several hundred years and none of the required processes have been reported in that time.

Seems to me that "microveolution" beats the Darwin’s evolution by a mile, well by a factor of several thousand! All we need now is the evidence, unless it turns out that the creationists have supplied their own reductio ad absurdum for us."

Edited for typos

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, the neutral and then the slightly advantageous ones that appear as two-step mutations at the next stage. Yes, I know that real speciation can arise by more radical gene swicthing and splicing than simple point mutation. My point is to wonder about what ties a species to its particular spot in the genetic landscape given that it did have to move at some time to get to that spot in the first place.

Still thinking about the non-critical mutations. I suppose we have quite a lot of variety as it happens. Sheep and cattle may be horned or polled. Cats may be black or tabby or ginger or whatever. Then I look at the polydactyl situation (neutral, no great advantage but also no barrier at all to living successfully and reproducing) and think, why aren't there a lot more things like that? Why not more neutral variations, mutations that don't die out because they're at no particular disadvantage?

Unless their environment changes, they are already around the optimum, and any deviation from it is likely to be punished.

This isn't at all obvious to me. There are lots of changes that aren't particularly disadvantageous, and come to that there are plenty "design faults" in existing species that don't seem to be getting fixed.

Maybe it's just that the breadth of variation that's already there is so familiar to us that we take it for granted. And even the classic "design faults" (like the large intestine of the horse) are "good enough" to keep the species going from generation to generation.

Hmmm, what would happen if some weird mutation arose which produced an equine hind-gut that didn't impact and didn't get colic, or a human appendix that didn't get appendicitis? Maybe not a lot, because although both conditions are common and frequently fatal, the fact remains that most individuals still don't suffer from them, and even those that do have probably reproduced before the dreaded abdominal catastrophe hits.

I think it's useful always to consider just how much "selection pressure" any given alteration produces. Often it's not much, one way or another.

Rolfe.

 

[MRC_Hans]

As usual, coming in late won't deter me from having my say ....

On fuzzy speciation definitions: Species boundaries ARE fuzzy; this is a natural result of evolution. There will never be an unambiguous definition of speciation versus variation. And there needs not be for science. It is creationists who have the need for a sharp boundary here.

On mutations: First of all, mutations don't reduce information content, quite the contrary. Basically, mutations are chaotic, and there is more information content in chaos than in order (somewhat counterintuitively, but that is how it is. Do remember, however, that "information" does not equal "useful information").

As to why mutations don't result in wild speciations; all organisms have various mechanisms that tend to countereffect that. When you think of it, this is a logical result of evolution: Species that are stable will last longer. This slows down evolution, but does not stop it.

As for selection pressure: Well, no doubt various archaic traits survive. They may have been advantages somewhere along the evolutionary history of a species, but as long as they don't pose a cost, they may persist, long after having outlived their purpose.

Hans

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Why not more neutral variations, mutations that don't die out because they're at no particular disadvantage?This isn't at all obvious to me. There are lots of changes that aren't particularly disadvantageous, and come to that there are plenty "design faults" in existing species that don't seem to be getting fixed.

On the one hand, most evolution happens over such long periods that the variations from one generation to the next have to be minuscule, so small in fact that they are dwarfed by the variation within a species at any given time. On the other hand I don't think it is ever possible to point at some small variation and assert that it is inert with respect to natural selection because even teeny tiny advantages or disadvantages worked out over a sufficient number of generations can accumulate to produce a large net change over time.

The problem is that we cannot cast forwards in time and say how evolution will pan out. The narratives that we can impose on evolutionary history are dangerously seductive and make us feel that if we were poised 10 million years ago that we could have foretold where we are now. In truth we know that we could not do this, but that doesn't affect a subjective sense of the inevitability of history. I think this is pretty much the line of reasoning in Henry Gee's book Deep Time.


A view I have long held in connection with this is that all history is victor's history- we get to write the tale by mere virtue of the fact that we are here to tell it. It is a variation of the anthropic principle, but with the added burden that we find it hard to shake the belief that we are here because our ancestors were best rather than that we are here because we are here. It's a very pervasive principle- Shakespeare is regarded as the best English dramatist, but this has the unacknowledged very probably false assumption that there was not a better one who just happened to die at the age of 5 from smallpox.

 

[mummymonkey]

Still thinking about the non-critical mutations. I suppose we have quite a lot of variety as it happens. Sheep and cattle may be horned or polled. Cats may be black or tabby or ginger or whatever. Then I look at the polydactyl situation (neutral, no great advantage but also no barrier at all to living successfully and reproducing) and think, why aren't there a lot more things like that? Why not more neutral variations, mutations that don't die out because they're at no particular disadvantage?This isn't at all obvious to me.

Maybe Kitty doesn't like potential mates to look like freak cats from hell?

More seriously, unless a mutation makes an organism more likely to pass on its genes, will it not get diluted in the gene pool pretty quickly? I think even beneficial mutations would have a good chance of dieing out in a large population.

 

[neutrino_cannon]

Which new discoveries are uppermost in your mind, other the ongoing discovery that using "undefinable [sic] species" as a key part of your classifications seems to lack mathematical and predictive rigor expected in other scientific theories?

What comes immediately to mind is the classification of theropods. The issues lie not so much at a species level, but the organization of the group has been revised many, many times within the past ten years owing to many new additions (who would have guessed that theriznosaurs are actually theropods?), several serious reviews at their classification, not the least of which being Greggory S Paul's work, and renewed intrest in dinosaur/bird intermediates thanks to the Chinese feather factory.

The old system of theropod organization was hopelessly inadequate to represent the evolution of the impressive beasts. According to the classification of the 1950's, theropods divided nicely into carnosaurs and ceolurosaurs. You had your big ones, and you had your small ones. Nowadays you have myriad terms like "avetheropods", "tetanurae", "maniraptora" and other arcane terms to categorize the many forms of flesh eaters. Oh, I forgot, theriznosaurs are theropods now, looks like they weren't all predatory.

There remains much work to be done, I still want to know, for example, exactly where theriznosaurs and oviraptors came from, and don't get me started on herrerasaurs. I would love to know what the forelimbs of alvarezsaurs were for, but somehow I think a plausible theory will never be produced. It's still better than what was before, we would still consider dromeosaurs some sort of overspecialized ceolurosaurs rather than the aberrant secondarily flightless birds they are!

 

[Dr Adequate]

Dear me, what a lot of chit-chat from hammegk. Let's see if there's any question or comment of substance in it. Yes. One thing.

And, gosh, spiders are spiders. Give me a hint; do any of these "groups" involve things that are obviously not just a bit more mutation resulting in (dare I say it, intraspecies) microevolution?

A hint, you say? Would "yes" do?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Dear me, what a lot of chit-chat from hammegk. Let's see if there's any question or comment of substance in it. Yes. One thing.

A hint, you say? Would "yes" do?

I'd still like to see how a creationist explains an expansion in species diversity of between 1,000 and 100,000-fold during a period that has historical records. Hang on a sec', let's refer to my parish's record in the Domesday book concerning the local livestock holdings: "1 doz cowsheegoats. Pannage- 2 doz horspigoceroses. Gamekeeper: 2 cags and 3 dots for the hunting of verminous shrewratvolbits." Maybe not.

Given that no answer will be forthcoming for that, I am also interested in the motivations of creationists. It seems a fragile and poor sort of religious faith that has to stick its fingers in its ears and go, "La La La" to avoid science. They present a particularly weak version of the "God of the gaps" argument. Its problem being that by defining God's scope for operation to precisely those areas of ignorance of a particular believer or group of believers, if that ignorance was ever to be eroded by new learning then their version of God gets asymptotically smaller. Ironically, it is also an amazingly arrogant version of religion. It is tantamount to saying that "the extent of my personal knowledge and understanding defines absolutely all that it is possible to know and God's scope for miraculous intervention exists solely outside boundaries of rational human knowability set by me and my sect".

I know it is a cliche, but reviving Church's attitude to Galileo is a pretty crooked path to getting new converts and when something awkward like heliocentrism comes along there is a danger that for those narrow minds the whole house of cards can come crashing down.

And finally, faith is supposed to be just that. Trying to anchor it to cod-science rather negates the point of the exercise as well as making it vulnerably contingent on human fallibility.

 

[hammegk]

A hint, you say? Would "yes" do?

No. Cite your best example, and we will both have a good laugh as you convince a disinterested third-party layman that a bacteria is not a bacteria, or a fly is not a fly, or ... you get the idea.

neutrino_cannon, yeah, fossils are fun to fool around with; could I say a lizard is a lizard? Next you'll be beating me with archy's wings.

On fuzzy speciation definitions: Species boundaries ARE fuzzy; this is a natural result of evolution. There will never be an unambiguous definition of speciation versus variation. And there needs not be for science.

If one classifies butterfly collecting & classification as science, sure thing.

It is creationists who have the need for a sharp boundary here.

I doubt we have any creationists here who post regularly, if at all.

BSM, It would be fun to discuss species diversity; now if we could ever come to grips with an actual definition of species. Notice there has been some discussion lately on that little problem.

 

[FreakBoy]

Both tigers and lions.

Well I see Lions, Tigers AND Bears.... but no Tin-Men or Scarecrow.

Tangent: If the Tin-Man was really made of tin, would he have had the tensile strength to wield that axe?

 

[Dr Adequate]

No. Cite your best example, and we will both have a good laugh as you convince a disinterested third-party layman that a bacteria is not a bacteria, or a fly is not a fly, or ... you get the idea.

Oh, look, another stupid straw man! Obviously neither I, nor any scientist, wishes to argue that "a bacteria is not a bacteria, or a fly is not a fly". However, by representing this as the position of science, you manage to evade its actual content and duck the real issues. The fact that you have to do this shows just how secure your position really is.

Now, about clades: turtles and tortoises are a clade. Tortoises, turtles, and crocodilians are a clade. Totoises, turtles, crocodilians and birds are a clade. Good enough? Or do you maintain that a giant tortoise is the same species as a hummingbird? Now the thing about crocodilians, chelonians and birds is that:

(1) It's remarkable. Besides other birds, there's nothing closer to a turtledove than... a turtle. However, the saurian origins of birds were predicted by evolutionists before the discovery of Archeopteryx. "Archaeopteryx, the primordial bird, was supposed to show the transition from a reptile to a bird. This fossil bird with a bony skeleton and claws on the ends of the wings was scarcely distinguishable, if at all, from the reptilian dinosaur Compsognathus. But Archaeopteryx possessed an extensive coating of feathers whose impressions in the rock are remarkably perfect in a specimen discovered in 1861, two years after publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, and another in 1877. Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's champion, had predicted that just such a creature must have existed and had prophetically described its details. Huxley drew a sketch of a hypothetical primordial bird. It was a feathered creature with reptilian teeth, claws on the ends of the wings, scales on its body, and a long, lizard-like tail."

(2) It is born out by the many intermediate forms in the fossil record, of which Archeopteryx is only one, or rather, seven, examples.

(3) The cladistic analysis from the fossil record is confirmed by genetic analysis.

Science 3 , Nuts 0

 

[hammegk]

Oh, look, another stupid straw man! Obviously neither I, nor any scientist, wishes to argue that "a bacteria is not a bacteria, or a fly is not a fly".

Glad to hear it, especially you being a scientist & all.

I notice you overlooked mentioning the example I requested.

However, by representing this as the position of science, you manage to evade its actual content and duck the real issues.

Err, yes. "The Real Issues". And they are?

Now, about clades: turtles and tortoises are a clade. Tortoises, turtles, and crocodilians are a clade. Totoises, turtles, crocodilians and birds are a clade. Good enough?

Okey-dokey.

Or do you maintain that a giant tortoise is the same species as a hummingbird?

I don't.

Now the thing about crocodilians, chelonians and birds is that:

(1) It's remarkable. Besides other birds, there's nothing closer to a turtledove than... a turtle. However, the saurian origins of birds were predicted by evolutionists before the discovery of Archeopteryx. "Archaeopteryx, the primordial bird, was supposed to show the transition from a reptile to a bird. This fossil bird with a bony skeleton and claws on the ends of the wings was scarcely distinguishable, if at all, from the reptilian dinosaur Compsognathus.

So most textbooks say.

But Archaeopteryx possessed an extensive coating of feathers whose impressions in the rock are remarkably perfect in a specimen discovered in 1861, two years after publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, and another in 1877.

That may be fact, and is certainly strongly conjectured.

Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's champion, had predicted that just such a creature must have existed and had prophetically described its details. Huxley drew a sketch of a hypothetical primordial bird. It was a feathered creature with reptilian teeth, claws on the ends of the wings, scales on its body, and a long, lizard-like tail."

Indeed. Do you think a plethora of similar sketches exist that have not had the good fortune (ie. lottery win) to have been verified by fossil evidence.

(2) It is born out by the many intermediate forms in the fossil record, of which Archeopteryx is only one, or rather, seven, examples.

Seven is certainly better than one. Are any as well (or better) preserved, detailed, and complete as the original?

Will we discuss Eohippus next?

(3) The cladistic analysis from the fossil record is confirmed by genetic analysis.

Would I be correct in assuming such genetic analysis leading to clade verification is at heart a large-number-of-variables multivariate analysis? Or stated otherwise, is there a cause/effect problem?

Science 3 , Nuts 0

LOL. You're a legend in your own mind.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

BSM, It would be fun to discuss species diversity; now if we could ever come to grips with an actual definition of species. Notice there has been some discussion lately on that little problem.

So, how many species are there now, by any sensible definition of your choice? How many Biblical "kinds" were there? Again, any sensible choice of your own will do.

I was browsing a 30-yr old creationist book a few weeks ago and it was trumpeting the irredeemable tizzy that evolution was in thanks to the absence of any intermediate species that would show something so fatuously unlikely as a land-borne mammal returning to the ocean to become a whale and that since such an intermediate form was so clearly absent evolution could not be true. Oh, dear, what has now been found. Now, I am not saying this one example over-turns your case all on its own, but it is a great example of the danger inherent in making your faith dependent on your ignorance of science.

Having not come across your posts before, notwithstanding your lengthy posting history, I nonetheless find it interesting to see how well you fit the typical pattern of creationists- asserting the errors of evolution but being unable to bring any genuine arguments or data to the table and, in stonewalling on awkward questions, revealing a remarkable lack of faith in the rectitude of your own position.

Go on, surprise me- how many current species are there and how many Biblical "kinds" were there?

 

[hammegk]

I was browsing a 30-yr old creationist book a few weeks ago and it was trumpeting the irredeemable tizzy that evolution was in thanks to the absence of any intermediate species that would show something so fatuously unlikely as a land-borne mammal returning to the ocean to become a whale and that since such an intermediate form was so clearly absent evolution could not be true. Oh, dear, what has now been found. Now, I am not saying this one example over-turns your case all on its own, but it is a great example of the danger inherent in making your faith dependent on your ignorance of science.

You suck at cold reading.

Having not come across your posts before, notwithstanding your lengthy posting history,

Yeah, I try to stay out of the way of homeopaths (and psychopaths who follow them around).

I nonetheless find it interesting to see how well you fit the typical pattern of creationists- asserting the errors of evolution but being unable to bring any genuine arguments or data to the table and, in stonewalling on awkward questions, revealing a remarkable lack of faith in the rectitude of your own position.

Again, you suck at cold reading, and if I were you I wouldn't try for the $million until you get your pychic predictor working a bit better.

Go on, surprise me- how many current species are there and how many Biblical "kinds" were there?

Biblical? Who cares? Are you a nut?

Current? Even Ed wouldn't know ...
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/FelixNisimov.shtml

At the level of detail available in dna, and ignoring the "can't breed" stricture, there are about 6,000,000,000 species of homo sap living today.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I notice you overlooked mentioning the example I requested.

You're lying or nuts. That is indeed what I gave you. And, if "okey-dokey" denotes acceptance, you accepted my example. What's your problem?

The rest of your gibble... do you suppose you've made any sort of point, and if so, can you say what it is? Or can anyone else say what it is? I like "a legend in your own mind" though, coming from an incoherent bumbler with a set of halfwitted misconceptions about science and a collection of stupid straw men who thinks that he is smart enough to find out where all those stupid Nobel Laureates went wrong. It's a kick. Do it again!

 

[hammegk]

You're lying or nuts. That is indeed what I gave you. And, if "okey-dokey" denotes acceptance, you accepted my example. What's your problem?

hammegk: And, gosh, spiders are spiders. Give me a hint; do any of these "groups" involve things that are obviously not just a bit more mutation resulting in (dare I say it, intraspecies) microevolution?

I got first a "yes", then some blather about turtles and turtledoves, and whacked with a feathered reptile.

But let me guess; we went from verified intraspecies mutations -- flies to flies, etc -- and then I'm supposed to buy the turtle to turtledove, because, I suspect they have been fit into a clade backed by dna similarities. Do I have it now?

For another unanswered question:

hammegk: Would I be correct in assuming such genetic analysis leading to clade verification is at heart a large-number-of-variables multivariate analysis? Or stated otherwise, is there a cause/effect problem?

The rest of your gibble... do you suppose you've made any sort of point, and if so, can you say what it is? Or can anyone else say what it is? I like "a legend in your own mind" though, coming from an incoherent bumbler with a set of halfwitted misconceptions about science and a collection of stupid straw men who thinks that he is smart enough to find out where all those stupid Nobel Laureates went wrong. It's a kick. Do it again!

Now you have a nice day, hear?

 

[cajela]

And, gosh, spiders are spiders.
and also:
But let me guess; we went from verified intraspecies mutations -- flies to flies, etc -- and then I'm supposed to buy the turtle to turtledove, because, I suspect they have been fit into a clade backed by dna similarities. Do I have it now?

OK, I have to point something out: all spiders are not of one species! Nor are all flies. A species is a very specific type (ahem). Fruitflies, vinegar flies, housefiles, sandflies, horseflies - all different species. Indeed, there are even many species of houseflies.

You seem to be confusing species with higher level groupings such as genus or family. I suspect family - that seems to correspond most closely with the popular large groupings. All kangaroos are one family; all lilies are one family. However, there are several families of spiders, so perhaps you mean not family but order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider

You also don't seem to be proposing any alternatives. You are knocking evolution with standard old broken creationist arguments. Saying that people are misreading you offers no clue as to what you actually do believe. So far, I can only judge you as being an ignorant creationist, by the "looks like a duck and quacks like a duck" argument. "Ha Ha, I'm not what you think" is no answer.

Finally, the spelling flame merely showed your ignorance of the world outside the US, and greatly detracted from any credibility you might be trying for. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rigour

 

[hammegk]

OK, I have to point something out: all spiders are not of one species! Nor are all flies. A species is a very specific type (ahem). Fruitflies, vinegar flies, housefiles, sandflies, horseflies - all different species. Indeed, there are even many species of houseflies.

Have you read the currently ongoing Question About Evolution thread, where a discussion of "species" is (or was) underway?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider

Er, please don't confuse Wikipedia with scholarly sources worth citing.

You also don't seem to be proposing any alternatives. You are knocking evolution with standard old broken creationist arguments. Saying that people are misreading you offers no clue as to what you actually do believe. So far, I can only judge you as being an ignorant creationist, by the "looks like a duck and quacks like a duck" argument. "Ha Ha, I'm not what you think" is no answer.

I'll accept 'ignorant' in that each day my lack of knowledge becomes more apparent to me. You deem me a Creationist. So what? I'll bet you've been wrong before this at least once.

Finally, the spelling flame merely showed your ignorance of the world outside the US, and greatly detracted from any credibility you might be trying for. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rigour

Some nuts can't even speel 'color' without screwing it up.


Dr.A. re
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hammegk: Would I be correct in assuming such genetic analysis leading to clade verification is at heart a large-number-of-variables multivariate analysis? Or stated otherwise, is there a cause/effect problem?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

forget it.
http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/full/201/2/193
tells me more than I wanted to know. (ie. yes, and yes.)

 

[cajela]

Have you read the currently ongoing Question About Evolution thread, where a discussion of "species" is (or was) underway?

No-one is that thread is trying to argue that a species is the same as a genus or a family, or for that matter, an order, phylum or kingdom. Just you, with that "a spider is a spider" and calling it intra-species change. Spiders belong to thousands of species, from many genera, and even several families.

Er, please don't confuse Wikipedia with scholarly sources worth citing.

I would have suggested a high school biology text if I could find one on line. This is hardly a "scholarly" problem. It's very basic. Check your own preferred source. Any encyclopedia will do. Or would you like maybe a garden centre catalogue? They also distinguish genera and species, and the better ones group by order as well.

This pretty much settles the issue, I think.

Yup. Settled. You are indeed a moron, and this post and my last were indeed a waste of time. Hey everybody, the argument is settled

You deem me a Creationist. So what? I'll bet you've been wrong before this at least once.

Nope, I don't. The distinction may be subtle. I said that that is how you must be judged based on how you present yourself, and that "Ha Ha, I'm not what you think" is no answer. If you want to appear to be something else, that's your problem. Actually, now I deem you to be a troll.