Abiogenesis and Evolution

A poster over on Topix has gotten his head stuck on Abiogenesis and keeps using it to try and bash Science in general, and Evolution in particular.  Funny how the same arguments keep coming around, it's just new people making them as the old posters fade away.  Or maybe it's the same posters simply using different handles.  Makes little difference, their arguments do show a lack of originality.  The most amusing thing to me is how Creationists keep making the same arguments and then coming into places like Topix pretending that it's something new.  You have no idea how often I have heard the breaking news of Darwin recanting on his deathbed, how Pasteur's Biogenesis makes evolution impossible, or that thermodynamics disproves Evolution.  Fun, but pretty foolish!  Fifth-grade science pretty well settled those arguments for me, and that was with a priest and a lay-person as science teachers!

This particular Topix poster called himself 'Blitzkrieg' and usually refers to Abiogenesis as 'Mud to Man', which as anyone who understands what Abiogenesis is knows how foolish a comment that is to make.  He further brags about his misunderstanding by comparing Abiogenesis to other scientific theories, which again anyone familiar with the subjects knows that Abiogenesis is not a scientific theory, but an area of study containing a number of hypotheses.

Like most creationists, he fails to understand what that means.  He refuses to allow anyone to have a dissenting opinion from his own and he constantly refuses to be educated, even to the smallest degree, on the subject.  I will endeavor to express most of his misunderstandings here.

First of all, some terms.  I've written about them before (Arguments XIX -- Hypothesis, Theory, and Law and Words have meanings):

• Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true”. Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
• Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
• Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
• Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

At its heart Abiogenesis is an idea, a concept, and a process.  What it is not is a scientific theory or even a hypothesis.  Look at the terms, do any of them fit?  No, and at this point in time, they shouldn't.  We can't use any of those labels at this point in time.  One day we might have a Theory of Abiogenesis, in other words a well-established explanation of how life began.  We aren't even close yet.  But to offer religious explanations is ridiculous because religion is not science.  It can't be tested, measured, falsified, or predicted.  Religion is a belief without evidence while science is all about the evidence.

Evidence starts with something we observe.  It doesn't have to be absolute, but a known, repeatable observation.  For example gravity started with the observation that things fall down.  Nice piece of evidence.  The questions start with 'Why do things fall down?'  The study of gravity has have a number of hypotheses over time and we formed a theory, complete with some laws (how gravity behaviors under very specific criteria).  

What do we really know that would contribute toward Abiogenesis?  We know that life exists. There's a fact, one even Blitzkrieg cannot dispute.  We can make an assumption that at some point in the past life had a start.  Is it an assumption, certainly.  But since everything else that has occurred had a start, it's a pretty good assumption.  I'm sure Blitzkrieg will disagree, but even he cannot name something that did not have a beginning!  He might offer opinion, but the only things he can name are things that we don't know how it started.  There is nothing to say we won't know how it started someday.  Go back a few decades, centuries, or millenia and you will be able to name many things that the beginning wasn't known at that time . . . but we know much more today -- and not a single one them didn't have a natural process.  What we want to do is figure out how it started.  That's the term 'Abiogenesis' means, that area of study within Science.  Here's the definition from Wikipedia: 

"Abiogenesis or biopoiesis or OoL (Origins of Life), is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. It is thought to have occurred on Earth between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years ago, and is studied through a combination of laboratory experiments and extrapolation from the genetic information of modern organisms in order to make reasonable conjectures about what pre-life chemical reactions may have given rise to a living system."(Wikipedia: Abiogenesis)

What Abiogenesis does have is a number of potential explanations.  Yes, the matter is certainly not settled, but there are a number of possible answers, here are a few:

• Chemical Origins
• Clay Hypothesis
• Deep-hot biosphere
• Panspermia
• Extraterrestrial organic molecules
• PAH world hypothesis

Unlike Blitzkrieg, you can do your own homework and check them out for yourself. But the bottom line comes down to as of yet, we do not know how life started on Earth. It is within the realm of possibility we may never know to 100% certainty. But if the history of science has taught us anything it's that tomorrow we will know more than we do today. In one year, in 10 years, even in 100 years we will know considerably more than we do today.

Now what Blitz is doing is trying to use his strawman of 'mud to man' as a way to bash evolutionary theory.  He doesn't do a good job of it.  For one reason his mud-to-man is a strawman and not particularly applicable.  The other reason is while there is a relationship between Evolution and Abiogenesis, the theories are not dependent on each other.  For example I listed 6 potential Abiogenesis explanations above, none of them would have much impact on evolutionary theory.  For when it comes to evolution, it really wouldn't matter which one of them -- or a completely different explanation -- turned out to be true.  So basically Blitz is firing blanks.

In closing, please remember that Science closes no doors, not even the religious ones.  But we also don't spend much in the way of resources addressing religious ideas.  History has once again shown us that they tend not to pan out.  Just ask any honest intelligent design 'theorist'.  What scientific advances have been made using Intelligent Design 'Theory' . . . the silence will say more than I ever could.  I've asked the question before and while there were a lot of words said in their responses, they named absolutely nothing!  Oh they love to cite examples of humans using intelligence to design things -- but that's not what Intelligent Design 'Theory' is all about.

I also asked a number of Creationists what scientific advances have been made using Creationism and their responses like to list scientists in history who also believed in God, but at no time have they ever specified what scientific theories, or what parts of scientific theories, show an application of 'Creationism'. Funny, isn't it?  Well to me, anyway.

Google annoys Creationists :-)

Yesterday's Google Doodle apparently annoyed at least some Creationists.  The Doodle celebrated 'Lucy' and had a picture similar to a common evolution image showing the progression from early apes to modern man.  Here's an article on it, "Creationists Are Slamming the Google Doodle for Celebrating Lucy the Australopithecus"  Creationists can get pretty foul-mouthed on the Internet, can't they?

What I did find funny is just before I saw this article, I saw this on Facebook:

Each and every one of the comments about the Google Doodle, in fact just about every comment online that is anti-evolution tends to fall into this bias.  Yes, I know most Creationists will disagree, but when your objections are based on your religious beliefs, you are demonstrating a significant bias based on unsupported views.  One of my hobbies is posting about Evolution on Topix.  After several thousands posts over the past few years, I can't recall a single anti-evolution post that wasn't based on someone's religious beliefs.  They try and hide it, but when push comes to shove, it's their belief system that drives their comments, not any actual argument with the facts.

For example one poster keeps using the "Law of Biogenesis' as an anti-evolution argument.  When pressed he falls back on his religious beliefs and Sunday School teachings, but if you push even more he digs in his heels and repeats his personal mantra about the Law of Biogenesis . . . which doesn't even apply to the conversation.  Here is his latest post:

"Well, human from non-human evolution is still unobserved, no one still knows what biologically occurred to make a non-human now human, no one currently has an observation showing the origin of the genders, no ones still has an observation showing a naturalistic origin of life, still no violation to the law of biogenesis which is demanded if GOD doesn't exist, and no one has ever shown that if there is no GOD and the Universe has no meaning, then how are we able to know it has no meaning?....and still no explanation to a naturalistic origin to human consciousness....etc...etc...e tc...

Human from non-human evolution....what liberal bull shit. " (Topix conversion 'It's the Darwin crowd that lacks the facts in evolution debate')

The Topix conversation started in 2009 and has over 148,000 comments.  This particular poster has been posting the same sort of comments for years!  He will never change because he is convinced evolution violates his religious beliefs!  You almost feel sorry for him.  I don't!  It's one thing to be ignorant of science, it's another thing to be willfully ignorant!  He made his choice and I rarely offer pity for people who refuse to become educated on the subject.

Earthquake proves Genesis!

I'm glad Topix Evolution Forum came back up because I got to read this:

"The scale of difference is appropriate when comparing the Japan earthquake's measurable effects on the circumference of the earth and the catastrophic earth-changing forces involved in a global flood that covered the Himalayas. Genesis does indicate that God provided the uniformity of nature we enjoy including a 360 day year. Probably the Sun was a perfect 400 times larger and farther away than the Moon from us resulting in perfect Solar eclipses as well, among other things. We can also observe the current recession of the Moon's orbit which accomplishes this about 6,000 years ago but is impossible in an evolutionary timescale." (post 55731 from a posted called Urban Cowboy)

Isn't that just plain incredible? He was trying to justify how God originally made the Earth in a perfect 360 day orbit with 12 perfect months of 30 days each. I am surprised he didn't try and work in the perfection of a 360 degree circle, and 24 perfect hours of 60 perfect minutes each, and 60 perfect seconds in each minute. It was HILARIOUS. He started with an ICR article: Japan’s Earthquake Proves Noah’s Flood and took it to new lengths. It just cracked me up. For the record, my direct reply was:

"Anyone who reads this little diatribe will understand why I find you so entertaining. Look at the rationalization you had to build to justify this 'perfect' 360 day year. Without a single piece of supporting evidence except for a very liberal interpretation of Genesis (something you keep claiming is literally true), you re-defined the entire Solar System and completely ignored every bit of Astronomy theory, evidence, and observations. In order for this little POS to be true, you also have to re-define physics (including gravity, mass, centripetal force), geologic evidence (including continental drift) and even the climatological evidence of hundreds of ice core samples. It's mind boggling how much juggling of the facts you are willing to go through just so you can justify the existence of something that you are willing to say in a different breath cannot and should not require justification. You really need to take this on the road! Even Jesus is snickering at you right now! " (Post 55743)

Can't wait to see if he responds. I kinda doubt it. Urban Cowboy starts ignoring people who don't buy into his version of the Bible. Just because 99% of the Christians in the world wouldn't recognize it either isn't a deterrent. You really ought to wander by and join in, it's fun!

Topix Evolution Forum MIA?

I am hoping it some sort of technical issues, because while the rest of Topix seems to be working just fine, the Evolution forum seems to have disappeared. All I get is:

"The Topix page you requested was not found"

when I go to it or any of the over 5,500 posts I have made there. Like I said I am hoping for technical difficulties rather than political issues. I hadn't heard of any complaints over it -- well other than Creationist whinings when someone doesn't swallow their BS whole. but then you hear that in many more places than Topix. That's when it hit me, I have made over 5,500 posts on Topix and I would hazard a guess that over 99% of them are in the Evolution Forum. It's an interesting place, you might want to wander over when it comes back online! UPDATE: It came back up about 6 hours later. No reason mentioned, the posts all seem there. It was just interesting for a few.

The Unspecificness of Specified Complexity

Just a couple of days ago a poster on Topix tried to use William Dembski's Explanatory Filter as something real and useful. Now if you know anything about it, you probably know my feeling. Anyway, here is my reply. But that's not the point of this post. I find the timing funny because of what I found today. Please understand that the central core of his 'explanatory filter' is the idea of 'complex specified information', or CSI. The problem I, and others, have with CSI is no one seems to be able to calculate it.

So where would one go to get the low-down on how to calculate CSI? Why I would think Dembski's own blog might have a clue. So while wandering around I came across "On The Calculation Of CSI". So what does it tell me? That absolutely no one has a clue how to calculate the value of CSI. Someone called 'MathGrrl' wrote the post, but you also have to look at the comments, about 60 of them when I caught the article. It's the biggest collection of just plain junk I have ever seen. Have you ever seen people trying to nail jello to a wall? Well this blog post is the literary equivalent.

My advice it that before you can nail jello, you have to freeze it. That's what CSI needs -- it needs to be frozen, that is to be specified [pun intended]. Dembski needs to sh** or get off the pot and provide a clear, understandable, and repeatable explanatory filter that lays out CSI is a useful and usable fashion. His work needs to be complete, well supported, and understandable. There will be critics, and those need to be dealt with, not dismissed in his usual off-handed way. Mathgrrl's post is more an embarrassment than anything. If Dembski's filter and CSI concept is more than a philosophical argument, then this post should have never happened. But it did, which tells a very different story than anything Dembski has published in his marketing pieces . . a very different and telling story.

Arguments XX -- Scientific support for ID?

This is hilarious. Over on Topix a poster put this little missive forth:

There are 786 on ID related themes and I do not have the time to go through every one to see which include ID research.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&term=intelligent%20design%20creationism&log

So, according to them, there are 786 papers on ID related themes. OK, click the link and you see 8 . . . 8 whole papers. But if you look at each one you will find they are an ID related theme, but they are all anti-ID. LOL . .so sure he couldn't be bothered to look at all 8, but he claimed almost 100 times as many and none of them, NONE of them support his ID stance.

In case you are interested, here are the titles and the links description of each one.

Darwin, Dover, 'Intelligent Design' and textbooks.

ID ('intelligent design') is not science, but a form of creationism; both are very different from the simple theological proposition that a divine Creator is responsible for the natural patterns and processes of the Universe. Its current version maintains that a 'Designer' must intervene miraculously to accomplish certain natural scientific events. The verdict in the 2005 case Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover School District, et al. (in Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.) was a landmark of American jurisprudence that prohibited the teaching of ID as science, identified it as religiously based, and forbade long-refuted 'criticisms of evolution' from introduction into public school classes. Much of the science of the trial was based on biochemistry; biochemists and other scientists have several important opportunities to improve scientific literacy and science education in American public schools ('state schools') by working with teachers, curriculum developers and textbook writers.

You say you want an evolution? A role for scientists in science education.

We conducted a national survey of likely U.S. voters to examine acceptance of evolution, attitudes toward science and scientists, and opportunities for promoting science education. Most respondents accepted that life evolved, many accepted that it evolved through natural processes, and more favored teaching evolution than creationism or intelligent design in science classes. The majority ranked developing medicines and curing diseases as the most important contributions of science to society, and they found promoting understanding of evolutionary science's contribution to medicine to be a convincing reason to teach evolution. Respondents viewed scientists, teachers, and medical professionals favorably, and most were interested in hearing from these groups about science, including evolution. These data suggest that the scientific community has an important role to play in encouraging public support for science education.

The threat from creationism to the rational teaching of biology.

Most biologists outside the USA and a few other countries, like Australia and Canada, are under the impression that the threat to the teaching of biology represented by creationism does not concern them directly. This is unfortunately no longer true: the recent growth of creationism, especially in its pseudo-scientific manifestation known as "intelligent design", has been obvious in several countries of Western Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Poland, and it is beginning to be noticeable in Brazil, and maybe elsewhere in Latin America. The problem is complicated by the fact that there are not just two possibilities, evolution and creationism, because creationism comes in various incompatible varieties. Turkey is now a major source of creationist propaganda outside the USA, and is especially significant in relation to its influence on Muslim populations in Europe. The time for biologists to address the creationist threat is now.

Biological design in science classrooms.

Although evolutionary biology is replete with explanations for complex biological structures, scientists concerned about evolution education have been forced to confront "intelligent design" (ID), which rejects a natural origin for biological complexity. The content of ID is a subset of the claims made by the older "creation science" movement. Both creationist views contend that highly complex biological adaptations and even organisms categorically cannot result from natural causes but require a supernatural creative agent. Historically, ID arose from efforts to produce a form of creationism that would be less vulnerable to legal challenges and that would not overtly rely upon biblical literalism. Scientists do not use ID to explain nature, but because it has support from outside the scientific community, ID is nonetheless contributing substantially to a long-standing assault on the integrity of science education.

What is wrong with intelligent design?

This article reviews two standard criticisms of creationism/intelligent design (ID)): it is unfalsifiable, and it is refuted by the many imperfect adaptations found in nature. Problems with both criticisms are discussed. A conception of testability is described that avoids the defects in Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion. Although ID comes in multiple forms, which call for different criticisms, it emerges that ID fails to constitute a serious alternative to evolutionary theory.

FASEB opposes using science classes to teach intelligent design, creationism, and other non-scientific beliefs.

[This one didn't have a description, but I think you can tell by the title which side it supports!]

Creationism and evolution: it's the American way.

The recent ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover court case that intelligent design is a form of religion and cannot be taught alongside evolution in science classes in US public schools garnered worldwide attention. But why is the antievolution movement so powerful in the United States?

Creationism and intelligent design.

Creationism, the rejection of evolution in favor of supernatural design, comes in many varieties besides the common young-earth Genesis version. Creationist attacks on science education have been evolving in the last few years through the alliance of different varieties. Instead of calls to teach "creation science," one now finds lobbying for "intelligent design" (ID). Guided by the Discovery Institute's "Wedge strategy," the ID movement aims to overturn evolution and what it sees as a pernicious materialist worldview and to renew a theistic foundation to Western culture, in which human beings are recognized as being created in the image of God. Common ID arguments involving scientific naturalism, "irreducible complexity," "complex specified information," and "icons of evolution," have been thoroughly examined and refuted. Nevertheless, from Kansas to Ohio to the U.S. Congress, ID continues lobbying to teach the controversy, and scientists need to be ready to defend good evolution education.

I think my favorite one is "What's wrong with Intelligent Design?" Oh you gotta love the moxie of these people . .not very bright, but big cojones!

Even more on the Odds argument

What is it about calculating odds that people don't understand. It's not that tough, is it?

Over on Topix a real . . . Luddite (a classical reference) . . . posted this:

"Cliff From Florida wrote:

Natural Philosophy = Philosophy based on laws determined by philosophy.
Natural Science - Philosophy that passes the scientific method but usually gets disproven eventually anyway.
Whether you are a natural philosopher like charles darwin, or an equally philosophical natural scientist, you have no claim to any truth unless you get it from God. There is no truth except that which comes from Him.
Any scientific fact is only a scientific fact until new philosophies (evidence) are discovered (or crafted) that disproves it.
And any scientific experiment intended to conclusively dtermine any absolute truths, would have to require every single factor in the universe (an infinite amount) to be present, and the person doing te experiment would have to have infinite knowledge of every single factor from the infinitely smallest to the infinitelety largest. And with that knowledge, you would be able to determine an absolute truth. But modern science is no where near that. So all they do is guess using philosophies to try to understand life which are comstantly replaced with new and equally ignorant philosphies on a daily basis without comming at all closer to attaining absolute truth. Man lacks the capacity to determine absolute knowledge of all things in existance. We can't even remember 10,000 phone numbers much less complete knowledge of even 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,0000,000,000,000
things in the universe which is actually infinately less then infinity.
For example to make any absolute statement in truth about molecules you would have to have complete knowledge and understanding of not just 1 but every molecule in existance. And we lack that capacity. So complete knowledge of every molecule, atom, and quark, are just the beginning. We'd have to know everything else also. And that is not likely to happen through science/natural philosophy.
The Correct Way to go about it is to ask The One who made everything in existance, the one who keeps the trillions of laws that govern the universe not just every second, or every billionth of a second, or even a trillionth of a second, but the one who keeps the universe running constantly even to the innfinately smallest fraction of a second.
Still not convinced? Lets examine the odds that every law in the universe would remain constant even for 2 trillionths of a second. being that there are over 100 trillion laws in place we'll say just 1,000 laws governing the universe to make this more relative. So here are the odds.
for every .000000000001/second you will have to guess the correct random number between 1 and 1,000 and get the correct number every time.
in other words.
.000000000001
"Quick roll the 1,000 sided dice and hope it lands on 1, wow it landed on 1! Let's hope it does it again!"
.000000000002
"Quick roll the 1,000 sided dice and hope it lands on 1, wow it landed on 1! Let's hope it does it again!"
.000000000003
"Quick roll the 1,000 sided dice and hope it lands on 1, wow it landed on 1! Let's hope it does it again!"
And it would have to be correct at least a trillion times per second, and never guessing incorrectly even once.
This is the logic of the philosophers trying to support a Godless universe."

Anyone else see a basic problem here? Aside from the spelling and grammar errors (which I am frequently just as guilty of making) but the fact he is making a claim that the only reason the Universe works at all is because God has his hand on the control levels and keeps making minor corrections every few trillionths of a second . . . Sounds like the makings of a bad sci-fi movie. "OMG the laws of physics are out of kilter . .God must have fallen asleep at the switch! We're all gonna die unless someone goes and wakes him/her up! This is a job for 'Santa Claus'!" OK, maybe a bad spoof of a sci-fi movie.

OK, but on to my topic, the Odds, some simplified stats for Chad's (a less than classical reference) like Cliff here.

How does one calculate the odds or any occurrence. Well for your calculation to have any validity at all you need to know a few things. Let's take a simple deck of playing cards. 52 cards, 4 suits, ranging from Ace to King (or Two to Ace for purists), no jokers, nothing is wild. Take that simple deck and follow this simple recipe:

• Shuffle them up.
• Deal out one card
  
• Keep the card face down for now, no peeking.

Now, without knowing the value of the card, can you tell me the odds of any specific card coming up? Hopefully since we are dealing with 52 different cards, the odds are 1:52, that is there is one chance out of 52 possibilities of a certain card being dealt. If you disagree with that . .you really need some basic Math before you even try a stats class.

The real question is how do we know this? We know it because we know some very specific variables about our problem. We know there are 52 cards, we know we dealt just one out. The calculation is pretty easy. So let's continue:

• Before turning the card over, mentally determine which card you wish it to be, say the Ace of Hearts. Once again the odds of it being that card are 1:52.
  
• Turn the card over, and you can see (for the sake of argument) it is the Queen of Spades. Now what were the odds of this card not being the Ace of Hearts? You should realize that it was 51:52, in other words 51 chances out of a deck of 52 the card was not the one we wanted.

Again, we knew the odds of the card being the Ace of Hearts because we not only knew the number of cards, but the value of the one we were after. You have to know these things to be able to calculate anything other than a Wild-Ass Guess (WAG). OK, let's continue:

• Deal out another card, face down.

What are the odds of this card being the Ace of Spades? 1:51! We know this because we already removed one card, so the odds change because the number of cards is different. Of course the odds of it being some other card is 50:51. OK, let's try something else.

• I hand you a new deck of playing cards
• I ask you for the odds of dealing an 8 of Diamonds and you reply with 1:52
• I tell you the odds are 0, that dealing out an 8 of diamonds would be impossible.
  

Simply stated, it would be impossible because I gave you a single deck of Pinochle cards (48 cards, 9 to Ace, 2 of each suit. You see the odds calculation is meaningless if you do not know the parameters. So exactly what are the parameters folks like Cliff like to use? Who knows! They can make up anything they like, because they are meaningless!!

Let's try one last thing. Take the regular deck of cards, shuffle up all 52 and deal out the entire deck face up. You can see that the deck is in a very specific order. Now what are the odds of those cards being in that specific order? Pretty high, actually it's 52! (52 factorial), that is 1*2*3 . . .*52. A huge number.

I need you to think about a couple of things. This particular number doesn't do you much good. Before you dealt the cards out, you didn't have a specific order in mind, so the odds of the cards being in SOME order was actually 100%. The odds of them being in this specific order was astronomical. So if you are planning to run out and buy a Lotto ticket because you just beat astronomical odds . . . don't. You haven't beaten the odds. Sure the cards are in that specific order, but the odds only mean anything if you shuffle up the cards and deal them out again, looking for that same order.

Life is like that. We cannot calculate the odds of human beings being here right now because even if the odds seem high, they are meaningless, we are here. Since we are here, the number is worthless.

• From a Creationist point of view, it's worthless because you claim that we appeared, fully formed by act of God. So no odds can be calculated, or need to be calculated.
• From the Evolutionary point of view we are not the end point of some pinnacle of evolution, just a step along an undirected path. Without know the end point, we can't calculate the odds, so any number would also have no meaning. If the environment had been different, life would be considerably different than it is now!
  

I do have a couple of suggestions for those who insist on making the argument. First go learn what odds are and how to calculate them. Cliff from Florida, you need some Basic Math help first. Second please remember what is needed to determine viable and valid odds. If you don't have all the pieces then all you are doing is making a WAG, or even a SWAG. Defending such a calculation does little to enhance your own credibility.

Quote Mining

Outstanding post by GumbyTheCat, another blogger sincerely interested in preserving and improving science education. His topic is one that seems to plague evolution supporters in the Blogsphere and places like Topix, and that is "Quote Mining."

We've all seen it, quotes from popular figures taken out of context. I know I mentioned when I posted a review of Expelled that I was not happy with the way they used what was portrayed as a quote from Charles Darwin. Gumby caught that one as well. I said I would be posting more on it after seeing the movie again, but I have yet to do so. Gumby got it down, so here it is:

Ben Stein quoted Charles Darwin:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Made it sound like Charles Darwin was supporting and encouraging Eugenics. But let's place the whole quote in context. The parts Ben Stein used are in bold.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

This should be criminal! By pulling only particular pieces of a quote they completely changed the meaning and used it to justify the most absurd part of their mockumentary, where Ben Stein blamed the Holocaust on Charles Darwin. But read the actual quote and you will realize that nothing can be further form the truth. BTW, even The Anti-Defamation League has disagreed with Little Benny and called what he did a form of Holocaust Denial!

Sadly this is a common tactic, as we could see by the recent election. So I am going to borrow one more piece from Gumby and reiterate his final comment here:

The next time someone throws you a quote in support of their argument, never take it at face value. Take the time to Google or otherwise research it, and sometimes you'll find out that the quote has purposely been totally taken out of context. And if that indeed turns out to be the case, don't hesitate to publicly embarrass the person who tried unsuccessfully to pull a fast one on you. It's fun!

Please feel free to post your favorite examples of quote-mines here.

Addendum, I have been quote-mined :-)

A Topix troll named 'wilson' tried to explain evolution by using a completely blind chance mechanism. Kinda like using a tossing a dice with several million facets. Well he used part of my response to make it sound like I completely disagree with chance having any role in Evolution.

His quote-mine from nearly a month ago:

"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."

However in context, here is what I was answering to, and what I actually responded with:


Wilson wrote:

Baloney! I don't "have the evolutionary view!"
You expect me to believe that? You have absolutely no way of proving it.
Molecular biologist James Watson called our brain “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.” And neurologist Richard Restak said:“Nowhere in the known universe is there anything even remotely resembling it.”
A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said:“Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense.... It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [your] skull.”
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/...
Your conviction is that all of this came about just by chance, and now you have my challenge to prove it.
Wilson.

And my original response:

Still bobbing and weaving I see. But you let in too many blows.

One more time, with feeling. No one, but a poorly educated rabid creationalist, claims that the human brain came about by chance. NO ONE in evolutionary circles. Evolution is not a toss of the dice! How many times do people have to explain it to you. But then you get caught in yet another corner of your own building and fall back on arguments already dismantled.

Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on.

It's your incredible poor understanding of evolution and the theory of evolution that gets revealed every time you make comments like this.

Just today wilson posts this:

Hohio,
You said that chance does not play a role in mutations, or something to that effect.
Remember this:
IF NOT BY CHANCE, THEN BY DESIGN
You said:
"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."
Well, check this out, Hohio:
“We call these events [mutations] ACCIDENTAL; we say they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that CHANCE ALONE is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. PURE CHANCE, absolutely free but BLIND, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the SOLE conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. AND NOTHING WARRANTS THE SUPPOSITION - OR THE HOPE - THAT ON THIS SCORE OUR POSITION IS LIKELY EVER TO BE REVISED.”(Jacques Monod)
Hohio, tell me that Monod was wrong! If not by chance in nature, then how? By design?
Wilson

And here, just for grins is my response:

The context I was responding to was that your description of evolution as completely arbitrary chance wasn't the right one. You were treating evolution like a completely random toss of a dice with several million facets -- which is WRONG.

That even random mutation follows the laws of molecular binding and particle physics, so it is not based on chance, that many of the combinations of DNA cannot happen. Natural Selection is certainly not a chance driven change, since the selection is based on environment ... the list goes on. Try reading the context of my post rather than quote-mine me. I have said it many times, read for comprehension, not quote-mines.

Never once did I deny that chance has a role, but no evolutionary mechanism is based on chance. I had any number of other posts showing that while chance does play a role, it is not the role people like wilson ascribe to it. There is a great deal within evolution and evolutionary theory that do not have a component of chance at all. But wilson dismisses all of them either because he is

• Un-educated and actually believes all of evolution is based on chance
• Dishonest because he knows it's not and tries to make it seem like it is to add unsupported validity to his comments
• A troll who is just after an emotional response.
• Or all of the above :-)
  

Topix thoughts

I have been spending a lot of time on Topix, it's a clearing hose for links to articles and forums to discuss them. Of course one of the busiest debates on Topix involved Evolution. One of the funny things I have discovered is how quickly every forum topic 'devolves' down into those who support science on one side and those who do not on the other -- the funny part is it is regardless of the forum topic.

For example a Topix started by an article called "Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You" concerned an article about some of the stranger tactics being used in some State Legislatures and the teaching of Evolution in the classroom. In less than 3 responses the whole discussion because a two sided debate about the merits of evolution, the demerits of Creationism, and a sprinkling of ID. The whole topic of what was going on in state legislatures faded well into the background. You could take the 14 or so blog posts I called "Arguments", about many of the more common arguments against Evolution and you will pretty well see each one rear it's head. This forum is over 10,000 posts.

But then you go over to another topic " Should Evolution be taught in High School?", which is well over 18,000 posts now and you will see the same thing. This one really drove the message home to me because the original article isn't about the merits of evolution, but whether of not evolution is too advanced a topic for high-schoolers to learn and high school teachers to teach correctly. But nearly immediately you see the immediate dichotomy of most posters. Some come in to learn something, but most of the Creationists are so entrenched in their thinking that nothing said is going to make a difference.

Now before you ask, are some of the evolution supporters also entrenched, and the answer is Yes. But the difference, as I see it, the evolution supporters are much more willing to discuss, link to supporting material, and freely admit to many of the truths that science isn't perfect, science doesn't know everything, there is still work to be done. While the entrenched Creationists simple dig their hole deeper and become much more dogmatic as each and every one of their arguments gets shot full of holes. After a while many of them become seriously abusive. Yes, again some evolution supporters also respond in an abusive manner, but once again more as a defense after being called all kinds of interesting pejoratives.

OK, so where do I see this Blog post going and to be honest I'm not sure. I did want to bring people attention to Topix and to wading carefully into the debate there. Be warned that if you support Evolution, it doesn't matter how much support you bring to the table, you will get the standard set of Creationist websites brought up, the usual and very tired arguments will be put on the table, and eventually you will be the object of some narrow-minded idiot's abusive. But you will also learn a lot of new things, aside from new curse words. There are some brilliant posters like Fossil Bob, a geologist, Katydid, who works in evolutionary biology in some area, and Tomk who I suspect is a physicist. That doesn't begin to identify some of the brilliant posters on Topix, but jump on in and join the party. If you are dealing with Creationist/ID supporters in your world, I bet you will also learn a few arguments to thump them around and tug on their chains. It's part of the fun!

Recent happenings

Sorry I haven't been around much, but things have been pretty busy. But I have tried to keep up on things. Of course the news from Florida is good, and even some of the news from Texas is good. One of the things I have been doing is responding to articles and comments in a few places, like Topix. Topix is an online reporting and comments place for many newspapers and periodicals in the country. Of course the whole political debate over Evolution is very popular there. Pretty much it's been run of the mill stuff, but I need to tell you about this one . . .person -- and I use that phrase loosely.

First a little background. Among the articles people were discussing was a very interesting one "Should Evolution be taught at high school?" Interesting article, but not what you might think. It is not an article supporting any alternative to evolution, not even any of the religious-based concepts. But a simple article that maybe evolution is too advanced for high schoolers. I disagree, but that is neither here nor there to this discussion.

The article was posted in a blog on 24 Feb, and here it is, just a week and a half later and it's generated over 4200 comments on Topix. Here is link to the beginning of the comment chain. One issue I has was that many people who posted never bothered to read the original article. As you might guess, it quickly 'evolved' into a pro-science and pro-religion debate with many of the usual suspects. I mean some of the ones who refuse to think, others who are pretty dogmatic . . . and then there is someone who calls himself "EvolutionDead". I bet you can guess which side he's on.

Well he started of the usual dogmatic anti-science rhetoric. Nothing new, but rather than respond to people who disagreed with them on at least a courteous level, he immediately started labeling them as "morons", "idiots", and other assorted pejoratives. Now that is kinda normal. There is another one called "Wallie-x" who has no patience at all the people who disagree with him. But ED here took it to new levels.

His ranting and abusive language got even worse. But then he started in on the political. Liberalism was the cause of all the problems in the world and evolution causes liberalism. So he wass not only dumping on anyone who disagreed with him, but anyone who appeared to him to be even a tiny bit Liberal. The funny part was that he numbered most Christians in that liberal list of his. You see, I and a few others reminded him of the Clergy Letter Project, and how three Popes supported evolution, and how most scientists who support evolution are religious and many are Christians. How the International Society for Science and Religion support evolution . .and he seemed to come unhinged! He started ranting and raving about something he called 'true' Christians and only 'true' Christians were Christians at all and that any one else, which apparently included the entire Catholic Church are fakers, liars, non-believers, and . . .your guessed it morons, idiots, and other terms to vile to mention here.

Then he start in on homosexuality, which certainly seems to be a pet peeve of his and referred to one of his disagree-rs as a . . .and please pardon the language here, but I was so surprised by his comment "a cum receptacle". The level of abuse was amazing and also his defensiveness. Of course, you can imagine lots of folks responded to his abuse, and some in kind. So in one post he would be whining about having been the victim of other nasty postings, and then right away accuse another person of causing the Holocaust. The whipping back and forth was amazing.

So according to ED, he is the only true Christian in the world, and he gets to decide who is and who is not an actual Christian. Everyone who disagrees with him is "pick your pejorative, the worst the better". Evolution is not only bad science, but it is the cause of everything that ails the world, including liberalism. Personally I think he has several issues. Not only a poor education, horrible grammar, and a complete lack of personal relation skills, but a serious lack of confidence and a need for any form of validation in his beliefs. Plus he is so homophobic, that I believe he has doubt about his sexual orientation and it scares the hell out of himself!

It was pretty funny, but it changed to really pitiful after a short time. But he's still in their posting the same garbage over and over again! Pardon, me I think I'll go tug on his chain a few more times :-)