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[[ “the Earth is only 6000 old” remark, but I found *PLENTY* of threads where the *anti*”evos” were the ones who threw the first Stone of Snottiness(tm) ]]

BS- you obviously did NOT look too hard- a simpel search for GGG’s posts will put your silyl claim to rest immediately-

Oookay....

I guess you missed the fact that the link I gave, wherein an "anti-evo" was the first to get snotty IN THE THREAD TITLE he started, actually *was* one of GGG's gems...

Nice try! Here's a crowbar to get that foot out of your mouth.

Think longer, post slower, and the quality of your posts will inevitably improve, CottShop.

[[If you think there’s no “intellectual debate” on those threads, check out my profile for examples to the contrary.]]

Psssst- I’m well familiar with your threads, and you sir can’t play the innocent victim here-

I must have missed the part where I claimed to be either "innocent" or a "victim". Perhaps you could point it out to me.

All I did was dispute the claim that such threads were devoid of intellectual debate.

I'm curious as to how you could bizarrely read a claim of "innocent victimhood" into that. Please explain.

nor clai mthat your posts were just ‘intellectual debate’ devoid of snottiness on your part-

Where the heck did you fantasize I claimed *that*?

Sure, I can get snotty. I'm damned good at it, actually. But I try very hard not to a) be the first to cast the first snot (i.e. I strive to respond in kind as much as possible), and b) document and justify exactly *why* someone deserves the return fire I'm giving them after they've made the mistake of being the first one to get snotty when coming unarmed to a battle of wits.

You aren’t fooling anyone-

Apparently I'm fooling you, which doesn't seem that hard, since you keep "seeing" things in my posts that I didn't actually put there. Damn, I'm good, what with all those "secret" messages I keep inserting into my posts.

And while we're at it, are you seriously going to point fingers at *me* for alleged violations of decorum, when your own posts are so frequently so vitriolic I feel as if I should wipe the flying spittle from my laptop screen after reading several of your posts? I mean, come on!

[[he got zotted for disagreeing with the hardcore creationists]]

That’s a bunch of bull-

Feel free to prove me wrong -- tell me what he *did* get zotted for then after ten years here. All I know is that a) he says that's the reason he was banned, and b) nothing else in his recent posting history is a violation of normal decorum here, except for the several threads of the last two days (now yanked) where he was spanking the "anti-evos" for their fallacious arguments and false claims.

And gosh, what a coincidence, several other "evos" on those contentious threads were banned/suspended at the same time (wacka after six years here, IronKros after seven years here, Buck W. after nine years here, etc.). Nothing but a mere coincidence, is it CottShop?

And yet... Can you name a single "anti-evo" who was zotted in this most recent purge, even though tempers on *both* sides flared and the "anti-evos" were hardly acting like angels? It appears that strongly arguing the "anti-evo" side is considered no vice, and strongly arguing the "evo" side is considered no virtue.

there are quite a number of folks who disagree with so called ‘hardcore creationists’ and they have been here a long time and have not been banned, nor will they-

Sure, a few are kept around as token punching bags these days. But unless you're using some special form of "anti-evo logic", you'll note that your non sequitur fails to actually support your assertion: The fact that a number of "evos" remain does not, in fact, provide supporting evidence for your claim that Pistolshot being zotted for clashing with the anti-evos is "a bunch of bull".

the only reason someone gets zotted is because of a posting history that is nasty and insulting or they continually antagonize the owners or mods after being warned many times not to

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. PatrickHenry, the keeper of the Evolution Ping List, was zotted after not even having posted at ALL for a few months. Just out of the blue, "zot". Several other prominent "evos" were just flushed from time to time for no obvious reason, often after several days of posting nothing in any way objectionable.

And, often quite explicitly, it has been made clear that arguing for evolutionary biology or pointing out the flaws in arguments given for various kinds of "anti-evo" is, in itself, considered as "continually antagonize the owners or mods". How many examples would you like me to cite where those positions are described as being "anti-Christian", "Marxist", "unAmerican", "unconservative", and so on?

Like, say, this thread today? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405876/posts
Which, coincidentally, is the same day several "pro-evo" long-time posters, including Pistolshot, got zotted? Just a coincidence, CottShop? So you say it's "a bunch of bull" still?

Don't try to tell me there's a level playing field here and the only consideration for zotting is whether someone is being a major jerk regardless of their "side". That used to be true several years ago when I posted far more frequently. It's not the case now. Some sides of the debate are more equal than others when it comes to being given slack for rude behavior or kept on a shorter leash.

Look, it's Jim's site and he can run it any way he wants. I'm not even complaining. But don't try to tell me that what I say is "a bunch of bull" when I dare to observe the way things are.

Frankly I find the evolutionists cranky, condescending and cocky.

They generally have good reason to be.

There can be a thread about an archaeological find and some wise ass on the first or second post always whines, “How can this be? The Earth is only 6,000yo.”. Blah, blah, blah.

Gee, really? "Always"? Way to help your credibility there.

Actually, I took a look just now at the threads that resulted when I did a forum search for "fossil" in the title, and I didn't find a single sarcastic "the Earth is only 6000 old" remark, but I found *PLENTY* of threads where the *anti*"evos" were the ones who threw the first Stone of Snottiness(tm) -- often in the thread title itself (example: "Best ever find of soft tissue (muscle and blood) in a fossil (evos claim it is 18 mya!!!)").

Instead of intellectual debate there is only potshots and snide remarks.

Yeah, I get pretty tired of the anti-evo tactics too.

If you think there's no "intellectual debate" on those threads, check out my profile for examples to the contrary.

Good riddance. Go find a humanist forum where you can agree with everyone all day long.

So... Conservative people with Pistolshot's viewpoint really *aren't* welcome here? You do realize you just helped support his assessment?

Why is Phil posting other people's stuff?

Because, as the very first line explains (you did read that far, didn't you?), Pistolshot was just banned and isn't able to post it himself. But it's the post he had composed and decided to hold off from posting in the hopes that things would turn around, when suddenly (after ten years here) he got zotted for disagreeing with the hardcore creationists. So it serves as his epitaph.

During the Dover trial a prosecution lawyer asked Dr. Padian (witness for the evolutionists) if it were possible for a creator to have evolved?

Gee, really? I just did a search of all of Padian's testimony during the Dover trial (using a full transcript of the entire trial), and I can't find this question being asked. Perhaps you could quote it for us.

Or perhaps it didn't happen.

Padian chose not to answer

Really? Feel free to cite the actual trial transcript.

If I don't hear back from you, I'll be glad to email Dr. Padian and let you know what *he* has to say about your claims, and the... unique argument you're trying to make on his behalf.

cause if he said YES, the next question would be , then why do you oppose the concept?,

He doesn't "oppose the concept". He opposes several of the false claims and fallacious arguments made on behalf of "ID", and rightly so. Faulty propaganda should indeed be opposed. This remains the case even if "a creator" could evolve.

and if he said NO, then it would mean that evolution didn’t do everything it is supposed to have done( including evolving man-and man does create stuff y’now)

Depends on what exactly you mean by "a creator". But yes, evolution can and has produced organisms (us) capable of making things. This does not mean, however, that arguments against "ID" are invalid, as they are not based on such a premise, nor does it support "ID", especially since "ID" posits that such creativity can *not* evolve or otherwise arise [i]de novo[/i] but must be "endowed" by a prior creator (even though such a claim requires "creators for each creator", thus "creators all the way down". Yeah, right.

Just shows how philosophically self-deluded some of the defenders against ID can be.

Actually, your attempted "argument" shows how "philophically confused" some defenders of ID can be, given how your attempt at a point includes a false dichotomy, a straw man, an ad hominem, sloppy reasoning, and perhaps a false assertion (unless you can produce the portion of the trial transcript in which this alleged exchange took place).

That seems more of an "own goal" than any kind of actual strike against those who recognize that "ID" is mostly all hat and no cattle.

Also, why do you imagine that "the prosecution" would ask such a question? You do realize which side was the prosecution, don't you? Or do you have trouble getting even the easy stuff right?

And then explain all the age-dating anomolies found w/ the recent Mount St. Helens eruption.

The astute reader will note that I explained these so-called "anomalies" to BrandMichaels back in May, in this post, and even provided him with numerous links to further documentation, and yet now here he is pretending that he has never been made aware of how the creationists manage to dishonestly produce these "anomalies"... Why do you suppose that might be?

Oooh - and please don’t forget to explain how all the layering that represents just one volcanic eruption differs from all other layering worldwide where each layer represents much longer time spans.

It differs from *some* other volcanic eruptions, but not from "all other layering worldwide" -- not every volcanic eruption is completely identical to all others. Duh. Some are fast, some are slow, some are massive, some are on a small scale, some produce mostly ash, some produce huge amounts of lava, etc. Geologists study each historical flow to determine what particular kind it was and how long it took.

This is all taught in Geology 101 -- you know, the same junior-high level class where they teach that rock formation has been ongoing during the life of the planet, and is still taking place today, a very elementary and basic fact you appear to be totally unaware of, given your jaw-droppingly uninformed post #67 in this thread...

Look, if you're going to attempt to find a flaw in modern science, wouldn't it help if you bothered to *learn* some first? If perhaps you managed to miss basic science in school somehow, for pete's sake, there's still WIkipedia to fill in the huge gaps in your knowledge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_of_rocks

I mean, at least try to learn as much as the average 14-year-old... That'd put you at least two years ahead of the average anti-evolutionist, in my long experience. The vast majority of them are grossly ignorant of the fields they attempt to attack; I am constantly having to explain even the easy stuff to them, introduce them to the kind of thing most grade-schoolers already know. The few others know better but are grossly dishonest (e.g. Austin).

Is anyone else getting dizzy from all this circular logic?

Just yours and that of a lot of other anti-science creationists.

When science tells me a rock that is known to be 200 years old from a volcanic eruption is 4.5 million years old according to radiometric dating, I have a problem with that.

I'd have a problem with that too if that's what "science" actually said, but since it's not what science says, there's no problem. Competent radiometric dating of recent lava flows yield recent results, as expected. The dating methods work.

No one can seem to explain this fact.

I can explain it just fine. The "creation scientists" who gathered the samples and ran the tests lied, in order to have a dishonest excuse to try to discredit radiometric dating methods.

The dating methods, when used correctly, yield accurate and reliable results. When purposely used *incorrectly*, as was done by creationist Austin during the "RATE" project, unsurprisingly yield incorrect results.

Here's a post I wrote about this on another thread:

In layman’s terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986—less than 20 years ago—were “scientifically” dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!

No, in layman's terms Austin the creationist is either a fool or a charlatan (perhaps both).

"In layman's terms", here's what he did wrong (I'll leave it to you to decide whether he did so out of dishonesty or incompetence):

1. He chose an analysis lab which CLEARLY STATES that its analysis equipment is not sensitive enough to correctly measure samples less than two million years old. Read that again until it sinks in.

2. Austin then took the first set of measured results, WHICH INDICATED LESS THAN TWO MILLION YEARS OLD, and rather than doing what an honest scientist would have done (which is say, "ah, these results are below the lower bounds of the testing equipment, thus they're just reporting equipment noise"), instead Austin ran around in circles and tried to ridicule K/AR dating for giving him out-of-bounds results that made perfect sense.

3. As for the 2.8 +/- 0.6 Mya sub-sample, Austin sort of "forgets" to inform the reader that almost without exception lava rock contains what are known as "inclusions", which are bits of older crystalline mineral mixed in with the fresh lava flow. A volcanic eruption is a violent and hardly "clean" event and pulverized (but unmelted) minerals are incorporated into the lava as it flows up and outward from the volcano. These inclusions will produce K/Ar dates older than the date of the lava flow because they are, indeed, *older* than the lava flow. A real scientist (unlike, say, Austin) will take a great deal of care to extract inclusions from his sample before sending it to a lab to determine the date when the lava itself flowed, and/or hand-pick a "clean" lava sample which has relatively few inclusions compared to the flow as a whole. That's because they *want* to get as valid a date as possible for the lava flow. Now, guess what Austin didn't do? Gee, now guess *why* he didn't do it? Can you say, "*trying* to get an apparently invalid date so as to have a cheap, dishonest excuse to allege that there's something 'wrong' with K/Ar dating"?

As the old saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" and Austin (unlike the honest scientists who *want* to produce valid dates) had no interest in getting a clean result -- the more "garbage" the result, the more he could claim a creationist "success". So he *submitted* garbage as his sample (i.e., a sample with inclusions, to a lab unable to date anything younger than roughly two million years).

As Henry Barwood notes, "Bad measurements, like bad science, reflect only on the measurer (Austin), not on the measurement (the procedure)."

For more details, see: Young-Earth Creationist 'Dating' of a Mt. St. Helens Dacite: The Failure of Austin and Swenson to Recognize Obviously Ancient Minerals.

Here is a link showing similar problems with the Rubidium-Strontium dating method. Where one set of rocks are dated much older than they are known to be.

Exact same issue (lava rock with inclusions) submitted by the exact same creationist "researcher" (Steven A. Austin). He appears to be a one-trick pony.

Whether such problems have been identified in all radiometric dating methods, I do not know.

"Such problems"? Yeah, if you submit "dirty" samples for testing, you get "dirty" results. So what else is new? Honest scientists clean their samples first. Creationist "scientists" don't, then try to discredit the testing methods when they get bogus results. Go figure.

But it certainly casts significant doubt on it.

The only thing it "certainly casts significant doubt on" is the honesty/competence of "creation scientists".

Now, "kingpins10", I'm curious to know whether you've learned anything about the reliability and honest of "creation scientists" from this experience. And I'm curious to know if you're in any way upset that they lied to you.

See also:

Young-Earth Creationist Helium Diffusion "Dates": Fallacies Based on Bad Assumptions and Questionable Data

RATE Project Turns to Deception

R.A.T.E.: More Faulty Creation Science from The Insitutute for Creation Research

Creation Science Exposed: Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth [R.A.T.E.] Essays Revealing the Truth Behind the Young Earth Claims

Bad Science

So to correct your comment, "When a CREATION SCIENTIST tells you that science tells you a 200-year old rock is 4.5 million years old, I have a problem with the gross dishonesty of the creation scientist." You should too. Creationists lie over and over and over again about science because they see it as a threat to their beliefs.

Trying to "learn" about science from creationists is like trying to "learn" about conservatism from Michael Moore, and for exactly the same reasons.

Anti-science creationists are shameless propagandists and liars. They've been caught at it over and over again. By their fruits you shall know them.

[AC:] The whale is a mesonychid one day, then a artiodactyl the next.

[Ich:] No evolutionary biologist proposes that the transition occurred in one day. Period. Not even close.

[AC:] I really did not think you were that dense. But you are! Get a clue on the use of words.

Oh for pete's sake. Don't attack *me* for *your* inability to state something clearly enough for me to unambiguously tell what in the hell you were trying to say. *eyeroll*

The whale was classed as a mesonychid, now it is classed as a artiodactyl closely related to the Hippo and imbedded within the artiodactyls(if you believe the genetic evidence).

First, if you wanted to talk about how they're *classified*, you should have said so at the start, you shouldn't have mumbled about what a whale "is" one day and then the next, as if you were trying to make a garbled statement about their actual nature changing. So don't whine to *me* about "getting a clue on the use of words". Follow your own advice, and learn to write more clearly.

Now let's look at the content of your "clarification". You say, "The whale was classed as a mesonychid". Gee really? When? Animals *ancestral* to whales have been classed as possible mesonychids. "The whale" however hasn't been. Again, it would help if you could actually follow your own advice about "getting a clue on the use of words", and said something that wasn't a weird mish-mash of terms which you appear to be using in non-conventional ways. Precise terminology is your friend.

You go on to say, "now it is classed as a [sic] artiodactyl closely related to the Hippo". "It" what? "The whale"? Which "the whale" are you blathering on about here? No, sorry, whales are not "classed as a [sic] artiodactyl". Whales are classed as cetaceans, not artiodactyls. Some biologists, while not disputing that whales are cetaceans, like to refer to the combined cetacean and artiodactyl group as an unranked meta-clade they call Cetartiodactyla, but that still doesn't make "the whale" an artiodactyl per se.

As opposed to your still garbled version of it, ancestral whales were at one time considered to be derived from extinct mesonychids based on the limited evidence then available, but since then a wealth of new evidence has revealed that the ancestral whales shared closer kinship to a previously unsuspected subgrouping of the artiodactyls than to the (still somewhat close) mesonychid sister group. Gosh, as more information becomes available science can further refine its understanding of the fine-scale phylogenetic tree, what a concept... I fail to see how this helps your point any. Actually, it rather torpedoes your attempted point.

AC will now begin to further pointlessly nitpick terminology and classification groupings without making a significant point in 3.. 2...

Start here---->A 21st century view of evolution: genome system architecture, repetitive DNA, and natural genetic engineering

Thank you for providing a link to a paper which demonstrates that even the "genetic engineering" processes in the genome were themselves the result of evolution. Sample quote, chosen from dozens which affirm the evolutionary origins of these processes:

An especially illuminating example of natural genetic engineering is the mammalian immune system. This system evolved from DNA transposons and cellular repair functions (Agrawal et al., 1998; Bassing et al., 2002; Gellert, 2002).

It's always nice when you undercut your own side of the argument by providing further evidence for the other side.

[Science is all about "just so" stories. They are considered valid evidence "just so" long as there is experimental evidence to back up the story.]

In your mind.

His mind has a better grasp on the nature of science than most anti-evolutionists, so...

There is always experimental evidence which can be twisted or explained away by someone ambitious enough.

...as the anti-evolution propagandists have been demonstrating for a very long time...

The whale is a mesonychid one day, then a artiodactyl the next.

No, it wasn't. If this is the nature of your best "understanding" of what evolutionary biologists say about whale evolution, then yet again you demonstrate that you are *way* out of your depth. No evolutionary biologist proposes that the transition occurred in one day. Period. Not even close.

Could some anti-evolutionist who actually has the first *clue* about evolutionary biology please come help out AndrewC? He's making your side look grossly uninformed, you might want to take him aside and coach him a bit.

[—But who’s to say that cytochrome C had to form at all for there to be life?]

What? The discussion is usefulness or beneficiality if you prefer. And we are talking about cells that require it to survive in any case. We haven't even discussed those sequences of length 100 that are certainly fatal to an organism.

Look, if you're not even able to figure out what he's talking about -- and he was quite clear in his explanation -- or understand why it's highly relevant to the kind of "analysis" you keep failing to do properly, then you should just give up now, you're out of your depth.

And if you *are* capable of knowing what he's saying and you're just dancing around to avoid the point, then you should *still* give up since you're not willing to actually have a real discussion -- playing these games is just a waste of everyone's time.

Either way, however, you've just demonstrated in a very clear manner why it's pointless for anyone to continue dealing with you on these subjects for more than just amusement value. (And believe me, I find these kinds of transparently lame antics hilarious.) You guys are never going to make the hoped-for headway against legitimate science as long as this kind of nonsense is the best you can do.

[“The issue was addressed. I even allowed for 250,000 times more potential cytochrome C candidates and demonstrated that even that large a number is miniscule in comparison to the universe being perused. And cytochrome C is a very small protein.”]

—But who’s to say that cytochrome C had to form at all for there to be life? If it can be demonstrated that cytochrome C HAD to form for life to exist, than perhaps the deck of cards analogy might fit. The gene for cytochrome C obviously DID form at some point, and thus variants of it are found throughout many different genomes - but the problem with your analogy isn’t merely that the protein can vary, but with the presumption that the protein HAD to form at all for life to exist.

Even if it were discovered that the universe is teeming with life, I’d be quite surprised to say the least if we found that another lifeform somewhere unrelated to life on earth has a gene for cytochrome C.

You mean person. It's rude to disrupt the cartoonish anti-evolution platitudes with simple facts. Reminding them of the things they've left out when they do their simplistic "analysis" is just downright cruel. It's like pointing out to a proud child that his "design" for a flying car doesn't include any method for providing lift and thus wouldn't actually leave the ground.

[Your bizarre attempt to question evolution via a contrived card-shuffling fallacy was bogus,]

The issue was addressed.

Yes, by me, by pointing out all the many things that were fatally wrong with it.

I even allowed for 250,000 times more potential cytochrome C candidates and demonstrated that even that large a number is miniscule in comparison to the universe being perused. And cytochrome C is a very small protein.

That's nice. How does that make your five-fold fallacious shuffling examine relevant as a model of whether evolution can work? Oh, right, it doesn't. Your attempt was bogus and disingenuous, and you were caught at it. Deal with it.

Additionally, your subsequent handwaving about the rarity of hitting an *exact* functional equivalent of cytochrome-c still utterly fails to deal with another fact of biological evolution I pointed out earlier, so why are you still sticking to this fallacious "exact hit" analogy? Read my Post #36 AGAIN (you know, the post in which I pointed out all the ways your deck-shuffling analogy was highly bogus), especially the passage which reads, "and even more greatly vast numbers are partially functionally equivalent (and thus a basis for evolutionary refinement)". All of your number-crunching attempts to pretend that there's some sort of probability argument against evolution fail to address that very salient fact, and thus are utterly fallacious. Why do you bother calculating things that don't actually capture the reality in any comprehensive way? Don't bother with your usual non-answers, I *KNOW* why you do that. Don't kid yourself that it's not transparent to just about everyone else too.

Computing cell is the answer.

Not when the question is, "why does AndrewC keep making bogus arguments against evolution and then fail to face up to it when he's caught at it", no. Nor does this "answer" in any way salvage the numerous fatal fallacies in your post.

Research is demonstrating that fact.

Whatever fact you're so vaguely alluding to here is a Red Herring, an attempt to divert attention from the fact that you were caught making a very bogus argument that falls flat on its face in five different ways.

Even if it's true that the cell computes, this doesn't mean that evolution is like shuffling cards, nor that crunching the numbers on card-shuffling is going to tell us *squat* about what evolution can or can not do. So again I ask, why the bogus card-shuffling dance, and why the dodging on your part when I point out exactly why your dance completely fails as a model of evolution? Evolution is a very different process from card-shuffling -- why do you pretend otherwise?

Focus: Tell us which of the options in my post #46 best describes your reasons for failing to admit that shuffling cards is a bogus analogy for the process of biological evolution.

[Stop dodging for a change.]

I'm not dodging.

...he says as he dodges again, by yet again failing to address any of the issues I pointed out that he was dodging...

You absolutely should know that I refer to Dr. James Shapiro for a reason. The cell computes.

You absolutely should know that "referring to Dr. James Shapiro" does nothing salvage the multiple failures of your bogus "card deck" analogy, nor does dragging in things from other threads as Red Herrings.

Anyway, I've made my point. Your bizarre attempt to question evolution via a contrived card-shuffling fallacy was bogus, not just in one way but in a five-fold Fail, *and* you have no interest in actually facing up to that, instead relying on diversions and misdirection.

You know that beneficial iterations are saved. You then immediately return to citing statistical methods where beneficial iterations are not saved. Do you even realize what you are doing?

Of course he realizes. He'll just never admit it.

When have you *ever* seen an anti-evolutionist admit it?

[Any attempted analogy to evolution must include these features (and more) in order to be any kind of meaningful comparison to actual evolution]

Gee what brought you in out of the woods? Anyway coming from someone who has yet to show me a working cubic function generator after claiming that he could build it is rather humorous. Despite your assertions the numbers do mean something. That is why living things die.

The astute reader will note that AndrewC's response failed to address any of the points I made about why his "analysis" fails on multiple levels. He's just trying to divert the subject away from the identification of his fallacious analogy, rather than admit error and/or attempt an actual rebuttal.

Red Herrings are so tedious.

Come on, AndrewC, just deal head-on with a challenge to your post for a change. Please tell us which of the following best describes your "card deck" post:

1. "I knew it was a bogus analogy for how evolutionary processes actually work, but I did it anyway hoping I wouldn't get caught at it."

2. "I really thought it was a valid comparison, despite having had all of the flaws in that kind of 'analysis' pointed out to me countless times over the years on these threads, including in the very post by Ichneumon years ago that made me so annoyed I told him not to ping me anymore, because I'm a slow learner, but now that it has been explained to me again I realize the error of my post and am flinging Red Herrings far and wide to covery my embarrassment."

3. "It's actually a valid comparison after all, because living things really do reshuffle their genomes entirely, there really is only one living thing on the entire Earth, living things really do not produce offspring, proteins really can't function in alternative forms, and natural selection really doesn't exist at all, I swear, therefore evolution really does work exactly like trying to shuffle a deck of cards and hoping for *one* specific outcome."

4. "I still think it's a valid comparison, because LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

Stop dodging for a change.

Ichy gave you dishonorable mention, but forgot to ping you.

I didn't forget. AndrewC has repeatedly asked me not to ping him, because he doesn't like to see when I point out the fallacies in his posts. So I don't ping him.

[What percentage?]

Name it. Start here... There are 21 sequences of all single amino acids. Are any of them useful? There are 21 * 20 sequences consisting of length 51 single AA with one odd on the end. Are any of them useful? Move the odd AA in on each of those again resulting in 21*20 sequences. Are any of those useful? So on and so forth.

The astute reader will note that AndrewC has disingenuously demanded that "goodusername" provide a percentage answer, when in the very next sentence (after the snippet AndrewC quoted) "goodusername" stated that a) he didn't know what the percentage was, and b) the key point was that AndrewC didn't know either and that as long as *AndrewC* doesn't know the answer, AndrewC's childish "probability analysis" attempt to attack evolution was dishonest and invalid.

Funny how AC sidestepped that very salient point, isn't it? Funny how he tried to introduce a red herring by demanding that someone else do his own homework for him, isn't it? Funny, but very typical. Red Herrings are his rhetorical specialty.

[Now check to see if the deck is in order with aces to kings for each suit and the suits in club, diamonds, hearts and spades sequence.]

The protein deck is not reshuffled from scratch at each shuffle. Beneficial iterations are saved and built upon.

You, of course, know this. You have probably heard it a hundred times before. You know the right answer yet you continue to disingenuously to keep repeating your false proposition. Why?

You know exactly why he does it. So do I. So does everyone else who watches him in action. Likewise for anyone who watched the antics of the anti-evolution squad as a whole.

They are not interested in accuracy, facts, or honesty.

The following is from a post by "dwise1" at the evcforums discussion site. (Follow the link to read his whole post: http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads.cgi?action=tmi&f=12&t=553):

I didn't really realize that they're only concerned with convincing people until a discussion long ago in another forum. A creationist tried to use the sea-salt claim and we explained to him fully why it's wrong. The funny thing, though, was that, even though he was a strict YEC who believed that the earth could be no older than 10,000 years, here he was arguing that the earth was several millions of years old. I pointed that contradiction out to him and it didn't bother him a bit. He was perfectly happy with an earth that was several millions of years old, "just so long as it's not BILLIONS of years old like science says!".

That's when I finally got it! They're not trying to prove creation, but rather they just want to prove science to be wrong. About anything. That's why they'll even make claims that have absolutely nothing to do with evolution or the age of the earth (eg, to role of refrigerants in depleting the ozone layer); from a strict creation/evolution perspective, that just doesn't make any sense at all, but from the perspective of proving science to be wrong it does make sense. And they don't even have to actually prove science wrong, just so long as they can cast enough doubt.

Why do that? Well, if science is seen as threatening your faith, then destroy science. OK, not all of science; even the staunchest creationist loves his flush toilet too much. Just disable the parts that you think are a threat. And if you can't do that, then poke holes somewhere else just so you can reach the conclusion that those threatening parts could also be wrong, thus allowing you to pick and choose those parts of science that you want to accept, just as you do with the Bible.

From my 30+ years of watching these people in action, this guy has it exactly right. The anti-evolutionists are all about undermining science itself, as well as public confidence in it. They are indeed, in every sense of the term, anti-science.