Posted on 11/03/2003 12:05:39 PM PST by Heartlander
I was very pleased to learn that a local high school is teaching students how to perform simple DNA database searches using their own home computers. One of the exercises is they have the kids to search for all of the homologs of the vitamin C gene and align them across species (exactly what we did here on an earlier thread before it was spammed and pulled). The concept of shared errors between closely related organisms should be enough to convince even teenagers that ID is bunk.
Now Dembski is trying to use anything that is not strictly random mutation and natural selection as support for intelligent design. It isn't. There are multiple theories that come under the umbrella of evolution and none of them support intelligent design.
This might be the time to bring in Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics for those who haven't seen it yet.
And Ohio agreed…
Oh, and textbooks are still changing.
That's a great essay. A LOT of material in there. The Vitamin C example is simple and easy for anyone to do it. Max mentions Vitamin C along with a plethora of other shared errors.
It takes an amazing amount of brass to accuse the scientific establishment of being a religion, while claiming that creationism isn't.
None of the items on that list have anything to do with introducing ID into high school biology. Most of it deals with correcting errors and/or overstatemtents in current textbooks. I can actually agree with some of their objections.
Gee, that looks like (OK, it is ...) the very document of which I linked my critique in post 14. Since you have essentially answered the rebuttal by repeating the rebutted, let me show you in one little bit of detail where I think it appalling that Dembski endorses this nonsense and scoffs at charges of quote-mining.
First, just for irony, let's note what DI says early on:
Every case of misrepresentation claimed by the NCSE dissolves entirely on close inspection.There will literally be nothing to see here when they are done, if this statement isn't hucksterism.
So skip down to their first treatment Erwin. (He's in there twice.)
Author’s comments on the summary’s accuracy:The short summary: Erwin said the paper DI cited is old and the problem it lays out for the evolutionary biology of its day has been substantially addressed. DI says other people have recently cited the paper without mentioning how out-of-date it is.“Citing a paper from 1994 is decidedly poor scholarship, however, given how fast this field has moved. The rapid advances in comparative developmental biology have rendered much of this pretty outdated. We now have a very well substantiated metazoan phylogeny, at least in general outline, allowing some of the tests suggested at the end of the cited passage. Moreover, comparative developmental studies have only served to emphasize the fundamental unity of bilaterian animals.”
REPLY:
Erwin does not challenge the accuracy of the summary. Rather, he says that his article is “pretty outdated.” Erwin’s colleagues, however, continue to cite this 1994 publication. In a major review article published in 2000, for instance, paleontologist David Jablonski of the University of Chicago cited the article (D. Jablonski, “Micro- and macroevolution: scale and hierarchy in evolution biology and paleobiology,” Deep Time (Paleontological Society, 2000), pp. 15-52; see pages 23 and 44). Graham Budd, a paleontologist at the University of Uppsala, cited the paper in another major review published in 2000, “A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla,” Biological Reviews 75 (2000): 253-295; see pages 257 and 290.
Jablonski and Budd say nothing about the paper being out of date. Both refer to the paper in the context of ongoing debates in paleontology.
What I said on that other thread (already linked back in post 14) is that DI's response
... ignores the substance of his criticism, which is that by using his old paper, D.I. ignores subsequent work clearing up the questions he raised in 1994. D.I. answers him by saying that there were citations elsewhere of that paper (of some unspecified sort) as late as 2000. Simply a dodge. Do the year-2000 papers claim that the problems Erwin now says are cleared up weren't cleared up by 2000? D.I. omits to mention.I caught them at the same game in "refuting" another criticism, from David M. Williams.
A further instance of what they tried with Erwin. If a paper has been cited anywhere by anyone for any reason lately, D.I. can represent to others that problems it described as current in its day remain unsolved even if they're not. Flimsy excuse for a misrepresentation, that! The lovely thing is that they continue to "misunderstand" this even after it is explained to them. Erwin, above, specifically said that Discovery didn't just quote his old paper, but his old citation of problems that have since been resolved. So far, nothing is exactly dissolving entirely for me.DI's behavior is unforgiveable, and so is Dembski still brazening it out.
and proudly too: (in the spirit of f.christian, (except for scan, meter and diction, of course))
When I was one I was just begun,
When I was two I was nearly new,
When I was three I was hardly me,
When I was four I was not much more,
When I was five I was barely alive,
But now I am six, and as clever as clever,
So I think I'll stay six now forever and ever
a.a.milne
quod erat demonstrandum
I wonder if the author pursues his scientific endeavors with the same rigor. ;)
You said they want textbooks to be accurate. I don't think so. They're not very accurate themselves, and their inaccuracy seems very self-serving.
This article completely misses the point.
The mutation which destroys the L-GLO (Vit C metabolic) gene is exactly the same in higher primates. Guinea pigs cannot make Vitamin C either, but they have a completely different mutation than the one found in humans, chimps and gorillas.
TABLE 2. Number of families of mammals having at least 1 species with site of vitamin C synthesis indicated.
Order Kidney synthesis Liver synthesis Neither Monotremata 2 Marsupicarnivora (marsupials) 2 Peramelina (marsupials)* 1 1 Diprotodontia (marsupials) (trace in 1 of the 5) 5 Insectivora 2 Chiroptera (bats) (trace in 1 of the 7) 7 Primates (prosimians) 2 (anthropoids) 5 Carnivora 5 Lagomorpha (rabbits) 1 Rodentia 9 1 Artiodactyla 3 (low) *The 1 family reported is represented under both Liver and Kidney.
…In conclusion, what has the study of many more taxa done? 1) It has greatly enriched our picture: rather than the long-held view that vitamin C is required in the diet of guinea pig, monkeys and man, we now see that it is required also by bats, at least some fish, and many birds; and on the other hand, not by all primates. Further, animals which make their own do so in different organs: the kidney, especially reptiles and birds; or the liver, especially mammals and perching birds. 2) There is evidence for a taxonomic explanation of part of the diversity between classes and between orders, but hardly data at lower taxonomic levels even to carry out a common statistical test. 3) It appears to provide more support for change by loss than by gain of capability.Were all animals once able to make their own vitamin C? or were they all dependent on their food for it? or some of both? Would original design plus degenerative loss serve to explain the present-day diversity? In any case, we see here a current example of how more research can greatly change our understanding of diversity. This should make us slow to conclude that scientific and revealed information on origins actually conflict.
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