Newfound Dinosaur a Transitional Creature

Las Vegas Sun (AP) ^ | May 04, 2005 | Malcolm Ritter

[MeanWestTexan]

Caught in the act of evolution, the odd-looking, feathered dinosaur was becoming more vegetarian, moving away from its meat-eating ancestors.

It had the built-for-speed legs of meat-eaters, but was developing the bigger belly of plant-eaters. It had already lost the serrated teeth needed for tearing flesh. Those were replaced with the smaller, duller vegetarian variety.

[Gumlegs]

I just took a quick look at your list o' links & didn't see "peer review." If it's not there, you should add it.

[PatrickHenry]

I just took a quick look at your list o' links & didn't see "peer review." If it's not there, you should add it.

Right. But it doesn't fit into any of the existing categories. I'll need to think a bit. I'll work it out.

[MacDorcha]

Burninating the country side!

[MacDorcha]

Just a question: How do we know this wasn't transitioning from an herbivore TO a carnivor? (And does this mean that all omnivores are simply transitional?)

[Gumlegs]

How 'bout under "Essential Information About Science"?

[narby]

For the second group, I remind them of the Jews who were looking for a military conquering messiah 2,000 years ago. They had pretty good scriptural arguments for that concept. They also had collective agreement. And they were collectively damn wrong.

That could use reposting. So I did.

[a_screen_name]

Go collect your prize.

http://www.drdino.com:8080/Ministry/250k/index.jsp

[PatrickHenry]

How 'bout under "Essential Information About Science"?

Nah. I added a new section called THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. Peer review is there, with another link I moved from elsewhere. All done now.

[Dimensio]

Dr. Hovind's prize is reserved for those who "prove" to the satisfaction of a panel of people who already agree with Hovind a number of claims that evolution does not make.

Hovind's "challenge" is patent dishonesty.

[a_screen_name]

"a number of claims that evolution does not make"

such as?

[AndrewC]

Different styles of review
Peer review can be rigorous, in terms of the skill brought to bear, without being highly stringent. An agency may be flush with money to give away, for example, or a journal may have few impressive manuscripts to choose from, so there may be no use to being picky. Conversely, when either funds or publication space is limited, peer review may be used to select an extremely small number of proposals or manuscripts.

Often the decision of what counts as "good enough" falls entirely to the editor or organizer of the review. In other cases, referees will each be asked to make the call, with only general guidance from the coordinator on what stringency to apply.

...

Criticisms of peer review

...

In addition, some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy. Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, elite scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, it has been argued, ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions.

However, others have pointed out that there is a very large number of scientific journals in which one can publish, making control of information difficult. In addition, the decision-making process of peer review, in which each referee gives his opinions separately and without consultation with the other members, is intended to mitigate some of these problems.

[PatrickHenry]

Just a question: How do we know this wasn't transitioning from an herbivore TO a carnivor? (And does this mean that all omnivores are simply transitional?)

I don't know. Presumably the related carnivores are found earlier, and the related herbivores are found later. That's the usual method when there's no DNA evidence that could provide more concrete evidence.

[muir_redwoods]

"....This is people seeing what they want to see....."

I know a group just like this.

[metacognative]

These Nutty Darwinites remind me of medieval theologians imagining how many angels could sit on the head of pin! And they want to call it 'science'.

[Thatcherite]

such as?

The fake nature of Hovind's challenge is outlined in numerous places on a marvellous tool for finding information known as the internet.

[VadeRetro]

Don't these things just about always turn out to be fakes?

Are you a liar or an idiot?

[Gumlegs]

Works for me.

Now when are you going to add Lawsonomy to your "STRANGE (BUT SOMEHOW APPROPRIATE) LINKS" section? "Suction and Pressure" explains it all.

And "Zig-zag and Swirl." "Suction and Pressure" and "Zig-zag and Swirl" explain it all.

[PatrickHenry]

Now when are you going to add Lawsonomy to your "STRANGE (BUT SOMEHOW APPROPRIATE) LINKS" section? "Suction and Pressure" explains it all.

I've already got TimeCube. Nothing else matters.

[Dimensio]

such as?

"Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing."
"Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)"
"Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution)."

Those are claims that he makes about evolution that are so dishonest that they cannot even be labelled "distortions" because they are not, in any way, a part of the theory of evolution.

Kent Hovind is a shameless liar for lumping those claims in with evolution. But, as for his challenge, he asks

"Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution (option 3 above, under "known options") is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence."

Science is not about proving that an explanation is the "only possible way". It's about providing the best explanation to fit observed evidence. Also, Hovind is implying that evolution makes the statement that evolution posits that "The universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes". Evolution says no such thing. Hovind is lying again.

[Dimensio]

Ah, seems that my blunt but direct approach to dealing with creationist nonsense is catching on.