Posted on 06/27/2006 5:06:32 AM PDT by 7thson
Ann Coulter states in her book on page 201 -
Darwin’s theory of evolution says life on Earth began with single-celled life forms, which evolved into multicelled life forms, which over countless aeons evolved into higher life forms, including man, all as the result of the chance process of random mutation followed by natural selection, without guidance or assistance from any intelligent entity like God of the Department of Agriculture. Which is to say, evolution I the eminently plausible theory that the human eye, the complete works of Shakespeare, and Ronal Reagan (among other things) all came into existence purely be accident.
On page 202, she states The “theory” of evolution is:
1. Random mutation of desirable attributes (highly implausible)
2. Natural selection weeding out the “less fit” animals (pointless tautology)
3. Leading to the creation of new species (no evidence after 150 years of looking)
My question – is she correct in her statements? Is that Darwin’s theory?
On the ligher side, check out the first paragraph on page 212. LOL Funny!
Does the Bible say "Do not kill" or "Do not murder"?
? For all we know the first big load of oxygen came in on a comet. Big time oxygen production didn't begin until plants colonized land.
How about the earliest "intermediate forms". Corn seems to just pop up!
That was for all the evolutionist.
I don't have to wait and see, I know and when my time comes, look forward to what is waiting.
Huh? There's O2 on comets ?! More to the point, without plants to renew it, the oxygen will quickly react and disappear.
Big time oxygen production didn't begin until plants colonized land.
Demonstrably false. I will give two reasons, there are in fact more:
1) The so-called Cambrian explosion. The arthropods, worms, chordates, etc found in the Burgess shale and suchlike depend on oxygen, so it had to be present before the "explosion". There were no land plants at that time.
It is believed that land plants evolved directly from a freshwater (versus a marine or salt-water) green algal ancestor sometime in the mid-Ordovician, between 450 to 470 million years ago (MYA) (Graham, 1993, p 234-235). The earliest known seedless vascular plant (genus: Cooksonia) existed in the mid-Silurian, probably around 420 MYA and eventually went exinct by the early Devonian (about 390 MYA) (ref. 3-4).source
2) Banded iron formations. These are deposits of iron ore that occurred when the atmospheric oxygen reached a particular level. They are from 1.8 to 2.5 billion years old, probably before there were any eukaryotes.
Thank you for your kind words.
Oh, brother. Here we go again.
Science (with very rare exceptions) is not done in high school classrooms. That's just one place the results of doing science are summarized and reported, in curricula.
This confusion is akin to thinking that a baseball game is somehow decided on the sports page. No. That's just were the results are printed. The game actually occurs on a baseball field.
Working scientist don't give a heck about what they were told (or even "indoctrinated" on) in high school. They've long ago moved far beyond that. They only care about what ideas WORK and are PRODUCTIVE in advancing the research topics they're interested in. And THAT is entirely what the "survival" of evolution as a scientific theory is "contingent upon".
Many working scientists, if they picked up their old high school texts, would doubtless be horrified by the (often bone-headed and obtuse) over simplifications and misapprehensions therein.
The quality of introductory science curricula (that is primary, secondary and college level curricula prior to the Senior or Graduate level) only matters as it effects, for good or ill, the scientific literacy of the vast majority of citizens who do NOT go into research oriented science careers.
It doesn't matter one whit for those who end up doing science. They are necessarily forced, by the dynamic nature of science, to basically relearn their disciplines as soon as they move beyond introductory level instruction, and in effect to continually do so throughout their careers.
I don't have to wait and see
Great! And I'm looking forward right along with you!
Part of the "Coca Cola Six Hundred" no doubt.
Not even close. There is broad, continuing and unresolved debate (or agnosticism) about where, or in what kind of environment, life might have originated. Something like a "warm little pond" is only one of many possibilities under consideration. Everything from surf zones, to deep sea vents, to the surfaces of clay minerals, and even interstellar space has been considered.
To cut free from the seaweed.
Perhaps, but they lack the Moxie!
To draw blood from his dive buddy's ankle if his buddy is the faster swimmer when the shark gives chase.
Yes, there are uncertainties but the basics are known.
Here's a sample article:
THE GENETICS OF MAIZE EVOLUTION - Annual Review of Genetics, 38(1):37 - Abstract
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.genet.38.072902.092425
She can't even get *that* right -- that is not "simple evolution" at all. Eating more protein isn't evolution. Genetic change is evolution.
She is talking about whole new species.
...and she talks about it in the same way that Michael Moore talks about conservatism and capitalism and America.
And she continually brings up the human eye.
...while misrepresenting almost everything about that topic. Let's take her screech on page 208, for example. I'll wait a moment while you go look it up....
Got it? Okay. Now read from the top of the page down to the sentence which ends, "...the Darwiniacs' version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
(Background: In case you didn't know, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was an infamous forgery -- it was created by Jew-haters in order to make it look as if Jewish leaders were plotting world domination. It's one of the most disgusting and vicious hoaxes of all time, was made up out of thin air, and yet after being repeatedly debunked is still believed authentic by some conspiracy-minded kooks among the skinhead and neo-Nazi movement, because it "supports" their prejudices and paranoia about Jews.)
So when Coulter accuses the "Darwiniacs" (charming -- no one will ever mistake her for a lady) of something akin to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", she's making one of the most extreme possible insults, insinuating that the "Darwiniacs" believe something that is a complete fabrication, and something that no sane person would want to associate with.
And her tale on page 208 sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? She's doing everything she can to try to imply that Dawkins et al just made something up out of thin air, and tried to attribute it to a researcher who, when asked, had no idea what Dawkins was talking about -- Coulter wants you to believe that a fraud had been committed, and that in fact no researcher has successfully modeled the evolution of the eye.
Do you agree that this is the impression she's trying to give? With me so far? Good.
It's a lie. But the person lying is Coulter. The ONLY grain of truth in her rant is that Dawkins had misspoken when he described the research as a "computer simulation" -- it was actually a combination of mathematical models, physical models, and computer analysis, but not a "computer simulation" in the strictest sense of the word. But the research WAS actually performed, it WAS actually done by the researcher Coulter tries to imply had denied its existence, Dawkins's description of the results of the research WERE ACCURATE.
If Coulter had wanted to take issue with the research methodology, she's free to do so. But to DISHONESTLY try to blow up an extremely insignificant slip of the tongue (calling something a "computer model" when it was analyzed in a different manner) into a false tale that the research was never done and that "Darwiniacs" just made it all up is an INCREDIBLY dishonest sleight-of-hand that would make Michael Moore green with envy.
If Coulter allegedly has a good case, why does she have to lie about it?
Here, read the research on the evolution of the eye yourself -- it really exists, and was really done by the researcher that Dawkins said it was done by, and which Coulter tries to give the impression had denied its existence:
"A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve", Dan-E. Nilsson; Susanne Pelger, Proceedings: Biological Sciences / Vol. 256, No. 1345 (Apr., 1994), pp. 53-58Here you can watch a short video of the researcher discussing his findings: (Click on your choice of video format at the top of the page at this link).
Gosh, how honest was it of Coulter to mislead her readers into thinking that this research didn't even exist at all, and that the "Darwiniacs" were just lying and making it all up?
Worse, she can't even claim not to be aware of these things. In her endnotes for this chapter (second part of reference 10 for chapter 8 on pg. 297), she specifically cites the article in "Commentary" magazine which contains multiple rebuttals by Nilsson (the author of the eye evolution paper) and other researchers, who dismantle David Berlinski (the "authority" Coulter cites for her "it didn't exist" accusation) on his errors, his false accusations, and his making a mountain out of a molehill over the "computer simulation" label. Read that again until it sinks in -- COULTER ADMITS TO READING the letters in which the researchers themselves (and others) discuss the research itself (so Coulter KNOWS the research actually exists) and taking Berlinski to task for nitpicking about the "computer simulation" description (so Coulter KNOWS this is a trivial issue). And yet after KNOWING this, Coulter went ahead and MADE THE FALSE ACCUSATION of "it didn't exist" concerning Nilsson's research, *AND* spun that lie around the already discredited nitpicking about whether or not the research was best described as a "computer simulation" or some other descriptive term...
Out of curiosity, 7thson, do you approve of being knowingly misled in this manner by an author you trusted?
Here are some of the relevant excerpts from the "Commentary" rebuttal which COULTER ADMITS TO HAVING READ (since she includes a citation to it in her endnotes), but decided to lie about when she wrote about it on page 208...
By Dan-E Nilsson (author of the evolution-of-the-eye research):
He further claims that we fail to explain how morphological change relates to improvements in visual acuity, though pages 54 through 56 (together with the graphs and legends in figures 1 and 3) deal with exactly that, and in great detail.From Paul R. Gross:[...] Contrary to Mr. Berlinski’s claim, we calculate the spatial resolution (visual acuity) for all parts of our eye-evolution sequence, and the results are displayed in figure 1 of our paper. The underlying theory is explained in the main text, including the important equation 1 and a reference to Warrant & McIntyre (1993), where this theory is derived. Yet Mr. Berlinski insists that “Nilsson and Pelger do not calculate the visual acuity of any structure.” It would be much simpler for Mr. Berlinski if he went just a tiny step farther and denied the existence of our paper altogether. [Funny, Ann Coulter seems to have taken him up on that sarcastic remark. -- Ich.]
[...]
Mr. Berlinski is right on one point only: the paper I wrote with Pelger has been incorrectly cited as containing a computer simulation of eye evolution. I have not considered this to be a very serious problem, because a simulation would be a mere automation of the logic in our paper. A complete simulation is thus of moderate scientific interest, although it would be useful from an educational point of view.
Our paper remains scientifically sound, and has not been challenged in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. I do not intend to take any further part in a meaningless debate with David Berlinski.
Mr. Berlinski misunderstands or misinterprets critical elements of the paper. Then he quibbles ponderously about terms and assumptions — and about a popular gloss of the paper by Richard Dawkins. He accuses some of his critics of fraud for having failed to denounce Dawkins’s use in a trade book of certain of those terms. Mr. Berlinski’s arguments are quibbles.From Matt Young:
I will not respond to Mr. Berlinski’s disdainful tone, nor to the cheap shots directed at me personally. Nor will I continue the pointless distraction of whether Nilsson and Pelger performed a simulation or a calculation.From Mark Perakh:
But contrary to Mr. Berlinski’s rhetoric, any scandal related to Nilsson and Pelger’s paper occurred only in Mr. Berlinski’s imagination. Nilsson and Pelger estimate the time necessary for the development of an eye, a calculation that entails certain assumptions but which is viewed by many scientists as sufficiently sound. (According to the Science Citation Index, Nilsson and Pelger’s article has been positively referenced in at least 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications.)From Jason Rosenhouse:But Mr. Berlinski, unlike all these scientists, does not like Nilsson and Pelger’s conclusion, and obfuscates the issue by discussing the distinctions among computer simulations, models, and calculations. These semantic exercises are inconsequential to the real question: whether an eye could have developed in a geologically short time via a Darwinian mechanism, as Nilsson and Pelger and scores of biologists familiar with their work think.
Once we have swept the field of Mr. Berlinski’s distortions we are left with a few simple facts. (1) Several decades of research on the evolution of eyes has not only made it plain that eyes have evolved, but has also revealed the major steps through which they did so. (2) Nilsson and Pelger’s paper provides an elegant capstone for this research, by providing a convincing calculation for an upper limit on the time required for an eye to evolve. (3) Minor errors in popular treatments of Nilsson and Pelger’s paper do nothing to change facts (1) and (2). (4) Finally, David Berlinski is not a reliable source for scientific information.Coulter KNEW the research existed, she KNEW that Berlinski was nitpicking about descriptions of the research, and yet she chose to tell her readers that "it didn't exist", and to "support" her false claim about its non-existence on something as trivial as Berlinski's bitching about whether a popular book was justified in calling it a "simulation" or not... The mind boggles. Is this Christian behavior? To bear false witness in so cynical a manner?
Coulter repeats this kind of Michael-Moore dishonesty all throughout her chapters on evolutionary biology. When she doesn't want to do the hard work of dealing with the real evidence or research supporting evolution, she just misinforms her readers and denies it exists at all. How many more examples would you like?
I'm writing up a list of all of the lies in Coulter's chapters 8-10 (it's going to be HUGE) -- if you or anyone else would like to be pinged to it when I post it, please FreepMail me.
She also says, where are the fossils of the evolutionary misfits, the ones that were not fit to survive?
Extinct, of course. Seen any dinosaurs running around recently? Not many Archaeopteryx in the trees, either.
Dave has seen them, or at least seen hamburgers made from them.
Yet, corn, as we know it, has not only "adapted" it has virtually abandoned its reproductive life to a different species, mankind!
Point I was making was that there are highly successful species whose forebear species were shortlived, and who have all disappeared. At the same time there are other species that don't seem to change over tens, or even hundreds of millions of years.
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