Review of Godless -- (Centers on Evolution)

Powells Review a Day ^ | August 10, 2006 | Jerry Coyne

[pageonetoo]

MY diatribe??? You're funny, indeed... but also quite boring with your pitiful attempts at feigned superiority! I don't need your approval, thanks...

[Quark2005]

The missing links is a negative, but it's a pretty damning negative for evolution.

But it's not true. De we really need to show the skull pictures again? And again, the magnetic flips are prediction of basic ferromagnetism, not of creationism. (Also, the radioisotope halo and diamond crystal studies, assuming you're talking about what I think you are, are bogus because they don't account for secondary decay products.)

Still waiting for a specific prediction, of creationism that shows what we will find and where we will find it.

Here's another fulfilled prediction of evolutionary science:

"It was predicted that humans must have an intermaxillary bone, since other mammals do. The adult human skull consists of bones that have fused together, so you can't tell one way or the other in an adult. An examination of human embryonic development showed that an intermaxillary bone is one of the things that fuses to become your upper jaw."

[VadeRetro]

I'm going to say there's a lot of convergent evolution going on there. Overall shape is very similar, the kind of thing you see in a number of shallow water species. The teeth are very different in number and quality. The teeth on the upper one show some differentiation, although Eyes are positioned about the same but nares are on the snout tip of one species and about halfway up on the other. One has a hole in the lower jaw nowhere mirrored on the other. More importantly, the upper has temporal fenestrae behind the eyes and is obviously a reptile. The other obviously is not.

And so forth. I could do even more if I were a paleontologist or what have you, or if it were possible to see what sutures exist and where in the skulls.

Just in general, lawyerly dumbshow of this sort does nothing toward showing that a real scientist can't tell a man from an ape or whatever.

It takes a bunch of "creation scientists" to be unable to agree what's "A man! Just a man!" and what's "An ape! Just an ape!"

Click here to see creationists all over the map on what's a simple variation within ape-kind and what's a simple variation within human-kind.

While we're at it, before you thump every strawman in the hayfield, Click here for why the fossil record doesn't go away as easily as you'd hoped.

For what evolution actually says about taxonomy and the historical tree of life, Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record. Not that it will stop you, but this way I can say I warned you. I know what it says in those links and you don't.

[VadeRetro]

I guess that must mean I'm stupid, too -- because I remain unconvinced by your arguments.

I'm unconvinced by creationism, but I can remember what it says. "Born again" is good, I suppose, but ... every day??

[VadeRetro]

The teeth on the upper one show some differentiation, although Eyes are positioned about the same but nares are on the snout tip of one species and about halfway up on the other.

Editor needed. Must work for peanuts. BYO beer.

[King Prout]

nice!

[Dimensio]

MY diatribe??

Yes. Your opinions on atheism are not, in any way, relevant to the subject of the theory of evolution.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I thought I did pretty good.

[pageonetoo]

Your theory is your problem...

Have a nice life. if I wanted a lecture, I'd drive to DC. There's plenty enough hot air there!

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Apparently you are of the same thought as the author. Too bad it isn't true. There are many people who are either pro evolution (or at least neutral) who are anti-Darwinism.

[freedumb2003]

I don't see the peer review. I don't see independent research verifying this.

I don't know (nor need to know) whether the data were faked (as suggested by another poster).

What journal was this printed in?

[b_sharp]

Coyne's response is in the same vein as Coulter's. Coulter produced a number of strawman versions of evolution which she, surprise, surprise, was able to shoot down with well placed sarcasm and vitriol.

Let's see how well Coulter responds to refutations of her book such as this, this, and especially this.

[freedumb2003]

The Bible documents a creation event that is now accepted in the "big bang" theory. The previous steady-state theory is now discredited and no longer studied.

That doesn't prove Creation (much less ID). It is a reasonable philosphical argument (as I say many times -- God is outside of time and space and therefore designed the whole thing to function).

[b_sharp]

"Again, VR, you are engaging in "attacking the messenger." As long as you persist in doing this, we will not be able to consider the merits of any point she has raised that you dispute. Personally, I'd rather be talking about the issues than about Ann."

OK how about we start with her Archaeopteryx 'errors'?

Or her Cambrian Explosion 'error'?

You can pick pretty much any comment she made about Evolution and find reams of information that refutes it.

Even when discussing her strawmen she avoids referencing any primary literature on the subject and instead focuses on creating sarcasm rich but information poor statements.

[b_sharp]

"The..... everybody "knows" humans came from monkeys and if from monkeys then monkeys from some other small mammal leading to where did that mammal come from.. "primordial soup?".. resulting in some form of "God Soup".. Yeah Ann Coulter attacked "bullet proof arguments" and the evolutionists know it.. Because "in their mind" evolution is bullet proof.. i.e. they have on a bullet proof vest of their own... And some of them (here on FR) feel threated, as they should.. Ann Coulter is a genius.."

I see you are taking a page out of her book, creating strawmen and then presenting highly sarcastic, information free arguments against them.

Don't hurt yourself while patting yourself on the back.

[b_sharp]

"No? How about these two? Related? Now without cheating and looking at the URLs, tell me what these two are and how far apart they are, both taxonomically and chronologically."

Why are you presenting photos without any of the context?

Paleontologists provide a fair bit of extra information about the conditions, placement and ecology that accompanied the original fossils.

You aren't even including a list of diagnostic features.

[pageonetoo]

Let's see how well Coulter responds to refutations of her book such as this, this, and especially this.

I doubt she is really concerned. Most of us "creationists" expect to hear your crys and laments, and respond accordingly. Why bother?

[b_sharp]

"True, oh so true, and so well said, my dearest brother in pond-scum."

Thank you so very much, dear brother, for that highly valued encouragement.

Now get off my clump of clay and go find your own. (Now where the heck did I leave those Pyrimidines?)

[hosepipe]

[ I see you are taking a page out of her book, creating strawmen and then presenting highly sarcastic, information free arguments against them. Don't hurt yourself while patting yourself on the back. ]<>
WRONG!... I was commenting to another creationist with a bullet proof vest on.. You're sense of danger is ill concieved.. I was merely gloating on Ann Coulters expose' of RINOS... She got you too eh?...

[b_sharp]

Exactly what does the theory of an anti-Darwinian evolution proponent look like? What are its tenets?

What do you think are the main tenets of a Darwinian theory?