Common Creationist Arguments - Pseudoscience

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Arguments/Pseudoscience.shtml ^

[JediGirl]

I'm glad you're getting something you can relate to out of all this.

LOL!!!

[PatrickHenry]

A programming note, to keep us all up to speed on the latest "improvements" to the FreeRepublic software:

When you search on to:"crevo_list" you can't do it once and expect to find all articles on the bump list. You have to search in "Religion", in "General Interest" and in "News/Activism". Each major "forum" seems to have a tightly compartmentized search function.

When you do a "self search" it seems to cut across all of the new categories.

Recommendation: if you want to bump a new article, you can't count on a general ping addressed to crevo_list. You ought to ping the individuals who may be interested.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[AndrewC]

But that's not the way the mind works: We tend to seek comfort & security relative to what we have now.

Not everyone thinks that way, though that is a "natural" tendency.

[AndrewC]

I want to know the truth,

Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

[VadeRetro]

I noticed on another thread, Patrick, you linked a Don Lindsay article I hadn't seen in some time. There's an interesting tidbit in there.

Way back in reply 1082, tallhappy commented on the reptile-mammal transition series as follows:

Stuff like this is one of the reasosn people are quite rightly skeptical of evolution. So much of it has been junk science. (Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny -- not even logical).

Taking this to be an interconnected whole, I countered as follows in reply 1091:

Please explain how "recapitulation" applies here. Where's the ontogeny?

(I had posted a figure comparing fossil skulls of Synapsids and early mammals.)

tallhappy later denied intending any connection between the fossil skulls and the "recapitulation" doctrine, except that he considered both examples of "junk science."

But it turns out there is a connection:

In 1837, a Creationist reported that during a pig's fetal development, part of the incipient jawbone detaches and becomes the little bones of the middle ear. After Evolution was invented, it was predicted that there would be a transitional fossil, of a reptile with a spare jaw joint right near its ear. A whole series of such fossils has since been found - the cynodont therapsids.

Is Evolution Science?.

Lindsay isn't making it up. Modern anatomy labs still mention this.

A treatment of mammal and reptile jaw specializations, among other aspects of "What is a Mammal?".

Here's a history of vertebrates that closes with a reference to the ear bone migration in some professor's course notes.

[Junior]

You oughta ping g3k. He's bound to go nuts over this, and later claim to have completely refuted everything ever mentioned on any of those websites -- before they were ever published!

[PatrickHenry]

I noticed on another thread, Patrick, you linked a Don Lindsay article I hadn't seen in some time.

I don't recall the link, but I'm glad it was so fruitful.

[VadeRetro]

It was "Is Evolution Science?" with its mention of fetal pig jaws leading to the successful prediction of the Synapsid fossil finds. Now I can't retrace my steps to the thread on which I noticed it.

[VadeRetro]

You oughta ping g3k.

Good idea. He's spun the fossil series as an artifact purely of Cuffey's drawing skill and imagination. (And I guess Cuffey made up all those references to the literature in his article.)

But why does a parallel process happen in fetal development?

gore, submitted for your consideration, post 2285.

[PatrickHenry]

It's part of my standard bump, which also links to Junior's comopendium, so you could have seen it anywhere:

Is Evolution Science?. Successful PREDICTIONS of evolution (Moonman62).

[VadeRetro]

I found another lecture (the previous one?) in that series linked in 2285. (For some reason, there is no "ch33.") Anyway, it offers some detail on the steps from unicellular to multi-cellulars with internal body cavities.

I was intrigued by the reference to a possibly ancestral-to-metazoans "choanocyte," as I'd never heard of such. It was a slip on the author's part. Choanocytes, specialized cells of sponges, are homologous with free-swimming choanoflagellates, which sometimes go colonial.

An article on choanoflagellates as possible ancestors to metazoans.

Anyway, back to the first link now:

So. The very first step is the formation of aggregates of cells. In Unicellular organisms, each cell is an individual and, therefore, each cell must complete all of life sustaining and day to day tasks for itself including metabolism (ana- and cata-bolism) and (a)sexual reproduction, once maturity or adequate cell size is reached. Either method of reproduction occurs only if the cell takes a break from metabolism, so it is one or the other. Cells that tend to cluster together can bend the rules a little bit because they have the ability to divide the labor. We believe that an increasing division of labor was a trend in early animal evolution. In its earliest form an aggregation of cells might dedicate some members to the task of reproduction while the remaining cells handled the metabolic requirements of the group as a whole. As you might guess, with all the individuals working together, the colony can still continue to grow even while it is reproducing. Further if all members of the colony are related, then you can argue that the inclusive fitness of the colony is greater than it would be for any one individual cell out on its own. Suddenly there is a real fitness advantage to being a colony.

Later down, we have trichoplax adherens mentioned as an early food-ingester. It's a weird wee beastie:

FWIW.

[VadeRetro]

. . . I'd never heard of such. It was a slip on the author's part.

Not that I'd ever heard of choanoflagellates, either.

[PatrickHenry]

More Piltdown Man stuff, Vade? Slime, all slime.
</creationism mode>

[VadeRetro]

Slime, all slime.

I didn't say anything about slime molds.

[Junior]

Once more, you've got to bump g3k to this stuff. He's having a hard enough time with basic evolutionary theory; this stuff should make his head explode.

[Junior]

From the link:

A second group, the cellular slime molds, spend most of their lives as separate single-celled amoeboid protists, but upon the release of a chemical signal, the individual cells aggregate into a great swarm. Cellular slime molds are thus of great interest to cell and developmental biologists, because they provide a comparatively simple and easily manipulated system for understanding how cells interact to generate a multicellular organism. There are two groups of cellular slime molds, the Dictyostelida and the Acrasida, which may not be closely related to each other.

Emphasis mine.

[f.Christian]

Liberals/libertarians--Evolution is a religion/cult founded upon 'quicksand' to make people(monsters) comfortable about their 'eating' habits---tastes and insuring themselves a steady food supply---after they plug-mess up the watering hole!

Devilcrats(evolution pimps/whores)!

Go away!

Do you all wear gold chains---pierced ears--noses...tattoos??

[Junior]

Now you're just repeating -- babbling incoherently -- yourself.

[f.Christian]

Take that "patrick henry" fraud--impersonator with you---

the dnz--overdrive/blown back to the county fair demo derby for a paint/putty job!

[Condorman]

Hey Junior, it's hard to tell, but I think Captian Gibberish just insulted you...