Scruffy little weed shows Darwin was right as evolution moves on

And as to whether it shakes to the core our relationship with God...the philosophical and theological implications of a heliocentric solar system didn't change the reality of it, any more than the perceived implications of evolution change the reality of it. I am sorry to be the one to break it to you, but if our relationship with God is somehow contingent upon evolution being false, we will simply have to rethink our relationship with God, and come to a better understanding of it based on what we know to be true and what we know to be false. The fault is neither Darwin's, nor the biologist's, nor God's, in that case - the fault for an imperfect relationship with God, based on something once thought to be false, but now known to be true, lies solely with us. And it will be up to us to fix it within ourselves...

A gem.

Would you like me to explain ...attention spans ruined by television these days

The tone leads me to believe that my demands for a more rigorous proof are getting to you, but I appreciate your admission that the "new" species is really just "likely" a new species by your standards of inductive reasoning.

A little background: through high school the theory of evolution, being the only theory presented, seemed reasonable to me. Through college (Stanford), I didn't really have any reason to question it either, for a couple of reasons: 1) questioning evolution meant you were an idiot or a cult member of some sort, and 2) the theory still seemed reasonable to me.

When I started reading the creationist critique, I was intrigued at how reasonable some of their objections seemed as well, but I was even more surprised at how unwilling the scientific community was to actually answer that critique. There's a subtle version of that going on with your reference to high-tech equipment that is only available to the priesthood of the professional biologist.

The fact is, yes, I would appreciate a text that explains the biology community's faith in DNA analysis, and I would read it against the creationist critique, but the larger issue is this: the faithful accept the promise of the New Testament essentially on faith ("blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe"), and they don't apologize for faith. They pray for more of it. On the other hand, scientists claim to operate on the basis of measureable observation, a rational universe, and inductive reasoning. It isn't the responsibility of the faith community to use the rules of science. It is the responsibility of scientists. I have no explanation for the virgin birth or Christ being raised for the dead, yet I believe in it and count that belief a gift. I never claimed to be able to prove those realities through science. You, however, and your community, need to live by your own rules. In the case of the present article, there has been no proof offered regarding the introduction of the parent species 300 years ago, there has been no explanation of reasonable alternative sources (migrating birds, dormant seed, human introduction, etc.), and there has been no concise explanation of the genetic connection, other than "trust the experts."

<< Farmer's story has evolved to where he meant an unnamed-but-famous radio talk show host and lawyer in one particular show. Funny, but I can't get an answer on the basis for this recurring pamphlet-claptrap claim of discarded Piltdown Man being being cited in High School texts. >>

I gotta give you that one. Piltdown man was used as evidence for evoution in the past, but is not used today like frauds such as Haeckel's embryo forgeries and the staged photos of the peppered moth's are.

Let's be reasonable. Give them about 40 years to catch up. That's about the normal time for science to be "self-correcting" when it comes to evolutionary myths:

Piltdown man was not exposed as a fraud for 40 years after its discovery. Glad they finally eradicated that fraud.

For over 20 years, "brontosaurus" was displayed without a head at all, then for the next 50 years, they had the wrong head on it. But after 70 years, they've finally got it right - except Yale Museum still has camarasaurus feet on it today! I will admit this was probably an honest mistake, not a fraud.

It took only about 100 years for the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff to discover their ichthyosaurus display was two different creatures and that many supposed real bones were actually PLASTER of Paris covered with several coats of PAINT to make them appear old. One wonders how many of these we haven't caught?

The triceratops on display in the prestigious Smithsonian Institution for nearly 100 years actually contains the bones of 14 different animals, including the feet of a duckbill dinosaur.

It's taken over 100 years and all of Haeckel's forgeries are not removed yet. We must give them adequate time to update the science texts! Patience!

Huxley's "monera" forgery was not corrected in any English publication for over 95 years!

It's only taken 40-50 years to start correcting the peppered moth photos. If we just give them adequate time, they will make the corrections - see? They've cut the response time in HALF!

Although, they caught the hesperopithicus pig-man blunder in only about five years (although it did take another 50 years before they discovered the peccary still existed), so there is hope they can correct the current errors before an entire generation is misled by evolutionary fabels, frauds, mistakes, and myths again.

I gotta give you that one. Piltdown man was used as evidence for evoution in the past ...

For several years after 1912. Perhaps into the 1920s.

I gotta give you that one. Piltdown man was used as evidence for evoution in the past, but is not used today like frauds such as Haeckel's embryo forgeries and the staged photos of the peppered moth's are.

Just one mantra after another from the pamphlet scientists. Been there and done that with you on Haeckel's embryos, here and here.

Let me now add peppered moths.

For over 20 years, "brontosaurus" was displayed without a head at all ... I will admit this was probably an honest mistake, not a fraud.

... One wonders how many of these we haven't caught?

You've got to do a lot more babblin' and bubblin' than that to make the world of evidence go away.

Have you discovered a way to "prove" axioms? :^)

I wish ;)

Anyway, some things have to be taken as axiomatic, even by experts, and some things that might be provable to experts are not accessible to the rest of us. I have some math in my background, but not nearly enough to evaluate the validity of Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's theorem. If the mathematicians tell me it's proven, I don't have much choice but to accept what they say - for all intents and purposes, the statement "Fermat's last theorem is correct" is taken as axiomatic to me, if not to mathematicians. I have neither the tools nor the training to do otherwise, although the process is open in the sense that we can at least imagine me coming to have that knowledge. And if British botanists tell me that this plant is something never before seen, and most likely a brand-new species, what choice do I have but to accept that, too?

Maybe it'll turn out that this conclusion is wrong - it's happened before, as with that thing on flatworm speciation or whatever it was that we were talking about a few months ago. But with a few exceptions, none of us here can really do anything but wait for something resembling consensus to arise - we aren't in a position to do much but take their word for it. We all (hopefully) understand the process of scientific investigation, at least, and accept that the process is likely to eventually produce a correct result, so now we wait for that to happen.

<< Just one mantra after another from the pamphlet scientists. Been there and done that with you on Haeckel's embryos, here and here. >>

Did you include the exchange where you claimed it was not used in current materials and was proved wrong?

<< Let me now add peppered moths. >>

What a pretty chart! It's so colorful! But the moths were GLUED onto the trees, so a chart purporting to show they naturally rest on trees is simply adding to the misinformation.

British scientist Cyril Clarke, who investigated the peppered moth extensively, wrote:

"But the problem is that we do not know the resting sites of the moth during the day time. … In 25 years we have found only two betularia on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background and one not), and none elsewhere."

The moths filmed being eaten by the birds were laboratory-bred and placed onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once had to warm them up on his car hood.

As for the photos of moths on tree trunks — they were dead moths were glued to the tree. University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped perform the deception for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured "a lot of fraudulent photographs". He should know.

Not only that, but other experiments have not shown the same results your pretty graphic concluded. Others have shown a no correlation between the lichen covering and the moth ratios. When one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trunks in an unpolluted forest, the birds took more of the dark ones, as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones — the opposite of textbook predictions!

H. Kettlewell (1959), "Darwin’s missing evidence" in Evolution and the fossil record, readings from Scientific American, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, 1978, p. 23.

C.A. Clarke, G.S. Mani and G. Wynne, "Evolution in reverse: clean air and the peppered moth", Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:189–199, 1985.

J.A. Coyne, Nature 396(6706):35–36.

The Washington Times, January 17, 1999, p. D8.

D.R. Lees & E.R. Creed, ref. 4.

The tone leads me to believe that my demands for a more rigorous proof are getting to you, but I appreciate your admission that the "new" species is really just "likely" a new species by your standards of inductive reasoning.

Casting it as an "admission" hardly makes it so - if the "thinkers" haven't figured out by now that that sort of standard is pretty much all we ever get in virtually everything we ever do across our entire lives, then they haven't thought very deeply at all. Try operating for a while based only on things you can absolutely prove to be true - you'll be dead in very short order, I can guarantee it.

When I started reading the creationist critique, I was intrigued at how reasonable some of their objections seemed as well, but I was even more surprised at how unwilling the scientific community was to actually answer that critique.

It's a fair criticism to point out that scientists do a poor job of explaining what they are up to, and what they do. But it is another fallacy to assume that, since mainstream scientists decline to answer Kent Hovind, they therefore can't answer Kent Hovind. Kent Hovind has been answered regularly and in depth by dozens of people across many years, and yet he continues plugging away with the same basic errors that he started with. How many times must the voice of reason be "willing" to answer his critiques - such as they are - before we permit them to stop trying such a futile exercise? Some people can't be persuaded of truth, no matter what, because they have some vested interest in the falsity of whatever it is under discussion.

Some people ask the same questions and raise the same issues that have been raised dozens or hundreds of times before, when the answers are readily accessible to anyone who bothers to do even the most cursory investigation on their own. How many times do we expect people to answer the same questions over and over ("If we evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?"), before we grant that they are human and prone to a bit of exasperation?

There's a subtle version of that going on with your reference to high-tech equipment that is only available to the priesthood of the professional biologist.

You object to the notion that some things are complicated, or beyond the resources of most people to do?

In the case of the present article, there has been no proof offered regarding the introduction of the parent species 300 years ago, there has been no explanation of reasonable alternative sources (migrating birds, dormant seed, human introduction, etc.), and there has been no concise explanation of the genetic connection, other than "trust the experts."

Sigh. As I said, there never will be absolute proof. You don't expect it anywhere else, and you can't have it here, either. The explanation of the genetics of the thing is qute readily accessible to people who take the time and make the effort to find it - your objection thus far is basically a complaint that nobody is spoon-feeding it to you in nice soundbite-sized chunks.

As for "reasonable alternative sources" - why should anyone take any of them seriously unless and until you have some evidence for them? If you have some alternate theory, I strongly suggest you get out there and find some evidence to support it, if there is any. At this point, my reasonable alternative explanation - that Santa Claus dropped the seeds there during his last Christmas outing - has exactly as much evidence supporting it as your proposals do - none whatsoever.

Well now, what are your qualifications? You sure are quick to castigate a world-class scientist, but you guys sure get quiet fast when asked to provide your own qualifications.

My qualifications to determine that your cite doesn't hold water?

1) I can read above a 4th grade level
2) I can count real good up to 3

To recap, in post 56 you wrote the following:

Apes, like chimpanzees, may have been the ancestors of monkeys but not humans. See (1) Mastropaolo, Joseph. An objective ancestry test for fossil bones. The Physiologist 45 (4): 343, 2002. Abstract. (2) Mastropaolo, Joseph. An objective ancestry test for fossil bones. TJ, The In-Depth Journal of Creation 16(3): 84-88, 2002. (3) Krupa, Donna. Discovery Of The Oldest Human Ancestor Is (again) Called Into Question. Press release for An Objective Ancestry Test For Fossil Bones,by the American Physiological Society Intersociety Meeting, The Power of Comparative Physiology: Evolution, Integration, and Adaptation, August 24-28, 2002, San Diego, CA.

That citation was thoroughly demolished by Ichneumon in post 127. So the burden of proof falls to you to provide support for your statement. And, really, your options are rather limited: A) Produce Dr. Mastropaolo's paper, B) find another means of supporting your statement, or C) retract your statement.

Now, seeing as how I've been a participant in a crevo thread or two, I predict with a high degree of confidence that you are going to choose secret anti-evo option letter D. In a move to be studied and revered by anti-evos for years to come, you will ever-so-subtlely and not-at-all transparently change the subject to the matter of credentials, thereby shifting the burden of proof back on to those wacky evos, confident that no one will remember how support for your statement "Humans are not primates" was shown to be, not only suspect, but in fact missing entirely.

As for "reasonable alternative sources" - why should anyone take any of them seriously unless and until you have some evidence for them? If you have some alternate theory,

That's an interesting shift of the obligation. The burden of proof for anyone claiming they have found a new species is to answer any and all reasonable objections to the claim. You continually equate the very reasonable objections I have stated with comparisons to the "seed from Mars" variety. It's an entirely reasonable question to ask, "when, where, and how was the so-called parent stock introduced?" "Can we be seeing the result of a dormant seed population?" "What is the difference between cousin, sibling, and parent DNA relationship and how are you sure parentage is the proper conclusion?" "What are the standards for discerning whether a new species has been observed or an old species discovered? How long must we go between discoveries, in other words, before we determine that there's nothing new?" "How often does genetic fraud occur in the research world?"

Those aren't unreasonable questions, particularly for people who are confident in their theory and their integrity.

Very recently, a fellow named Bellesiles published a dearly-loved treatise on American gun ownership in the 18th century. The treatise was embraced by leftists all across the television dial, because it purported to skewer what it called a cherished myth--that of the armed American. It turns out that ordinary citizens actually checked his footnotes and determined he was fabricating evidence and misinterpreting what he fabricated. I recall being ridiculed for questioning anything connected, albeit remotely, with CBS and the Smithsonian. He eventually received a vote of no confidence by his institution, and that's a vindication for the academy. It's not unreasonable, for the sake of the process, and in light of the passions this issue engenders, to at least entertain the last question as well.

When you get close to reasonable standards, I will believe you, but not until then. (I thought scientists enjoyed skepticsm, by the way.)

And if British botanists tell me that this plant is something never before seen, and most likely a brand-new species, what choice do I have but to accept that, too?

Though some may have a problem with the presence of a new "species", for others it is the relevance of the new "species" to the question of a Darwinian type evolution. Part of the problem stems from the lack of a clear and consistent definition of "species".

For example in the bone department

Researchers debated where in humankind’s family tree the new fossil belonged, eventually describing it as a new species called Homo rudolfensis. They drew a question mark in diagrams of human evolution, wondering how these two groups of humans interacted and which one gave rise to the peoples of today.
Enter OH 65: Its upper jaw and teeth provide what Blumenschine called “a key anatomical link” between the lower jaw of H. habilis and the toothless H. rudolfensis cranium.
In their new paper in Friday’s issue of Science, Blumenschine and 16 co-authors conclude that all of the specimens are similar enough to be called H. habilis, and H. rudolfensis is not a separate species at all. At the same time, they suggest that several smaller-brained specimens do not belong in H. habilis.

<< In a move to be studied and revered by anti-evos for years to come, you will ever-so-subtlely and not-at-all transparently change the subject to the matter of credentials, thereby shifting the burden of proof back on to those wacky evos, confident that no one will remember how support for your statement "Humans are not primates" was shown to be, not only suspect, but in fact missing entirely. >>

No, no, you misjudge my motive entirely. I want to see if any of you detractors would be willing to confront Dr. Mastropaulo face-to-face, where you could have him show you the information and slice your religion of evolutionism in pieces.

I am offering one of you a chance to show, before an audience, just how 'unqualified' he is, and how 'qualified' you are.

One guy said he would, and he has disappeared from the FR scene since Joe contacted him and called his bluff.

It is obvious that most evolutionists are chickens when offered such a challenge - and chickens are birds, not primates.

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