What are scientists afraid of?

[The Creeper]

This is the title in the opinion section in my local paper. The article is by John Perry and proceeds to "critique" evolution with the usual canards.

To qoute from the article:

"While there are plenty of closed-minded creationists out there, it is the scientists today who are the chief culprits when it comes to skewing the rules of debate. Those leading evolutionists whom professor and author Phillip Johnson calls 'Mandarins of science' have decreed that only scientists can participate in the argument and that they include theories and proposals generally accepted by their fellow scientists."

"In every other case, scientists welcome information and suggestions from every quarter, subjecting their hypothesis to challenge after challenge in order to confirm, refine or disprove it. Only in defense of Darwin do the scientists do all they can to choke off discussion.
Therefore, nagging questions continue about evolution theory.
*Yes, natural selection can make a small bird beak bigger or a big beak smaller, but how does it account for the beak in the first place?

*How would an eye ever have evolved by random purposeless evolution if it was(as it is) completely useless until it is fully developed?

*And if millions of years of incremental change are responsible for the diversity of life on Earth, why is there no record of these innumerable variations in the fossil record?"

He goes on to say that random selection tends to disorder, and that nothing in the theory of evolution accounts for the creation of significant new genetic information. So having completely dismantled the theory of evolution by the clever ploy of bending over, parting his cheeks and shoving his head up his ass, he suggests that ID creationism is the only alternative.
The article says John Perry is a historian, author and former editor of Home and Christian Life Review and wrote "Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial" with Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor and editor-in-chief of World magazine.
Another question he asks, "Did antediluvian ooze really evolve at random into Beethoven?" Thoughts?

[Phil McCracken]

Thoughts?Well, it's pretty boilerplate creationist anti-evolution propaganda, has very little to do with ID in particular. He didn't even mention the flagellum!

If you want to respond with a letter to the editor, you could mention that Darwin himself addressed Perry's questions over a century ago, in The Origin of Species, and that if Messr Perry really wants answers, he ought to try reading it some time! (If you had the space, you could even provide direct quotations from The Origin of Species.)

Regarding the bullshit about the fossil record, you could simply remark that we have yet to find a fossil that is not a transitional form!

[Dhaeron]

Thoughts?
On the one hand, "not even worth the time thinking about a response". On the other hand "ignoring it might increase the number of people who believe this bullshit".
It's just the same old, heck, ancient creationist BS. Take one part misrepresentation, one part strawmen, add a tablespoon of outright lies and ignorance, stir and present to public as a fully-fledged creationist column. Refuting it isn't really hard or time-consuming. The problem is, in a newspaper you can't provide a few handy links, and every line made up by a creationist takes about a page of explaining why it's wrong.

Those leading evolutionists whom professor and author Phillip Johnson calls 'Mandarins of science' have decreed that only scientists can participate in the argument and that they include theories and proposals generally accepted by their fellow scientists."
He means hypotheses made up by laymen aren't taken for as good as theories presented by actual scientists? Shocking!
What's an evolutionist anyway? Is the pope one?
"In every other case, scientists welcome information and suggestions from every quarter, subjecting their hypothesis to challenge after challenge in order to confirm, refine or disprove it.
Information, yes. Speculation, no. The ToE has so far survived every challenge, and simply repeating the old ones as it's a habit of creationists isn't going to make a difference on the outcome.
Only in defense of Darwin do the scientists do all they can to choke off discussion.
Bullshit. Any paper that challegens the ToE and fullfills at least minimal scientific standards is welcome. Trying to sneak creationism into classrooms to indoctrinate children is what scientists want to choke off. And rightly so.
Therefore, nagging questions continue about evolution theory. Only for those ignorant about it.
*Yes, natural selection can make a small bird beak bigger or a big beak smaller, but how does it account for the beak in the first place?
No it doesn't. Now this is of course a problem for a letter to the editor. Making such a stupid claim takes about one line, and maybe half a braincell. Refuting it requires explaining how beaks evolved, and that is probably impossible with less than half a page of writing.
*How would an eye ever have evolved by random purposeless evolution if it was(as it is) completely useless until it is fully developed?Same problem as above. Plus a strawman. Evolution is purposeless but not random. Also, the eye evolved out of structures that were not useless. Irreducable complexity |= unevolvability.
*And if millions of years of incremental change are responsible for the diversity of life on Earth, why is there no record of these innumerable variations in the fossil record?"There is. He's either misinformed (imo not likely) or lying. However, fossilisation is extremely rare, so we can't expect to find every single step of every ancestral line. Heck, i doubt the number of found fossils is enough to even match the number of generations in a single such line.
He goes on to say that random selection tends to disorder, and that nothing in the theory of evolution accounts for the creation of significant new genetic information.The first part is just stupid. First, it's random mutation, not selection, second, how can it tend to disorder if it's selection? The second part is vacuous without a definition of information that he, of course, fails to give. However information in the genepool can increase after any useful definition of information in the context.
The article says John Perry is a historian, author and former editor of Home and Christian Life Review and wrote "Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial" with Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor and editor-in-chief of World magazine.
When writing a letter you might want to point out that he isn't nearly a biologist so his opinionen is that of an at best informed (but evidently clueless) layman. I doubt he'd be pleased if some biologist started to tell him where he's wrong about history.

[Phil McCracken]

There is. He's either misinformed (imo not likely) or lying. However, fossilisation is extremely rare, so we can't expect to find every single step of every ancestral line. Heck, i doubt the number of found fossils is enough to even match the number of generations in a single such line.This is the most easily refutable argument. As I mentioned above, nobody has yet found a fossil that isn't a transitional form. Multiple fossils from the same species are always localized, both geographically and temporally.

The fossil record is, in fact, the most dramatic evidence of evolution!

[lpetrich]

Some fossils are much more common than others; fossils of marine protists and invertebrates are very common.

Also, Phillip Johnson's comments about "mandarins of science" is pure whining; he ought to name those alleged guardians of orthodoxy. And I think that he ought to remove the log of Bible-worship from his eye before he accuses evolutionary biologists of having the specks of allegiance to evolution in their eyes.

[Whatup?]

*How would an eye ever have evolved by random purposeless evolution if it was(as it is) completely useless until it is fully developed?
Creationists gain a lot of pseudo-capital by a fallacious line of reasoning that Dembski is keen to capitalize on. That line of reasoning assumes that because there are two loudly presented theories - evolution and creation - any puzzle that evolution cannot answer at this moment ads weight to creationism. If evolution theory cannot answer question x, then there is evidence for intelligent design.

By that flawed logic, since no paradigm in science can necessary answer all questions at all times we should assume that any given loudly proclaimed alternative paradigm always has some merit. But that's nonsense. Just because evolution may not be able to answer all questions at all times does not mean creationism can answer any question at any time (and I'm not suggesting the example quoted above is a case evolution cannot answer).

Given the stunning success of evolution theory in answering so many questions, for any x it cannot answer now the most likely case is that there is an answer involving evolution theory plus some new data (a "missing link") that we have yet to acquire. We are wise to place our bets with the theory that has had the most success to date (evolution), not necessarily with the theory that answers all and only all questions at this moment.

[The Creeper]

Unfortunately, there is a 300 word limit to letters to the editor. Simply trying to explain the difference between random mutation and natural selection would constitute most of a letter.

On the bright side, they did publish a pro-science piece by Steve Olson, which did cover the difference between scientific theories and its use in popular culture. Given the limitations of writing a column, he did a nice job of laying down the basic arguments supporting the science.

[Hyndis]

Unfortunately, there is a 300 word limit to letters to the editor. Simply trying to explain the difference between random mutation and natural selection would constitute most of a letter.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

Sadly, it seems that the soundbytes are winning. :(

[Phil McCracken]

Unfortunately, there is a 300 word limit to letters to the editor. Simply trying to explain the difference between random mutation and natural selection would constitute most of a letter.

On the bright side, they did publish a pro-science piece by Steve Olson, which did cover the difference between scientific theories and its use in popular culture. Given the limitations of writing a column, he did a nice job of laying down the basic arguments supporting the science.If you choose to write a letter, focus on the fact that Darwin himself anticipated these issues and addressed them himself in On the Origin of Species. For example, in the argument about the complexity of the eye, he argued that one could draw a line backwards toward simpler and simpler "eyes", each of which would still provide an evolutionary advantage to its possessor. And sure enough, in the decades since, biologists have found species with a huge variety of workable "eyes" of varying complexity (do a search on infidels.org or what for examples).

Similarly with the issue of the fossil record. Darwin addressed it, and in the time since he lived, we've filled more and more "gaps" in the fossil record, and have yet to find a fossil that wasn't "transitional". The more transitional fossils that are found, the more the creationists move the goalposts.

As a final point, simply point out that his arguments, just like the ID arguments, are just tired old creationist arguments with new jargon.

I think you get under 300 words and still make a point.

(BTW feel free to use any of this verbiage verbatim, or modified to suit your needs, if you wish. I think you OUGHT to write a letter.)

[Dryhad]

"While there are plenty of closed-minded creationists out there, it is the scientists today who are the chief culprits when it comes to skewing the rules of debate. Those leading evolutionists whom professor and author Phillip Johnson calls 'Mandarins of science' have decreed that only scientists can participate in the argument and that they include theories and proposals generally accepted by their fellow scientists."
I expect that such sentiment is born of annoyance at local yahoos digging up some flawed piece of evidence and using it as fact ad nauseum without understanding it.

"In every other case, scientists welcome information and suggestions from every quarter, subjecting their hypothesis to challenge after challenge in order to confirm, refine or disprove it. Only in defense of Darwin do the scientists do all they can to choke off discussion.
Because it's only in "defense of Darwin" that suggestions of a supernatural nature enter naturalism.

Therefore, nagging questions continue about evolution theory.
*Yes, natural selection can make a small bird beak bigger or a big beak smaller, but how does it account for the beak in the first place?
I'm not certain on the details, but I'm sure it's a lot easier than they make it sound.

*How would an eye ever have evolved by random purposeless evolution if it was(as it is) completely useless until it is fully developed?
I couldn't. Fortunately for all sighted animals on earth, it's not completely useless. A single light sensitive cell is better than nothing. Two is better than one. A lens is better than a blur, and so forth.

*And if millions of years of incremental change are responsible for the diversity of life on Earth, why is there no record of these innumerable variations in the fossil record?"
Because fossilisation is relatively rare. What we do see are examples of incremental change, but with every transitional fossil discovered, IDers demand the transitions on either side.

"Did antediluvian ooze really evolve at random into Beethoven?"
No. It mutated randomly with unbeneficial mutations erradicated by natural processes, until it became Beethoven.

These are all basic ID arguements. They all suck. Pay them no heed, and perhaps they'll die.

[Joe Meert]

*Yes, natural selection can make a small bird beak bigger or a big beak smaller, but how does it account for the beak in the first place?


JM: That's the really interesting thing isn't it? If one truly wants to argue 'intelligent design', then this provides an excellent example of how evolution can give the appearance of design. You see the changes in beak size were selected for based on ecological pressures. If one simply looked at the birds, it would appear they were 'designed' to fit their particular niche, right? This is one of the pickles that ID'ers find themselves in and try to wriggle out of by making claims about IC. You see they must admit (if they are intellectually honest) that evolution can provide features that give the appearance of design and like creationists, the ID'ers replace 'variation within kinds' to 'Irreducibly Complex'. Evolution is the designer, it's simply not intelligent.

Cheers

Joe Meert

[Sven]

*Yes, natural selection can make a small bird beak bigger or a big beak smaller, but how does it account for the beak in the first place?
Refuting it requires explaining how beaks evolved, and that is probably impossible with less than half a page of writing.
Could you at least give a short outline? Which feature of dinosaurs evolved into beaks?

[_Naturalist_]

"While there are plenty of closed-minded creationists out there, it is the scientists today who are the chief culprits when it comes to skewing the rules of debate.
"We're bad but you're worse, so there."

"In every other case, scientists welcome information and suggestions from every quarter, subjecting their hypothesis to challenge after challenge in order to confirm, refine or disprove it. Only in defense of Darwin do the scientists do all they can to choke off discussion.
I don't think they would do that.

*How would an eye ever have evolved by random purposeless evolution if it was(as it is) completely useless until it is fully developed?
Why would it be completely useless unless it was exactly like the eyes we have now? And what eyes, exactly? The best human eyes we can find? Or eyes from another species?

[Oolon Colluphid]

Could you at least give a short outline? Which feature of dinosaurs evolved into beaks?
Scales around the mouth. :)

[Sven]

Scales around the mouth. :)
:eek: It's indeed that simple?

[Oolon Colluphid]

More or less. Chemically -- if I'm Googling correctly ;) -- they are made of the same stuff as scales.
Figures, really. Like the old joke about getting a stiff upper lip by starching one's moustashe, if you wanted to stiffen your lips because you feed with them, it'd make sense to toughen and increase the skin.

And in around '96 someone called Currie found an ornithomimid dino with a beak which showed evidence of keratin. (Nature 2001, 412(6850): 873-4)