Watch. Laugh. Cry at its reality. [H/T Stefano S.]
Category Evolution
I am going to copy and paste a very normal article from Science Daily here. Nothing special. Just your bog-standard scientific journal publication press release. This one is about a fossilised horse which has had its genome mapped.
What I want people like JohnM, a regular commenter here, to do is to explain all of the aspects of this articles in terms of their Creationist framework. What I mean by this, is they (he) needs to take every claim in this article (most aren’t claims, but are simply givens) and produce a non ad hoc explanation which explains this evidence BETTER than evolution and naturalism. In order to be true, the explanation must have that explanatory power.
I thought this might be topical, given new commenter Joseph’s (a JW) predilection for evolution illiteracy whilst simultaneously claiming intellectual victory over an evolutionary biologist and other’s complete pwnage of him. It is actually sad seeing psychology deny a person reality, because that is what is happening. Perseverance bias feeding confirmation bias, predicted by cognitive dissonance makes for pitiful reading. I wonder how his creationism both predicts these results and explains them?!
Having attended a fascinating talk by James Williams (a science educator) last night at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub, I thought I would post about it. The talk was called Insidious Creationism and concerned Creationism within an educational context.
Wow. So, thanks to Andrew Marburger who tweeted me the link to this absolute corker. People actually believe that dragons existed because they appear to be mentioned in a 2000 year-old holy book. Answers in Genesis (AiG), your one-stop link to ridiculousness and science denialism seems to posit the notion that “dragon accounts aren’t easy to dismiss as mere fantasy.” Yes they are. They are very easy to dismiss. They are fantasy. The article is terrible. Dragon fire-breathing, it concedes, could be an embellishment. It seems to overlook the idea of such a heavy animal flying with those wings would be ridiculous.
Facepalm.
Adam Deen is a Muslim apologist famous in the UK for defending, publicly, the philosophy and theology of Islam often touching on scientific contexts.
Skydivephil is an awesome duo who you might remember from here who often have William Lane Craig in their sights (where in the linked video they owned him on his claims about animal suffering, first in his debate with Stephen Law).
It’s time to welcome our first guest post here. The Thinker has occasionally dropped a line and commented on various arguments. He runs his own blog called Atheism & The City, being a secular urbanite living in New York. His philosophically minded blog is worth reading here. His formulation of today’s post can be found here. This post concerns the incompatibilism of God given the truth of evolution. Ie evolutionary theism is problematic. Anyway, over to The Thinker:
Many animals — from locusts to fish — live in groups and swarm, but scientists aren’t sure why or how this behavior evolved. Now a multidisciplinary team of Michigan State University scientists has used a model system to show for the first time that predator confusion can make prey evolve swarming behavior.
Science Daily – May 24, 2013 — A new study by archaeologists at the University of York challenges evolutionary theories behind the development of our earliest ancestors from tree dwelling quadrupeds to upright bipeds capable of walking and scrambling.
The researchers say our upright gait may have its origins in the rugged landscape of East and South Africa which was shaped during the Pliocene epoch by volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates.
Some interesting fossil news from Science Daily:
May 14, 2013 — An international team of scientists have revealed a new species of ichthyosaur (a dolphin-like marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs) from Iraq, which revolutionises our understanding of the evolution and extinction of these ancient marine reptiles.
The great thing about fossil discoveries is that they fit, and are often predicted. Case in point here. However, as with this find, many questions are raised. Silly people go, “Aha! A question! My, this can only be answered by positing ‘God’!”
Of course, clever people leave it to science. Which is good at coming up trumps and answering stuff…
Joe G´s shenanigans continue
I´m skeptical that anyone is still interested in seeing more of Joe G´s shenanigans (if you missed the story, it´s the Cdesign proponentsist that challenged me to a $10,000 bet, lost, and then chickened out ). If you are bored of this guy, leave now ;-).
So, complexity is supposedly a tough one for ‘evolutionists’. Well, it’s not really, if you have ever read around the subject. Incremental steps, such as is evidence with the eye in all its various complexities throughout the natural world, seem to do the trick.
A few days ago, Cdesign proponentsist JoeG challenged me to a $10,000 bet over which one of us understands the concept of nested hierarchies better. I accepted his challenge and won and he decided to chicken out and lie about the bet.
There has been a mammoth conversation going on over on another post, Creationist stakes $10,000 on contest between Bible and evolution. Regular IDist commenter, JoeG, a major proponent of pseudoscientific unguided evolution. That means to say he broadly agrees to evolution, but claims there is no evidence it is unguided and plenty of evidence it is guided. Apart from the fact that he neglects to ever provide any of this evidence whilst at the same time demanding that we provide positive evidence that evolution is unguided.
I was recently sent a link to Thomas L. McDonald’s piece “The Origin of Man, Original Sin, and Why It’s…
I wonder what our very own Andy Schueler thinks of this, as an molecular evolutionary biologist! The Guardian reports:
Creator of Literal Genesis Trial believes people who argue in favor of evolution are at a scientific disadvantage
Recent measurements of the rate at which children show DNA changes not seen in their parents — the “mutation rate” — have challenged views about major dates in human evolution.
This is a fascinating article. It amazes me that parents can torture their children with AIG inspired textbooks. This is an albeit small step in the right direction: