I did not intend to say that all those working in the evolution field are arrogant or come across that way, sorry if I seemed to say that, some are or were very circumspect. Even Charles Darwin listened to critics and made revisions and later included some of them in his Ascent of Man. Richard Dawkins style does come across sometimes as arrogant, which is a shame because on quite a few things he rails against, I am in agreement with him on, such as dowsers, alternative medicine et al.

As for the rock dating, I vaguely remember watching a video or DVD I was loaned where some guy said that some mineral with I think it was polonium was causing difficulties for the conventional dating methods, I wish I could give you more to pin down who it was. All I remember is that it seemed convincing at the time.

Is there a book you could recommend on dating methods?

The one question though that has not been answered is, will this book be available in the UK, or will it like Phil’s new book, for the US market only?

I’m not sure Teach your Sons’ post passes the Turing Test.

I believe it’s critical to teach our sons in particular.

In particular, compared to what? Teaching our daughters? I am confused as to what you are saying here. Shouldn’t we be teaching all of our children?

I believe it’s critical to teach our sons in particular.

Please buy this book for your sons or their school, as I have now in Feb 2010.

On WWD when the dealt with behaviour of the dinosaurs, the style of the programme was like a normal nature documentary and it was presented as “this is how it was” It was very slick and well crafted, but when it came to it, it was just speculation, presented as fact, with Kenneth Brannagh narrating it. They later did the same in “Walking with Beasts”

I disagree, I don’t think they made any secret of the fact that there was a lot of speculation, nor did they ever claim that there was not a lot of speculation. Of course it used the same style as a nature documentary, that was the whole point. But they never claimed it was on the same level of certainty as a nature documentary. There was also the “swimming with sea monsters” done by the same group. It was presented as an crocodile hunter-like hands-on show involving time travel. Are you going to criticize them for making people think time travel exists?

Re fossils, some are imprints, but I have in my possession a fossil ammonite and it is not an impression it is like a stone model of the creature.

I have several fossil ammonites, some dinosaur bone, and several other fossils, you don’t need to tell me that. My point is simply that “fossil migration” is not a valid criticism.

As for arrogance, sometime people like Richard Dawkins do come across that way, and I have one evolution book, Becoming Human by Ian Tattersall who criticises Richard Dawkins for how he comes across.

Great, you found one person who one other person claimed comes across as arrogant sometimes. Hardly a very damning indictment of evolutionary scientists.

Frankly it is irrelevant anyway. What matters is evidence. Whether someone comes across as arrogant to someone else doesn’t matter in the slightest, what matters is who does and does not have evidence. The scientific community does. Creationists do not.

Re setting the clock to zero, the way we were taught that radiometric dating worked was that you assumed no daughter product was there to start off with and then you measure ratios of parent to daughter and by reference to half life you get a reading.

I don’t know who taught you that, but they didn’t know much about radiocarbon dating. It is not an assumption. In some cases we know there were none of a given daughter element because of the different properties of the parent and/our daughter during mineral formation. In other cases, it is by comparing two different isotopes, one that decays and one that doesn’t. In still others, it is by looking for two ratios that are different in different samples, but fall along a straight line. But it is never simply assumed that there are no daughter products in the original sample.

How do we know that some daughter elements weren’t leached in or out which takes us to the already discussed issue of migration of elements.

As I said, in cases where this can happen the isotope isn’t used for dating. The isotopes used are not picked randomly, they have been chosen specifically because they have the properties necessary to make them reliable clocks.

And even if you are right and it is reliable, the fact is they all agree with each other. If radioisotope dating was unreliable it would be giving inconsistent answers. If decay rates were changing they would be changing differently for the different isotopes, giving widely different answers. But it doesn’t, the answers it gives are all highly consistent across a wide variety of isotopes. That is, of course, assuming they are used properly, lots of creationists love to intentionally misuse radioisotope dating in an attempt to disprove it (the volcanic eruption case being a great example, but there are many others).

What is more, we actually have direct evidence that radioactive decay was basically the same as it is now as much as 2 billion years ago. Around that time a natural uranium fission reactor, almost identical to our modern reactors, formed in what is now Africa. If radioactive decay rates were different back then for uranium (an important element for radioisotope dating), then the behavior of the reactor would have been radically different (since uranium fission reactions depend on spontaneous uranium decay, and are highly dependent on decay rates). What is more, the properties of the reactor are highly dependent on exactly when the reaction took place, so if the uranium dating method was wrong then the way the reactor actually worked would have been radically different then the way it did work. So radioactive decay rates could not have been different within the last 2 billion years, and the methods used to date the reactor must be accurate up to at least 2 billion years.

And even if we throw out radioisotope dating, there are probably thousands, if not millions, of other things that proves the world is far, far older than 10,000 years. Pretty much every field of science directly contradicts that age, including physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology, epidemiology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, climatology, hydrology, ecology, even history, you name it I bet it has evidence contradicting the idea that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

On WWD when the dealt with behaviour of the dinosaurs, the style of the programme was like a normal nature documentary and it was presented as “this is how it was” It was very slick and well crafted, but when it came to it, it was just speculation, presented as fact, with Kenneth Brannagh narrating it. They later did the same in “Walking with Beasts”

Re fossils, some are imprints, but I have in my possession a fossil ammonite and it is not an impression it is like a stone model of the creature.

As for arrogance, sometime people like Richard Dawkins do come across that way, and I have one evolution book, Becoming Human by Ian Tattersall who criticises Richard Dawkins for how he comes across.

Re setting the clock to zero, the way we were taught that radiometric dating worked was that you assumed no daughter product was there to start off with and then you measure ratios of parent to daughter and by reference to half life you get a reading. The question is how do we know that there wasn’t already some daughter element present when the fossil was formed. How do we know that some daughter elements weren’t leached in or out which takes us to the already discussed issue of migration of elements.

If that’s the case, Sticks, why are you regurgitating all of their sound-bites? (shrug)

>>>The series of teaching DVD offers some serious challenges to the validity of evolution science.”

Really? From James ‘Focus On The Family’ Dobson?!? What um, “serious” challenges would those be?

As for the origin of life not being part of evolution, that is the biggest cop out of them all.

How can you have organic evolution if you can not get life started in the first place?

How can you have organic evolution without first having rules of chemistry that determines how biological molecules behave? Does that mean separating chemistry and biology is a cop-out? How about separating physics and chemistry? After all, the rules of chemistry are all based on physics.

Does this book also deal with the issues concerning evolution and the difficulties that still exist?

I don’t know, most of the difficulties in evolution are very technical and fairly hard to understand for kids, so probably only briefly. If you mean, however, the imaginary difficulties like you mentioned, no, because they are not real difficulties.

Does it deal with the use of genetic mutations, by definition errors in copying the DNA, as the driving mechanism for the variations that natural selection requires.

What is the problem with this? In this context mistakes are simply changes, and changes can either be good, bad, or neutral. The vast majority of mutations are neutral.

Does it document any good mutations in nature without bringing up the worn out example of bacterial resistance to anti-biotics which is all to do with plasmids, not genetic mutation?

Probably, there are plenty of other examples of beneficial mutations.

Does this book deal with the assumptions of radiometric rock dating and the fundamental flaws each of these assumptions make?

No, because there are no such “fundamental flaws”, at least no fundamental flaws that would cause all dating methods to give the same answer (when used appropriately, don’t give me any examples of using radiocarbon dating on samples 10 or 100 million years old).

i.e setting the clock to zero; migration in or out of decay products, possible variation in the half-lifes; the fact a fossile may have migrated; rocks formed in recent volcanic eruptions showing dates older than they really are by these radiometric methods.

I am not sure what you mean by “setting the clock to zero”. If anything, resetting a radioisotope clock would make things look younger than they really are, not older. So I must be not be understanding what you are saying.

Migration of decay products is dealt with by comparing decay products to other components with similar properties, using self-checking isotopes, using decay products that do not migrate, and so on. This is not a difficult problem to deal with with the isotopes used, in fact they were chosen specifically because they lack these sorts of problems.

Isotopes that have half-lives that can vary are not used. We can tell that the half-lives of the elements we use have not varied in various ways. Further, if the half-lives varied the ages would not agree.

How can fossils migrate independently of the rocks they are embedded in? Especially if they are imprint fossils, which are simply shapes pressed into the rock.

The samples used in those volcanic studies were explosive volcanic eruptions, they simply moved old rocks from one place to another. If just moving rocks around was enough to reset the radioisotope clocks then they would not be useful for dating (as you pointed out earlier).

I remember when the BBC ran Walking With Dinosaurs where they portrayed the best guesses of paleantologists as a “This is how it was” including how dinosaurs MAY have behaved as proven fact.

They did nothing of the sort. They created a coherent picture, which sometimes involved making guesses on things they didn’t know or what sure of. You can’t make a video of something you didn’t see without making certain assumptions, it simply cannot be done. I don’t recall them ever claiming otherwise. I have the DVDs, can you tell me exactly where they claimed anything in the disk was “proven fact”?

Even if there is no arrogance in this book, I have seen those in the evolutionary community just as arrogant as the creationists they set out to refute.

You confuse “arrogance” with “having a massive amount of evidence backing them up”.

I have to scold Pi-Needles—As a dairy goat owner, and a former urbanite turned 4-H mom, adult goats are properly called does and bucks. Unless they’re neutered males, at which point they become wethers. Just, you know, insisting that we call things by their proper names on a science blog….

Really? Bucks & does not billygoats and nannygoats? I’ve never heard that before & always thought it was the latter not the former which I’ve always associated with deer. Okay I guess I’ll put that down as the “something new I learnt today.”

As for the origin of life not being part of evolution, that is the biggest cop out of them all.

How can you have organic evolution if you can not get life started in the first place?

Does this book also deal with the issues concerning evolution and the difficulties that still exist?

Does it deal with the use of genetic mutations, by definition errors in copying the DNA, as the driving mechanism for the variations that natural selection requires.

Does it document any good mutations in nature without bringing up the worn out example of bacterial resistance to anti-biotics which is all to do with plasmids, not genetic mutation?

Does this book deal with the assumptions of radiometric rock dating and the fundamental flaws each of these assumptions make?

i.e setting the clock to zero; migration in or out of decay products, possible variation in the half-lifes; the fact a fossile may have migrated; rocks formed in recent volcanic eruptions showing dates older than they really are by these radiometric methods.

Getting on to physics, is there any discussion of the implications of the Anthropic Cosmological Principal – ok perhaps not as this book is a biology book, I’m willing to grant that ID was a really bad idea, especially as it was also theologically flawed, but then the athiests came up with their own version in the ACP.

I remember when the BBC ran Walking With Dinosaurs where they portrayed the best guesses of paleantologists as a “This is how it was” including how dinosaurs MAY have behaved as proven fact.

Even if there is no arrogance in this book, I have seen those in the evolutionary community just as arrogant as the creationists they set out to refute.

@15
Ask him to define what “theory” means in science. Remind him that words have more than on definition and that “I had a ball last night” doesn’t mean you ate a sphere. Ask him why the majority of xtians are fine with evolution. Ask him where in the gospels (if he’s a follower of the teachings of Jesus) Jesus discusses change in species over time. Just don’t do it all at once.

Since xtian creationism comes from misinterpreting the Torah, I like to point out a few choice lines from the Torah such as giving false testimony (about evolution) or that the final list of 10 commandments includes a commandment not to boil a goat in its mother’s milk. I’ve discovered that visiting a Jewish community opens fundies eyes. Most fundies come from extremely WASPy areas, are not very exposed to the world, and have no clue at to the 4 branches of Abrahamic theology and how they all stem from/abuse the Torah. Pointing out conflicts in the Judaic creation myth at the beginning of Genesis is a hoot, too.

Hi, has anyone checked out the Truth™ about The Great Monkey Conspiracy?…

The Monkeys have been spreading a pseudo-scientific myth, called “Evolution”, that the Human race descended from monkeys. They also participate in programs, such as those held at the London Zoo, that further their cause in people’s minds.

The series of teaching DVD offers some serious challenges to the validity of evolution science.

It properly stresses the distinction of ways of knowing, and what science, religion, and philosophy are good for. Overall it’s an excellent book, and the one resource I would recommend for thinking Christians and the people who love them.

If you’d like to see some of the ideas in video form, check out http://www.blog.beyondthefirmament.com/video-presentations/
He includes a comparison video of the intelligent design movement and the alien intervention truthers which is quite hilarious.

For a deeper view of the proper cultural context surrounding the book of Genesis, see The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/

So far I’ve found it quite possible to be scientifically literate, skeptical, and a Christian.. Of course some of my fellow Christians don’t see it that way, but the cultural cost to the Christian community for that stand is quite large.

I’d like to hand it off to my neighbor’s kids, who are home-schooled, but I think it’ll end up the same place the dinosaur DVD I gave them did. You can’t argue with people who believe that religion has all the answers.

I know what you mean. I was raised catholic, had entirely read my copy of the bible at the age of ten and was later completely stunned in disbelief when I first encountered the concept of young earth creationism and the fact that some people actually believed it. Of course most fundamentalists seem to think that catholic = satanic baby eating heathen so they probably wouldn’t be surprised.

Evolution=Monkeys Uncle
Creation=God

That’s the kind of attitude that must be reasoned with…or be unable to be reasoned with.

P.S. The grammatical error of monkey being plural, not possessive, was not mine.

( and I’m geting tired of saying over and over again on this blog that only fudamentlist Chirstans reject evolution and THEY ARE A MINORITY THERE JUST MORE VOICAL )

In most countries, perhaps, but here in the U.S. most polls indicate that at least as many people reject evolution as accept it.

“Essentially, the authors seem to be arguing that since evolution is unquestioningly accepted, and since the terms used in evolution’s theory spill over into other disciplines, finding any holes in evolution (however small) would be good because then the spill-over effect would be stopped. The entire argument seemed driven by the spill-over and almost not at all reflective on Natural Selection.”

I’m not sure that Natural Selection was as absent as that from the article. It did mention that “fitness” doesn’t always obviously increase with generations. That’s really an important thing to understand about selection. All that fitness amounts to is that an individual organism lives long enough to reproduce. All that a successful genome needs is to not get the host killed before making babies.

I don’t know about the author’s ultimate gist. Maybe he was too focused on spill-over; I don’t know. But one thing we can say is that it is good to find the holes in the theory, if they exist.

I would add Dawkins Greatest Show on the Earth to the recommendations of Coyne and Shubin. Coynes video presentation at the AAI this year is really well done and entertaining. Lots of great stuff on youtube from thunderfoot, nonstampcollector, donexodus and others. I found Flock of Dodos(film) informative also. Dawkins other books fill in more technical holes and understanding the probability/large numbers aspects.(but are all worth reading)
Probably too much info but good luck.
On topic I cant wait for solstice and gift time. This looks like something I have been looking for.