These comparisons of numbers of publications have departed from the central point: there are no peer reviewed scientific publications from the Discovery Institute staff or any others giving evidence from original verifiable experimental or analytical research supporting ID. No original scientific research with reproducible methods, no peer reviewed publications, no verifiability, no science.

Dr. Schaefer is at the University of Georgia, not the Discovery Institute in Seattle. Whatever kind of affiliation he may have with ISI, it is not as a professional scientist involved in ID research. The closest his area of expertise comes to evolutionary biology is physical organic chemistry. I could find no indication that he has published any peer reviewed scientific research on Intelligent Design in a recognized scientifc journal. There is nothing to cite. That his work in physical chemistry may be highly cited is irrelevant to ID.

Dr. Schaefer’s scientific standing in physical chemistry lends no more support to the validity of Intelligent Design than my total lack of scientific standing in Physical Chemistry undermines evolutionary theory. At best, taking your word that he believes in ID, he is an established scientist in one field expressing beliefs about the validity of a central theory in another field in which he is not qualified, evolutionary biology.

Monado:

Fritz Schaefer has a couple of hundred publications to his credit and he is an ISI highly cited researcher. (I commend your stepdaughter for her productivity as a graduate student, though.)

I’ll leave it to someone else to describe biogenesis to you, except to say that it would have been a long, gradual process between the first organic molecules (amino acids, nucleic acids, sugars, etc) floating around and the first bacteria.

As for the bats: imagine tree-dwelling shrews (bats are descended from shrew-like insectivores rather than rodents). As they run around the trees they will occasionally fall. Being so small they are unlikely to splat on the ground but they could be injured, caught by a lurking predator or fall into a pool and drown. Any shrew that is able to use its limbs like a skydiver to direct where it’s going to fall would be at an advantage.

From here, if webs of skin form between the fingers and toes and between the limbs and the body this will give the falling animal a softer landing and more control. It will also give it more control and distance when jumping from branch to branch, useful when escaping a predator or chasing dinner and other shrews (to defend territory and get mates). The development of flaps of skin is quite a common occurrence and is seen in marsupials, squirrels, frogs, lizards and other animals. It is quite likely that webbing between the fingers and toes results from a single mutation so could happen quickly. The final step, to develop flapping flight, seems more difficult as it has happened relatively rarely.

An essential feature is that all intermediate steps confer an advantage, or at least are not a disadvantage. Evolution cannot get an organism over a ‘hump’. A good example of this is the human appendix, which causes problems but seems to have no use. The reason it hasn’t just got smaller and vanished is that people with smaller appendices are precisely those who are most likely to have problems (it is to do with the reduced blood supply) so there has been selection for people with a small, but not too small appendix.

I hope this helps.

Ever since I read the talkorigins entry I’ve been keeping a lookout for the mosquito on my daily commute. No luck, even in summer. I’ve seen plenty of fleas though.

The Ford Pinto illustration was *Luskin’s*.

Our science is better than their science because there are more of us writing more articles.

No, because there are no ID peerreviewed articles at all. Peerreview is an important part of science. If ID can’t produce such biology papers, it isn’t science. And it could not.

Another sign that ID isn’t science is because of insistence such as yours that non-natural explanations can be a part of science. But it simply doesn’t work, since it stops all explanations to say “goddidit”. We also see that natural explanations is enough. Like it or not, this is an integral part of the methods of science.

show me one animal changing into another

As noted this doesn’t make sense. But speciation is observed.

I’m sure you have been tipped of about talk origins where you can find references to scientific evidence. Here is the entry into speciation: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html .

The London Underground mosquito species seems particularly interesting because it would be fun to go and have a look with own eyes on a this brand new species.

“could have [been] designed” is not a mechanism, moron.

show me one animal changing into another

What exactly would one animal changing into another look like? Are you expecting something with the front half of a dog and the back half of a camel? What would an animal changing from a fish to a tetrapod look like? A bit like a lobe-fin or a mudskipper (depending on where in the transition it is)?

Animals in transition will still be complete animals. They will still be their own species.

1. Does the pinto start, move, turn, accelerate, combust, exaust, air condition? Of course! Did it need a designer to do that? Yes Indeed.

2. Does every thing that is designed necessarily work perfectly? (or SHOULD IT?). Of course not. Designed things are designed for a purpose. The pinto’s purpose obviously was not to be a crash dummy…. it was meant to drive without getting smashed into a million pieces.

3. Did the car explode or a combustible element (i.e. non-car) material? The answer is obviously the gasoline. Why this would be at all relevant to intelligent design is beyond me.

Secondly, your arguments are inherently limited by your unbending viewpoints in following ways.

1. Here is your basic argument: Our science is better than their science because there are more of us writing more articles. Therefore our science is better. — not exactly a great logistical format if you get my drift.

2. You say that, “[this] is, after all, an article about science, ie, the study of the natural world limited to natural explanations.” This not entirely accurate. your study is that of the natural world ASSUMING no non-natural exaplanations.

3. Because there is no conclusive proof for evolution (i.e. show me one animal changing into another) all you can say is that “Design is always the answer, like a brick wall to curious minds.” That’s like saying your wrong because your stupid. Not exactly convincing.

but the fact remains that Myers’ publication record is unremarkable.

I’d put it about average and the point is? The simple fact is his average amount is far more than the entire ID effort.

And he is just one ‘average’ biologist in terms of publication effort.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1957858,00.html

mynym:
“Ironically, the main argument of charlatans these days is: “It’s just like science or somethin’, trust me.”"
Just like ID, you mean.

Again, if you think biologists are charlatans, in spite of remaining scientist community and your own government saying they are scientists, you have some rigid filters against accepting easy to check facts. There is no conspiracy.

There is of course no meaning to debate anything else, before you realise that biologists are scientists in biology, like phycisists are scientists in physics. With such a blatant denial of reality, no one will believe anything you say anyway.

Robert:
PZ has published peer-reviewed papers on evolution. So has some DI fellows. But no one has published peer-reviewed papers on ID.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I can ignore him.

That’s quaint, but the fact remains that Myers’ publication record is unremarkable. Clearly, not all evolutionary biologists publish more than DI fellows. (In fact, most would be hard-pressed to compete with Fritz Schaefer’s output.)

Nt f tht blgst s PZ Mrs.

idlemind says:

Ah, I see that one of PZ’s trolls has escaped. Pay him no mind.

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist disemvoweling the fool. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I can ignore him.

I think the anole selection precis is too terse and could be easily misread. The first prediction is that the short legged lizards would be selectively killed off by the predator because they couldn

Here is the link. anole selection

But after reading through the rest of your, shall we say, thoughts, I doubt you’ll understand it.

Ironically, the main argument of charlatans these days is: “It’s just like science or somethin’, trust me.”

Yes, that is the main arguement presented by proponents of ID. I wouldn’t have called them charlatans myself; charlatans generally try to fool other people and it seems ID proponents are desperate to fool themselves (though they also seem desperate to reinforce their own belief). But you are certainly entitled to believe that ID attracts charlatans if you like.

The theory of evolution is founded on 150 years of observation, experimentation, scrutiny, revision, and logic. The scientific process involved is a powerful tool to understanding our reality. If it were powered simply by imagination as you claim I doubt we would have seen the various technological advancements that are possible because of evolutionary understanding. Modern medicine, GM crops, and genetic algorithms used to design antenna relays for space probes are simply a handful of areas that have benifited. Surely if evolutionary understanding was based simply on make believe we would not have had the success with technologies based on this understanding that we do. Critisism of the theory is certainly understandable, all science should be subject to critisism to weed out incomplete or incorrect theories, but the derision you level against 150 years of brilliant minds does a great disservice to yourself.

What viable alternitive do you propose? What alternitive idea has evidence backed by observation and logic, has been the successful foundation for modern applications? No offense, but if creationism is your response (under any name), I don’t plan to trust my health to any medicinal techniques developed from a 2000 year old book, written at a time when people thought there were only 4 elements, none of which appear on our current periodic table. Seriously, rather than argue about percieved flaws in evolution, spend your time developing a competing theory that can stand against the test of scientific scrutiny. So far NOT A SINGLE challenge from IDers has weathered any scrutiny. Specific examples given by argueably the leading minds of ID as irreducable complexity while under oath have been disproven, and that was the foundation of the idea.

You may argue that that is impossible because scientists are predisposed to disregarding anything presented but that isn’t true. It will be incredibly hard to gain traction against a widely accepted theory and the overwhelming burden of proof will be on any upstart idea, as has always been the case, but if there is validity to the new idea it will eventually get traction. It took a long time for the idea that some elements only naturally existed in diatomic molecules to catch on – for the longest time water’s forumla was considered to be HO because of this, but it was eventually excepted. The problem is, rather that trying to bolster your own idea with observable evidence, with experimentation that follows the scientific method, your tactic is to try to belittle evolution with an incomplete understanding and wave your hands in the air claiming your idea must be right as a result. This is not going to prove an effective tactic, and is no more valid than me saying “Here are a bunch of problems with String Theory, so obviously that’s wrong and my idea that matter and energy are both the result of a giant cosmic brick of Valveta decomposing” (though to be fair, string theory has a whole lot more wrong with it than evolution, so my Valveta hypothesis might actually have a better chance catching on than ID in its current incarnation))

IOW the bac flag could have designed to evolve!

At that point why argue against evolution? If you admit it happens, regardless of the impetus that started the process, wouldn’t there be worth in understanding the evolutionary process? You can believe in a diety that started the whole creation process, laid the groundwork, set the natural rules, and at the same time investigate what those rules may be. I know plenty of people that are deaply religious and believe everything ultimately leads back to God, but still believe in the big bang, in evolution, in planet formation theory, etc.

i’m not exactly sure what Mr Myers has to do with a century-old fraud like Kammerer. but i suppose slandering Myers is easier than defending your own citations.

away with you, fraud.

Zimmer thus presents a straw-man argument against intelligent design, based upon his view that a designer must design things to withstand a certain type of malicious physical attack.

This in itself seems to be a straw-man (no surprise there). I think we can all agree that if the intelligent designer hypothesis were true, then it is still within the realm of possibility that the designer made some flaws (depending obviously on who we pick as the designer). However, there is no prediction of which flaws will be made, or why. Evolution, on the other hand, can often very easily provide explanations for why a certain flaw might be common, but other flaws aren’t. The evolution of the eye can explain how a certain decision in the arrangement of the eye might be trivial early on; one choice is as good as the other. But later it might turn out that one choice was to be a hinderance later on, perhaps even a choice that was obviously better in the early stages.

So Luskin characterized your criticism as though ID should require a perfect designer, whereas I understood your criticism to mean that ID doesn’t provide any predictions or explanations of imperfection, whereas evolution does. So it’s once again the case that the ID hypothesis is not scientific, because it “fits” anything, including both a perfect and non-perfect eye, but it’s method of fitting is purely arbitrary.

You did refer multiple times to the numerous details that evolution provides, for example in reponse to the “common design” argument:

Evolutionary biologists do not just identify ancestral genes involved in building structures such as eyes. They also identify how those genes duplicated and diverged in different lineages of animals, how other genes were co-opted later to build new kinds of eyes.

But I thought I’d just explicitly point out that the work of discovering these details is also just as relevant as a counter to the “imperfect designer” argument.

These types of sentiments play well in this forum only because most here seem to believe in scientism, yet it is perfectly possible for something to be true (and very important) without being scientific in the least.

I think that [citing PZ Myers] be enough for starters, considering your rejection of common knowledge.

It’s curious, why don’t those with the urge to merge count the falsification of the notion that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” as a falsification of whatever they mean by “evolution” given that they treated it as a verification before? Myers is probably still back on the old gill-slit canard only because it matches the psychological dynamics typical to those with the urge to merge. I.e. the “zealous advocates” of Darwinism who always seem to want to crawl back in the womb of Mommy Nature while murmuring about how natural they are and so on.

Note their attitude towards language: “…we have to wonder why human embryos have these strange lines, and why all other vertebrates also have them…and this commonalty[sic] of structure is the evidence for evolution, not the superficial implications of the names.” –Myers, from one of your citations (emphasis his)

It’s little wonder that those who try to merge the conceptual and the perceptual become stuck in their own hypothetical goo given that they do not define things* in the first place. So their own hypotheses consistently “overwhelm” them because verification and falsifiability are an illusion that is always just out of reach. I.e. if you aren’t willing to name your position and state it in conceptual thinking before verifying it with observations then your theoretical reasoning will never be falsified, yet it will also never be verified.

*People like Myers could begin with using plain english in defined ways (let alone the language of mathematics) beginning with the term “evolution.” There’s always all this overwhelming evidence as far as “evolution.” Of course there is if you make the term into a pollution of language which can mean anything from a change in the color of moth’s wings to the “evolution” of stars and every change that has taken place in the Cosmos. I leave it to proponents of Darwinism to point out that biologists use the term one way and physicists another because they’re the very people that have blurred the term for the same reason that the “It’s just like gravity.” bit of propaganda exists. It’s easy to find examples of equivocation of this sort.

Again, it is easy for those with the urge to merge to go throughout Nature looking at millions of organisms seeking any similarities while playing the part of the ancient Greek philosopher who similarly imagined that body parts once flew and rolled around in the past until bodies as we know them “emerged” from his imagined mergings. A degenerate epistemic standard is typical to those who believe that their imaginations about the past are the equivalent “scientific evidence” similar to the scientia of physicists, so any similar body part found virtually anywhere among millions of organisms seems to overwhelm many biologists. It is more difficult to model natural selection through intelligent selection in order to create new body plans, life forms, etc. The notion that there is some limit to organism’s capacity to adapt which makes empirical verification of the “origins of species” impossible (how convenient!) is ignorant because organisms have been observed to change quickly and leads to the mists of mysticism surrounding issues that are supposedy scientific and “just like gravity.” Reasoning based on ignorance and degenerate epistemic standards let modern mystics hide in the mists of time simply by murmuring about millions of years whenever their pet theory seems to be in peril.

It’s always amazed me how easily those with the urge to merge are taken in by frauds, charlatans of the PZ Myers sort or a little murmuring about how natural and scientific things are.

E.g. If you can’t see the easy to grasp difference between science and charlatanism….

Ironically, the main argument of charlatans these days is: “It’s just like science or somethin’, trust me.”

In the case of the midwife toad it seems to me that the “zeolous advocates” of a pseudo-Platonic view of the world in which genes act as a sort of divine Forms bear correcting:

[Kammerer's] results inspired determined opposition from disciples of the new Mendelian genetics, particularly from its spokesman William Bateson. After years of exhausting controversy, Kammerer allowed the American herpetologist G. K. Noble to examine his last specimen of modified Alytes. The toad had no nuptial pads; moreover, the black coloration on its left hand had been produced (or at least enhanced) by the injection of India ink.
Seven weeks after the publication of Noble’s report Kammerer killed himself. This seeming admission of guilt created his legend with its obvious moral on the dangers of zealous advocacy.
Koestler, with his usual richness of style and intelligence, has convinced me that this common reading is, indeed, legend in the derogatory sense. He combines an analysis of published sources, the testimony of living witnesses, and even some scientific experimentation of his own to argue (i) that the injection was more likely performed by one of Kammerer’s numerous enemies than by Kammerer himself; (ii) that, in any case, it was done after Kammerer’s famous demonstration of the specimen in England in 1923; (iii) that Kammerer probably succeeded in producing nuptial pads in his water-bred Alytes (though Koestler seems unaware that, as I shall mention later, this provides no confirmation of Lamarckian inheritance); and (iv) that Kammerer’s suicide was due as much to the mundane passions of unrequited love and economic failure as to the burden of tragic deceit. Moreover, Koestler has drawn an inference from the debate that is profoundly disturbing because it is probably of general application: the mistrust that established professionals felt for Kammerer arose more from his unconventional personality his ‘artistic’ temperament, his verbal ability, his unpopular politics than from any legitimate doubt about the validity of his methods.

(Review: Zealous Advocates
The Case of the Midwife Toad by Arthur Koestler
Review author: Stephen Jay Gould
Science, New Series, Vol. 176, No. 4035.
(May 12, 1972), :623)

…from [Koestler's] book it appears that a more relevant factor [than the scientific debate] was the post-war economic crisis that destroyed both Kammerer’s world and his livelihood rather than scientific controversy in which he clearly could hold his own. Suicide or breakdown could well have seen the end of the highly-strung personality that peers from these pages, quite apart from the scandal. Particularly since it seems obvious now that Kammerer had nothing to do with the faking.

(Reviewed Work: The Case of the Midwife Toad by Arthur Koestler
Review by D. F. Roberts
Man New Series, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 1972), :323)(Emphasis added)

Darwin has always had the most “zealous advocates” as they are called in this case, PZ Myers is similar because he clearly has the urge to merge and yet you cite him as if he defines “science” itself. Challenging Darwinism seems to draw the pattern of attack, censorship, fraud and so on forth. In this case:

Paul Kammerer was an Austrian biologist… Throughout most of his life he was a distinguished experimental researcher with an international reputation. Nature magazine called his last book “one of the finest contributions to the theory of evolution which has appeared since Darwin.” Surprisingly, however, Kammerer’s work did not support the evolutionary views of Darwin, but on the contrary provides some of the most convincing experimental evidence ever produced of an evolutionary mechanism far more important than the Darwinian mechanism: a mechanism that is at present denied entirely…
Kammerer searched the animal and plant kingdoms, both on land and in water, looking for individuals he could breed in the laboratory that might exhibit this kind of evolution. He found many such examples. He bred spotted salamanders on different colour soils and found that over successive generations they changed colour to resemble that of the soil on which they were bred: those bred on yellow soil showed a progressive enlargement of the yellow spots on their bodies until they became predominantly yellow, while those reared on black soil showed a diminution of the yellow spots until they became predominantly black. When the offspring of these genetically modified salamanders were moved to the opposite colour soil to that of their parents, their coloration changed back again.
It is important to appreciate that this kind of genetic evolutionary change is entirely anti-Darwinian in nature. It is an example of directed genetic change (although the mechanism that directs it is entirely unknown); a heresy that all Darwinists vehemently deny is possible.

(Alternative Science: Challenging the
Myths of the Scientific Establishment
by Richard Milton :224-225)