Lending NO authority

We will not provide any direct links to blogs run by and for anti-science, pseudoscience-inventing, religious fanatics, or hate-mongering bigots because to do so would be to unwillingly add to the "authority" of such nonsense. However, we will provide links for anyone interested in googling for such sites.

Search engines, like computers, are blind to the value of content on websites and rank highly those sites that are linked to by more other sites.

To provide a url to a YEC, creationist, hate-mongerer, or any other nonsense, is to inadvertantly appear to be giving that site a vote of confidence, pushing it higher on searches. We will avoid doing this. We suggest that any evolutionist or liberal thinker who agrees with this policy do likewise. It's a start!

Conversely, we will provide urls for sites that, by virtue of supporting truth or being well written, deserve a vote of confidence.

Non-approved creationist sites (junk tanks) are described internally at"
Asses in Genesis, AiG : Discovery Institute : Creation Museum (Cananadian version) :

Non-approved hate tanks:
Family Research Institute :

Persona non grata described internally:
Anti-gay bigot Dr. Paul Cameron :
ID proponent Dr. Michael Behe :
YEC-er Ken Ham, image (see Biblical battle of creation groups) :

The sites that do not deserve any implicit vote of confidence can be googled at:
Answers in Genesis, AiG : Center for Science and Culture : Creation Museum : Discovery Institute : International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, ISCID :

Persona non grata can be googled at:
Paul Cameron : William Dembski : Ken Ham :

Anti-Stupidity Quotes

Some unfortunates are not intellectually gifted by virtue of genetic endowment or brain injury, through no fault of their own. These individuals lack the cognitive capacity to learn more than rudimentary knowledge or skills, yet they possess value simply by being humans.

Other individuals have sufficient intellectual capacity to be capable of acquiring understanding, yet they chose not to comprehend reality because of emotional biases. I find such willful stupidity so uttely infuriating that I have decided to collect some quotes that accurately denigrate ignorance:

God of the Gaps:
"The history of science shows us that patching the gaps in our knowledge with miracles creates a path that leads only to perpetual ignorance."
~ Jerry Coyne, The Great Mutator, in The New Republic

Intelligent [sick] design theory:
"As the philosopher Philip Kitcher shows in his superb new book, Living With Darwin, the theory of intelligent design is a mixture of "dead science" and non-science. That is, insofar as ID makes scientific claims (for example, that natural selection cannot produce complexity), those claims not only are wrong, but were proved wrong years ago. And ID is deeply unscientific in its assertion that certain aspects of evolution (mutation, in Behe's case) required supernatural intervention. Behe's attacks on evolutionary theory are once again wrongheaded, but the intellectual situation grows far worse when we see what theory he offers in its place."
~ Jerry Coyne, The Great Mutator, in The New Republic

YECs:
"There is no polite way to say this: people who resist scientific explanations for natural phenomena such as the age of the earth and the fact of evolution are guilty of childish thinking."
~ Sharon Begley in So That's Why Evolution is in Trouble!

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Behe Retreats

Michael Behe's illogical arguments for intelligent [sick] design theory are such an embarrassment that Lehigh University has placed a disclaimer on their Department of Biological Sciences website:

"The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

One can only imagine that if Behe had not already had tenure when he began publishing religious pseudoscience, then the university would have sent him packing to knock on the doors of that infamous junk tank, the misnamed Discovery Institute.

In The New Republic, Professor Jerry Coyne has published a good critique of Behe's retreat from disproven "irreducible complexity" into attributing mutations to God's intervention. The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism is Behe's feeble attempt to conjure up creationist pseudoscience for credulous dummies.

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Canadians Can be Stupid Too

Alberta is home to Canada's oil boom, a dinosaur lagerstatte, and Bible Belt Idiots. In the poky little town of Big Valley, a couple of creationist nincompoops have wasted $300,000 on Canada's answer to Ham's Idiocy.

In ungrammatical, deceitful displays, the museum's co-owners claim to demonstrate that the Flood occurred (misinterpreted glacial erratics) but that evolution did not (the notorious and discredited bacterial flagellum). Copying Ham's propaganda, the museum duplicitously claims that dinosaurs were contemporaneous with humans.

Needless to say, this Canadian example of creationist nonsense is arousing detractors from amongst the intelligentsia.

Every such example of Lies-for-God merely serves to underline the errancy of the Bible.

Complexity Reductio

Behe's illogical challenge to biological evolution, the so-called "irreducible complexity" that sells books to science-ignorant creationists, has suffered yet another blow.

"The latest discovery in evolution: DNA needed to make synapses, the sophisticated junctions between neurons, in none other than the lowly sea sponge. Considered among the most primitive and ancient of all animals, sea sponges have no nervous system (or internal organs of any kind, for that matter), notes Todd Oakley, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But, he adds, they “have most of the genetic components of synapses.”"[source, original on PLoS ONE]

No surprises here–after all, the most primitive nervous system is found in the Cnideria.

[Jones] "found Behe's testimony wholly unconvincing, noting that irreducible complexity was not evidence against evolution, and that the biochemical systems touted by Behe were not irreducibly complex anyway. Behe's credibility was damaged also by his admission that ID's definition of science was so loose that it could encompass astrology, and by his fatal assertion that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God."
~ Jerry Coyne, The Great Mutator, in The New Republic

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Creationism only flourishes amidst Ignorance

I found the following example of ignorance amongst the comments on an article about the museum-of-delusion constructed by oxymoronically labelled Answers in Genesis. Those who are so ignorant as to believe in creationism are not really interested in answers, but I want to vent!

"To all of those evolutionists out there: Can you tell me ONE instance of an organism that proves that NEW information was ADDED to its DNA? NOT a LOSS of genetic info that leads to an environmental advantage, but an actual ADDITION of NEW information to the DNA?"

First, there can be no proof outside special philosophical syllogisms and mathematics. Only the ignorant or emotionally-uncertain demand proof. However, there is abundant evidence, throughout organisms from prokaryotes to humans of the addition/alteration of segments of DNA. There is so much evidence that one could not list it all. See for yourself – running a PubMed search for "DNA evolution" yielded 53983 hits (5/27/07). Of course, not all of these scientific articles will directly address this creationist challenge, so I Googled "DNA evolution" and got 47,100,000 hits. Some of these will be websites set up by creationists as ignorant as the author of that stupid question, but many will provide an accurate answer.

Creationist are correct in stating that DNA contains information, so any alteration of a DNA sequence, even if it is only a single nucleotide polymorphism (point mutation), comprises evidence of the addition of new information to DNA. To ask for "proof" of the addition of new information to DNA is beyond ridiculous. Any organism that develops a malignancy does so because of alterations in their DNA. Childrens' DNA is not identical to that of either parent because of an alteration in their DNA. The diversity of DNA, which is demonstrably currently continuing to evolve, is evidence of addition of information to DNA. No need to go on–there are billions of examples.

"Answers in Genesis' website explains that this is the big obstacle for evolutionary belief. What mechanism could possibly have added all the extra genetic information required to change a one-celled creature into a multicelled organism, then other more "complex" organisms?"

This, of course, is why Answers in Genesis is misnamed. (There are no accurate answers to questions in Genesis, which was, is, and always will be an allegorical creation myth. Nor are there any answers in AiG–merely delusions.)

Again, science has documented abundant evidence regarding mechanisms, which include prokaryotic gene-swapping mechanisms (HGT), serial endosymbiotic transfers, and a variety of internal-mutation mechanisms (duplication, etc.). The very first soft-bodied multicellular organisms died without leaving any fossil trace around 1 billion years ago. It is utterly unreasonable to expect that this step in evolution can ever be exactly replicated. However, the molecular biological mechanisms of cellular adhesion that exist today were likely the same mechanisms that allowed the first co-operative assemblages of specialized cells (the colonial theory providing the likeliest explanation). Serial endosymbiotic transfers rendered this step possible, and the oxygen produced by the first prokaryotes to practice oxygenic photosynthesis both drove and enabled such assemblages.

"Natural selection can’t explain it as natural selection involves getting rid of information."

Natural selection operates to increase the frequency of favourable alleles and reduce unfavourable alleles in populations. The amount of information is much the same following selection for the organisms best equipped to survive and produce viable progeny within a particular environment. Only utterly unfavourable mutations will be removed, while neutral and favourable mutations will persist. Natural selection has never been regarded as a mechanism for the alteration of DNA itself.

"A group of animals might become more adapted to the heat by the elimination of those which carry the genetic information to make thick fur. But that doesn’t explain the origin of the information to make thick or thin fur."

Nor, as above, do any evolutionary biologists claim that natural selection, which can only operate on already existent alleles, is the mechanism for producing the genes.

"As a Biological Sciences major in college . . . "

Now this is truly very sad! This poser-of-stupid-questions is better educated than your average creationist, yet clearly does not comprehend even the basics of molecular or population genetics. This sort of ignorance is the reason that critics decry anti-science, deceptive-pseudoscience displays that merely entrench such ignorance.

"I was also disappointed and angry to discover that several of the big "evidences" for evoution given to us in school were NOT true, and that these are still taught to students today as truth."

Where did this person attend college? Presumably a small southern college and not one of the better universities. The above is a truly ridiculous statement. Evidence is evidence is evidence. Scientific theories are formulated on the basis of evidence, which translates to saying that scientific theories begin with the facts. The evidences for biological evolution are FACTS. Whether or not a particular theory best explains the facts is a different question, and this is the entire point of the scientific method.

"It is time students were taught all the facts about evolution, not just the ones that fit the THEORY best! I pray the AiG museum will open a lot of eyes to the deception carried on by the biologists promoting evolution."

The voluminous facts about biological evolution are conveniently ignored by those who believe in creation, in biblical literacy, and in some non-existent necessary-connection between morality and religious dogmatism. The author of the ridiculous comment that I have quoted is clearly incapable of comprehending the facts. As to manipulating information to fit theories, the AiG museum is a transparent example of the sort of distortion of facts that is necessary in order to support an utterly ridiculous two- thousand-plus-year old theory (YEC). Although they do not admit this explicitly, creationist attacks on science implicitly indicate that they are aware that scientific facts disprove the claims in Genesis–proof may not be possible, but disproof is possible. Genesis IS disproven. Dinosaurs did not coexist with hominids, rather the dinosaurs predated hominids by 60 million years. No number of deceptive lie-orama displays will ever alter that fact.

I'd further suggest to the author of the stupid-question that his or her inability to understand something does not render that thing invalid. It merely means that he or she really ought to obtain some education. Given that an ABC News poll indicates that "60 percent of Americans believe God created the world in six days" (a fallacious argumentum ad numeram argument for creationism, incidentally), then it is clear that far too may Americans exhibit a lamentably low standard of science education.

More mutterings about the stupidity that is creationism:
ɷ Myths Revered and Myths Exposed
ɷ un-designed intelligences
ɷ Judge Jones Rules
ɷ The Wedge Document

Elsewhere: Gallup Poll on Evolution, which reveals that the overwhelming majority of religious fundamentalists are ignorant of evolution : comment on Pharyngula : Religion—our maelstrom of ignorance: "Maybe we need to start picketing fundamentalist churches. Maybe it's about time that we recognize religious miseducation as child abuse."

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

In God, Distrust

The New York Times has run an interesting book review entitled, 'In God, Distrust'. The reviewer takes a mostly positive position on Christopher Hitchens, author of 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' (307 pp. Twelve/Warner Books.) I think that the book's title is a little over the top.

Certainly religion has been associated with some terrible atrocities, but these outrageous acts were committed by men [sic] in the name of man-invented-religion. That is, man [sic] invented creation myths, deities, bigotry, and xenophobia. The problem, as I see it, has always been human nature, and that, in its turn, results, if anything, from the rationality-blind failure of human biological evolution.

The NYT provides an excerpt of Hitchens' first chapter, which includes the following statements with which I wholeheartedly agree:

“We atheists do not require any priests, or any hierarchy above them, to police our doctrine.”

“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”

___

"Religion is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance." ~ Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser

Sites Elsewhere : God Bless Me, It's a Best-Seller! : The Christopher Hitchens Web :

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Declaration of Independent Thinking

Fallacious ad hominem attacks directed at Richard Dawkins have proliferated on the internet.

Religionists are obviously upset at further confirmation that not everyone shares their views and that some of us are becoming more vocal about this.

Thankfully Christian religionists are no longer attacking those from different denominations as heretics or defaming those from different faiths as being infidels. Rather, Christians, particularly evangelical (fundamentalist) Christians and Biblical literalists continue their illogical and ill-informed attacks on those areas of scientific knowledge that disprove the Book of Genesis.

Not only are religionists worried that their attempts to promote creationism are meeting resistance from evolutionary biologists such as Dawkins, but they are scandalized that Dawkins is "promoting" atheism and some have been so ridiculous as to claim that Dawkins is heading up a cult, founding a religion, and converting those lacking powers of critical thinking to adopt an atheistic lifestyle in response to Dawkins' charismatic personality. If Dawkins were converting, by sheer force of personality, those incapable of critical thinking, then we should have seen mass conversions from creationism to atheism.

In point of fact, Dawkins is merely encouraging those who are already atheists to stand up and be counted.

Read Richard Dawkins' Introduction to The Out Campaign here: "Religious people still outnumber atheists, but not by the margin they hoped and we feared."

My atheism began in early childhood with an awareness that God was a human invention. On the basis of the illogic inherent in any belief in supernatural creation of life and humans, I reached personal disbelief before my teens, and reached certainty that no supernatural deity exists by early adulthood.

My logic-based convictions do not, of course, prove that there is no God any more than fervent claims of religious experiences can vote a God into existence. (This should not be a numbers game, though it is refreshing to see that there are so many of us.) Equally, a declaration of atheism does not prove that biological evolution is a fact or that current evolutionary theories provide a complete explanation for the observed phenomena. Demonstration of the fact is provided by the voluminous, multi-field evidence, and refinement of the theory grows with each empirical find.

As Dawkins suspects, I, like so many atheists, have previously made little fuss about my absolute certainty that there are no gods. I have long practiced religious tolerance, and I do not see atheism so much as a manifestation of religious intolerance as an insistence on truth. However, as one of scientific bent and education, I am as thoroughly fed up with anti-scientific, bigoted, illogical, ignorant, deceitful, self-advertizing, self-congratulating religionists as they are dismayed by the persistence of scientific refutation. The atheist backlash is late in coming and I am sufficiently ticked off to stand up and proclaim a conviction that I reached long ago by way of critical thinking. It is impossible to prove a negative, just as it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of something that does not exist.

I predict that the next stage in the creationist campaign will probably involve a proliferation of purple Rs, Cs, Gs, or even JCs on blogs and internet websites. Ken Ham could come out with an "AiG" emblazoned t-shirt showing him posing with a dino, Behe could market the image of a bacterial flagellum, or Dembski could profit from a "filter" logo. If they do, I want a commission for thinking of it first. Or did I?

Sites Elsewhere: Come out! : blog reaction to The OUT Campaign : 5 blog reactions

...section index...

: Social bookmark this page :

YEC yack

Rather than merely editorialize the fact that creationists hold unfounded opinions and make illogical arguments, here are comments on some snippets of their views:

C1: "I would like to meet the "scientist" that can PROVE that evolution is true and not a theory."

Of course this writer would not really like to meet any such scientist because creationists display absolutely no desire to understand reality.

Symptomatic of their black-and-white thinking, creationists love to make challenges demanding proof. Biological evolution is a demonstrable fact upon which theories of evolution are based. The evidence for biological evolution has been pronounced as "overwhelming" by credible experts in the field. Facts can be empirically demonstrated, but no scientific theory, or any other inference based on induction can be proven, though hypotheses and theories and claimed-to-be-facts can be disproven. The writer goes on:

C1: "That of course is impossible since no one was living millions and billions of years ago, and I mean NO ONE and NOTHING."

This is patently untrue! There is abundant evidence that life existed on this planet several billion years ago.

C1: "There are plenty of Creation Scientists that can show proof as to why the earth can only be 6000 years old(give or take a couple of hundred years)."

There are NO creation scientists because creationisms is religion and not science, so "creation scientist" is an oxymoron. The statement is completely untrue. Falsifying details and publishing unfounded attacks on scientific facts does not constitute science. No matter what an individual's educational background, fallacious argumentum ad verecundiam pronouncements that run counter to the facts and to the knowledge of credible experts in a field are without any value as science.

The mythical YEC figure of 6,000 years is based on Bishop Usher's Bible-based estimate. Science has categorically demonstrated that the Bible is incorrect in its depiction of dates–in effect, disproven.

C1: "Carbon dating and other dating methods that the scientific community has relied on for so long now are proving to be very inacurate and more and more evidence keeps popping up to prove thousands of years instead of millions or even billions of years."

No scientist claims that carbon dating can be applied to dates earlier than 70,000 years ago. Other radioactive isotopes with longer half-lives are employed in obtaining the older estimates, which are always reported with the range of error indicated. Creationists are typically woefully ignorant of actual science, preferring as they do to parrot the pseudoscientific falsifications on junk tanks such as AiG. The planet is approximately 4.7 billion years old, no matter how many times ill-informed and biased YECs claim that Usher's date is accurate.

C1: "When is the "scientific" community going to take its head out of their "evolutionary ooz" and realize that CREATION IS SCIENCE!"

Shouting does not help this writer's ridiculous argument. Science is based on application of empirical scientific methodology, creationism is religion based on an ill-founded assumption of Biblical literacy. Creationists have attempted to hijack science in order to strengthen their received, preconceived notions of Biblical inerrancy. They will never succeed in convincing any but the already-deluded because scientific methods have disproven the Biblical statements that relate to scientific areas. The Bible is an allegorical creation myth followed by pseudohistorical moral fable.

C1: "God was the originator of science and created everything we see, and plenty of things that we don't even know exist yet."

Creationists seem to believe that whatever nonsense they make up about their supposed God will hold true simply because they say so. Such thinking is totally in keeping with the emotionality, obstinate ignorance, and illogic of their arguments. If God originated science, then the Bible is the received Misleading Pseudoscience for Dummies text, and God scores a Z- in science.

C1: "I can't imagine holding onto the idea that we evolved from some "ooz" of some of some sort and that's all we are, an accident, and there is no purpose to our lives. I think that's very sad."

That says it all. The writer, for highly emotional reasons of his or her own cannot imagine how life could have arisen from chemicals and then evolved. This is a failure of comprehension, a failure of logic, and deliberate ignorance of established facts. A sense of purpose is a psychological phenomenon. If the writer cannot sense some purpose to his or her life without being the product of Special Creation, then that, in addition to manifest and obstinate ignorance about reality, is very sad indeed.

Here's another creationist stating YEC beliefs:
C2: "YEC does not say that God created all animal life, for example, in the state it is in today. YEC does not deny that some biological evolution occurs. YEC believes that change does occur (what they believe actually requires it) but YEC believes that change can only happen within a created kind."

Because there is so much evidence for continuing biological evolution (covered by the creationist buzzword microevolution) creationists see nothing to be gained in denying that, for example, bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance. Creationists do not perceive currently occurring genetic change as a threat because they are obsessed with denying the distant past (biopoiesis and macroevolution) in order create that gap into which they insert the man-invented notion of Special Creation.

The reference to design pays homage to intelligent [sick] design theory, which is merely creationism in disguise.

C2: "Naturalistic secular science begins and ends with the unfounded assumption that the material is all that exists, that God does not exist, etc., etc."

Of course science studies the natural world – scientific method can only be applied to the physical, observable, tangible, and measurable. However, that is the only thing in which C2 is correct. It is not necessarily an unfounded assumption to believe that the material is all that exists, even though scientists concede the physical may not inhere all of existence. Only the material is accessible to the scientific method. The question of existence beyond the physical belongs to speculative philosophy and theology. Science is religion-neutral and does not assume that God does not exist. Scientists may privately believe that there is no deity, particularly in view of the fact that science provides far better explanations than "God brought it about by a miracle." However, scientific method can only be religion neutral. C2 is merely using the creationist buzzword "secular" to attempt to place all scientists in the infidel camp in an association fallacy.


C2: "(Creationism) is not about religion; it is about the Truth."

This is an utter falsehood. Of course creationism is about religion. Creationists and others of religious persuasion make a claim of "Truth" for their beliefs, but they have no good evidential, logical foundation for doing so. This is the reason that the terms "faith" and "belief" are more accurately applied to religious beliefs.

C2: ". . . God, who Jesus is, life after death, but those are all tied to this issue."

If creationism is about God and Jesus, then C2 has just revealed him or herself to have lied when saying that creationism is not religion.

C2: "True, one can be a Christian and not believe in a six day creation, but such a person is not really being consistent in their beliefs. If Genesis is open to such liberal interpretation as some give it, then why not do the same to the resurrection account of Jesus? If there was no literal Adam and Eve that literally disobeyed God (sinned), then there is no need for a Savior."

Yup. This is the underlying reason for dogmatic insistence on Biblical literalism, these black-and-white thinkers are aware that their rigid beliefs will not allow for any latitude. It's no accident that Genesis depicts knowledge as the enemy. Knowledge does not make us sinners, but religious beliefs cannot survive full critical scrutiny.

"Genesis is foundational to the Christian faith, and it is true."

Genesis is an allegorical creation myth that is clung to by particularly reality-ignorant Christians. Genesis is disproven.

"The Bible says that those that do not want to see the Truth will be blinded to it."

Since the Bible was written by men this statement remains accurate concerning the human foible of denial. The fact is that the actual truth is not what creationists credulously take to be "the Truth".

C2: "Those that want to cling to the religion of evolution will always find a way to make it seem right in their eyes."

Poor, fuddled C2 is totally muddled as to what is science and what is religion. Biological evolution is a fact, the modern synthesis of evolution represents the best current scientific explanation of the observable facts. Evolution is not religion in C2's earlier definition, where it is labelled as secular science.

Creationists are typically so illogical that they do not even realize that they are making self-contradictory statements in an attempt to justify emotional beliefs. I suspect that because these individuals desperately want and need to believe that they are the salvation-selected products of Special Creation they become easy prey for any falsehood or illogical argument that appears to support their indoctrinated beliefs. (Let's be honest and call a stupid argument a stupid argument.) The stupid arguments work to support creationists' emotional beliefs, so creationists ignorantly fail to detect the illogic.

The sentence would have been accurate if it had been written as, "Those that want to cling to the religion of creationism will always find a way to make it seem right in their eyes."

No matter how passionately an illogical ignorant argument is made, that argument remains utterly without validity. YEC vehemence is really tantamount to bragging about exhibiting stupidity. It is not surprising that many Christians hold YECs in contempt.

I believe that YEC and ID appeal to those who have a cognitive disorder in that they have not attained an internal desire for logic. Further, most creationists of my acquaintance also appear to lack mastery of many operations of logic.

Piaget's "genetic epistemological" research into the developmental acquisition of cognitive schemas did not proceed beyond the achievement of formal operations by about age eleven. However, beyond the logical schema acquired in childhood, not all individuals attain the full repetoir of logical operations necessary for critical thinking. The worldviews of many adults exhibit considerable philosophical tension, and many adults display internally inconsistent, illogical, emotional reasoning fraught with many of the errors found in fallacious arguments. Religious beliefs, in general, force illogical inconsistencies into the thinking process.

Creationists' arguments on religion are highly emotional, their arguments concerning science are falsehoods, their arguments about morality are rigid and bigoted, their views on politics are usually greed-motivated, hubris-filled, and doggedly unperceptive.

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Dawkins refutes Behe

The following piece of biased ignorance was written by, you guessed it, by a self-proclaimed "Evangelical Presbyterian Church Planter":

"In the July 1 New York Times, evolutionist and atheist evangelist Richard Dawkins reviews Michael Behe’s new book, The Edge of Evolution. Behe is a professor of biological science at Lehigh University and the author of Darwin’s Black Box, one of the first and most influential works on intelligent design. Dawkins’ review is full of invective, ridicule, and ad hominem attack–in other words, the kind of stuff he’s good at, especially when he has nothing particularly substantive to say. Behe responds in a blog on Amazon.com that strikes me as pretty effective, as well as remarkably restrained considering the extraordinarily rude treatment he gets from the Oxford don. I don’t know enough biology to know who gets the better of the scientific argument (what little there is in Dawkin’s review, that is), but I still think it’s worth a read, as I’m sure Behe’s book is."

No surprise that the writer is an evangelical. No surprise that the writer admits to ignorance of science. (One wonders what a "planter" is. Someone who spreads seeds of creationism?)

Richard Dawkins can word things strongly, I admit. Dawkins, like most rational scientists, is clearly tired of the stupid pseudoscience that is invented in an attempt to attack the fact of biological evolution.

Actually, Dawkins does not resort to invectives in the New York Times review. To label Behe's ideas "moronic" would be to resort to invectives. Nor does Dawkins make any ad hominem attacks. To call Behe a "misguided idiot" would be to resort to a fallacious ad hominem, true or not.

The fact remains that Lehigh University has posted a disclaimer about Behe's views on its website. (One suspects that if Behe had not already achieved tenure, then he might well have been forced to knock on the doors of the so-called Discovery Institute for a job.) The fact remains that the intelligent design camp makes refuted pseudoscientific claims to promote religious views. The fact remains that Behe has been forced to retreat from his earlier "irreducible complexity" chicanery. The fact remains that Behe adds nothing to scientific understanding in this book and that he resorts to distortions.

Sensible Christians view science and religious belief as being compatible; only Biblical literalists invent pseudoscience to attack well established empirical facts. If you wish to decrease your ignorance of science, then Michael Behe will never be worth reading because his intention is to distort science to fit his religious convictions.

I find popular science, such as Dawkins writes, rather slow going because I am past requiring that level of explanation that is necessary for those without postsecondary education in biological sciences. However, anyone who wishes to understand reality would be well advised to read Dawkins. As a start, despite negative claims by the evangelical, there is a good scientific refutation of Behe's flimsy argument in Dawkin's review.

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Statistics on Stupidity

The following are snippets from the latest Gallup Poll on ignorant beliefs rampant in the US:

"The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life."

"Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend. That Republicans tend to be frequent churchgoers helps explain their doubts about evolution."

(I knew that there was a reason why I have disliked more Republicans than I have disliked Democrats!)

"The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution's explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago."

No surprise that holders of silly ideas can't even get their ignorance straight!

This dismaying display of ignorance revealed to pollsters is demonstration that the majority of Americans can be wrong, and that the majority of regular Church attendees are indeed wrong.

Quo Vadis?
...section index...

Evolution of the Industrial Revolution

The New York Times has an interesting article reviewing a new, though I think fanciful, idea concerning the origins of the Industrial Revolution. The reviewed book is A Farewell to Alms (Princeton University Press) by Dr. Gregory Clark and my comments are based on information contained in the book review.

"Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, believes that the Industrial Revolution — the surge in economic growth that occurred first in England around 1800 — occurred because of a change in the nature of the human population." To whit, a change in the behavior and genetic makeup of peri-Industrial England.

Dr. Clark scoured the archives to reconstruct many features of the English economy from 1200 to 1800 and appears to have deciphered an already-documented fact: as productivity leaps forward, population rises to consume the increased productivity. Such was the case until the age of mechanization freed agricultural productivity from Malthusian manual (mouth-to-feed) labor and concomitant arithmetic growth limits. In essence, a greater food supply led to increased population and more laborers meant more agricultural productivity to be devoured by the greater numbers of people.

It is no surprise that Clark found that children born into wealthier families were more likely to survive than children born to poorer families. Those born to wealthier families enjoyed better hygiene and a higher caloric intake, so were more likely to survive beyond infancy. Based on this demographic reality, Dr. Clark concludes that society developed, “a repertoire of skills and dispositions that were very different from those of the pre-agrarian world. . . . Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving.”

Historians previously attributed economic events to changes in people’s behavior. However, historians have mostly adopted the economists’ view that all people are alike and will respond in the same way to the same incentives. As a result, modern historians have attributed events like the Industrial Revolution in terms of changes in institutions, not people. It appears that Dr. Clark wishes to swing the pendulum back to behavior with the added twist that enhanced survival of wealthier children manifested as evolutionary change. Clark writes,
“Through the long agrarian passage leading up to the Industrial Revolution, man was becoming biologically more adapted to the modern economic world.” And, “The triumph of capitalism in the modern world thus may lie as much in our genes as in ideology or rationality.”

Despite a full acceptance that biological evolution is a fact and that natural selection operates, I consider this to be rather a simplistic leap onto a popular bandwagon. To make such an assumption, Clark would need to be certain that only genetic factors were responsible for determining which individuals had been wealthier since the thirteenth century. Thus, the most obvious question raised by Clark's claims would concern how genetic endowment could relate to economic success during the six centuries between 1200 and 1800. Further, human reproduction ages allow for only 3 to 5 generations per century, so a mere 600 years would involve only 18 to 30 generations. This time span might allow for natural selection to enhance or decrease levels of intelligence, yet would be far too short to influence more complex functions such as temperament and behavioral propensities.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution in England, the wealthiest individuals were those eldest children who had inherited land. The aristocracy did not work at professions, though many became hobby scholars and scientists. The small middle class mostly comprised urban artisans and professionals. The vast majority of the population were agricultural laborers and small landholders. Much of the agricultural labor force had been driven from their small farms, in favor of sheep, by enclosure. These impoverished, dispossessed workers ultimately became the industrial labor force.

Although studies have documented a high correlation between genetic inheritance and IQ, there is no good reason to believe that attitudes and behavior are inherited genetically. However, natural selection could, and almost certainly does, operate on memes. Those attitudes and behaviors, acquired by learning, that confer greater economic success would be more likely to ensure that the children of economically successful parents would themselves be economically successful, and so on.

In another NYT article, former academic and current politician, Michael Ignatieff quotes philosopher Isaiah Berlin who said that, "the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true." Presumably, the same bias toward the interesting, as opposed to the realistic or reasonable, influences the selection of books for review.

Although the ideas revealed in this book review are interesting, attribution of behavioral change to natural selection for genetic superiority seems excessive. Equally, it seems simplistic to infer that a complex event such as the Industrial Revolution could have resulted merely, or mostly, from natural selection for genetic predispositions.

Perhaps we ought to hope that Clark is incorrect. In Western Protestant nations, many intelligent, educated professionals are eschewing parenthood, while the largest families seem to be those of the lower working classes and the unemployed. I am not making an argument against social welfare, but it seems possible that this fecundity trend will drive the IQ downward.

Quo Vadis?

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We, the Products of Blind Evolution

Religion has been associated with some terrible atrocities, but these outrageous acts were committed by men [sic] in the name of man-invented-religion. The problem, as I see it, has always been human nature, and that, in its turn, results, if anything, from the blind-failure of evolution. That is, biological evolution does not move in any idealized direction. Humans are successful, but not innately morally superior.

Biological evolution generated us from a common ancestor that also gave rise to chimpanzees and bonobos. (This hominid timeline implies a linear evolution for hominids, whereas a pruned bush would be more accurate.) We share more than 98% of our DNA sequences with chimpanzees, indicating that our evolutionary lines diverged 7 to 5 million years ago. In general, the later the analysis, the more recent the esimated split. The ancestor of chimpanzees and bonobos are estimated to have split again between 0.89 and 0.86 million years ago, and the two common chimpanzee subspecies are estimated to have diverged about 0.46 million years ago.

Even though our advantages over our cousins result from a regulatory-gene-mutation that permitted development of a greater brain/body size ratio, biological mutation/reproductive selection did not care whether or not we were otherwise inherently vastly superior in rationality/morality.

We seem to have inherited from this common ancestor a nature that lies somewhere between aggressive chimpanzies and sex-obsessed, peaceful bonobos. Possibly chimpanzees and bonobos diverged from a midway-natured common ancestor. The environments in which chimps and bonobos now live are comparatively more challenging in the case of chimps, no doubt necessitating – and so selecting for – their aggressive behaviour.

Humans live in environments that are even more challenging than the jungle habitats of chimps, but we can cope in such environments because our greater brain/body size permits us a degree of inventiveness unsurpassed in the animal kingdom. However, we have needed to retain bonobo-like cooperation in order to survive, particularly in hostile environments.

Further, our greater brain/body ratio has imposed an inordinately long, parent-dependent childhood, and this has necessitated prolonged male-female pair-bonding such as is innate in many bird species, but which is not characteristic of chimp or bonobo societies.

Having fathered a child, a human male can only ensure the perpetuation of his genes (reproductive success) by staying close enough to ensure survival of his offspring and/or by fathering children with many women. Men might, by their emotional/sexual nature, opt for both strategies, but society has long imposed a cost on fathering. So, official polygamy has traditionally been the exclusive reserve of the wealthy.

Human females could similarly ensure reproductive success (survival of their children) by nuturing each child and by mating with several fathers (ensuring a variety of genetic possibilities for her offspring). However, human males, like the males of many species, are typically less invested in the survival of the offspring of other males, so human females can best secure the survival of their children by maintaining the support of one male.

Quo Vadis?
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biological evolution

Scientific theories of evolution seek to explain the mechanisms of the observable fact of biological evolution.

Yes, organisms have indeed evolved over time – most former species are now extinct, many species remain much as they are in the fossil record, and new species continue to evolve. Before the discoveries of science, it was intellectually excusable to believe that a God planted all those bones, but to believe so nowadays is a sign of ignorance.

Historically, scientists observing biological evolution first sought to explain observed morphological (body shape) changes over time – the phenotypic evidence of changes in body structure found in the fossil record.

Microfossils dating from more than 3 billion years ago demonstrate that bacteria were the first life-forms on the planet. Bacteria and Archaea, both prokaryotic, ruled until the advent of nucleated cells with membranous organelles, such as those of which we are constructed (eukaryotic cells). The earliest known fossilized evidence of early life forms are found in stromatolites – large reef structures created by communities of Cyanobacteria. Mistakenly called ‘blue-green algae’, the Cyanobacteria are bacteria that evolved relatively late. They are believed to have “invented” oxygenic photosynthesis over 1 billion years ago. As oxygen levels rose, organisms were forced into endosymbiotic unions as – to them – toxic levels of oxygen threatened their continued existence. (Anaerobic bacteria, which are killed by oxygen, persist to this day in environments with very low levels of oxygen.) These serial endosymbiotic transfer events paved the way for evolution of eukaryotic cells, which in turn enabled multicellular assemblages.

Since the advent of modern molecular genetics, biological evolution has come to be understood as a change in genotype – a genetic variation resulting from mutation and alteration in the intergenerational frequency of alleles in populations. That is, an alteration in the frequency of alternative forms of genes between generations. By this definition, the human species is demonstrably still evolving.

The term 'microevolution' refers to small-scale evolutionary events that involve changes in allele frequencies from one generation to the next, and that results in slight changes in affected organisms. The term 'macroevolution' refers to that accumulation of microevolutionary events that is associated with the origin, diversification, extinction, and interactions of organisms. Macroevolution, being cumulative, involves large scale evolutionary change such as the evolution of new species, genera, and families (or even higher taxa). Some creationists favour the ridiculous, fallacious straw man argument that microevolution occurs, but that macroevolution could not have occurred by the same mechanisms, or is impossible.

Biologist Ersnt Mayr suggested that a biological species be defined by its inability to produce fertile offspring when mated with another species. Mules are an example of such a mating – between a horse and a donkey. Mules do rarely produce offspring, but the gene-based, phylogenetic classification of species remains more useful than taxonomies based on physical characteristics. Molecular geneticists are able to compare the genomes, the total complement of nucleic acids, of different species and to estimate the evolutionary distance between species. This is time since the compared species last shared a common ancestor.

Speciation depends upon genetic mutation and alteration of allele frequencies, yet morphologic changes may reflect alterations in the regulation of genetic expression without a major alteration in genotype – body type may appear very different without considerable change in genes.

If this seems unlikely, just consider the considerable differences that selective breeding has wrought in size and configuration within one canine species. Mechanics might prevent the union of a Chihuahua with a Great Dane, but such a union could produce fertile offspring.

Similarly, the paramount importance of gene regulation almost certainly explains much of the morphological difference between humans and chimps – two species who share more than 98% of their DNA. Just a comparatively few regulatory genes are responsible for the developmental changes that render us distinct from our closest relative.

Along the same lines of modification of genetic expression, epigenetic mechanisms, such as alternative splicing or alternative promoters, enable a single gene to give rise to multiple versions of a protein. Thus, through epigenetic mechanisms, the biological complexity confered by genes is greatly expanded. Proteins are much, much more variable in structure, and hence in biochemical activity, than are nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Formed from amino acids, proteins regulate cellular metabolism (as enzymes), regulate genetic expression (cofactors), and regulate communication between cells (ion channels, pumps, receptors). Structural proteins form the cytoskeleton that supports cells, and specialized transport proteins move materials and organelles within cells and effect muscular contraction.

There are two basic types of mechanism involved in biological evolution. First are the genetic causes of alteration of genes within the genotype of individuals. Most genetypic alterations are not the result of point mutations, which may, or may not result in abnormal proteins through alteration of a single nucleobase in the genetic code. Creationists create fallacious straw man arguments by focussing their arguments on point mutations, conveniently ignoring the other, more important mechanisms of genetic change, such as duplications.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms, as point mutations are correctly termed, as well as alteration of longer segments of DNA may be neutral, beneficial, or deleterious. Clearly, neutral or beneficial alterations, whatever their genetic mechanism, will persist while deleterious alterations will ultimately be eliminated if they render the organism less capable of reproductive success. Gene duplications, while guaranteeing a functional copy of a gene also provide duplicate copies of the gene that may be altered without destroying the organism's viability, thus providing opportunity for the accumulation and transmission of a variety of mutations.

This brings us to the second type of mechanism operating in biological evolution, the statistical population mechanisms that determine the fate of an altered gene. These are the mechanisms that increase or decrease frequency of an allele – an alternate gene at a particular chromosomal position –within a population. Natural selection, the Darwinian explanation for biological evolution, remains one of the mechanisms acknowledged by biologists, yet not the only recognized mechanism. Genetic drift, gene flow, and horizontal gene transfer in prokaryotes have also been demonstrated to have operated in bringing about evolutionary change. Creationists typically focus their fallacious straw man attacks on "Darwinian" evolution, avoiding dealing with the much stronger "Modern Synthesis of Evolution", which combines understanding of population genetics and molecular genetics.

"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

~ Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.

"No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature (though Newton's clock-winding god might have set up the machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run). No vital forces propel evolutionary change. And whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature."

~ Stephen Jay Gould

Quo Vadis?
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Appeal to False Authority

Fallacious Appeal to Authority, Misuse of Authority, Irrelevant Authority, Questionable Authority, Inappropriate Authority, Ad Verecundiam

Credible experts possess the following attributes:
1. sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.
2. claims made are within area(s) of expertise
3. adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question
4. not significantly biased by subjective motivations or prejudices
5. expertise within a legitimate area or discipline (related to the subject matter)
6. the authority must be identified

Proponents of intelligent [sick] design theory and other creationists employ fallacious appeals to authority:

1. Individual scientists, most of who are not credible experts in molecular genetics, have signed a document declaring that they do not believe that misrepresented Darwinian explanations explain biological evolution. Even those signatories who are qualified in molecular genetics render their own opinions suspect according to point 4 of the qualifications of acceptable authority below.

2. Well-known scientists who are convenient to creationist deceits in other ways. These include:
a) [alleged] atheists who have made statements amenable to creationist arguments (e.g. Fred Hoyle)
b) atheists duped, by virtue of their failing mental faculties, into agreeing to statements that serve creationist purposes (e.g. Anthony Flew).

(Similarly, religionists fallaciously appeal to the fact that some scientists are religious believers. I think that we should dub this fallacy Fallacious Appeal to Conversion. The implication is: this scientist looked at the scientific evidence and became a believer, so God must exist. Religious apolologists often cite Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, who became a believer after witnessing human suffering, and not because of his study of biology. Interestingly, they typically avoid mention of biologist Kenneth Miller.)

The theories of peer-reviewed scientists are dismissed, amongst other criticisms, as being biased in favor of an atheistic position, or as ambitious self-promotion, or as propaganda, or as being suspect because examples of scientific fraud have been uncovered in the past. Obviously, such attacks on the credibility of accredited experts qualify as ad hominem fallacies.

Possession of higher academic qualifications alone does not qualify engineers or geologists, for example, to claim authority concerning biological evolution, which is outside their area of expertise (1, 2, 5).

This is not to say that those with qualifications in engineering or geology could not have attained considerable knowledge concerning biology, molecular genetics, or biological evolution. However, it is reasonable to expect that such knowledge expressed by engineers or biologists would reflect agreement with, rather than run completely counter to, the opinions of experts in these areas (3).

When the opinion of supposed authorities – particularly those whose academic qualifications lie outside the area under discussion(here, biology) – run directly counter to those of experts in the field, then the supposed authority is rightly suspected of prejudice (4) or ignorance of the particular area (1).

By the argument above, it matters not whether 100, or over 500 doctoral scientists, or any number of persons with a Ph.D. have signed a document expressing doubts concerning evolution. The signed statement reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

This statement misrepresents modern understanding of the mechanisms of biological evolution in that modern geneticists and evolutionary biologists do not claim that random mutation and natural selection alone account for the complexity of life. Darwin lived, wrote, and died before the discoveries of genetics, so Darwinian theory has already been examined by scientists and passed over in favour of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory. However, Darwin's mechanism of natural selection is one of the recognized mechanisms affecting the frequency of alternative genes (alleles). The doctoral signatories have misrepresented the current understanding of the mechanisms of evolution.

It might be reasonable to say that a full exposition of molecular genetics and population are genetics are beyond the high school science curriculum, but it is not reasonable to conclude that students not yet capable of comprehending these concepts should be further confused by teaching intelligent [sick] design theory (religion) alongside their simplified introduction to the fact of biological evolution. Religious teachings are readily available at the Church of each student's choice, and many websites are devoted to '‘intelligent [sick] design theory’', to creationism (c), and to debate of creationism vs evolution (Y).

The "Discovery Institute" and the "Center for Science & Culture" first published its Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list in 2001, purportedly "to challenge "false statements" about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series."

"Darwinist efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list."[s]

Considering the promises made in The Wedge Document, this statement is glaring example of a tu quoque fallacy – a "you too!" fallacy.

The fact remains that as an argument for insertion of intelligent [sick] design theory alongside evolution in science classrooms, the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list remains an example of fallacious appeal to authority.

The image could be dubbed a fallacious appeal to Hitler, I suppose. However, the point that I wished to make by using a readily identifiable icon for evil is that people are duped by authority figures who, at first, appear to be promoting a message that might benefit the audience.

John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.

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o

Fallacies of Association

Guilt by association fallacy, honour by association fallacy, association fallacies

Association fallacies rely upon the negative implications of "guilt by association" or the positive implications of "honor by association."

These fallacies are based upon the implication that a claim is false or true based upon beliefs held by, or attributed to, the people or organizations that hold the belief. Obviously, the arguments of those with a mission of denying rights to others or of those with anti-expert opinions should be assessed carefully on the basis of their content. Equally, the opinions of experts should be assessed on their merit.

Creationists, in line with the emotional basis for their claims, all too often resort to association fallacies. One example of the "honor by association" fallacy is to point out that scientists and Nobel Prize winners have signed a document against Darwinian theories, as though this lends credence to intelligent [sick] design pseudoscience. Such arguments are also fallacious appeals to authority.

Conversely, it is not an association fallacy to state that biologists consider that the scientific evidence is so voluminous as to render biological evolution a fact. It is appropriate to refer to the opinions of credible experts in a field.

Godwin's Law and Desperate Attacks on Darwinism provides an example of unfounded accusations that Darwin's ideas inevitably led to Nazi atrocities, as though this would demote evolution from fact (argumentum ad nazium, reductio ad Hitlerum).

Quo Vadis?
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Straw Man Fallacy

Straw man

Creationists and proponents of intelligent [sick] design theory very frequently create straw man arguments, and then huff and puff and blow the straw man down. (The straw man fallacy is a form of red herring argument that involves attacking a deliberately weakened version of the opponent's actual argument.)

The frequency of this argument within creationist propaganda is a reaction to the much stronger argument presented by evidential and experimental science. Confronted with the facts of scientific knowledge, creationists and those arguing for ‘intelligent [sick] design’ typically retreat into straw man arguments, arguments from incredulity, or outright denial.

For this reason, I believe that there is often little point in explaining the facts of science to those who have a strong emotional need to believe in some form of creationism. Creationists typically know so little science that they could not assess the facts of science even if their minds were not closed to the threatening facts. Instead they repeat stale old misrepresentations of science gleaned from the numerous creationist websites that clog up the ether. The point is that any supposed scientific principle attacked by a creationist ought to be checked out before taking the red-herring-bait.

The point mutation is one target of the fallacious straw man argument – creationists argue that mutations at a single locus (position) within a chromosome could not be responsible for macroevolution. The argument is fallacious because evolutionary biologists do not claim that point mutations are responsible for all of biological evolution, whether microevolution or macroevolution, rather they have demonstrated that other sources of genetic variation are far more important. It is irrelevant to attack science through an argument that is already established within science – there simply ceases to be an argument, except one in line with the erroneous conclusions drawn by creationists.

In their fallacious straw man arguments, creationists and advocates for ‘intelligent [sick] design theory’ huff and puff against a weakened version of science, and hence a weakened version of the natural world. Creationists ignore the facts in order to support their arguments against the fact of biological evolution, and no argument can be considered cogent when it deliberately, or ignorantly, misrepresents facts. The argument may have emotional appeal to those who are committed to a belief in the Special Creation of Genesis, but the argument does not achieve its ends within the realm of logic.

The Straw Man Fallacy "Straw Man is one of the commonest of fallacies. It is endemic in public debates on politics, ethics, and religion. . . . The Straw Man is a type of Red Herring because the arguer is attempting to refute his opponent's position, and in the context is required to do so, but instead attacks a position—the "straw man"—not held by his opponent." :

Quo Vadis?
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