Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
History tells me otherwise, especially when you STILL refuse to acknowledge that overall mutation rates do not and should not be required to accommodate indels..
Whatever...
Which is altogether typical. The mutation rate was considered close to the upper edge when it was 1% and some change and now it's like 5%. Nothing creates a problem for evolution because the a priori assumptions is never question and alternatives are never explored.
There is no amino acid sequence in a gene, protein coding or otherwise.
I don't know what kind of semantical word play your into here but I'm sure it's circular and empty rhetoric.
The genetic code is the set of rules by which a gene is translated into a functional protein. Each gene consists of a specific sequence of nucleotides encoded in a DNA (or sometimes RNA) strand; a correspondence between nucleotides, the basic building blocks of genetic material, and amino acids, the basic building blocks of proteins, must be established for genes to be successfully translated into functional proteins. Sets of three nucleotides, known as codons, each correspond to a specific amino acid or to a signal; three codons are known as "stop codons" and, instead of specifying a new amino acid, alert the translation machinery that the end of the gene has been reached. There are 64 possible codons (four possible nucleotides at each of three positions, hence 43 possible codons) and only 20 standard amino acids; hence the code is redundant and multiple codons can specify the same amino acid. The correspondence between codons and amino acids is nearly universal among all known living organisms.
That's what I'm talking about, the protein coding sequences as opposed to the regulatory genes like the HAR1f that are not in triplet codons. I don't know what you are tripping on.
And nobody would disagree. If adaptive evolution were easy, we'd all be supermen.First, we like to make sure that the claimed errors really were. Second, correcting a claim made by someone on a discussion forum is easy, it can be done in almost real time. Correcting an error made by someone in a national publication is a bit different. Considering the fact that those in the know, know that science is a tentative buisiness, especially on the details, that one researcher claims a 99% identity and another claims 98% and another claims 95%, I don't think it really matters. The fact is that humans and chimps share a greater identity in the overall genomic as well as the genic level than chimps share with the other apes. If we want to make the divergence dependant upon the raw nucleotide difference, then the divergence between chimps and gorillas increases probably by just as much as the human-chimp divergence does.
The statement is in error and current estimates are right around 96% and have been for some time. If you are so all fired zealous about correcting errors then correct this one and move on. If it's not that important then why do you dwell on the subject shoring up the homology argument as you go. I think it's because you got a lot of milage out of the homology argument and you really don't want to admit the inverse logic.
IOW, your argument is irrelevant
It's not an argument Professor, it's a fact
See the above quote, it's whole genome comparisons. Other such comparions do not bear it out. No biggie. Hard to tell what Pollard meant. If she DID indeed mean whole genomoe comparisons, then she is wrong. If she was referring to HAR regions, then the statement was clearly either terribly edited or was simply misstated
The woman is a brilliant research scientist, right or wrong? You cannot tell me that she was unaware that the current comparisons since at least 2005 were showing 5 times the divergence she claimed existed. You guys can get away with that in pop press which is why I go to the peer reviewed source source material, they'll get it right there.
I learned the Bible and Christian doctrine like this, you would be amazed how much scientists and theologians have in common.
That was not what she said. That is what I said.
Then what is it? Incompetence? Perhaps an error of perspective? You are very quick to ascribe dishonesty when the answer is quite likley something else altogether. I've not read the article - I don't read popular press science magazines for a number of reasons - and I don't really care to. That one person's statement in one article seems incorrect is really quite irrelevant in the broader scheme of things.
Good.
I'm not following your reasoning here, sitting in this concrete bunker in the gravel on a stoop. Your just going to have to take what I say from here on out because on top of that my battery is dying.
Funny then that the only people that do not seem to accept it are religious.
So what? Most people have some kind of religious convictions. I've seen agnostics level arguments against Darwinism, not because they are anti-evolution but because the arguments being used are modern mysticism. That is my principle objection, not to your conclusion but to the leap in logic that presupposes naturalistic causes and that anyone who concludes God as a cause as ignorant. Both assumptions are fallacious.
And therefore.... what? I shan't get my panties in a bunch over what someone wrote in a popular press magazine.
No but you get an atomic wedgy about what a creationist has to say about it.
Real debate is fine. Manefactured, recycled nonsense for the purposes of ego stroking is not. The last time I was in an 'official' debate on a discussion forum, my opponant ran away from the agreed upon topic in his first response, and insisted that he won because I would not diverge from the agreed upon topic.
I have no cherished assumptions to reconcile, whatever that is supposed to mean. You cannot simply ignore evidence because a person makes an error in a popular press article.
No real debate is not fine, not when you are into Darwinian theatrics. You do have cherished assumptions that you guard jealously, that is evident and obvious.
I am not surprised or impressed by the fact that you are fixating on something as irrelevant as this. Nor am I impressed or surprised that despite 5 years of having your erroneous genetics claims explained to you, you are still proudly making them.
The fact of the matter is that Pollard's claim is really irrelevant in the overall scheme of things. That your are fixated on it is demonstrative of the minutiae with which anti-evolutionists confine themselves, for the big issues are too much for them to handle.
Pollard's error has no bearing whatsoever on the evidence for descent, and a person that thinks it does is living in a fantasy land.
Pollard made a bogus claim, plain and simple. You have admitted it is in error but you are not so quick to explain why she made it. It's because evolution gets a free ride and homology arguments are the ticket. We are not so close to chimpanzees anatomically or genetically as we have been led to believe for the last half a century and now that this homology argument is proving itself to be false, it continues unchallenged.
I don't know what you want from me Professor but I expect I'm just a little duck in your intellectual shooting gallery. None of this is for my benefit and your going to treat one argument just like the other. I cannot understand why you persist because I have been convinced that TOE as you are propagating it is mythical and deeply fallacious.
I have to wonder, if I am so much in error and it's not even possible that a creationist view of the origin of life is possible why do you bother having these exchanges.
I think you are addicted to the drama and secretly suspect there is merit in our claims. You'll never admit it, even to yourself but it's the only explanation that makes any sense.
__________________
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” (G. Mendel)
Nonsense, it would be comparing two species thought to be related by lineage. The further apart they are genetically the less likely they are to be related. What's the matter Professor, can't handle the inverse logic when it contradicts you forgone conclusions?
Whether we are 95% homologous or 99% homologous we are still next to chimpanzees on the phylogenetic tree. It doesn't make sense to say that the more genetically different something is the less likely they are to be related, as all of life on earth is related (with possibly some exceptions in the roots of the tree).
__________________ You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Whether we are 95% homologous or 99% homologous we are still next to chimpanzees on the phylogenetic tree. It doesn't make sense to say that the more genetically different something is the less likely they are to be related, as all of life on earth is related (with possibly some exceptions in the roots of the tree).
And adding to this, what matters is the relative similarities/differences based on common measurements. If, using more comphrehensive measurements across various species, it were revealed that humans share more genetically with say, tarsires, then that would be a problem for current evolutionary theory and phylogenetic reconstructions.
MK seems so fixated on a simple number that he can't see the forest from the trees.
__________________ Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution
Whether we are 95% homologous or 99% homologous we are still next to chimpanzees on the phylogenetic tree. It doesn't make sense to say that the more genetically different something is the less likely they are to be related, as all of life on earth is related (with possibly some exceptions in the roots of the tree).
I guess you finally decided to go over to the dark side RichardT, no matter. First of all these family trees are based on the presupposition that all life forms are related by lineage, they are highly subjective and prove absolutely nothing. Furthermore you choice of source material is appalling, that particular TO item is laced with false positives. The section on ERVs in particular is ridiculously outdated and pedantic in it's presentation of the so called evidence elaborated upon.
Most importantly, why would a subject like Phylo-genetics not be concerned with how close two sister clads are genetically? It doesn't matter because you have already made the a priori assumption before actually considering a tree of life. That's why the genetics are unimportant, all that matters is the a priori assumption and you will assemble the evidence around it.
Sad to see you join this merry of intellectual pirates, that's if you were ever actually a creationist to begin with.
__________________
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” (G. Mendel)
And yet you have had MONTHS to answer it before....
You start a thread with my name on it and don't bother to let me know it's here, are you serious? I don't frequent this snake pit of a forum much any more, I really only check the formal debate forum in case someone wants a serious discussion.
So I guess you ignored my reply again.
What part of I'm in Afganastan and only recently saw your message on my visitors board was too hard to comprehend?
Not surprised.
I see your responses are predictably pedantic, as usual.
Unfortuantely, you have this odd inability to understand context. The 99% thing is CORRECT in some contexts, but not in others. You, however, always demand that the number be applied in one particular context.
Why is that?
Because this is not about context, it's about the aligned sequences of nucleotides/base pairs. Some things are not subjective like your atheistic materialistic philosophy, some thing are quantifiable and tell me where exactly this 99% thing is correct because the Chimpanzee Genome Consortium concluded that it was not, the Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 Consortium concluded 95%-96%. Who have you been reading Professor?
I've explained more than once why I wil not do that.
You mean your going back to your tired old circular arguments.
Since you don't seem to remember:
1. Because the last time I was in a 'formal' debate with a creationist the creationist tried to change the agreed upon topic in his very first reply, then claimed victory because I would not discuss his 'new' subject
Then you stick to the original topic, it's as simple as that. One of the problems with a formal debate is making sure the source material and specifics are agreed upon at the beginning.
2. I've seen your 'formal' debates on this and similar topics before. No material is brought up in them that is not brought up in public forums. If I can ignore the YEC cheerleaders who never contribute anythign of substance in the public threads, so can you.
YEC cheerleaders are few and far between and the minions of trolling evolutionists are always in abundance. A substantive point will get buried under the avalanche of flamers who attain credibility in these forums simply by insulting and contradicting creationists, nothing else is required.
3. Engaging in such 'formal' debates is used by creationists as a badge of honor (ego boosting). They get to claim that they 'took on' a real life scientist - which is a victory of sorts from the outset, and then they get to claim victory, regardless of the outcome, and will have a ready-made group of acolytes to trumpet this 'victory' in the guise of YEC forum participants.
I just want to know who these people are because I have never seen them. My formal debates are in the stacks for any and all to see, they stand or fall on their own merit. The reason I like them is because with limited space for the post both parties are forced to focus on specifics. I have never really claimed victory in these debates with the exception of the one in General Theology. The reason is every other debate raised questionable points on both sides and the debate ended, usually or for the most part, in a stalemate.
I like identifying the particulars without the constant barrage of insults from the audience in your Darwinian Theater of the mind. I think you do it for the applause, that's why you don't want you arguments nailed down and isolated.
4. You keep regurgitating the exact same claims over and over. You seem immune to being reasoned with, immune to acknowledging your errors, immune from realizing that your arguments are misplaced, displaced, or just plain sily.
I can't help it if after careful research and study I come to a conclusion you don't approve of. I have not made an actual argument in quite a while, there has been no need to. You may not even realize that you are spouting empty rhetoric to an audience of strangers who are assembled only to hear traditional Christian theism ridiculed. If you are thirsty for fresh new source material and subjects then try using something other then these fallacious ad hominem attacks.
Here or nowhere.
Fine no problem but don't be surprised when you get the same answers to the same issues. I didn't invite you to this discussion you invited me, actually you started this thread with my name on it without letting me know about it for months. The only thing that irritates me more is being addressed in the third person or being spammed with insults.
I have a number of topics I have explored, researched and employed considerable primary source material on. The subject of human brain evolution from that of apes or course, comparisons of human and chimpanzee whole genomic sequences, individual gene comparisons like ASPM and HAR1f. Still, the most important topic is ignored by you and others, it's the philosophical presuppositions that you debate for and with that is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.
Here, the formal debate forum, the local bar, it simply does not matter to me much. It's just that I know what's going to happen here because it always does. First you start the volley with some shallow but dimly substantive points. Then the minions, Pete and RichardT being the earliest, will begin to throw out some pedantic arguments to keep me occupied while we all wait for you to respond. Then you will make some theatrical oration parading some select comments while ignoring or conflating what little actual evidence might be involved.
I know you too well Professor but no problem, we can do this here.
__________________
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” (G. Mendel)
I guess you finally decided to go over to the dark side RichardT
This is a matter of perspective. I believe that my side is the side that history has shown to be the "light" side. Your country, the United States was founded by secular people who knew of the dangers that fundamentalist religion could have on government. The freedoms that you have in the United States today were a direct result from people who were not religious. While it is the religious figures, some of whom that I've used to look up before, who seem to promote "dark" ideas.
no matter.
But it should matter because you believe that this has eternal consequence. Check here if you're interested in the history of my deconversion from the Creationist religion.
First of all these family trees are based on the presupposition that all life forms are related by lineage, they are highly subjective and prove absolutely nothing. Furthermore you choice of source material is appalling, that particular TO item is laced with false positives. The section on ERVs in particular is ridiculously outdated and pedantic in it's presentation of the so called evidence elaborated upon.
Most importantly, why would a subject like Phylo-genetics not be concerned with how close two sister clads are genetically? It doesn't matter because you have already made the a priori assumption before actually considering a tree of life. That's why the genetics are unimportant, all that matters is the a priori assumption and you will assemble the evidence around it.
This is not true. If the tree of life were subjective than we should expect that there should be more than one way to sort. If the tree of life were subjective then we would expect scientists to debate whether one species should be classed in one genus or the other but that's not what we see. Anyone can debate and argue about the classifications of cars and rocks, but you wouldn't be able to rationally argue the classifications of species or languages.
it isn't assumed that species will be classified in lineages, but that lineages are the natural consequence from the known mechanism of descent with modification.
This is falsifiable, if you can find a species that doesn't fit on the nested hierarchy, it would be problematic for evolution. But every single species that is found constantly provides further evidence for the theory of evolution because they consistently can be placed in the nested hierarchy.
And sure, it is important to know how close two sister clads are genetically, but this isn't the point that I was trying to make.
Sad to see you join this merry of intellectual pirates, that's if you were ever actually a creationist to begin with.
For anyone here who understands how cults work, this is the mark of a cult. The motives of the individual are put into question whenever the cult is doubted.
I really don't mean this to be an attack to you Mr. Kennedy, I used to respect you a lot, and I still respect you. I sincerely was a Creationist, and there was a time when I sincerely wanted to push the Creationist movement as intellectually honest and intellectually defensible. But now I see Creationism as simply wrong. An unbiased understanding of the evidence simply marks creationism out.
We can go ahead and continue this discussion in this thread if you like.
Regards, RichardT.
__________________ You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
-- Thomas Paine
Last edited by RichardT; 6th September 2009 at 07:35 AM.
Then the minions, Pete and RichardT being the earliest, will begin to throw out some pedantic arguments to keep me occupied while we all wait for you to respond.
And you'll respond with goofy baiting. I guess some things never get old.
__________________ Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution
This is a matter of perspective. I believe that my side is the side that history has shown to be the "light" side. Your country, the United States was founded by secular people who knew of the dangers that fundamentalist religion could have on government. The freedoms that you have in the United States today were a direct result from people who were not religious. While it is the religious figures, some of whom that I've used to look up before, who seem to promote "dark" ideas.
You need a little history lesson RichardT, the Revolution for what became the United States was sandwiched between two profoundly Christian revivals, the Great Awakening I and II. Religion was not disparaged and Fundamentalist Christianity had not yet emerged, it would come in the wake of revivalism as it interacted with wave after wave of secular skepticism. The Founding Fathers saw the Federal Government as a threat to religion, not because it there was something wrong with religion but because the Government was a corrupting influence. It also led to Priestcraft which would have empowered secular clerics a lot like the Catholic Church did in Europe for so long. The feeling was that because of the honors and emulations associated with official positions empowering religious institutions would attract the wrong kind of motive.
There were a series of precedent setting in the US Supreme Court involving what came to be known as, 'Separation of Church and State'. It was based on a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists who were worried that there would be a Federal Church. There was no doubt it would not be Baptists and by the way, Baptists are one of the largest groups of fundamentalists in the US and they have never aspired to political power. Any way, Jefferson wrote back in their own language using a theological/biblical image of the garden wall. This was a common theological principle of privacy and protection because homes in Biblical times generally had a garden and a garden wall. If you are interested in the Biblical texts involved just let me know.
The point being that our first right as Americans is freedom of religion which is why religion still flourishes here. I studied the witch hunts of Salemtown 1692, the Inquisition and the Crusades long before I got into this creation/evolution thing. I think you need to learn your history before you start telling me what the original intent of the Founding Fathers was because I have studied that as well.
But it should matter because you believe that this has eternal consequence. Check here if you're interested in the history of my deconversion from the Creationist religion.
That's not a deconversion, it's a change of mind. No one converts to YEC since it is derived from religious convictions that in no way effect core Christianity. If you were a New Testament Christian before you were a Creationist then you were one while you were a Creationist and after. The only way you abandon the faith is if you deny the Gospel and the occasions to even discuss it in these forums are rare.
This is not true. If the tree of life were subjective than we should expect that there should be more than one way to sort. If the tree of life were subjective then we would expect scientists to debate whether one species should be classed in one genus or the other but that's not what we see. Anyone can debate and argue about the classifications of cars and rocks, but you wouldn't be able to rationally argue the classifications of species or languages.
Ever read Darwin RichardT? In On the Origin of Species he has only one illustration, it's the Tree of Life and the thumb nail sketch for what became cladistics. He was the first to do this and his entire book is one long argument against special creation and what he called supernatural interpolation. It's not hard to find, he clearly states this in his opening arguments and closing statements.
Now this classification system is subjective in the same sense that the Dewey Decimal system was and is. The point is to find what you need not to prove or demonstrate source or origin.
it isn't assumed that species will be classified in lineages, but that lineages are the natural consequence from the known mechanism of descent with modification.
It is assumed that living things proceed from a single common ancestor that lived billions of years ago in the primordial seas and progressively developed from simple to complex living systems, ERASMUS DARWIN (Charles Darwin's grandfather) and his cohorts of so called, Enlightenment thinkers, systematically used this presupposition of exclusively naturalistic causation to replace God.
Hence without parent by Spontaneous birth
Rise the first specks of animated earth;
From nature’s womb the plant or insect swims,
And buds or breathes with microscopic limbs
(Erasmus Darwin, Temple of Nature)
What you have been converted to is pagan mysticism, Darwinism is a pagan mythology and the mythographers of our day are everywhere on the march to make converts.
Immortal matter braves the transient storm,
Mounts from the wreck, unchanging but in form.
It's called atheistic materialism RichardT and it was a philosophy long before it perverted the definition of science.
This is falsifiable, if you can find a species that doesn't fit on the nested hierarchy, it would be problematic for evolution. But every single species that is found constantly provides further evidence for the theory of evolution because they consistently can be placed in the nested hierarchy.
Yea right, by what criteria do chimpanzees fit into our clad but the Taung Child is excluded from the Chimpanzee clad?
And sure, it is important to know how close two sister clads are genetically, but this isn't the point that I was trying to make.
Since you are such a fan of cladistics perhaps you would like to apply these principles to the 100 families of ERVs present in Chimpanzee genome but absent from our own.
I know how clads work and they prove nothing.
For anyone here who understands how cults work, this is the mark of a cult. The motives of the individual are put into question whenever the cult is doubted.
Do you even know what a cult is? My original interest in apologetics was based on counter cult evangelism. It is a religious system that has denied the faith and isolated itself from traditional Christian theism. I know the Scriptures, the theological traditions and doctrines requisite to evangelical Christianity as well as the benefits and the pit falls of my brand of evangelical Christianity. Cult is actually a French word that indicates a passing trend and the religious aspect of creationism is based on the clear testimony of Moses, Luke, Paul and Christ himself. If you actually retain an interest in Biblical Christianity maybe you would be interested in the theology involved in creationism. You'll find a formal debate in General Theology on the topic between me and a TE regular on here. That is one of the the few debates I can plant my flag on and claim a decisive victory.
I really don't mean this to be an attack to you Mr. Kennedy, I used to respect you a lot, and I still respect you. I sincerely was a Creationist, and there was a time when I sincerely wanted to push the Creationist movement as intellectually honest and intellectually defensible. But now I see Creationism as simply wrong. An unbiased understanding of the evidence simply marks creationism out.
You call me a cultist and you expect me to believe it's not an attack, are you being serious right now or are you kidding me? I don't respect cultists and I don't respect people who insult me in the third person, it's the height of intellectual dishonesty. It's almost as bad as starting a thread with my name on it without even dropping me a PM to let me know its here. Anyway, I have carefully studied the evidence and using a lot more substantive source material then those bogus TO arguments. Creationism is first of all a biblical doctrine that gets little more then a passing remark since no one in the Bible ever thought to question it. In fact creationism or some form of intelligent design was the view of the vast majority of scientists from Aristotle to Newton. In fact Newton describes the universe as intelligently designed in Principia.
You have turned into a minion, you glean credibility from evolutionists and avoid ridicule from them simply by insulting creationists.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psalm 1:1,2)
It is Biblical Christianity and traditional Christian theism that they are after RichardT and you are one of their minions now. All they want you for is to boo in the right places and cheer when their star takes the stage. It's all very dramatic in the Darwinian theater of the mind but in the light outside the theater their performances offer no real world guidance.
"Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth; seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in science, which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received.." (Francis Bacon, Novum Organum)
The idols of the theatre thus have their origin in dogmatic philosophy or in wrong laws of demonstration. Darwinism is both, the is no directly observed or demonstrated mechanism for the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes. Cladistics are a wrong demonstration, the real world science involved is genetics and molecular biology. If you can ask yourself if we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees then perhaps you can hazard the question of how then we evolved the most highly conserved genes in creation.
We can go ahead and continue this discussion in this thread if you like.
Regards, RichardT.
Indeed we will but since the Professor decided to start a thread with my name on it I think I'll be having the primary bout with him. I don't really care if you changed your mind about creationism but seeing you turn into one one their trolls is truly disturbing. Good luck with that.
__________________
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” (G. Mendel)
Last edited by mark kennedy; 7th September 2009 at 03:18 AM.
Mark: I've had more than enough of quibbling over percentages with you, so the only thing I'll say about this now is: science reporting in the popular media is too often below abysmal. Most of the time, I don't think it's propaganda so much as sensationalism.
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
Mark: I've had more than enough of quibbling over percentages with you, so the only thing I'll say about this now is: science reporting in the popular media is too often below abysmal. Most of the time, I don't think it's propaganda so much as sensationalism.
We quibble over so many things, why not percentages? The statement is wrong and if I only seen if occasionally it would be different. I hear an interview on NPR about the Chimpanzee Genome paper on my way to work in Sept of 2005, I was ecstatic. When I get to work I'm told that I have an emergency phone call and it's my guard unit, we are going to the Katrina relief effort. I finally get back a month later, read the paper and discover that bogus web focus article on Nature's web site. I thought nothing of it at the time but on another board a poster quotes the Time article I have effectively spammed on here for several years, they cite the same paper and say '98% the same DNA', which is not what the paper says. Not only that, it's not just in the article, it's in the title in all three instances! It's clearly wrong!
Then after reading Pollard extensively and not just the HAR1f paper I happen across that article and right there in the title is the same bogus statement. Add to that the fact that everyone of you goes into a frenzy over the slightest error on my part and you want to pooh pooh away an error involving hundreds of million of base pairs.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the article and was excited to see her discuss her research on a video series at the Rockefeller Center celebrating the 100th anniversary of Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. I just think you guys should be a little more consistent, you turn into an angry, riotous mob when a creationist makes a mistake but you are gracious to the point of being permissive when it's one of your own.
At any rate, we'll see what the Professor has to say for himself when he gets here since he apparently wants to defend the statement as 'correct in certain context', whatever that means.
__________________
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” (G. Mendel)
Linear Mode
