Coccyx - tale of a creationist disinformation post

[Ophiolite]

I have already provided one by Kurt Wise in his video on the Sedimentology of the Flood; but I believe the one below is the first time he mentioned it in a journal article in which he was encouraging creation scientists to focus on the more readily observable issues:

"The Flood was a global, diluvial catastrophe — explaining the commonness of fossils, the rarity of extensive bioturbation, the high species preservability, and the first-order randomness of the first appearance of higher taxa;" [Kurt P. Wise, "Towards a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms." CEN Technical Journal, 1995]​

Here is a couple more, though the second is somewhat more reserved:

"Recent laboratory experiments document that the bioturbation of marine sediments can occur over a short period of time depending on the type and population density of trace makers. For uniformitarians, the lack of any stirred sediment requires that they appeal to punctuated catastrophic events. Such events do not eliminate their reliance on deep time assumptions—the vertical rock record should exhibit layers of intense bioturbation interrupted by nonbioturbated sedimentary events followed by intense bioturbation. However, this is not typically found in the actual rock record." [Carl R. Froede Jr., "Sediment bioturbation experiments and the actual rock record." Creation Ministries International, 2009] ​

"The issue of bioturbation highlights another uniformitarian dilemma—why the bulk of all sedimentary rocks are not completely bioturbated, since the process is observed to occur rapidly. This seems contrary to the principle of actualism. The extent of bioturbation in sedimentary rocks can be explained by the Flood. Fluctuations in the rate of sedimentation during the Flood may explain why some rocks have been reworked and others have not." [Michael J. Oard, "Fossil range extensions continue." Creation Ministries International, 2013] ​

The flood model appears to explain it very well.

Dan

I trained as a scientist. I don't get my data from videos.
I trained as a scientist. I don't place credence in papers published by an agenda driven organisation.
I trained as a scientist. I expect data to be sourced through papers published in reputable, peer reviewed journals.

It is apparent that you have a belief concerning The Flood. From the evidence it is a laughable belief, but you are entitled to it. Please just have the integrity to embrace that belief based on faith, not by gross, dishonest manipulation of the facts. I have no problem with the first approach. I won't waste further time on you if you insist on the latter.

 

[Snappy1]

It's a poe ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Brightmoon]

Doubt it , I’ve met plenty of creationist nutcases in person who actually believe nonsense that a normal person would consider to be serious abuse and they’re usually so ignorant of even middle school science that the mind boggles trying to figure out where to even start to correct their misconceptions

 

[Ophiolite]

Doubt it , I’ve met plenty of creationist nutcases in person who actually believe nonsense that a normal person would consider to be serious abuse and they’re usually so ignorant of even middle school science that the mind boggles trying to figure out where to even start to correct their misconceptions

Indeed. I'm afraid you've triggered a sympathetic reaction in me. One of the things (one of the many, many things) that gets me in relation to The Flood as an explanation of the sedimentary column is best explained in a series of steps.

1. (Warning for Creationists of a nervous disposition. I could expand this to book length if provoked.)

2. A powerful and convenient sound bite for geologists is "The Present is the Key to the Past." This is the notion that the events that shape the Earth today are broadly those that have shaped it in the past. In recent decades we've come to recognise that some events are rare on a human time scale and a so a measure of Catastrophism has been introduced to the picture to slightly modify the underlying Uniformitarianism. A couple of centuries of field mapping, borehole drilling, microscopic examination, laboratory experiment and the like have validated this concept.

3. For the purposes of this discussion I'm going to talk about the clastic rocks (those made up of fragments, generally transported from some distance away). These include rocks such as claystone and shale, composed of very fine particles, up through siltstones, sandstones and finally conglomerates and breccias that contain pebbles and even boulders.

4. We find that these rocks have several important characteristics, including:

• Grain size.
• Grain size distribution.
• Grain angularity
• Grain shape
• Grain mineralogy
• Matrix mineralogy
• Matrix:grain ratio
• Cementation mineralogy
• Cementation extent
• Porosity
• Permeability
• Bed thickness (average and range)
• Internal structures (e.g. cross bedding, bioturbation)
• Surface structures (upper surface of individual beds or laminae)

5. When we examine sediments forming at the present time we find that in a given environment these characteristics have a specific range of values and that such values are consistent. When we examine ancient sediments, now consolidated as rocks, we find similar suites of characteristics and make the reasonable inference that they were formed in similar environments.

6. When we note, in the present day, how enviroments change laterally in space and vertically in time, we note certain associations that are common. If our inference made under point 5 is valid we should expect to find the same associations in the geologic record. That is exactly what we do find.

7. Additionally some of the characteristics detailed above allow us to identify material source, current direction, water depth, sedimentation rates, etc.

8. The sedimentary record thus provides detailed insight into the sedimentological history across the globe and over hundreds of millions of years, showing how geography, environments and thus sediments changed over time. The alternative explanation, that this complex interweaving of sedimentary rocks can be explained by a recent Global Flood is simply untenable and should be automatically rejected by anyone who has seriously examined the evidence. All attempts to patch up the Flood assertion, that I have read, are embarrassing in their simplicty and either incompetent or dishonest in their failure to address the data.

9. And I haven't even dealt with evaporites, carbonates and organic sediments, or such neat techniques as determining the water temperature a limestone formed in from isotope ratios. Plug those in and we have further independent lines of evidence that support what we found with the analysis of clastic rocks.

10. I must sound like a broken record: let every Creationist believe in the Biblical Flood as a real event of global range. I have no issue with that. They should believe in it firmly because they accept scripture and because they believe the Bible to have given a literal and not metaphorical account and because they have faith. All that is the domain of the Creationist and I have no place there. However, Mr. or Ms. Creationist please do not come stomping across my domain of science with ignorance and incomeptence and claim that your assertions are also science, unless your aim is to foster acrimony and distaste.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Given your unpleasantness and obstinacy I don't see any reason to go into much detail, especially with such a vague question as "have any evidence for pseudogenes". I'm not even really sure what that means. Are you denying that pseudogenes exist? Because if you are, I don't see any reason to get into a long discussion of the evidence for evolution we derive from them.

I am saying there is no evidence for them, only speculation.

​

How fun! An opinion piece from the Discovery Institute citing a bunch of Creationists.

I was expecting a reasonably intelligent response, but I now realize I was asking too much.

Some molecular vestiges have some sort of function, but so don't some anatomical vestiges. That's a Creationist slight of hand. No one who actually understands what vestigial means thinks it means utterly useless.

Moving the goalposts again? Until recently the top orthodox evolution publications believed so-called "vestigials" were useless.

Vestigial Organs Not So Useless After All, Studies Find​

Some genes and some structures which have lost their original purpose from earlier in evolutionary history have been co-opted to a new function, but that doesn't change the fact that they are vestigial. The coccyx helping us to take a dump doesn't change the fact that it's a bunch of tail bones that actually form a tail-like structure in utero and are eventually absorbed into the lower part of the thorax.

That is novel:

Anatomy of the Coccyx (Tailbone)​

I have seen some claims that vitellogenin remnants in humans have been co-opted for other function, but that doesn't change the fact that they are non-functioning genes for making egg yolk sacs.

That is another evolutionism myth. Human yolk sacs provide many functions for the human embryo.

And just because some vestiges have been co-opted doesn't mean all have. The GULO pseudogene exists to synthesize vitamin C. In humans and all of our fellow Haplorhines, it doesn't do that because it is broken. We also see non-functioning pathways. Sonic Hedgehog does a whole bunch of stuff animal bodies. In terrestrial tetrapods it works with the Hand2 gene to form the hind limbs. In whales that pathway is present, but non-functional. Whales do grow limb buds in utero, but they are absorbed back into the body after the embryo stage. But that pathway only makes hind limbs and in cetaceans it doesn't function.

To deny that pseudogenes do not exist can only be done through willful ignorance.

To pretend pseudogenes exist is little more than a case of hubris, according to Francis Collins:

"In January, Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, made a comment that revealed just how far the consensus has moved. At a health care conference in San Francisco, an audience member asked him about junk DNA. “We don’t use that term anymore,” Collins replied. “It was pretty much a case of hubris to imagine that we could dispense with any part of the genome — as if we knew enough to say it wasn’t functional.” Most of the DNA that scientists once thought was just taking up space in the genome, Collins said, “turns out to be doing stuff.”" [Zimmer, Carl, "Is Most of Our DNA Garbage?". New York Times, 2015] ​

William Dembski warned about speculation as early as 1998:

"But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term “junk DNA.” Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as “junk” merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology , John Bodnar describes how “non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development.” Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it." [William A. Dembski, "Making the Task of Theodicy Impossible - Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evil." First Things, 1998]​

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

The evidence for evolution for Kenny'sID thread

Debunked wishful thinking.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Bahahahahahhahahhah! Brightmoon actually has a degree in science (biology IIRC) while Johnson is a lawyer who was in way over his head at the Firing Line evolution debate in 1997. He's even more over his head now.

Was that the debate where the used-car salesman, Ken Miller, was displaying all those fake charts? This one?

Professor Johnson's opening statement begins at the 15:11 mark. It is quite good. His remark that Darwinist claims are loaded with religious implications is what I have been telling you all along: that evolutionism is a faith-based religious.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

You mean the one where they take sand in a separating funnel and then claim one can scale that up to a planetary flood? I would think an engineer wouldn't get in by those sorts of shenanigans.

Don't be silly.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

You're right. I've heard some crazy assertions regarding church/state, but I've never heard that particular crazy before.

That is because you have been dumbed down by revisionist history.

Dan

 

[sfs]

I am saying there is no evidence for them, only speculation.

Yeah, but since you don't actually know anything about biology, so what? Pseudogenes exist. Every biologist knows that.

I was expecting a reasonably intelligent response,

We can tell when you receive a reasonably intelligent response: those are the ones whose content you ignore.

To pretend pseudogenes exist is little more than a case of hubris, according to Francis Collins:

"In January, Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, made a comment that revealed just how far the consensus has moved. At a health care conference in San Francisco, an audience member asked him about junk DNA. “We don’t use that term anymore,” Collins replied. “It was pretty much a case of hubris to imagine that we could dispense with any part of the genome — as if we knew enough to say it wasn’t functional.” Most of the DNA that scientists once thought was just taking up space in the genome, Collins said, “turns out to be doing stuff.”" [Zimmer, Carl, "Is Most of Our DNA Garbage?". New York Times, 2015]

(A) Collins is not saying that pseudogenes don't exist, only that most of what we call junk DNA is actually functional. Collins is perfectly aware of the existence of pseudogenes. (B) He's wrong about junk DNA. There is precisely zero evidence that the sequence of the genome matters to the well-being of an organism. If you think otherwise, point to the specific finding in a specific paper that provides said evidence. You won't find it.

Was that the debate where the used-car salesman, Ken Miller, was displaying all those fake charts?

Speaking ill of your betters is one of your less appealing traits.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Primarily because it's not true. Eugenics has a long history extending back to the Spartans and artificial selection is the opposite of evolution.

The PBS article I linked stated,

"Eugenics was rooted in the social Darwinism of the late 19th century, a period in which notions of fitness, competition, and biological rationalizations of inequality were popular... The word "eugenics" was coined in 1883 by the English scientist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, to promote the ideal of perfecting the human race by, as he put it, getting rid of its "undesirables" while multiplying its "desirables" -- that is, by encouraging the procreation of the social Darwinian fit and discouraging that of the unfit."​

Perhaps PBS should have consulted you, before publishing.

"...Stephen Jay Gould?"

To be honest, most of us don't give a fig about Gould's writings other than paleontology. He was quite opinionated and wrote a lot of things that Creationists have been quote mining for decades.

Are you referring to his observations of "disparity before diversity", and "abrupt appearance and then statis"? I suspect Darwinists are somewhat perplexed about those statements.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Ive been awaiting your responses for days now in the other topic regarding burrows. Now here.

I will be back to that thread in due time. But for now, I don't have any information on the burrows.

Please explain how the tracks of 500 species of dinosaur have been captured in the middle of a megasequence, if said megasequence was deposited by a massive wave.

The megasequences did not flood entire continents, but were regional depositions. There are maps of the depositions that Sloss observed. For example, this one is North America showing the marine excursions onto (and off) the continent:

Dan

 

[pitabread]

It's a poe ladies and gentlemen.

Poe or boilerplate fundamentalist.

So hard to tell ...

 

[Job 33:6]

I will be back to that thread in due time. But for now, I don't have any information on the burrows.



The megasequences did not flood entire continents, but were regional depositions. There are maps of the depositions that Sloss observed. For example, this one is North America showing the marine excursions onto (and off) the continent:

Dan

And the tracks were present within these regional deposits and within a megasequence. So...how do you think that is possible?

 

[Bible Research Tools]

And, I just want to add, that the described formation from earlier is in the middle of a megasequence.

If you separate your waves, then you don't get a megasequence, you would get two megasequences. And this formation being in the Mesozoic means that massive flood waters hypothetically would have already passed through the area with the deposition of prior megasequences.

So, to simply things, the planet at this stage has already been flooded and had already had thousands of feet of sediment deposited in the form of pre existing megasequences . Another incredibly massive tsunami starts up, is half way through depositing it's strata, then the dinosaur tracks appear from hundreds of species.

@Bible Research Tools you claim that I am misunderstanding the story. If so, please elaborate.

I recommend you watch Dr. Wise's lecture on sedimentology so you can hear it directly from the horse's mouth. He also has two other lectures that may also help you understand the flood model: one on the "Paleontology of the Flood" (70 minutes - fossil record), and another on the Geophysics of the flood (90 minutes - causes of the flood).

In the 2-hour Geophysics lecture, Dr. Wise explains the TERRA code: the plate-tectonics model developed by John Baumgardner as his UCLA PhD dissertation. It is highly recommended.

All 16 free lectures offered by the "Is Genesis History?" group are available here, second down on the left:

Age of the Earth - Bible Research Tools​

There are also lessons on "mudrock" formation, pre-flood boundary, precambrian rocks, and post-flood period, age of the earth and radiometric dating, among others.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

What is bizarre to me about these types of assertions is how blatantly at odds they are with reality. Even if you don't necessary *agree* with the theory of evolution, to suggest there is absolutely no evidence to support it is just being silly.

I have not seen any evidence for macroevolution. And without evidence of macroevolution, the theory fails.

It's similar to how creationists will claim there are no applications of evolution even though evolution is used in real-world applications.

I have heard those claims, but I do not know of any real world applications, or even how macroevolution could even apply to a real world application.

It's the most bizarre form of reality denial and I just can't wrap my head around how one can do that.

I was a believer until I stepped back and took a serious look at it. Now I cannot see it anywhere. Even in the "wild west" of the genome -- the last hope for macroevolution, IMO -- things are not looking very promising.

Dan

 

[Job 33:6]

I recommend you watch Dr. Wise's lecture on sedimentology so you can hear it directly from the horse's mouth. He also has two other lectures that may also help you understand the flood model: one on the "Paleontology of the Flood" (70 minutes - fossil record), and another on the Geophysics of the flood (90 minutes - causes of the flood).

In the 2-hour Geophysics lecture, Dr. Wise explains the TERRA code: the plate-tectonics model developed by John Baumgardner as his UCLA PhD dissertation. It is highly recommended.

All 16 free lectures offered by the "Is Genesis History?" group are available here, second down on the left:

Age of the Earth - Bible Research Tools​

There are also lessons on "mudrock" formation, pre-flood boundary, precambrian rocks, and post-flood period, age of the earth and radiometric dating, among others.

Dan

You dont have a response. You have no idea, so instead of answering me, you just direct me to youtube videos.

 

[pitabread]

I have not seen any evidence for macroevolution.

Have you ever looked?

I have heard those claims, but I do not know of any real world applications, or even how macroevolution could even apply to a real world application.

There are various applications in genomics and phylogenetics. Specifically things like functional gene prediction and annotation, identification of druggable targets in pharmacology, and so on.

I was a believer until I stepped back and took a serious look at it.

If I had a nickle for every time a creationist claimed they used to "believe" in evolution, I could probably afford a Starbucks coffee.

I do find it interesting though how rejection of the acceptance of a scientific theory like evolution goes hand-in-hand with adoption of literalist Christian beliefs.

 

[Job 33:6]

Because you do not have first hand knowledge of geology, you aren't in a position to tell us that we are wrong. At least with respect to.the geologists I'm the room. The same goes for biology.

Regarding your YouTube videos, they're too vague and simplistic to hold any weight in these discussions. And because you aren't familiar with the information you self, you aren't bringing much to the table.

@Bible Research Tools

You should go do more research (for example, research on the Cretaceous), formulate an argument based on your own knowledge (and not rely on some random person on youtube) and experience, and come back with a technical argument. We will be here waiting.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Since he's such a big fan of authority and quotes, I wonder how he'll hand wave this one away.

Dr. Todd Wood, Creationist baraminologist
The truth about evolution

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.​

I wonder what Dr. Todd Wodd knows that BRT doesn't.

LOL! Just so there was no misunderstanding, Todd also wrote this as a followup:

1. I believe that God created everything that you see in six consecutive days around 6000 years ago.
2. I believe that Adam and Eve were the very first humans and were directly created by God.
3. I believe Adam and Eve sinned, and that sin brought death, carnivory, disease, and suffering into the world.
4. I believe that people really lived to be 900+ years back then.
5. I believe that there was a truly global Flood that inundated the entire planet.
6. I believe that humans and land animals were preserved on an Ark (approximately 450 feet long for those keeping score).
7. I believe that the humans after the Flood gradually stopped living to be 900+.
8. I believe that the humans after the Flood tried to build a tower in Babel to prevent their dispersal across the globe, in direct contradiction to God's command.
9. I believe that God punished the builders of Babel by miraculously confusing their languages.

I'M A CREATIONIST!​

That narrows it down. In another followup, he wrote:

"In biochem, we deal with submicroscopic phenomena, atoms, and energy, and the like. It's not as if we can simply get a bigger microscope to settle which of two competing theories is correct. It often takes a lot of ingenuity to devise experiments to figure out an enzymatic mechanism, for example. We end up with competing theories because often the evidence we have is equivocal. Data fit two mutually exclusive theories equally well. So this does not bother me in the least. I'm quite used to looking at different theoretical standpoints and recognizing that there's evidence for both. It's just what we biochemists have to do."​

It also appears we agree on the lack of evidence for whale evolution. Go to the 35:47 mark for his whale segment:

Dan