On the Cambrian Explosion and phony expertise

[juvenissun]

This is an interesting side discussion - but what did you think of the fact that a creationist got caught red-handed breaking forum rules by plagiarizing?

I don't care much about what others do.

 

[tas8831]

I don't care much about what others do.

Great.

How about starting a new thread on whatever it is you are discussing now that is not related to creationists and the frequency of their plagiarism?

 

[Motherofkittens]

The op never tires of propaganda. Instead of engaging the Cambrian explosion as 30 years of disconfirmatory evidence for the gradualism inferences in NeoDarwinian theory we are treated to red herring, non-sequiturs and hand waving, proving a reliance on rhetoric rather than scientific method.

No explanation will be given by the OP for the data. This doesn't mean that the theory of evolution broadly construed is false, rather that the Darwinian and NeoDarwinian models that produces such lovely trees of life are in fact parallel vertical branches. Instead of searching for an explanation as a scientist we are treated with wave upon wave of propaganda.

Are you not going to profusely apologise to everyone? That would be a good place to start rebuilding your credibility with us. This is so disappointing. Of course you plagiarizing doesn't mean you are wrong. I feel like that is going to be your next weak defence, if you reply at all. The scientific evidence shows you are wrong.

I don't see the OP, writing any "propaganda or red herrings, non-sequiturs and hand waving, proving a reliance on rhetoric rather than scientific method". Perhaps you are talking of other threads you two are in? If so, take it there and address the issue brought up here. Your disgraceful plagiarizing, and of a person who writes stupid and with an agenda, no less. Can you admit the wrong you did? Everyone messes up and does wrong and incredibly stupid things, it is okay, so long as you admit it, learn and don't do it again. If your stubborn fragile ego won't let you, it would be better if you just didn't respond at all.

I don't know if you did it for the same reason I plagiarized when I was a creationist. If yes, I get it. You feel like because it is The Truth tm and the people you steal from have the same or similar ideas as you, then "we are on the same side". It is so, so, very important for people to know The Truth tm that it is actually a great thing you are "sharing" these ripped off ideas. You think Jesus is happy with you. Of course you could just credit them, but that would probably tip off everyone that you have no idea what you are talking about. Well, stealing creationist propaganda will tip off everyone that you and the original author have no idea what you are talking about or one or the other is lying for Jesus and purposely giving out misinformation to suit their literal Bible interpretation. And that you have no integrity for plagiarizing. It isn't okay to do.

I probably shouldn't ask, but I will. Do you have evidence for these "parallel vertical branches"?

 

[Motherofkittens]

Oh, by the way. Before I clicked on the link I thought it was several other creationists from here, they say very similar things and also like making copy-pasta. I think that was one of my first posts I responded to was "Cambrian explosion disproves evolution". I was a lurker for a bit and then I had to say something! And I guess I stayed posting. "Once you pop/post you can't stop". Unfortunately I haven't been able to interact again with some of them because they stay on the Christian side of the science forum. I cannot pass onto that area.

 

[Motherofkittens]

I don't care much about what others do.

Even if it is wrong? Really?

 

[juvenissun]

Even if it is wrong? Really?

There are so many wrong things happened in every hour.
Yes, I don't care 99.99% of them.

 

[Motherofkittens]

There are so many wrong things happened in every hour.
Yes, I don't care 99.99% of them.

Typically, yes. As the quote in a 1916 anarchist newspaper goes " there is double the pathos for us in the death of one little New York waif from hunger than there is in a million deaths from famine in China. It is not that distance glosses over the terrible picture of the Chinese horror, or that a feeling of national kinship with the waif impresses us the more sincerely with his plight. It is merely that the mind is unable to grasp a suffering in the gross. Suffering is so intimately personal a thing that it must be explained through the personal equation, if at all.

Or in more concise terms "a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic". There is interesting psychology behind it. The vast world population has not nor will commit violence offences. And I'm not trying to say what @Uber Genius did was on the same levelas that. But there really are many wrongs happening all time. I just think that quote goes with what you are saying.

But the wrong here, the plagiarizing and being arrogant and condescending while doing it is right here. It is right in your face. And you still don't care? I hope your "don't care" attitude is consistent across the board, at least then.

 

[juvenissun]

But the wrong here, the plagiarizing and being arrogant and condescending while doing it is right here. It is right in your face. And you still don't care? I hope your "don't care" attitude is consistent across the board, at least then.

I don't care is because, first, I do not make that alleged mistake. Second, I do not know if the allegation is correct and I don't have time to investigate it. Third, I assume the alleged mistake is defendable.

If they are reported killed someone, I would probably spend time to take a look.

 

[tas8831]

The op never tires of propaganda. Instead of engaging the Cambrian explosion as 30 years of disconfirmatory evidence for the gradualism inferences in NeoDarwinian theory we are treated to red herring, non-sequiturs and hand waving, proving a reliance on rhetoric rather than scientific method.

No explanation will be given by the OP for the data. This doesn't mean that the theory of evolution broadly construed is false, rather that the Darwinian and NeoDarwinian models that produces such lovely trees of life are in fact parallel vertical branches. Instead of searching for an explanation as a scientist we are treated with wave upon wave of propaganda.

The pompous plagiarist 'adjunct' never tires of patting itself n the back for his dishonesty and lack of relevant knowledge.

 

[Uber Genius]

I've been clicking on the "List" to see who thinks this is a winning post. The link doesn't work. And it's the only link on the page that seems broken. Is that meaningful?

Vox Populi fallacy and yet the uneducated do find it funny.
Hmm all you needed to do was provide a peer-reviewed article that demonstrated my tree comment incorrect. Instead we get more clever fallacies. You bungled it, should have expected it.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Vox Populi fallacy and yet the uneducated do find it funny.
Hmm all you needed to do was provide a peer-reviewed article that demonstrated my tree comment incorrect. Instead we get more clever fallacies. You bungled it, should have expected it.

I note that in this year old thread, this "uber genius" (who I suspect has me on ignore) still hasn't acknowledged his blatant plagiarizing of other people's work, in seemingly a desperate attempt at sounding smart and "sciency".

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Vox Populi fallacy and yet the uneducated do find it funny.

I love the unintentional irony of this comment. If you don't know what words mean, don't use them. An uber genius really ought to know what vox populi means, but you obviously don't.

 

[Ophiolite]

Vox Populi fallacy and yet the uneducated do find it funny.
Hmm all you needed to do was provide a peer-reviewed article that demonstrated my tree comment incorrect. Instead we get more clever fallacies. You bungled it, should have expected it.

When do you intend to address your practice of plagiarism on this forum?

 

[tas8831]

I note that in this year old thread, this "uber genius" (who I suspect has me on ignore) still hasn't acknowledged his blatant plagiarizing of other people's work, in seemingly a desperate attempt at sounding smart and "sciency".

That is what these people do.

His 'clever' response elsewhere was that this forum, is not a publication, so it is OK to be a sleazy lying Dunning-Krugerite plagiarist.

 

[tas8831]

Vox Populi fallacy and yet the uneducated do find it funny.
Hmm all you needed to do was provide a peer-reviewed article that demonstrated my tree comment incorrect. Instead we get more clever fallacies. You bungled it, should have expected it.

Silly plagiarist - copy-pasting the work of your non-authority religious heroes doesn't make you look smart - it makes you look pathetic.

 

[Uber Genius]

When do you intend to address your practice of plagiarism on this forum?

ad hominem false accusations seem de rigueur for the atheist/agnostic community. I have been accused only once in 4 years out here of that... secondly I was on my phone responding to request for reasons. I gave reasons.

The fact that I didn't use APA style guidelines doesn't count as plagiarism as you know. This is just a propaganda campaign from ignorant and childish atheists on this site like 8-foot man (intellectually)child(ish).

Now don't get me wrong. Atheism doesn't necessitate these qualities but I see enormous obfuscation by those pretending to be educated out here. Propaganda doesn't count for reasoned debate, or careful reasoning.

Propagandists go on the "Ignored" list.

Thanks for taking us off-track on this discussion - red-herring. And for demonstrating to textbook examples of ad hominem, and arguing vox populi.

Perhaps the only value your posts have added is to instruct us on how not to argue a position.

 

[Ophiolite]

ad hominem false accusations seem de rigueur for the atheist community. I have been accused only once in 4 years out here of that... secondly I was on my phone responding to request for reasons. I gave reasons.

The fact that I didn't use APA style guidelines doesn't count as plagiarism as you know. This is just a propaganda campaign from ignorant and childish atheists on this site.

Now don't get me wrong. Atheism doesn't necessitate these qualities but I see enormous obfuscation by those pretending to be educated out here. Propaganda doesn't count for reasoned debate, or careful reasoning.

Propagandists go on the "Ignored" list.

Thanks for taking us off-track on this discussion - red-herring. And for demonstrating to textbook examples of ad hominem, and arguing vox populi.

Perhaps the only value your posts have added.

I am not interested in the legal definition of palgiarism.

Rather, I am interested in the unacceptable practice of stealing other people's work and passing it off as your own. No amount of fancy verbiage will remove the fact that you used the words of others and represented them as your own.

That is not, contrary to your ignorant misunderstanding of the phrase, an ad hominem. I am not using my statements concerning your scurrilous behaviour to disparage your argument. I am using my statements to remind all readers that your behaviour stinks.

However, your admission of dishonest behaviour, probably illegal, is sufficient for the moment. If you ever reach a sufficient level of maturity to properly and publicly admit that such behaviour is unacceptable it will be welcomed by all who currently condemn you for it. I'm not holding my breath.
But I am holding you to account.

 

[DogmaHunter]

ad hominem false accusations

Errr......... the accusation wasn't false.
It's right there, black on white, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And since the argument isn't "you engage in plagiarism therefor you are incorrect", it isn't an ad hominem either.

 

[tas8831]

ad hominem false accusations seem de rigueur for the atheist/agnostic community. I have been accused only once in 4 years out here of that... secondly I was on my phone responding to request for reasons. I gave reasons.

The fact that I didn't use APA style guidelines doesn't count as plagiarism as you know.

No - the fact that you copy-pasted entire paragraphs from fake scientist creationist Meyer with no attribution at all point to and prove your plagiarism.

Makes you look pathetic and malicious.

This is just a propaganda campaign from ignorant and childish atheists on this site like 8-foot man (intellectually)child(ish).

Now don't get me wrong. Atheism doesn't necessitate these qualities but I see enormous obfuscation by those pretending to be educated out here. Propaganda doesn't count for reasoned debate, or careful reasoning.

Propagandists go on the "Ignored" list.

Thanks for taking us off-track on this discussion - red-herring. And for demonstrating to textbook examples of ad hominem, and arguing vox populi.

Perhaps the only value your posts have added is to instruct us on how not to argue a position.

The whiny plagiarist and his justification of dishonesty.

Amazing.

Pity this adjunct professor of religious studies - pretending to be able to discuss things out of his league is probably;y why no university or college will hire him in a tenure track slot.

 

[tas8831]

The pathetic creationist plagiarist, whose sad antic I fully and clearly documented in the OP, claims that the charge was false.

Thus, he is not only a pathetic plagiarist, but now also either an ignoramus for not understanding what plagiarism is (not to mention that it is against forums rules), or is a malicious troll.

The lengths to which creationists will go are truly grotesque.

There is something about catching a hypocrite that I just love....

Yesterday, this forum was graced by a self-appointed (at least via implication) expert on the Cambrian Explosion, and how it is a big problem for evolution. This person's 'expertise' - and condescension - was unleashed on us in a couple of posts:

You could find all major phyla arriving in a period of only 40-50 million years (known as the Cambrian Explosion) utterly destroying the Neo Darwinian gradualism inference.

Did you mean to call attention to the recalcitrant fact of those data, or their knock down capability? Opps. [sic]​

Then:

So you are unfamiliar with the findings since the late 1980s and respond with "50 million years seems like a long tme [sic] to me."

30-seconds of research is all I ask. Not even one college class. It's so simple.

Think we are way past opps [sic] here.​

and finally:

Next item 1st year college student are taught to rely on real research and are not allowed to use wiki as a source due to the fact that it is crowd sourced and not research based.

Given your grasp of the discussion so far I'm dubious of additional complexity but I will spell out why the experts who hold to NeoDarwinian evolution affine the Cambrian explosion to be a potential knockdown argument.

A neo-Darwinian understanding of the mechanism for generating new biological structure generates three specific predictions or empirical expectations concerning the fossil record. Given the operation of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the fossil record should show: (1) the gradual emergence of biological complexity and the existence of numerous transitional forms leading to new phyla-level body plans; (2) small-scale morphological diversity preceding the emergence of large-scale morphological disparity; and (3) a steady increase in the morphological distance between organic forms over time and, consequently, a steady increase in the number of phyla over time.

None of these three predictions hold.

Now I believe there is good evidence for a 13.7B year old universe, a 4.6B year old earth, and life on this planet staring approximately 3.2-3.5B years ago. I want science to work using an scientific method. What I don't want is scientists using arguments to authority and rhetoric to ofiscate beliefs that are not justified as science.

And I have less tolerance for peoplemwhomdont take the time to do 30 seconds of research and then go out and parrot arguments that have been falsified for 2 -3 decades.​

and for good measure:

Do the research and stop faking it.

A neo-Darwinian understanding of the mechanism for generating new biological structure generates three specific predictions or empirical expectations concerning the fossil record. Given the operation of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the fossil record should show: (1) the gradual emergence of biological complexity and the existence of numerous transitional forms leading to new phyla-level body plans; (2) small-scale morphological diversity preceding the emergence of large-scale morphological disparity; and (3) a steady increase in the morphological distance between organic forms over time and, consequently, a steady increase in the number of phyla over time.

No non-sequiturs please. Act like you have had a college class or two.​

A couple of problems....

Where to begin?

How about with the elephant in the room?


You see, dear reader, I have learned from decades of encountering creationists not to trust that their internet forum posts are original. In fact, in my 2 decades or so of this, I have caught probably 100 creationists plagiarizing (4 on this forum alone, and in just the past month or so). And when this creationist's posts went from condescending and insulting to 'coherent', at least for a paragraph, I got suspicious, and in 10 seconds, had the original, un-referenced, unacknowledged source:



http://www.christianity-science.gr/files/CambrianExplosion-Biology'sBigBang.pdf

A neo-Darwinian understanding of the mechanism for generating new biological
structure generates three specific predictions or empirical expectations concerning the
fossil record. Given the operation of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the fossil record
should show: (1) the gradual emergence of biological complexity and the existence of
numerous transitional forms leading to new phyla-level body plans; (2) small-scale
morphological diversity preceding the emergence of large-scale morphological disparity;
and (3) a steady increase in the morphological distance between organic forms over time
and, consequently, a steady increase in the number of phyla over time.​

WORD. FOR. WORD.

So this blatant (and repeated) act of plagiarism brings into question some of what the creationist expert had declared.

Let us take a look:

"So you are unfamiliar with the findings since the late 1980s...
30-seconds of research is all I ask. Not even one college class. It's so simple. "

I suppose he is referencing the essay he plagiarized, which came out in 2001.

What has happened since creationist Stephen Meyer wrote the essay in question (along with creationist pals Jon Wells and Paul Chien)?

30 seconds on Google showed me:


Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion
Published Online: September 12, 2013
DOI: Redirecting

"The near-simultaneous appearance of most modern animal body plans (phyla) ∼530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion is strong evidence for a brief interval of rapid phenotypic and genetic innovation, yet the exact speed and nature of this grand adaptive radiation remain debated [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Crucially, rates of morphological evolution in the past (i.e., in ancestral lineages) can be inferred from phenotypic differences among living organisms—just as molecular evolutionary rates in ancestral lineages can be inferred from genetic divergences [13]. ... The fastest inferred rates are still consistent with evolution by natural selection and with data from living organisms, potentially resolving “Darwin’s dilemma.” However, evolution during the Cambrian explosion was unusual (compared to the subsequent Phanerozoic) in that fast rates were present across many lineages."



The Avalon Explosion: Evolution of Ediacara Morphospace
Science 04 Jan 2008:
Vol. 319, Issue 5859, pp. 81-84
DOI: 10.1126/science.1150279

Abstract
Ediacara fossils [575 to 542 million years ago (Ma)] represent Earth's oldest known complex macroscopic life forms, but their morphological history is poorly understood. A comprehensive quantitative analysis of these fossils indicates that the oldest Ediacara assemblage—the Avalon assemblage (575 to 565 Ma)—already encompassed the full range of Ediacara morphospace. A comparable morphospace range was occupied by the subsequent White Sea (560 to 550 Ma) and Nama (550 to 542 Ma) assemblages, although it was populated differently. In contrast, taxonomic richness increased in the White Sea assemblage and declined in the Nama assemblage. These diversity changes, occurring while morphospace range remained relatively constant, led to inverse shifts in morphological variance. The Avalon morphospace expansion mirrors the Cambrian explosion, and both events may reflect similar underlying mechanisms.



There were many, many more, but a couple prove my point - somebody is behind the times, but not who is implied by our new expert.

But wait - there is more!


Our expert condescends:

"Given your grasp of the discussion so far I'm dubious of additional complexity but I will spell out why..."

Get that?

"I will..."

followed by a copy-pasted, un-referenced, un-cited paragraph of someone else's work.

And it gets even better:


"What I don't want is scientists using arguments to authority and rhetoric to ofiscate [sic] beliefs that are not justified as science."


I would say that plagiarizing Meyer constitutes an appeal to authority?


"And I have less tolerance for peoplemwhomdont take the time to do 30 seconds of research and then go out and parrot arguments that have been falsified for 2 -3 decades. "


See above.



Folks, nothing to see here. Just more plagiarism and bombast.

And I won't even mention that referring to the "predictions" of evolution as portrayed by 3 CREATIONISTS who set out to 'disprove' evolution (odd that they NEVER seem to do 'research' that would support ID or creationism, isn't it?) is specious, at best.