Three years and counting

I was just reminded that last year at this time I announced an anniversary. In March of 2004, I critiqued this mysterious abstraction called “ontogenetic depth” that Paul Nelson, the ID creationist, proposed as a measure of developmental and evolutionary complexity, and that he was using as a pseudoscientific rationale against evolution. Unfortunately, he never explained how “ontogenetic depth” was calculated or how it was measured (perhaps he was inspired by Dembski’s “specified complexity”, another magic number that can be farted out by creationists but cannot be calculated). Nelson responded to my criticisms with a promise.

On 29 March 2004, he promised to post an explanation “tomorrow”.

On 7 April 2004, he told us “tomorrow”.

On 26 April 2004, he told us he was too busy.

On 13 January 2005, he told us to read a paper by R Azevedo instead. I rather doubt that Ricardo supports Intelligent Design creationism, or thinks his work contributes to it.

Ever since, silence.

One day has stretched into three years. I would fear that Paul Nelson has fallen into a chronosynclastic infundibulum and come unstuck in time, except that he still pops up saying the same stuff at creationist conferences. Maybe he just forgot, and this thread will remind him so that he’ll show up and post that promised explanation in a comment.

Tomorrow.

Believing and understanding

Larry Moran criticizes a dramatic Youtube video that purports to show how evolution works. He asks if we think this helps or hurts the cause of evolution education. Speaking as an evo-devo guy (forgive me, Larry), I’d also say it hurts. Without understanding the mechanisms of morphological change underlying the simulation, it’s useless. It doesn’t explain anything about the roots of the variation it’s demonstrating or the principles of the propagation of genetic change through a population — funny faces shift generation after generation, with no explanation given. It asserts change without showing how. That is not science.

This is also where I have problems with the Nisbet/Mooney thesis. I presume this kind of simplified, cartoony presentation is what they think we need more of, and that scientists ought to just swallow their pride arrogance and go along with the “framing”…but there’s a point where simplification and flash become the antithesis of good science. I don’t want people to believe in evolution, I want them to understand it.

Would the cartoon help them believe? Maybe.

Does it help them understand? No.

If you want to grasp the goals of scientists (and, tellingly, the goals of atheists), you have to understand that distinction between believing and understanding.

Wells on Hox structure: making the same mistakes over and over again

Jonathan Wells apparently felt the sting of my rebuttal of his assertions about Hox gene structure, because he has now repeated his erroneous interpretations at Dembski’s creationist site. His strategy is to once again erect a straw man version of biologist’s claims about genetic structure, show that biologists have refuted his dummy, and claim victory. The only real question here is whether he actually believes his historical revisions of what we’ve known about Hox genes, in which case he is merely ignorant, or whether he is knowingly painting a false picture, in which case he is a malicious fraud.

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Cluck cluck cluuuuck!

The Discovery Institute has challenged SMU profs
to debate at the “Darwin vs Design” event in Dallas. No takers so far; I’m not surprised, any scientist who participated would be increasing the DI’s reputation immensely simply by sharing a meeting room with one of those clowns.

But the DI is in the mood for a debate, eh … so how about with Peter Irons, noted constitutional lawyer, Harvard Law School grad, Supreme Court bar member, and author of a forthcoming book, God on Trial(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which includes a chapter on the Dover case? He’s going to be in the Seattle area at the end of May, is willing to arrange a neutral venue, and has specifically offered to meet Casey Luskin, pipsqueak, University of San Diego School of Law, passed the California bar exam, incompetent poltroon, in public debate.

I have been personally informed by Mr Irons that the DI has refused his offer.

Many scientists have a policy of refusing to grant creationists any credibility by sharing a podium with them (we will happily discuss science in the public arena, though … it’s just a waste of time to try to inform and educate with a kook lying and obfuscating next to you), so I can understand why the SMU professors aren’t going to bother with them. The DI is the party asking for a debate, though; Irons has even offered to come to them and make it all as easy as possible for Luskin to get up and argue with him. So why do they chicken out now?

Is it because a debate on subjects of substance, directly addressing their socio-political goals rather than providing cover for their pretense of being a scientific organization, would not actually help their fading image? Or perhaps it is because no one at the DI actually has any confidence in Casey Luskin?

Peter Irons has sent along his own account of the DI’s evasions, which I’ve put below the fold.

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More attention for Ken Ham

Tonight on Anderson Cooper (CNN, 10pm ET), we’re apparently going to get a preview of Ken Ham’s shiny new pseudo-scientific creation “science” “museum”. Tune in for a good laugh!

(via DefCon Blog)

Gaaaah! I managed to watch it for 20 minutes before giving up on it. It was one big load of religious tripe, with all the emphasis given to glowing candles, bible verses, and fawning credulity over creationists, religionists, anyone who believes. They showed Ken Ham preaching lying, lots of shots of creepy animatronic dinosaurs, and countered it all with about 15 seconds of Michael Novacek of the AMNH pointing out that there was no evidence for any of it. They had someone from the Family Research Council and Americans for Separation of Church and State in a dueling heads argument — the FRC bot was hammering on ‘teach the controversy’, even if it is wrong; in the only effective skeptical moment, the fellow from ASCS grilled her on her personal beliefs about the age of the earth, and she ran away from the question. Anderson Cooper was useless, interested only in perpetuating the argument by giving the drone lots of slack.

I gave up when they built up to the “big scientist answers it all” moment, and it was … Francis Collins. Dear god, I’ve decided that man is an idiot.

Egnor’s latest kook-fests

Michael Egnor is the gift that keeps on giving. He’s been responding to criticisms from us sciencebloggers with more and more inanities — it’s like all you have to do is poke him and he starts puking up more and more transparently fallacious creationist talking points.
Mark Chu-Carroll schools him on his tired claim that selection is a tautology, something we’ve been hearing from creationists since at least the days of Gish. In response to Orac’s challenge, requesting examples of how ‘design’ has helped modern medicine, Egnor coughed up … Watson’s and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA? You’ve got to be kidding me. Orac sounds incredulous, too.

I had dinner with James Watson last January, and one of the topics of conversation was, of course, Intelligent Design creationism (it comes up a lot around me, for some reason). I can tell you with absolute certainty that Watson has nothing but contempt for those fellows; so much so that he considers arguing with them beneath him (which is true enough.) If you want to read his opinion of evolution, one place to look is in a book he edited, called Darwin: the Indelible Stamp(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It’s a collection of four of Darwin’s books, with a foreword and introduction to each written by Watson. The work he and Crick did strengthened evolutionary theory, it was not independent of it, and to try and recruit the man’s work to the side of Egnor’s creationism is simply ridiculous.

Another example of creationist arrogance

One recurring theme I have going on here is that creationists aren’t necessarily stupid (although some are, very much so) — their problems are ignorance and arrogance. Those two traits reinforce each other; the ignorance allows them to think their pitiable store of knowledge is adequate and allows them to arrogantly assume they’re competent, while their arrogance drives them to refuse to consider correcting their ignorance. It’s an ugly spiral that locks them into what are genuinely stupid opinions.

Case in point: the creationist “For the Kids”, or FtK, who makes little drive-by comments here, at my daughter’s blog, and various other sites on the evolution/creation pseudocontroversy. There is now a whole, entertaining thread dedicated to FtK at Antievolution.org. She doesn’t talk science, she doesn’t understand it, but she sure likes to pretend that she’s knowledgeable. This one comment where she tries to belittle biology is a good example.

Biology certainly isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand it.

No, it’s not rocket science, but then rocket science isn’t rocket science either, in the sense of an extremely difficult subject beyond the ken of mere mortals. Both are difficult disciplines that require a fair amount of study to grasp; they may not require geniuses, but they do require some intelligence and a lot of hard work. FtK hasn’t done any of the work, and her arrogant presumption that she can master this ‘easy’ subject precludes her ever learning more.

She’s not alone, either. The only member of the intelligent design creationist cabal who has shown even the vaguest signs of comprehension of basic biology is Behe, and even he views it through the distorting lens of his creationist baggage and a lack of knowledge of the specific sub-discipline of biology, evolution, that would directly address his arguments.