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Some examples of scientific disinformation:

The world health organization claiming that drinking pure water is dangerous.

Doctors and scientists insisting that vaccines do more harm than good.

Nutritionists claiming that vegan diets create malnutrition

Scientists rejecting the evolution model

Pick any agenda, and you will find respected authorities rejecting it, regardless of the crazy amounts of evidence in support of it.

Great discussion. I don't want to over-complicate, but we would be remiss if we didn't bring up the fact that some "junk" DNA is not junk at all, even if it is "non-coding" (does not encode for a protein product). The original concept of genes is that they have "exons" and "introns", where the exons code for parts of a protein product, and the introns get snipped out during the process of generating RNA from DNA. But some of the so-called junk DNA generates different kinds of RNA rather than standard "messenger RNA" or mRNA. For example they have found what are called microRNAs, small nucleolar RNAs and others. These tend to modify how other RNAs function (messenger RNAs and transfer RNAs which link base pairs to amino acids in ribosomes) etc. So there are many levels of complexity and mutations can happen in any of these different DNA regions thus affecting not just protein structure (when an exon is mutated) but also how gene regulation occurs (e.g., when microRNA regions are mutated). It will be interesting to see in the future if more "junk" DNA turns out to be doing something unique.

http://phys.org/news/2010-10-j...

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2...

>Your claim that Tyson said something in an episode of Cosmos is not a citation.

It's hardly difficult to verify.
And here is a description of the episode and the opening sequence I was talking about:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2...

And here is some deniers complaining BECAUSE he said it:
http://thefederalist.com/2014/...

>Common sense had better apply to most theories
It doesn't because common sense was evolved to deal with extreme macro-level abstractions based on extremely imperfect measuring devices known as "human senses" after being passed through a network of filters and prejudices in the brain before we're even aware of them.
There is no common sense to the idea that if I run faster my watch will run slower that's why Newton never considered such a thing and nobody else did for 500 years - until Einstein proved it.
Now on my pocket watch at the rate I can run, the difference is too small too measure, but stick an atomic clock on a plane and another perfectly synced one on the ground and compare them after a supersonic flight - guess what, the one on the plane is now behind, because time runs slower as you accelerate.
And thats one of the *EASY* ones.

>If you hold your hand closer to a light bulb or a heating element, it will get warmer.

And if you wrap one hand in reflective foil and hold it even closer it may STILL not get as warm as the bare hand.
Many, many things determine how much heat something gets beyond distance. It's quite easy to believe that with just a few variables right, Venus and Earth could have receive about the same amount of heat at some point. At least, to people who are versed in science.

"Common sense is the greatest enemy of science" - Albert Einstein (a man who, coincidentally, is famous for theories that are all completely and utterly in violation of common sense).
Many scientists have remarked that the most amazing thing about the universe is that it makes any sense at all - expecting it to make COMMON sense, a silly set of human abstraction devoid of critical thought... that's asking WAY too much.

Interview with Kayser ("we've only found the first five genes"): http://www.scientificamerican....
In short: Hair and eye colour prediction: 0.9, height: 0.75, everything else "much lower" than 0.75 with 0.5 being totally random.

And from the article itself: "The next step is to run larger studies in different populations to confirm that the variants found so far are statistically reliable." which explains why there aren't any more test examples.

A bit about how it works ("Fine Tuning of Craniofacial Morphology by Distant-Acting Enhancers"): http://www.evolutionnews.org/2...

You say "there are no known examples of harm" --- but that's because nearly no one has looked

Hardly no one looks for examples of harm from non-GMO corn either. All corn, really all agricultural products, are heavily genetically engineered, the difference is some is engineered with selective breeding and hybridization, and the other by resequencing. The only reason we pay attention to the latter is there's a contingent of motivated believers who think that "natural" food contains Maggi Health Fairies, and that Big Science and Corporations kill the fairies by Playing God(!!1!@1!). it's really hard to get funding to try studying anything against Big Ag's corporate profit interests

"It's impossible to disprove Darwinism, because the Darwin lobby controls all granting in the life sciences!" "It's impossible to disprove general relativity, because the government suppresses that truth!"

This appears to speak to your question, especially the last two paragraphs before the notes section.

The Peppered Moth Story: Vindicated!

A quick search appears to show they haven't folded their cards as yet.

About Irreducible Complexity
Michael Behe Hasn't Been Refuted on the Flagellum
mouse trap illustration vs. 3-glasses-3-knives illustration — Irreducible Complexity, Depth of Integration

I would think that evolutionary theory would predict, and even practically demand, the presence of ID theorists and Creationists of various flavors as part of the scientific community. Every scientific community, and they are segmented, is its own little ecosystem. It has sources of energy (grants), and consumers (scientists) and various forms of reproduction (ideas and new scientists, etc.). Some members of the ecosystem will consume resources, but give little back, or produce poor quality offspring. The herd only improves if the strongest survive. Think of the role of predators taking the weak in any animal stock. In this case it is weak theories and science. By the two communities engaging in adversarial struggle, the weak science is exposed and made stronger. What is passed over in silence by on community is exposed by the other and account demanded. Intellectual rigor increases. Their ways are strange to you, perhaps even irritating. But directly and indirectly they help real science grow stronger, and more innovative. They probably also bring additional funding into the scientific community that it otherwise wouldn't have. And without them, your droll post would have no meaning.

The evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium came about for a reason - to explain missing data - transitional forms, data that couldn't be found but evolutionary theory said should be there. It is certainly a bold approach to the problem - we can't find it because it doesn't exist so, never mind. In a way it brings to mind the Fermi Paradox.

Of course the ID community has a view: Punctuated Equilibrium and Patterns from the Fossil Record

Note to moderators: I am neither kidding nor trolling. Feel free to ignore the post.

As this link shows: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/in_debate_brita_1064521.html like a good theologian, you can adjust your story to fit new facts with superb aplomb. However such success must cast doubt on whether evolution actually offers testable hypotheses. Could you please make some specific claims whose being disproved would show that evolution is untrue?

I'm not an expert in biology, and never claimed to be :) However, a quick Google search of the terms you used pulls up several results that look well researched and which, via a cursory reading, appear to be written by folks who are experts. I have found such results on both sides of this argument, which tells me that this is not as firmly established of a conclusion as you might think. For example, check out this article (one of the better ones by the look of it, given the number of citations and general quality of writing):

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html

In the end, none of us were there when either God created the world, or life evolved, or a combination of the two. As such we cannot absolutely say what happened one way or the other. The upshot of that is that it also doesn't matter to the vast majority of modern disciplines: someone can be a perfectly good engineer, doctor, etc without needing to believe one way or the other on this topic! Now someone who didn't believe in gravity - that person I might not want building an airplane... or someone who didn't understand the size of viruses, allergens, etc building an air filter for use in medical applications. Bill Nye implying that because we need smart and well educated kids to continue our society we should teach evolution is a non-sequitur.

Since most of your response refers to the the Talk Origins' article Observed Instances of Speciation, I will post a summarized response from Specious Speciation: The Myth of Observed Large-Scale Evolutionary Change:

- Not one of the examples studied documents the origin of large-scale biological change.
- The vast majority of the examples do not even show the production of new species, where a "species" is defined by the standard definition of a "reproductively isolated population."
- Only one single example in the FAQ shows the production of a new plant species via hybridization and polyploidy, but this example does not entail significant biological change.
- Only one of the examples purports to document the production of a reproductively isolated population of animals -- however this example is overturned by a later study not mentioned in the FAQ.
- Thus, not a single bona fide example of speciation in animals -- e.g. the establishment of a completely reproductively isolated population -- was found.

All hail the flying spaghetti monster.

Funny you should mention the FSM. South park did an episode partially devoted to debunking the effectiveness of the FSM as a counter argument to god:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/08/the_proper_rebuttal_to_the_fly.html

They also did an episode mocking the idea that religion is the source of zealotry (in the future, Atheist factions battle against each other with the cry "Science Damn You!"

They've also argued the case that evolution is the "how" and not the "why" of creation. People who disagree with this idea are mocked by the episode.

SP does mock many kinds of zealots, including religious ones. But they clearly do not fall on the side of atheism when it comes to their biases. I doubt they would support this law, of course. They are against all censorship, presumably.

-Dan

.....natural selection......

The biggest problem with it is that there has to be something to select that gives the organism an advantage. The bacterial flagellum is a microscopic, complex motor that has to fully function, before it would give the bacteria a survival advantage of independent motion. As long as it is not fully formed, natural selection is blind to its existence. If anything a partially evolved non-rotating appendage would be a disadvantage and be selected against.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/02/derbyshire_vi_behe_s_bacterial_flagellum_1.html

There are many complex structures in nature that have to function in order for natural selection to pass that function on to succeeding generations.

National Academy of Sciences Report on Evolution is Long on Assertion, Short on Evidence

"In the ample space of 89 pages, the NAS manages to celebrate evolution as an unassailable truth, completely misrepresent intelligent design, and rehash the same standard Darwinist arguments which have been refuted by critical scientists time and again. ... Instead of treating evolutionary theory as an area open to further scientific inquiry, the NAS report canonizes evolution as perfect and immutable, 'so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it.' 'Under their definition, a theory is not a testable area of science but rather an unquestionable dogma,' said CSC program officer Casey Luskin. ... this report does little more than reveal a tired and weary voice of an establishment unwilling to actually address the scientific claims or the thoughtful skepticism of a growing number of scientists who disagree."

Report from the NAS Book Release

"Most ironic was that, while the whole room fumed with animosity toward religious people and, one sensed, the "religious right," the NAS panelists sought to promote the view of the new booklet that science and religion do not conflict because the two ways of knowing do not overlap. As Richard Dawkins has noted, this is a blatant political and rhetorical strategy, believed by very few who advance this proposition."

National Academy of Sciences Report on Evolution is Long on Assertion, Short on Evidence

"In the ample space of 89 pages, the NAS manages to celebrate evolution as an unassailable truth, completely misrepresent intelligent design, and rehash the same standard Darwinist arguments which have been refuted by critical scientists time and again. ... Instead of treating evolutionary theory as an area open to further scientific inquiry, the NAS report canonizes evolution as perfect and immutable, 'so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it.' 'Under their definition, a theory is not a testable area of science but rather an unquestionable dogma,' said CSC program officer Casey Luskin. ... this report does little more than reveal a tired and weary voice of an establishment unwilling to actually address the scientific claims or the thoughtful skepticism of a growing number of scientists who disagree."

Report from the NAS Book Release

"Most ironic was that, while the whole room fumed with animosity toward religious people and, one sensed, the "religious right," the NAS panelists sought to promote the view of the new booklet that science and religion do not conflict because the two ways of knowing do not overlap. As Richard Dawkins has noted, this is a blatant political and rhetorical strategy, believed by very few who advance this proposition."

The Discovery Institute has specifically targeted Wikipedia's Intelligent Design article and the people who edit it (including me personally). So yes, when it comes to whitewashing, they are the first suspects on my list.

"Representation of Darwin's idea as having been of gradual change. Large parts of the argument is based on this; it's wrong."

Without gradual change, Darwin's argument becomes more difficult.

"Misrepresentation of "information creating itself" by disregarding the action of natural selection. Natural selection does the weeding. I have actually tested the use of this (again with simulations)"

I don't disregard it at all. The problem is that in order for something to be remain semantically valid, often times multiple changes have to be made in multiple places simultaneously to preserve coherency. Natural selection would act _against_ such changes, unless there were switching mechanisms where the information was pre-coded. This is exactly what I was arguing in my article.

"Misrepresentation of "information creating itself" by attacking a straw man. The argument of random monkeys isn't usually used to illustrate this, instead it is used to illustrate the opposite: Combinatorics increase complexity FAST, so pure random chance will not reach this."

You should tell this to Huxley. The debate that solidified Darwinism in biology was done so entirely based on this idea.

"Misrepresentation of "reactions are reversable"."

There was no misrepresentation here. Without enzymes to control the process, how are long genes supposed to build up?

"Misrepresentation of the set of computational systems, in that the system of a living being has a multitude of different pathways for most reactions."

This is fairly irrelevant. And it's not actually any different from computers. The actual difference is in parallelism. Computers are not as parallel as organisms. This actually makes _more_ problems for organisms, not fewer.

"Also, we are able to effectively write programs using genetic algorithms (search for genetic programming), so the argument would seem to be irrelevant even if it wasn't fundamenally attacking a bad analogy."

Genetic algorithms are just another name for non-deterministic algorithms. They take quite a bit of intelligent design to get right. See the second quote on this page. Genetic algorithms have to take into account the semantics of the system just as much as any other type of algorithm.

"Misrepresentation: The talk of chaos as connected to computer programs (as per above.) Quantum mechanics aren't chaotic, and as a such this falls down."

I think you are misunderstanding what I was saying.

""not dying" is a very strong selector"

It is a very strong selector. And in such an early biotic system as you propose, it would simply select out.... everything.

ID the Future

Evolution News

As well as: The Center for Science and Culture

Scientists are increasingly concerned about the White House's pandering to the religious right at science's expense. From the article: 'radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations.'"

All you have to do is point at legalized abortion to see just how indifferent to "scientific data" the science community has become and how dominated it is by politics. "The fetus isn't human." say seven elderly lawyers in medieval robes, and for over three decades the scientific community has said nothing against that biological nonsense. In compairsion to the illogic of "an unborn baby isn't a baby," the Flat Earth Theory was brilliant.

As for Intelligent Design, evolutionary biologists are displaying the classic response of a dogma on the way out. What other scientific theory from 1859 remains so rigidly unaltered and so hostile to challenge? Do string theorists demonize their critics? As Gandhi put it, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." We're midway between the laughing and attacking. The winning will take another decade or two.

If you'd like to follow the ID debate uncensored by journalists who're clueless about science, visit ID the Future and Evolution News.

I love science. In college I almost changed my major from engineering to physics. But many of the 'baby boom' scientists I went to school seem too blinded by their creaky sixties politics to think clearly.

--Mike Perry, Seattle, Editor Eugenics and Other Evils and Theism and Humanism

The worst of them, again Carl Sagan comes to mind, want to be the high priests of a new religion, dictating what constitutes meaning, right and wrong and so forth--a scientific papacy out to destroy unbelieving infidels and purge the race of genetic inferiors, once known as the Darwinian "unfit," but now called "the fetus." It's no accident that the same people what want a poor black woman to "choose" abortion don't want her to be able to choose the school her child attends. If they can't kill the child, they want to dictate what goes into his head in Kansas and everywhere else.

Of course, this clash isn't a new one. Almost a century ago, prominent scientists from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the like were champions of eugenics and supporters of forced sterilization along with the NY Times. Scientists now whine that "eugenics was never a science." It's hard to see why not. The great champions were scientists and political progressives, while the only significant opposition came from religious conservatives such as G. K. Chesterton.

Never, never forget that Charles Darwin closed his The Origin of Species praising death by starvation, a statement that in historical context meant he was saying that the deaths of over a million people in the Irish Famine of a decade earlier was a good thing. That's the sort of foulness championed as progress that scientific naturalism indulges in.

Those who'd like to read about the challenge to this pseudo-science based on naturalistic dogma, can go to Evolution News and Views and ID the Future. You may have to be patient. Today those websites are getting hammered very hard.

And if you like books, Arthur Balfour, perhaps the most brilliant British prime minister of the 20th century and for a time the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, criticized science's embrance of naturalism in Theism and Humanism. His book makes it quite clear that naturalism self-refutes, and a world view that does that isn't worthy of respect. (Self-refuting is like someone saying, "I'm a very honest person who lies a lot.")

--Mike Perry, Seattle, editor: Eugenics and Other Evils

Scientists have proven all too human in their stubbornness. In his Theism and Humanism Arthur Balfour, a former President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, pointed out how scientists have held to a point of view in spite of repeated experiments demonstrating the contrary.

If Galileo came back today, it's easy to suspect his persecutors would be scientists. "Nevertheless, there is a designer." he might be heard to murmur as they led him away.

--Mike Perry, Seattle, editor, Theism and Humanism by Arthur Balfour

P.S. For those who like debate, there's a blog on the evolution v. intelligent design debate in the media at Evolution News