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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.

ID's argument, as stated by their proponents such as the IDEA center, is that organisms/objects with high levels of complexity (CSI) must be a result of design, not emergent properties of random mutation.

Therefore, the designer of e.g. an human is necessarily a creature/object with high levels of CSI, to be to design them. By the same argument, that designer must have also some creator, and etc recursively.

Therefore, either there are infinite designers, or a starting point - a designer not subject to natural laws (hence, supernatural) - must have started the chain.

You just misrepresented the ID view of evolution... they do not think that it is "mostly true". Their argument is that evolution does not exist. Their main argument against evolution is "Irreducible Complexity". You can't believe that evolution is "mostly true", while at the same time making claims that biological life forms seem to have "appeared" in perfect working order...

That's... incorrect.

Read http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1153, for example.

Due to cognitive dissonance, most IDers would rather have their fingernails pulled out than talk about all the cases where they think the theory of evolution works just fine (similar to how Khayman had to be dragged kicking and screaming to finally admit that *maybe* there was some *small* benefit to AGW-denier Watts' station survey work), you have to sort of look at the whole thing from a high level and see what sort of claims are actually being made.

1. I hadn't known of him until you mentioned him. I do not follow paleontology closely.

2. I therefore googled his name

3. Holeee Shit, the creationist garbage this brought up.

4. Not wanting to dismiss him as a creationist out of hand, I looked further - he's not, and his writings are being misused by the IDers and creationists, because, well, they're nuts and liars, especially this insidious site here: http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1275. These guys do their best do hide their creationism, but really, if you go into their archives, you find they got started at The Rock Church in San Diego (which they mislabel "The Rock University" to hide it.)

5. I had not come across his quote about fake fossils, just the bird/dinosaur hypothesis "controversy".

6. When I googled his claim about fake fossils, the search pointed to articles that all pointed back at the same Discover article. That's it, nothing else, really, except for articles talking about Archeoraptor being faked up by a Chinese farmer.

7. And of course #6 is seized upon by the creationists to paint all Chinese fossils as fakes.

8. Separating the good scientist from the nutjobs looks to be an impossibility. The "controversy" enters the Creationist/IDer echo chamber and just keeps going 'round and 'round. This is a sad state of affairs because Alan is clearly an actual scientist and the Creationists/IDers are a bunch of liars.

9. There is no evidence that "many" Chinese fossils are faked. There is just Alan Feduccia's statement. That being said, I cannot dismiss his claim that he has seen fake fossils at fossil shows. I have been to gem/fossil shows and you really need to know what the hell you're looking at before buying anything. I have no doubt there are fakes on the market. But to use this to imply that "many" academic fossils are faked seems a great stretch.

10. Since you are so familiar with Alan Feduccia, I suppose you already know how the IDers and Creationists have latched on to his statements and twisted them. To think that mentioning his name should not bring up the IDer/Creationist connection is to be disingenuous.

--
BMO

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007 /06/junk_dna
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.p hp/id/1155

It can be found here.

Ah... The power of Google.

The real issue is not the distraction of Moulton's trolls, but matter of Picard's signing the Anti-Evolution Petition.

Moulton works with Picard, and presumably knows what she really believes. He lept to her defense when I pointed out the undisputed facts that she voluntarily signed her name as well as the good name of MIT to the Anti Evolution Petetition sponsored by the Discovery Institute, and that Intelligent Design proponents regularly refer to that petition in support of their so-called "theory".

Moulton's accusation of "maligning" presumes that implying that somebody supports Intelligent Design (based on their own words and actions, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're sincere about the documents they sign their name to, and are smart enough to perform due dilligent research into the institutions behind the publicity campaigns they endorse) is inherently offensive.

I'm not accusing -- I'm asking! Picard made the issue of her religion a topic for public discussion, by signing the petition (and in many of the other things she writes). The New York Times writes that Intelligent Design proponents publically cite her name in association with MIT as supporting their position, so there's nothing wrong with asking her what she really believes. She won't answer, so I'm asking Moulton (who works with her, and came out of the woodwork to "defend" her from my "accusations") to ask her for me, and report back what she says.

My questions: Does Rosalind Picard believe in Creationism? Does she support the Discovery Institute's position and tactics?

Of course the answers to those questions will raise many other questions (stimulate interesting discussion). I wonder why she doesn't want to answer -- who knows?

On the oxymoronic IDEA Center web site, which lists Picard's name as a supporter of Intelligent Design, they say that if you know that any information on it is false, to contact them immediate so they can correct it. If Rosalind doesn't actually support Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute, then she should certainly write in and tell them to remove her name from their web site and petition!

-Don

"Here's an article that might show a problem with the basilosarus. http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.p hp/id/839 There's a section on whales there that was interesting."

The best I can say is that he makes a good try of it, but ultimately he's arguing upriver (and apparently this was written before the discovery of far more of the fossil remnants of the creatures he lists as incomplete). He also misuses plenty of concepts like, for instance, vestigial, which he implies MUST be functionless. But the point of vestigial features is not whether or not they retain some function or not: it's that they are examples of a trait obviously adapted from a previous usage and, in this case, eventually lost altogether. All this handwaving never quite explains why it is that fossils with features unique to both modern whales and land mammals doesn't conclusively demonstrate that there once existed creatures who were at the very least indirectly ancestral to both groups.

"For the embryos I thought all vertebras develop in this fashion."

Well, finned fish never form leg buds, and they are vertebrates. Dolphin embryos develop in a characteristically tetrapod fashion, despite not ultimately (at least normally) having four legs.

"But I haven't looked at a tree of life in a while I'm sure that it states all vertebras come from the same lineage."

Well, yes. But that doesn't mean that all vertebrates have the same traits. Some vertebrates, like birds, have wings. Others, like mammals, bear live young. And so on.

"I see your point on morphology. I'm leery than about that discipline of science. If anything can morph into anything than what good is it?"

But anything can't morph into anything. An insect can't morph into a dolphin: it can only give birth to modified insects. Likewise, a eukaryote cannot start producing prokaryote cells. If evolution is true, then the changes that life can go through are constrained in many many sorts of ways. The fact that all observed life seems to obey those constraints is another good reason why we think common descent is so certain.

Here's an article that might show a problem with the basilosarus. http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.p hp/id/839 There's a section on whales there that was interesting. For the embryos I thought all vertebras develop in this fashion. But I haven't looked at a tree of life in a while I'm sure that it states all vertebras come from the same lineage. I see your point on morphology. I'm leery than about that discipline of science. If anything can morph into anything than what good is it?

there is no discernable difference between creationism and ID

Since I don't want to attribute malice what ignorance will explain, I'll assume you're just badly misinformed. Let's take a couple of the more authoritative ID web sites:

http://www.discovery.org/

http://www.ideacenter.org/

Now let's do some google searches limited to these web sites and look for the terms “creationism,” “bible” and “genesis”:

http://www.google.com/search?q=creationism+bible+g enesis+site:discovery.org

http://www.google.com/search?q=creationism+bible+g enesis+site:ideacenter.org

The first query returns about 62 pages and the second about 23 pages. Depending upon how much time you have, you can go and examine some or all of these pages. But I'll save you the work. Every statement is either a refutation that ID is a form of creationism or a neutral statement about creationism (such as a passing reference or a quote). I'll summarize in my own words:

If an archaeologist finds an ancient kettle and utensils, can he legitimately and scientifically draw the conclusion that those objects were designed and not created by natural processes? Yes. This is true even though he may never know who the designer was.

If I look at a mousetrap, can I legitimately and scientifically draw the conclusion it was designed? Yes. This is true even though the manufacturer may be out of business.

Likewise, if I look at certain biological structures or processes can I legitimately and scientifically draw the conclusion they were designed and not created by random processes? Yes. I can do what every other scientist does: I can put forth the evidence and make my case.

Intelligent Design rests on the hypothesis that design artifacts can be scientifically identified as such and differentiated from artifacts that are the result of random natural processes. Maybe this hypothesis is true, maybe it is false. But it has nothing to do with creationism.

So why does virtually every statement in the press (and on Slashdot) contain the notion that ID is a form of creationism? I have no idea.

But I challenge you to provide any evidence of any prominent supporter of ID making any claims that the truth of ID is somehow dependent upon the truth of the bible.

ID is not creationism in any form.

ID is yet an immature hypothesis and I'm not even sure that I fully support it. But I can certainly render someone else's point of view accurately. It seems that you need a little work in this area.

They aren't interested in understanding nature. They're just trying to redefine science.

There are a thousand ways to collaborate scientifically using the Internet. Intelligent Design propenents need to immediately begin describing their ideas more concisely and subjecting them to peer review and public criticism. Without these, their wild speculation will remain subject to extreme ridicule among the educated and their movement will continue to be shunned and exposed as a political and anti-intellectual project, standing for everything science is not.

The continued silence from ID is not an encouraging sign for their "theory". But there is no shortage of new research that tests, supports, and expands upon the existing evolutionary framework. Evolutionary biology is the only theory which is making real progress with understanding nature.

Seems this theory has gained some flack from the Intelligent Design community.

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.p hp/id/849

There's some pretty good scientific evidence for the Biblical creation account. Check out Answers in Genesis and The IDEA Center.

Lots of general answers about ape-man claims: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/Anth ropology.asp

• Sahelanthropus tchadensis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1012touma i.asp
• Ardipithecus ramidus: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i3/ape_man. asp
• Australopithecus anamensis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/fo cus.asp
• Kenyanthropus platyops: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0416news. asp
• Australopithecus afarensis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lu cy.asp

Don't be turned off by the fact that this material is from a creationist propaganda site, (most sites are propaganda sites at their hidden core) they cite University research where applicable, especially for Lucy.

www.ideacenter.org is also an awesome resource.

There is a very real danger in doubting the literality of the divine account of Creation as set forward in Genesis. Read this article which touches on the infallibility of God's Word as related to Creation: http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-a/btg-169a.htm God clearly indicates the literality of the Creation account and its associated timescale (the part most often doubted) with the emphasis on "evening...and morning...was the x day" and if you are unable to fully accept that He created every original creature in that 6 day period, you should question the reliability of the rest of the Bible. In fact, the whole basis for the Bible crumbles even if you reject the 6 day time period and substitute millions of years, as many have done. Suddenly, you have death before sin, and God pronouncing everything good, which would then include that death. So then, how does sin change anything? What is there to be saved from if death and the brutal struggle for existence exists even without sin?

I have purchased but not yet read the book "Refuting Compromise", which speaks directly to this issue. Check it out at www.answersingenesis.org. (They have a lot of other great stuff too, including a blurb about this sticker)

I know this has been a fairly theological post, but I feel it is very important. Creationism stands on much stronger footing that evolutionism, and anyone who doubts that should be a true objective scientist and read the materials at www.answersingenesis.org or www.ideacenter.org.

Keep asking those important questions. :-)

Was this a mere conincidence? Or could it be proof of intelligent design?

It's been, what, a little over a week sice IDEA (the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Club, which is apparently "An Affiliated Chapter of the IDEA Center") brought some guy to UCSD to explain how evolution is wrong. sigh.