I have used the following quotation from Eldredge and Tatterson extensively on these pages in the last several days:
Darwin’s prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.
On December 11, 2013, someone who goes by “REC” at antievolution.org posted the following:
Had to stop by the library for other reasons, but apparently, Barry was right. The quote he used to pillory people with wasn’t mined, it was fabricated
The post was cross-posted at The Skeptical Zone.
Then, REC posted this:
TLDR version: the quote is in there, on another page
Dear readers, everywhere I post I do so under my real name. I have been accused in front of the entire world of fabricating a quotation. This is an extremely serious matter indeed.
I call on both websites immediately to take down every reference to the fabrication accusation.
Does anyone know who REC is?
I am not seeing any suggestion that it was you who did the fabrication (if there was fabrication). The criticism that I see directed toward you, is that you appear to have copied the text from other sites instead of going back to original sources.
Funny that you just republished something you say is defamatory.
F/N: Here is a longstanding reference to the clip:
__________________
>> Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record. … That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, … prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search … One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.
The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor’s new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin’s predicted pattern, simply looked the other way.
Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)
The Myths of Human Evolution
Columbia University Press, p. 45-46 >>
___________________
Let’s see how the chips lie after they fly.
KF
Pretty cool that you take on a false accusation.
I see false accusation everywhere in origin discussions.
Words, ideas, and motives are accused against me to discredit or hurt me ALL THE TIME.
All one can do is deny it and demand ones accuser to justify thier accusation before it is taken seriously by fair people.
When the Judge is the forum owner however often there is no trial but a judgement.
I have lost many despite snow white innocence.
Your the boss here and still must fight to defend yourself.
Its impossible for the little folks.
One must endure it and remember its the bad guys who need to throw false accusation.
I don’t mean honet errors.
kairosfocus @3:
How can a scientific theory suffer such a punishing blow and still manage to survive? It’s obvious, at least to me, that there are powerful criminal factions within the government and the academic world who are supporting it. But they can’t keep this farce up forever. Sooner or later, the whole thing will come crashing down.
Barry,
Well, you can clear all this up by indicating:
1. Did you have the original book and copy the quote directly from it?
2. If not, what was your source for the quote?
Neil Rickert:
So what? How does this take away from the fact that the fossil record fully and clearly falsifies Darwinian evolution?
Matzke, are you saying that the Eldredge quote is fabricated? If not, and the quote is correct, why do you ask such questions?
I believe he also goes by the handle “guy-ros-mucous” to avoid the Alinsky-ite outing tactics of religious brown-shirts.
Box asked:
It’s a diversion tactic, obviously. They want to take attention away from the damning evidence against their stupid religion. It’s a favorite tactic of asteroid orifices everywhere. 😀
Neil, 5for, Nick and Lar answer the question in the title of the post “no.”
I get defamed and they try to defend the defamer and/or attack me. Do you have no shame?
Just trying to figure out what happened. If you used the primary source, it would be possible that you could accidentally type something wrong, or leave out a line of the quote, or mis-type the page number, or leave that out, or whatever.
If you used a secondary source, they could have made one of those mistakes, or the mistakes could have been added in your copying or some previous round of copying.
When someone compares the quote you gave and the original, they could conclude the quote wasn’t in the primary source, and then, if they are the suspicious sort, draw a more dramatic conclusion than “someone made a mistake.”
Where did you originally use the quote? I can’t even remember where this all started.
Nick, you really are pathetic. Keep digging. Let everyone see how contemptible you are.
Two secondary sources here:
There is no e-version of the book, but plenty of used copies here:
http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Hu.....023105145X
In other words, Darwinian evolution has been soundly falsified. Sir Karl Popper can rest easy in his grave.
But the denialists, atheists and other cowards will never admit it. The alternative to Darwinism is just too much for them to bear. Oh, the shame! Oh, the humanity! 😀
It appears that at most REC followed your own citation to pages 45-46, didn’t find the quote, and assumed that the quote was a fabrication. Despite your outrage (when was the last time you had a civil and friendly conversation with someone who disagreed with you? I can’t recall seeing such on this blog) he didn’t accuse YOU of fabricating the quote. He accused you of using a fabricated quote. There is a stark difference. It’s obvious by now that you were plucking those quotations from out-of-context online sources, after all.
REC made an understandable mistake, given that he was following your own mis-citation. When he found the material on a different page, he acknowledged that fact and explained in detail why your citation to it was inappropriate in context.
I think the correction was the proper thing to do. I dont think there’s any need to “immediately to take down every reference” to the offending material. Not all websites are as reliant on censorship as yours.
And of course, you have never applied such a standard to yourself. For example, some time ago you quote-mined Justice Ginsburg to imply that she supported eugenics. Reading the quotation in context, it’s quite clear that you misrepresented her. You did not correct yourself, as REC did. You did not remove the insulting material, as you are now demanding. You simply let it stand. Why are there two standards, one for Barry Arrington and one for the rest of the world?
NickMatzke_UD wondered
Actually, it’s not unreasonable to hope mistakes were indeed made to the original text because, if the changes happen to be beneficial, the improved versions are more likely to be circulated around the Internet and survive, while the degraded versions will tend to die off. Over time, these quotes will become both fascinating and brilliant! 😉
I once found a typo on Kenneth Miller’s web page. I emailed him, suggesting that he could observe his statement in the process of evolving. Funny, he never emailed me back, but he corrected the typo within a few days. I guess Dr. Miller simply lacks faith!
Seriously though, when I read a quote, I usually try to verify it from the source. I have found on a few occasions, the quotes were mangled or intentionally altered.
-Q
Querius,
Beautiful take on it!
LT:
Maybe it has escaped your notice that at one of the fever swamp sites, there was a recent attempt to publish my residential address.
For good reason, I would find that a vicious SA-style tactic — that is what Brown-Shirt means, after all — to try to paint a target on not only my back but those of my wife and family, as well as in-laws who live at a similar address.
I, for cause, therefore call you a hypocrite and false accuser here and now if you do not immediately publicly repudiate such tactics on your side and apologise for outrageous mud-slinging, especially when you have just sought to smear and taint millions as Nazis.
GEM of TKI
Sadly, my dealings with darwinists have led me to conclude the answer to your question Mr Arrington is: NO
I’m sorry they have tried to tarnish your good name….it speaks volumes about them. Very sad.
These things are relative – on another thread KF just accused myself and other materialists of condoning the torture and murder of children (I also always publish under my real name)
TLDR version: the quote is in there, on another page
There is more than one edition.
I keep a collection from primary sources here. Normally Google Books can make a trip to the library unnecessary, but not in this case.
This is all a trivial distraction. These are the words Eldredge wrote and you have clearly used them in the sense he intended. If atheists had better points to make, I suspect they would.
Evidence? I see just one edition on Worldcat and Amazon. There is hardback and paperback but that’s different.
I think Barry has made his point. Clearly, none of his adversaries deplore this unjust act and each rationalizes it in his own creative way. Mark Frank, Neil Rickert, Lar Tanner, Nick Matzke, 5for, and Pro Hac Vice all hope–or are at least content with the prospect–that the lie will continue to reverberate through cyberspace and the social network.
Dishonest Matzke:
Still beating your little stupid diversion drum, eh Nickey? The fact remains that the quote is correct and Eldredge and Tatterson did in fact write those words and they mean exactly what Barry said they mean. Those despicable little morons at antievolution.org, caught with their pants down and having no plausible excuse for it, decided to play the ad hominem game in order to save face. It’s their favorite little game.
The point that Barry Arrington wanted to make originally (before you bozos started jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth) is that even well-known evolutionists have admitted that the most important of all the predictions of Darwinian evolution has been soundly falsified. The only reason that the theory is still surviving is that asteroid orifices like you and your brain-dead buddies at antievolution.org are keeping it alive via artificial respiration.
What a bunch of gutless crybabies you people are. 😀
This all would be hilarious if it weren’t so damn sad. Look at the field packed full of Matzke strawmen. His dreck sycophants come to hack them down only to ruin their own credibility as well.
MF: You have misrepresented what I have said. I have indicated that the moral yardstick 1 is undeniable on pain of absurdity. You have repeatedly shifted to subjectivism, and I am challenging that subjectivism as fundamentally unable to ground the yardstick case, which is worlds apart from saying you in particular approve of the murder of children. (I will not here ask about abortion, which is a closely related case.) But of course you have to try a comeback somehow to try to pretend a immoral equivalency. To that I say, a live case of target painting is on the table, in reply to false accusations of nazism. Kindly, face it and what it says, don’t try immoral equivalency games. KF
PS: The target painters are operating out of — anti evolution.
PPS: To see the point, cf 260 on in context here.
It may be considered ill manners to point at the elephant in the room – naturalists seem to be wrong about everything every time.
What I really would like to know is: when was the last time that a naturalist actually won an argument at this forum?
Hmm. So far, it looks like:
1. Barry copied-and-pasted a quote from some creationist website, without looking up the original reference.
2. There is only one English edition of this book, and the creationist website’s reference was wrong, and Barry didn’t check.
3. The quote doesn’t mean what Barry and the other IDists/creationists want it to mean. Eldredge was talking about the rarity of fossils smoothly bridging very small species-to-species transitions, but people at UD take it to mean that the fossil record completely fails to support Darwinian evolution.
They ignore:
– fact that the quote in question comes from a chapter and section of the book specifically on fossil *species*
– the very same book contains many other passages confirming that many other aspects of the fossil record and found transitional fossils support evolution
– the fact that the author, Eldredge, is clearly on record in print confirming that many transitional fossils have been found, and that these confirm evolution
4. The creationists/IDists have not even tried to make substantive points contradicting any of the above, instead they (a) try to switch topics, (b) pound the table and repeat the use of the quote while refusing to consider its context, or (c) insult, threaten, and/or ban the evolutionists for daring to raise the above objections, which are actually just matters of basic scholarship.
If you ever want to know why creationists are unpopular in academia, look no farther than this episode! These sorts of shenanigans would get a student graded down in any subject. They are appealing only to demagogues.
Why can’t you guys just follow the evidence where it leads about what this quote means, and what Barry inappropriately did with it?
Dishonest Nickey:
Nobody is disputing the fact there are transitional fossils, Nickey. So what? Intelligent design over time would also result in transitional fossils. How do they prove Darwinian evolution?
What the fossil record does not support is the Darwinian prediction of huge numbers of finely graduated transitional fossils. They are nowhere to be found. What is seen are sudden explosions of new species followed by long periods of stasis, as if all the random mutations in the world conspired together and decided to go on long holidays lasting tens and, sometimes, hundreds of millions of years.
You’re pathetic, Matzke.
There is no strict “universal” gradual evolution in the fossil record, but this has been known for over sixty years, nobody is denying stasis in the fossil record. It’s a bit a of a straw man that modern creationists are still claiming modern evolution holds that view. Donald R. Prothero in his book “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters” explains much of this.
Also see David Raup, he’s another one the creationists usually quote mine:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/David_Raup
His article “Conflicts between Darwin and Palaeontology” is a favourite of the creationists.
Here’s some information on Eldredge
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Niles_Eldredge
He was an early advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis. He wasn’t anti-Darwin.
If you want a non-Darwinian evolutionist then look up Richard Goldschmidt. He was originally laughed at by both creationists and neo-Darwinists but some of his research was proven correct in evolutionary developmental biology.
Here’s what Donald Prothero writes in his book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters:
TheisticEvolutionist, give it a rest, man. Nobody is claiming that evolutionists are denying stasis. Of course, they know about it. It’s in their faces; how could they deny it? They are simply acting as if it’s not a major refutation of their false religion.
I am making the point that stasis falsifies Darwinian evolution. Why? Because there is no reason for random mutations (the very creative source of evolutionary theory) to go into hiding for hundreds of millions of years. That is absurd.
Nick, what is Eldredge talking about here? Can you provide some context?
Nick, this was what was said about me at antievolution.org:
This is false. The quote was not fabricated. The book says exactly what I said that it said, and Eldredge meant exactly what I quoted him for. Nevertheless, you are defending those who defamed me. From that I conclude you believe that it is perfectly OK falsely to proclaim on the Internet that someone has fabricated a quotation. Let’s test this. Is it OK with you if I go on the internet and post the following on various forums:
Box @37,
Thanks for that quote. I like this part:
If advanced intelligent beings designed life on earth, this is precisely what we would expect. Advanced designers would have powerful simulation machines to test out their designs before introducing them to the environment, right? I think so.
Mapou,
Nick really must provide some context, because, on first impression, this quote looks even more damning for evolutionism than the quote presented by Barry.
Mapou,
Exactly. Nicely stated!
———————-
There’s also a general observation that I’d like to make. It’s not aimed at anyone in particular, but I do think professor Matzke is not being treated with respect. He’s not much different than some professors that I’ve encountered (some of whom were insufferable egotists). Rather than slamming him, I’d be more interested in civil conversation and the exchange of viewpoints. I definitely would point out his squirming and misrepresentation. But I wouldn’t make any ad hominem attacks against his character.
Just my two cents.
-Q
Box @40,
You’re right. In this case, context is not Nickey’s friend. That quote is a killer, a Darwinist’s worst nightmare. LOL.
The mystery here is, why is Eldredge still a Darwinist? Peer pressure? Fear of being ostracised? Who knows? The fact is that his and Gould’s punctuated equilibrium hypothesis is just a bunch of BS. Random mutations do not wait millions of years for anybody, especially paleontologists.
Querius @41,
I’m sorry but I disagree. Matzke deserves no respect precisely because he’s a professor. He has no excuse. He should be vilified and the nonsense that he spews out should be uncovered for what it is, the dishonest preaching of a false preacher.
And not just Matzke. The whole bunch of them should be shamed and, if it were possible, tarred and feathered. The truth is too important to allow a bunch of cockamamie self-appointed gurus to claim a monopoly on it.
I’m sure others have different opinions but that’s my take on it.
KairosFocus,
Here is TalkOrigins “rebuttal”.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....rt1-2.html
They note that this line follows that quote:
LOL. There’s your answer. Evolutionists can not admit the obvious, (what has already been admitted by their leaders years ago), but with mealy-mouths, they will sheepishly fall back on some vague notion that the fossil record “in a general sort of way” supports evolution.
And furthermore will continue to toss out the clearly erroneous and absolutely pathetic cry of “quote-mine” as a distraction. How low can they get?
TheisticEvolutionist, 35
Hopeful-Monsterism v2.0 is probably going to be the central dogma in another 10-20 years. (maybe with some natural genetic-engineering thrown in) It’s really the only place that the materialist have left to turn after climbing out of the ashes of neo-darwinism.
Though, they still have a few good years of bluffing left. Which will be either extremely comical or extremely frustrating to watch, depending on what mood your in.
Barry writes,
Barry, what world are you living in? How can you defend yourself from claims that you are doing shenanigans with quotes, by doing shenanigans when quoting your accuser? Here’s the full original statement of your critic:
You can’t just quote the first part and not the asterisk and what came after. Not if you want anyone who can read to take you seriously. Furthermore, the very same author wrote another post soon after, saying that the quote is in the book, just on page 48. This happened several days ago now.
Why don’t you discuss this context? Not even your original critic was accusing you of fabrication, he was saying the quote appeared to be fabricated, since it wasn’t where you said it was. All you did was copy it in your heedless copy-paste operation. And he himself found the actual location and posted that update. So he’s not even making the claim that the quote was fabricated anymore. This all happened days ago, yet you are pretending like it didn’t.
In the meantime, you still haven’t explained:
1. Why you got the reference wrong.
2. Why you refuse to admit that the quote, in context, is just about the rarity of transitions between very similar species, and does not indicate that transitions are rare across larger morphological differences, nor does it indicate a general lack of support of the fossil record for evolution.
Nick Matzke @ 46,
Oh, I see, it is OK to say that someone fabricated a quote at the top of a post so long as way down in the body you include some weasel words about how it might be somewhere else in the book. So, from this I take it that you would be OK with me going around the Internet posting items with the heading:
Nick Matzke Caught Fabricating Quote!!*
So long as somewhere in the middle of the lengthy post otherwise blasting you I add “*or maybe he didn’t.”
Just say the word Nicky boy, and that’s what I’ll start doing. You think it is OK for me. Is it OK for you?
Eldredge fearing being ostracized? You really have no idea about this entire issue. Eldredge is a professional making detailed distinctions between different questions. These are all different questions:
A. In the fossil record, what do minor transitions between very similar species look like?
B. In the fossil record, what do major transitions between very different organisms look like?
Eldredge’s answer to A: Transitional fossils are relatively rare.
Eldredge’s answer to B: Transitional fossils are known in a great many cases.
B is a strong confirmation of the reality of common ancestry. A is about transitions so small even young-earth creationists accept that they trivial for standard evolutionary processes to produce.
Why is this is so hard for you guys to get? You’ve got the whole process of reading backwards — you assume that some random tidbit of an expert’s work vindicates your creationist views, without knowing much at all about that experts actual views, actual body of work, or how that expert is using terminology and distinguishing different questions — and then you just hang on to that misunderstanding like it was a direct revelation of God.
So, for you, “way down in the body” means, let’s see, about 25 words later?
Are you serious? You cannot be serious!
@Nick,
so the following quote somehow does not indicate a general lack of support of the fossil record for evolution:
But how about this?:
Let me repost Box’s quote of Eldredge @37 (emphases added):
So Nickey, you can put that in your Darwinist pipe and smoke it.
You keep harping on transitional fossils. Why? I am not denying scattered transitional fossils. I love them. They are precisely what I would expect from intelligent design over time. Designs evolve, no? [I’m not a six-24-hour-day, young-earth creationist.]
The point is that the fossil record completely refutes the usual Darwinist expectation of a gradual evolution. Even worse, in my opinion is that complex species appear suddenly and remain the same for tens and even hundreds of millions of years, as if to say mockingly to the frustrated Darwinist, “Is that all the mutations you got?”
If Eldredge is still a Darwinist after writing the above, I am forced to speculate that he’s either a gutless coward or he has some kind of mental disorder.
Nick @ 49: You steadfastly refuse to answer the question. That’s answer enough.
The reason you steadfastly refuse to answer the question is that you know what was done to me was wrong, and you wouldn’t want it done to you.
Yet, you come in here and defend it anyway. I guess that makes you kinda slimy. But then, we already knew that.
What makes the species or fossils referred to as a transition? Could you elaborate how one identifies such an entity as a transition between species X and species Y.? Some examples with the particulars of how they are so classified would be helpful. I am not asking for minutiae but what is it that allows for these classifications?
Clearly, the critic who wrote this comment was trying to raise the stakes from quote mining to fabrication. The word placement is calculated to intensity and dramatize the false charge with a last minute punch. The asterisk is the escape clause.
Nick writes,
——“Not even your original critic was accusing you of fabrication, he was saying the quote appeared to be fabricated, since it wasn’t where you said it was.”
Appeared? For whom does the phrase “it was fabricated” mean “it seems fabricated?” Apparently, only for Nick Matzke.
Now for the author’s escape clause:
Translation: Even though I took the time to find this book, it isn’t worth an extra three seconds to turn the page to make sure it isn’t close by. I must protect my theme at all costs.
Nick writes,
——“You can’t just quote the first part and not the asterisk and what came after. Not if you want anyone who can read to take you seriously. Furthermore, the very same author wrote another post soon after, saying that the quote is in the book, just on page 48.”
Yes, when he realized that the passage was, indeed, readily available, and that he could no longer support his false charge, it was time to do a little damage control.
Nick continues,
——“So he’s not even making the claim that the quote was fabricated anymore. This all happened days ago, yet you are pretending like it didn’t.”
Oh, so now we are back to “is was fabricated?” Whatever happened to “it seems fabricated?” How soon we forget.
——“In the meantime, you still haven’t explained:
——1. Why you got the reference wrong.”
Because the matter is of absolutely no importance.
——2. “Why you refuse to admit that the quote, in context, is just about the rarity of transitions between very similar species, and does not indicate that transitions are rare across larger morphological differences, nor does it indicate a general lack of support of the fossil record for evolution.”
Because the quote is clearly about gradualism and the big picture and is not about your narrowly-focused distinctions.
Barry noted of NickMatzke_UD:
You know, I’m willing to bet professor Matzke imagines himself as a bringer of enlightenment to the superstitious and misled. Certainly, the spinning, kicking, ducking, and squirming of a karate master and defender of Truth, Science, and the American Way requires no justification. 😉
I would appeal to professor Matzke to imagine. Imagine where the data would lead him if he would let his mind be pried free from Darwin’s cold, dead 19th century hands:
If a small blue planet were indeed ***seeded*** with an amazing spectrum of human-designed organisms, leaving them to adapt, migrate, or die, what would the result look like, after thousands, or perhaps even millions of years, and how would it differ from our own small blue planet?
Dr. Matzke, what would you imagine?
-Q
Seriously, Nickie-boy. You are looking more and more pathetic. You cannot refute the point, so you try to refute the quote. You cannot refute the quote, so now you are attempting to refute the citation format?
The quote IS what Barry said it was, and it fits in his argument as a whole. It seems as though you are trying to find if Barry purchased the quote from a secondary source in hopes it was from some anti-NDE work so that you can employ the genetic fallacy.
There’s two options here, Nickie-boy. You are either too stupid to see what you’re doing, or so petulant and insecure that you cannot admit this one point and are willing to stand like General Custer.
Lifepsi:
Poiiiiint . . .
KF
PS: Please look at the weak argument correctives, for the brand new no 40 on “quote mining!” . . . you’ll love it! (And let us know about the attempted rebuttals at Talk Origins and similar sites! Case A vs case B (ii) is a real issue.)
Mapou I am no fan of neo-Darwinism but what occurs in the fossil record is not against evolution.
I disagree about mutations not being able to be hidden for millions of years because there is evidence that genes can be hidden or “suppressed” for hundreds of millions of years and then be activated. You can read about it in the book The Great Evolution Mystery by Gordon Rattray Taylor, I have just spent 40 minutes typing these quotes from the book so even If you disagree at least appreciate the research. He called it the “masking theory”. Yes it would be considered a non-Darwinian evolutionary theory. But it is not anti-evolution and certainly doesn’t support creationism.
Here’s what Taylor writes;
So it certainly is not absurd. More from Taylor
Gordon Rattray Taylor. (1984). The Great Evolution Mystery. Abacus. pp. 180-181.
This theory needs more looking into to.
What do you mean by the term “evolution?” That new organisms have occurred is not debated. The question is how?
The rest of your comment is about epigenetics and assumes some sort of front loading which many ID people have proposed. Then the issue is how are these non used genomic sequences conserved. What is the mechanism? You have ruled out selection. If there is an internal mechanism to conserve these unused genomic sequences then that would be a code on top of a code (control mechanisms) on top of a code (DNA).
What you are describing is just another form of ID, an incredibly complex one.
TheisticEvolutionist #59,
What Taylor is saying is this:
During the course of millions of years, it is formed a battery of new (mutated) genes, which are then suddenly activated.
Before their activation these new battery of genes were in ‘suppressed state’, which means: untouched by natural selection.
The obvious question is: why would the battery of genes be coherent? It is not designed – not even by a blind watchmaker.
Another question is: How about the epigenetic supplement of the new battery of genes? What are the odds that this is also in place?
Alright folks, pop quiz. Who wrote the following, and when?
Professor Matzke,
And now back to the second small blue planet and what you can imagine based on what you know . . .
By “spectrum,” I mean that the human-designed species are incredibly numerous due to the fact that college classes frequently design new species—under the supervision of a qualified professor such as yourself—to observe and analyze the results.
-Q
Mr. Matzke,
I have no problem with accepting the example you provided as accurate no matter who made it and yet I am a strong supporter of ID.
What I would be interested in is the changes to the genome and epigenetics that led to the changes outlined. I find that the more interesting question. For just the horse sequence, there might not be that many and the final answer might be ho-hum.
As I said in another thread, it would be interesting to see where rhinos and horses diverge genetically. Was is possible or even probable that some process could explain this divergence. You replied that would be a lot of dissertations or research.
My point has been for several years that most of the answers are in the future to such things as the horse and rhino lines. My guess is that you would bet that they will be explained. That may be true but as of now we do not know that. For example, if there are different proteins in each species, what is their origin? For this and a lot of other things, we can only speculate.
Am I wrong?
// about horse evolution:
But it’s only because of the discovered intermediates that anyone would consider the multi-toed, collie-sized Hyracotherium as being of the same “type” as the modern horse.
TheisticEvolutionist @59:
Look, man. Gordon Taylor’s rationalization for stasis is just a pile of unfalsifiable pseudoscientific cr*p. The theory of evolution never predicted any of this. What Taylor is doing is being true to his religion by forcing the data to fit the theory rather than the other way around. It is obvious that living organisms have gene repair mechanisms that protect against mutations. How can random mutations and natural selection decide which genes to preserve for tens of millions of years and which genes to modify for necessary adaptation? This is silly to the extreme.
Why doesn’t the fossil record support creationism? Are you kidding me? It may not support young earth, 6-day, omniscient-God, Christian fundamentalist-style creationism but I don’t see why the sudden appearance of new designs falsifies the intelligent design hypothesis.
How in the heck do you figure?
This is precisely what one would expect from intelligent design over time. The designers apparently designed a bunch of new lifeforms and introduced them to the environment. Then they waited millions of years to see how the whole thing unravels. There are sequential processes that are so complex that they cannot be determined/computed in advance. It is because they are mathematically intractable by nature. To find out whether or not they are successful, they just have to be allowed to run their course. Once the designers were satisfied with the result, they were ready to introduce a whole new batch of complex organisms. This is what the fossil record shows.
And it is obvious that they kept building on previous designs as any smart designers would do. This is why life on earth follows a hierarchical structure. But is not the strictly nested hierarchy predicted by the Darwinists. Darwinists have a habit of tying their shoelaces together and conjuring up all sorts of cockamamie, superstitious just-so stories to explain why they keep falling on their faces. Common descent is a perfect example of their bad shoe lacing habits.
We are finding instances of extensive lateral gene reuse in species that share distant branches of the hierarchy. For example, the Darwinists are hard pressed to explain how up to 200 genes for echolocation (somebody please find a reference to this finding) are shared between certain species of echolocating bats and whales. These species hopped onto different branches of the tree of life millions of years before echolocation appeared in both. If you guys don’t think that this is the result of intelligent design, you need to get your brains redesigned. This throws the common descent hypothesis into the septic tank of failed hypotheses where it belongs.
“sudden” appearance of new designs?
I hope you realize that the context of the word “sudden” when used by evolutionary biologists still means many thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.
Nick RE 62
1) How is this relevant to the subject of this thread?
2) The fossil record does not answer the question of mechanism.
Vivid
In my opinion, ID proponents should stop questioning transitional fossils. It’s a serious mistake on their part. Transitional fossils do not invalidate intelligent design. They should be seen as evidence for it. Why? Because this is what we observe when human designers design objects over time.
AVS @68:
So what?
“So what?” Really? The post you just made compares the creation of new species to the creation of new machines by humans. The creation of new machines by us humans certainly is a sudden process, with new ideas and designs taking hold over night. In terms of the “design” of new species that you would like to believe in, your designer takes hundreds of thousands of years to form a new species. A far cry from the intelligent designs leaps we as humans make.
The idea of intelligent design in biology is a joke.
Mapou RE 70
Agreed, its a rabbit trail and cannot answer the main issue which is “mechanism”
Vivid
What do you mean? “Sudden” simply means the introduction of novel body plans without evidence of related ancestral forms in the earlier layers below.
The only reason I’m responding to your comment is that I would not want the casual reader to think that you had something intelligent to say. In my experience, Darwinists are stupid as feces.
So, according to your superior intellect, the evolution of wheeled transportation went from the horse-drawn carriage to a Lamborghini overnight? Do you know how much money and how long it takes for a corporation to design a new smart phone? Did the iPad appear the next day after the Apple IIe? Wasn’t there an evolution of design and experiments that took decades?
So what if the designers who designed new species took a hundred thousand years to introduce a new batch of complex organisms into the environment? Do you understand the ecological problems they were faced with? Maybe they had to rethink their design strategies as they went along, eh? Maybe some things did not go as planned and they found a better way to achieve their design goals, eh? That’s the intelligent part in intelligent design, by the way. Intelligent designers learn from their mistakes. They learn from their experiments. That is what makes them intelligent.
There is no need for you people to park your brains in the closet when discussing the evolution of lifeforms on earth, you know. Just be cool and all will be well with the universe.
Wow — so if the evolution of the entire Order Perrisodactyls, of horses and rhinos from a common ancestor, is just trivial evolution within the “basic type” (i.e., within the creationist “kind”), then this REALLY proves that all the hubbub on UD about Eldredge talking about mere species-to-species transitions falsifying Darwin really was nuts.
You’ve admitted that new species, genera, and even new families are easy to evolve naturally, and that plenty of transitional fossils exist to show how this happen. Simultaneously, other people on UD are trying to make hay out of the tiny-little jumps in the fossil record between very similar sister species! Inconsistency, thy name is antievolutionism.
NM: Pardon, but the focal issue in this thread is an accusation that mutated from quote mining to quote fabrication — then had to be corrected. Above, you tried to pile on, and the evidence is that something wrong has been done but there is an absence of serious attempt to make amends. This speaks volumes. KF
No Box, “sudden” implies time is involved, as in over a short period of time. The word you re looking for is new, or novel.
Ma, you are responding to me because you feel the need to validate your own crazy ideas. The fact that you start off with the phrase “stupid as feces” means you probably have nothing intelligent to say, but anyways I will venture into your dreamworld with you.
Here’s your example: the wheel to the lambourghini.
Now, what we were talking about (I guess you forgot) was the sudden appearance of a new design. In your analogy, this is much more like the creation of the wheel itself, which was pretty much instantaneous. The evolution of transportation from the wheel to the lambo is analogous to the much longer time periods of evolution over millions of years. You should try to stick to the conversation we are actually having when making analogies if you hope to make sense.
Kudos to KF for spotting the 500 pound gorilla in the room.
Nick, “Gorilla? What gorilla? Let’s talk about horsies.”
If you search this website there was a blog post about Gordon Rattray Taylor in 2011 entitled “Seems like yesterday: British TV presenter disowned Darwinism”. It explains some of his views.
Many years ago I used to believe in intelligent design, then I converted to theistic evolution and now I’m basically a naturalistic pantheist.
Yes it is a hypothesis, it’s not even needed the majority of evolutionary scientists would say but it is more believable than intelligent design and if true would explain some anomalies.
Anyway, evolution predicted stasis. Before Darwin there was an evolutionist called Patrick Matthew who predicted stasis and rapid events in the fossil record.
Scottish Horticulturalist Patrick Matthew Proposed More Accurate Theory of Gradual Evolution Before Charles Darwin Did, Geologist Argues
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....133151.htm
Please read again, Paul Garner is talking horse evolution only.
Never have I said such bare nonsense, neither in writing, nor in word, nor in thought.
I see Matzke has succeeded in shifting the point from his dishonesty again. Don’t give in. See what the original topic is, and don’t allow him to shift. He can debate points in proper topics. Well, he can’t, but you know what I mean.
Well, we were talking about both rhinos and horses earlier in the thread. If Garner excludes rhinos, all that shows is that Paul Garner doesn’t know enough. The evidence for rhino evolution is as good as for horse evolution, and the earliest rhinos and earliest horses are almost identical.
Paul Garner, who you endorse, says this explicitly for fossil horses, which include many genera, even more species, and IIRC several subfamilies. And it’s impossible, if you know the evidence, to accept horse evolution and deny rhino evolution, or to deny that fossils support their common ancestry.
And look, it’s AVS again. I thought that particular bulk of refuse was embarrassed to the point of self-imposed exile. Welcome back.
Oh you remember me?? Wow that means so much!
And don’t worry it wasn’t a “self-imposed exile” as much as it was just me having to go do real things in the real world. Also, I am still embarrassed, but only for you guys don’t worry!
Do you guys have any science that actually refutes evolution or backs up intelligent design? No? Oh, how sad.
So much interest in one quote from a scientist, so little interest in another quote from a scientist! Why the difference?
Because you’ve been completely dishonest with regards to a quote?
Oh yeah, I heard Elizabeth Liddle was banned for presenting too many arguments that you guys couldn’t BS your way out of…congrats. Why am I not surprised?
Nick, what is the matter with you? You are saying the weirdest things today. Paul Garner, who I do not endorse, is a Christian fundamentalist. From his ‘Statement of Faith’:
Professor Matzke,
Back to #56 and #63 . . . a second small, blue planet.
By bringing up the new topic of horse evolution, you’re not avoiding the question, are you? 😉
-Q
I was just responding to post #65 you posted the Garner quote, soon after I posted a summary of the massive fossil evidence for perissodactyl evolution.
Garner was very directly using the “oh, it’s just microevolution” excuse to sweep the fossil horse data under the rug as no big deal. You didn’t say anything about the quote, but the quote takes a strong position on the issue, so I assumed you endorse it.
Do you endorse Garner’s statement, or were you just posting it randomly or something?
Nick Matzke,
You are an unrepentant apologist for defamers, utterly shameless.
This post was originally about the immoral tactics of your friends at antievolution and TSZ.
Then it became about your attempts to defend those same tactics.
Since I beat you like a rented mule, it has been about your attempt to change the subject.
Not going to let you get away with it.
I ask you for the third and final time, is it OK with you if I do to you what was done to me?
If the answer is “yes,” I will go out and start doing it.
If the answer is “no,” then why the hell did you try to defend it boy?
AVS: You would be well advised to consider what you are inadvertently revealing about yourself and your ilk through a pattern of sophomoric, churlish accusations, unsubstantiated allegations, empty repetitions and scarce-veiled vulgarities. Especially in a thread that corrects a false accusation of quote-mining (only to meet with attempts to double down on the indefensible and/or to pose distractors). KF
F/N: Those who actually need to think about the horse series and similar icons may wish to look here on for some initial thoughts. KF
PS: Horse quotes — incl. Gould, Eldredge and Raup, here.
I read the page it’s filled with quotes but not given in the full context. As you all know Gould, Eldredge and Raup all believed in the fact of evolution and rejected ID. So I don’t see the point in IDers quoting them. I love old books, but it gets a bit boring where creationists keep quoting these guys from 30 years ago over and over.
One of the quotes you have taken from David Raup’s “Conflicts between Darwin and palaeontology” you leave out his statement where says evolution is a fact and it’s Darwinian natural selection that is the theory. You are confusing the fact of evolution with the theory of the mechanisms:
He’s not saying the fossil record is anti-evolution, yet the website you cite is firmly anti-evolution and pretends that is what he is saying.
TE:
I know this may easily slide off track from the case with BA, but I think you need to think about the issue of a damaging admission against interest vs the snide insinuation of lying by snipping out of context and distorting — and I warn you that as someone who has risked much on issues of truth I take cheap, false accusations and insinuations that imply that I am a liar very seriously indeed.
I actually took a bit of time to say a tad more on the Eldredge clip just now (which comes from a recorded interview):
Now, compare this damaging admission against interest from a dated, published interview — and I will never accede to the smear that if a source is a Creationist we must presume him a liar every step of the way — and the other clips with your dismissive remarks in light of the concern at the focus of this thread.
It seems to me that all you have managed to do is to further substantiate BA’s point about how quickly and easily objectors to design theory slip into false accusations and insinuations.
Churlish.
KF
KF I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying on your website there are quotes that don’t give the full context. For example you write:
Yet elsewhere in his article, Raup makes it clear evolution is a fact and the fossil record supports it (yet you ignore this). He’s not challenging evolution, yet the way you quote him like that on your anti-evolution blog gives the false impression that he is.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/David_Raup
KF have a read:
http://commondescent.net/articles/Raup_quote.htm
PS: Here was my own conclusion, in light of the overall pattern:
That is where I went with the cited admissions against interest and commonplace facts.
Now, come back to me again and insinuate that I am distorting, or that I am fabricationg, or that I have no right to cite hostile experts where they have made key admissions against interest. Or the like.
If you do so, you had better give very good grounds.
KF
TE:
Really, now.
Apparently, it has not dawned on you that the only direct record of the actual past is the fossils, and that the claim being advanced is that through blind chance and necessity life originated and diversified across the usual tree[s] of life, leading to those fossils. So, assertions of fact need to be backed up by facts.
Namely, the fossils.
So, it is a highly material fact that what should be a major or the dominant aspect of the fossil record is vanishingly scarce instead.
Where also, when I see assertions about macro-evolution as a “fact” my immediate question is: who was there, witnessed and reported the fact as such, in what documents. Obviously, no such documents exist so this is an outright abuse of the word, fact.
For, fact does NOT and cannot mean, properly, the consensus view of the a priori materialist school of thought on origins.
Whatever Orwellian double-speak/ new-speak word-games may be being played.
And, it is simply irrelevant that Raup thinks evo a fact — a big blunder — to that he has on his actual knowledge of what IS a fact (the fossils) admitted that what should be major or dominant, isn’t.
And so, by citing such admissions I have not distorted meaning — which, however you may wish to say otherwise, is tantamount to an insinuation on your part of deceit on my part — by citing a declared admission against interest as just that.
You have some serious explaining to do.
KF
The discussion on the site about horse evolution is certainly odd. It starts out by correctly stating:
And then goes on to (again) correctly point out that the horse series, instead of being linear, has branches forming a tree-like pattern… as if it were a problem.
PS: Wiki as a case in point:
>> . . . When scientists say “evolution is a fact” they are using one of two meanings of the word “fact”. One meaning is empirical, and when this is what scientists mean, then “evolution” is used to mean observed changes in allele frequencies or traits of a population over successive generations.
Another way “fact” is used is to refer to a certain kind of theory, one that has been so powerful and productive for such a long time that it is universally accepted by scientists. When scientists say evolution is a fact in this sense, they mean it is a fact that all living organisms have descended from a common ancestor (or ancestral gene pool) [8] even though this cannot be directly observed. [[“Evolution as theory and fact,” Acc: Aug. 7, 2010.] >>
This is abuse of language and should be admitted as such, withdrawn and abandoned.
GUN: Why don’t you actually give the real problems as cited? Start with, the at most within family level classification that is not even relevant to origin of body plans by blind chance and mechanical necessity — the point where design is a relevant issue; as in, that is why the emphasis is on the Cambrian revolution where we have dozens of phyla and sub-phyla. Include that we have present day horses that are dog-sized, within the one acknowledged species, and apparently horses that are occasionally born with three external toes, the opposite directions of development held to be happening in North and South America, and more. Multiply, by the admission of Eldredge as cited on presenting KNOWN speculation as textbook truth. Then, explain to us how this side track issue allows you and your ilk to slide away from the serious responsibility over the false accusation leaped to as the FIRST assumption — remember, FABRICATION — that then had to be withdrawn. While you are at it, kindly address the attempt to paint targets on the backs of my in laws and other family as “punishment” for daring not to toe the Darwinist line . . . and explain to me who the real brownshirts are in that light for LT since he has managed to vanish. KF
Because I just read, and responded, to the section you cited – about horse evolution.
It’s only “directional” if one looks at a particular starting point and a particular end point. The direction of evolution depends on the population and the environment. Species of 3-toed and 1-toed horses overlap in the fossil record, and there are even lineages where toes are gained. I couldn’t make out the rest of your post.
KF and any other Iders have a look:
http://online.santarosa.edu/ho.....lution.jpg
To me it’s 100% evidence for evolution. I see no reason to evoke conspiracy theories.
TE & GUN:
Did you take time to notice the focal issue from the Original Post? (As in, do you realise what your pull to go off topic is revealing?)
Secondly, before falling into confirmation bias, I think you need to pause and note the warning the curator at the AMNH gave about the horse sequence, as you can see at 97 just above. Speculation presented as textbook truth dressed up in a lab coat and backed up by Lewontinian-Saganian a priori materialism echoes more of shadow shows confused for reality than one should be comfortable presenting as a “proof by textbook illustration.”
(And TE, do you not see how you have fallen into the trap of projecting a key admission against interest into an unwarranted accusation of deception on my part, then on being confronted with a correction, you have evaded your responsibility? Do you not see how that echoes the precise problem the OP highlights?)
KF