Ken “we suck” Miller wrong again — peer reviewed article obliterates Miller’s claims

_{Salvador Cordova

August 8, 2012

'Junk DNA', Humor, Intelligent Design}

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Lamenting the fact Darwinist have a hard time persuading the public, Darwinist Ken Miller once said of himself and his colleagues”WE SUCK“. Curiously, Jerry Coyne said the same thing, “WE SUCK“.

Egg surely is now on Ken Miller’s face in light of new scientific developments. But first, what did Miller claim:

“Intelligent design cannot explain the presence of a nonfunctional pseudogene, unless it is willing to allow that the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, however, can explain them easily. Pseudogenes are nothing more than chance experiments in gene duplication that have failed, and they persist in the genome as evolutionary remnants of the past history…

Ken Miller Lecture Guide

and now, what does real science have to say (versus Darwinist speculations):

But definitely, the so-called psudeogenes are really functional, not to be considered any more as just “junk” or “fossil” DNA. Surely, many functional pseudogenes and novel regulatory mechanisms remain to be discovered and explored in diverse organisms.

RNA Biology 9:1, 27–32; January 2012; G 2012 Landes Bioscience

So Ken Miller says of himself and his Darwinist friends, “we suck”. Far be it from me to disagree. Indeed!

Comments

Sal: Thanks for the detailed reply. I presume you are talking about a forum that would discuss evolution/ID generally, and not just thermodynamics? If you started a forum I would certainly be honored to participate. The only caveat is my schedule. You've probably noticed from my postings that my schedule is rather erratic: lots of posts for a week or two (like right now) and then perhaps nothing for a couple of months. Ah well, that is the nature of work and other life commitments.Eric Anderson_{August 10, 2012
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Eric, Btw, here is a comment I hope you will find informative: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/2nd-law-of-thermodynamics-an-agument-creationists-and-id-proponents-should-not-use/#comment-427309 Salscordova_{August 10, 2012
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Hi Eric, The thread was written on July 4, 2012, and it essentially went into oblivion. I only brought it back to life yesterday to poke fun at groovamos. UD's format is a blog and not a forum like ISCID and ARN. To that end, if I ever started a forum, would you be interested in participating? It will have a forum that is an invitation-only forum, plus one open to the public. The format will be like ARN. It will be a place to have better and more detailed technical discussions. Now, to help you out, google "thermodynamics uncommondescent" and it should take you right to that post. Honestly, that's how I get to the thread too! Is there a venue you'd like to pursue this in. I started a thread at ARN, but it devolved quickly. But perhaps if you'd like to talk there we can. Here is the old thread. http://www.arn.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=30362422&an=0&page=0#Post30362422 It will link you back to the UD thread. :-) If you want to continue on that thread or start a new one at ARN we can. Or anywhere else. I'm seriously thinking of posting on the concept of entropy as it is deeply central. UD is not a good place to carrying sufficiently detailed discussions on the topic. Feel free to let me know if you want to discuss this topic more and in what venue. If you wait a few weeks, I hope I'll have the new venue up for technical discussion to be explored in an academic, troll-free venue. Sal PS always nice to hear from youscordova_{August 10, 2012
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OT: Sal, what happened to the Thermodynamics thread about Granville Sewell's theory? It was live just a couple of days ago, but for some reason I can't find it now. Darn UD home page format . . . :(Eric Anderson_{August 10, 2012
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Or maybe Ken and co. don't suck at all. It could be they are just so dense and it's all that extra gravity that keeps their weak ideas from reaching escape velocity and being communicated.Joe_{August 10, 2012
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Darwinists should be shining IDers shoes over this. They couldn't have been more wrong. From an ID perspective, and from an ID perspective only, IDers continue to insist that so-called "junk-DNA" would turn out to have function. This was a bold, in-your-face, position. And it turned out to be right. BTW, I wear black dress shoes, so bring over the black shoe polish.PaV_{August 10, 2012
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Ken "the vacuum cleaner" Miller?Joe_{August 10, 2012
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Ok,
DiEB says of Ken Miller: he wanted to say that he sucks locally.
So I could put instead in the post title:
Ken "who wanted to say he sucks locally" Miller wrong again
instead of
Ken “we suck” Miller wrong again
Which one would be more accurate? :-)scordova_{August 10, 2012
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@Scordova:
DiEb: he sucks locally,
You create the impression that I said about K. Miller that he sucks locally, while I said that he wanted to say that he sucks locally. Do you spot the difference? That's quote-mining.DiEb_{August 10, 2012
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Joe: he doesn’t suck at everything.
and
DiEb: he sucks locally,
A rare moment of agreement about Ken Miller.scordova_{August 10, 2012
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Well DiEb- lying and baring false witness is not indicative of a good christian. So that would be indicative of someone who sucks at being a christian. So he is pretty good at being a sucky christian, which means he doesn't suck at everything.Joe_{August 10, 2012
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Dieb on Ken Miller: he sucks locally,
scordova_{August 10, 2012
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I wrote:
Lamenting the fact Darwinist have a hard time persuading the public, Darwinist Ken Miller once said of himself and his colleagues”WE SUCK“.
Ken Miller said:
We suck at communicating information about evolution
yet DiEb says:
This is a shameful example of quote-mining
So how would you characterize what Miller said? Actually I was more accurate to the facts than Miller. Miller says the challenge for Darwinists is communication. That's not the challenge. The challenge is for Darwinists is they aren't perusading the public with the falsehoods of Darwinism as promoted by the likes of Ken Miller. One such falsehood was called out in the peer-reviewed paper. Funny, you'd falsely criticize my accurate statment but have nothing to say about Miller's promotion of a now evident falsehood. Your bias is showing and it is leading you to make slanted (and inaccurate) critiques.scordova_{August 10, 2012
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Does K. Miller deny the Nicene creed? Doesn't he love his next as himself? Who are you, Joe, to decide who "sucks at being a christian"? Was your intention to say that those who aren't good at lying can't be good Christians? Of course not. Can your words be used to construct this impression? Indeed. Did K. Miller wanted to create the impression that he sucks globally, i.e., on everything? No, he wanted to say that he sucks locally, i.e., on a special skill. Do you agree, Joe?DiEb_{August 9, 2012
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Dieb- Miller and evos in general suck at telling the truth. They suck at lying too as they always get caught. That means Miller sucks at being a christian. BTW Miller said "We suck." then he said "We suck at communicating...
"We suck," said Kenneth R. Miller, a Brown University biology professor who is the author of high school biology textbooks, including the one used at the Dover high school. Miller, a devout Roman Catholic and author of Finding Darwin's God, was the opening witness for the Dover parents in the trial. "We suck at communicating information about evolution and many other aspects of science."
He sucks at communicating information about evolution because it is all imagined nonsense.Joe_{August 9, 2012
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Miller's argument about pseudogenes is just another in the litany of pathetic "bad design" objections to design. It is astounding that someone so involved with the debate for so long can be so obtuse as to not understand elementary logic. At some point we have to wonder whether it is incompetence or deliberate deceipt. Oh, well it happens time and again. So in addition to misunderstanding (or misrepresenting, take your pick) the argument from design, Miller continues to find himself on the losing side of the evidentiary trend.Eric Anderson_{August 8, 2012
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DiEb: Kenneth Miller: “We suck at communicating information about evolution and many other aspects of science.” This is a shameful example of quote-mining, and in the title, no less…
You don't understand what a quote mine is, do you? The first 11 words of Sal's post accurately state the context behind Ken Miller's "we suck" comment. There was no attempt at twisting his words. There was no quote mining. Be honest, DiEb. Your post was nothing more than an attempt at distracting from the embarrassing nonsense of Ken Miller, wasn't it?Jammer_{August 8, 2012
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@Joe: "We suck at communicating" isnt' equal to and doesn't even imply "We suck". "You are bad at understanding such differences." is an observation, "You are bad." would be a childish insult. Therefore I'd address the first sentence at you, but not the latter. I hope this helps.DiEb_{August 8, 2012
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OK Dieb- how is it an example of quote-mining? You made the claim now please support it. Or retract it. Your choice.Joe_{August 8, 2012
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I think an even more interesting thing is that even if junk DNA was found in the genome. A minor amount, that would actually add to the idea the mankind was once perfect and fell. After the fall and death became a part of mankind, one would expect to see degradation in the human genome. After all, we weren't designed to die in the first place. It was a bi-product of Adam and Eves disobedience.ForJah_{August 8, 2012
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And what would be wrong with a designer creating a functionally or algorithmically constrained experiment machine that explored various avenues? Miller is fighting against a Sunday-school view of the Creator. I find the idea of embedded exploratory algorithms exciting.RkBall_{August 8, 2012
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Kenneth Miller: "We suck at communicating information about evolution and many other aspects of science." This is a shameful example of quote-mining, and in the title, no less...DiEb_{August 8, 2012
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There is another problem with Miller's "argument"- namely that no one said the design had to be perfect, that no redundancies exist and there aren't any parts for future purposes. Also no one said that even if the design started out perfect- ie no junk DNA at all- that it had to remain that way. Also the only "reason" evolution explains junk DNA is because it can explain evevrything biological, just as kids explain why they didn't do their homework.Joe_{August 8, 2012
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