On Darwinian apologists' doublespeak.

Evolutionary Advocacy as a Confidence Game

David Klinghoffer March 13, 2015 12:12 PM 

Darwin advocacy often gives the appearance of a racket, a confidence scam, a game of Three-card Monte. Go read or listen to John Stonestreet's excellent Breakpoint commentary reflecting on the current cover story in National Geographic, "The War on Science." The magazine links and absurdly lampoons a number of skeptical views, as if they were all of a piece. The cover text reads, giving examples "anti-science":

Climate Change Does Not Exist.

Evolution Never Happened.

The Moon Landing Was Faked.

Vaccinations Can Lead to Autism.

Genetically Modified Food Is Evil.

Now read the brief and informative Wikipedia article on confidence tricks, including the classic "stages of the con," the carefully ordered succession of interactions among con man, shill (accomplice), and mark (victim). Tell me if that doesn't ring a bell. In the context of evolution, it goes something like this:

Con: "You're pro-science, am I right?"

Mark: "Oh, sure I love science. Can't get enough of it."

Con: "So you're not anti-science, correct?"

Mark: "I don't know what that means exactly, but like I said, I love science."

Con: "Well, for example, you agree that the United States landed on the Moon, right? Because there are some loons who doubt that."

Mark: "What? You're kidding. That's ridiculous."

Con: "OK, just wondering. I mean, you said you're pro-science. So you're not one of those anti-vaxxers, right?"

Mark: "Definitely not. I mean, I have some Facebook friends who are pretty voluble about that. They think it causes autism. But we absolutely vaccinate our kids. It's the responsible thing to do."

Con: "Good, good. That's fine, because those guys are nuts. And, just curious, you're not one of those 'climate skeptic' crazies, right?"

Mark: "What do you mean, 'crazies'? I know there are some climatologists and other thoughtful people who think global warming has been hyped."

Con: "What! I thought you said you're pro-science!"

Mark: "I am."

Con: "Don't you know the scientific consensus believes in human-induced catastrophic global warming?"

Mark: "Alright, alright, you win."

Con: "Finally, evolution. You're not a 'Darwin skeptic' are you?"

Mark: "Doesn't that depend on what you mean by evolution? 'Evolution' in what sense?"

Con: "Never mind."

Mark: "Well I know from my reading that the word can mean various things. Microevolution, macroevolution, universal common descent, the sole sufficiency of the Darwinian mechanism for explaining the development of complex life forms."

Con: "I said never mind. You sound like a creationist. You said you're pro-science. So, you think the whole universe is less than 10,000 years old? You think cavemen rode around on dinosaurs?"

Mark: "No, of course not!"

Con: "Alright, then. So you're pro-science, and you believe evolution happened. Good for you."

Mark: "But aren't there are a bunch of very different questions here that you're wrapping up into one overstuffed burrito as if they were all the same? I mean, Moon landing, vaccinations, global warming, age of the universe, evolution in its several different meanings. Shouldn't separate questions be considered separately?"

Shill: "Oh hey guys, I don't mean to interrupt your conversation, but the latest issue of National Geographic just came in the mail, a very distinguished popular scientific journal with a long and storied publication history. It says here some people think 'evolution never happened.' I guess those are the same ones who think climate change doesn't exist and the Moon landing was faked."

Con: "See? I told you. Now do you believe in evolution or not?"

Shill: "Why are you asking him that? Don't tell me you're one of those Intelligent Design Creationists! I thought after centuries of study the question of whether nature gives scientific evidence of design was finally settled by a judge in Pennsylvania back in '05. I heard the judge was even appointed by President George W. Bush, so he should know. You always seemed like a smart guy. Are you one of those anti-science dummies?"

Con: "Tell me, yes or no. Do you think evolution never happened?"

Mark: "No, no, it's just... Oh forget it. Yes, I believe in 'evolution'!"

Am I exaggerating? Not by much, if at all. This morning, Casey Luskin gave a very concrete illustration of an evolution scam -- the bait-and-switch technique, deployed to cast doubt on the (accurate) contention that Darwinian theory is controversial among mainstream scientists.

Understand what I'm saying. Evolutionary biology is not a scam, but some Darwin defenders employ classic tricks from the arsenal of professional hustlers. If the science were as ironclad as we're supposed to believe, why don't they debate us on the science?

A line in the sand IX

Bombing over show about jewelry is just latest blow to free speech in India

New Delhi (CNN)Thankfully, no one was wounded after crude bombs were hurled at a Tamil news station in India on Thursday. But the loud explosions injured a vital part of the world's largest democracy: free speech.

Last week, when India's government and a British documentarian faced off over a film featuring a man imprisoned for a 2012 gang rape in South Delhi, a little-known channel hundreds of miles away in southern India was waging its own battle. Hardline Hindu groups were angry with broadcaster Puthiya Thalaimurai for filming a show about the relevance of a traditional necklace -- called mangalsutra in Hindi and thaali in Tamil -- worn by married Indian women. For them, the contents, as shown in the promos, were offensive to Hindu culture.

The station planned to release the program Sunday, International Women's Day. But it canceled the telecast after demonstrations took place outside its office. Protesters allegedly attacked one of its cameramen.

Four days later, the channel came under fire again, when four men on two motorbikes threw bombs into its compound in a predawn attack, authorities say. Six people involved in the bombing have been arrested, said S. George, the commissioner of the southern Indian city of Chennai. Their leader turned himself in separately, claiming responsibility for the attack, police said.

"The show wanted to give women a platform. We welcome all opinions and thoughts. But you cannot strangle freedom of free expression by violent means and threats," said Shyam Kumar, the CEO of New Generation Media Corp., which runs Puthiya Thalaimurai. "We condemn the attack in the strongest possible terms," he told CNN.

'India's Daughter,' the film banned by India: What did it show?

But India is no stranger to censorship imposed legally or forced by rowdy protesters.

The country's constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but not without restrictions. Communities or people claiming their religious sentiments were hurt by anyone else's opinion can file a lawsuit.

Authorities can seek restraining orders from local courts -- as they did to ban the recent BBC documentary "India's Daughter" -- by citing potential disorder.

Earlier last year, Penguin India withdrew "The Hindus: An Alternative History," a book by American academic Wendy Doniger, after a local advocacy group accused the writer of denigrating Hinduism.

In December, a Bollywood movie, "PK," came under attack over similar accusations when mobs tore apart its posters in parts of India. A satire on religious rituals, "PK" became a roaring success by being one of the country's highest-grossing movies.

But India, home to one of the world's largest film industries, has blocked several movies from screening.

At least two films were not allowed last year. One of them featured the lives of the Sikh assassins of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the other centered on the violence in Sri Lanka in the closing months of its civil war.

Hounded by protests over his novel, Perumal Murugan, a Tamil author, announced quitting writing in a dramatic post on Facebook in January.

"Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He has no faith in rebirth. As an ordinary teacher, he will live as P Murugan. Leave him alone," he said on Facebook two months ago. Religious and caste-based organizations had slammed his novel "Madhorubhagan," which depicted a childless wife taking part in an ancient festival allowing consensual sex between strangers.

Just last week, India blocked the BBC from airing "India's Daughter" because it included comments from one of the men convicted of raping a young student in a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012. The reason: The inmate's views could create unrest.

"There's a growing intolerance towards different shades of opinion. It's a medieval mindset. What India needs is a concerted effort to move beyond it and embrace free expression in totality," said Kumar, the New Generation Media chief executive.

Some more Darwinian shamanism

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before: Much Ado over "Oldest Human Fossil"

Casey Luskin March 11, 2015 4:43 AM

 

 

 

 

In 2001, the New York Times ran the headline "Fossils May Be Earliest Human Link." In 2009, Discovery Channel announced, "'Ardi,' Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled," and Associated Press's story read, "World's oldest humanlinked skeleton found."

Here we go again.

Headlines over the last week have included "'First human' discovered in Ethiopia" (BBC), "Human Origins Just Got a Lot Older" (Slate), and "Jaw Fossil In Ethiopia Likely Oldest Ever Found In Human Line" (NPR), among many others.

As the NPR story suggests, all that paleoanthropologists have found is a couple of bone scraps from a hominid jaw. Next thing you know we're "redrawing" the old "family tree" as National Geographic put it, since these bones are supposed to be the "oldest human fossil found." If reports are correct, these 2.8-million-year-old fossils are the oldest specimens of Homo by about 400,000 years. See here for a photo of the left half of the jaw.

They also found part of the right half of the mandible, which is in even worse condition and is devoid of teeth.

Now I don't necessarily have a particular reason to doubt that these partial jaw scraps came from Homo. But I do know that other paleoanthropologists have warned that teeth and skull scraps (collectively termed craniodental bones) can be highly plastic and make for poor diagnostic features when it comes to hominid classification. As one article stated:

Recent research has cast doubt on the reliability of bones and teeth for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among higher primate species and genera. ... [R]esearchers have begun to question the reliability of bones and teeth for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among higher primate species and genera. This skepticism is based partly on the fact that phylogenetic analyses of fossil primates have thus far yielded conflicting and weakly supported hypotheses of relationships, partly on the fact that comparisons between craniodental phylogenies and reliable molecular phylogenies have found that the former disagree with the latter, and partly on the fact that we are developing a better understanding of the processes involved in the generation of osteological and dental similarities and differences among primates. ... [T]ooth morphology is prone to homoplasy and is therefore a poor guide to low-level phylogenetic relationships.
(Sally Gibbs, Mark Collard, and Bernard Wood, "Soft-tissue characters in higher primate phylogenetics," Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 97: 11130-11132 (September 26, 2000).)

Another paper similarly reported: "Little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence."

 

Assuming it is Homo, what's driving the hype this story has received is not simply the prospect that it's the "oldest human fossil" but, instead, fantastical suggestions that somehow the specimen represents a transitional form between the australopithecines and later Homo. Yes, that's right, this tiny scrap of jaw is being called a "missing link" -- a Forbes tech writer even ran the headline "Human Missing Link - Fossil Found."

Because this fossil comes from a period of the fossil record when we have very few bones, and because it was found in Ethiopia about ten miles from the site where Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) was discovered, some are suggesting the jaw shows that early members of Homo that descended directly from Lucy's species. One paleoanthropologist told CNN that these meager jaw scraps represent "an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution."

Again, even though all they found was a tiny scrap of a jaw, here's how BBC News spins it:

The head of the research team told BBC News that the find gives the first insight into "the most important transitions in human evolution".
Prof Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas said the discovery makes a clear link between an iconic 3.2 million-year-old hominin (human-like primate) discovered in the same area in 1974, called "Lucy".
Could Lucy's kind -- which belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis -- have evolved into the very first primitive humans?
"That's what we are arguing," said Prof Villmoare.

National Geographic frames it this way:

The date is tantalizingly close to the last known appearance, around three million years ago, of Australopithecus afarensis, an upright-walking, small-brained species best known from the skeleton called Lucy, believed by many scientists to be the direct ancestor of our genus. The new jaw, known as LD 350-1, was found in January 2013 just a dozen miles from where Lucy was found in 1974.

But once again, bear in mind that all they found was a small scrap of jaw. Paleoanthropologist William Kimbel tries to temper the excitement by reminding us just how little evidence there is to go on:

Fossils attributed to Homo in the period two to three million years ago are exceedingly rare. Bill Kimbel, director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, in Tempe, who co-led the analysis of the new specimen, once said that "You could put them all into a small shoe box and still have room for a good pair of shoes."

If these fossils are indeed from Homo, then that has major implications for evolutionary models that prefer Australopithecus sediba as a transitional form leading to our genus. Au. sediba doesn't appear for another million years after these fossils, meaning that if these jawbones really do belong to Homo, then sediba could not be ancestral to Homo. National Geographic explains:

To the extent that the new jaw underscores an East African origin for the genus Homo, it would seem to confound the argument made by other researchers that the best candidate for our genus's immediate ancestor is a South African australopithecine, Australopithecus sediba.
The authors of the Science paper point out that the only known specimens of A. sediba are almost a million years younger than the new Homo jaw from Ethiopia that they would have had to have given rise to.

But then of course the defenders of Au. Sediba point out that this jaw bone hardly establishes anything:

"The idea that [the new jaw] makes anything else unlikely to be an ancestor is ludicrous," says Grine. "That would pretend that the fossil record is complete. And we know it can't be, since they just discovered something that wasn't there before."

And NPR reports:

Villmoare says he doesn't yet know anything about the creature's brain; there's nothing from the cranium in this find. But he says its jaw and teeth clearly have human traits.

Likewise, Sci-Tech Today reports:

The new paper's analysis is first-rate, but the fossil could reveal only a limited amount of information about the creature, said Eric Delson of Lehman College in New York.
"There's no head, there's no tools, and no limb bones. So we don't know if it was walking any differently from Australopithecus afarensis," which was Lucy's species, he said.

Thus, it's very hard to use this little jaw fragment of poor quality to demonstrate a clear link with just about anything. Amidst the hype, Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London introduce a note of caution, and sanity: "Half a jawbone is not enough to tell just how human it was and does not provide enough evidence to suggest that it was this line that led to us."

 

But that's the point, isn't it? This scrap of bone establishes very little. And so you have defenders of one evolutionary thesis attacking defenders of another evolutionary thesis on the grounds that the fossil record is too poor to derive any conclusions. If that's the case, then how do we know that humans evolved from apelike species (like Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis) to begin with?

The answer, in case you were wondering, is that we don't. If we had virtually no fossil evidence documenting the evolution of Homo from apelike creatures prior to this find, then arguably after this find, we still have virtually nothing.
 

Malachi 1 ASV

1The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi.

2I have loved you, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob; 3but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. 4Whereas Edom saith, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; thus saith Jehovah of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and men shall call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom Jehovah hath indignation for ever. 5And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, Jehovah be magnified beyond the border of Israel.

The Polluted Offerings

6A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear? saith Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? 7Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. 8And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith Jehovah of hosts. 9And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts. 10Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. 11For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name'shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense'shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name'shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts. 12But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. 13Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith Jehovah of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye bring the offering: should I accept this at your hand? saith Jehovah. 14But cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith Jehovah of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.

Darwinists are disappointed at our insistence on doing our own thinking.

Politics Professors: How to Reduce Evolution Denial

Jonathan Wells March 9, 2015 4:46 AM | 

Despite several generations of relentless indoctrination, funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, some high school students -- and even some college graduates -- still doubt evolution.

They don't doubt evolution in the sense of minor changes within existing species. In the 1930s, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky called this "microevolution," and nobody doubts it. But many people doubt what Dobzhansky called "macroevolution" -- the evolution of all living things from common ancestors by unguided processes such as random mutations and survival of the fittest.

The American educational establishment is dominated by people who not only believe in macroevolution but also bemoan the fact that they have failed to instill their belief in all of their students and teachers. From time to time, someone proposes ways to remedy this failure.

The latest proposals come from two professors of political science at Penn State University, Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, who want to reduce the persistence of "evolution deniers." Quoted by Science Daily, Berkman said that "evolution is fundamental to biology, but more importantly we think that when you are communicating a skepticism about evolution you're communicating a skepticism about science generally."

Berkman and Plutzer held focus group sessions with 35 teacher trainees from four colleges and concluded that -- instead of avoiding controversy -- teachers should openly discuss the difference between religious faith and the science of evolution. First, however, teacher trainees should become better grounded in the science of evolution by taking more science courses.

Berkman and Plutzer's findings were reported in the March 6 issue of Science. The report was accompanied by a photo of a biology classroom, with the caption "Poorly prepared science teachers often leave U.S. high school students with a shaky grounding in evolution." In the foreground of the photo are several copies of the textbook being used in the classroom: Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine's widely used "elephant cover" book, Biology.

I have a copy of the 2000 "elephant cover" textbook, which features (1) a drawing of the 1953 apparatus used by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, accompanied by a caption stating that their experiment "first demonstrated how organic matter may have formed in Earth's primitive atmosphere" (p. 344); (2) drawings of vertebrate embryos that look most similar in their early stages, showing that they evolved from common ancestors (p. 283); and (3) photographs of light- and dark-colored peppered moths resting on light- and dark-colored tree trunks, illustrating a story about natural selection in action (p. 297).

But these icons of evolution misrepresent the evidence. Among other things, the "atmosphere" used in the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment was almost certainly unlike that of the early Earth; vertebrate embryos actually look very different from each other in their early stages; and peppered moths rarely rest on tree trunks in the wild. The moth photographs were staged.

The Miller-Levine textbook misrepresented other evidence for evolution, as well. Maybe teachers and students continue to doubt evolution because they know more than Berkman and Plutzer think they do...

The Book of Jude NWT(2013 Edition)

1  Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James,+ to the called ones+ who are loved by God the Father and preserved for Jesus Christ:+

2  May mercy and peace and love be increased to you.

3  Beloved ones, although I was making every effort to write you about the salvation we hold in common,+ I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith+ that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones. 4  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct*+ and who prove false to our only owner* and Lord, Jesus Christ.+

5  Although you are fully aware of all of this, I want to remind you that Jehovah,* having saved a people out of the land of Egypt,+ afterward destroyed those not showing faith.+ 6  And the angels who did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place,+ he has reserved with eternal bonds in dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.+ 7  In the same manner, Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and the cities around them also gave themselves over to gross sexual immorality* and pursued unnatural fleshly desires;+ they are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.+

8  Despite this, these men too are indulging in dreams, defiling the flesh, despising authority, and speaking abusively of glorious ones.+ 9  But when Mi′cha·el+ the archangel+ had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body,+ he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms,+ but said: “May Jehovah* rebuke you.”+ 10  But these men are speaking abusively about all the things they really do not understand.+ And in all the things that they do understand by instinct like unreasoning animals,+ they go on corrupting themselves.

11  Too bad for them, for they have followed the path of Cain+and have rushed into the erroneous course of Ba′laam+ for reward, and they have perished in the rebellious talk+ of Kor′ah!+ 12  These are the rocks hidden below water at your love feasts+ while they feast with you, shepherds who feed themselves without fear;+ waterless clouds carried here and there by the wind;+ fruitless trees in late autumn, having died twice* and having been uprooted; 13  wild waves of the sea that cast up the foam of their own shame;+ stars with no set course, for which the blackest darkness stands reserved forever.+

14  Yes, the seventh one in line from Adam, E′noch,+ also prophesied about them when he said: “Look! Jehovah* came with his holy myriads*+ 15  to execute judgment against all,+ and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.”+

16  These men are murmurers,+ complainers about their lot in life, following their own desires,+ and their mouths make grandiose boasts, while they are flattering others* for their own benefit.+

17  As for you, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken* by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,18  how they used to say to you: “In the last time there will be ridiculers, following their own desires for ungodly things.”+19  These are the ones who cause divisions,+ animalistic men,*not having spirituality.* 20  But you, beloved ones, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, and pray with holy spirit,+21  in order to keep yourselves in God’s love,+ while you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.+22  Also, continue showing mercy+ to some who have doubts;+23  save them+ by snatching them out of the fire. But continue showing mercy to others, doing so with fear, while you hate even the garment that has been stained by the flesh.+

24  Now to the one who is able to guard you from stumbling and to make you stand unblemished+ in the sight of his glory* with great joy, 25  to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority for all past eternity and now and into all eternity. Amen.