Grumpy

Couldn't find the "20 Questions" list because of the friggin' frames, so I perused the <a href="http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ49.html" target="_blank">Social Consequences of Evolution</a>. Even if I didn't know anything about science, I'd still be able to tell you with 100% certainty that these people are liars. Why? Because they're lying about me.

You can consider me an "evolutionist." However, I am not a racist, a Communist, a criminal, a conquerer, an exploiter, or a New Ager. I can be accurately described as a secular humanist and a moral relativist, but these by themselves are not the perjoratives that Creationists wish they were. Therefore, any time anyone equates evolution with bad behavior, I can be sure based on personal experience that they are full of it.

tgamble

Scroll down in the right hand frame. It's linked there.

RBH

Good old Walt Brown has been around for at least 20 years with his questions. Back in the early 1980s he had (I think) 108 such. At least he's pruned the list down a bit. I notice he (along with most other YECs) has co-opted some of the ID stuff - complexity, the impossibility of creation of information by natural processes, and the like. He's also hung onto some of his moldy oldies, like the alleged lack of billions of transitional fossils. Some things never change.

RBH

pz

<a href="http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/HomePage4.html#1141593" target="_blank">Or follow this link.</a>

pseudobug

Oh boy, a treasure hunt. That little piece of undigested corn in the steaming pile of creationist lies. :rolleyes

ksagnostic

Agree with the post overall, but to my knowledge the question of the Martian fossils remains open, with most but by no means not all working scientists, including biologists, concluding that other explanations are probable. In other words, the Martian fossils are an active scientific dispute and question, not a bit of pseudoscientific trivia.

pz

I disagree. The initial claim that they are biological seems to be based entirely on a superficial comparison of appearance -- they are rod-like, and many bacteria are rod-like. That is not adequate.

The killer for me is scale. The smallest living microorganism is a spherical parasitic mycoplasma, with a diameter of 100nm; the smallest known terrestrial fossil is also spherical, with a diameter of 300nm. The martian "bacteria" are 20nm x 100nm! That represents a ridiculously minute volume. There's just no way to compact an earthly metabolism into a volume that tiny.

The expected reply is that they are martian, so you wouldn't expect an earthly metabolism...however, the reason for arguing that they are fossils of bacteria in the first place was a resemblance to earthly organisms.

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: pz ]</p>

James

Sorry to butt in people, but check out this site.

<a href="http://evolutionlie.faithweb.com/" target="_blank">http://evolutionlie.faithweb.com/</a>

Wh'dya think of the boots!!

ksagnostic

Ok, first point. I know I am in over my head with you, as this is closer to your field, and I am dealing with someone in the profession. Furthermore, I am basing my comments primarily on science reporting accounts, not primary literature, and I am aware of the limitations of the former.

However, the above being said, and with the further expressed limitation that I can not and will not attempt to refute you on your specifics, my response was based on the following...

1) There seems to be some division still on the issue of the Martian fossils among workig scientists, and from what I can tell points of views on both sides are getting published. In scientific disputes that I am better qualified to evaluate, this is usually an indication that there is a legitimate scientific dispute going on (I am still able to note that there is peer reviewed literature, even if I can't understand it). Maybe I am wrong, but a search of Pub Med I did on the subject about a year ago revealed research articles arguing different conclusions. Of course, I don't pretend to be able to evaluate the articles, their quality, or their conclusions, because 1) I am not qualified and 2) I was looking at abstracts. Usually when I look at such issues, I am trying to simply evaluate whether they are open or not. I figure peer reviewed articles arguing two different conclusions indicate that a scientific dispute is open rather than closed. Of course, I am aware that there are Don Quixote's in science. So I may have been misled.

2) I am well acquainted with a science journalist who has followed this issue (and he knows his stuff), and although he works at it primarily from geological and planetary issues, I have gotten the impression from him that the issue is not dead. I should also note, however, that he himself is extremely skeptical of the Martian fossil claims, and thinks the skeptics make a better case.

I should note again that I am NOT arguing in favor of the Martian fossils, or against the reasons you have come to your conclusions, because you have the knowledge base to evaluate the claims. My initial issue was that it was my understanding that dismissal the Martian fossil issue has not been a done deal. This is my impression as an interested observer. Maybe I'm wrong.

Question. Wasn't the thing that made news first the chemical composition of the meteorite, with the "mico-fossils" being secondary?

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

ps418

My 2 cents:

The focus now seems to be on whether or not the magnetite crystals in the martian meteorite are biogenic. The original hubbub was based largely on the rod-shaped objects intepreted as fossil bacteria, as well as on other geochemical properties of the meteorite. As PZ said, the scale alone makes this identification unlikely, since it would be hard to fit any cellular machinery in such a small space. The case for biogenic magnetite in martian meteorite is a little better, but still quite shaky due to incomplete knowledge of abiogenic magnetite creating processes.