pz

No, no. Obviously, blind animals can't breed or feed at all, so Jeebus has to manifest himself in the caves when scientists aren't looking to tuck little bits of food into their teeny-tiny mouths, and manually appose their delicate little cloacas.

Isn't that sweet of him?

Vanderzyden

No, but all of your posts give the strongest indications that you are as narrow-minded as some fundamentalists that I've encountered.

I don't believe you, either. You have shown yourself to be up to no good. From what I read in your posts, you are not trustworthy, nor do you take the least interest in finding the truth. You have done yourself a disservice, although you may not think so. Whatever positive things you might have to say are now eclipsed.

And no, I'm not just going to pop off and read everything you throw at me. What incentive do I have to heed these suggestions, coming as they do from your direction? I'd rather attempt to have a more decent discussion with some of the other folks here.


Vanderzyden

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

pz

This is what we've all learned to expect from you.

You claim that solid, well-known work is "handwaving" and that you don't trust it. I gave you some good citations in response:

Chow RL, Lang RA (2001) Early eye development in vertebrates. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 2001;17:255-96.

Jean D, Ewan K, Gruss P. (1998) Molecular regulators involved in vertebrate eye development. Mech Dev 76(1-2):3-18.

So now you're going to stamp your widdle feet, whine some more, and cry that you won't read them. What a surprise.

Lizard

This technique is so common, I wonder if there's a name for it. Creationist posts unsupported nonsense and/or questions scientific knowledge that has been validated for years/decades/centuries. Knowledgeable person refutes creationist, providing tons of backup in the form of references. Creationist says s/he won't read the references, since the poster obviously is a bad person, up to no good, [insert ad homs here].

Therefore, creationist will never deal with actual evidence, never acknowledge s/he is wrong and has been shown wrong in front of the whole world. Excuse: Waaaaah. You're destroying all my arguments with all those nasty *facts.* LA-LA-LA-LA-MM-MM-MM-MM - I don't *hear* you!!!!!

Just once, I'd like to see an anti-evo person break the mold, read the references, actually understand it and LEARN something. So far, no dice.

There is a great opportunity to learn much here. Many II participants are working scientists and/or university professors in evolutionary biology or related fields. Whereas I look upon these posts as a free education, VZ and others look upon them as what? Empty justifications for a corrupt worldview?

I just don't know.

MrDarwin

I just got in from out of town so I haven't had a chance to read through this entire thread, but has anybody raised one of my favorite suboptimal designs yet, the fetal circulatory system?

Vanderzyden

I see evidence of hand-waving in the article I cited. It is not "solid", but rather tentative at best. Perhaps you will also tell me that Haeckel's embryology is solid, as well.

Oh, please don't misunderstand: you have given me good reason to distrust you.


Vanderzyden

pz

False. It's an extremely solid piece of work, with an experiment that is unambiguous in its results. In normal animals, lens does not differentiate unless it is adjacent to optic cup; optic cup does not differentiate further if you remove the lens. In the cave fish, the epidermis is not responsive to the signals from the optic cup, and never forms a lens; it also does not support the further differentiation of the eye. In other papers, the molecular identity of those signals has been identified. They are Pax6 and BMP7, among others.

There's nothing tentative about it.

What alternative would you propose? (That's a rhetorical question. I'm quite confident that you are neither competent nor willing to suggest anything rational.)
Much of it was. He was actually an excellent observer and artist. His damning flaw was that he bent some of his observations to support a fallacious theory.

lpetrich

Except that Ernst Haeckel's work is far from the final word on embryology -- I suggest that Vanderzyden try reading the professional literature on developmental biology, especially evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo"). Which is nowadays a very hot field in biology.

O Vanderzyden, how can you feel competent to criticize something when you don't even understand what it is?

Rancid

So, Vanderzyden, why don't you tell us what master plan is involved with blind fish in dark caves? Obviously (according to you) evolution has no part in it. So some creator of sorts is going around mutilating fish and throwing them into the dark caves? How mean!

Doubting Didymus

If we can back the conversation up a bit, I would like to ask vander a simple question, not to prove any point but only for information.

Vander, I am not sure what you are taking issue with. I think that everyone is talking past one another, and the issue is getting confused.

There are two main points involved here, so specifically, I would like to know what are you taking issue with.

Is it: That non-functioning, useless eyes exist? (that is, you acknowledge that eyeless cave dwellers exist, but you do not think that they do, in fact, have useless vestigial eyes).

Or, given that nonfunctional eyes exist, do you not accept that the organism would be improved by removing them.

Put simply, do you think that no vestigial eyes exist, or is it only the idea that they constitute bad design that you take issue with?

I think that clearing this issue up will facilitate further conversation.