Doubting Didymus

Because the vast majority of people who would even read such a book already know.

You seem to be under the impression that evolution is big news. It's not, its been old news for a hundred years. Hardly anyone even blinks anymore when we find even more evidence for evolution. This should not be any more surprising than finding even more evidence for gravity.

NFLP

To reiterate a post I made a few days ago, I came to this thread thinking that evolution is nothing but egg-head jargon-babble. I don't know from science but I can recognize that Vanderzyden is disingenuos in his captious replies and craven non-response.

Thanks for the stimulation of this cranky old noggin.

lpetrich

However, there are alternative teleology-based hypotheses, such as some forms of vitalism, including the hypothesis that living things becoming adapted because they somehow "design" themselves. Dawkins is showing a lack of imagination here; he ought to have been aware of the vitalist views of some of his predecessors.

VZ, get a clue. "Infallible" means incapable of being in error; inerrant.

Oolon Colluphid

Why? What is it about the <a href="http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00412/contents/00/00100/" target="_blank">Chromosoma article</a> saying that
that is unclear?

On 14 Aug in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001238" target="_blank">the first thread on this</a> I laid the human situation out at some length in terms of testing and confirming an evolutionary prediction.

And you ignored it.

I argued that:

And you ignored it.

I found you several examples of observed fusion.

And you reply as above.

No, I can’t think of any reason to be ‘sour’. Must just be me.

Firstly, I see no evidence that till now you had been ‘engaging me’ at all.

Secondly, I feel thoroughly justified in having a “sour disposition”, since despite all the work that I and everyone else have put into explaining stuff to you and offering evidence, you have shown yourself to have a Masters in Evasion and Pigheadedness, but missed the Genetics and Scientific Inference 101s.

What should compel you to engage me any further? Nothing whatever. You don’t have to be here at all. I guess it depends whether you are actually interested in discovering the truth of the matter, or just want to come off as a handwaving jerk.

Why can chromosomes not fuse?

Why are the numerous articles cited not evidence and observations of fusion?

Why is the presence of extra telomeres and centromeres in the human chromosome 2 not good evidence
(a) that chromosomes can indeed fuse, and
(b) of human evolution from a common ancestor with chimpanzees, especially in the context of every other piece of evidence about these species, which this agrees with?

Cut the crap vander. Answer the questions or get back under your bridge, troll.

TTFN, Oolon

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Daggah

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Try going to the first post in the original challenge thread...it HAS been conclusively demonstrated. You saw a picture of it yourself!

Also, why do you feel it necessary to misrepresent the views of evolutionists - something you've done several times already in this thread alone!

Oolon Colluphid

Vanderzyden, I don’t often offer creationist sites to people (except for a laugh), but you might believe them...

<a href="http://www.amazingdiscoveries.org/postdeluge.html" target="_blank">This site</a> uses chromosome rearrangements, fusions etc to explain the rapid changes required post-flood, to show how different members of the same 'kind' can have different chromosome numbers.

It misses the obvious conclusion about humans being the same kind as chimps though...

TTFN, Oolon

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Stephen T-B

I could not ask to be in better company than that of the Hon. Oolon Colluphid and am delighted, therefore, to be associated with him in having earned the ire of Mr Van.

In my last post I said Mr V. would put me right if I were wrong in asserting that “he believes... that a god created light (I might have added day and night.)... BEFORE he put the sun in the sky.”
He hasn’t put me right so I suppose I wasn’t wrong.
Thus we have the spectacle of an individual criticising peer-reviewed scientific papers whose own notion of reality allows him to accept that kind of arrant nonsense. (And much more of it besides, like the Flood, the Tower of Babel etc etc etc?.)

Someone might like to point out to Mr V. - he won’t take it from me - that another unsupported belief of his is that the world-wide scientific community is involved in a concerted conspiracy to destroy his religion by promoting lies and half-truths about the role of natural processes in the formation of “all that we behold from this green earth, of all the mighty world of eye, and ear.”
Someone might point out to him that the scientific community is not a homogeneous body; that it is, in fact, riven with rivalries, and even jealousies, and that the individuals and teams which compose it watch each other like hawks.
Criticism and scrutiny of the sort he has attempted to apply from a layman’s standpoint are an integral - and an essential - part of the scientist’s world.
Does he really think that the papers which have been referred to him here have escaped that criticism and scrutiny? Does he not realise that the reason he was referred to them is because they have been so refined that they are able to pass the strictest tests that objectivity and scholarship can apply?
If he thinks the process of peer review is flawed he should challenge it - from the standpoint of an expert, not from that of a badly-clued up layman.

Blinn

Following is one example out of many available of your troll technique, Vander. Don’t think we’re not on to you.

On September 02, 2002 01:24 PM, Vanderzyden posts the following (bold print added by Vander):


When one reads this statement, it seems that either you didn’t read the paper or you did but it was way over your head (or a combination of the two). So I tried to clarify your misunderstanding for you:

Then scigirl very patiently explained in layman’s terms exactly what the researchers did to obtain their data and what the results were. There were parts of the paper that I didn’t understand (and I’ve had courses in molecular genetics) but they then became clear to me with scigirl’s post.

Originally posted by scigirl on September 03, 2002 at 08:02 PM (page 7):


Perhaps you should go back and re-read her post Vanderzyden. One would think that if 2 or 3 people said “Wow, why are you asking a question with such an obvious answer?”, that you might think to yourself, “Hmmm… maybe I’m just not getting it. I’d better re-read this information so that I understand it before I put up another post that makes me look either extremely ignorant or disingenuous.”

But no, you troll on:

Scigirl replies:

Now, at this point, it seems you’re thinking, “Okay, I’ve blankly repeated the same easily answered question over and over. It’s pretty obvious how disingenuous I am. Time to shift the goalposts ever so slightly…”


Posted September 04, 2002 10:42 PM by Vanderzyden:
If you, a) actually read the paper, and b) understood the information contained therein, then you would already know how they determined the location of the telomeric and subtelomeric regions. Scigirl explained it to you, too.

You are the little kid with his hands over his ears yelling, “NAANAANAANAANAANAANAANAANAANAA I CAN’T HEAR YOU NAANAANAANAANAANAANNA I CAN’T HEAR YOU…”

Troll.


[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Zetek ]</p>

Vibr8gKiwi

I think we've hit the range of "depth" Van is able to go on this specific argument. Perhaps a logical next step would be a discussion of "breadth" type of argument where an overview of support for evolution across disciplines was discussed?

Baloo

Looking at the picture, under the C (Chimp) label...


We indeed see that there is a 2p and 2q chromosome as scigirl describes.
And, lo and behold, no objections from Vanderzyden. This premise is officially accepted.

The logic seems quite unassailable. Vanderzyden is silent on the subject. This premise is thus unchallenged and accepted.

(emphasis mine)

Again, we look at the picture, now under the H (Human) label...


Can anyone here, with a straight face, tell me Scigirl's third premise is false? Would even a kindergartener, untainted by "Naturalistic Dogmatism" say that the H doesn't look like the two C's put together? Of course not. Could any honest person deny that the H looks like the two C's put together, as stated in Scigirl's premise? Of course not.

But Vanderzyden, on the other hand...

Scigirl, I'd say vanderzyden is up against the ropes here. I'd keep reiterating this point and ignore his inflammatory red herrings. Either his perceptive abilities demonstratably fall far short of what I'd expect from a kindergartner, or he is <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001313&p=" target="_blank">AGAIN</a> demonstrating his perpensity to flatly lie.