Bubba

What is the deal with AIG posting on thier website that they have been sued or threatened with a lawsuit by Scientific American?? Seems to me that Sartifati's "rebutal" just reinforces Scientific American's criticisms, making AIG look even dumber.

Any comments, oh great penut gallery of Infidels?

Bubba

tgamble

</strong>

Where do they say that? Be nice if it were true. Espose AIG for what it is in a court of law.

On a seperate note, check this out.
<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0713pcusa.asp" target="_blank">http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0713pcusa.asp</a>

AIG is pissed at the thought of Christians actually THINKING and rejecting their silly dogma.

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>

Mageth

Catch the advertisement for this book?

They seeem to lump Darwinism in with UFOs, the paranormal, and New Age spirituality, or perhaps even cite Darwinism as the cause for these phenomenon. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

tgamble

I thought they blamed UFOs on Satan. I guess they mean that they are all evil and tools of Satan. What bunch of quacks!

Bubba

I believe it waas on their website Wednesday or Thursday...yes, I'd like to see it brought to a court of law...

Bubba

ex-robot

Geeeez! Here is the link so people actually know what this topic is supposed to be about.

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/news/0711sciam.asp" target="_blank">Sci Amer Threatens AIG</a>

It seems like Sci Am's attorney wasn't even involved but AIG's was. Sci American was wrong about its claims. Read it for yourself.

xr

Oolon Colluphid

Thanks for the link xr. I have just read some of it for myself, thanks. The AiG ‘rebuttals’ are unmitigated drivel.

One example should suffice to see the quality of refutation on offer:

Who, precisely, gives a tuppenny fuck what Darwin did or didn’t think? We’ve moved on a bit since then. And anyway, what they’ve got there is an out-of-context quote:

“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.”

And he goes on to explain that. See <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter9.html" target="_blank">Origin, Chapter 9</a>.

Creationists would expect every creature that’s ever lived to have become fossilised, and just be there for the digging up.

Yep, but that’s Gould pushing his own pet theory, punk eek.

(a) Even it correct, “extreme rarity” doesn’t mean absence.

(b) Gould is talking about the pattern over geological time, a bit of stasis and a jump. But the jumps in question aren’t necessarily huge -- dinosaur, then suddenly bird --they’re observations at the species or genus level. And that’s what we’d expect anyway with allopatric speciation!

(c) Depending on what he meant (surely not what is implied!), Gould is plain wrong anyway.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html" target="_blank">www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html</a>

<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001054" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001054</a> (especially my reference to Sheldon’s trilobite work -- there ya go, species to species transitions.)

‘Famous ones which creationists constantly try to undermine’, more like.

See above for a few of the ‘many’.

So do tell: what do you think an ‘intermediate’ fossil should look like? The bits aren’t a random assortment; there’s no fly-like wings or unexpected hooves. Nope, on anatomical grounds birds should be related to some dinosaurs. A dinosaurian ancestor of birds would be expected -- predicted -- therefore, to have some characteristics of both: a furcula, feathers, teeth, etc etc. Come on over to London in a week or two, to the Natural History Museum’s big exhibit on this, and see some of the Chinese fossils (and the London Archie) for yourselves.

... and a proponent of the (fast-becoming-defunct, it seems) crocodilian-bird link... How come these folks only believe scientists when they (can be made to look as if they) support their argument, but reject them the rest of the time?

One wonders what he makes of the anatomy of dromeosaurs (doubtless Patrick will tell us ). Sure, Archie is already some way down the bird road. But to call it a bird is to totally ignore the bits of its anatomy which are unambiguously dromeosaurian.

And, hold on. Is it a bird, or some bizarre chimera?? And can these fools explain why modern birds have the normally silent genes for making <a href="http://www.devbio.com/chap06/link0601.shtml" target="_blank">teeth</a> and <a href="http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Hampe_experiment.htm" target="_blank">full-fibula legs</a>?

See anyone denying this? So? Why, pray, would we think it had anything to do with birds, if it didn’t have bird-like features? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

There’s a surprise... funny how no modern ones at all have teeth though, innit? Why only extinct ones? I take it something like not having teeth is a result of, erm, microevolution? Or was it part of the curse of the fall, that birds had to suck their food... and, erm, microevolve all the beak designs we now see... Hmmm. Are hummingbirds and penguins the same ‘kind’, I wonder?

Again, irrelevant. Now, if no dromeosaur had teeth it might be more awkward...

<a href="http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/dinoarch.htm" target="_blank">Dinosaurian Synapomorphies Found in Archaeopteryx</a>

<a href="http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/dromey.htm" target="_blank">Dromaeosaurid Archaeopteryx</a>

<a href="http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/protocaud.html" target="_blank">Feathered non-avian theropods</a>

<a href="http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/jdp.htm" target="_blank">More stuff on this.</a>

... ignoring Caudipteryx, Protarchaeopteryx and a few others, that is...

In a few paragraphs in a popular magazine, they were hoping for...? See the various links here for examples, if it bothers you.

‘More likely to be flightless birds’ comes from Feduccia. ’Nuff said.

However, can someone else explain the time difference? I’ve a few ideas, but will need to look into it further. Looks like a job for Patrick...

Ha! Depends on what they mean by ‘fake’. Sure, it is a composite, put together probably for financial gain. Which was exposed by creationists? Nah, by scientists. (See <a href="http://www.ctlab.geo.utexas.edu/pubs/nature2000/" target="_blank">this link</a> for info on the high-res x-ray CT analysis of it.) But the individual pieces of the fossil are genuine, and each separately sheds important light on the fossil history of birds. The hindpart is now known as Microraptor zhaoianus, a dromeosaurid; the front part hasn’t been (re-)classified yet, but is rather more birdlike (despite, note, hands rather than proper wings, and teeth).

<a href="http://www.dinodata.net/Dd/Namelist/TABA/A234.htm" target="_blank">http://www.dinodata.net/Dd/Namelist/TABA/A234.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/fd.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/fd.htm</a>

The standard of AiG scholarship never ceases to amaze me.

TTFN, Oolon

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Mageth

AiG is blustering. It would be nice to see a link to an article from the SciAm side, or better yet from a neutral party.

AiG seems to be claiming some kind of victory for creationism because SciAm sent them a letter threatening a lawsuit. Note, however, that the letter addressed the IP rights of SciAm to their published material, not the correctness of the contents of the article or AiG's response.

AiG is probably correct that their use of the article is valid under Fair Use. And you know what? SciAm's IP lawyers knew that. In the world of IP, if a party doesn't actively defend a copyright, the lack of defense may be used against it in an infringement lawsuit at a later date. So the IP lawyers of SciAm (and other publishers) may almost always send a letter such as AiG received as indications or markers that they are actively protecting their copyrights, even if they know the particular case won't be pursued. (Note that sending a letter is a much cheaper way to mark one's territory than to file a lawsuit).

If, down the line, someone blatantly reprints the SciAm article without permission and not within the bounds of Fair Use or other copyright exceptions, the accused party may claim that SciAm hasn't pursued previous infringers. SciAm can whip out a copy of the letter it sent to AiG as evidence that it has.

I'm willing to bet AiG's IP lawyers use the same tactics.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Mageth

BTW, the AiG article makes me think that the article's writer is either:

1) ignorant of IP law; or

2) using a dishonest tactic of claiming some sort of "moral" victory from the threatening letter, knowing most readers don't know enough about IP to know better.

tgamble

True, I have a webpage refuteing their rebuttal. <a href="http://creationcrap.batcave.net" target="_blank">http://creationcrap.batcave.net</a>

But thanks for the extra info! Very useful it is!

One thing:

AIG seems to be aware of them.

"But our Web site has documented that two famous alleged feathered dinosaurs are ‘dated’ younger than their supposed descendant Archaeopteryx and more likely to be flightless birds (Protarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx)"

If these fossils are younger than Archie, then they can't be transitional between the more advanced features that Archie has.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>