Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Vanderzyden · 10-13-2002, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Albion:

The abstract does look contradictory; the text, however, doesn't.

The contradiction in the abstract is an indication of carelessness that is seen elsewhere in the article.

Quote:

Originally posted by Albion:
By the way, Vanderzyden, I hope you obtained permission from the AAAS and Dr Jeffery before copying that entire Science article over here.

Like so many E/C participants, I can see by your pettiness that you are more concerned with "fighting" and "discrediting" than with attention to the core issue. Why is that?

Vanderzyden

Bubba · 10-13-2002, 09:16 AM

Actually, Vander may be right and I wish to propose an altenate theory. Maybe instead of the blind watchmaker it's the blond watchmaker. Since the design is merely bad and not non-existant I wish to propose a challenge.

Vander, prove to me the universe is not created by a blond 14 year old. Your arguement would make about as much sense as mine.

Bubba

LeftCoast · 10-13-2002, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bubba:
Actually, Vander may be right and I wish to propose an altenate theory. Maybe instead of the blind watchmaker it's the blond watchmaker. Since the design is merely bad and not non-existant I wish to propose a challenge.

Vander, prove to me the universe is not created by a blond 14 year old. Your arguement would make about as much sense as mine.

Bubba

Albion · 10-13-2002, 11:01 AM

Quote:

The contradiction in the abstract is an indication of carelessness that is seen elsewhere in the article.

On what basis are you saying that? And how far are you taking this accusation? There are a couple of words transposed in the abostract that the copy editor and proofreader (if Science has the latter) missed and the author also missed, which is very common. Are you suggesting this is some sort of reflection of the quality of their actual work? If so, why? If not, what's your point?

Quote:

Like so many E/C participants, I can see by your pettiness that you are more concerned with "fighting" and "discrediting" than with attention to the core issue. Why is that?

No, Vanderzyden, it's because I work in science publishing and I know what a big deal the permissions issue is. Entire books and journal articles - even in nonprofits - get delayed and derailed because permission has to be sought and granted (and sometimes paid for). It's one thing to copy short extracts or even to copy papers from free parts of a website, but, despite your personal free access, that paper was in the subscription-only area of Science Online, and if you read the explanations and conditions you'll see that it requires permission to be granted before entire articles are reproduced, including on the web. Science isn't like the creationist sites, which WANT their material to be spread as far and wide as possible. There's a genuine copyright issue here, and I'm surprised you didn't know.

Or is your carelessness in this respect indicative of a more general carelessness in your entire approach to this debate?

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Albion ]

Kevin Dorner · 10-13-2002, 12:43 PM

I have edited the article and removed much of the original material that was not highlighted or discussed, replacing each block with an ellipsis.

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]

Happy Wonderer · 10-13-2002, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:


As to "software code stubs", these are usually placeholders for absent code, such as later code to be added or code that had to be removed.

An example is when Netscape open-sourced its web-browser code. Because it was proprietary, Netscape's programmers removed Sun's Java implementation. But they had to made their browser code compilable, and do so without a large amount of rewriting, so they made all the calls to that Java implementation do nothing, until some other Java handlers could be put in.
the-shelf connectors than to design new ones.

This is a great example; permit me to expand on it a bit in the hopes of making what you are saying even more crashingly obvious. (Since your reply was substantive, I'm sure that VZ won't bother to respond to it but what the heck, it is a lazy Sunday here.)

VZ's rebuttal that the 'instructions' to generate an eye in a species of cave fish are analogous to 'stub code' is incorrect. The analogy is more like 'dead code', which is once-useful code that is now unreachable. A stub is code that stands in for instructions that aren't really there; dead code is instructions that are really there but that are unreachable. (Some compilers can detect this.)

Remember, the question is whether eyeless cave fish are independent creations or if they are descendents of sighted surface fish. The presence of this dead "eye" code provides a compelling logical argument for common descent. Leaving aside the obvious lack of design elegance of dead code, its presence tells us that at one time 'code' for an ancestor of the cave-dwelling fish produced eye structures. This strongly implies (Oh, since I'm not a scientist I'm allowed to say 'proves') that some ancestors of cave-dwelling fish lived in a region where light was present.

Consider the public domain browser example. Suppose that I create a new product out of Netscape's browser that operates in an environment where Java makes no sense (such as an embedded device in an automobile.) AOL/Time Warner decides that I'm a threat to them and goes after me with the lawyers. Their claim is that I stole the non-public version of the browser to make my product. I claim that I built it from the public domain version (independent creation of a sort.)

If their engineers discover that by appropriate manipulations they can get my product to parse the Java language, then I'm legally up a creek. I'm working in a context where Java makes no sense, my product doesn't expose any way for the user to execute Java code, yet here my product is with the ability to run Java if the appropriate tweaks are made. The presence of the useless Java parser is both a mistake and an indication that my code "evolved" from the non-public code.

I don't think that VZ has too many places to go on this one. I suppose one could try to claim that the entire instructions for making the eye of a surface fish are in the lens; implanting it into the embryo could be equivalent to the Time/Warner engineers inserting a java parser and recompiling my product. That is the only way around it that I can see, without accepting that cave fish have evolved from surface fish.

HW

(My premise that there exists an environment where Java is not useful is for discussion purposes only. Also I accept that programming languages are a very poor metaphor for DNA replication.)

Vanderzyden · 10-13-2002, 01:17 PM

I will address scigirl's questions soon. At present, I should like to deal with the most recent outrageous post by the "illustrious" moderator PZ. Although, I should indicate that I hesistate to do so, because I would rather not call anymore attention to him than is absolutely necessary.

At first, PZ tried to brush me off, deeming my comments "not worthy" of reply:

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
...unfortunately, when I see the degree of obtuseness and generally craven evasiveness by Vanderzyden, I'm really not inspired to reply. It's just too pointless.

But apparently he could not stand it any longer, because he soon posts a second time. This time, he attempts to respond to my critique of the paper. However, he adds little value to the discussion. Since he is lacking substance, he fills his ramblings with invective and ridicule. This is the status quo for PZ, to be sure.

Actually, his opening paragraph is barely acceptable, so let address that on its technical merit:

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
There is so much in Vanderzyden's "analysis" of that paper that is ignorant, wrong, or distorted. The paper is not at all contradictory; it is a well-established fact that formation of the complete eye requires reciprocal induction. The optic vesicle emits a signal that induces the differentiation of the superficial epidermis into a lens, and the maturing lens then emits a signal to induce further development of the eye cup.

I will again reiterate that the paper contains a blantant ERROR concerning the characterization of the experiment, and this gross mistake (in the abstract) is an alert to other problems and simplifications that are found within. We may well be suspect that similar mistakes were made during experimentation and analysis. The "well-established fact", as PZ calls it, is not alluded to in the article or the references. The authors do not explicitly mention the signal, nor the mechanism by which such signal might be transmitted. As with so many other "facts" that are claimed here, I am not placing much confidence in this one. To make matters worse, PZ again makes these flippant, UNSUPPPORTED claims.

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
His whines about how he doesn't understand this "signal" business is just obtuse ignorance. Signalling in development is a well-studied, well-understood phenomenon, and has been known since Spemann in the 1930s. There are defined, operational procedures for identifying inductive interactions, and furthermore, in this particular case, we know what the inductive signals are: Pax6, Sox2, and Foxe3 are the molecules that induce the lens, and the lens feeds back to the eye cup with BMP7.

I may not fully understand, but I would not be surprised if this signal "stuff" was no more than hand-waving "business"--as you characterize it so well. "Business", indeed. In this particular case, we don't know how such "business" relates to optical embryogenetic development because the authors do not explain it. As with many other aspects of the paper, they gloss over it with four short, introductory instances of the word "signal".

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
The implication that the covering of the eye socket with a flap of skin is an indication of conscious design is just jaw-droppingly stupid. He read the paper, but didn't understand it. What was shown in that work is that the mutation in the blind animals was a loss of competence in the epidermal ectoderm. That is, the skin has lost either the receptor for one of the inductive signals, or has lost some element of the signal transduction cascade, and is therefore no longer capable of responding to signals from the eye cup. Since the lens forms from tissue that would otherwise form skin, it is not surprising that if the trigger to convert skin into lens can't be read, skin stays as skin.

Nothing of the sort is demonstrated in this paper. Can PZ direct us to the part of the paper which elaborates upon the formation of the flap of skin? All that I read is this "The degenerate eye sinks into the orbit and is covered by a flap of skin." That's it. So, either the authors don't understand what PZ is writing about here, or PZ providing yet more unsubstantiated material. Read the paper again. It says "covered by a flap of skin".

Regardless of the mechanism, the eye socket in the adult teleost is covered with smooth skin, and there is no "eye". The development of the eye is arrested. Read it again:

"The lens vesicle is formed but later degenerates, and the cornea, iris, and other optic tissues are absent or rudimentary "

The lens vesicle is simply the fluid-filled embryonic sac in which the lens would form. The other parts of the eyes do not form. So, in actuality, there is no degeneration. Rather, there is no formation of the eye organ at all. Consider a construction analogy: The foundation is present, but no "house" it built upon it.

Quite an amazing thing, I think: the creature functions without an eye. If it had "evolved" this way, we would not observe this fish. It would not exist. There would be no living specimens, since the first "eyeless" surface fish would die immediately. In the wild, an animal that requires sight in order to obtain food would die shortly after its vision degraded. If blind offspring are born to seeing parents, they will notsurvive long after birth. So, I find the suggestion of evolving blind fish to be wholly nonsensical. The Darwinist would do well to think through the likely scenarios before postulating such far-fetched schemes.

Oh, what was it that Forrest Gump said? "Stupid is as stupid does." Perhaps PZ could tell us, which is more ridiculous, to lack in highly specialized knowledge, or to treat your fellow humans with less respect than is given animals? Which is more foolish, to attempt to see the big picture, or to limit oneself to a narrow body of "facts"?

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
Now, watch: Vanderzyden is going to turn his own ignorance, incompetence, and incomprehension of what more knowledgeable people have written into accusations of dishonesty and deception. He has that perfect blend of stupidity and unwarranted arrogance that will allow him to do that with no shame at all.

I wonder, does PZ "get by" in his job as a professor by insulting people? He probably has formed a gang of "hoodlums" with his colleagues. One of two things occurs with such groups, they either bully all their opponents into submission or they sit in the proverbial corner, commiserating and stroking their puffy egos. Surely, this must be the case, because his hand-waving, patent, dismissals, and oversimplification are very strong indicators of such behavior.

But then, it may not be that PZ conducts himself this way in person. Maybe the Infidels forums are an outlet for his frustrations. Could it be that some of his peers staunchly disagree with him, and yet he has no way to refute their arguments? He then comes to the E/C forum so that he may "rightly" assume the role of the schoolyard bully. I would guess that he gleans enormous satisfaction from his "online adventures". Furthermore, we may easily imagine the state of his relationships with his children, or his "friends". We might feel sorry for them, who are likely to be brow-beaten into submission if they don't conform to his way of thinking.

Some wise advice was once given concerning such "teachers":

"Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

I wonder if he could possibly be different in person. If so, then perhaps he could explain the horrendous tone which characterizes each and every one of his posts.

Vanderzyden

Vanderzyden · 10-13-2002, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kevin Dorner:
I have edited the article and removed much of the original material that was not highlighted or discussed, replacing each block with an ellipsis.

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]

Kevin,

Why did you do this? Do you edit others posts in this fashion? I have yet to see it in the several months that I have been visiting this forum.

I must also question your motive for doing so. When I read what you have removed, it seems that you would like to avoid something. I move directly to this conclusion since you did not explain WHY you edit the article. Furthermore, PZ and I have recently referred to part of the section you deleted.

An explanation for your strange action would be most appreciated. The first and last paragraph below are what you deleted:

Quote:

The evolution of development is usually studied in distantly related species (1, 2). This approach has revealed conserved genes with universal developmental roles, but large evolutionary distances have obscured the mechanisms that generate morphological diversity. The evolution of development in the teleost Astyanax mexicanus, a single species with eyed surface-dwelling (surface fish) and eyeless cave-dwelling (cave fish) forms, has also been studied (3, 4). ...

... The eyed and eyeless forms of Astyanax probably diverged from a common ancestor within the past million years (5, 6). Here, we show that evolutionary changes in an inductive signal from the lens are involved in cave fish eye degeneration.

Although adult cave fish lack functional eyes, eye formation is initiated during embryogenesis (Fig. 1, A and B). The lens vesicle is formed but later degenerates, and the cornea, iris, and other optic tissues are absent or rudimentary (Fig. 1, C and D) (7, 8). The optic cup and neural retina are formed in cave fish, but the retinal layers are disorganized, growth is retarded, and photoreceptor cells do not differentiate. The degenerate eye sinks into the orbit and is covered by a flap of skin. Constructive changes have also evolved in cave fish, including enhanced lateral line and gustatory systems (4, 9).

Please restore the post to the way I originally placed it.

Thanks,

Vanderzyden

Nat · 10-13-2002, 01:31 PM

Vander,

Are you so lacking in introspection that you cannot see when you yourself are insulting and arrogant - even when it is pointed out to you numerous times?

Your behavior is some of the worst I have seen on these boards - you make insults and accusations of dishonesty on others and ignore anything that you cannot deal with with a simple bit of Hand-waving. Then you whine incessantly that others are treating you badly!

You are, in short, a pompous, hypocritical fool.

Kevin Dorner · 10-13-2002, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:
Please restore the post to the way I originally placed it.

I can't. It is common procedure for moderators to edit out postings of copyrighted material in the IIDB forums and has been done many times.

From the <a href="http://www.infidels.org/infidels/forumrules.html" target="_blank">Forum rules and policies</a>

Quote:

(5) You will not post, distribute or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. Exceptions to this standard are covered by the Federal law regarding fair use, 17 USCS 107, and related case law, which holds that only partial excerpts of copyrighted material may be reproduced, and only as necessary for criticism or comment.

In other words, you may post snippets, broken up by ellipsii or commentary, for the purpose of analysis or criticism, but not an entire unbroken article. Abstracts are summaries of the article for the purpose of being freely distributable, but this was the article itself, which is not.

If you would like to restore it, you may edit the post yourself and restore those portions that you deem fit. Please keep in mind that I will edit it again if too much of the original article remains in concurrent order, as found in the original. Also the paragraphs which you stated were necessary to your dicussion were not highlighted in your original post.

You may address this in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=7&SUBMIT=Go" target="_blank">Bugs, Problems and Complaints</a> but I am sure am well within established procedure in what I did.

Don't think that I wouldn't like to see this changed and to have free access to online scientific journals and papers myself, as it makes it possible to read scientific material directly from the sources without modification, but unfortunately the nature of scientific publishing these days is to proprietize them. There are many scientists also working to change this, but for now we must abide by them being copyrighted and restricted in their redistribution.

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]

10-13-2002, 12:43 PM	#115
Kevin Dorner Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Posts: 762	I have edited the article and removed much of the original material that was not highlighted or discussed, replacing each block with an ellipsis. [ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

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10-13-2002, 09:16 AM	#112
Bubba Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Orient, OH USA Posts: 1,501	Actually, Vander may be right and I wish to propose an altenate theory. Maybe instead of the blind watchmaker it's the blond watchmaker. Since the design is merely bad and not non-existant I wish to propose a challenge. Vander, prove to me the universe is not created by a blond 14 year old. Your arguement would make about as much sense as mine. Bubba

10-13-2002, 01:31 PM	#119
Nat Regular Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 100	Vander, Are you so lacking in introspection that you cannot see when you yourself are insulting and arrogant - even when it is pointed out to you numerous times? Your behavior is some of the worst I have seen on these boards - you make insults and accusations of dishonesty on others and ignore anything that you cannot deal with with a simple bit of Hand-waving. Then you whine incessantly that others are treating you badly! You are, in short, a pompous, hypocritical fool.

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