Wow, OK… One like, no comments, I guess it was just me (and one other person).
Category Archives: Pseudoscience
22 Answers to 22 messages from creationists
File this under: better late than never.
In the wake of the Bill Nye/Ken Ham creation/evolution debate BuzzFeed writer Matt Stopera had some of the people who attending the debate, and who were creationists, write down questions or comments to those of us who accept evolution.
The following are the questions they wrote down and my quick and dirty responses.
1) Bill Nye, are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?
Obviously I cannot answer for Bill Nye but I would say yes he is, by helping to popularize science.
2) Are you scared of a Divine Creator?
No. If one exists and is worthy of admiration, let alone worship, it would not want its creations to fear it.
3) Is it completely illogical that the Earth was created mature? i.e. trees created with rings… Adam created as an adult.
Illogical based on everything we think we know about existence via science. However, if an all powerful being existed it is certainly possible it could have done this. Likewise under that scenario the entire universe, including all our memories of the past could have been created last Thursday and there would be no way to know. The evidence all points towards the Earth being 4.5 billion years old (and the rest of the universe more than double that) remains the same, so if it is not actually that old then that would seem to make the creator a cosmic liar.
4) Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove evolution?
No, in fact life as we know it, which includes the ability to evolve, could not exist without the 2nd Law. You see the 2nd Law is essentially about energy flow from more coherent, usable states, to less coherent, unusable states. The obvious and most relevant example being the flow of energy from the Sun into space, where a tiny fraction of its energy is intercepted by the Earth. Life on Earth is only possible because of this energy flow (with the exception of life that lives off the energy flowing from the interior of the Earth itself at hydrothermal vents).
The effects of the 2nd Law can be seen reflected in the so called ecological pyramid, with each level able to extract less and less usable energy from the environment (and this is simplified of course). At the base we find plants are the most abundant and they absorb energy from the sun (“producers”). Next up there are herbivores that live off the plants (“primary consumers”). Then there are the omnivorous and/or small carnivorous animals (“secondary consumers”). Finally the apex predators (“tertiary consumers”), which are found in the fewest numbers of any ecosystem. Underlying all of these are the decomposers that make a living on the energy left over in dead plants, animals, and animal waste. 
See: Ecology/Energy in ecosystems
I cannot even imagine what living things or ecosystems would look like without the 2nd Law in operation.
5) How do you explain a sunset if their [sic] is no God?
Seriously? This is a “the tides go in, the tides go out, with never a miscommunication” sort of question. The Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hrs. creating the illusion (from the POV of an Earthbound observer) of the Sun moving across the sky from sunrise to sunset.
6) If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, who do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?
No, see answer #4.
7) What about Noetics?
What about it?
8) Where do you derive objective meaning in life?
I don’t know that there is such a thing or that it is even possible. We do have subjective and inter-subjective meaning however and that is good enough for me.
9) If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By Chance?
It likely did not occur by chance, in the sense of purely random actions of matter, rather it would have happened in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.
10) I believe in the Big Bang Theory… God said it and BANG in happened!
Cute, however “god did it” is not a scientific explanation.
11) Why do evolutionists/secularists/humanists/non-God believing people reject the idea of their [sic] being a creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terestrial [sic] sources?
First “evolutionist”, i.e. one who accepts evolution, does not equate to being an atheist (“non-God believer”). There are plenty of Christians and other types of theists who accept evolution.
As for evolutionists in general I would say they do not “embrace” any such thing. I can only guess this comes from the disingenuous questions put to Richard Dawkins in the intelligent design creationism propaganda film “Expelled”. Here is a video where Dawkins discusses this and says exactly what his views are on the likelihood of intelligent design by ETs.
12) There is no in between… The only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds neccssary [sic] for an “official proof”.
You were saying?
13) Does metamorphosis help support evolution?
I am not entirely sure what is meant by this question or even what sort of metamorphosis is being asked about. Insect metamorphosis? Amphibian metamorphosis? There is a creationist meme out there that insect metamorphosis (usually in reference to monarch butterflies) is somehow a problem for evolution, however as with most creationist memes, it is based on misinformation.
14) If Evolution is a Theory (like creationism or the Bible) why then is Evolution taught as fact.
It is, or should be, taught as an extremely well substantiated theory, i.e. a rigorously tested, fact-based explanation. Neither creationism nor the Biblical creation account it is based on, even begins to qualify as such.
15) Because science by definition is a “theory” – not testable, observable, nor repeatable why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?
Science is not a theory; the development of testable—by observation and experiment—theories are part of doing science. In fact, one could say it is the very aim of science to develop such theories. Creationism—of which intelligent design is a subset—is made up of components which are either untestable or which have already been tested and falsified.
16) What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?
Part of the answer was in the question; mutation and especially gene duplication.
17) What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in salvation?
Our purpose is whatever purpose we choose for ourselves and frankly, I do not see the how the idea of some supposed purpose imposed from on high is somehow more attractive or fulfilling.
18) Why have we found only 1 “Lucy”, when we have found more than 1 of everything else?
Actually, there are fossil remains representing over 300 individuals of Australopithecus afarensis. “Lucy” is just the most famous specimen of this species. As for more than one of anything else, there is for example Homo erectus, the remains of which have been found in Africa all across Eurasia and into islands in the Pacific (Indonesia). The fun thing about H. erectus is that creationists used to (some may still) argue about whether they were “just apes” or “fully human”.
19) Can you believe in “the big bang” without “faith”?
Yes, as the theory is based on repeatable observations and is testable against further observations.
20) How can you look at the world and not believe someone Created/thought of it? It’s Amazing!!!
You are absolutely right, it is amazing, however there is no compelling evidence that “someone” created it.
21) Relating to the big bang theory… Where did the exploding star come from?
The Big Bang has nothing to do with a star exploding. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t have to do with anything “exploding” in the normal sense of the word. Rather it is about space expanding.
22) If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?
For the same reason that both you and your cousin can exist when you both descend from your grandparents. Humans and the other living apes descend from a common ancestor with the living monkeys. That ancestor was probably more monkey-like than ape-like, but was not one of the current species of monkeys living today.
These questions, at least the ones regarding science—and which were coherent—were not particularly difficult and these people could easily have found the answers with a few Google searches. However, that would require actual curiosity and a willingness to learn. Sadly, these traits are often absent in creationists.
The rest of the questions (philosophical or theological) were simply irrelevant to the accuracy of evolutionary theory (or Big Bang theory) and a unwillingness to grasp this fact is yet another character flaw common amongst creationist.
Round 2 of: What “hope” do you have being an evolutionist?
Well, Ms. Korzeniewski has made a couple of responses and I will give her one more spot in the PCwP limelight, however after this the discussion, if there is one, will probably stay in the comments.
Her first response was basically a second-hand threat of exquisite mind flailing torture of infinite duration at the hands of her all loving deity, apparently for the unpardonable crime of daring to use the brain that her deity supposedly gave me.
Needless to say I do not find this a terribly compelling argument in favor of creationism.
Ms. Korzeniewski, once again, please try to understand such threats cause just as much concern for the non-believer as say, the threat of hell from the Islamic version of God, probably causes you. That is none at all.
If you want to make any impression on someone who does not already share your beliefs, you are going to have to use evidence, logic and reason, not threats from what they consider an imaginary being.
We shall now proceed to the non-threat potions of her comments.
From the Inbox: Did Stephen Jay Gould fabricate evidence of Louis Agassiz’s racism?
This one is from an e-mail sent to me via my neglected website over at commondescent.net regarding a page I have there that is mostly a bunch of quotes from Charles Darwin on the subject of race and slavery. The point of the page (that I originally created over a decade ago) was to counterbalance creationists’ never-ending demonization of Darwin as some sort of rabid racist—who was somehow responsible for racism and genocide—by the use of selective quotation of his writings (for example, Bergman 1997).
Anyway, someone going by “ML” writes:
ML: Why do Atheists get so upset when a Theist speaks about Darwin being Racist?
Atheism or theism does not enter into this, at least not inherently. I would think that anyone, theist or atheist, who interested in science and history would be upset by how professional creationists use invalid reasoning and false or misleading historical narratives to attack both evolutionary theory and historical figures involved in its development.
In the case of the claims that Darwin was somehow particularly racist, creationists are attempting to poison the well against evolution by claiming that the founder of evolutionary biology had some objectionable and/or erroneous views. They are arguing, in essence, that since Darwin was a racist evolutionary theory is suspect. This is form of an ad hominem fallacy*.
Whether or not Darwin was a racist is completely irrelevant to the question of evolutionary theory’s validity. It stands or falls on its own merits regardless of what Darwin thought—for example, Isaac Newton believed in alchemy but this in and of itself does nothing to cast doubt on his laws of motion.
Logical fallacies aside the creationists’ treatment of Darwin on this subject is also simplistic and disingenuous in both the way they exaggerate Darwin’s supposed racism relative to his peers—well-to-do white men of the early to mid-nineteenth century—and in how they conveniently ignore clear cases of racism in their own camp (more on this shortly).
[*Side note: creationists typically go further and attempt to argue that evolutionary theory itself is inherently racist or must logically lead to racism. That however that topic is for another time.]
ML: Racism is simply thinking you are superior to another race. One does not have to wish another race harm to be a Racist.
Why don’t you stop confusing the issue and trying to downplay the reality that Darwin was in fact racist. He thought that whites were superior in many ways to blacks. That is RACISM.
I am not attempting to downplay the reality of anything. I am trying to be both factually and historically accurate. My personal opinion is that from a modern perspective Darwin probably was somewhat racist; however this is judgment that has to be inferred from a number of conflicting things he wrote on the subject. Some things he wrote—especially if they are taken out context of both history and his larger writings—seem to be racist in nature. However, he also wrote many things about race that were very egalitarian particularly in comparison with views of many of his contemporaries.
Given this, I think it is unfair and dishonest to single Darwin out for special criticism in this regard, especially if those doing so leave out evidence of more clear-cut racism on the part of their own intellectual predecessors.
ML: One also does not have to believe slavery is right or wrong to be a Racist.
That is true, one would have to look at the reasons an individual gives for why they condemned slavery. Some opposed slavery on the basis that the institution of slavery had negative effects on slave owners and white society in general. Others did so out of a concern for those enslaved (and of course many opposed slavery for both reasons).
I think it is fair to say that while someone who opposed slavery largely out of concern for those enslaved might still be a racist, they are probably not as racist as someone who either opposed it primarily out of concern for slaver owners or who did not oppose it at all (even arguing in its favor).
ML: Your article is so biased its pathetic.
Insults, that’s nice. You are going to have to do better than that ML. However, I will admit that the page could probably do with some expansion and updating.
ML: Quoting Louis Agassiz in a letter to his mother (1846), quoted in Gould, Stephen The Mismeasure of Man (1981) p. 44-45,
Stephen Gould IS AN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST AND AN ATHEIST!! What a source you got there!
A Letter that no one knows it really existed because it just so happens the only person who ever heard of it happens to be an ATHEIST.
Here we have yet another ad hominem fallacy, i.e., the source is an evolutionary biologist and an atheist, therefore it cannot be trusted.
Sorry but the fact that someone has delusional beliefs regarding the relative honesty of either evolutionary biologists (a category that includes a number of Christians btw) or atheists, does not constitute Prima facie evidence that there is any reason to doubt the veracity of the quote as given by Gould.
What’s more, while many—including myself—have taken issue with Gould on any number of subjects, I am unaware of any serious critic ever having suggested that Gould fabricated evidence whole cloth to support his views. So even on an individual level, there is no reason to take seriously the suggestion that Gould was in the habit of perpetrating fraud.
Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I cannot leave it at that (let’s see, where did I leave my BFG 9000).
These accusations of fraud ML is making regard a quote from the 19th century paleontologist Louis Agassiz that I gave as an example of unambiguous racism on the part of one of Darwin’s creationist contemporaries. Here is the quote in question, which comes from a letter Agassiz wrote to his mother:
It was in Philadelphia that I first found myself in prolonged contact with Negroes; all the domestics in my hotel were men of color. I can scarcely express to you the painful impression that I received, especially since the feeling that they inspired in me is contrary to all our ideas about the confraternity of the human type (genre) and the unique origin of our species. But truth before all. Nevertheless, I experienced pity at the sight of this degraded and degenerate race, and their lot inspired compassion in me in thinking that they were really men. Nonetheless, it is impossible for me to repress the feeling that they are not of the same blood as us. In seeing their black faces with their thick lips and grimacing teeth, the wool on their head, their bent knees, their elongated hands, I could not take my eyes off their face in order to tell them to stay far away. And when they advanced that hideous hand towards my plate in order to serve me, I wished I were able to depart in order to eat a piece of bread elsewhere, rather than dine with such service. What unhappiness for the white race ―to have tied their existence so closely with that of Negroes in certain countries! God preserve us from such a contact.” (Agassiz, 1846, Emphasis mine)
ML states that no one knows if the letter Gould claims to be quoting from even exists, implying that Gould may have made this quote up. Is there anyway for us to discern whether or not this might be the case, or are we forever lost in perpetual doubt?
Well we could start by seeing what Gould says about the source of this quote:
Agassiz had never seen a black person in Europe. When he first met blacks as servants at his Philadelphia hotel in 1846, he experienced a pronounced visceral revulsion. This jarring experience, coupled with his sexual fears about miscegenation, apparently established his conviction that blacks are a separate species. In a remarkably candid passage, he wrote to his mother from America: […quote given above – TB…] The standard Life and Letters, compiled by Agassiz wife, omits these lines in presenting an expurgated version of this famous letter. Other historians have paraphrased them or passed them by. I recovered this passage from the original manuscript in Harvard’s Houghton Library and have translated it, verbatim, for the first time so far as I know. (Gould 1981, p. 44-45)
Uh oh, “other historians”, “original manuscripts” at Harvard; it is starting to look bad for ML’s fraud hypothesis.
OK, let’s take a look at what historian Edward Lurie’s biography of Agassiz might contain:
After observing Negroes for the first time during a visit to Philadelphia late in 1846, Agassiz confided to his mother:
I hardly dare to tell you the painful impression I received, so much are the feelings they [Negroes] gave me contrary to all our ideas of the brotherhood of man and unique origin of our species. But truth before all. The more pity I felt at the sight of this degraded and degenerate race, the more . . . impossible it becomes for me to repress the feeling that they are not of the same blood as we are. (Lurie 1960, pp. 256-257)
While not identical, it seems clear that this quote, by Lurie given in 1960, is from the same source as Gould’s twenty-one years later.
Lurie give as a source as: “Agassiz to Rose Agassiz, December 2, 1846, Agassiz Papers, Houghton Library”, which means that both he and Gould claim their source is an 1846 letter from Agassiz to his mother.
Now at this point I figured I would have to stop and argue that this was sufficient evidence to refute ML’s insinuation since I do not live in the vicinity of Harvard and so could not go there and check their collection for the letter.
However, this is the age of the internet and after some poking around I discovered that Harvard’s Houghton Library not only lists the material in their Agassiz collection they also have scans of the original documents including…
Wait for it…
The letter from Agassiz to his mother dated December 2 1846.
Now the scans aren’t great and the letter is in French (differing interpretations of which accounts for the minor differences between Lurie and Gould’s quotations) but they are there for anyone, ML included, to read for themselves.
I did, and despite the fact that my French is extremely limited I was able to find the passage in question starting bottom third or so of page 13 and ending on page 14 (you gotta love the interwebs).
Given this, I am sure we can expect a retraction from ML regarding this libel against Gould.
References
Agassiz, Louis (1846) A letter to Rose M. Agassiz, quoted in Gould, Stephen (1981) The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton & Company, NY, p. 44-45
Bergman, Jerry (1997) “Evolution and the Origins of the Biological Race Theory“, Journal of Creation, 7(2):155–168
Gould, Stephen Jay (1981) The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton & Company, NY
Lurie, Edward (1960) Louis Agassiz: A life in science, Johns Hopkins University Press (1988)
Answers in Genesis memory holes a glaring error but fails to notice others
While doing some research for a potential post, I was going back and reviewing some of the obvious and indisputably false statements made by creationists that I have documented here on PCwP and in doing so discovered that Answers in Genesis has relegated one of these blunders to the memory hole. In this case, it seems that AiG would rather we forget that their in house “anatomist”, Dr. David Menton, apparently cannot keep his saurischian (“lizard hipped”) dinosaurs and his ornithischian (“bird hipped”) dinosaurs straight—a basic distinction that any child interested in dinosaurs knows.
This by itself would be reason enough to revisit Dr. Menton’s article however an even better reason might be the fact that the interwebs is currently abuzz with the news that Bill Nye (The Science Guy) has agreed, perhaps unwisely, to debate creationist preacher Ken Ham—Dr. Menton’s boss at AiG—this coming February 4th (2014). I believe what follows should give the reader some insight into both the commitment to principled scholarship and the scientific caliber of the people behind Answers in Genesis.
Now You See It, Now You Don’t
As I noted in back in my February 2009 post, “Four and twenty sauropods baked in a pie“, Menton erroneously identified sauropod dinosaurs—long necked giants like Apatosaurus, a.k.a brontosaurus—as being “bird-hipped”, or ornithischian, dinosaurs, making a point of how un-birdlike these massive dinosaurs were, in an article titled “Did Dinosaurs Turn Into Birds?“.
Here is how this section of the article read at the time:
Menton: All dinosaurs are divided into two major groups based on the structure of their hips (pelvic bones): the lizard-hipped dinosaurs (saurischians) and the bird-hipped dinosaurs (ornithiscians)[sic]. The main difference between the two hip structures is that the pubic bone of the bird-hipped dinosaurs is directed toward the rear (as it is in birds) rather than entirely to the front (as it is in mammals and reptiles).
But in most other respects, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, including such huge quadrupedal sauropods as Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, are even less bird-like than the lizard-hipped, bipedal dinosaurs such as the theropods. This point is rarely emphasized in popular accounts of dinosaur/bird evolution. [Emphasis mine]
This conspicuous blunder, of both taxonomy and comparative anatomy, remained on the AiG site for about five years, then somewhere between April 19th and May 22nd 2013—going by the snap-shots the Internet Archive Wayback Machine takes of websites—they quietly changed this part of the article to read thusly (changes in bold):
Menton: All dinosaurs are divided into two major groups based on the structure of their hips (pelvic bones): the lizard-hipped dinosaurs (saurischians) and the bird-hipped dinosaurs (ornithiscians)[sic]. The main difference between the two hip structures is that the pubic bone of the bird-hipped dinosaurs is directed toward the rear (as it is in birds) rather than entirely to the front (as it is in mammals and reptiles).
But in most other respects, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, including such bizarre creatures as the armor-plated ankylosaurs and the horned ceratopsian dinosaurs, are even less bird-like than the lizard-hipped, bipedal dinosaurs such as the theropods. This point is rarely emphasized in popular accounts of dinosaur/bird evolution. [Emphasis mine]
As you can see, the inaccurate listing of saurischian sauropods, as ornithischians, has become an accurate listing of some actual ornithischians. Which is all well and good, however there is no asterisk, no editor’s note, no update, nothing to let their readers know about this rather spectacular error or the changes made to correct it. It is just gone as if it never happened.
Way to be intellectually honest Answers in Genesis!
Innuendo Ad Nauseam
I will not rehash all the information about the similarities between the hipbones of theropod dinosaurs and various birds, both fossil and living, you can go back and look at my previous post on Menton’s mistake for that. However I am going to take a run at his attempted insinuation (in the last sentence quoted above) that paleontologists are somehow embarrassed by the fact that ornithischian dinosaurs, with their bird-like hips, were otherwise not particularly bird-like and therefore don’t like to bring them up when talking about bird origins.
This makes sense only if you A) have a low very opinion of scientists and think they are involved in a conspiracy to hide things from the general public (which creationists do). And B) are wed to the idea that the superficial resemblance of one feature must imply a close evolutionary relationship; but who does this (aside from creationists that is)?
These two paragraphs of Menton’s article are essentially an irrelevancy, which exists solely for making this innuendo. There may have been some 19th century paleontologists who were impressed by the superficial resemblance of the pelvic bones of ornithischians to those of birds but with very few exceptions (Galton 1970), this idea has been long abandon. If this is “rarely emphasized” in popular discussions of bird evolution it is because it is only of historical interest and not relevant to the current best science on the subject.
That said, some popular works on the subject do in fact discuss it, even including discussions of the armored dinosaurs that Dr. Menton is so keen for us to consider. For example, pulling something of my bookshelf, there is a section of Lowell Dingus & Timothy Rowe’s book The Mistaken Extinction (1998, pp.170-177) where they go on for several pages discussing the different types of ornithischians and how they are, or rather are not, similar to birds.
On the web, there is The University of California, Berkeley Museum of Paleontology’s website that talks about this on their page about ornithischians and hidden in the deep recesses of Wikipedia, where no one is likely to find them, there are multiple references to ornithischians in relation to birds. For example, both the “Origins” section of Wikipedia’s entry on the evolution of birds and the entry for ornithischia talk about ornithischians and birds.
Finally, returning to the printed page, there is every creationist’s most favorite expert on bird evolution* Alan Feduccia (Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina), who discussed this in his book The Origin and Evolution of Birds (1999):
Very early on …dinosaurs branched into two major groups delineated by the structure of their hips: the reptile-hipped saurischians and the bird-hipped ornithischians. There has long been a strong temptation to try to derive birds from ornithischians because of this amazing but anatomically superficial resemblance of the hips. Gerard Hellmann in 1926 wrote that “the mere fact that [the pubis] was directed backward, like that of the birds, has evidentially hypnotized several scientists that they have overlooked, or tried to set aside, the many conspicuous differences between the birds and the Predentates [Ornithischia]” (148). …Ornithischians were highly specialized herbivores, too far removed from the main line of dinosaurian evolution to have given rise to any major group. Their line dead-ended with such forms as the duckbills, armored ankylosaurs, plated stegosaurs, and horned ceratopsians like Triceratops. [Feduccia 1999, pp.51-52, Emphasis mine]
As you can see, it is all a big dark secret that evolutionists do not want getting around, so please, please, dear reader, do keep it to yourself.
This Little Piggy Went To Market…
Of course here I have once again been picking the fly poop out of the pepper, taking time to quibble over something nuanced when I should be telling you about how Dr. Menton, has dropped another huge coprolite into our collective cornflakes.
You see while I was revisiting Dr. Menton’s article I decided to take a little more time with it and in doing so I noted a few more amusing anatomical errors. The most glaring having to do with the dromaeosaurid dinosaur called Deinonychus:
Menton: While evolutionists now agree that birds are related in some way to dinosaurs, they are divided over whether birds evolved from some early shared ancestor of the dinosaurs within the archosauria (which includes alligators, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and thecodonts) or directly from advanced theropod dinosaurs (bipedal meat-eating dinosaurs, such as the wellknown [sic] Tyrannosaurus rex). The latter view has gained in popularity since 1970, when John Ostrom discovered a rather “bird-like” early Cretaceous theropod dinosaur called Deinonychus.
An adult Deinonychus measured about 12 feet (3.5 m) long, weighed over 150 pounds (68 kg), and was about 5 feet (1.5 m) tall standing on its two hind legs. Like other theropods (which means “beast foot”), Deinonychus had forelimbs much smaller than its hind limbs, with hands bearing three fingers and feet bearing three toes. The most distinctive feature of Deinonychus (which means “terrible claw”) is a large curved talon on its middle toe. [Emphasis mine]
Without getting distracted with the false equivalency Dr. Menton makes between the minority, “(unknown) archosaur origin” camp and the majority “theropod origin” camp*, his description here of the feet of Deinonychus is wrong on at least two counts.
First, Deinonychus like most theropods (and birds) had four toes, not three as Dr. Menton states. In Deinonychus‘ case, three robust forward facing toes and one somewhat reduced backward facing toe—the fifth digit is reduced to a splint bone (Ostrom 1969, p.124).
Comparative illustration composed by Emily Willoughby (used with permission).
Second, the large curved claw that gives Deinonychus its name is on the anatomically second toe, not the third, which is the “middle” toe in tetrapods. Nor is it on the “middle toe” if we ignore the existence of Deinonychus‘ reduced first toe (hallux) and pretend it only had three forward facing toes. Even in this case the enlarged toe claws of Deinonychus are on the inside toes of its feet, not the middle toes.
The photograph on the left is by Denver W. Fowler and was taken of a specimen on display at Museum or the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana (used with permission, for more on Deinonychus see Fowler et al., 2011). The drawing on the right is from the Yale Peabody Museum website.
So no matter how you count these little piggies, whether from a technical anatomical perspective, or just informally, Dr. Menton, creationist anatomist extraordinaire, is mistaken once again.
This leads to a couple of questions. If Dr. Menton does not know such basic facts as, what types of dinosaurs are ornithischians or saurischians, how many toes theropod dinosaurs had, or which toes are which, why should anyone take his opinions on the more complex question of the evolutionary relationship between theropods and birds seriously?
And why would anyone put their trust in Answers in Genesis as a reliable source of information if they apparently willing to cover up this sort of ignorance, which had been on their site, misinforming their readers for years, by quietly changing things without any sort of notice or acknowledgement?
I leave the answers to the reader.
It Is Thus Because It Pleased God To Make It Thus
There is much more in Menton’s article that needs to be addressed and I am going to separate those into a second post. However, there is one last statement by Menton to attend to here. You see just about right in the middle of his article Menton dropped an anti-science bomb that seems to render the rest of his arguments effectively meaningless.
Menton: What would it prove if features common to one type of animal were found on another? Nothing. Simply put, God uses various designs with various creatures. Take the platypus, for example—a mosaic. It has several design features that are shared with other animals, and yet it is completely distinct. So if a dinosaur (or mammal) is ever found with feathers, it would call into question our human criteria for classification, not biblical veracity. What’s needed to support evolution is not an unusual mosaic of complete traits, but a trait in transition, such as a “scale-feather,” what creationist biologists would call a “sceather.” [Emphasis mine]
I’ll save my barbs about the platypus, feathered mammals and “sceathers”, for part two, because the main point here (which makes those things and pretty much everything else in his article irrelevant) is Menton’s offhanded dismissal of the significance such things as feathered dinosaurs. His statement essentially boils down to an argument that such things as feathered dinosaurs, fish with feet or “ape-men”—you know, transitional or intermediate forms—are merely the creations of a whimsical deity who chose to arbitrarily to mix and match characteristics of different groups of organisms and are therefore irrelevant. After all God can make anything, in anyway he chooses and for any reason he see fit to do so.
This is also known as “using the miracle card” or an appeal to magic. Dr. Menton is of course free to do this; however, in doing so he abandons all pretence of doing science, or even attempting to make rational arguments.
Why does he bother arguing about different anatomical or physiological features of dinosaurs and birds? Why does he bother to fold, spindle, or mutilate the facts about these things and to misquote scientists regarding them (more on this in part two), if in the end you just going to say, “regardless of the facts, it is the way it is because God did it that way, period”?
It would save everyone a lot of time if he just said this sort of thing up front, so that rational people, who actually accept science and who care about the facts, will know that his claims can be dismissed without further consideration.
So, those are the major things I wanted to address first—and where some of you might want to stop and get off—however, for those of you who are gluttons for punishment, there is, as I said, much more in Dr. Menton’s article that is of false and or misleading nature to be addressed. I will examine those in a separate post.
Fairly warned ye be!
Footnote
*Alan Feduccia is part of a shrinking minority of scientists who deny the evidence that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs in favor of an older hypothesis that birds evolved from an earlier unknown group of archosaurs (a group that includes crocodilians, pterosaurs, dinosaurs and smattering of other extinct types). Their frequent and often strident attacks on the evidence that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs make Feduccia, and others like him (the late Larry Martin for example), the go to scientists for creationists to quote on the subject of bird evolution. Creationists use their attacks on the mainstream view of bird evolution to try to cast doubt on whether birds evolved at all.
See:
- Publishing with a hidden agenda: why birds simply cannot be dinosaurs by Darren Naish
- Dinosaurs of a Feather: Some researchers insist that birds are not dinosaurs, but do they have any evidence? by Brian Switek
References
Dingus, Lowell & Rowe, Timothy (1998) The Mistaken Extinction, W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, NY
Fedducia, Alan (1999) The Origin and Evolution of Birds (2nd Edition), Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Fowler DW, Freedman EA, Scannella JB, Kambic RE (2011) “The Predatory Ecology of Deinonychus and the Origin of Flapping in Birds“, PLoS ONE 6(12): e28964
Galton, Peter M. (1970) “Ornithischian Dinosaurs and the Origin of Birds”, Evolution, 24(2): 448-462
Ostrom, John H. (1969) “Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an Unusual Theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana”, Peabody Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 30:1-165
What “hope” do you have being an evolutionist?
PCwP has recently received comments from a couple of antievolutionists and this has roused me to action (having some time off work for the holidays doesn’t hurt either). The first was a collection of insult ridden rants left at miscellaneous posts by someone going by the handle “Rylore” —those I will deal with, at length in a separate article.
The second was a single, more civil comment, left at my first article about Dinny the Dinosaur (and how it has been taken over by creationists) by a Allyssa Korzeniewski. I will address her comments here.
Ms. Korzeniewski appears to be involved in a couple of blogs, Faith With Love and Creation Artist. According information given on those blogs she seems to have been influenced by the likes of Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and both “Dr.” Kent Hovind (currently serving time for tax evasion) and his son Eric Hovind, all proponents of young Earth creationism.
So without further ado, Ms. Korzeniewski:
Alyssa Korzeniewski: Sad, that this is your take on life. What hope do you have? I was an evolutionist like you once, I had no hope, no comfort.
I don’t see that I gave a “take on life” in the article you commented on but regardless, Ms. Korzeniewski, please try to understand that from my point of view you might as well asked what hope I have given that I accept the atomic theory of matter, the germ theory of disease, or the theory of relativity. The question is nonsensical; it is like asking if mathematics tastes good or what color philosophy is.
This is because scientific theories, the theory of evolution included, are not intended to give one either hope or comfort (whatever that might mean) rather they are intended to be testable explanatory frameworks for what we observe (facts) in the natural world around us. Moreover, the explanations they offer are tested in an ongoing basis by making further observations of the natural world, not by how well they conform to our philosophical, political or religious predilections. Nor are they to be judged by subjective emotional responses they might evoke in us as individuals, be it the warm fuzzies or nihilistic despair.
So if you are judging the findings of science on how it makes you feel, I would say you are making a categorical mistake.
On the other hand, doing the opposite and letting the findings of science inform your politics or religion etc. is perfectly reasonable. If that means abandoning some cherished beliefs, well, them’s the breaks.
Oh, and no offense (well maybe just a little), but I sincerely doubt that you were ever an evolutionist like me. Those of us that defend evolution against its detractors hear such comments on a regular basis; however, the people making them invariably show themselves to be largely ignorant of evolutionary theory and often science in general. For example, the fact that you seem to think that personal emotional responses are somehow relevant to the veracity of evolutionary theory is a big red flag indicating that you were never like me.
Alyssa Korzeniewski: I looked at the creation info and was willing to humble myself and be saved, it’s very sad that you have not been willing to look at the truth.
Red flag (with fireworks) number two is the fact that you apparently put credence in “the creation info” of not only the ICR and AiG but in Kent Hovind, who even other creationists have taken to task over his willingness to use “fallacious arguments and incorrect information” (talk about the pot calling the kettle black).
I am sorry but these people are an absolute fount of misinformation, half-truths and lies. If you take some time to read some of the article on my blog you can see where I have documented this many, many times. Please understand, I am not simply talking about their not accepting evolution or any scientific theory, I am talking about the fact that they regularly and systematically get straightforward verifiable facts completely wrong.
That you apparently do not see this is a huge sign that you were never anything like me.
As for my being willing to “look at the truth” as you see it, I can only laugh. I have dedicated much of my free time (and money) over the last twenty years to studying creationism, collecting creationist literature, reading their web sites and going to their lectures & debates.
I have nearly four hundred books and pamphlets espousing creationist “truth”, how many books on evolutionary biology do you have Ms. Korzeniewski? How many lectures on evolution have you attended? How much of the Talk Origins Archive have you read?
However, please condescend to me some more about how unwilling I have been to look at your supposed truth, I really cannot get enough.
Alyssa Korzeniewski: How are you even able to tell right from wrong without God?
The philosophical question about where we derive our morals and ethics from is not one I am particularly interested in debating. Not that it is not an interesting and important topic, it just not my thing. However, suffice to say I do not find divine command “theory” particularly compelling.
To start you might want to read up on the Euthyphro dilemma.
Alyssa Korzeniewski: “2Ti_4:4 they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Ms. Korzeniewski, if you assume, as you seem to have done, that I am an unbeliever in the Christian religion what possible effect did you think quoting Christian scripture would have on me? If someone does not believe the Bible is the word of God, you might just as well quote something from The Lord of the Rings or The Wizard of Oz at them.
Worse, the quote you used practically begs the unbeliever to turn it back on to you. For example:
“Turned unto fables”? You mean fables like the one about the garden with magic fruit trees and a talking snake? Or the fable about the old guy who built a giant boat and took two of every sort of animal on it to escape a global flood?
I mean it practically screams projection.
Now Ms. Korzeniewski, if you would like to discuss the scientific merits of creationism I am certainly willing. Perhaps you would like to present what you think the single best scientific evidence supportive of creationism might be? Remember though, arguments against evolution do not count.
Thank you for your comments.
Answering feedback on Haeckel’s embryo drawings
A commenter named Brad, who is apparently a creationist, left a comment to one of my recent posts. In that post, “Creationist foists “fraudulent” embryo picture on his readers“, I talked about how creationist Brian Thomas ironically used a biologically inaccurate picture of a human embryo to illustrate his article in which he denies the evidence for evolution from developmental biology and implies that all such evidence is based on the supposedly fraudulent embryo drawings 19th century biologist Ernst Haeckel.
Not wanting it to be neglected in the comments section, I have moved my response to Brad up to a full post.
Brad: Wow, evolution is like magic. It turns gills into ears, tonsils, and glands (and part of the larynx).
There is no magic involved in evolution, you’re thinking of creationism, the very heart of which is the claim that living things are the miraculous creations of a supernatural being.
Brad: Calculate the odds…
Since by all available evidence it did in fact happen, the odds are 100%.
Brad: Granted, it was a bad choice with the stock photo; however, that’s possibly an oversight vs. the intentional use of known fraudulent drawings for decades in school textbooks.
I would suggest that it was an “oversight” brought on by ignorance of the subject and a lack of curiosity to even check. As for the recycling of Haeckel’s embryo illustrations in textbooks (as illustrations of evidence rather than as a historical reference) this due to the regrettable and all too common laziness on the part of textbook publishers who often recycle not just images but even language as well. See: Stephen Jay Gould’s essay “The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone” (Gould 1991).
I agree that some* of Haeckel’s drawings exaggerated overall similarity of the embryos they depict and that more accurate illustrations should be used. However, I am unaware of any fundamental anatomical inventions in the illustrations that if corrected would affect the evidence from comparative embryology for evolution.
So, please explain in your own words exactly what anatomical details were altered in Haeckel’s drawings that created evidence for evolution where none exists in actual vertebrate embryos.
Remember, specific anatomical details and in your own words. I don’t want quotes of vague generalities from other people. You’ll note that in my post on pharyngeal clefts at no point did simply I quote some scientists opinion that the pharyngeal apparatus of amniote embryos are homologous to the pharyngeal apparatus of “fish”. Instead I pointed to the anatomical and genetic evidence for this.
If you are going to argue against this, then you are going to have to do likewise. And if you want to present an alternative scientific explanation you are going to have to present something that is logical, coherent, makes reference to the empirical evidence at hand and does not rely on untestable miracles or divine fiat.
Brad: O’Rahilly and Müller stated that ‘the pharyngeal clefts of vertebrate embryos … are neither gills nor slits’.1
I don’t have this reference handy and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to get to my local university’s science library (whose website says they have it) I was able to find a later edition on Amazon with a free preview which allowed me to get what seems like the relevant section. If the older edition has any important differences please let me know (assuming you have the book and didn’t just cut and past the quote from a creationist and/or anti-abortion website).
Here is the the section which seem to contain Brad’s quote with the part Brad quoted in red:
Recapitulation, the So-Called Biogenetic Law.
The theory that successive stages of individual development (ontogeny) correspond with (“recapitulate”) successive adult ancestors in the line of evolutionary descent (phylogeny) became popular in the nineteenth century as the so-called biogenetic law. This theory of recapitulation, however, has had a “regrettable influence on the progress of embryology” (G. de Beer). The work of Carl Ernst von Baer in 1828 was much closer to the mark. According to the “laws” of von Baer, general characters (e.g., brain, notochord) appear in development earlier than special characters (e.g., limbs, hair). Furthermore, during its development an animal departs more and more from the form of other animals. Indeed, the early stages in the development of an animal are not like the adult stages of other forms but resemble only the early stages of those animals. The pharyngeal clefts of vertebrate embryos, for example, are neither gills nor slits. Although a fish elaborates this region into gill slits, in reptiles, birds, and mammals it is converted into such structures as the tonsils and the thymus. According to the hourglass model of evolutionary development, a conserved pattern of developmental gene expression is linked with considerable resemblance among embryos of different species at a constricted phase, whereas divergence is found earlier and later. Morphological evidence for such a phase, however, is unconvincing (Richardson et al., 1997). (O’Rahilly & Müller 2001, p. 16)
Although there are issues I could take with their description of recapitulation as necessarily being about a strict correspondence between embryos and the adult forms of ancestors or with the short shrift they give the concept of the phylotypic stage (at least in this paragraph), however those are really nuanced points that are not necessary to get into here.
One point I will quibble with regards the presence of slits in certain amniote embryos.
Everything I have seen on the subject indicates that the pharyngeal clefts of some “reptiles” and birds do normally perforate during development and are therefore technically “slits” for a short time before they re-close. This also sometimes occurs in mammals, including humans, though it is not a normal condition. (see my earlier article for links). Also they’ve left out any reference to the larvae of amphibians some of which do develop functional gill slits.
Beyond that, they are absolutely correct, the pharyngeal apparatus of amniotes never function as gills and as I said in one of my earlier posts, I don’t know of any biologist who has ever claimed that they do, save one, the creationist Louis Agassiz.
The Great Satan, Ernst Haeckel, stated in no uncertain terms in his writings that these structures never function as respiratory organs in amniote embryos.
It is not required that the pharyngeal apparatus of amniote embryo function as gills for them to be evidence—not absolute, stand alone proof, but evidence—of their ancestors aquatic nature any more than it is necessary for the hind limb buds of whale embryos to function as working legs for them to be evidence that their ancestors once walked on land.
Brad: Blechschmidt is more forceful, concluding that ‘the so-called basic law of biogenetics is wrong.
The late Erich Blechschmidt (1904-1992) was a scientific outlier (as are some of his followers, i.e. Brian Freeman). That is his views were not representative of developmental biologists as a whole. Creationists love to quote Blechschmidt and other outliers such as Alan Feduccia (who denies that birds are descended from dinosaurs) and Charles Oxnard (who denies that australopithecines are human ancestors) in an attempt to make it seem as if they are tapping into some real controversy amongst scientists. In reality they are just quoting people who are only slightly less on the fringe of science than themselves.
You can find someone with an advanced degree that will say just about anything. For example there is PhD astronomer (and creationist) Gerardus Bouw who argues that the Earth is the center of the solar system.
In this case Blechschmidt (and Freeman) seem to be the source for creationists absurd argument that pharyngeal clefts are merely “flexion folds” caused by the bending of the embryonic neck (Freeman 2001).
As for the biogenetic law, no one is arguing for that. If you read the article you were commenting under you would have seen that I quoted Michael Richardson (a critic of Haeckel) as saying that there are studies which support the recapitulation of individual character transformations, just not whole ancestral stages (Richardson & Keuck 2002, p. 522)
Brad: ” ‘No buts or ifs can mitigate this fact.’ He adds that the gill stage myth is ‘not even a tiny bit correct or correct in a different form…It is totally wrong’. 2 This view is shared by many mainstream embryologists.
No, it is not.
Although among the strongest opponents to Haeckel in recent years, and favourably differing from him by a paramount respect for detail, Blechschmidt resembled Haeckel in several respects: they both were intrepid and very persuasive defenders of their views, they were both artists at heart – witness Haeckel’s illustrations and Blechschmidt’s giantsized models of human embryos – and, most importantly in the present context, they both stuck to some outdated ideas not shared by the majority of contemporaneous biologists: Haeckel remained Lamarckist, defending the inheritance of acquired characters throughout his life, and Blechschmidt strove to maintain the special status of Man by condemning any embryological interpretation or terminology suggesting his descent from other vertebrates. (Sander 2002, p. 531, emphasis mine)
So Blechschmidt apparently had issues with accepting the evolutionary development of humans from other animals. As I said an outlier with an extreme minority view.
Brad: in the end, this is probably an argument evolutionists should give up on.
You’ll understand, I hope, that this evolutionist will not be taking advice on what is or is not valid evidence from a creationist.
Brad: But keep right on with it if you insist, it just makes dogmatic evolutionists sound nuts.
Only to those too ignorant to know better and/or too intellectually lazy to look up the evidence for themselves.
*Note: I am thinking primarily of the first stage shown in the comparative embryo illustration in the 3rd edition of his Anthropogenie (1874)
References
Freeman, Brian (2001) “The Myth of the “Biogenetic Law””, The American Biology Teacher 63(2):84
Gould, Stephen Jay (1991) “The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone”, in: Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History, W.W. Norton & Co., pp. 155-167
O’Rahilly, Ronan & Müller, Fabiola (2001) Human Embryology & Teratology, 3rd Edition, Wiley-Liss
Richardson, Michael & Keuck, Gerhard (2002) “Haeckel’s ABC of evolution and development“, Biological Reviews, 77: 495-528
Sander, Klaus (2002) “Ernst Haeckel’s ontogenetic recapitulation: irritation and incentive from 1866 to our time”, Annals of Anatomy 184:523-533
We wouldn’t want to be accused of viewpoint discrimination…
Another Pharyngula podcast with yours truly
The first part was on intelligent design creationists latest attacks on some of the genetic evidence for human evolution. The second was a ostensibly on humanism but strayed into issues surrounding the internecine warfare going on in the skeptic/atheist community over issues of feminism (which I will not touch with a light-year long pole) and progressive politics. Being of a slightly libertarian bent, I bit my tongue and let the anti-libertarian jibs go by (I am used to being casually libeled and slandered by my liberal Democrat friends).
Creationist foists “fraudulent” embryo picture on his readers
I decided I am not going to bury the lead on this one. Brian Thomas of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) just posted another in a long line of creationist screeds attacking the evidence for evolution from comparative embryology, which as usual claims that the evidence is based on fraud and pins much of the blame for it on 19th century biologist Ernst Haeckel.
I began writing a rebuttal straight away but then I happened to take a second look at the bright pink image of an embryo atop the article and it brought me to a sudden halt. So, having backed up, let me start again.
Thomas: German zoologist Ernst Haeckel is perhaps most famous for defending evolution with the argument that creatures replay their evolutionary past when developing in the womb. …In his zeal to promote evolution, Haeckel foisted faulty embryo sketches onto his readers, and the zeal of his followers has perpetuated those falsehoods for over a century. (Thomas 2012, emphasis mine)
Yeah, about that…
That’s right, yet another irony meter has been reduced to subatomic particles by a creationist.
Playing Chess with Pigeons 
