Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

Thanks for joining us in the discussion of Intelligent Design,
I'm the one he was talking to, we were discussing Dr.
Chien's findings at Chengjiang. I don't know why the link
keep disappearing.

http://www.origins.org/articles/chie...ionoflife.html
"Take all the different body plans of roundworms, flatworms, coral,
jellyfish and whatever all those appeared at the very first instant."


Dr. Chien has no findings at Chengjiang. He went there once, and looked
at some fossils people showed him.


You're very generous. He didn't claim to have made discoveries there
but he spent time with those who had at the site and presents his
visit with an international group as being informed to what the discoveries
were. those were his findings, you don't need to be so defensive.

He said:

"Yes, it's the site of the first marine animal found in the early Cambrian times
we don't count micro-organisms as animals."


Why is that wrong?


Because the Chengjiang is preceded by a host of marine animals,
including the "small, shelly fauna" of the earliest Cambrian and the
Ediacarans and Doushantuo embryos of the Vendian, as well as gradually
increasing animal trace fossils starting in the Vendian.

He said it's the site of the first animals found in the early Cambrian times.
I asked why that was wrong and you countered with findings in
the Vendian period. That doesn't make sense.


Note the use of 'earliest Cambrian' and also note the relationship
between Vendian and Cambrian.


"Since the Cambrian period, we have only die-off and no new groups
coming about, ever. There's only one little exception cited the group
known as bryozoans, which are found in the fossil record a little later.
However, most people think we just haven't found it yet; that group was
probably also present in the Cambrian explosion."


He agrees on the bryozoans, but he doesn't appear to know that the
majority of modern phyla have no fossil record. We have no data to tell
us whether Bryozoa originated in the Ordovician or earlier. But if they
did originate earlier, then they only developed mineralized skeletons in
the Ordovician.


Can you explain your assertion? What leads you to believe that he
doesn't know that the majority of modern phyla have no fossil record?

Obviously, absent a fossil record there is no direct observational
evidence that those phyla were present in the Cambrian.

You essentially repeat what he said, i.e. that the Bryozoa was found in
the later period. How does that lead to your conclusion?

Straw man. That is not what leads to his conclusion.


...

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is
infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether
through design or stupidity, I do not know-- as admitting that the
fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are
generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between
larger groups."

- Gould, Stephen Jay 1983. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Hens
Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History. New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 258-260.


Well, if it was really that simple he wouldn't need "punctuated equilibrium"
would he? Clearly the record is a stumbling block with myriads of
theories so he seems to be downplaying the objection quite a bit.
1983 was a while ago, are they any closer to an answer?


The point is actually that you don't even know the question.


We go from wild sweeping allegations to outright insults. That didn't
take long now did it? You also avoided my question, are we any closer
to an answer?

That was not an insult at all. Odd that you would think it so.


...

But I hope at least you will retract your claim about what Gould
said.

No way! Mr Humplebacker will simply insist that his intepretation
of Dr Gould's remarks is superior to Gould's interpretation of
his own words.



What for? You should explain first why his theory is reasonable.
ID gets flak because it isn't testable so why doesn't Gould, or anyone
else, need to meet the same challenge?


Or just change the subject.

....

Dr. Chien sited his source as being from Johnson's book so I suppose
it remains to be seen how accurate Johnson was. It seems Gould has
made that comment throughout the years, perhaps in different contexts.
However, it's a small point and I doubt that's why your group was recruited.


Discussions tend to be better when at least some of the
participants actually know something about the subject matter.
I have a very weak background in biology, paleontology, and
geology. Mr Humplebacker it would seem, never even took,
or at any rate, passed, a biology course. People who frequent
sci.bio.paleontology are likely to know enough to correct most
or all of our misstatements, allowing this, er, discussion, to
evolve from an exchange of ignorance into an exchange of knowledge.

...

Also you may be interested in a growing list of scientists that are
seriously questioning Darwinian Evolution.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:I...ient=firefox-a


This list is bogus.

Oh my.

Uh, Mr Harshman, I've been over this with him. Mr Humplebacker
insists that everyone on that list must support 'ID', even though
neither 'ID' nor anything resembling it appears in the statement
itself. That conclusion appears to be solidly based on two false
assumptions:

1) It is not possible to question an idea without supporitng an
alternative. 2) ID is the only alternative to 'Darwinian Evolution'.
For a time he insisted that transmutation and macromutation
theory were 'Darwinian Evolution'. By now it would appear that
he is beginning to accept that they are not, but instead has
adopted the policy of insisting every scientist has rejected
everything but 'Darwinian evolution' and 'ID'.

Further, it appears that Mr Humplebacker equates 'to question'
with 'to reject' so that anyone who 'questions Darwinian
evolution' supports 'ID'. Evidently that is exactly what
the DI intended.



Many of the signers had no idea it would be used to
support creationism. It was a bait-and-switch that relied on the
ambiguity of "Darwinian evolution" to attract customers. But if you like
lists, try Project Steve:


Well, there's one guy who says he was later embarrassed to get involved,
although the Discovery site is available and makes no bones about
it's intent. He doesn't really say that his view on Darwinian Evolution changed
though, just that he's troubled on how it's used.


False. See:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...9_danny24.html

In addition he says:

"the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming."

"When I joined I didn't think they were about bashing evolution.
It's pseudo-science, at best ... What they're doing is instigating
a conflict between science and religion."

He was shocked, he says, when he saw the Discovery Institute was
calling evolution a "theory in crisis."

"It's laughable: There have been millions of experiments [perhaps an
exageration, FF] over more than a century that support evolution,"
he says. "There's always questions being asked about parts of the
theory, as there are with any theory, but there's no real scientific
controversy about it."

"It just clicked with me that this whole movement is wrongheaded on
all counts," Davidson said. "It's a misuse of science, and a misuse
of religion.

"Why can't we just keep the two separate?"

More of what he ostensibly said was paraphrased by the author
of the article, those are just some direct quotes.

--

FF