The latest canard I've heard is: We have silica and traces of dirt in our bodies therefore this proves God because he made Adam out of dirt.

Okay, admittedly this is way out of my areas of knowledge and so obscure I so far haven't found any websites about it but I'm assuming it's just another Creationist misrepresentation because, well, the odds.

Traces? Fuck traces. Our bodies are mostly water, salt and other soluble minerals. Like the sea. Proving that we were made by Poseidon.

You see how easy it is to ram this kid of nonsense right back up a Creatard's sphincter, the orifice from whence it emerges?

Every human farts, often with gusto and alacrity, therefore we were created by the Anemoi.

Moonwatcher wrote:The latest canard I've heard is: We have silica and traces of dirt in our bodies therefore this proves God because he made Adam out of dirt.

Okay, admittedly this is way out of my areas of knowledge and so obscure I so far haven't found any websites about it but I'm assuming it's just another Creationist misrepresentation because, well, the odds.

This actually sounds like something that would be put out by Landover Baptist (which is a spoof on the excesses of fundamentalist lunacy), but that doesn't mean that a real creationist wouldn't try and peddle a notion this stupid, of course.

First of all, if anyone did seriously peddle this tripe in my direction, my first question would be "Citation?" Only my understanding is that silicon is an element that doesn't see much action in animal tissues outside of the sponges, though it is more important for organisms such as diatoms and grasses, which secrete silica for structural purposes.

The mere fact that the entire med chem research and development environment has been pretty unenthusiastic about incorporating even single silicon atoms into potential drug candidate molecules, courtesy of the fact that silicon chemistry exhibits well-documented substantive differences from carbon chemistry, and is of more importance to geologists than the average molecular biologist (save for those working with diatoms, for example), on its own tells you much that you need to know. If the big med-chem research money spenders (a.k.a, the big drug companies) were using silicon to any notable extent, this would have appeared in the literature a long time ago. This post from someone in the industry (and the following comments) should give you an idea of the state of the art research wise there, and note that the author explicitly states the following:

That brings up what I mentioned in my past last year, though: perhaps it would be better for silicon-containing drugs if there were something unusual about them. Admittedly, that could also be “unusually bad”, but overall, it’s harder to make the case for moving to silicon if the effects of doing so are (a) not huge and (b) not all that predictable. You’re already in that zone with carbon analogs, most likely, so why bother? The paper itself has this to say:

This lack of success in the pharmaceutical industry may be attributed to two key factors: (1) an absence of general and accessible synthetic methods for the construction of appropriately functionalized silicon-containing molecules and (2) ineffective approaches to the utilization of silicon, of which the “carbon/silicon switch” is the most common.

I think that second point is what we’re talking about. “Ineffective approaches to the utilization of silicon”, from another angle, means “lack of a good reason to use it at all”. If some effective uses for it can be found – and they may well be out there, who knows? – then things will change. But not until then. If the late-stage silicon switch doesn’t necessarily get you anything, it’s true that you’re going to have to look earlier (good activity in a silicon-containing compound that isn’t replicated by its carbon analog), and this work is an attempt to provide a host of new Si-containing chemical matter towards that end.

In short, silicon containing organic molecules are usually tricky to synthesise, there are relatively few them known, and amongst those that are known, the typical use tends to be to poison things classified as "vermin" by humans. The examples cited in that blog post of silicon containing organics include flusilazone (fungicide), simeconazole (another fungicide), the various unusual silatranes (some of which were tested as possible rat poisons), silafluofen (pyrethroid insecticide) - you get the picture.

Furthermore, as mentioned there, the Material Safety Data Sheets on many silanes mentions cataract formation in the eye as a risk factor to exposure thereupon. Many of the simple silanes are also fairly strong reducing agents chemically, and a good number of silane compounds are pyrophoric (i.e., spontanously combust in air). Indeed, the principal use for many organosilicon compounds in the organic chemistry laboratory, is as fairly potent reagents for a range of reactions that are otherwise difficult to perform, and the requisite reactions are generally conducted in an inert argon atmosphere, in order to avoid those silicon-containing reagents starting major fires in the lab. Admittedly, they're not as bad as the serious favourite compounds of pyromaniac chemists, such as trimethylaluminium or the dialkyl zincs, both of which are flamethrowers par excellence that have to be stored and used in an inert atmosphere. But silane-type reagents are dangerous enough outside of skilled hands - just as you wouldn't want amateurs messing about with Grignard reagents, you also wouldn't want them engaging in horseplay with various trimethylsilyl compounds, though the results would probably be less lethal than an accident involving, say, tertiary butyllithium.

Now, of course, there's another question that needs to be asked at this juncture if some idiot tries pulling this one, namely "er, exactly what do you mean by 'dirt'?" Which takes us into the wonderful world of soil chemistry, and in turn rapidly opens up an expansive vista, that even specialists in the field have not explored as much to their liking as they would wish. Quite simply, even after you sweep aside the whole soil ecology issue (which means removing all the living organisms from your soil - not an easy task), you're still looking at some fairly intricate chemistry being pressed into service, to work out what's actually contained in your soil sample.

Of course, the typical uneducated sort that gravitates toward fundamentalist religion, and who reaches to clutch desperately at apologetic straws, in order to continue clinging to made up shit mythology, will not bother with the tedious business of paying attention in classes for over a decade to acquire even a tiny percentage of the available knowledge I've hinted at above. This on its own tells you something important. Namely, that whilst apologetics can be troublesome to deal with in detail, as one reaches for that available knowledge, you can be pretty sure that the moment apologetics is ever introduced into discourse, whoever is guilty of this heinous affront to proper discourse will have engaged in precious little diligent thought on the matter. Said pedlar of apologetics generally restricts his effort to "what shit can I make up to make my mythology sound like something other than bad fiction?" Recognition of this basic fact is useful in saving much wasted effort dealing with apologetics, because instead of wasting time filling in the vast knowledge gaps inherent therein, the best way of dealing with apologetics is to demonstrate instead how little actual thought went into them, probing step by step how much said pedlar of apologetics lacks even elementary knowledge of the entities and interactions he's trying to press into service. This, along with demands for proper citations from actual scientific literature instead of more made up shit from apologetics websites, is an effective prophylactic against the apologetics disease.

The whole discussion I'm in elsewhere is in Gish Gallop territory anyway. The dirt thing was a distraction from the fossil evidence and how the pattern is more primitive life to more advanced as we get closer to the present. Now it's "What about the starfish? It hasn't changed?"

Moonwatcher wrote:The whole discussion I'm in elsewhere is in Gish Gallop territory anyway. The dirt thing was a distraction from the fossil evidence and how the pattern is more primitive life to more advanced as we get closer to the present. Now it's "What about the starfish? It hasn't changed?"

Ah, the Harun Yahya bop. The one that led him to post fishing lures in his expensive book.

Except that just because modern starfish species exhibit the same bauplan as fossil species, doesn't mean they are the same species by any stretch of the imagination. It's a pity we don't have working time travel to bring into play here, because if we did, it would be a simple matter to hop back to, say, the Jurassic era, pick a starfish species from that era, bring it back to the present, and demonstrate complete reproductive incompatibility between said Jurassic starfish and its modern descendants. Indeed, that Jurassic starfish might not even have the same karyotype number as any modern species.

Indeed, that's a point I've been making ever since the publication of that paper on Cynotilapia afra Cichlid fishes in Lake Malawi - allow enough generations to elapse, and the distant descendants eventually cease to become reproductively compatible with their lineal ancestors. Numerous scientists working with Drosophila have demonstrated this process taking place in those flies in a space of time as short as five years, once reproductive isolation is enforced upon a given population thereof. If the human species lasts that long, our distant lineal descendants five million years in the future will probably be reproductively incompatible with us, despite the fact that we were the ones that ultimately brought those descendants into being. Which means that the human population will have manifestly changed over that time, even if its members retain a superficially identical bauplan.

That's before we consider modern documented examples of wholesale population genetic change, such as that resulting in Hyla versicolor emerging from ancestral Hyla chrysocelis. The two frogs look superficially very similar, but boy, are they different genetically. Courtesy of the fact that whilst H. chrysocelis remains a diploid organism, H. versicolor is now tetraploid. H. versicolor has two complete copies of the original H. chrysocelis genome, with its chromosomes arranged in sets of four instead of sets of two, along with any diverging mutations that may have accumulated since the split. We're fortunate that scientists alighted upon this split between the two at a relatively early point in time after it occurred, when enough of the original H. chrysocelis genome was still detectable as such - move forward another 5 million years, and H. versicolor could undergo other rearrangements, making the detection of its true ancestry a much more involved project.

Once again, it's the population genetics that matter, not superficial appearances.

God...



(Jokes aside, that's a darn fine sand sculpture. From here.)

Surrounded by naked women and kids. Totally how I imagine the Church's creation to look like.

Michelangelo was fond of nudes.

We have traces of gold in our bodies, which proves that humans and leprechauns have a common ancestor.

Arcanyn wrote:We have traces of gold in our bodies, which proves that humans and leprechauns have a common ancestor.

...and mercury! For we are all but messengers!

I have traces of alcohol in my blood, proving that I was created by Bacchus.

I also have traces of cheese in my digestive system. I have no idea what this proves but unless Jesus was a dairy farmer, he isn’t fucking involved and neither is his dad.

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

ARISTAIOS (Aristaeus) was the rustic god of shepherds and cheesemaking, beekeeping, honey and honey-mead, olive growing and oil milling, medicinal herbs, hunting, and the Etesian winds which provided some respite from the scorching heat of midsummer. His name was derived from the Greek word aristos, "most excellent" or "most useful."

Interesting site:

http://www.theoi.com/