I'll let Cali or Spearthrower or ADParker of one of the more educated posters tear it apart. If they choose to waste their time on more specious creotard bullshit, that is.

Among the basic errors she makes: You cannot expect every single individual genetic sequence to produce the same phylogenetic tree. A simple illustration: It is obvious that you could have inherited a gene from your great grandfather that your brother does not possess, but which your second cousin does. Just going by this single gene, you would conclude that you are more closely related to (i.e. share a more recent common ancestor with) your 2nd cousin than to your brother. But that is obviously false. If you were to investigate more candidate sequences, however, you would arrive at the correct phylogenetic relationship. Hence the need to construct a phylogenetic tree thru calculating a number of different candidate trees. My layperson's understanding, anyway.

felltoearth wrote:Her bio from the Reasonable Faith Website.

http://www.reasonablefaithdallas.org/index.php?id=143

Patricia Fanning, PhD - Patricia is an RNA biochemist with a PhD from North Carolina State
University and is currently a visiting scholar at RTB. As a high school student, Patricia won the
Louisiana State Science Fair for biochemistry.

I don't want to go all Godwin, but whenever I see the failure to launch of so-called creationist "scientists" I can't help but think of Hitler as a failed artist.

I can't find anything otherwise on this person. She is apparently a scholar and academic yet doesn't seem to have published a thing, and whose greatest accomplishment is a PhD (in what, we aren't ever told) and winning a high school science fair.

Thing is, it is only too easy for the readership of the website to assume that a PhD in RNA biochemistry makes someone an expert in phylogenetics. But it has nothing to do with it. She could just as well have a PhD in underwater basketweaving.

I stopped reading the second time that she said that humans were descended from chimps. She knows nothing except her creationist nonsense.

I know it's tempting to stop reading at such an obvious error. But from my limited recall (mostly from R. Dawkins' description in one of his books) she seriously misrepresents the procedure of generating phylogenetic trees. I'd like to hear from someone more expert in the area.

In the absence of the board's heavy hitters, I might as well keep flogging this article. I find it's alway important, when debunking creationist propaganda, to avoid getting too lost in the scientific details of their argument and risk overlooking the more basic logical fallacies that underlie the argument. The present article is a follow up of an earlier one by same the author where she lays out the basic premise:

Though our great-grandfathers may have predicted the next day’s weather based on the color of the sunset, today’s forecasters use complex computer programs to forecast weather. The predicted weather is actually a computer model. The programs that generate these models incorporate our best knowledge of what determines the weather, but, as we all know, they aren’t 100% accurate.

Inaccuracy is especially evident in computer models for projected hurricane paths. When Hurricane Camille threatened the Gulf Coast in 1969, my family gathered around the radio in my uncle’s sturdy brick house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, waiting to hear whether Camille would come into Louisiana through New Orleans or head into Mississippi. It really wasn’t clear which direction Camille would take until just shortly before it made landfall.

Reviewing the story of Camille reminds one that, even today, hurricane forecasting models are often wrong. As a result, hurricane predictions often include alternative paths and the percentage likelihood associated with each possible path. The computer models’ accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the assumptions and the data used to create the model. Changing the assumptions generally changes the predictions of a hurricane’s strength and likely path.

Currently, theistic evolutionists’ argument against a literal Adam and Eve is frequently based on phylogenetic (“the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms”) computer models. The results of these models are presented as absolute truth. In reality, their accuracy, like weather forecasting, is limited by the assumptions on which the model is built, the data used to build the model, and the mathematical approach used to generate the phylogenetic trees.

You'll notice that she avoids following that argument to its logical conclusion. What she is saying is that, because phylogenetic trees cannot be generated with 100% consistency and accuracy, this is reason to doubt the theory of evolution which underlies these trees. Well, why doesn't she apply that to her example of hurricane prediction: Since hurricanes cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy, this means the theory behind this prediction, that hurricanes are caused by the interaction of moist air and warm ocean currents, should not be favoured over the belief that hurricanes are actually cause by magic.

Returning to the second article in a bit more detail: It's hard to be certain because of her mangling of the science, but she seems to be getting her knickers in knot over the fact that only 44% of the 26,909 possible phylogenetic trees are consistent with the phylogenetic relationship that would be predicted by evolutionary theory. She seems unaware that, in a phylogenetic diagram involving 5 species like this one, there are 105 possible patterns that could be derived. And if evolution was not true, then these would be randomly distributed among the trees that are actually calculated. Which means we should not expect any one tree to turn up more than about 1% of the time. But one of them turns up 44% of the time. And this just happens to be the one predicted by evolutionary theory. And she thinks this disproves the theory. Because she's a fucking moron.

Shrunk wrote:In the absence of the board's heavy hitters, I might as well keep flogging this article. I find it's alway important, when debunking creationist propaganda, to avoid getting too lost in the scientific details of their argument and risk overlooking the more basic logical fallacies that underlie the argument. The present article is a follow up of an earlier one by same the author where she lays out the basic premise:

Though our great-grandfathers may have predicted the next day’s weather based on the color of the sunset, today’s forecasters use complex computer programs to forecast weather. The predicted weather is actually a computer model. The programs that generate these models incorporate our best knowledge of what determines the weather, but, as we all know, they aren’t 100% accurate.

Inaccuracy is especially evident in computer models for projected hurricane paths. When Hurricane Camille threatened the Gulf Coast in 1969, my family gathered around the radio in my uncle’s sturdy brick house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, waiting to hear whether Camille would come into Louisiana through New Orleans or head into Mississippi. It really wasn’t clear which direction Camille would take until just shortly before it made landfall.

Reviewing the story of Camille reminds one that, even today, hurricane forecasting models are often wrong. As a result, hurricane predictions often include alternative paths and the percentage likelihood associated with each possible path. The computer models’ accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the assumptions and the data used to create the model. Changing the assumptions generally changes the predictions of a hurricane’s strength and likely path.

Currently, theistic evolutionists’ argument against a literal Adam and Eve is frequently based on phylogenetic (“the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms”) computer models. The results of these models are presented as absolute truth. In reality, their accuracy, like weather forecasting, is limited by the assumptions on which the model is built, the data used to build the model, and the mathematical approach used to generate the phylogenetic trees.

You'll notice that she avoids following that argument to its logical conclusion. What she is saying is that, because phylogenetic trees cannot be generated with 100% consistency and accuracy, this is reason to doubt the theory of evolution which underlies these trees. Well, why doesn't she apply that to her example of hurricane prediction: Since hurricanes cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy, this means the theory behind this prediction, that hurricanes are caused by the interaction of moist air and warm ocean currents, should not be favoured over the belief that hurricanes are actually cause by magic.

Returning to the second article in a bit more detail: It's hard to be certain because of her mangling of the science, but she seems to be getting her knickers in knot over the fact that only 44% of the 26,909 possible phylogenetic trees are consistent with the phylogenetic relationship that would be predicted by evolutionary theory. She seems unaware that, in a phylogenetic diagram involving 5 species like this one, there are 105 possible patterns that could be derived. And if evolution was not true, then these would be randomly distributed among the trees that are actually calculated. Which means we should not expect any one tree to turn up more than about 1% of the time. But one of them turns up 44% of the time. And this just happens to be the one predicted by evolutionary theory. And she thinks this disproves the theory. Because she's a fucking moron.

She's failed to notice that these computer models added weight to the already available evidence then.