Now this is just painful. Stevie decided to do a video rendition of his ridiculous Indoctrination article.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGqyy9X7 ... re=channel

It's basically three minutes and eighteen seconds of pure fail but I want to read what the rest of you think.

Who was the singer, and orchestra, in the music? Doesn't someone deserve at least a credit line, or is Steve also a gifted singer? Fair use? hmmmmm!

RS

I'd love to see how that could be cited as fair use. Unless, of course, he cited it as educational with regard to what utter fuckwittery looks like and how to avoid looking stupid.

Hey guys, I found a paradox.

1)The number of buildings in the country are increasing
2)I tried to summon a building in a plot of land I bought, but it didn't appear.
3)Therefore, evolution is false.

Q.E.D.

haha

SPMaximus wrote:What the fuck did I just watch?

A video produced by a human being who just might be an insult to nature...

Let's see if we can focus less on name-calling and more on the points that he tried to make in the video.

(1) Your answers don't match the question posed, and you have no idea.

He's been told repeatedly that the questions he poses are all based on a misrepresentation of legitimate science and questions like that are never going to be answered the way he wants them to be answered, especially if he's going to reject whatever reply he gets.

(2) You dole out memorized groupthink dogma.

Failure to understand the concept of Scientific Consensus.

(3) You respond with demeaning which means you don't know.

All they're doing is pointing out how he's not qualified to make such sweeping statements, especially with no evidence to back them up.

(4) You play the religion card..."fairies, invisible men in the sky..."AKA you don't know.

ID requires an invisible, IE supernatural, agent of some sort and he seems utterly oblivious to this factor. Then there's the fact that most anti-evolution positions are motivated by religious beliefs and he doesn't know that, or at least he thinks that's not the case for him.

(5) You answer with trite epithets AKA you don't know.

Epithet: noun, and descriptive phrase that goes with a particular person, place, or thing. Given the word's general definition and the context in which he's using it, I think he doesn't even know what the word means, or at least how to use it properly.

(6) You refer me to books, vids that "know". They don't know.

Sighting a source is an extremely important attribute in any legitimate claim or scientific paper because it adds good verifiable weight to the argument. Steve never has any appreciation for this and decides to simply skim through and quote-mine the paper.

(7) You reject facts of nature that go against evolution.

A fact is a unit of information that is observably true beyond dispute and baseless claims or misrepresented science simply cannot qualify as such.

(8) You are 100% sure that you know how nature formed.

100% sure only applies to religion. The backbone of modern biology is NOT a religion.

(9) You have no notion that you just might have been fooled by these guys.

In this bit he shows shots of Dawklins, PZ Myers, that woman from the National Center for Science Education, and another guy who's name escapes me. Steve seems to love the evil evolution conspiracy idea that all the big-wigs who stand up for science are all frauds. Why he thinks this is anyone's guess.

(10) You accept any pro-evo scenario, no matter how absurd.
"...ape/man ran after animal and this is how we got our skin..."
"...they evolved four legs and fur. Then they went back into the ocean and became whales and, and..."

After that crack about the whales, he goes on to quote-mine TJ McGovern. As a Straw-Man argument, the first scenario he mentions is just sad. Apes had already had their skin since way before they started walking upright and he claims that somehow walking or running meant having to loose all that thick hair on their bodies.
The crack about whales can be best described as an over-generalization even if there is a fair amount of truth to it. Maybe whales lost their fur and hind legs because there was no longer any need for them while in the water. He doesn't seem to consider all the possibilities and the claim lacks depth because of that.

CADman2300 wrote:As a Straw-Man argument, the first scenario he mentions is just sad.

Steve's whole worldview is just sad. He dismisses arguments and evidence as 'groupthink' without ever bothering himself to understand them, and is ignorant of scientific sources such as Nature and Science, dismissing them as 'magazines'. It strikes me that his is a tragicomic quest for internet immortality. Pathetic.

In my case, what led me to regard his assorted eructations with well deserved scorn and derision, was the fact that he was manifestly unaware of important research arising from his own purported field, and when presented with said research, resorted to playing duplicitous apologetic with that research. I find it quite remarkable to be told by someone purporting to have been a professional dentist, that the published scientific papers I have alighted upon are supposedly worthless because they happen not to genuflect before his ignorance. A classic example being how, when I mentioned that researchers are working toward direct manipulation of stem cells in order to allow dentists in the future to grow human teeth in vitro, with a view to using what is learned from that process to develop a whole new branch of regenerative dentistry, Stevebee dismissed the entire area of research as purportedly being a 'fantasy'. Even if it takes 20 years to come to fruition, I'm going to enjoy seeing that research bear fruit, and make a mockery of Stevebee's assertions that this will never happen.

You are a pessimist, Cali. Cloned mouse molars were available in 2008.

natselrox wrote:You are a pessimist, Cali. Cloned mouse molars were available in 2008.

Amazing how science works isn't it?

Oh I'm aware of the literature on rodent dentition, indeed, several of the papers I presented over at RDF covered this topic, including the not so insignificant matter of changing the tooth fate of the relevant rodent cells by modifying bmp4 and fgf8 signalling. However, work on human teeth is still a little way behind, because researchers want to be sure that they've learned everything they need to learn from the animal models first, before moving on to human teeth in a big way.

The video regarding inter-species procreation is simply a false dilemma fallacy.
Your false choice is that either inter-species procreation is responsible for the spread of biological systems across species or intelligent design is responsible, and of course everyone (who actually understands evolutionary theory) knows that inter-species procreation is not responsible so they would of course agree with you that inter-species procreation is not responsible, however, no one but you is suggesting that it could be.
But of course there is an alternative which you dismiss summarily without any explanation whatsoever.

That alternative is common descent.

Whatever attributes we look at, whether it is what you term bio-systems or whatever, what we find through genetics, comparative anatomy, physiology, fossil succession etc. the evidence always points to common descent, and whatever is analysed the same pattern of phylogeny, the one that is the most parsimonious and shows a nested hierarchical structure is one that emerges. This pattern showing a nested hierarchy is explained perfectly well by common ancestry and no other explanation comes close to being an explanation. Now you may assert that common design explains this, but that leads us down an un-falsifiable and therefore unscientific path as no matter what pattern one found one could assert that it was the will of the designer to produce such a pattern.

Just in case you really do not know how the theory does explain the way in which bio-systems are actually propagated to all species that have them I will explain:

Whatever biological system arises, its origins are in a single species and this species' descendants are the only organisms to share the same biological system (ignoring any lateral gene transfer that may be possible). Take for example the respiratory system common to all tetrapods. What we find is that in all species derived from all tetrapods common ancestor the same respiratory system, albeit with some modification, exists. You don't, for instance, get active expiration and negative pressure inspiration in any other forms of life such as insects as they branched off long before the first species that developed the potential to evolve the active respiratory system existed.
So, you see there's no need to even postulate inter-species procreation to propagate the respiratory system the propagation was all from one initial ancestor to all of it's descendants.
The same goes for any biological system you care to name, whether that be the visual system, the circulatory system, the hepatic system or even your favourite subject – teeth.

Oh, and contrary to your assertions over on youtube and your blog, no these various bio-systems did not all have to evolve at the same time in the same common ancestor. If you actually look into it you will see, for example, all vertebrates share the same vision system, so the common ancestor of all vertebrates evolved the vertebrate vision system and propagated that vision system to all it's descendants including the common ancestor of all tetrapods. Therefore, while all vertebrates share the same vision system they do not share the same respiratory system.
For example all fish share the same visual system (along with other vertebrates), however, they do not share the same respiratory system common to all tetrapods. Some fish have a rudimentary lung with which they are able to breathe air, so the most likely share the same common ancestor with all tetrapods and modern lungfish which retain this rudimentary lung split off before the common ancestor of all tetrapods. However, some fish, the cartilaginous fish, have no rudimentary air breathing respiratory system, so their lineage must have split off before this air breathing ability evolved i.e. they have an earlier common ancestor with the other fish and tetrapods than the one that evolved a rudimentary lung. And of course, we have the ray finned fish which have swim bladders, which were most likely derived from the rudimentary lung but are used in those fish for buoyancy rather than breathing, the teleost fish having a swim bladder that is entirely disconnected form the gut which has to be filled by gas internally rather than breathed so these fish must constitute another lineage that, while having a common ancestor with ones that evolved a rudimentary lung, are a separate lineage from that that was the common ancestor of all tetrapods. However, all these lineages share the same visual system, so which came first, quite obviously the vision system, then the rudimentary lung, then the tetrapod respiratory system and in another lineage the swim bladder.

So to sum up:-
Common ancestor 1 evolved the vertebrate vision system which was inherited by all it's subsequent descendants including all fish and tetrapods.
Cartilaginous fish then branched off – they have the same vision system but no air breathing respiratory system or swim bladder.
Common ancestor 2 evolved a rudimentary lung common to all fish except Cartilaginous fish
Ray finned fish then branched of and evolved their swim bladder which was then further specialised in the teleost fish.
Common ancestor 3 evolved a more complex air breathing respiratory system common to all tetrapods but not seen in any fish, especially not those with swim bladders.
Note that no organism has both a swim bladder and a more complex air breathing respiratory system.
Also note that all of these organisms had the vertebrate vision system inherited from common ancestor 1.
Also note that this explanation produces a nested hierarchical structure, each descendent obtaining the characteristics evolved from an earlier ancestor but not obtaining any characteristics that evolved in a different lineage after that common ancestor e.g. no swim bladder in the common ancestor of all tetrapods, i.e. no ISP, exactly like we see in nature no matter which attributes we choose to look at.

Why you fail to acknowledge this simple solution to your false dilemma is beyond me, surely you could explain your objection to us especially in light of my hopefully clear explanation of what is actually proposed by the theory of evolution.

Oh, and as per the other thread rationalskepticism.org: Debunking stevebee92653 youtube video
, it does not matter that no one personally observed any of this happening that does not automatically make it false, that would be argumentum ad ignorantiam. As long as we can postulate a plausible alternative to your false dichotomy that is all that is needed to refute the assertion of your video.

Please come back and discuss this rationally Stevebee, I promise not to rag on you.

Thanks for the rare intelligent answer and discussion. I really wish more people here could discuss as you have. This really is such a fun and fascinating subject. Discussing it should be open and respectful. But oh well.
You run into HUGE problems right at the start. Your explanation is clear, but not correct. The common ancestor to all tetrapods with the visual system you example, also had to evolve ALL of the other organs and systems common to all tetrapods. Hepatic systems, multi-chambered heart/lung/blood/blood vessel/brain controller/cardiac muscle systems, pancreas, gastro-intestinal system, auditory, and on and on, all in one species. You can't simply choose to isolate and discuss one system without addressing all systems. Do you actually think all systems extant and common to all tetrapods evolved in that one single species CA?
Now we must multiply everything that so that all CA's of all modern groups must have evolved all systems common and extant to all species in each CA's descendant groups. Your problem is you isolate one single system, vision, and tell me that that single CA spread that one system to all future tetrapods. You totally ignore the fact that there are many systems to deal with in many different species groups. For example, vision had to evolve independently in each one of those SINGLE species common ancestors to all eyed groups of species. According to you, the approximately 36 phyla would each have to have their own single CA, and each single CA would have to evolve all of the organ/systems extant and common to that phylum. If that was not the case, then you run into the problem again of multiple species evolving multiple organs\systems and then having to somehow spread those systems around to other species. And then getting all of those organ/systems, that evolved in multiple species, tucked into that one common ancestor.
If you disagree, pencil out a diagrammatic tree and try and track where the organs and systems would go. You will get stuck quickly.
BTW, of course you realize that the ISP thing is Tongue In Cheek. I placed "TIC" twice in the vid in case someone thinks it's serious. But the point of the vid IS serious.

So Steve, your basic argument is still 'I just can't believe it'?

And the emergence of multiple such systems in lineages possessing the genes allowing this is a problem for biology how, precisely?

stevebee92653 wrote:Thanks for the rare intelligent answer and discussion. I really wish more people here could discuss as you have. This really is such a fun and fascinating subject. Discussing it should be open and respectful. But oh well.

He pretty much ruins his opening intro-paragraph with that last sentence. But, at least we now know that he was kidding when he said he was giving up on this forum.

You run into HUGE problems right at the start. Your explanation is clear, but not correct. The common ancestor to all tetrapods with the visual system you example, also had to evolve ALL of the other organs and systems common to all tetrapods.

Okay, who in their right mind ACTUALLY thinks that everything has to evolve all at once, other than Stevie here? Do I have any takers?

Hepatic systems, multi-chambered heart/lung/blood/blood vessel/brain controller/cardiac muscle systems, pancreas, gastro-intestinal system, auditory, and on and on, all in one species.

Steve seems to forget that multi-chambered hearts are found only birds, crocodiles, and mammals, while lepidosaur reptiles and amphibians are still using older three-chambered hearts. This renders this entire point invalid.

You can't simply choose to isolate and discuss one system without addressing all systems. Do you actually think all systems extant and common to all tetrapods evolved in that one single species CA?

See the above point Stevie. The systems you pointed out are NOT found in ALL land vertebrates.

Now we must multiply everything that so that all CA's of all modern groups must have evolved all systems common and extant to all species in each CA's descendant groups. Your problem is you isolate one single system, vision, and tell me that that single CA spread that one system to all future tetrapods.

Wrong again. This one common ancestor spread its highly successful one-lens visual system to its descendant species ONLY. There are still chordate creatures alive today that are still using outdated visual systems.

You totally ignore the fact that there are many systems to deal with in many different species groups. For example, vision had to evolve independently in each one of those SINGLE species common ancestors to all eyed groups of species.

There's a process known as Convergent Evolution that makes it possible for unrelated animals to develop similar attributes such as flight and quadrupedal locomotion but the chances of them developing the same one-eyed system is pretty slim. The Common Ancestry model explains this quite well but Stevie here refuses to let go of his own unfounded idea that it all had to come about in everything all at once.

According to you, the approximately 36 phyla would each have to have their own single CA, and each single CA would have to evolve all of the organ/systems extant and common to that phylum.

Yes, they would all have to have their own common ancestor otherwise they wouldn't have anything in common to begin with and not be part of their respective phyla.
And No, they would not have to evolve all their extant organs in one fell swoop because evolution would neither produce that or allow it. Baby steps Stevie, you keep forgetting that.

If that was not the case, then you run into the problem again of multiple species evolving multiple organs\systems and then having to somehow spread those systems around to other species. And then getting all of those organ/systems, that evolved in multiple species, tucked into that one common ancestor.

Sigh. Mostly just a repeat of the nonsense in his ISP video.

If you disagree, pencil out a diagrammatic tree and try and track where the organs and systems would go. You will get stuck quickly.

The taxonomic classification system used by modern biologists seems to work just fine.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... enetics_02
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... enetics_04
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... enetics_05
The good folks at Berkeley didn't seem to get stuck.

BTW, of course you realize that the ISP thing is Tongue In Cheek. I placed "TIC" twice in the vid in case someone thinks it's serious. But the point of the vid IS serious.

The point of the video is to misrepresent science in the worst possible manner and the good people who stand up for science do seem to have a good reason to take it seriously, especially since there are people gullible enough to take the video as literal truth.

I'm almost certain that there are other people on this forum who can tackle these points better than I can and I encourage it.

stevebee92653 wrote:Thanks for the rare intelligent answer and discussion. I really wish more people here could discuss as you have. This really is such a fun and fascinating subject. Discussing it should be open and respectful. But oh well.

Strange how you have failed to answer multiple serious posts in every thread you engange in, including several in this very thread. Oh well indeed.

You run into HUGE problems right at the start. Your explanation is clear, but not correct. The common ancestor to all tetrapods with the visual system you example, also had to evolve ALL of the other organs and systems common to all tetrapods.

Yes, it propably did. However, the evolution of all of these organs started all the way back when multicellularity started evolving. I have already in this very thread given you an account of how this could have happened, and other people have been kind enough to supply you with the genetic evidence of genes extant in modern but "simpler" multicellular organisms like sponges, homologous to genes found in organisms like humans and fish. Strange how the homologies between the genes in all the various organisms which we have sequenced the genomes of, fit perfectly on a hierarchical, branching tree of life, in total agreement with the fossil record.

Hepatic systems, multi-chambered heart/lung/blood/blood vessel/brain controller/cardiac muscle systems, pancreas, gastro-intestinal system, auditory, and on and on, all in one species. You can't simply choose to isolate and discuss one system without addressing all systems. Do you actually think all systems extant and common to all tetrapods evolved in that one single species CA?

Yes and no. Once again you are comitting the fallacy of "the false dilemma" and "poisoning the well". Once again we catch you intentionally making false claims about evolution and then proceeding to erect specious fantasist barriers which evolution must overcome before you are satisfied. We aren't falling for this stupid trick.

So apparently we must once again inform you that your account given above is factually incorrect. Since it does not represent the sequence of events that led to the development of all those listed organs, it does not represent a problem for evolution.
No, all of those systems would not have to spontaneously develop at the same time in one single population of a species. When all of those systems started developing in whatever multicellular organism they come from, they didn't resemble or function in the way your listed modern counterparts did. Multichambered hearts didn't suddenly pop into existence from one generation to the next.
There were muscles and circulatory systems before there were hearts, for example, as explained before.

Now we must multiply everything that so that all CA's of all modern groups must have evolved all systems common and extant to all species in each CA's descendant groups.

No. This is false. Many of your listed systems only evolved once, or maybe a few times, and spread through lineages into all life extant today. They do NOT have to develop at the same time, in multiple species.
All multicellular organisms that exist on the planet today have a multicellular, last universal common ancestor(LUCA) from which we all, ultimately derive. All of the systems and organs present in all of life today, have simpler primordial ancestors in this LUCA, from which they all, ultimately developed. They didn't all have to develop at the same time, and they didn't all have to resemble their mordern counterparts when they first started developing. Some of the systems are obviously strongly related and did develop simultaneously, like muscles with circulatory systems.

There is vast litterature on the subject, so how you can so consistently misrepresent it and get it wrong is an achievement in itself, when you constantly claim you have read it. This leaves the only obvious conclusions that you are intentionally lying and full of shit.

Your problem is you isolate one single system, vision, and tell me that that single CA spread that one system to all future tetrapods.

It's not a "problem", it happened. Get over it.

You totally ignore the fact that there are many systems to deal with in many different species groups. For example, vision had to evolve independently in each one of those SINGLE species common ancestors to all eyed groups of species.

There is no magical barrier preventing this from happening. Many species developed vision independently, yes. Many later organisms inherited vision from these earlier, simpler species. You haven't said anything remotely problematic for evolution here.

According to you, the approximately 36 phyla would each have to have their own single CA, and each single CA would have to evolve all of the organ/systems extant and common to that phylum. If that was not the case, then you run into the problem again of multiple species evolving multiple organs\systems and then having to somehow spread those systems around to other species. And then getting all of those organ/systems, that evolved in multiple species, tucked into that one common ancestor.

No steve. Once again, poisoning the well and false dilemma.
The different phyla have common ancestors from which they all derive and from which all the organs and systems they all possess, ultimately derive. The systems from which they derive in their ultimate origin could very well have served different purposes in their universal common ancestors. Some of the systems could have and propably did develop multiple times. Others didn't.

If you disagree, pencil out a diagrammatic tree and try and track where the organs and systems would go. You will get stuck quickly.

Done.

Hearts and circulatory systems can pretty much be replaced with any modern organ and simpler ancestral versions. No magical barrier or impossible to overcome path for evolution. It makes perfect sense.

Rumraket wrote:Multichambered hearts didn't suddenly pop into existence from one generation to the next.

Actually, from single chambered hearts they may well have. I recently saw a video of a documentary where it was discovered (unintentionally) that a single mutation of a single gene gives rise to a mutation of a single chambered heart to a double chambered one! The geneticists engineered this mutation to see what it's effect would be (they suspected some development in heart evolution, but not as much as they found) and bingo the resulting organism had double chambers where once there was only one!

Of course this only makes stevebee92653's ridiculous arguments even less tenable (if that were indeed possible.)

Now, ADParker , CITATION PLEASE