I think the media is more about sensationalized entertainment than informative reporting, but you would expect them to at least accurately report the facts somewhere in their reporting. I shouldn’t be surprise at the exaggerated claims from the popular press, except over time we have become desensitized to this misreporting and we are being collectively brainwashed to believe the popular press rather than reality. I think this is also in part for the widespread acceptance of Darwinism.

I want to commend Venter and his team for doing some amazing bioengineering work. It will undoubtedly lead to other breakthroughs in treating illnesses. However it does fall far short of what scientists ultimately would like to do, i.e. to create life from scratch. In other words, what Venter has done is still a long way from what the popular press headlines are claiming.

What Venter’s team has accomplished is exactly what they set out to do as reported back in 2003 and I posted about it here in 2005. While this is a remarking piece of bioengineering, in truth Venter has not actually created any life. He merely took the digitized genome of a Mycoplasma mycoides, assembled the DNA from small pieces and inserted it into the cell of a Mycoplasma capricolum with its genetic material removed through enzymatic process.

I don’t know about you but the headline says “first synthetic life” or “Create First Self-Replicating Synthetic Life” I would expect a de novo DNA of a genomic sequence that does not exist. I would expect something from molecules to a self replicating cell. In the whole scheme of things, this is more like copying someone else’s homework with borrowed papers and pen. Unfortunately, I think scientists sometimes are complicit in misleading the public by not admonishing or even correcting these sensational headlines. This kind of misinformation does not ultimately benefit science.

Where they go awry, though, is in trying to pick a fight with a dead man, and making that the focus of their public relations. … Charles Darwin is dead. Your research can’t be very cogent if your approach to drum up interest is to dig up a 120-year-old corpse and kick it around; is there anyone alive who disagrees with you who can put up a more informative and entertaining struggle? What this does is pick this one fellow as a symbol of the whole edifice of evolutionary theory

I agree. Darwin is dead and no one should make him the symbol of the whole edifice of evolutionary fairy tale theory. I mean only a crazy person would make such a big deal about a dead guy right? A rational and smart scientist like PZ would never make such a big deal about a 120 year old corpse who does not have very cogent research to science, right? Hey, PZ do you know the Darwin corpse worshipper from Fairyngula who said this?

Get out and celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the most important scientists of all time, Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important books in biology, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It’s that day!

So let’s put Darwin aside. PZ wants to know is there anyone alive who can put up a more entertaining struggle. Well, did you mean Brandon Miller from livescience.com

The presence of an organ in one organism that resembles one found in another has led biologists to conclude that these two might have shared a common ancestor. Vestigial organs have demonstrated remarkably how species are related to one another, and has given solid ground for the idea of common descent to stand on. From common descent, it is predicted that organisms should retain these vestigial organs as structural remnants of lost functions.

What did he write, remnants of lost functions? Not remnants of lost or diminished functions. But wait, I smell a Darwinian CYA coming. Miller continues,

The term “vestigial organ” is often poorly defined, most commonly because someone has chosen a poor source to define the term. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines vestigial organs as organs or structures remaining or surviving in a degenerate, atrophied, or imperfect condition or form. This is the accepted biological definition used in the theory of evolution.

Oh good I am glad we got that straight, but why didn’t you use it that way in just the preceding paragraph? Why didn’t you just say ”From common descent, it is predicted that organisms should retain these vestigial organs as structural remnants of degenerate, atrophied, or imperfect condition or form”. Why? Because it doesn’t sell as well for the religion of Darwinism, atrophies and imperfect conditions are common through birth defects and Darwin forbid, differences in design. Darwin worshippers can sell the fairy tale of common descent much better when they say that vestigial organs have lost functions implying there is no longer any function. No one would design something that is completely superfluous would they.

Or how about my buddy Douglas Theobald, Ph.D. in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution.

A vestige is defined, independently of evolutionary theory, as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same complex structure in other organisms. Vestigial characters, if functional, perform relatively simple, minor, or inessential functions using structures that were clearly designed for other complex purposes. Though many vestigial organs have no function, complete non-functionality is not a requirement for vestigiality

Now this is a definition that I can live with, ”a vestige is defined, independently of evolutionary theory”. Where Darwinists go awry is when they try to push their religious beliefs into science, such as, vestigial characters are evidence for common descent.

PZ did get another thing right.

It’s also annoying. Charles Darwin was wrong about many things — I’ll even give an example at the end of this article — and it’s part of the nature of science that everyone’s work will be revised and refined over time, and some of us will even be shown to be completely wrong.

Charles Darwin was wrong about many things, but PZ look in the mirror, the same goes for you too. You are a religious fanatic. You will never change your blind allegiance to atheism no matter how much facts are presented in front of your face. What is science PZ?

When I teach introductory biology, a substantial part of it addresses this definition: there are conventions of the scientific literature that a new student must learn in order to be able to efficiently extract information and follow the chain of evidence, and also in order to some day be able to add to it. To the novice, science can appear to be a huge database, and what they have to figure out is how to tap into it.

If you’ve been in science for a while, you know there’s another pragmatic definition:

>#2: Science is what scientists do. We have institutions that train people and employ them in the business of generating new knowledge — contributing to that edifice in definition #1 — and we have procedures like the bestowal of degrees and ranks that certify one’s membership in the hallowed ranks of science.

Science is what scientists do? Do you even know how stupid and conceited that sounds? No PZ, science is science no matter who is doing it. Science is science regardless if it is performed by a 3rd grader or by a Ph.D. Facts and reality doesn’t change just because you have a Ph.D. PZ. This is why people like Myers are atheists and pervert what science is all about. He makes things up and twists facts to fit his reality. They invent a fairy tale like Darwinism and call it science, as long as you have a bestowed degree you can do no wrong. Spoken like a true Darwinian Prior. I wonder if that blindness to facts that contradicts his religious belief is a result of vestigial intellect. Hmm….., but I digress.

Call me crazy, but I think facts and empirical evidences are actually more important to science than a bestowed degree. Now take for instance, the appendix. The Darwinists have been saying this is a vestigial organ and therefore it is the result of evolution and common descent. Here is how PZ’s logic works.

Vestigial structures are artifacts of evolution.
Humans contain appendix which is vestigial.
Therefore humans must be a product of evolution.

This is how the Darwinists spin their fairy tale as told by Dr. Theobald.

Throughout medical history many possible functions for the appendix have been offered, examined, and refuted, including exocrine, endocrine, and neuromuscular functions. …
However, contrary to what one is apt to read in anti-evolutionary literature, there is currently no evidence demonstrating that the appendix, as a separate organ, has a specific immune function in humans.

The appendix has no known functions in humans. Other primates and a few other animals also have an appendix. Their appendix is larger and does have important functions. Therefore the human appendix must be a vestigial organ because there is no known function (this is what I call Darwin of the gaps.) The next step in the Darwinian fairy tale, vestigial organs is an artifact from common descent; because how else could we have gotten an organ that serves no known functions. Do you think that it just somehow magically appeared inside a person’s body? No, it was there already through our common primate ancestor whom we have descended from. But now we don’t need it anymore because we like filets more than we like broccoli. So now our appendix has shrunk to this tiny do nothing.

There is no such thing as the tooth fairy, Darwinian evolution is a fantasy for the atheists but the human appendix does have important functions . In this ENV report, Casey Luskin exposes the Darwinian fairy tale narrative of the appendix.

So what does the appendix do? According to the article, the appendix serves as “a vital safehouse where good bacteria could lie in wait until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea,” and “make[s], direct[s] and train[s] white blood cells.”

Incidentally, the appendix seems to pose other challenges for evolutionary arguments. As it is found in both marsupial and placental mammals, evolutionists are forced to believe that the same appendix evolved twice, independently, in a striking case of organ-level convergent evolution[see my article for more on this subject]..

So what do we know about the appendix? It has a much more important role in humans than it does in other animals. It serves as a great training ground for white blood cells. Fact: the other animals with appendix may or may not have the same functions, but these are not diminished/loss functions as the Darwinian narrative would have you believed for so long.

Then again the Darwinists already knew this almost 20yrs ago, but we don’t want to talk about that because it doesn’t fit our narrative. We don’t want our worship of Darwinism be confused by silly things like facts. Fuz Rana from RTB reported on this study in this post.

Interestingly, a comparative anatomy study published in 1980 (conducted from an evolutionary vantage point) demonstrated that the distribution of appendixes among primates and other mammals doesn’t match the expected pattern if it was a vestigial structure. Instead, its occurrence suggests that it plays a useful role.

Fact: so even from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective, the appendix does not fit the expected(i.e., predictions in science) pattern of a vestigial structure.

A reasonable person at this point would say, in light of all these evidence the appendix does not support Darwinian evolution. But will Darwinian Priors like PZ admit to that? Don’t hold your breath. You see, the truth is that PZ has his head so far up the atheism pile that it doesn’t matter what the evidence is, he will continue to preach the fairy tale of Darwinian evolution. As it is evident from his blog post on this topic.

If a portion of the gut, a digestive organ, is diminished in size such that it no longer contributes to the primary function of the organ, but does retain a secondary function, such as assisting in immunity, or as the authors of the recent paper will argue, in acting as a reservoir of bacteria for recolonizing the gut, then it is still a vestigial organ. It has lost much of its ancestral function.

This is in complete contradiction to the facts. There is no diminished function and what primary function. Myers is more interested in promoting his dogmatic religious belief than promoting science. There is no evidence of any other primary function for the appendix in humans other than the current function that it has. PZ is a Darwinian Prior with a bestowed degree, so he can fabricate whatever he wants and call it science. Unfortunately, it does not match reality. What is really scary is that P.Z. Myers is a professor at the University of Minnesota indoctrinating students to erroneous facts about science. I call on the University to fire Myers for incompetence.

EN&V

EN&V

Roger DeHart and a particularly egregious example of Darwinian persecution that occurred in 2000 and 2001 in Burlington, Washington. DeHart, then a veteran Washington state High School biology teacher, tried to supplement his biology textbook with articles critical of Haeckel’s embryos and peppered moths from mainstream science publications, such as The American Biology Teacher, Natural History, The Scientist, and Nature. You can guess what happened next. The American Civil Liberties Union issued veiled threats of legal action, and the National Center for Science Education, a pro-Darwin lobby group, insisted that DeHart teach only the evidence that allegedly supports Darwinism. Bowing to the intimidation, the superintendent of DeHart’s school district prohibited him from distributing the articles– or even talking about them. DeHart was subsequently removed from his biology teaching position, replaced by a junior faculty member with a degree in physical education.

I tried. I really, honestly, sincerely tried. I’ve been struggling with this book, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, for the past week and a half, and I’ve finally decided it’s not worth the effort. It’s just about completely unreadable.

Poor fellow. It must have been a real effort for him to try to comprehend the book. It just wore him out. But, not finishing it doesn’t stop him from writing a review none-the-less. I’ve long suspected that many “reviews” of pro ID books or anti-Darwinism books were never actually read by the reviewers, but merely parroted the usual party lines about ID isn’t science or is creationism in “a cheap tuxedo” or whatever. At least in this instance, PZ admits up front that he hasn’t actually read the book…or at least not all of it. So, for all he knows, the problems he claims were in the book in the part he did read may have been addressed elsewhere in the book. Or, maybe he didn’t get the full context of what he’s sniffing about.

In any case, its entertaining at least. I only have one response to PZ. “I tried. I really, honestly, sincerely tried. I’ve been struggling with your “review” of Beauregard and O’Leary’s book for the past hour and a half, and I’ve finally decided its not worth the effort. Its just about completely unreadable. The writing is aggravating…it begins to wear on the reader…”

But what precisely is the problem? Is it really a case of “no evidence”, meaning that no observation or phenomenon has ever or could ever provide evidence for the existence of God?
If that is what is meant, it would seem to be reasonable to ask for evidence that such a claim is true. But what that evidence would even look like isn’t at all clear. Or maybe what is meant is that there may be some observations that could be seen by some as evidence for the existence of God, but that there are no known principles that can connect that evidence to the conclusion. In its stronger forms, it is added that no one has ever or will ever know of such principles. What evidence there is for such a claim isn’t clear either.

So, what do the atheists or non-thiests mean by the claim of “no evidence”? It is certainly the case that many theists believe that they do have evidence for their belief. It could be certain experiences they’ve had, or the way they view certain features of the physical world that lead to the conclusion of there being a God. Are the atheists denying that those experiences or physical features of nature didn’t happen or don’t exist? That would seem absurd, especially if both the theist and the non-thiest had the same experience or observed the same phenonemon.

So, in claiming there is “no evidence”, it seems to me what is really meant is that there isn’t anything that the atheist or the non-thiest takes to be evidence for the existence of God, which is a very different thing. The question that naturally arises from that is what would an atheist take to be evidence for the existence of God? Surely they must have some idea of what such evidence would have to be since they are quite sure that neither they nor anyone else has ever observed it. The only other alternative is to simply assert (without evidence), that there can be no evidence for the existence of God, even in principle. But that position would put their claim in the same boat as they claim the theist is in: the “no evidence” boat.

There really seems to be only two options here for the athiest. Either admit that there isn’t anything that they would ever take to be evidence for the existence of God, which only betrays prior prejudice; or hold the claim that nothing could ever be evidence for it, such claim itself having no evidence. Either way, the atheist’s claim of “no evidence” loses an awful lot its intended starch.

Of course none of this proves or demonstrates that God does exist. But it does greatly reduce if not totally eliminate the impact of any claim of “no evidence” for such belief. And if the claim of “no evidence” is suspect with respect to the existence of God, it is also suspect with respect to whether or not certain features of the natural world are the result of intelligent design.

I don’t think there is.

My contention is that MN implies or is equal to PN and that unless we know a priori that PN is true, MN places unnecessary stipulations on scientific practice that virtually guarantee that, on some matters at least, the deliverances of science could be way off the tracks, especially if key components of the tracks do not fit within the framework of a naturalistic worldview, as demanded by PN. Since no one has established or confirmed scientifically that PN is true, why is it necessary to demand the stipulation of MN in the first place?

I’d be interested to hear other’s thoughts on this matter.