Is Michael Shermer a Disciple of Satan?

[Moridin]

Discussions are much harder to follow if a poster is banned and their posts deleted...

The poster is not banned and none of his posts are deleted. The reason his post count is zero is that the posts he makes in general discussion does not increase your post count.

 

[NeoDevin]

The poster is not banned and none of his posts are deleted. The reason his post count is zero is that the posts he makes in general discussion does not increase your post count.

I was referring to the poster `tourettes', from earlier in the thread.

 

[Hurkyl]

Discussions are much harder to follow if a poster is banned and their posts deleted...

If their posts are deleted, then you shouldn't be following their discussion!

 

[Moridin]

I have some time over, so I can spend some time on the claims of tourettes that can be found quotes in this post.

1. The entire geological column does not exist?

This is one of the more bizarre claims that creationists have put forward, but I guess it is understandable with their rather strange presuppositions. After all, the fossil record and geological column is filled with evidence for evolution and an old Earth in abundance. The fact that the geological column does not exist in its entirety is completely irrelevant, since there are more than enough overlap that the full column can be reconstructed from those parts. Furthermore, this is hardly surprising -- it is entirely consistent with an old earth. The column can be found in sedimentary environments, that is, where the environmental conditions favor the accumulation of sediments. We would expect that various geological changes over time would shift areas back and forth between sedimentary environments and other types of environments.

In addition, there are many places on our planet where you can observe strata for all geological periods in the same place, such as the Bonaparte Basin of Australia.

2. Is the geological column out of order?

This claim is also surprising, since it is inconsistent with the first claim. The geological column cannot both exist and be out of order. The geologic column is never out of order in areas that have not been greatly disturbed resulting in minor folds and faults.

3. Fossilized Trees

Sudden flood deposition is not a problem for modern geology. Local floods and mudslides can deposit sediments up to several feet thick. Furthermore, trees buried in such sediments do not die and decay immediately since they can remain there for years or even decades. No tree goes through multiple strata layers. We know this because we can see that the top of the trees have been rotten, but other parts of the fossils to not show this. What creationists also forget to mention is that these trees are in many, many layers, further indicating sequential local floods.

4. Abiogenesis and evolution

Evolution is not abiogenesis and abiogenesis is not spontaneous generation. Evolution has to do with the cause of the diversity of life, whereas abiogenesis has to do with the origin of life. Modern abiogenesis research does not claim that life popped out of nowhere. Any prebiotic soup of chemicals did not give rise to single-celled organisms directly.

5. Darwin on his death bed

This has been discussed earlier in this topic.

 

[Evo]

The Darwin recanting on his dead bed fallacy was proved false by his daughter which was at his bedside during his final days and verified he never said such a thing.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG001.html

 

[binzing]

I'm totally in your camp on this one Moe. It's like the moon-landing-conspiracy-hoax hoax. I cringe when hearing a bad argument that's trying to support the side of truth .

What makes the moon conspiracy believers IMPOSSIBLE to believe is the fact that none of them have any sort of scientific or otherwise, qualifications. I watched a thing on this, and seriously, more than half of the proponents of it were sitting there, blathering away (in their horrendous hick speech), in their rocking chairs on their porches. Seriously, they need to get access to a good telescope and inspect the surface of the moon itself.

 

[siddharth]

Here's a couple of fairly new articles I came across which seem to be quite interesting and relevant to the discussion on abiogenesis and evolution.

The first one is about possible evidence of extra-terrestrial amino acids, and the second is an example of http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php .

1) Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite

Abstract: Carbon-rich meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, contain many biologically relevant organic molecules and delivered prebiotic material to the young Earth. We present compound-specific carbon isotope data indicating that measured purine and pyrimidine compounds are indigenous components of the Murchison meteorite. Carbon isotope ratios for uracil and xanthine of delta13C=+44.5per mil and +37.7per mil, respectively, indicate a non-terrestrial origin for these compounds. These new results demonstrate that organic compounds, which are components of the genetic code in modern biochemistry, were already present in the early solar system and may have played a key role in life's origin.

2) http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0803151105

Abstract: The role of historical contingency in evolution has been much debated, but rarely tested. Twelve initially identical populations of Escherichia coli were founded in 1988 to investigate this issue. They have since evolved in a glucose-limited medium that also contains citrate, which E. coli cannot use as a carbon source under oxic conditions. No population evolved the capacity to exploit citrate for >30,000 generations, although each population tested billions of mutations. A citrate-using (Cit+) variant finally evolved in one population by 31,500 generations, causing an increase in population size and diversity. The long-delayed and unique evolution of this function might indicate the involvement of some extremely rare mutation. Alternately, it may involve an ordinary mutation, but one whose physical occurrence or phenotypic expression is contingent on prior mutations in that population. We tested these hypotheses in experiments that "replayed" evolution from different points in that population's history. We observed no Cit+ mutants among 8.4 x 1012 ancestral cells, nor among 9 x 1012 cells from 60 clones sampled in the first 15,000 generations. However, we observed a significantly greater tendency for later clones to evolve Cit+, indicating that some potentiating mutation arose by 20,000 generations. This potentiating change increased the mutation rate to Cit+ but did not cause generalized hypermutability. Thus, the evolution of this phenotype was contingent on the particular history of that population. More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection.