Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Marcsana shows his true colors

Even after being informed of how unethical and indefensible quote mining is, Marcsana continues to do it.

I promised to call you out every time you quote mine, Marcsana. I cannot believe that, despite the exposition of quote mining for what it is, you continue to do it. This is nothing short of a mind-bogglingly unethical act. If you wish to call something “disgusting,” then such actions will fit the bill quite nicely.

From his comments on my post on Answers in Genesis:
But, as David Raup (Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History) stated in 1979: “... some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information ...”.( 'Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology', Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol.50 No.1, January 1979, p. 25.) The horse argument has lost some of its zip in modern day thinking.

You're quote mining, Marcsana. Blatantly so.

Here is the real quote:
Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information — what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. Also the major extinctions such as those of the dinosaurs and trilobites are still very puzzling.
And here are some more real quotes from the real article.
Part of our conventional wisdom about evolution is that the fossil record of past life is an important cornerstone of evolutionary theory. In some ways, this is true -- but the situation is much more complicated. I will explore here a few of the complex interrelationships between fossils and darwinian theory. . . Darwin's theory of natural selection has always been closely linked to evidence form fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. We must distinguish between the fact of evolution -- defined as change in organisms over time -- and the explanation of this change. Darwin's contribution, through his theory of natural selection, was to suggest how the evolutionary change took place. The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be.
Page 22
Now let me take a step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works.
Page 25
So what was this article really about?

It was about whether natural selection alone can account for all the changes we see in the fossil record. Raup argued (as have many other evolutionists, Stephen J Gould being perhaps the most prominent) that it cannot. He hypothesizes several ways in which such changes can be explained. He spends some time on a hypothesis he is well-known for (he later wrote a book on it entitled Extinction- Bad Genes or Bad Luck?)- that evolutionary change is often driven by causes such as meteor impacts that natural selection does not influence.

He is clear that he does not think he has all of the answers.
The ideas I have discussed here are rather new and have not been completely tested. No matter how they come out, however, they are having a ventilating effect on thinking in evolution and the conventional dogma is being challenged. If the ideas turn out to be valid, it will mean that Darwin was correct in what he said but that he was explaining only a part of the total evolutionary picture. The part he missed was the simple element of chance!
Page 29
And what does Dr. Raup think of creationists? He has written several essays pointing out the follies of creationism, among them "The Geological and Paleontological Arguments of Creationism" in Scientists Confront Creationism (one of my old favorites, recently re-released as Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism) One quote sums up his feelings quite well-
As I will show here, the rocks and fossils say YES to evolution!
Page 147

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was giving "quote mining" a partial defense. What I had said if you read it was that quotes are fine in context. And the quote
you called me out for was perfectly in context.

Next order of business. You still are either deliberately or undeliberately misunderstanding or misconstruing the creationist
side. For example, probability. You also seem to think that evolutionists are unbiased sources. But there is a bias...evolution.

And lastly and most importantly. This represents my last post for now. I am very good with languages, theology and philosophy.
VERY good. I also have a powerful knack for history and several other subjects related to this. Because of these and other equally
valid reasons, I am a Christian who believes the Bible as the infallible Word of God to man. I trust Him more than man's opinion
and false ideas. I have never been as good at science or math. The reason I wasn't that good with science was because of math and
I was more interested in taking extra languages. So I've been reading a lot for the last several years to make up for this lack,
but I still have some serious deficiencies in knowledge regarding various origins theories since there are so many of them and
quite a few are hard to understand. There are also several other topics where I would like to continue reading and growing my
knowledge in and this is going to take more time. I think your vitriol was outrageous. Rather than speaking to me like a human being, you chose to just be rude this whole time. Not
just rude, but downright rotten.
Moreover, if you truly knew the creationist side, you would acknowledge the theory holds at the very least as much merit as evolution. Your attitude was disgusting and your behavior was completely and utterly putrid; I would recommend that you learn how
to be humane.
When I study something, I look at all angles I can get my hands on. You seem to have given creationism a cursory
glance. As I result, you have many oversights that I noticed (for example, all your posts about present-day evolution demonstrate
natural selection, speciation and changes within a species. Not one of those creatures you mentioned is turning into another
animal). But, I'm not the one to point those out just yet. I'm only good at representing parts of the creationist side and not
all. As a result, you won't take anything I write seriously. Nothing I say to you regarding any other topic will be taken as
seriously since I don't have a college-level knowledge of many, many scientific arguments like thermal vents. If you give me some
time, I will be a much more formidable opponent.
On the flip side, I still want to say thank you. I did learn quite a bit more than I knew before as a result of the time you spent
with your posts. It inspired me to take that final leap and jump headlong into researching as many scientific topics as I can get
my hands on.
I am going to take several months and continue my research in this area. I would like to ask you if you would be interested in
taking this discussion up later. I am true to my word. When I offer this, it isn't a cop out; I will be back given the chance. If
I continue as I am now, then I'm not going to do a good job presenting the creationist side (I will continue to do REALLY poorly in some areas). If I'm going to do this, I want to do
it right and represent all aspects of the theory well. I'm not with all aspects as you have seen with the thermal vents.