THE bounty Hunter

I have long been a fan of Piraro's Bizarro comic.  The subject of this one fits my blog so here is a shrunken version of it.  To see it full size, go to Piraro's blog.  Stay a while.

Misconceptions? About evolution? About Creationism?

Jim Stump names and corrects 10 misconceptions about evolution here.  At AIG, Avery Foley tries -and mostly fails, to correct those corrections.

Most glaring, is Foley's counter regarding the second law of thermodynamics.  After correctly discussing open- and closed- systems, Foley quotes astronomer Dr Danny Faulkner (with my bolding):

However, merely being an open system does not automatically mean that entropy decreases. Life depends upon a huge number of complex biochemical reac-tions continually operating. These biochemical reactions operate opposite to the direction that they would naturally proceed. That is, living things synthesize simpler molecules into more complex ones. The inputs are matter and energy (required to bond the more complex molecules), which is why living things are open systems. However, these inputs are insufficient in themselves to circumvent the second law of thermodynamics. The di-rection of the chemical reactions normally is decay from the more complex to simpler molecules, the opposite of what living things require to exist. Given this, the appeal to an open system to rescue the day for evolution is not demonstrated and amounts to hand-waving and gross extrapolation.

I don't understand what Faulkner is saying.  Is he saying that all living things break the second law of thermodynamics.  It sure looks as if he -an astronomer so knowledgeable about physics in general, but not necessarily about biology - is saying that.  Let me help him.
For humans, or plants, or fungae, or archaea, or other animals, synthesizing complex molecules happens all the time  Plants take in water and carbon dioxide and produce sugar.  We use sugar and other organic compounds and make hemoglobin and more.  Yes, plants are also using the sun's energy so they are clearly benefiting from an open system but what about us?  Well, as a newborn, I was around 3 kg.  I feel I was at a physical peak at around age twenty-five.  I don't know when my mental peak was but I sure forget a lot of stuff now so I think I have passed it.  Let's stick with twenty-five.  At that time, I weighed 76kg. Ah, those were the days.
...Anyway, during those twenty-five years, I ate food.  A lot of food.  Far more than 73 kg of food.  From age fifteen to twenty-five, I ate more than 151 kg per year. What did I do with that food?  I was a serious athletes in those days and used the food as energy burned while swimming twelve hours a week, and as the building blocks for muscles of great power and endurance.
I excreted and exhaled most of that mass.  I made the air around me, with my exhalations, warmer and wetter and spread carbon dioxide far and wide, so that it dispersed and settled at the global average concentrations. While concentrating complex molecules in my body, I increased global and universal entropy.  I radiated heat. I released liquids.  I released gases.  And I did so to a greater extent than I locally decreased entropy in my body.  Again, in that last year, I ate 150+ kgs of food, but gained less than 5 kg of mass.

Foley is also concerned with Stump's explanation for how new information can be added to DNA.

He argues that genetic mutations and gene duplication can create new information, but they don’t. All they do is work on already existing information.

Again, I am not sure what Foley is saying.  If I rearrange a word, have I created a new word or not?  'From' and 'Form' are two different words which change the information content of a sentence.

Let's dig in.  Duplication mutations have been observed copying an entire gene.  More localized mutations have been observed changing parts of that gene. The new gene has been observed to have new functions.  How is this not new information?
From Sci Am 1, 2.  From Talk Origins. From Stump's original article.

Is evolution a theory in crisis?

...the vast majority of scientists are evolutionists (although some do doubt evolutionary ideas) ...have been indoctrinated to think that way. They interpret the evidence through the lens of evolutionary ideas because they have an evolutionary worldview. What we do point out are the huge problems with evolutionary ideas that should make it a theory in crisis! The evidence is much better explained through the lens of God’s Word and is consistent with a biblical worldview.

I don't think evolution is a theory in crisis, but I am not about to argue a philosophical point.  I do want to point out that to my knowledge, no evolutionary scientist has had to sign a form promising to only view evidence according to a specific worldview or lose their job.  Foley has.  Everyone at AIG has.  Here is that statement.  There is no such oath for evolution proponents.  Creationists are not automatically guilty of deliberate misrepresentation of the facts but are automatically more highly suspected of such misrepresentation.

On the fossil record and transitionals:

A fully formed and functional creature is discovered, and it’s labeled a “transitional” or “intermediate” creature because it’s interpreted that way based on assumptions about how life formed and how old the fossil is. A biblical creationist will go and look at the exact same fossil and reach an entirely different con-clusion, that this is a fully formed organism that belonged to one of the original kinds God creat-ed, because we have an entirely different starting point—the true history revealed in God’s Word.

Here is another example of creationists and evolutionists looking at the same evidence - only the evolutionist looks at all the evidence.  When we find a 'fully formed organism' or fossils thereof, we also note that it is only found among a set of specific other animals, looking for all the world as if some animals had roamed the earth and gone extinct and new animals appeared and gone extinct then the fossil in question appeared and gone extinct then we appeared in the fossil record. This does not in any way resemble a 6-day Creation story.
About the fossils themselves - we have a beautiful set of seven transitions from fish to amphibian.  One such fossil was found by making predictions based on an ancient Earth and evolution principles.  Tiktaalik is a big problem for creationists like Foley.

Via the Sensuous Curmudgeon.

AIG: All cats are one kind

At AIG, they've partially answered a question I've had for a long time.  Some time ago, Ken Ham stated that kinds could be similar to the modern genus or even family level of relationship (His statement is highlighted at that link and also mentions the information below.  I only found it after the quoting below so I'm leaving this post alone - it now has internal confirmation).  And yet, I'd never seen an example to be studied and considered.

In an article mostly about errors in illustrating Bibles, Bodie Hodge states:

Putting too many individuals of a kind on the Ark: We often see lions and tigers and other cats entering or exiting Noah’s Ark.1 There is only one cat kind (cats can interbreed with each other), so Noah only took two cats on the Ark. Of course, they had the genetic information which can account for the cat variations we see today (as a result of various selection processes over time). The same with dogs—there is only one dog kind, so Noah only needed two dogs on the Ark, no dingoes, wolves, coyotes, and so on. The same goes for the bear kind, ceratopsian kind, sauropod kind, elephant kind, horse kind (zebras are part of the horse kind—they are a variation of the horse that is post-Flood), and so on. Learn more about kinds.

"There is only one cat kind

(cats can interbreed with each other),

so Noah only took two cats on the Ark."

Wikipedia tells me that there are 41 species of Felidae known today.  From massive saber toothed tigers (which aren't tigers, if it needed to be said) to pack-hunting lions to the solitary short-tailed lynx of North America, all are one Biblical kind.  That's a lot of variety for one kind, for 'micro' evolution to accomplish.  And even more to accomplish in a few thousand years.

How long did Cats have to evolve to this variety?  If the flood occurred four thousand years ago, that sets an upper boundary, but we can shrink it immediately to three thousand, six hundred because settlers in North America learned about local cats and the Native Americans did not note in oral legends any new species appearing recently.

Neither did European, Indian or Asian written records.  This puts a reasonable but negotiable upper limit at fifteen hundred years, plus or minus a little. What about the cats in North America?  It's hard to say but once the continents separated, it is unlikely for later transfer of species.

We are looking at 41 species to evolve and some to die out in under 2,000 years.  And none to evovle since then.

This is the problem with Creationist kinds.  They require evolution to occur at rates far faster than ever observed and also for evolution to stop even while we see it occurring today at rates historic records tell us are reasonable.

The Peppered moth controversy

I follow a blog that discusses evolution-creationism arguments and has a 'creationist wisdom' feature.  Most recently, the blog looked at an editorial in the Dalton Daily Citizen.

In this editorial,the author mentioned Pepper Moths and complained that the moths were pinned or glued to trees for the photos.

And you might also check out the textbook peppered moth story — dead moths being affixed to a tree trunk in order to stage photographic “proof” of evolution. The list goes on and on.

I can only imagine the author thinks photographing butterflies and moths is easy.  I've been lucky a few times but many times have ended up running through a field with the camera ready, trying to catch up to the insect on the wing.  It never ends well.

From Hoaxes.org:

Since the mid-1960s most Biology textbooks have included the story of the peppered moth, accompanied by Kettlewell's two photos (or ones very similar to them). The ubiquity of the images made it that much more shocking when the public learned the photos were staged. Finding black and white moths posed beside each other in a natural setting would have been almost impossible, so to create the photos Kettlewell pinned dead moths to tree trunks. Moth experts knew the photos were staged because live moths would not have had extended wings. But no textbook ever disclosed this detail to readers.

The thing about the peppered moths study is it simply shows small-scale evolution, the sort creationists claim to accept.  Look at changes in peppered moth colouration or changes in maturation in cod or tusk length in elephants and you see the beginnings of a transition.  Look at ring species like salamanders in the Western US or gulls species about the north pole and you see a bigger step.  Genetics and fossils show the larger scale steps.  For creationists to complain about peppered moths is to see their inconsistency - "Micro evolution is okay, but this micro evolution must have been faked."  Which is it?
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Added a few hours later:
Paul Braterman has a wonderfully detailed account of the history of Peppered Moth research.

Sci Am has 170 years of articles on Evolution

It is as the title says.  It is part of their Celebrating 170 years of Scientific American and of course, they are likely to have 156 years or less of evolution article as Darwin's theory was proposed only that many years ago.

I'm just dumping the link here.  I currently have four different Chrome windows open on a variety of subjects and need to clean up my desktop a little in order to get some real work done.

This weak a blog post will not surprise Marian66, who discussed the evidence for the Big Bang and more in the comments to this article:

Your vile rejection of God is duly noted. You sound like a teen who thinks he knows it all. But you have no idea what you are talking about. Your poorly structured and written blog points to that. You are blind, friend. But I will pray for you. Again, when the day comes, and it will come, when you stand before God, you are not going to get a second chance to accept him.

OT: a response to Parnell's "homosexuality is different from other sins"

Added later:
I wanted to mention that I found Parnell's article on Facebook.as a suggested post after I clicked on a friend's post, 9 sins the Church is okay with.  The 'sins' in that post were strange and not all that connected to the Bible as far as I could tell.  Anyway, I'm writing this introduction to specify that I haven't been hunting for Christian blogs or news to attack. It was suggested to me on Facebook.

---Original ---
Jonathan Parnell, at his blog, Desiring God, wrote about the difference between homosexuality and other sins of the Bible.  His blog does not have a comments section but he does have a Twitter handle.  I wanted to discuss his post and this blog is the closest in theme I have to use.

Jonathan Parnell, "Why homosexuality is not like other sins"

"the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
...
"At this moment in history, contrary to the other sins listed here, homosexuality is celebrated by our larger society with pioneering excitement. It’s seen as a good thing, as the new hallmark of progress."

"To be sure, the masses increasingly make no bones about sin in general. " -the end of this paragraph does mention, "in the church" but I feel Parnell needs to emphasize the hypocritical aspect of attacking homosexuality now.

In a long paragraph, Parnell names several other sins.  I have elided details to leave the names:

"But as far as I know, none of those sins is applauded so aggressively by whole groups of people who advocate for their normalcy. Sexual immorality .... Adultery .... Accusations of greed .... There’s no such thing as a drunk agenda yet. Most aren’t proud to choose a beverage over stability, and there aren’t any petitions that the government should abolish the driving restrictions of inebriated individuals. Reviling others .... Swindling, ...conniving scammers."

To paraphrase Parnell, "None of those sins is punished or attacked in church sermons as vigorously as homosexuality". Divorce and remarriage are common among Christians - this seems to be a form of immorality accepted by church-folk.  As for Greed and swindling, the wonderful John Oliver devoted 20 minutes to discussing the greed of a large number of church leaders.

But the bigger problem with Parnell's list is that he doesn't see anything different about homosexuality compared to the rest of the listed sins. Briefly, to a non-Christian in a secular society, homosexuality is victimless.

Homosexuality, or more properly, the opportunity for homosexuals to now get married, is a sign of love and desire for a stable long-lasting relationship.  Adultery is a sin that works to break up such relationships and usually happens in a moment of weakness.  Greed is a sin requiring more deliberation and outright evil.  It is the act of desiring more money than one has earned.  Drinking alcohol, and by extension, using other drugs, is of questionable morality but driving or attempting professional work while drunk causes a threat to all around that person.

I have heard some Jews describe some of the religious laws they follow as tests.  I think it was Van Halen that required bowl of brown M&Ms in their backstage room.  They didn't particularly care about the M&Ms; they cared that someone had read their contract and had followed their rules.  In the Bible, wearing clothes of mixed fabrics is forbidden, but as my Jewish friends explained, it was there as a test, a sign of their willingness to submit to God's authority.
Many Christians eat pork and bacon.  Many eat shrimp.  Many get tattoos. These are forbidden but they are different from sins of theft and violence.
And so is homosexuality.  This is why homosexuality is not like other sins.  It is victimless or the only victim might be the perpetrator.  A man who drinks alone and heavily but does not try to drive a vehicle or perform surgery is harming himself but no one else. This is different from murder.

 Homosexuals might or might not be harming themselves - you're welcome to the opinion that they are - but they are not harming others.  Their actions are different from murder.

As an aside, I note that Parnell's list of sins is quite lightweight. There are lots of things in the Bible described as sins.  Indeed, the translations of the Bible I read for this post do not use the word 'sin' in 1 Corinthians 6-9 (where his quote comes from). A quick search of Google suggests there are 125 sins described in the Bible. Parnell isn't interested in comparing homosexuality to murder or lying, which are Commandments.   The one he and I most agree on from his list is thievery as a sin. I would describe swindling as a form of thievery.

Greed, or in other Bible translations, 'covetousness' , can be damaging but is the heart of the Capitalist system of economics.

In Parnell's list, sexual immorality and homosexuality are both mentioned.  As a non-Christian, consensual sex between or among adults is seldom immoral of itself.  Adultery, which damages marriage and breaks vows one chose to make is usually immoral to some degree.

"As Christians, we believe with deepest sincerity that the embrace of homosexual practice, along with other sins, keeps people out of the kingdom of God. And if our society celebrates it, we can’t both be caring and not say anything. "

Then also speak up against greed and swindling, especially when done by clergyfolk.  Speak up against divorce and remarriage.  Speak up against the lies of creationists.  If Christians want the moral upper-hand, they need to speak up against sins that are crimes against others with at least as much vehemence as they do against homosexuals.

Creationism in Korea

The Marmot's Hole is the place for English news in Korea.  Today, it featured a post, caught in the screen shot from Feedly above, that disappeared.  Then, a new post, covering overlapping content appeared.

Yonsei University, one of the oldest universities in Korea, is now offering a course on Creationism – the belief that the Universe and Life originate “from specific acts of divine creation.” The Hankyoreh has a good article on this and the (electrical engineering) professor’s description of his course is interesting:

And their quote, coming from the Hangyoreh (a local newspaper):

It isn’t about how creationism is correct and evolution is always wrong,… As a Christian studying and teaching engineering, I have often had to think about faith and science. My aim is to talk about these concerns with students – not to try to boost creation science,…scientists in the Christian faith “often experience conflict between the words of the Bible and their scientific understanding.” The course, he explains, is intended to “find the parts of the Bible that can be tested scientifically and aid Biblical understanding through a scientific approach to creationism and evolution.”

The Hankyoreh article does not make clear whether the class will defend creationism or defend theistic evolution or the like but that very uncertainty is driving some (like me) to fear the weasel words are hiding the intent of the class.

The comment section is already active with a commenter from England, Richard Forrest responding to creationists there.  I believe this Forrest is also active on Talk Origins, a evolution/creationism Google Group.

I shot my mouth off a few times there as well.