"1,000 Scientists Sign Up to Dissent from Darwin"

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know this Ham guy from Adam, but your OP left me at a bit of a cliff hanger. I needed to know if there was a list!

I'm glad you recognize that these engineers aren't scientists and we would therefore agree that Bill Nye is a Not-So-Science-Guy, considering that all he has is a mechanical engineering degree as well.

Good post.

And yet he kicked the hind end of Ham so badly in their debate that even Christian sites realized that the Hamster lost.

 

[Salvador]

And yet he kicked the hind end of Ham so badly in their debate that even Christian sites realized that the Hamster lost.

There's overwhelming fossil record evidence as well as genetic evidence of significant enough gene pool changes within a species changing over the course of many generations resulting in organisms having genetic traits different enough from their distant ancestors; so that there'd be no possible sexual reproduction occurring between somebody who were to have distant ancestral genetic traits with anybody living in the current population. There's little doubt all life forms share a common ancestor; so then, evolution is about as debatable as the Earth's ellipsoid shape.

Richard Dawkins would never stoop so low as to debate a Creationist.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There's overwhelming fossil record evidence as well as genetic evidence of significant enough gene pool changes within a species changing over the course of many generations resulting in organisms having genetic traits different enough from their distant ancestors; so that there'd be no possible sexual reproduction occurring between somebody who were to have distant ancestral genetic traits with anybody living in the current population. There's little doubt all life forms share a common ancestor; so then, evolution is about as debatable as the Earth's ellipsoid shape.

Richard Dawkins would never stoop so low as to debate a Creationist.

Many other scientists will not either. They remember the extreme dishonesty of early creationist debaters. That is why so many of those debating creationists are either lay people or relatively unknown as professional scientists. They do not wish to "wrestle with a pig".

 

[Prestor John]

And yet he kicked the hind end of Ham so badly in their debate that even Christian sites realized that the Hamster lost.

Who cares?

I never claimed that Ham was a capable representative of Christianity.

Bill Nye is not a scientist.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

If all the scientists are engineers, or rocket scientists, particle theorists, mathematicians, etc, it doesn't matter, because they are not qualified to make any statements about biology.

OK...then how do you feel about Bill Nye, the science guy? He’s no biologist.

But you never hear any evolutionary biologists say “He’s unqualified.”

Why? He’s popular, and provides a platform for their confirmation bias.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Who cares?

I never claimed that Ham was a capable representative of Christianity.

Bill Nye is not a scientist.

Yet he proves creationists wrong very easily. By attacking Bill you denigrate creationists.

 

[Subduction Zone]

OK...then how do you feel about Bill Nye, the science guy? He’s no biologist.

But you never hear any evolutionary biologists say “He’s unqualified.”

Why? He’s popular, and provides a platform for their confirmation bias.

Bill has a relatively easy task. All he has to do is to defend reality.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Bill has a relatively easy task. All he has to do is to defend reality.

Yeah, easy enough. Otherwise, he’d lose his job.

Surely you can provide us with an example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process which has been observed to increase information in the genome, leading to a more complex organism.

We’ll be waiting.

 

[Sapiens]

I don't know this Ham guy from Adam, but your OP left me at a bit of a cliff hanger. I needed to know if there was a list!

I'm glad you recognize that these engineers aren't scientists and we would therefore agree that Bill Nye is a Not-So-Science-Guy, considering that all he has is a mechanical engineering degree as well.

Good post.

Being an engineer does not make one wrong perse, it is simply an absurd and irrelevant pretense when used as an appeal to authority as relates to Darwinian Evolution. The same can be said of degrees in Physics, Medicine, Dentistry, Psychology, and most of the other credentials on THE LIST. Then there are the losers who can dredge up nothing more impressive of being a "Fellow" of an organization that has no more requirements that paying one's dues of claiming a position of "Adjunct" faculty. I suspect that a real combing of THE LIST would leave maybe one or two dozen who might reasonably claim expertise on the basis of their credentials. Another intriguing artifact of THE LIST are the affiliations. Please note that the affiliations listed do not reflect the individuals' affiliation at the time of signing but rather reflect the compilers' cherry picking of the affiliation that they adjudge being the most reputable. An example of this is Robert W Bass, who is listed as a PhD in Mathematics (also Rhodes Scholar; Post-Doc at Princeton) with an affiliation with Johns Hopkins University. The fact is that he was a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, having earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins. Being affiliated with Johns Hopkins is far more prestigious than BYU, especially when you consider that Bass was a Cold Fusion wacko and a supporter of the Worlds in Collision wack-a-doodle Velikovsky. It was the latter affiliation that ultimately resulted in his being “dismissed for cause” from BYU. Please note that I knew nothing of Bass before tonight and I selected him from the list for further scrutiny because I have great respect for the Rhodes Scholar program.

 

[Sapiens]

OK...then how do you feel about Bill Nye, the science guy? He’s no biologist.

But you never hear any evolutionary biologists say “He’s unqualified.”

Why? He’s popular, and provides a platform for their confirmation bias.

No. because he is, by and large, correct, despite being an engineer and having no formal biological training..

Yeah, easy enough. Otherwise, he’d lose his job.

Surely you can provide us with an example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process which has been observed to increase information in the genome, leading to a more complex organism.

We’ll be waiting.

I hate to tell you, Bill Nye can not lose his job ... he is self employed.

Two new species of American goatsbeards (or salsifies, genus Tragopogon) sprang into existence in the past century. In the early 1900s, three species of these wildflowers - the western salsify (T. dubius), the meadow salsify (T. pratensis), and the oyster plant (T. porrifolius) - were introduced to the United States from Europe. As their populations expanded, the species interacted, often producing sterile hybrids. But by the 1950s, scientists realized that there were two new variations of goatsbeard growing. While they looked like hybrids, they weren't sterile. They were perfectly capable of reproducing with their own kind but not with any of the original three species - the classic definition of a new species.

How did this happen? It turns out that the parental plants made mistakes when they created their gametes (analogous to our sperm and eggs). Instead of making gametes with only one copy of each chromosome, they created ones with two or more, a state called polyploidy. Two polyploid gametes from different species, each with double the genetic information they were supposed to have, fused, and created a tetraploid: an creature with 4 sets of chromosomes. Because of the difference in chromosome number, the tetrapoid couldn't mate with either of its parent species, but it wasn't prevented from reproducing with fellow accidents.

This process, known as Hybrid Speciation, has been documented a number of times in different plants. But plants aren't the only ones speciating through hybridization: Heliconius butterflies, too, have split in a similar way.

With thanks to the Scientific American, that's Game, Set and Match.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yeah, easy enough. Otherwise, he’d lose his job.

Surely you can provide us with an example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process which has been observed to increase information in the genome, leading to a more complex organism.

We’ll be waiting.

Every mutation by definition increases "information". And your demand of making something "more complex" is unfounded. You can't even define the terms that you use, no answer will satisfy you.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

No. because he is, by and large, correct, despite being an engineer and having no formal biological training..
I hate to tell you, Bill Nye can not lose his job ... he is self employed.

Two new species of American goatsbeards (or salsifies, genus Tragopogon) sprang into existence in the past century. In the early 1900s, three species of these wildflowers - the western salsify (T. dubius), the meadow salsify (T. pratensis), and the oyster plant (T. porrifolius) - were introduced to the United States from Europe. As their populations expanded, the species interacted, often producing sterile hybrids. But by the 1950s, scientists realized that there were two new variations of goatsbeard growing. While they looked like hybrids, they weren't sterile. They were perfectly capable of reproducing with their own kind but not with any of the original three species - the classic definition of a new species.

How did this happen? It turns out that the parental plants made mistakes when they created their gametes (analogous to our sperm and eggs). Instead of making gametes with only one copy of each chromosome, they created ones with two or more, a state called polyploidy. Two polyploid gametes from different species, each with double the genetic information they were supposed to have, fused, and created a tetraploid: an creature with 4 sets of chromosomes. Because of the difference in chromosome number, the tetrapoid couldn't mate with either of its parent species, but it wasn't prevented from reproducing with fellow accidents.

This process, known as Hybrid Speciation, has been documented a number of times in different plants. But plants aren't the only ones speciating through hybridization: Heliconius butterflies, too, have split in a similar way.

With thanks to the Scientific American, that's Game, Set and Match.

No it isn't, sorry. Doubling information is not de novo information, leading, as per my request, to a "more complex" organism.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok. let's for say a person traveled back to some million or billion years ago, what time period of the Earth's history would that be in.

A time period where homo sapiens didn't exist yet.
A million or a billion? That's quite a huge difference.
A million years ago, there were hominids like homo erectus.
A billion years ago.... there wasn't even any multi-cellular life yet at that point.

And how exactly would the earth look like and what animals would that person expect to find. And how much water would be on the earth.
And what would man be like

Man did not exist yet.
And again, the difference between "a million" and "a billion" is gigantic.

 

[Tiberius]

OK...then how do you feel about Bill Nye, the science guy? He’s no biologist.

But you never hear any evolutionary biologists say “He’s unqualified.”

Why? He’s popular, and provides a platform for their confirmation bias.

And does he claim to be an expert on biology, or is he sharing what the actual biologists are saying?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Yeah, easy enough. Otherwise, he’d lose his job.

Surely you can provide us with an example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process which has been observed to increase information in the genome, leading to a more complex organism.

We’ll be waiting.

Here's a page containing links and references to several examples:

CB102: Mutations adding information

 

[ImmortalFlame]

No it isn't, sorry. Doubling information is not de novo information, leading, as per my request, to a "more complex" organism.

You've moved the goalposts. You asked for an example of an "increase in" information, not "de novo" information, and by any reasonable standard a doubling of information IS an increase in information.

As for a "more complex" organism, could you give us a theoretical example of what would constitute a "more complex" organism?

 

[Subduction Zone]

No it isn't, sorry. Doubling information is not de novo information, leading, as per my request, to a "more complex" organism.

Your request is nonsensical since you cannot define your terms.

 

[tas8831]

OK...then how do you feel about Bill Nye, the science guy? He’s no biologist.

But you never hear any evolutionary biologists say “He’s unqualified.”

Why? He’s popular, and provides a platform for their confirmation bias.

Why? He doesn't misrepresent the science in order to put forth an out of touch and out of date mythology.

 

[tas8831]

The OP stated...."It would be amusing if it wasn't so harmful."

I don't worship science or see it as something terribly beneficial

Pity that prayer doesn't work...

By the way - still waiting for your insights re: bacteria making themselves immune.

 

[tas8831]

I call them on their so called "evidence" and say they have as much of a "belief system" as do those who believe in Intelligent Design.

No, you don't.

You dismiss/ignore/reject the evidence due to 1. your brainwashing that requires you to do so and 2. your confessed scientific illiteracy.

People are as indoctrinated about science's theories as they believe others are about religion.

1. Nice to see you admit that you have been indoctrinated.
2. Bad of you to try to make yourself feel better by claiming the same for others not in your cult.

...so science is very much about "believing". They are just better at marketing and peer pressure.

No, it is about "understanding" and "accepting." Pity that religious fanatics cannot understand this.