Anyone seen the movie Phenomenon, where John Travolta gets a brain tumor and becomes a magical genius? Yeah, it's a terrible movie, with a nice anti-intellectual message (the evil scientists in it wanted to eat John Travolta's brain!).

Well, Michael Egnor seems to think a magical tumor is a reasonable outcome - if evolution is true. I'm not kidding. Once again I'm astounded that the DI thinks that Egnor is some kind of genius worth being a front man for their insanity.

Cancer is a test of Darwin's theory. Cancer is real biological evolution by random mutation and natural selection, writ fast. There's no reason to invoke encyclopedia typos or tractor engines in order to understand what "chance and necessity" can do to a living system. Brain tumors are perfect little Novellian "two-cycle engines" nestled inside the skull, "random mutations" coming out the ears, and "natural selection" like there's no tomorrow (excuse the metaphors). Brain tumors are constantly generating new biological variation, and they are avatars of natural selection. They provide a tremendous spectrum of variation, from "variation jet-engines" like malignant glioblastoma multiforme to "variation tortoises" like benign pilocytic astrocytomas. Cancer wards are full of patients brimming with "two-stroke engines" of evolutionary change.

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The best real biological test of "shuffling around information, duplicating, and altering the information" is cancer. According to Dr. Novella's reasoning, brain tumors ought to be generating quite a bit of "meaningful and even useful new information." Better neuroanatomy and better neurophysiology ought to be popping up "easily." Better frontal lobes and cognition, from cancer. Better temporal lobes and memory, from cancer. Better cerebellums and coordination, from cancer. If random mutations and natural selection-Dr. Novella's "two stroke engine"-is the source of all functional integrated biological complexity, brain tumors ought to help our brains evolve in some way.

It's amazing. This guy is a brain surgeon. The complete misunderstanding of the implications of neoplastic transformation is pretty scary.

Just so people do understand what cancer says about evolution involves the tight regulation of selfishness of cells for the benefit of the organism as a whole. Cancer is the unfortunate result of transformation of a healthy cooperative cell into one that has lost the ability to cooperate with the host. Redundant mechanisms exist within a cell to prevent this behavior - apoptosis genes, DNA repair mechanisms, genes that force the cell to stop dividing in the presence of severe DNA damage etc. When these mechanisms are damaged, or overridden by the oncogenic transformation, the cell starts dividing and proliferating out of control, consuming energy, invading tissues, and trying to grow and survive all at the cost of the host. All of this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Multi-cellular organisms evolved so that cells within the organism would cooperate and work together for the common benefit of the organism as a whole. Cancer is almost like a cellular atavism - regression to the pre-multicellular state in which individual cells act selfishly for their own survival.

So, for Egnor's latest argument, I'd say this is a straw man. There is no reason that evolution that benefits a single cell over others would result in intelligence for the organism as a whole. It only ranks as a 2/5 on the denialism index (false expert, logical fallacy) it's a silly argument, and it doesn't deserve much attention. But damn if it ain't a funny one.

Labels: Discovery Institute, Michael Egnor

Again, not to harp too much on the creationists, but the tend to be the more prolific of the WWW denialists. Today alone they have a wonderful example of "poisoning the well"/ad hominem, they're propagating that tiresome Al Gore smear (again poisoning the well/ad hominem), but those logical fallacies are too easy. Instead let's talk about this article, "Who doubts common descent? You’d be surprised" by Denyse O'Leary as a perfect example of selectivity, or in this specific instance, quote-mining.

She selects two quotes in particlar, the first from Malcom Gordon of UCLA in his essay The Concept of Monophyly: A Speculative Essay.

"The phenomenon of a monophyletic origin for the universal Tree of Life probably did not occur ... At the macro-scale life appears to have had many origins."

The second from W. Ford Doolittle's inaugural address to the NAS

"Darwin claimed that a unique inclusively hierarchical pattern of relationships between all organisms based on their similarities and differences [the Tree of Life (TOL)] was a fact of nature, for which evolution, and in particular a branching process of descent with modification, was the explanation. However, there is no independent evidence that the natural order is an inclusive hierarchy, and incorporation of prokaryotes into the TOL is especially problematic. The only data sets from which we might construct a universal hierarchy including prokaryotes, the sequences of genes, often disagree and can seldom be proven to agree. Hierarchical structure can always be imposed on or extracted from such data sets by algorithms designed to do so, but at its base the universal TOL rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true."

Why don't we do these fine scientists a favor and publish the full quotes. Here's the full abstract from Malcom Gordon's paper.

The concept of monophyly is central to much of modern biology. Despite many efforts over many years, important questions remain unanswered that relate both to the concept itself and to its various applications. This essay focuses primarily on four of these: i) Is it possible to define monophyly operationally, specifically with respect to both the structures of genomes and at the levels of the highest phylogenetic categories (kingdoms, phyla, classes)? ii) May the mosaic and chimeric structures of genomes be sufficiently important factors in phylogeny that situations exist in which the concept may not be applicable? iii) In the history of life on earth were there important groups of organisms that probably had polyphyletic, rather than monophyletic, origins? iv) Does the near universal search for monophyletic origins of clades lead, on occasion, to both undesirable narrowing of acceptable options for development of evolutionary scenarios and sometimes actual omission from consideration of less conventional types of both data and modes of thought, possibly at the expense of biological understanding? Three sections in the essay consider possible answers to these questions: i) A reassessment is made of major features of both the concept and some of its applications. Recent research results make it seem improbable that there could have been single basal forms for many of the highest categories of evolutionary differentiation (kingdoms, phyla, classes). The universal tree of life probably had many roots. Facts contributing to this perception include the phylogenetically widespread occurrences of: horizontal transfers of plasmids, viral genomes, and transposons; multiple genomic duplications; the existence and properties of large numbers of gene families and protein families; multiple symbioses; broad-scale hybridizations; and multiple homoplasys. Next, justifications are reassessed for the application of monophyletic frameworks to two major evolutionary developments usually interpreted as having been monophyletic: ii) the origins of life; and iii) the origins of the vertebrate tetrapods. For both cases polyphyletic hypotheses are suggested as more probable than monophyletic hypotheses. Major conclusions are, as answers to the four questions posed above: probably not, yes, yes, and yes.

And, for Dr. Doolittle's sake let's just tack on the next sentence in that paragraph that O'Leary smartly left out.

This is not to say that similarities and differences between organisms are not to be accounted for by evolutionary mechanisms, but descent with modification is only one of these mechanisms, and a single tree-like pattern is not the necessary (or expected) result of their collective operation.

Hmmm. Pretty typical denialist tactic there. Neither of these scientists is really expressing skepticism about evolutionary theory, or evolutionary mechanisms being responsible for things like increasing biological information, bacterial resistance, or speciation, all of which the DI denies. They're criticizing the tree-of-life model as incomplete in describing all the ways new species branch off from their ancestors. The implication being that if there are scientists who feel that the current model of phylogeny or whatever is not fully descriptive, clearly that means that evolution is "controversial" or there is reason to throw out the whole thing.

It also highlights the fundamentally deceptive nature of the denialist. What do you think? Did O'Leary accurately depict these scientists statements? Or does this feel deceptive to you?

Labels: Denyse O'Leary, Discovery Institute, Evolution denialism

... if we're not nicer to his buddy Michael Egnor. Apparently, when you present arguments that are completely devoid of thought, responding to them with, "your argument is bad and you should feel bad" is proof that your argument is wrong.

We anti-denialists, of course, disagree. Sometimes an argument isn't even an argument. Sometimes the only correct response is to say, that's retarded, go away. But let's go through this real quick.

It's been amusing-and revealing-to observe the recent debates between many in the Darwinist internet community and a professor of neurosurgery, Michael Egnor. A few simple questions have incurred a deluge of ad hominem attacks upon Egnor, mocking his name by calling him an "Egnoramus" who writes "EgnorRants" and using post titles like, "Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance." In fact, Darwinist attacks upon Egnor are nothing new. Last summer a Darwinist wrote that "Michael Egnor is a Crappy Neurosurgeon Who Will Cut out Your Brain and Eat It," and compared Egnor's arguments to taking "a big ol' steaming s*** on a piece of paper and want[ing] that taught as science." More recently, Egnor pointed out the viciousness of Darwinist attacks upon Michael Behe. Egnor was then greeted with telling replies from Darwinist commenters on PZ Myers' blog who wrote things like: "let me say,as [sic] gently and politely as possible, that on this Egnor is full of s***," and "if idiots couldn't weather having their idiocy pointed out to them, they wouldn't BE idiots now, would they." Yet for all their numbers and name-calling, not a single one has answered Egnor's question: How does Darwinian mechanisms produce new biological information?

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In the end, I can cheerfully forgive Kevin Beck, but two questions remain: (1) Why is such name-calling so common among Darwinists? and (2) How do Darwinian mechanisms produce truly novel biological information? I've seen no good answers to question 2, and perhaps their lack of such a good answer is driving the observations behind question (1).

This is an interesting tactic. Apparently we "Darwinists" (along with the "Newtonists" and "Einsteinists") have to tolerate stupid questions that are restated over and over again, answered over and over again, and ultimately ignored only to be asked over and over again. This is the problem with Denialists, and is criteria #4, the impossible expectation. What can we do other than point them at the talk origins page and say again, your question has been answered?

But it is pointless, because the point of being a denialist is that no answer will ever satisfy them. They do not care about data, they do not care about evidence, they do not care about advancing a theory that will improve human understanding. They only want one thing, everyone to believe what they believe.

And this is what irritates me the most about denialists like Egnor and Luskin. The deception. They're just liars. The whole DI is just a front for introducing religion in the name of science. The whole reason they get called names is because everyone knows they're just liars that are trying to create confusion and doubt about real science. Hell, Judge Jones said it best in Dover vs. Kitzmiller (From the Wiki:

"For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID [intelligent design] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child" (page 24)

"A significant aspect of the IDM [intelligent design movement] is that despite Defendants’ protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity." (page 26)

"The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism" (page 31)

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory." (page 43)

"Throughout the trial and in various submissions to the Court, Defendants vigorously argue that the reading of the statement is not “teaching” ID but instead is merely “making students aware of it.” In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members’ testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree." (footnote 7 on page 46)

"After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community." (page 64)

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"ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." (page 89)

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Judge John E. Jones III issued the decision in the case

In his Conclusion on pages 136-138 of 139 of this decision he writes:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents. […]

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

There you have it. The real problem we have with the creationists at DI and other proponents of ID is that they are a bunch of lying denialists. They lie and lie and lie, and spew BS all the time, and every effective rebuttal is ignored.

So don't get upset if Casey Luskin cries foul, it's not like they can argue substance over style. He's a denialist, a liar, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just call him a denialist and forget about it, nothing else can reasonably be done. And if denialists don't want to be called denialists, then they need to stop making arguments that are denialist.

Labels: Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute, Evolution denialism