Once again Egnor proves he's more of a liability than an asset to the cause. Ooblog exchanges some emails with Egnor asking him to define "biological information.

The problem? Egnor can't do it.

No one knows how to measure biological information in a meaningful way. The current ways of measuring information (Shannon, KC, etc) are relevant to sending signals, and are not of much help in biology.

Gene duplication is not a source of significant new information. It obviously changes the way things work in the cell, to some extent, but it can only copy what's there, and we're asking how it got there to begin with.

Even though we can't measure it (and serious investigators like Dembsky are trying to figure this out), we know biological information when we see it. The genetic code, molecular machines, seamless integration of physiology are all obviously the kind of biological information that we are trying to understand. The only source of such information (or functional complexity or whatever) that we know of in human experience is intelligent design. There are no 'natural' codes, aside from biology, which is the topic at issue.

Darwinists have a responsibility to show that undesigned mechanisms can produce sufficient biological information to account for living things. If they don't even know how to measure it, how can they assert that random variation and natural selection can account for it, and why is the design inference ruled out?

Actually, biologists can measure biological information, Evolutionblog has a good post on this aspect, but that's beside the point.

Egnor argues the invalidity of "Darwinism" based on it's inability to measure a metric he can't define better than "he knows it when he sees it".

This is a wonderful new technique. I say that ID creationism shouldn't be given any validity until they adequately explain biologic "godism". I don't know how to define or measure biologic godism, but it's the presence of godliness in biological systems. Until they quantify biologic godism to my satisfaction in a reproducible and systematic way, I don't think we can trust what they say. Biologic godism needs to be measured, mathematically modeled, and fit into a new biological framework before we can trust this new hypothesis of theirs.

Isn't it so much easier to argue with people when you're just allowed to make things up?

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

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.

...

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

I don't even know where to begin. I don't think I'm going to bother with a rebuttal since I'm sure Orac will surely get around do destroying him if he isn't too tired of feeding traffic to the guy. Orac also has a great review of the "proof" of DCA efficacy from the DCA site. The usual altie-woo, but nicely researched and dissected apart.

But what this is a good example of is the complete inability cranks have of maintaining any kind of consistency, and I'm not just talking about specifics of arguments, but more generally. In the specific sense, Egnor's latest rant appears to contradict several previous rants about what Darwinism, psuedo-Darwinism, and evolution are. None of his definitions is consistent across more than a couple of arguments and his current description of cancer as a Darwinian process seems to contradict the previous assertion of using Darwinism to study cancer as "psuedo".

Anyway, one of my points is that unraveling this kind of stuff can be very time consuming, and ultimately, not very rewarding, after all, it'll just be whackamole - tomorrow when the next riff off the top of his head needs to be shredded. I'll leave that to some of the other sciencebloggers who are more patient than me in that regard.

Instead let's talk about how generally cranks are very inconsistent. Notice, for instance, that the Discovery Institute doesn't seem to have a specific problem with Ken Ham or other Young Earth Creationists. A few weeks ago there was even a little mini-discussion about whether they should take a more aggressive posture towards YEC which they admit is inconsistent with ID. But they didn't. Are we surprised? Also look at the general willingness to accept all kinds of arguments, even ones that aren't consistent with other proponents of ID. Behe, for instance, doesn't argue that evolution essentially never occurred, his positions are often completely at opposition to Egnor's, and Egnor even makes Dembski look extreme. But they more than happily give Egnor a big loudspeaker, they're "big-tent" after all. They give a loudspeaker to Dave Scot, who levels pretty inane attacks on global warming science while talking conspiratorially about big pharma and DCA.

This is yet another reason why Denialism isn't real argument. Cranks who promote this stuff aren't inside of some actual "debate", in which data is important and various interpretations of that data are considered and discussed. Cranks sit outside a debate, and essentially shovel horse manure into the discussion. And if someone else wants to shovel in cow manure? Hell, they don't care, as long as it stinks and it's getting shoveled, they don't care what it is or who it is promoting it. It's pretty shameless.

So, what do you think a good description for this type of crank unity would be? That is, how would you simply describe the tendency of cranks not to care about the specifics of the denialist arguments being made, just as long as it creates confusion and sows doubt?

Labels: general discussion, Michael Egnor

There he goes again.

Darwinists claim that comparative medicine and biology, which is the study of the similarities between non-human organisms and humans, arose from Darwin's theory. That's nonsense. Comparative biology has been the been the basis for biological science for thousands of years, and many of the greatest medical advances, such as Galen's and Vesalius' studies of anatomy and Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, were the fruit of comparative biological research that antedated Darwin by centuries. The father of modern comparative biology was Carolus Linnaeus, who worked a century before Darwin was born.

Hear that? If the science existed in any form before the theory, than that must mean that new theory isn't useful to it. Aside from the straw man that "Darwinists" say that comparative medicine originates from evolutionary theory (such a historical inaccuracy really is a joke), this argument simply doesn't hold water. And when are they going to give up on this "Darwinist" label? Maybe we should take PZ's example and start calling them "Paleyists"

Take physics for an example. Mechanics existed long before Einstein came up with relativistic mechanics. How can you say relativity is indispensible to understanding modern physics? Newton came up with mechanics over a hundred years before Einstein was born!

The answer is simple. The kind of comparative medicine that was done two hundred years ago was helpful, I'm sure, but far less sophisticated than what we do now. As we discussed before the difference between comparative anatomy and the kind of genetic/molecular/physiologic science we do today is, well, huge.

Once again, no data, just bad analogies, bad straw men arguments, and the false statement of natural selection as a tautology. Egnor consistently has proven himself to be the perfect example of a denialist. All I need from him is a nice quote-mining episode or other evidence of selectivity and he's got the 5/5 score.

Now, let's hope for some other denialist examples to emerge, I'm getting bored with the creationists.

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

Wow, just...wow.

In response to Orac's challenge to show that the design inference is useful to medical research what is the first example that Egnor chooses? Watson and Crick's discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.

The reasoning? Well, they reverse-engineered the structure from the X-ray crystallography diffraction patterns (although he forgets to mention that they also used paper models representing the molecules of DNA to help figure out which structures were physically possible), and anything that is engineered is designed (according to Wikipedia), so they were using the design inference.

Am I reading that right? Is this actually what passes for logic these days? What's really sad is that the Discovery Institute thinks they have a winner in Michael Egnor, maybe it's because in the process of advancing denialist arguments they have absolutely no appreciation for what makes a good argument. But really, Watson and Crick, using the design inference? Please.

So, simply put, Egnor is saying because macromolecules follow physical rules and create structures that one can interpret from physical phenomena, that means they are engineered or that one infers design by using the physical laws of the universe to interpret them? Is he suggesting that a macromolecule could not form a regular structure without being engineered? (Oh boy, I hope he does) Or is he suggesting that without inferring design one is no longer allowed to use to laws of physics?

Seriously, this is such a dumb argument I can't even begin to figure out his reasoning. This is another problem with denialists, is that the arguments they make can be so bad, that you get confused since there isn't enough logic present to get an adequate hand-grip. I'm going to have to disagree with Orac and this idea that you can "challenge" IDers to provide evidence for a design inference and that will help prove a point, because they'll just say the design inference is in use already, is used all the time, and everything scientists really do is design inference but they won't admit it because they're part of the evil materialist conspiracy. And then, the sheep that swallow what are just really bad arguments will defend it, to the death, like it's a genius idea.

It's time to stop pretending the Discovery Institute are honest brokers in a debate about the physical nature of the universe, they're just denialists, they have nothing to offer.

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

Egnor says it was all a joke.

Happy April Fools'! (Or Dawkins' Day, as some of you might know it.)

Over the past month I have engaged in what my friend Bill Dembski ludicly refers to as "street theatre". My posts here have been an outlandish parody of the bona fide Intelligent Design position, liberally injected with many of the more simplistic errors of the Young Earth Creationists. My purpose was to see how far we could go before the gullible Darwinists realized they were being taken for a ride. The Discovery Institute has graciously aided (and abetted!) by allowing me a voice on this weblog and by giving me valuable feedback on my comedic output. Together, we have succeeded in duping the Darwinists (like the foul-mouthed duncecaps at the Panda's Thumb and Scienceblogs).

Our ruse was bound to work for a while; after all, Darwinists eagerly want to believe that Intelligent Design is nothing but "dressed up" Creationism. However, I'm astounded we made it this far, as I truly feared that the Darwinian horde would catch on sooner---but they are even denser than we had expected. Bill Dembski wagered a bottle of Macallan that I would not persevere to this day---but I have, and I will collect. I also owe Casey Luskin a beer; his courageous acting in our podcasts deserves an Oscar.

Thank you, Darwinists, for giving the Discovery Institute plenty of laughs by coining such ad hominem terms as "egnoramus", "egnorance", "Dr. Egnore", and "egnorrants". Not since middle school have I endured such puerile taunts. It was, after all, too easy to exploit the Darwinists' blind bigotry for Intelligent Design theorists. Regardless of how ridiculous my posts were, the Darwinians seriously thought that I was sincere. The doctors in my medical school deal with the realities of microevolution daily (e.g., the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics), yet the Darwinists willingly believed that I could be "egnorant" of these facts.

The Discovery Institute and I hope you have enjoyed our elaborate game. As Bill Dembski has said, we should strive to "be more fun at parties". But on a serious note, and with apologies to Sir Ronald Fisher, Intelligent Design is not Creationism. Intelligent Design theorists embrace evolutionary science and its implications for modern biology and medicine. Common descent is a fine working hypothesis; natural selection can produce some limited forms of information; it would be foolish to deny these. We, as ID theorists, simply recognize one additional fact about our Universe that the Church of Darwin refuses to: when all else fails, laughter is still the best medicine.

Good night and God Bless.

Or did he?

Look closely...

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

Apparently, it's a standard trope.

Preventing the emergence of resistant strains of bacteria is important work, but the insight that Darwinism brings to the problem - the unkilled ones eventually outnumber the killed ones - is of no help. We can figure that out ourselves. The tough work on preventing the emergence of resistant bacteria is done by microbiologists, epidemiologists, molecular geneticists, pharmacologists, and physicians who are infectious disease specialists. Darwinism, understood as the view that "chance and necessity" explains all biological complexity, plays no role.

The Darwinist modus operandi for a century and a half has been to slip a philosophical agenda - scientific materialism - in with the science. They hijack other fields of biology - microbiology, population biology, epidemiology, genetics, etc - then they assert that Darwinism is essential to those fields, then they claim that the hypothesis that random variation and natural selection is the origin of all biological complexity is a "fact" supported by overwhelming evidence. When challenged, they prove the "fact" of scientific materialism by doing a Pub-Med search for thousands of tangential articles from the fields they've hijacked.

Ok, so he thinks that all bacteria have all the resistance genes they will ever have? This guy is a doctor! And he still doesn't get it. You wonder how he would explain how bacteria did not have resistance genes 20 years ago, and now they do. I suppose he'll assert, against all reason, evidence etc., that they've always had those genes, it's just some subpopulations have them and others don't. This defies logic because that would mean that antibiotics would never have worked. If there were always subpopulations with the resistance gene present, bacterial resistance would have been instant from the start. Oy, the stupid. It hurts my brain.

Anyway, he gets 1 point for straw man ("chance and necessity" and the description of bacterial evolution as "the unkilled ones eventually outnumber the killed ones"), he gets 1 point for conspiracy (the materialist agenda hijacking science - whatever), he get's one point for impossible expectations because he describes the act of providing him evidence as some kind of deception and he always gets one point for being a false expert. That's 4/5, but without quoting people or data selectively he's never going to get a 5/5. Keep working on it Egnor.

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

Posting at the DI Michael Egnor, their new pet surgeon, ravages the "Darwinists" (who are these "Darwinists" anyway) for their apparent uselessness in understanding the evolution of microbial resistance to antibiotics.

Darwinists claim that Darwin's theory, which is the theory that all biological complexity arose by random variation and natural selection, is essential to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. What exactly does Darwinism teach us about antibiotic resistance?

Microbiology tells us that bacterial populations are heterogeneous. Individual bacteria differ from one another. Molecular biology tells us that some bacteria have molecular mechanisms by which they can survive antibiotics. Molecular genetics tells us how these resistance mechanisms are passed to other bacteria and through generations of bacteria. Pharmacology helps us design new antibiotics that circumvent the bacterial defenses.

What does Darwinism add to the sciences of microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, and pharmacology? Darwinism tells us that antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive exposure to antibiotics because of natural selection. That is, bacteria survive antibiotics that they're not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That's it.

Microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics and pharmacology are indispensable to modern medicine. We've learned much about intricate bacterial defenses against antibiotics, and we've developed hundreds of antibiotics that have saved millions of lives. What has Darwinism added to these miracles? Just this: non-killed bacterial eventually outnumber killed bacteria.

It's funny how they insist on calling biologists Darwinians, it's like calling a physicist a Newtonian, or a Copernican.

Anyway, let's determine the Denialism Score for this particular anti-evolution argument.

1. Conspiracy: None alleged here, other than the subtext of the materialist "darwinist" view being out to subvert religion in all ways.

2. Selectivity: I think ignoring the facts that microbial resistance has taken decades to evolve would be a pretty simple example of the selectivity of this argument. If these bacterial resistance genes have always been present in bacterial populations, why has it only been in the last 20 years that bacterial resistance has become a major problem? Why didn't the beta-lactamase resistance genes appear immediately upon use of penicillin and make the drug rapidly worthless? To believe this requires one to ignore the available evidence and dismiss the natural history of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

3. False Experts: Well he is one, so that's covered.

4. Impossible Expectations/Moving Goalposts: Perhaps the expectation in the article that "Darwinism" should fly in the window and cure patients if it is to be useful could count as an expectation that's impossible.

5. Logical Fallacies: Well, these are abundant. I'd say he's got red herrings, and straw-men galore.

So I give Egnor about a 4/5 on the Denialism scorecard for this.

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor

Let's help Coturnix label the Discovery Institute's latest shill, Dr. Michael Egnor, as he really is, a creationist hack. Want to read about Egnor? The links below should provide a clue to the legitimacy of the DI's latest screwball doctor.


Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor
Michael Egnor

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor