What do you feel I should have done instead of referring her to the FAQ?
-Ben
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Seriously, sdimbert, you’re making some insulting assumptions about my motives. Do you really think your assumptions are warranted? Do you think you can be so sure of your analysis that it warrants insulting me right off the bat, rather than first taking a more polite approach?
On what grounds do you base your observation that “nobody wants to talk about it”? As I pointed out to Manhattan, it seems to me that this has been one of the longer threads in GD.
-Ben
I believe the title was Evolution: Starts with “E”, Which Rhymes with “T.”
-Ben
Thanks for the link- I found it interesting to see who posted them. At least now I know my email to ghoti actually got through!
-Ben
Nothing more nor less than what you asked of her. Instead of, “Read my FAQ”, simply “We call them ‘pseudo’ because…” Either that, or let her refer you as well.
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You mean that I should have pasted the relevant portion of the FAQ here?
Refer me to a book which clearly cannot contain the relevant information, or let her refer me to a FAQ which has a few paragraphs containing the answer?
-Ben
I must agree that I too have enjoyed reading his debunkings of the creationist responses. Already I know just how freaking deep the creationist side will try and go, as well as the intricacies of BOTH sides that I never imagined existed. So if my thought matters, carry on and fight!
I mean that you should have answered her questions directly, just as you expected her to answer yours. Rationalize it however you wish.
You said you hadn’t read the book. How can you know, therefore, that it contained no relevant information? From what you’ve presented here, from my perspective, the debate looks like a draw.
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So you feel that these two cases are equivalent?
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I answered her question by directing her to a FAQ which contains a concise answer, which she could find by, at worst, searching for the word “pseudoexon” on the page.
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She directed me to an entire book which I cannot search electronically, which is apparently not written with the intention of providing a concise creationist explanation of the evidence, and the relevant portions of which she did not summarize into a few paragraphs.
I think your analogy would be much more apt if I had directed her to a textbook, rather than to my summary. Do you really deny that she would have a much easier time of finding the information in my FAQ than I would of finding it in the book?
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I asked for a creationist explanation of the evidence. She directed me to a book, by an evolutionist, and she doesn’t even claim that it contains a creationist explanation. Instead, she declares that the book will only prove that the evidence is not as I claimed it to be, but she does not summarize what the true state of the evidence is, nor does she provide a creationist explanation, nor does she indicate that a creationist explanation is to be found in the book.
In any event, I already gave my reasons for forbidding quotefests, and you’ve completely failed to acknowledge them.
So when I ask for a creationist explanation of the physical arrangement of hemoglobin genes, and she answers simply, “They don’t,” that’s a draw?
-Ben
Lib, are you going to debate Ben or just continue to chastise him? Who made you his daddy?
No, I don’t. But then, you should have laid the ground rules something like this: “only referencing of on-line searchable text is allowed.” Maybe she would have opted out if she does not have the resources to post an FAQ of her own.
A debating point is not won simply by standing on a higher hill than one’s opponent. Other than being more trouble for you, if you cared to test her veracity, there is nothing about your having an online FAQ and her having merely a textbook that gives your argument more weight than hers.
On the contrary, I think she summarized what she believed to be the true state of the evidence quite nicely with two words: “They don’t.” That is, calculated phylogenetic trees of orthologous proteins do not agree with the pattern of relationships between species. Then, she said that if you didn’t believe her, you should see the book she referenced.
You cannot require of her a creationist explanation for phenomena that she does not believe exist.
I understand your reasons, and I agree with them. I think the ground rules you laid out are entirely reasonable. But I certainly did not fail to acknowledge them. In fact, I brought them to your attention in asking why she was bound to them while you were not.
A quotefest is no less a quotefest when it comes from an electronic page instead of a paper one.
Well, no. It was the whole thing. You two seem utterly to despise one another. It’s one of those debates where the engaged parties believe life, freedom, and honor is on the line, leaving the audience to sift through the egos to get to the facts.
Your point is valid that she must address your very technical arguments head on without excusing herself by saying she doesn’t know what you’re talking about. But unless you want your debate’s outcome to be decided subjectively, it is we, the audience, who must understand your arguments. And from my perspective, as a layman in the field, it seemed to me that she did indeed know what you were talking about, but simply disagreed. Surely you can understand that, from that perspective, it looked like a draw.
[shrug…] I dunno. Same guy who made you my hemorrhoid, I reckon. 
I suppose I could simply quote the relevant portions of the FAQ here, as Libertarian suggested, but doing so would involve so much quoted text that it would be larger than the webpage Freakboy quoted and which Lynn removed.
Does anyone think there’s any validity to Libertarian’s complaints? I don’t want to waste time debating with Libertarian, because clearly nothing I say will convince him, and now he can’t even get his facts right. But if anyone else thinks he has a point, I’ll be willing to talk to them.
-Ben
I’ll save you the trouble, Ben. I withdraw my complaint and regret the expression of my interest in the matter. I have no idea what “facts” you believe I can’t get straight. I gave you my opinions, thus, “I think she summarized…,” “I think the ground rules…,” and “You two seem…”
I did say that an argument is not won by posturing. That is a fact and it is straight. I did say that an audience must understand your arguments in order to judge the debate. That is a fact and it is straight.
As to your suggestion that I am obstinate (…“clearly nothing I say will convince him…”) it is a matter of record that I agreed with your reasons and that I thought that you made a good point. Perhaps you, too, will not be convinced by any cause.
As to didacted text, it is not against the rules to post material that is one’s own work. My homepage link below has post after post of my own words. A whole story. No one has removed it.
Ben, I read the original thread for a while and I have read the beginnings of this one. I have a question for you.
What are you looking for? Do you plan to convert to a creationist if someone can logically refute your points? You seem pretty determined in your attitute to finish this. Will it ever end? What answers could satisfy you?
I remember a thread started on a programming newsgroup I frequent. The original poster posed a challenge to the “gurus” Write a program without any semicolons, if statements, dollar signs(the method of indicating a variable in this language), along with a bunch of other arbitrary restrictions. He claimed a “real programmer” could do it. When people posted early attempts which were simply work-arounds, ie using the octal values for the semicolons and such, he declared them cheaters and excluded their solutions. One of the most well known and respected(even feared, for her flame burns bright and spares none) posters replied saying “Your rules are ridiculous. Your contest is pointless. It is completely not representative of any situation which would ever occur. You have people jumping through hoops for your own amusement. Get over yourself.”
Saying creation science has no rigorious explanation for some of the quirks in the human genome serves no ligimate purpose. Similar arguements were made when vestigial traits were discovered, they weren’t resolved, why do you expect these to be? Baiting them and hassling them into trying to write answers to suit you will get you rejected out of hand by anyone with any amount of intelligence. No one will play a game in which one of the opponents is in control of the rules and is the judge who will decide the victor.
I once came up with what I considered a creative way to solve a physics problem in a classroom. The challenge was to drop an egg from 40 feet as slow as possible, with an apparatus that weighed as much as possible. The teacher expected two sets of results, light and slow, or heavy and fast. The other entries ranged from lots of helium baloons tied to foam-wrapped eggs to a box of bricks with a foam wrapped egg on top in the center. My device was a winch made out of Lego Technic bricks which lowered itself via an elaborate pully system(final mechanical advantage of 9) and a very slow motor. It took somewhere in the neighborhood of a week to lower the egg and weighed in at about five pounds(we had to judge the rate at which it lowered and extrapolate, it had made no noticeable progress during the class period we conducted the experiment). The rules did not specifically outlaw mechanical devices and my device was within the size requirements.
I was describing my device, to one of the school physics jocks, you know the type, have math trophies and compete on the academic team, and, of course, arrogant as hell. He told me that he could easily beat my time and that if he was in the contest I wouldn’t have stood a chance. I asked him what his idea would have been, genuinely curious. His answer? “Well first I would have made sure the rules disallowed mechanical devices. Then…” I don’t remember what the rest of his idea was because I tuned him out right there. One of the secrets of debate, never enter an arguement where one of the interested parties gets to act as judge.
You want an answer, let someone else ask the questions and set the guidelines for judging them. Distance yourself from the issue, that should be the first rule of any good scientist. Involvement skews objectivity. Period.
Steven
Ahh, you blame God for everything. 
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I’m looking to educate people.
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Yes, in the off chance that someone could explain the evidence better using a creationist model, I would give serious consideration to it.
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Don’t like the thread? Don’t read it. Other people are finding this discussion to be interesting and informative.
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Whoa, now. Who said anything about quirks in the genome? You might as well describe Newton’s Laws as “irrelevant factoids about how things move sometimes.” Did you even read the FAQ?
What do you find arbitrary about my rules? My rule is that if creationism is going to be taken seriously as science, then it has to explain the evidence just like any other scientific theory. All the other rules are just special cases. If you bring up irrelevant arguments, you aren’t explaining the facts. If you attack evolution, you aren’t explaining the facts.
-Ben
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A worthy ideal. Education is more effective when it’s not confrontational however. The most apt quote is “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
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When did I say I didn’t like the thread? I asked what answers would be satisfactory. Knowing that you’ve slung around a lot of terms like “reasonable” “logical” and “evidence” and knowing human nature as I do, I seriously doubt your idea of these concepts matches up with others. This is an arguement which can have no conclusion, and therefore is pointless.
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And reading the FAQ is a prerequisite to knowing enough about debate to understand when one side is making the rules to the detriment of the other? The existance of unusable genetic sequences suprised scientists as much as it did anyone else. I feel justified in calling a result which took pretty much everybody by suprise a “quirk.” And I know enough of molecular biology to have understood your original questions without your FAQ, thank you very much.
I guess depends on your definition of relevant doesn’t it? Specifically I have problems with these bullet points.
Given that you can describe anyone you choose as a muckey-muck and discredit their views, as evidenced by the dismissal of Mr. Gee when his work was cited. It’s not to difficult for a layman to learn enough about molecular biology to debate with you, but it’s too much of an inconvenience for you to go to the library and check out a book. If you’re really shy of reading, you could have asked for page citations or further clarification. Dismissing the evidence that could have been presented in that book simply because it isn’t convenient for you to peruse is exactly the type of rules-wrangling that I am referring to.
And how do you know people understand your FAQ? It’s noble of you not to try to obfuscate, but when I first read your original questions, I thought “There’s a much easier way of bringing this up. Simply ask about vestigial organs such as the appendix.” This is much more accessible and understandable by the layman. I would point you to this thread on Slashdot where someone made the claim that genetic evidence, very similar to what you point towards, proved evolution. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/22/1413218
Your last sentence is all the evidence a thinking person needs to know to stay way the hell away from any kind of debate with you. Lay creationists are not claiming that your observations are wrong, they are claiming your interpretion of those observations is wrong. Interpretations can not be proven or disproven, and you are arguing from every bit as weak a position as they are in that regards. Yet somehow you seem to believe your position, meaning your opinion on the correct interpretation of these observations, is as unshakeable as the observations themselves. I assure you it is not.
Steven
I’ve dealt with most of Mtgman’s criticisms already, earlier in the thread. Anyway, life is too short to waste too much time on this kind of thing. Again, if anyone else finds Mtgman’s criticisms to be worthwhile, I’ll respond in more detail. I couldn’t help but make a few comments, though:
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Mtgman, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t dismiss Gee at all. I dismissed Fryman’s improper use of the cite, and I most certainly did not do so on the grounds that Gee was a “muckey-muck.” I’m sure that Gee has some good things to say- I just don’t think that any of those things will be a creationist explanation of the data, because he isn’t a creationist.
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Mtgman, if you want to discuss vestigial organs, then fine- go to one of the other creationism threads and talk about vestigial organs. But I started this thread in order to discuss molecular biology, and the people participating in this thread want to discuss molecular biology, and I don’t see why it’s wrong for us to discuss the arguments that interest us instead of the arguments that interest you.
Besides, to suggest that my eleven questions can be boiled down to a question of “vestigial organs” is simply ludicrous.
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Funny, Lib was just criticising me by saying that I wasn’t accepting the fact that creationists disagree with me on the basic evidence. Mtgman, did you even read Fryman’s reply?
Actually, this is about theories, not just “interpretations.” You know, the scientific method?
Again, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to waste more time on Mtgman, but if anyone else thinks he has a point, I’ll address his comments in more detail.
-Ben
I would love to see what it is they have written that can simultaneously be so sensitive and secret, but at the same time can be the key to conclusively dismissing evolutionary genetics forever, ah well, you’re right to honour their request, I suppose.
Ben, may I suggest that in future you add a clause to your outgoing email questions reserving the right to publish any replies?