260 thoughts on “Barry Arrington: his part in my downfall”

1. Barry refused Dieb’s request to know if he had read the primary literature, but badgers others for yes / no answers to his questions. Perhaps it’s the lawyer in him, but it feels like he’s looking for a ‘win’, not the truth.

2. Thanks for the report.

   I have not tried to go to the source of the various quotes. However, Arrington seemed to be arguing that Eldredge was making anti-Darwinist statements, and that sure seemed out of character for Eldredge.

   To me, your banning seemed rather high handed. It is a perfect illustration of why authors should not be moderating their own posts.

3. The whole story is about Arrington protecting Arrington’s ego, nothing more, nothing less.

   BA posted a bunch of quote-mined quotes from various Creation sources to support his “no transitional fossils” claim not knowing or caring that they were disingenuous bullshit. When called on it BA decided to act all huffy and pretend that he, personally, was being accused of creating the mined quotes. He also tried to rewrite history and focused on one narrow interpretation of one particular quote (Eldredge and Tattersall) as his ‘proof’ that Darwin was wrong and he, Arrington, was right.

   It’s not about science with IDiots like Arrington. It never is. Gotta defend his bloated Zeppelin-sized ego at all costs.

4. What’s also pretty funny in a sad, pathetic way is how the UD sycophants (Charles, WJM, TSErik) are sucking up to BA after Dr. Matzke was denied the ability to answer. “Ooh, you’re right Barry! Nick is soooo intellectually dishonest! He’s a lying evo! He’s a literature bluffer! He knows you’re right but can’t admit it!”

   These are the same brave souls who wouldn’t dare engage Dr. Matzke in any technical discussions while Dr. Matzke was still able to post freely. It’s always impressive watching the UD regulars throw rocks from the sidelines after the game.

5. My response: … was not considered an adequate apology.

   It wasn’t an apology; it was an attempt to misrepresent what Mr. Arrington actually said and what he believes about related matters.

   It really is quite simple; you and others believe Mr. Arrington meant X when he made his post; but he corrected you and made it clear that he meant Y – the same thing Eldredge meant when Eldredge said Y. What has ensued is you and Nick and Roy attempting to create cover for yourselves by insisting that Mr. Arrington meant X when he said Y, no matter how many times he corrected you.

   Whether or not Eldredge was/is right, and whether or not subsequent fossil finds have changed things is entirely irrelevant to the charge of quote-mining.

   You both owe him an apology. You can make a separate case that the way most anti-Darwinists conceptualize what Eldredge says is erroneous, or make a case that what Eldredge said has since been shown to be untrue, but those are separate cases and do not have anything to do with the charge of quote-mining.

6. William J. Murray: It wasn’t an apology; itwas an attempt to misrepresent what Mr. Arrington actually said and what he believes about related matters.

   It really is quite simple; you and others believe Mr. Arrington meant X when he made his post; but he corrected you and made it clear that he meant Y – the same thing Eldredge meant when Eldredge said Y.What has ensued is you and Nick and Roy attempting to create cover for yourselves by insisting that Mr. Arrington meant X when he said Y,

   I believe the dispute is whether the quote represents Eldredge’s actual position. You are assuming that it does, it seems to me. Simply providing the preceding and subsequent paragraphs to provide context would be sufficent to show that your assumption is not in error and your indignation is warranted.

7. Mind-powers Murray enters the fray! Thank goodness the telepaths have arrived.

8. William J. Murray
   It really is quite simple; you and others believe Mr. Arrington meant X when he made his post; but he corrected you and made it clear that he meant Y – the same thing Eldredge meant when Eldredge said Y.

   Sorry but that is just not true. Here is BA’s initial comment and the one he offered all the quote-mined quotes to support

   Barry Arrington: “No matter how red-faced you get, no matter how many “Bams!” you interject into your polemics, the fact remains that if Darwin were correct transitional species would predominate in the fossil record. They do not. Darwin understood this and admitted it in Origin, and he suggested that the problem would be solved as the fossil record was studied more extensively. 154 years later, it has not been solved. Transitional species do not predominate the fossil record.”

   link

   It was only after BA got called on posting the quote-mined quotes that he changed his story to “I’m just saying what Eldredge said about punk eek”.

   Arrington is lying and rewriting history to try and save face, pure and simple.

9. William J. Murray

   Whether or not Eldredge was/is right, and whether or not subsequent fossil finds have changed things is entirely irrelevant to the charge of quote-mining.

   Roy among others went out of his way to point out no one thinks BA did the quote mining himself. It’s obvious BA has never read Eldredge and is quite ignorant on the whole topic. That doesn’t change the fact one iota that BA blindly C&Ped something that was a blatantly dishonest mined quote. It’s BA’s responsibility to verify the accuracy of what he posts, not anyone else’s.

10. thorton,

    Barry refused to answer if he’d read the primary literature. That speaks volumes (look Barry I can play too!)

11. That smarmy git Barry Arrington is why people ask:

    What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

    Him and all his “kind” …

12. thorton,

    Exactly. Arrington initially said “P,” and in support of P he produced a text that, correctly interpreted, said “Q”. He then insisted that he really meant “Q” all along, then got all puffy when Matzke pointed out what Eldredge meant is not at all what Arrington initially claimed. His Jedi mind-tricks seem to have worked on everyone else there. If anything, Arrington is more respected and highly regarded at Uncommon Descent then he was before. Only for those of us on the outside does he look even remotely foolish. If we strike him down now, he will become more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

13. Picking up the Eldredge quote on Barry’s new thread:

    Nick Matzke Admits His Quote Mining Accusation Was False; Instead of Apologizing Tries to Change the Definition of “Quote Mining” to “Refusing to Agree With Me”

    Well, let’s summarize what has happened. On December 2, UD News posted Steve Meyer: Cambrian gaps not being filled in.

    Therein, Stephen Meyer was quoted in his new book, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design:

    Instead, extensive sampling of the fossil record has confirmed a strikingly discontinuous pattern in which representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space. (p. 70)

    I pointed out this was wrong in comment #2:

    2 NickMatzke_UD December 2, 2013 at 9:17 pm

    Meyer, and you guys, are wrong. And apparently too lazy to even do the first basic research steps in checking the no-transitional-fossils claim.

    See point #2 of: http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2013/10/meyer-on-medved.html

    Barry soon jumped in (comment #11 of the same thread), writing,

    11
    Barry Arrington

    December 3, 2013 at 8:22 am

    I followed your link and looked at your charts and arguments. Very interesting. I notice that you still call the Cambrian Explosion the “Cambrian Explosion.” I wonder why you do that. Since you believe it all worked out exactly as predicted by Neo-Darwinian theory, shouldn’t you start calling it the “Cambrian gradual expansion over vast expanses of time with species almost imperceptibly transitioning into other species just as we predicted”?

    You seem to be suggesting there is nothing anomalous about the Cambrian Explosion? (Like the cop at the traffic accident: “Nothing to see here folks. Move along”). This is, of course, absurd, as evidenced by the “explosion” metaphor itself.

    No matter how red-faced you get, no matter how many “Bams!” you interject into your polemics, the fact remains that if Darwin were correct transitional species would predominate in the fossil record. They do not. Darwin understood this and admitted it in Origin, and he suggested that the problem would be solved as the fossil record was studied more extensively. 154 years later, it has not been solved. Transitional species do not predominate the fossil record.

    Note that the subject here is CLEARLY the Cambrian Explosion, clearly my post (which does make the “bam!” remark), etc. This is about transitional fossils between phyla, which Meyer said didn’t exist. We aren’t talking about punctuated equilibria at all. Barry even says “if Darwin were correct”.

    This was followed by various attempts by ID folks to deny that Meyer said what he just said — people argued that Meyer didn’t say there were no transitional fossils between phyla, or that Meyer was arguing that transitional fossils didn’t “predominate”. Neither was true — Meyer says, flat out, “representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space.”

    As the ID people started to flail in this thread, Barry got in an argument with Alan Fox, and spawned another thread, “Once More From the Top on the Fossil Record,” in which he posted a large number of mined quotes from the punctuated equilibrium era (late 1970s, early 1980s). These don’t have anything to do with the Cambrian, which was what I was originally debating. I never participated in this thread. But this spawned another thead, On Quote Mining, where Barry challenged Alan Fox’s claim that Barry was quote-mining.

    In the meantime, the ID guys were going down in flames on the Cambrian thread, because their inability to defend Stephen Meyer’s clearly wrong claim about there being no transitional fossils between phyla. At this juncture, Barry intervened introduced the Eldredge quote.

    I replied:

    57 NickMatzke_UD December 5, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    Hey Nick, do you agree with Eldredge? Man up. Take your medicine.

    Give me what you think Eldredge’s context is. I’ve told you what I think his context is. Act like a scholar, not like a lawyer engaging in the crudest sort of unintelligent badgering the witness by not letting the witness give any context. It’s a cheap, obvious, tired trick, and it’s beneath you.

    Now, either (a) Barry meant this quote to apply to the Cambrian topic, in which case he was quote mining, because the quote is not relevant to that, and he was assuming it was; or (b) Barry was being off-topic and introducing a totally different issue.

    As you can see, I instantly raised the context issue. My consistent position has been that Eldredge’s statement is about the transitions between very similar sister species, not about transitional fossils generally. Nevertheless, Barry kept pestering me about it in the Cambrian thread. He seemed to think it was relevant to defending Stephen Meyer’s Cambrian statement. Why, Barry?

    Other confusions that have already been addressed:

    1. What is quote-mining? Is accusing someone of quote-mining the same as accusing them of lying? Barry seems to think that the One True Definition of quote-mining is provided by anonymous authors at RationalWiki, and that it involves deliberate deception, i.e. straight-up lying. That’s a bit extreme. Here’s another definition: “A quote is provided which superficially appears to support one’s position, but significant context is omitted and contrary evidence is conveniently ignored.” It is unscholarly and unseemly, in that anyone engaging in a scholarly debate should have the good sense to make sure they know what their quotes mean and fairly represent this to readers, but it’s not necessarily a deliberate attempt to deceive. It is, rather, usually just a combination of laziness and a case of jumping to a conclusion you already want to believe.

    This was pointed out in comment #27 of On Quote Mining:

    27 DiEbDecember 5, 2013 at 4:49 am

    @Barry Arrington

    But in order for Matzke’s accusation to be valid, the Eldredge quote would have had to mean, in context, something other than “change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.”

    Close, but no cigar. N. Matzke is telling you that you are using the quotation out of its scope, or, as he says:

    You are interpreting Eldredge as talking about all aspects of the fossil record, whereas he was just talking about continuous, smooth transitions between sister species over very short evolutionary distances.

    This would be indeed quote-mining even in one of the points of the definition you have been giving (…”to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or hold positions they don’t …). But I’d rather like you to answer my questions above:

    Which texts or books of Niles Eldredge have you read? Have you read “The Myths of Human Evolution” (or at least some chapters) and spotted the quote – or did you get the quotation from a secondary source?

    2. Barry’s continuing refusal to consider context. Barry says in the present post:

    Note that I am not arguing here that Darwinian evolution did not occur (though I have views on that). Nor am I arguing that there are no fossils demonstrating transitions between major groups as opposed to sister species (though I have views on that as well). I am asserting a VERY narrow point: The fossil record did not turn out the way Darwin expected it would. And I am quoting Eldredge to support that point.

    This is just an attempt by Barry to defend his continued taking of the quote out of context. “The fossil record” has many aspects. One aspect is what species-to-very-similar-species transitions look like. Another aspect is what transitions between very different major groups look like. And there are many additional aspects (species diversity through time, biogeographic provinciality, etc. You can’t just take a sentence or two out of a book from decades ago, refuse to consider what aspect of “the fossil record” the quote was actually about, and then reach a conclusion about what the quote says about “the fossil record” in general.

    Well, you can do this context-free procedure if you want, but…it’s quote-mining. If Barry would just admit “this Eldredge quote is about the fossil record of transitions between very similar sister species”, and say this when he uses the quote, then it wouldn’t be quote-mining.

    I was very clear about all of this before (1, 2), so it’s stunning Barry doesn’t get it.

    That is the nub of the quote-mining issue. There are some secondary issues, i.e.:

    3. Was Eldredge right about what Darwin thought? Basically, no, as this guy already pointed out:

    23 goodusername
    December 5, 2013 at 12:53 am

    The reading would have had to be totally in the blank areas between the lines because Darwin was solidly uniformitarian.

    In Origin Darwin writes:

    “Many species once formed never undergo any further change … and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.”

    I don’t think much reading between the lines is necessary to see that Darwin didn’t believe that the rate of change was constant.

    And so I think Eldredge was wrong in saying that Darwin expected a constant change affecting all lineages through time, and didn’t anticipate anatomical conservatism.

    4. Was Eldredge right about the fossil record of transitions between very similar sister species?

    As I said before, the evidence is mixed.

    78 NickMatzke_UD

    December 6, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    And I explained very carefully that I am asking you whether you agreed with Eldredge, not with me. I am pretty sure you are not too stupid to understand that that means I am asking you whether you agree with Eldredge’s statement as Eldredge meant it to be understood in the context in which he made it.

    This is the first time that you’ve specified “in the context which which [Eldredge] made it”. In that context, Eldredge’s statement was only partially true, then and now. The evidence for the punctuated equilibrium pattern in the fossil record of those small species-to-species transitions is mixed. Some groups show it, some groups don’t, and in some groups (like hominids), for parts of their record we don’t have enough fossil specimens to really do the relevant statistical tests properly.

    In Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, there are several cases of traits (like brain size and tooth size) where you have hundreds of dated fossils within species through time, and you can see the change in those traits happening quite gradually, i.e. not in a punctuated pattern. For earlier parts of the hominid record, we probably don’t have a continuous-enough fossil record to tell the difference.

    The case is often similar with other mammals. Terrestrial vertebrates in general have spottier fossil records than marine invertebrates. People like Prothero are advocates of punk-eek patterns in mammal fossils, but other fossil mammologists like Gingerich are not. The pattern seems to be more common in marine invertebrates, but here too there are exceptions.

    In any case, the question of whether or not there are smooth transitions between closely related, extremely similar fossil species is distinct from the question of whether or not there are transitional fossils writ large, between major extant groups. There are lots of such fossils, and they are strong evidence for evolution. Prothero would say so (he wrote a book specifically saying this, specifically to creationists!), Eldredge would say so, Gould would say so, even Kurt Wise says so!

    So: would you agree it would be a mis-use of the Eldredge quote to imply that there are no transitional fossils?

    I think that truly scholarly behavior takes into context not just the context of what an author was saying at the time he was saying it, but also the context of what the current state of the evidence is amongst the specialists in the field. If you use an old quote, and refuse to check if what it says was or is still considered accurate, and similarly fail to inform readers, that’s a form of quote-mining as well. Quotes are introduced as evidence of propositions, but to be used fairly as evidence, their accuracy has to be checked, as well as their context.

    Perhaps there are different standards in some parts of the lawyering world (I think the best lawyers know their goal is the truth, not winning arguments through slipshod tactics), but in the scholarly world, Barry’s stuff thus far fails to pass muster, on a number of criteria for good scholarship.

    The case for quote-mining is convincing just based on point #2, but points #3 and #4 are supplementary evidence.

    All Barry has to do to remove the charge of quote-mining is:

    (a) Admit that the Eldredge quote was about transitions between very similar sister species, and

    (b) Admit that this topic was irrelevant for defending Stephen Meyer’s statement about the Cambrian, that “major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space.”

    Side points:

    5. I’m not a moral relativist. See Mary Midgley, Can’t We Make Moral Judgements?, for my view.

    6. I’m not an atheist. You should read what the New Atheists have said about me on occasion.

    PS: Re-posting the Kurt Wise quote, to indicate what a reasonably responsible, scholarly statement about the fossil record looks like on the issue of transitional fossils:

    http://pandasthumb.org/archive…..ation.html
    ================
    [p. 218]

    In various macroevolutionary models, stratomorphic intermediates might be expected to be any one or more of several different forms: –

    (a) inter-specific stratomorphic intermediates;

    (b) stratomorphic intermediate species;

    (c} higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates; and

    (d) stratomorphic [intermediate] series.

    As an example (and to provide informal definitions), if predictions from Darwin’s theory were re-stated in these terms, one would expect to find: –

    (a) numerous stratomorphic intermediates between any ancestor-descendent species pair (numerous interspecific stratomorphic intermediates);

    (b) species which were stratomorphic intermediates between larger groups (stratomorphic intermediate species);

    (c} taxonomic groups above the level of species which were stratomorphic intermediates between other pairs of groups (higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates); and

    (d) a sequence of species or higher taxa in a sequence where each taxon is a stratomorphic intermediate between the taxa stratigraphically below and above it (stratomorphic series).

    With this vocabulary as a beginning, the traditional transitional forms issue can be gradually transformed into a non-traditional form, more suitable to the creationist researcher.

    It is a Very Good Evolutionary Argument

    Of Darwinism’s four stratomorphic intermediate expectations, that of the commonness of inter-specific stratomorphic intermediates has been the most disappointing for classical Darwinists. The current lack of any certain inter-specific stratomorphic intermediates has, of course, led to the development and increased acceptance of punctuated equilibrium theory. Evidences for Darwin’s second expectation – of stratomorphic intermediate species – include such species as Baragwanathia27 (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms and chordates), Purgatorius29 (between the tree shrews and the primates), and Proconsul30 (between the non-hominoid primates and the hominoids). Darwin’s third expectation – of higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates – has been confirmed by such examples as the mammal-like reptile groups31 between the reptiles and the mammals, and the phenacdontids32 between the horses and their presumed ancestors. Darwin’s fourth expectation – of stratomorphic series – has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird series,33 the tetrapod series,34,35 the whale series,36 the various mammal series of the Cenozoic37 (for example, the horse series, the camel series, the elephant series, the pig series, the titanothere series, etc.), the Cantius and

    [p. 219]

    Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39 Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact. It certainly CANNOT said that traditional creation theory expected (predicted) any of these fossil finds.

    [p. 221]

    REFERENCES

    5. Wise, K. P., 1994. Australopithecus ramidus and the fossil record. CEN Tech. J., 8(2):160-165.

    […]

    27. Stewart, W. N. and Rothwell, G. W., 1993. Paleobotany and the Evolution of Plants, Second Edition, Cambridge Universily Press, Cambridge, England, pp. 114-115.

    28. Gould, S. J., 1989. Wonderful Ufe: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, Norton, New York, pp. 321-323.

    29. Carroll, R. L., 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, Freeman, New York, p. 467.

    30. Carroll, Ref. 29, p. 473.

    31. Hopson, J. A,, 1994. Synapsid evolution and the radiation of noneutherian mammals. In: Major Features of Vertebrate Evolution [Short Courses in Paleontology Number 71, D. R. Porthero [sic] and R. M. Schoch (eds), Paleontological Society, Knoxville, Tennasee, pp. 190-219.

    32. Carroll, Ref. 29, pp. 527-530.

    33. Ostrom, 1. H., 1994. On the origin of birds and of avian flight. In: Major Features of Vertebrate Evolution [Short Courses in Paleonlology Number 71, D. R. Prothero and R. M. Schoch (eds), Paleontological Society. Knoxville, Tennessee, pp. 160-177.

    34. Thomson, K. S., 1994. The origin of the tetrapods. In: Major Features of Vertebrate Evolution [Short Courses in Paleontology Number 71, D. R. Prothero and R. M. Schoch (eds), Paleontological Society, Knoxville, Tennessee, pp. 85-107.

    35. Ahlberg, P. E. and Milner, A. R., 1994. Theorigin and early diversification of tetrapods. Nature, 368: 507-514.

    36. Gingerich, Ref. 1; Could, Ref. 2; Zimmer. Ref. 3.

    37. Carroll, Ref. 29, pp. 527-549.

    38. Gingerich, P. D., 1983. Evidence for evolution from the vertebrate fossil record. Journal of Geological Education, 31:140-144.

    39. For example, as listed in Wise, Ref. 5.

    [source: pp. 218-219 of: Kurt P. Wise (1995). “Towards a Creationist Understanding of ‘Transitional Forms.’” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 9(2), 216-222. (caps original)

    [Note: The full article is online here under the “Ape-men…” circle:

    http://www.bryancore.org/anniversary/building.html

    In fairness, Wise goes on to claim that this evidence is “explainable” under the creation model, postulating as an alternative the scientific model that “God created organisms according to His nature” (p. 219), which apparently leads to the expectation of “high homoplasy” – because God, I assume, likes homoplasy. — NJM]
    ================

14. Hi folks. I just posted my long comment here, in moderation because of links.

15. NickMatzke_SZ:
    Hi folks.I just posted my long comment here, in moderation because of links.

    Whew, well done. Thanks for making the effort to collect the relevant pieces of those threads in one place.

16. We are watching in real time the routine process by ID/creationists to bend and break scientific concepts so that they comport with sectarian dogma. They have been doing this ever since their formal beginnings.

    We are also seeing that kairosfocus character quote-mining Feynman without comprehension, and Sal Cordova is still trying to find a “generalized second law of thermodynamics” and a “generalized” definition of entropy that allows ID/creationists to “argue” that life violates the second law.

    It’s not going to happen, EVER. Arrington, Cordova, kairosfocus, and the rest of them will still be wrong; the “laws of nature” they come up with will still get them nothing in the laboratory, nor will these “laws” have any purchase in the real world. They are meant only to bamboozle rubes and keep the culture war going.

    This obsessive/compulsive habit has been going on with ID/creationists for over 50 years, and it is just as bizarre and grotesque now as it was back when Henry Morris and Duane Gish started doing it back in the 1970s.

17. “I’m not an atheist.” – NickMatzke_SZ

    O.k. that’s the negative. What’s the positive? Does that make you a theist (perhaps Abrahamic), an agnostic, a Buddhist, a spaghetti monster deifier, a jedi (which was/is on the Canadian census in the category of religion/worldview)…?

18. hotshoe: What’s it to you, “Gregory” ?
    And why are you trying to drag someone else’s thread off topic with your stamp-collecting ?!? Don’t you have a shit-fit when you think someone is derailing your thread? Yes?Then why under god’s blue heaven would you do that yourself to Alan Fox?

    I don’t quite agree. Nick made a point of alluding to the criticisms he’s received from “New Atheists,” and that makes Gregory’s question (“so, what you are, then?”) on-topic. At any rate, my personal feeling is that if I’d made a point of saying that I’m not an atheist, in a thread I’d started, I’d regard Gregory’s question as appropriate. The main difference is that this thread was started by Alan Fox about Nick’s quarrel with Arrington, not by Nick himself — but if Nick participates, it’s up to him to decide if he wants to answer Gregory’s question.

19. You can always start your own thread about it, Greg.

20. Hey all! No reason to make a big deal of it. I am a very confused agnostic. As in, my prior on the existence of a higher power is defined by a hyperprior which is flat, and I haven’t seen any good model/data combinations that significantly update my priors.

21. Moved some stuff to guano.

22. Lizzie,

    Thanks, Lizzie. I was following Neil’s suggestion of not moderating a thread I authored and intend to comment in.

23. Barry is simply lawyering about whether “finely graduated organic chain” (his words) precludes gradations rapid enough to be unlikely to be preserved in the fossil record. Nothing Eldredge said implied that he thought the chain wasn’t finely graduated, merely that there must be something that affects the rate of change. Which of course there is, population size being the most obvious.

    Which means, by definition, that the faster the rate of change, the fewer organisms there are to be potentially fossilised at any given stage.

    Barry is also technically correct that Darwin did not foresee changes in the rate of evolution, and so the fossil record does not support Darwin in that highly specific sense, but that isn’t the sense in which Barry cited Darwin – he cited Darwin’s prediction for finely graduated change, which is perfectly well supported by the fossil record, by the genetic record, and indeed by the whole of biology, and his quote from Eldridge does not contradict this.

24. Barry is also technically correct that Darwin did not foresee changes in the rate of evolution, and so the fossil record does not support Darwin in that highly specific sense…

    Not actually true.

    http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2009/02/19/myth-4-darwin-was-a-gradualist/

25. I was a little rushed writing my OP and had intended to remark on the bad press Niles Eldredge has received over the years from some advocates for evolution. I, myself was influenced on reading Dawkins’ early works. I just looked for Blind Watchmaker to remind myself of the passage, couldn’t find it, but on looking in The Selfish Gene – new edition I find in the endnotes (p 287)

    [referring to p 86 and quoting himself]

    Progressive evolution may not be so much a steady upward climb as a series of discrete steps from stable plateau to stable plateau.

    This paragraph is a fair summary of one way of expressing the now well-known theory of punctuated equilibrium. I am ashamed to say that, when I wrote my conjecture, I, like many biologists in England at the time, was totally ignorant of that theory, although it had been published three years earlier. I have since, for instance in The Blind Watchmaker, become somewhat petulant – perhaps too much so – over the way the theory of punctuated equilibrium has been oversold. If this has hurt anybody’s feelings, I regret it. They may like to note that, at least in 1976, my heart was in the right place.

    I take this as an olive branch offered to Niles Eldredge and I hope he has seen it as, according to his essay “Confessions of a Darwinist”, he was indeed hurt by the reaction to the theory of punctuated equilibrium. I too, feel that I have unfairly kept Eldredge off my radar and am sorry about that.

26. Sorry a little late in responding but…

    William J. Murray: It really is quite simple; you and others believe Mr. Arrington meant X when he made his post; but he corrected you and made it clear that he meant Y – the same thing Eldredge meant when Eldredge said Y. What has ensued is you and Nick and Roy attempting to create cover for yourselves by insisting that Mr. Arrington meant X when he said Y, no matter how many times he corrected you.

    It all depends what you mean by X and what you mean by Y. If you are saying that Arrington agrees with Eldredge, then, indeed and as I said in the comment that Barry didn’t publish, I am happy to apologise to Barry and welcome him to the fold of Darwinism. I don’t think Barry took kindly to that suggestion. You need to explain how Barry can agree with Eldredge and yet reject Darwinism. Are there two Barry’s? Split-brain syndrome?

    Whether or not Eldredge was/is right, and whether or not subsequent fossil finds have changed things is entirely irrelevant to the charge of quote-mining.

    Oh, I agree they are separate points.

    You both owe him an apology. You can make a separate case that the way most anti-Darwinists conceptualize what Eldredge says is erroneous, or make a case that what Eldredge said has since been shown to be untrue, but those are separate cases and do not have anything to do with the charge of quote-mining.

    Agreed. But Barry does not own a copy of Eldredge and Tattersall’s “The Myths of Human Evolution”. He didn’t even get the title right. He can’t reproduce the rest of the text either side of the quote-mine. And it’s hardly an isolated incident at Uncommon descent.

27. petrushka: Not actually true.

    http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2009/02/19/myth-4-darwin-was-a-gradualist/

    Interesting. In that case Barry has not a single leg to stand on. He was using the Eldridge quote to support a case that it does not support and which Eldredge does not make.

    However, I don’t suppose Barry is doing so dishonestly – it’s a feature of quote-miners that they don’t usually do the mining themselves, but pick pre-mined nuggets from secondary sources. I doubt he has a clue as to what Eldredge was actually trying to say.

    I stand by my claim that virtually nobody in ID (nobody that I know of) actually understands evolutionary theory at all. A critique that did would be genuinely interesting (as critiques have been in the past). But to critique something you need something more than a straw man.

28. Lizzie: However, I don’t suppose Barry is doing so dishonestly – it’s a feature of quote-miners that they don’t usually do the mining themselves, but pick pre-mined nuggets from secondary sources.

    But there are plenty of ways of checking on well-known quote-mines before copy and pasting them and it becomes disingenuous when the error has been pointed out clearly and abundantly.

    I doubt he has a clue as to what Eldredge was actually trying to say.

    Hard to disagree with that!

29. NickMatzke_SZ:
    Hi folks.I just posted my long comment here, in moderation because of links.

    Thanks for the contribution, Nick.

30. Alan Fox: But there are plenty of ways of checking on well-known quote-mines before copy and pasting them and it becomes disingenuous when the error has been pointed out clearly and abundantly.

    Hard to disagree with that!

    Well, I do think there’s a difference between a lawyer’s view of evidence and a scientist’s.

    In court, what he’s done probably makes perfect sense. On the evidence, you couldn’t convict Darwin of being right, and even a witness for the prosecution can contribute to the defense case.

31. But there are plenty of ways of checking on well-known quote-mines…

    A simple sanity check will catch 99 percent of quote mines.

    If you are quoting a well known biologist. or a peer reviewed paper, and it appears to be questioning evolution, it’s a quote mine.

    That was easy.

32. Lizzie: Well, I do think there’s a difference between a lawyer’s view of evidence and a scientist’s.

    Yes, there is.

    The lawyer is engaged in the construal game. It’s his job to take what evidence there is, and attempt to construe that as supporting the case that he is arguing.

    For science, it is very important to avoid this kind of construal.

33. But that depends on what your concept of the purpose of a quotation is.

    I think literal scripture reading has a lot to answer for. A lot of anti-evolutionists regard written works as a kind of secular scripture, to be taken verse-by-verse, regardless of context. God’s Word versus Man’s Word as the creation museum has it, I think.

    ETA this post was in response to Petrushka

34. Lizzie:

    I stand by my claim that virtually nobody in ID (nobody that I know of) actually understands evolutionary theory at all.A critique that did would be genuinely interesting (as critiques have been in the past).But to critique something you need something more than a straw man.

    A theory for intiates then? That is not a cristal clear theory, how could darwinists claim that ToE is a fact? How can a fact needed to be understood?

35. Blas. Theories are not facts. They explain facts.

36. Blas: That is not a cristal clear theory, how could darwinists claim that ToE is a fact?

    It’s not about facts. It’s about multiple proposals that are supported to a lesser or greater degree by the evidence.

    ‘Darwinists’ claim that ToE is the best explanation so far for the diversity of life. If you have a better explanation them please tell what it is and why it is better.

    If you don’t, well, you can do as Barry has done and reject ‘Darwinism’ anyway.

    Personally I’d suggest that “something” as an explanation for the diversity of life is better then the “nothing” on offer from UD.

37. Lizzie: I think literal scripture reading has a lot to answer for. A lot of anti-evolutionists regard written works as a kind of secular scripture, to be taken verse-by-verse, regardless of context. God’s Word versus Man’s Word as the creation museum has it, I think.

    This is why quotations from decades ago are still considered to be relevant and valid, whatever else has happened in the field since they were written.

    They simply don’t understand that it is a desirable thing to have current understanding updated, to wit: Paleoanthrolopologist: Century-old theory of human evolution shown wrong by new 400k DNA

    Whereas of course nothing will ever show ID to be wrong as it’s never staked a claim in the first place….

    They seem to see that as a bonus feature however, not a negative thing.

38. I don’t see Arrington, or any of the other denizens of UD, doing anything different from what ID/creationists have always done.

    ID/creationism is, at its core, a narrow set of sectarian beliefs; and the people who gravitate toward these beliefs have an authoritarian mindset whose “ultimate” authority is their interpretation of a particular holy book. Anything that threatens those beliefs is portrayed as a competing religion that must be put down harshly (which is why we should be thankful for the restrains imposed on them by secular law).

    But the sectarian form of “debate” hinges on hermeneutics, exegesis, etymology, and word-gaming to get the “correct” – i.e., their – meaning from an authoritarian text; they have been doing this form of “argumentation” for centuries. This is why ID/creationists quote-mine scientists to make scientists say what they want them to say. It is the usual sectarian argument from authority, and ID/creationists want scientific “authorities” to agree with what these sectarians already “know” to be the “TRUTH” from their religion.

    There are blatant examples of this going on over at UD at this very moment. It is never about the real, working scientific concepts; it’s about bending these concepts to fit with sectarian beliefs.

39. It all depends what you mean by X and what you mean by Y. If you are saying that Arrington agrees with Eldredge, then, indeed and as I said in the comment that Barry didn’t publish, I am happy to apologise to Barry and welcome him to the fold of Darwinism. I don’t think Barry took kindly to that suggestion. You need to explain how Barry can agree with Eldredge and yet reject Darwinism. Are there two Barry’s? Split-brain syndrome?

    Because you agree with one thing a person says doesn’t mean you agree with everything the person says, even if that “one thing” is embedded within a whole belief system. Must atheistic scientists agree with creationism just because they agree with many of the scientific principles and discoveries creationists developed over the past few hundred years?

    If so, welcome to creationism!

40. OMagain: This is why quotations from decades ago are still considered to be relevant and valid, whatever else has happened in the field since they were written.

    They simply don’t understand that it is a desirable thing to have current understanding updated, to wit: Paleoanthrolopologist: Century-old theory of human evolution shown wrong by new 400k DNA

    Whereas of course nothing will ever show ID to be wrong as it’s never staked a claim in the first place….

    They seem to see that as a bonus feature however, not a negative thing.

    Yes, I’ve often seen the criticism that “Darwinism” is infinitely flexible, and thus incapable of explaining anything. That sounds OK, but in fact makes no sense if you understand how science actually works – it is the very opposite of unconstrained, and it is those very constraints that force change, not infinite degrees of freedom.

    In contrast, it is ID that can explain anything, and therefore nothing, because it invokes a completely unconstrained factor.

    When evolutionary theory changes, it changes. It’s not the same theory as it was.

    I think the other problem is that many ID supporters think that evolutionary theory is . the theory that there was no designer. And that all these changes are wriggling to get off the hook. But of course that is not what the theory is.

41. William J. Murray: Must atheistic scientists agree with creationism just because they agree with many of the scientific principles and discoveries creationists developed over the past few hundred years?

    The personal beliefs of a scientist doing science are irrelevant.

    Sanfords creationism is irrelevant to his actual work in science.

    The beliefs of the developer of X are irrelevant to the users of X.

42. William J. Murray: If so, welcome to creationism!

    Creationism has been the default position for almost all of human history. Apart from the little bit right now that we’re currently experiencing.

    So what does it say as to the explanatory power of creationism that as soon as it can be, it is dropped in favour of alternatives?

    I mean, if it actually had any explanatory power at all why is it still not dominating scientific thought?

    For example, William, could you tell me the last 5 scientific discoveries that were only possible because ID/Creationism was involved?

    OK, perhaps 5 is too many, I’ll take just the one…

    But of course, Newton was a creationist and he discovered the laws of motion. Is that right? You lot never seem to understand the question. As I just noted, Newton’s personal beliefs are irrelevant when considering his scientific work (strictly speaking).

    To be fair, you’d have to include the atheist scientists in history. Of course, we don’t know about too many of those as your lot tend to be a bit, well, intolerant of dissent.

    But if so, welcome to the reality based community!

43. Lizzie: I think the other problem is that many ID supporters think that evolutionary theory is . the theory that there was no designer. And that all these changes are wriggling to get off the hook. But of course that is not what the theory is.

    I do have to wonder why people like William, obviously intelligent, never seem to wonder why ID never seems to achieve anything. And yet that’s the side they’ve picked – the side that never publishes, never discovers, never creates, never does anything except snipe at the “enemy”.

    So, William, you’ve been hanging round UD now for some time. What’s been achieved in the world of ID in all that time? Can you name a single thing?

    Whereas of course all I have to do is filter by date on any number of journal sites and I can tell you exactly what has been discovered in that same time period in the reality based community.

44. William J. Murray: Must atheistic scientists agree with creationism just because they agree with many of the scientific principles and discoveries creationists developed over the past few hundred years?
    If so, welcome to creationism!

    William is implying here that just because science has emerged from a dark age of religious domination, and the people who have been part of that emergent process have themselves been influenced by that religious domination, therefore the “science” of ID/creationism is the “true” science.

    However, ID/creationism is a relatively recent fundamentalist motivated pseudoscience, not science. ID/creationism is constructed totally of deliberately bent and broken scientific concepts that have been bastardized to fit with sectarian dogma.

45. Richardthughes:
    Blas. Theories are not facts. They explain facts.

    OMagain: It’s not about facts. It’s about multiple proposals that are supported to a lesser or greater degree by the evidence.

    ‘Darwinists’ claim that ToE is the best explanation so far for the diversity of life. If you have a better explanation them please tell what it is and why it is better.

    If you don’t, well, you can do as Barry has done and reject ‘Darwinism’ anyway.

    Personally I’d suggest that “something” as an explanation for the diversity of life is better then the “nothing” on offer from UD.

    Well I asked Alan Miller in the comment of other post if he agreed that the “explanation” that ToE gave for the existance of one LUCA were a speculation. But he said no. That was, in my interpretation of the words, a fact. (If it were not a fact it swould be a peculation isn´t it?). So I do not know to whom I have to believe. It is a fact or it isn´t?

    An explanation of something that very few people understand. Is it suefull?

46. Evolution is a fact. We can see it happening.

    How it happens is described by the theory of evolution.

    Theories do not become facts.

47. Blas,

    A theory for intiates then?

    Hardly. Millions of non-scientists understand the theory of evolution in outline – particularly Common Descent, Natural Selection, anagenesis and fossil succession. Many of them have an excellent grasp of more subtle areas such a Drift, phylogenetic reconstruction and the relationship between nominative and ‘natural’ taxomonic classifications. If you really want to see how something so clear and readily grasped can be misunderstood, you’d have to look within.

48. Richardthughes:
    Blas. Theories are not facts. They explain facts.

    To be even more precise: they explain data.

49. Blas: Well I asked Alan Miller in the comment of other post if he agreed that the “explanation” that ToE gave for the existance of one LUCA were a speculation. But he said no. That was, in my interpretation of the words, a fact.

    You seem to be assuming that everything is either a fact or a speculation. That’s just wrong. For example, a prediction is neither a fact nor a speculation.

50. Blas,

    I think you have over-interpreted my answer (and cross-threaded). Do you think there are just 2 things, speculations and facts, with an answer on a given question being either one or the other?