The BioLogic Institute, the purported research arm of the Disco ‘Tute, now has a Facebook page where they post miscellaneous anti-evolution notes, many from the recent book by Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe, and Casey Luskin titled “Science and Human Origins”. One recent note was headed
From the scientific evidence, it is stubbornly uncertain how the first humans arose, whether from a lineage including ape-like creatures and far humbler ancestors or not.
Nick Matzke did a lovely job of rebutting that claim in the comment thread on the post. In the end, ‘BioLogic Institute’ abandoned the field, saying
I am closing this discussion because we are talking past each other. Our responses will be posted separately at www.biologicinstitute.org.
Where, as Jeff Shallit noted, comments are not allowed. As is their habit, when challenged the brave scientists of the Disco ‘Tute retreat to their insulated world, safe from those pesky critics’ comments.
Unlike! Unlike! Unlike!
At least it hasn’t gone down the memory hole … yet.
For us unfacebooked barbarians, can someone repost the takedown?
I was posting over at ENV, pounding on Casey’s “dinofuzz” nonsense with detailed information on feathered dinosaurs [http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/0[…]f061991.html]. Here is the fantastically arrogant and hypocritical response from John G. West.
Let’s review what I did that was so bad, so morally inferior to the upright citizens at ENV.
Now this is from ENV, a blog where David “Darwinists are Nazis” Klinghoffer recently wrote:
And another recent post by David “Darwinists are Nazis” Klinghoffer is subtly titled “Darwin’s Cowards”, illustrated with a photo of a mouse hiding in a log. Attacking Coyne and Garwood:
So far as I know, comments have never been enabled for any post by David “Darwinists are Nazis” Klinghoffer. What courage! What manliness! What honesty!
They hide behind “No Comment” walls, then claim we’re cowardly when we don’t challenge their ideas… because they censor and suppress any challenge.
Sociopaths on Facebook (a social media platform)?
Oh, wait, they ran away. Never mind, all is well in Mudville.
It’s messy but here’s a capture of the text, before they take it down in embarassment:
Nick Matzke, our hero!
Like!
Quite an amusing comment thread!
Nick, this is not the place for a substantive discussion.
Yeah, they made the mistake of allowing contrary evidence. The only way the DI can have a “substantive discussion” is with the ignorant.
I say we present both sides of the controversy over whether their Facebook page is the appropriate place for a substantive discussion to public school students and let the children decide for themselves who is right!
From Facebook: “Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Ann Gauger about her contributions to the new book “Science and Human Origins.”
A clear case of circular logic, one of the book’s “authors” interviews another “author” of the book. Clearly an unbiased approach. No outside comments, please.
That, and the Discovery Institute’s definition of “substantive discussion” is “praise and obeisance from sycophants.”
Thanks Nick!
IOW: “Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.”
If they ever hope to actually become anything close to scientific they need to engage with experts in the fiel and take feedback seriously. Their refusal to do so is the epitome of anti science.
I’m having a bit of fun on a newer post.
Ann Gauger decided to present her material on “Human Origins and Population Genetics,” but not at a science conference, such as that held by the Paleoanthropology Society back in April 2012. Rather, she decided to present that material to the Westminster Theological Seminary in that month: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vi[…]&id=8391
Why would they want to be scientific? Science is their enemy. What they realize (they’re not stupid) is that science has become so advanced and specialized that the ordinary layman might have general ideas, but he’s taking the details on faith. Science works, it must be good, whatever it is. So the creationists want to piggyback on the rather uninformed but substantial respect science has earned, and call themselves science. Their target audience knows science is a Good Thing and God is a Good Thing, and so this is a marriage made in ignorance heaven.
They don’t want to be scientific, they simply crave and envy the authority they perceive comes with science.
Carl Zimmer is having fun with the same BioLogic Facebook thread (he quotes enough for the FB haters to see the full glory).
I should add that Carl’s exchange went on beyond what Nick quoted above.
I’m pretty sure it was Luskin commenting on the Bio-Illogic Tute FB thread judging from the squeaky gerbil-esque outrage expressed.
However, it’s true. All Luskin does is play Reference Pong. Shades of FL! “My three citations beat your two citations!” Hey, you didn’t provide a citation for your unfounded assertion, Mr. So-called Scientist. Thirty-four citations later it’s ignore and flounce. (Hat Tip to diogenes)
They talk big about being uncivil because we call them sociopathic liars, gerbils and weasels (apologies to gerbs and stoats) but they are downright insulting with their childish “read my book, read his book” arguments and claims to have “already addressed your argument earlier” or to just ignore the subject at hand and move on to something irrelevant.
So, then, you’ve got these people who lack all kinds of social skills getting on social media. As they say, hilarity ensues. Seriously, all you can do with creationists is laugh at them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Mild, humorous insulting language, as a response to valid frustration, is not uncivil.
Here are some things that are uncivil -
1) Misrepresenting critics’ position (AKA straw man creation).
2) Deliberately using quotes in a deceptive way, to misrepresent the opinions of others.
3) Evading direct, civil, obviously relevant questions.
4) Using excessively censoring moderation techniques to prevent expression critical feedback.
5) Arbitrarily deleting relevant civil comments that others took the time to generate out of interest in the topic.
6) Repeating arguments that have been conclusively shown to be false.
7) Using excessive verbosity or an excessive number of postings as a crude strategy to prevent others from being able to respond.
Here are some things that are really, really uncivil -
8) Threats
9) False accusations (including by insinuation).
10) Excessive use of insults and sneering language.
11) Unjustified expression of hatred and rage.
I leave it to the reader to determine, by their own standards, whether creationists are generally civil.
And of course I forgot -
12) Use of sock puppet accounts to falsely exaggerate number of independent commenters supporting a given position and
13) If legitimately banned from a forum for some of the above, efforts to return for more bad behavior using a new username.
Carl Zimmer and others are still posting as of Thursday evening, even if the other side seems to have gone into hiding.
I’m rather surprised the Facebook page is still up. Might be prudent to make and preserve updated copies of the page in case BioLogic pulls the plug.
Their use of citations is rather amusing. First, they site Wood and Collard’s paper to justify reassigning Homo habilis to the australopithecines, thus, they hope, creating a large space between the australopithecines and Homo. This reassignment only works if you accept Wood and Collard’s central premise that a genus must be composed of species that share a common ancestry and a common adaptive zone, otherwise there is no logical reason for the move. So does the biological institute share this view? To buttress this reassignment they quote Hawks et al to the effect that:
which is certainly a debatable proposition. The amusing thing about this site, however, is that it comes from a paper examining Pleistocene population demography. A paper that totally undermines Gauger’s Adam and Eve argument. In essence the are robbing Adam to pay Noah. They also cite Leiberman et al’s paper to the effect that a number of traits suddenly appear in Homo, yet Leiberman et al includes H. habilis as among those species that have those traits, thus they put H. habilis right back in the transitional space they used Wood and COllard to remove it from. Internal consistency and logical argumentation are, apparently, not the Biological Institute’s strong points…
Well, harold, my old friend, you just described what all creationists do and we’ve seen it time and time again over the years.
In fact, I’ve been following this for about 40 years and it hasn’t changed. Yes, I’m older than dirt.
These dirtbags are after the kids which is why they focus on K-12. We’ve got to stop them and it’s tireless, unsatisfying work to ensure that they don’t distort science at an early age and turn our kids away from careers in science and engineering.
The creationists talk about “evilutionists” destroying America, but it’s the creationists themselves who are doing that in their fever to promote their ideology. I’m sure we’ll be fighting this battle 40 years from now but there might come a time where the argument is moot.
Let’s hope.
Don’t worry Doc Bill there will always be young folks like me who will gladly be there to take the reins long after you feel like the struggle is too much. We will be sure to stand up on the shoulders of giants and stare into that empty abyss know as creationism. We will not be stopped, we will not surrender, we will always fight on even when all hope is lost. Don’t lose hope, there will always be someone standing by your side, ready to keep the struggle alive.
Corney as hell, I know, but it’s true.
It seems the original FB article has, indeed, disappeared down the “dev/null” hole. I had no problem going to it yesterday, and I even captured the text as of 8 pm EST last night. Now? Nada. If you go to the overarching Biologic Institute FB page, you’ll see articles for today, and for several days going back to July 12th. Then they jump to June 25th. That original article, which is from July 6th, appears to have disappeared. I’m glad Nick captured all of the most important parts above. Now Zimmer is taking Klinghoffer and Luskin to task. I don’t think Klinghoffer realizes he brought a tunafish sandwich to a gunfight. Yet, Klinghoffer is declaring victory against Zimmer. As usual.
@Doc Bill: What Rando said. Only louder.
I thought I felt feet on my shoulders.
Well, the Disco Tute just made a tactical error, rare for them, by opening a page on FaceBook and they are getting slaughtered. Klinghoffer even made an appearance and got demolished. I think they’ve given up for the night but the community is still hammering them. I’d encourage a visit to Biologic Institute on FB and drop some snark bombs if nothing else. They certainly don’t deserve respect.
And, on the up side a group of us in Texas are actively supporting candidates for the State School Board and are putting our time and money into those campaigns, and in getting out the vote in November. It’s worth the time, expense and effort to do this as it will affect kids for years to come.
I stand corrected. So Stanton is an angry Darwinian evolution affirmer.
Actually, I am well liked in my industry, by my family and friends. You guys just simply have this knack for bringing the snark out of people.
but you know that. its your way of trying to run everybody outta town when the counter arguments hit too close to home. Snark starts it off then the charges of ignorance, misuse, misunderstanding, lying, etc. start kicking in.
That why I stick around. Profiling. Documenting. Analyzing. Truly an interesting cross-section of teleology denial.
Would be good to understand more what makes TDers tick.
Bullshit Bennett.
Man designs. He is embedded in nature. Nature designs. This has been confirmed by our observations of what is happening in the cell.
guys like you have to repeat the mantra ‘It not designed. Its just and illusion of design.” so you don’t have to consider the implications.
What the point in denying the obvious? Because you are sure there is a counter-intuitive solution there somewhere? Is that it?
Your inability/unwillingness to describe in practical terms how one might go about taking a “teleological approach” to biology is once again noted.
We all know the answer of course; peer into the microscope/telescope, shout “OMGZ! ITZ DEZINED!!! GODDIDIT!!!” and go home. Your lot have been doing it for thousands of years; give us one tiny example of a useful product of that approach.
Their opponents refuse to let anyone speak to them directly, for fear of having their lies and fallacies directly challenged by people who actually know better.
But, you are too arrogant and too dense to realize this. You just want any excuse to insult people for not sharing your mindless hatred of science.
For a profiler, you are very incompetent, and too prone to projection. I am not an atheist, and my “scientific veneer” is more than a veneer given the fact that I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, or can you tell me why my degree is invalid because you can type like an idiot on command?
Anger and contempt are not synonymous emotions, SteveP. Not that you care, you just want to fling crap at me because I’m not your ass-kissing sycophant.
Simply because we do not kiss your ass because you’re family does not change the fact that you are an annoying asshole, nor does it make it our fault that you treat us like crap for not sharing your mindless hatred of science for not being a feel-good philosophy.
In other words, do not blame us because you act like an asshole to us simply because we will not kiss your ass.
Do we?
When evolution-deniers use lies to make up challenges to Evolutionary Biology, we point out the flaws in their challenges, as well as point out how they are not science. That we point out their malicious stupidity also happens.
You’ve repeatedly whined that challenging science-deniers’ challenges to science is unfair and mean, yet, you refuse to explain why. Why is it unfair for scientists to dismiss the lies of science-deniers? Should scientists, instead, bend over backwards and give their science-hating foes lollipops after kissing their asses?
You never fail to lie to cover your ass. You’re not here to profile or analyze: you’re just here to insult us and troll about how much you hate science for not stroking your bloated ego.
It would be good if you actually had the mindset and brainpower to understand anything.
But that would be tantamount to wishing for the moon.
Rather than continue insulting us for not being your sycophants, why don’t you go out and show us how Intelligent Design can do science better than actual science?
Or would you rather kill yourself than stop trolling here?
bullshit guys like you have to repeat the mantra ‘It designed. Its not just the illusion of design.” so you don’t have to consider the implications.
What the point in denying the obvious? Because you are sure there is a magic solution out there somewhere? Is that it?
There is a natural explanation for the apparent design in nature, you are just too stubborn to accept it. Now Steve, there are over hundred questions waiting for you that you keep avoiding. Since you are unable or unwilling to answer them, everyone can see that you are just here to fling feces. You might be able to swallow your own crap, but nobody else is being fooled by your monkey imitation. Kindly piss off and stay pissed.
You may find me at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival between 2 and 5 PM on Sunday. Two of the surviving brothers of my favorite high school teacher will be participating in a program on Irish and Irish-American culture. But that’s a 50/50 proposition. But if you and I are there, I hope one of them yells obscenities into your face. (Knowing the one I am thinking of, I am sure he will.)
Otherwise, do you honestly think I want to meet a moral degenerate like yourself, Steve Proulx? Someone who insists on disseminating mendacious propaganda and conducts himself here at PT like a petulant infant rolling around in feces.
No, you stick around because you have some acute personality disorder, Steve Proulx; nothing more, nothing less.
Physicist Lawrence Krauss has written eloquently on the “illusion of Design” in Nature. I am sympathetic towards his position while also recognizing that Ken Miller has argued that Design does exist in Nature and we need to account for it as an argument to be taken from IDiots such as yourself.
As for Bennett, he’s absolutely right. You’re the one spouting BS, Steve Proulx.
That is a damn lie. Most of us have tried to speak directly to creationists, but they suppress all substantive criticisms which reveal their mendacity.
Contrary to Steve P’s mythology, in fact I have gone after Luskin personally, during brief periods when comments were permitted on a few threads at ENV. In each case I kicked his tail thoroughly.
But creationists can’t take fact-based criticism that exposes their lies and misrepresentations. So the ENV authors would finally get in the last word (ad hominems, directed at me) and then close all further comments. They know they can’t stand up to us.
This thread at ENV was taken apart by Troy Britain who showed Luskin was using dishonest quote mines and dropping out key phrases from his sources, replacing them with ellipses “…” or just periods at the ends of sentences. When comments were open I went right for Luskin.
See: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/0[…]f061991.html.
But they got in the last word (ad hominems) and closed comments.
At this thread I went after Luskin, exposing Jonathan Wells’ and Luskin’s outright lies on the topic of Junk DNA:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/0[…]1062011.html
The couldn’t handle it. They got in the last word (ad hominems) and closed comments.
Klinghoffer has never permitted comments on any of his posts, which consist of nothing but ad hominems.
ENV will not tolerate comments because they know we can expose them as liars who misrepresent the facts.
Biologic Institute banned at least 4 of us from their FaceBook page because we were using too many scientific facts that exposed their lying and dishonesty.
Creationists are a bunch of juvenile felines who run from a fair fight and systematically suppress all substantive criticism, because they know that if we could address them directly, we would expose them as outright liars. So they must suppress, suppress, and run away like juvenile felines.
Pretty rich coming from a guy who refuses to answer legitimate questions about topics he raises. So he is a coward and a hypocrite. Why am I not surprised?
Steve, the only reason why I’m suggesting Lincoln Center is because it will be crawling with security. I’m almost tempted to share that link with the wife of one of those brothers, so they’re alerted to your possible attendance.
And he’s interested in meeting me in person? I just suggested to Stanton that the only other place besides Lincoln Center where I’d consider meeting him would be tomorrow night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s cafetaria, since I have some friends who work as members of the museum’s security staff.
So God=nature? Are you a pantheist?
Some of the “designs” in nature are the sort of incompetent mess no human designer would dare to submit to a patent office. Evolution, contrary to popular assumption, does not work by survival of the fittest, but by the reproduction of the fit enough, which explains why we still have things like the appendix which is not only useless, but a potential source of danger.
Obvious? Nothing is obvious unless and until it is empirically verified, which Intelligent Design has never been.
And male nipples and associated breast tissue. Moments ago I heard a commercial for a testosterone supplement, warning that men with breast cancer should not use it. What kind of designer would “bless” men with useless breasts which, like the appendix, occasionally kill them?
Looks like this thread has deteriorated beyond repair, too. Thanks for playing, folks.
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