This is a first for me... Thirty posts in one month. Not bad, huh? I also passed the 2oo blog post mark this month. So, for this post, I'm just self promoting. Enter your email address and subscribe in the box to your right. And visit:
http://www.aigbusted.com
Peace!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Dinosaur claim recieves Another Blow
Anyone remember the old creationist claim that dinosaur blood had been found freshly preserved?
Now, when I first heard about this claim, I referenced Mary Schweitzer's comments that this entire thing might simply be an odd "impression" of flesh rather than the actual thing (She did say that "the fossil record can mimic many things"). I also pointed out that plausible methods for fragments of biological tissue to survive were being investigated (See my original write up on this for more info). Others pointed out that this material was not found "still soft and stretchy" as creationists had claimed, but rather scientists had to painstakingly rehydrate this stuff to get it that way. Besides, the mammoth genome was being sequenced, and if this creature had lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, as creationists think, then we should be able to retrieve large chunks of dino DNA as well. But we haven't. So there was some inconsistency.
Now that I am done with my overly long intor, let's get down to it: Scientists now think that the alleged structures found in the bone have nothing to do with dinosaurs. They think that these structures are actually due to biofilms, or communities of bacteria which are enclosed in a polymer "film". Blogger Tara Smith sums this up:
"What they found provides an alternative hypothesis to the previous "dino blood" findings. The iron present (and thought to have come from blood cells) could be explained by the presence of iron-containing framboids: spheres commonly found in sediments. Blood vessel-like structures were found but also could be attributed to biofilm, and when compared by FT-IR to lab-grown biofilms, the chemical signature of the fossil structure more closely resembled modern biofilms than modern collagen. The authors argue that the biofilm hypothesis better explains the data, including the ubiquity of these structures in fractured fossils:
This investigation contends that iron-oxygen spheres are far too common in many formations to be the result of extraordinary preservation. Framboid morphology and elemental signature may superficially make them appear to be related to biological structures but they are, in fact, an inorganically produced mineral feature often found in association with organic matter."
Found via ScienceDaily:
[I]n a paper published July 30 in PloS ONE, a journal of the open-access Public Library of Science, Kaye and his co-authors contend that what was really inside the T. rex bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.
He likens the phenomenon to what would happen if you left a pail of rainwater sitting in your backyard. After a couple of weeks you would be able to feel the slime that had formed on the inner walls of the bucket.
"If you could dissolve the bucket away, you'd find soft, squishy material in the shape of the bucket, and that's the slime," Kaye said. "The same is true for dinosaur bones. If you dissolve away the bone, what's left is biofilm in the shape of vascular canals."
Now, when I first heard about this claim, I referenced Mary Schweitzer's comments that this entire thing might simply be an odd "impression" of flesh rather than the actual thing (She did say that "the fossil record can mimic many things"). I also pointed out that plausible methods for fragments of biological tissue to survive were being investigated (See my original write up on this for more info). Others pointed out that this material was not found "still soft and stretchy" as creationists had claimed, but rather scientists had to painstakingly rehydrate this stuff to get it that way. Besides, the mammoth genome was being sequenced, and if this creature had lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, as creationists think, then we should be able to retrieve large chunks of dino DNA as well. But we haven't. So there was some inconsistency.
Now that I am done with my overly long intor, let's get down to it: Scientists now think that the alleged structures found in the bone have nothing to do with dinosaurs. They think that these structures are actually due to biofilms, or communities of bacteria which are enclosed in a polymer "film". Blogger Tara Smith sums this up:
"What they found provides an alternative hypothesis to the previous "dino blood" findings. The iron present (and thought to have come from blood cells) could be explained by the presence of iron-containing framboids: spheres commonly found in sediments. Blood vessel-like structures were found but also could be attributed to biofilm, and when compared by FT-IR to lab-grown biofilms, the chemical signature of the fossil structure more closely resembled modern biofilms than modern collagen. The authors argue that the biofilm hypothesis better explains the data, including the ubiquity of these structures in fractured fossils:
This investigation contends that iron-oxygen spheres are far too common in many formations to be the result of extraordinary preservation. Framboid morphology and elemental signature may superficially make them appear to be related to biological structures but they are, in fact, an inorganically produced mineral feature often found in association with organic matter."
Found via ScienceDaily:
[I]n a paper published July 30 in PloS ONE, a journal of the open-access Public Library of Science, Kaye and his co-authors contend that what was really inside the T. rex bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.
He likens the phenomenon to what would happen if you left a pail of rainwater sitting in your backyard. After a couple of weeks you would be able to feel the slime that had formed on the inner walls of the bucket.
"If you could dissolve the bucket away, you'd find soft, squishy material in the shape of the bucket, and that's the slime," Kaye said. "The same is true for dinosaur bones. If you dissolve away the bone, what's left is biofilm in the shape of vascular canals."
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Primates Evolve Large Brain Size Twice
I found a very interesting article. It is about some primates in South America which began evolving larger brains. It made me think of the late Stephen Jay Gould's view that evolution is radically contingent. Perhaps its not so after all. I mean, if Homo Erectus had gone extinct before our lineage evolved from it, perhaps 10 million years later another group of apes (or any other creature, for all we know) may have evolved our level of consciousness.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080709110839.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080709110839.htm
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Created and Rational Disagreement
Not sure if any of you know, but Created and Rational wrote up a blog post that seemed to express strong disagreement with a post I made about Creationists not being able to trust their own thoughts. Here is his post of which I will quote:
AiG creationist thinkers at least have adopted almost a form of Critical Realism in regards to the past. Nothing can be absolutely proven in relation to the distant past before human presence in the region. Therefore whatever theory you make about the past is not independent of your presuppositions. This is how I have basically explained it, and earlier I criticized it on the grounds that it was an attempt on the part of the creationists to avoid the obvious evidence for evolution. Either way their position appears to have been mishandled by several people such as AiGbusted. It has been interpreted as saying we cannot trust our own thoughts because thoughts. The misunderstanding probably stems from this quote form the AiG article, "Is nature the 67th book of the bible?":
"Many who trust in humans as the highest authority reject the Curse as true history and thus deny its effect on our observations. Some point to the effects of the Curse as proof of “bad design.” For Christians, however, it is foolish to ignore the Curse when considering what nature can “reveal” to us. After all, this would be like someone trusting a funhouse mirror to show them how they really looked. They look into the mirror and see a distorted view but assume that this mirror must be “right.”"Now at first glance this does seem to say that we cannot trust our senses and this does seem to contradict what creationist have claimed about evolution being anti-science and anti-knowledge since it means our brain is just an assortment of chemicals which evolved over billions of years and can't be trusted. Is this a contradiction made by the author? No, creationists such as Ken Ham say that there is a distinction between what they call "operational" science and "historical" science. Operational science is everyday repeatable science which has been used to build technology and send humans to the moon. Historical Science on the other hand has to do with the distant past and origins which are affected by our presuppositions and is therefore not science in the same sense that operational science is. Furthermore in regards of repeatable, testable, and operational science the senses are very reliable and they believe that science requires "biblical presuppositions". loved and hated Creationist astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle explains:
"The biblical creationist expects there to be order in the universe because God made all things (John 1:3) and has imposed order on the universe. Since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the creationist expects that the universe would function in a logical, orderly, law-like fashion. Furthermore, God is consistent and omnipresent. Thus, the creationist expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws, even in regions where the physical conditions are quite different. The entire field of astronomy requires this important biblical principle."
Here is how I responded:
C&R,
What do you think "biblical presuppositions" means? They mean that they assume the bible is true above any and all. By their dictionary, you look up truth and it says, "See Bible."
If you look at my post and the AiG article I referenced:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/can-creationist-trust-his-own-thoughts.html
You see, they state that no amount of evidence for an old earth would convince them (They would always assume the evidence was in some way flawed).
This means if they look at varves, ice rings, tree rings, radiometric dates, plate tectonics, the approximated age of the sun, Stars that are millions or billions of light years away from the earth, and so on...
They cannot even consider that the earth might be older than 10,000 years. In conclusion, They will not trust the evidence right in front of their faces.
I did not say this in the original comment so I will write it now:
Creationists may try and distinguish between "operational" science and "historical" science, but they are forgetting that so many things, like Forensics science in murder trial, is used making the same assumptions as evolutionary or modern geological/astronomical sciences do (They presuppose the laws of nature to be constant and the same effects always have the same causes, and no magic).
AiG creationist thinkers at least have adopted almost a form of Critical Realism in regards to the past. Nothing can be absolutely proven in relation to the distant past before human presence in the region. Therefore whatever theory you make about the past is not independent of your presuppositions. This is how I have basically explained it, and earlier I criticized it on the grounds that it was an attempt on the part of the creationists to avoid the obvious evidence for evolution. Either way their position appears to have been mishandled by several people such as AiGbusted. It has been interpreted as saying we cannot trust our own thoughts because thoughts. The misunderstanding probably stems from this quote form the AiG article, "Is nature the 67th book of the bible?":
"Many who trust in humans as the highest authority reject the Curse as true history and thus deny its effect on our observations. Some point to the effects of the Curse as proof of “bad design.” For Christians, however, it is foolish to ignore the Curse when considering what nature can “reveal” to us. After all, this would be like someone trusting a funhouse mirror to show them how they really looked. They look into the mirror and see a distorted view but assume that this mirror must be “right.”"Now at first glance this does seem to say that we cannot trust our senses and this does seem to contradict what creationist have claimed about evolution being anti-science and anti-knowledge since it means our brain is just an assortment of chemicals which evolved over billions of years and can't be trusted. Is this a contradiction made by the author? No, creationists such as Ken Ham say that there is a distinction between what they call "operational" science and "historical" science. Operational science is everyday repeatable science which has been used to build technology and send humans to the moon. Historical Science on the other hand has to do with the distant past and origins which are affected by our presuppositions and is therefore not science in the same sense that operational science is. Furthermore in regards of repeatable, testable, and operational science the senses are very reliable and they believe that science requires "biblical presuppositions". loved and hated Creationist astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle explains:
"The biblical creationist expects there to be order in the universe because God made all things (John 1:3) and has imposed order on the universe. Since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the creationist expects that the universe would function in a logical, orderly, law-like fashion. Furthermore, God is consistent and omnipresent. Thus, the creationist expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws, even in regions where the physical conditions are quite different. The entire field of astronomy requires this important biblical principle."
Here is how I responded:
C&R,
What do you think "biblical presuppositions" means? They mean that they assume the bible is true above any and all. By their dictionary, you look up truth and it says, "See Bible."
If you look at my post and the AiG article I referenced:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/can-creationist-trust-his-own-thoughts.html
You see, they state that no amount of evidence for an old earth would convince them (They would always assume the evidence was in some way flawed).
This means if they look at varves, ice rings, tree rings, radiometric dates, plate tectonics, the approximated age of the sun, Stars that are millions or billions of light years away from the earth, and so on...
They cannot even consider that the earth might be older than 10,000 years. In conclusion, They will not trust the evidence right in front of their faces.
I did not say this in the original comment so I will write it now:
Creationists may try and distinguish between "operational" science and "historical" science, but they are forgetting that so many things, like Forensics science in murder trial, is used making the same assumptions as evolutionary or modern geological/astronomical sciences do (They presuppose the laws of nature to be constant and the same effects always have the same causes, and no magic).
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
New York Times and Natural Selection
Olivia Judson, the biology blogger over at the New York Times, has written up a great piece on examples of evolution by natural selection occuring today. Check it out.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Abby Smith and Antibiotics
Abby Smith over at the ERV Blog has written up a great article debunking creationist myths about antibiotic resistance in bacteria. View it here.
Confusion About Homology
Over at EvolutionBlog there was a discussion about a creationist who took some quotes from a biology book to try and show that scientists were saying homology was both due to common ancestry and evidence for common ancestry. Let me give you an example: Suppose I say that the eyes of squids and humans are not homologous because they did not inherit this structure from a common ancestor, but then I turn around and say that the non-homologous eyes are evidence that they didn't share a (recent) common ancestor.
This is what the controversey is over, and it has taken me a while to understand just what the creationists were saying on this issue. Here was a comment I left on that post:
This is just another example of how successful Jonathan Wells has been in distorting science and spreading it from the IDers all the way to the fringe of young earth creationism. It is a confusing issue, but the way I understand it is this:
*For a structure to be homologous, it must share a deep similarity (biochemically, anatomically, and developmentally). Homologous structures may or may not have the same precise function.
*Homologous structures are then inferred as being inherited from a common ancestor.
*On the problem of convergent evolution: There are always mutliple solutions to a similar problem. For instance, one organism may move through the water by moving the tail horizontally (like whales) or vertically (like fish), or by rotating the arms (as humans do). Then again, one may "clap" their legs together in order to swim, just as frogs do. So a similar environmental pressure may occasionally produce similar features, but by comparing a large number of features, we may know whether convergent evolution has taken place. On a side note, genetics and fossils may be helpful as well in determining ancestry.
This is what the controversey is over, and it has taken me a while to understand just what the creationists were saying on this issue. Here was a comment I left on that post:
This is just another example of how successful Jonathan Wells has been in distorting science and spreading it from the IDers all the way to the fringe of young earth creationism. It is a confusing issue, but the way I understand it is this:
*For a structure to be homologous, it must share a deep similarity (biochemically, anatomically, and developmentally). Homologous structures may or may not have the same precise function.
*Homologous structures are then inferred as being inherited from a common ancestor.
*On the problem of convergent evolution: There are always mutliple solutions to a similar problem. For instance, one organism may move through the water by moving the tail horizontally (like whales) or vertically (like fish), or by rotating the arms (as humans do). Then again, one may "clap" their legs together in order to swim, just as frogs do. So a similar environmental pressure may occasionally produce similar features, but by comparing a large number of features, we may know whether convergent evolution has taken place. On a side note, genetics and fossils may be helpful as well in determining ancestry.
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