PZ Myers. 2005 May 26. Marty Pomeroy, advocate for anti-science. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/marty_pomeroy/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, May 26, 2005

Marty Pomeroy, advocate for anti-science

A reader sent me a link to this horrid anti-evolution guest column in the MetroWest Daily News (I presume this is a suburban branch of the Boston Herald). It's appallingly bad, but so typical of the creationist strategy: fast and furious falsehood flinging, and the presumption no one will have the initiative or the ability to crosscheck the claims. It's also all stated in a pompous, self-satisfied style, as if the author knows more about biology than all those biologists out there…yet as becomes quickly obvious, the man knows nothing about genetics.

Well, I know a little about biology and genetics, and I'm willing to rip his dishonest essay apart, and there's always Mark Isaak's Index to Creationist Claims, which is a wonderful resource that makes it easy to tear into articles like this. It always surprises me, though, how unimaginative creationists are—it's always the same old bogus nonsense, repeated over and over again, with such oblivious confidence. Everything in Marty Pomeroy's essay has already been refuted.

First, here's the complete opinion piece.

Rescue science from evolutionists
By Marty Pomeroy / Guest Columnist
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Those who think the "Intelligent Design" advocates are a bunch of religious whackos show that they have simply not looked into the issues being raised before the Kansas Board of Education.

Regarding evolution, there is much that classical evolutionary theory answers well, and much that it does not answer well.

Evolutionary theory proposes that there are two fundamental engines behind the advancement of species. The first engine is mutation, genetic change that can be passed on. This produces some difference in an organism that can be passed to its offspring, so the mutation must be present in reproductive cells.

The second engine is natural selection. This "selects" mutations that happen to be somehow "beneficial." The next generation has statistically more of the "chosen" genetic material because the gene provides some reproductive advantage. So those creatures with this gene produce more offspring, whether because of more aggressive mating behavior, resistance to disease, longer life -- anything that allows a species with this gene to reproduce more than those without it.

The theory goes that these two engines, over time, have produced all the biological diversity we see around us. Both these engines are absolutely necessary for evolution and work together. A simplistic summary would say that mutations provide the opportunity for advancement, and natural selection "chooses out" certain genes.

So what does evolutionary theory explain well? The concept of natural selection has become so well established by the weight of evidence that anyone who would try to argue against it will be shown foolish. It is impossible to ignore the variation of species over geographical areas, and the recognition that these variations have become established as adaptations to their environment by natural selection.

And where is the problem? It is in the concept of beneficial mutation. Natural selection is powerless if there is no new genetic material to work with. But that's where, in evolutionary circles, we instantly move from science to faith. In fact, there is no evidence for the existence of beneficial mutations in complex organisms.

With all the biologists observing life on this earth, there is not, at present, even a single example of a variation in a species that is replacing its peers due to some genetic advantage. Secondly, with all the bombardment of fruit flies with X-rays over the last 100 years, no new species of fruit flies has come about which is replacing the ones that have been around for ages. Lastly, looking in the fossil record, you cannot show any two species that have come from a common ancestor.

Now before anyone blows a gasket, it is obvious that mutations happen. Cancer typically results from mutations we do not want. Also at the viral level, changes (mutations) happen regularly. But the leap in complexity from virus to sexually reproductive mammal is too many orders of magnitude to make bold assumptions. In complex organisms, we simply don't have any examples of this taking place, and the fruit flies are still fruit flies.

The Sickle Cell Anemia gene in the malaria belt is sometimes used as an evolutionary example. It is an excellent example of natural selection taking a broken gene and, due to special circumstances (resistance to malaria,) selecting it out. But the sickle cell gene is not replacing the gene for normal red blood cells in general. When fully expressed, it is clearly not beneficial.

So beneficial genetic mutation lacks any scientific examples in higher species. This is one of the two foundational engines of evolution, and there is no science to back it.

Now this is not to say that Intelligent Design is the New Science. Rather, just like what is already being taught, it is an interpretation which, when applied to available data, provides an interesting perspective.

Still, those who despise Intelligent Design (like Bonnie Erbe) reject it less because they know much about it and more because they are fighting for their own faith in gradual naturalism and religiously refuse to consider evolution's glaring weaknesses (or because they simply dislike Republicans and their current supporters.)

So teach natural selection. But regarding the means for the advancement of species, we already teach one belief that is completely unsubstantiated. Why not teach two? They explain advancement differently based on differing assumptions (beliefs,) and both present interesting views of the data available. This would truly improve science education by separating facts from the interpretations which can so easily become dogma.

Note that Mr Pomeroy makes several strong claims here, all stated with extravagant confidence, and all completely false. They are trivially false, and easily checked against the resources at the talk.origins archive, which link to the scientific literature. Mr Pomeroy is claiming the absence of evidence from the scientific literature for certain phenomena, so it is fairly easy to refute him by finding just one counterexample; my links below generally point to whole lists of counterexamples.

• "In fact, there is no evidence for the existence of beneficial mutations in complex organisms" and "So beneficial genetic mutation lacks any scientific examples in higher species"
  
  This is false. Mr Pomeroy mentions sickle cell anemia, but then mangles the story; that is a beneficial mutation in a specific context, the presence of high rates of malaria. It is his misfortune that he doesn't comprehend that evolutionary novelties aren't absolute good or evil; their function is relative and dependent on the environment. The Talk.Origins archive explains this, and there is a specific FAQ on known beneficial mutations. Even twenty-five years ago I did simple experiments in a cell biology lab to find mutant strains of bacteria that were resistant to antibiotics. Seriously, it happens every day, and it's easy to detect.
  There is also a good list of such mutations in a range of species, but Mr Pomeroy makes a peculiar demand for examples in "higher" species—would a list of beneficial mutations in humans do? I should mention that there is no qualitative difference between the DNA of E. coli and a human, and in fact, we share many of the same genes, so demanding examples in one but not the other is a bit strange.
  
  
• "With all the biologists observing life on this earth, there is not, at present, even a single example of a variation in a species that is replacing its peers due to some genetic advantage."
  
  We have observed new species. But again, Mr Pomeroy inserts a peculiar restriction—that it be an example of a variation replacing its peers. I don't think he understands biology very well, because that makes the job even easier. I did a quick search of the literature, and found this example:
  Stolz U, Velez S, Wood KV, Wood M, Feder JL (2003) Darwinian natural selection for orange bioluminescent color in a Jamaican click beetle. PNAS 100(25):14955-9.
  The paper describes a particular color variant that is undergoing a selective sweep in Jamaica, a new allele that arose on the east side of the island and is spreading westward.
  This stuff is not difficult to find, if you know your way around the biological literature. Apparently, Mr Pomeroy does not.
  
  
• "Secondly, with all the bombardment of fruit flies with X-rays over the last 100 years, no new species of fruit flies has come about which is replacing the ones that have been around for ages."
  
  Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly. This is a serious pest that is currently undergoing speciation, with strains that are shifting from their native host, the hawthorne, to apples. I didn't even have to dig into the laboratory literature—this is happening naturally.
  
  
• "Lastly, looking in the fossil record, you cannot show any two species that have come from a common ancestor."
  
  Ah, the hoary old "there are no transitional fossils" claim. Of course we can, and we have molecular evidence in addition to the fossil evidence. We can show linkage in the same way that paternity tests can reveal the relationship between a child and a presumed parent.
  

Mr Pomeroy made an accusation in his article that he applied to opponents of intelligent design creationism, but which applies more accurately to himself and his fellow apologists for creationism: of evolution, they "reject it less because they know much about it and more because they are fighting for their own faith". He is clearly ignorant of the biology he is describing.

Note the creationist pattern, though. Mr Pomeroy makes bold, confident assertions, each one dead wrong. If the average person were face-to-face with him, what could you say? It's not instantaneous to pull up references to refute such bald lies, and even here on the web where I can leisurely click on the talk.origins site and find orderly stacks of evidence, it takes time…time Pomeroy would use to move on to another lie.

So what do we do?

One counter-strategy is to reduce our position to a set of sound bites. That is not one of our strengths, sad to say: what the side of biology has is vast depth, and it always hurts to abandon that rich and complex resource and reduce it to simplistic assertions. But it's this simple: evolutionary biology has the mechanisms, the observations, the evidence, and the experiments that show that species are related to one another and diverged by the slow acquisition of genetic differences. When someone tells you that no new species have been observed, that mutations can never benefit an organism, and that there have been no transitional forms between species, he's flouting the facts and is simply lying.

Another is to slam the promulgators of such nonsense as Pomeroy's. That essay was a parade of ignorance; Marty Pomeroy has destroyed his own credibility on the subject of evolutionary biology. That is a point that should be hammered in every time he takes pen to paper in the future. Marty Pomeroy has no knowledge of biology and has a history of making stuff up about the subject, and his opinion on evolution should have no weight.

One other thing we have to do is take this message home to the media. Certain right-wing weblogs are fond of the idea that their role is to fact-check the "MSM" (mainstream media) (ironically enough, that's from a site that has also peddled the anti-evolution snake oil), so let's do it. Send short letters to newspapers that publish creationist tripe, and don't let this BS slide by. For instance, you can send letters to the MetroWest Daily News at mdnletters@cnc.com. Tell 'em what you think, in a polite way. Here's mine:

I was surprised to see the guest column by Marty Pomeroy ("Rescue science from evolutionists" on 25 May 2005) in your paper. You see, I'm a biologist by profession, and all the things that Marty Pomeroy declared were not in the scientific literature, such as evidence of beneficial mutations, replacement of alleles in populations, or transitional forms, actually ARE extensively documented in the scientific literature. It was rather like reading an article in which someone confidently asserts that not only are penguins nonexistent, but that no one has ever photographed or captured one. It's a silly claim that can be refuted by simply showing the person a photograph or taking them to the zoo, so this kind of thing is most disconcerting to see published in the 20th 21st Century, in a nation that should be well known for its scientific accomplishments.

Mr Pomeroy is obviously not at all familiar with the scientific literature despite his bold declarations about what is not in it. I suggest that he try reading an introductory text in population genetics, or that he browse through a few issues of Nature or PNAS or any of the many journals at his local university library. Barring that, I've provided a summary of the evidence that counters each of his claims at http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/marty_pomeroy.

And please, readers of the MetroWest Daily News, do not take anti-scientific crackpottery like that of Mr Pomeroy seriously.

Write your own, leave them in the comments here. One thing we might want to think about is developing a library of pithy rejoinders to complement Isaak's wonderful index; we've got the data, but what we also need are strong, short statements that make the emotional and rhetorical case.

And I know I'm a long-winded SOB, so I'm not the best to compose them.

1. PZ, sorry, wrong century. Which makes their mistake even worse of course.
   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  12:55 PM
2. Here's the letter I e-mailed to them. Great job on this article and the site in general, by the way -- I read it every day and find it both informative and entertaining. And I was an Art and English major!
   
   Jeff
   
   

   I read with some dismay the May 25, 2005 column on your web site by Marty Pomeroy ("Rescue science from evolutionists") . Mr. Pomeroy made a number of bold claims about the evidence for evolution, most of which seemed very dubious to me (for example "In fact, there is no evidence for the existence of beneficial mutations in complex organisms" and "So beneficial genetic mutation lacks any scientific examples in higher species"). In just a few minutes of Internet searching I found data that revealed how inaccurate Mr. Pomeroy's statements to be (for a summary, check http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/marty_pomeroy/#continue).
   
   For his part, I can only assume that Mr. Pomeroy is extremely ignorant of either biology or how to do basic research. Alternatively, he may be both informed and capable but is deliberately distorting the facts to support a political or religious position.
   
   I can think of no excuse, however, for an editorial board that would allow such inaccurate tripe to be published without doing even the most basic fact-checking. Even "opinion" columns should not be allowed to make clearly inaccurate statements of fact. I am disappointed that editorial oversight failed in such an egregious fashion in this case, and hope that such is an exception at your newspaper rather than the rule.
   
   Jeff Hebert
   Austin, Texas
   

   #: Posted by Jeff Hebert  on  05/26  at  01:36 PM
3. Dang. And I already sent it off. Oh, well -- it's hard to get used to living in THE FUTURE!
   
   Jeff, your letter is meaner than mine. Good!
   #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  05/26  at  01:59 PM
4. This article is self-refuting, from this paragraph:
   
   So what does evolutionary theory explain well? The concept of natural selection has become so well established by the weight of evidence that anyone who would try to argue against it will be shown foolish. It is impossible to ignore the variation of species over geographical areas, and the recognition that these variations have become established as adaptations to their environment by natural selection.
   
   Mr. Pomeroy admits that natural selection is well-established and recognizes that variations are adapted to environments. Unless he's a Lamarckian or thinks a designer gave each organism an inexhaustable genetic toolkit that is endlessly adaptable, what does he think the natural selection is acting on, anyway?
   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:12 PM
5. The thing I liked most about your letters is that they didn't confuse the public by debunking each claim point-for-point. Rather, that they spent their time highlighting the abandonment of established and accepted processes of science. The fact that you held the editors' feet to the fire for doing this is good as well.
   
   Excellent work.
   
   BCH
   #: Posted by Burt Humburg  on  05/26  at  02:13 PM
6. The Boston Herald is a pretty trashy paper to begin with; basically a step above a tabloid. You won't find your 'intelligencia' reading it. Of course, that is also part of the problem. People like Marty go after the easily convinced (aka ignorant) people first. It's pretty sickening.
   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:24 PM
7. Phew, I hope this is good..I wrote it in about 5 minutes ;)
   
   

   Reading the column written by Marty Pomeroy ("Rescue science from evolutionists" from 25 May 2005) made me realize how medievial the science of the United States has became. Letting people such as Mr. Pomeroy make such bold faced lies in a reputable news source, like the MetroWest Daily News, is to say the least outrageous and I am truly disappointed at the MetroWest Daily News for printing something like this, without checking proper credentials and checking the facts. Each and every single point Mr. Pomeroy mentioned can be refuted easily by checking with an educated Biologist or by simply looking up the answers on the Internet. I would like to request an article challenging Mr. Pomeroy's article be printed, to counter the outrageous points Mr. Pomeroy invented. To not do so, would surely confuse your readers at the spewed lies, and it would hurt the MetroWest Daily News as an reliable news source. Unless the MetroWest Daily News plans on publishing an article for the Geocentric Theory without checking the facts with the Heliocentric Theory first, proper precautions should be taken to be sure facts remain checked before published.
   
   Thank you for considering my letter,
   Geral Corasjo
   

   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:37 PM
8. Please excuse my layperson's understanding of the issue, but this is the letter I wrote and sent:
   
   Marty Pomeroy's opinion piece ("Rescue science from evolutionists" on 25 May 2005) is self-refuting. In the column, Mr. Pomeroy says, "The concept of natural selection has become so well established by the weight of evidence that anyone who would try to argue against it will be shown foolish. It is impossible to ignore the variation of species over geographical areas, and the recognition that these variations have become established as adaptations to their environment by natural selection."
   
   Mr. Pomeroy admits that natural selection is well-established and recognizes that variations are adapted to environments. Where does Mr. Pomeroy propose that this variation that is adapted to environments by natural selection comes from, if not from mutations? One possibility would be the discarded idea that acquired traits (a crushed toe, say) can get passed along to offspring. Another, I suppose, would be that each organism comes equipped with an endless "Swiss Army Knife" of genes that can be called upon, depending on environmental conditions. And still another would be that a "designer" would reach down every once in a while when some creature needed this or that and give their genetic make-up a little make-over. Pimp its ride, so to speak.
   
   None of those possibilities seems even as remotely plausible as the observed, proven, and accepted fact that genetic variation from mutations provides the raw material natural selection then sifts to generate diversity within and among species.
   
   
   Greg Peterson
   Minneapolis, MN
   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:38 PM
9. Indeed Burt. When well-intentioned people reargue at length against gibberish claims which have been refuted a thousand times before, they make a mistake. Just mock them, and mention a source for correct info, and move on.
   #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:39 PM
10. Hi, I'm the reader who sent you that article. This is so awesome that the power of the internet is behind me! That idiot had no idea what he was in for. You think you're a long-winded SOB? The letter that I wrote was even longer. In any case, here it is. I'm kind of nervous to make it public, since I'm not a biologist and this is the first letter-to-the-anything I've ever written in my life, but I'm sure I can learn from any criticisms anyone might have.
    
    

    
    In the recent opinion piece "Rescuing science and evolution," Marty Pomeroy makes a series of arguments against natural selection and for the teaching of the theory of Intelligent Design in the science classroom. While some of his arguments are sound, there are serious flaws in the fundamental claims on which some of his conclusions are based.
    
    Pomeroy makes the claim that there is no evidence for beneficial mutations in animals. This is untrue. In the 1980's, a small community of people in Italy were found to have a mutation of a protein which plays a role in removing cholesterol from cells. This mutation is associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. Pomeroy also claims that "there is not, at present, even a single example of a variation in a species that is replacing its peers due to some genetic advantage." However, we have repeatedly seen strains of bacteria become resistant to our antibiotics, through no means other than the reproductive selection of the surviving mutants.
    
    Pomeroy's conclusion is that Intelligent Design should be taught in the classroom as a "scientific" alternative to the explanation of the origin of species through natural selection. Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory for the simple reason that it presupposes the answer before even posing the question. It is evident in the very name of the theory. The existence of a designer is not suggested by observation, but is an assumption made by proponents of this theory before any evidence is even considered.
    
    Intelligent Design uses faith to frame observation. Science uses observation to frame theory. Faith and science are not opposites, just different -- non-overlapping magisteria in Stephen Jay Gould's words. Just as Darwin's grand theory may not have a place in a course on Christian teachings, faith-based explanations do not belong in a science classroom.

    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:45 PM
11. Greg: I don't think it fully explains the problem with his reasoning that you've highlighted, but I think Pomeroy is relying somewhat on the Creationist claim that much evolution is really just "selection acting on pre-existing genetic variation within species." In other words, that it's just shuffling around variation they were created with. It might also be a clumsy effort at claiming that beneficial mutations DO occur, but only through the mechanism of Intelligent Design, and that natural, random mutation as observed in the lab is inherently negative (insert vague justification of this claim based on "information theory" and Second Law of Thermodynamics here.)
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:46 PM
12. All that aside, PZ made what I consider to be an important point-
    
    "This stuff is not difficult to find, if you know your way around the biological literature. Apparently, Mr Pomeroy does not."
    
    I dont know my way around the biological literature, but I have a rough idea of the Chemistry based literature, since that was my degree subject. I dont think we can reasonably expect a layperson (no matter what their point of view) to have a decent grasp of the literature.(Or be able to afford it) And therein lies the rub. The thing about the beetles sounds interesting, but the difficulty is in spreading the information far and wide. How do you get it added to the talkorigins archive? How can we get more people reading good popular science magazines?
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:47 PM
13. Hah! My apologies, Greg...my slow-to-post self sees you thought of precisely those things already.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  02:49 PM
14. Don't sell yourself short, Kate. That's an excellent letter, with excellent examples to debunk Pomeroy.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  05/26  at  02:52 PM
15. Holy cow! I wish my first public attempt to rebut ID Creationist claims had been as articulate and informed as that! All I could do was sputter.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  03:21 PM
16. Thanks, Chris. I can't wait to see how Marty responds to all this. My mom is politically active in Framingham, so she vaguely knows who he is (although she wasn't able to tell me anything interesting about him). I love causing trouble in this town,
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  03:34 PM
17. I hate it when idiots like Pomeroy claim there are no beneficial mutations in higher organisms. I have a favorite example to throw right back in his face: What on earth does he call the CCR5-delta32 mutation, which greatly reduces the susceptibility of a T-cell to HIV infection by making the CCR5 receptor an unsuitable partner for HIV to bind to and use to enter the cell, if not a beneficial mutation?
    
    See this:
    
    "Genetic Legacy of Plague Outbreaks May Help Europeans Fight AIDS: Report"
    Agence France Presse (03.10.05)
    
    Plague outbreaks centuries ago may have given around 10 percent of Europeans the CCR5 mutation that confers natural resistance to HIV, according to a recent study by Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott, researchers at the University of Oxford and University of Liverpool, respectively. People with the genetic mutation CCR5-delta 32 remain free of AIDS because the mutation stops HIV from entering their immune cells.
    
    Duncan and Scott do not believe the plagues responsible for such a mutation were bubonic but rather epidemics of viral hemorrhagic fever. That the disease spared those with the CCR5 mutation meant future populations included a higher proportion of people with the mutation.
    
    In European nations more recently affected by plagues, more people carry the CCR5 mutations. For instance, in Scandinavian countries - which suffered the plague of Copenhagen in 1711 - the resistance figure is as high as 14-15 percent, noted the study.
    
    The full report, "Reappraisal of the Historical Selective Pressures for the CCR5-Ä32 Mutation," was published in the Journal of Medical Genetics (2005;42:205-208).
    
    In short, the CCR5-delta32, if this model is correct, this mutation first appeared 2,500 years ago, and, because it protected those who carried it from viral hemorrhagic fever, was retained through natural selection processes. This model probably explains the high prevalence of this beneficial mutation in certain Scandanavian countries that recently (in evolutionary timeframes) suffered outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever! However, even if this model is not correct, it doesn't change the observed fact that CCR5-delta32 is a mutation that does protect people who carry it from HIV infection, making them, in essence, immune to most forms of the virus. Anyone want to bet that that will make its prevalence increase even more over the next several generations?
    
    As for lower organisms, geez, how does Pomeroy think that all those bacteria became resistant to antibiotics, other than through beneficial mutations and selection by exposure to the antibiotics?
    
    What an idiot!
    #: Posted by Orac  on  05/26  at  03:45 PM
18. The statements in these letters are fine, but the letters are too long. I'm a newspaperman. Let me offer some unsolicited advice.
    
    Pick one point. If I were to write to this paper, I'd probably pick the claim that no new species have been observed in the field and cite th examples of new species of Hawaiian fruit flies observed within the past 20 years on the Big Island of Hawaii.
    
    Keep your letters under 300 words.
    
    With a bit of effort, a circle of writers could each take one point of Pomeroy's and demolish it. On the printed page, that's much more effective, a stack of slashing letters, than one long one, which most people will skip over.
    
    You might also consider a letter to the editor, possibly marked for information and not for publication, pointing out that some papers (mine, for example) do not publish non-staff commentaries (we call ours "Viewpoints") unless the writer has some claim to greater knowledge than the man in the street. You could suggest that such a filter is the wave of the future and a way to protect editors from looking as if they never went to school.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  04:12 PM
19. Here's mine. I took the very good advice in the discussion so far, waved away his voluminous BS as easily refuted, and tried to educate readers on the real issue. (I'm also not a biologist, so I hope I did okay.) I tried to keep it short enough that it might get printed, which is tough for me!
    
    

    I was disappointed to that the MetroWest Daily News published a column as full of misinformation as Marty Pomeroy's May 25 piece, "Rescue science from evolutionists." Leaving aside Mr. Pomeroy's many incorrect assertions about evolutionary theory, which can be easily debunked by looking at published scientific articles, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Scientific theories are not discarded because there are cases they don't explain yet, they are replaced if they produce incorrect answers or another theory explains more of the evidence. For example, the theory that the sun is the center of the solar system replaced the theory that the earth was the center because it produced better predictions of the motions of the planets.
    
    Intelligent Design is not science, because it makes no predictions and cannot be tested, and that alone is why scientists reject it. It merely points at areas where biology has not yet produced a detailed explanation, and says "you can't possibly explain that, it must have been designed." There seem to be plenty of people who would be willing to fund Intelligent Design research, so if it could actually make predictions and publish results, it would certainly have no trouble competing with existing theory. But ID advocates want to skip all the hard work done by thousands of evolutionary biologists, declare evolutionary theory to be "completely unsubstantiated" despite volumes of published results, and go straight to getting access to impressionable high schoolers. We don't allow that with any other school subject, why should we allow it in biology?

    #: Posted by Redshift  on  05/26  at  04:14 PM
20. As for beneficial mutations in higher animals, this one seems so obvious and easy for the lay person to grasp that I'm amazed it isn't shouted from the rooftops every time a creationist spouts this nonsense: adult lactose tolerance among cattle domesticating peoples. Am I missing something?
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  04:30 PM

21. The statements in these letters are fine, but the letters are too long. I'm a newspaperman. Let me offer some unsolicited advice.
    [snip]
    Keep your letters under 300 words.

    
    
    Well, Harry, in your vaunted role as a newspaperman, have they ever asked you to fit copy? Or do they just tell you you've done a good job as long as you get 'em up onto the porch?
    
    Here are the word counts on the letters posted so far.
    
    Kate 304
    Geral 189
    Jeff 210
    PZ 235
    Redshift 257
    
    Kate, you can get your letter down below the magic number The Newspaperman has bestowed upon us by changing:
    
    "Pomeroy's conclusion is that Intelligent Design should be taught in the classroom"
    
    to
    
    "Pomeroy says Intelligent Design should be taught..."
    
    viola! 299 words!
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  05/26  at  04:54 PM

22. One thing we might want to think about is developing a library of pithy rejoinders to complement Isaak's wonderful index

    
    Ooh, ooh, can I play? I nearly started my own page for it but then it wouldn't really have been PZ's game any more (with his usual troops and trolls). Assuming a "yes":
    
    ===
    
    CA001: Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview.
    
    (a) People were immoral before evolution was discovered - many of them christian paedophiles, torturers, murderers, thieves and invaders.
    
    (b) Conquistadores and cowboys.
    
    CA001.1: Crime rates etc. have increased since evolution began to be taught.
    
    (a) The ignorant commit more crimes than the well-educated.
    
    (b) Creationist states are more criminal.*
    
    * These sorts of stats are harder to find than education ones. They seem to be rather coy/useless about specific prisoner religions - tending to lump all the don't-know-won't-say in with any atheists. I think buddhists (NB a non-god religion) were under-represented among criminals though.
    Pretty map: http://www.doc.state.ok.us/MAPS/incrimUS.htm
    Of course that's the same correlation as with higher education though ...
    
    ===
    
    CA002: Survival of the fittest implies might makes right.
    
    (a) Like the US attacking Iraq then.
    
    CA002.1: Evolution leads to social Darwinism.
    
    (a) Social Darwinism preceded Evolution.
    
    (b) Only if you are living backwards in time.
    
    CA002.2: Marx admired and corresponded with Darwin.
    
    (a) Darwin rejected and then ignored Marx.
    
    (b) Biblical literalists admire and (believe they) correspond with a lying, cheating, torturing, murdering god. Darwin is a paragon of virtue in comparison.
    
    ===
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  04:56 PM
23. Letter Sample:
    
    I realize that opinion columnists are given freedom in their columns, but the editors might seriously consider some fact checking in future. A writer is entitled to their opinions, but not their own facts. In the May 25 piece by Marty Pomeroy he offers as facts many things that clearly aren't. A clear example: "In fact, there is no evidence for the existence of beneficial mutations in complex organisms." This "fact" would come as a great surprise to biologists who spend their careers studying such mutations. Mr. Pomeray continues to make basic mistakes about speciation, mutation and the fossil record.
    
    Opinions, Good. False facts, bad.
    
    A simple call to a qualified biologist would have caught these errors and saved Mr. Pomeroy the embarrassment of being, as Ambrose Bierce put it, "Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice".
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  05:27 PM

24. And still another would be that a "designer" would reach down every once in a while when some creature needed this or that and give their genetic make-up a little make-over. Pimp its ride, so to speak.

    
    Absolutely perfect.
    
    

    A writer is entitled to their opinions, but not their own facts.

    
    I nominate this as a top 10 pithy rejoinder.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  05:37 PM
25. Nice fisk. I give it two opposable digits up.
    #: Posted by DarkSyde  on  05/26  at  05:48 PM
26. CA002.1: Evolution leads to social Darwinism.
    
    (c) The Big Bang was neither big nor a bang. Social Darwinism is neither social* nor anything to do with Darwin.
    
    * ie political
    
    ===
    
    CA005: Evolution is racist.
    
    (a) Racism pre-dates the discovery of evolution.
    (b) Christian slave-owners pre-date Darwin.
    (c) Evolution discredits racism.
    (d) The Bible is racist.
    
    CA005.1: Darwin himself was racist.
    
    (a) Darwin was anti-racism in comparison with his contemporaries.
    +
    (b) Creationists are more racist* than their better educated contemporaries (including evolutionary biologists).
    
    * Fairly clear from hate crimes stats but mixed in with other religious bigotry.
    
    CA005.2: Darwin's work refers to "preservation of favoured races".
    
    (a) English evolves too. The word "races" there meant "species".
    
    CA005.3: T. H. Huxley was racist.
    
    (a) By that standard, so was Abraham Lincoln.
    + see CA005.1
    
    CA006: Evolution encourages eugenics.
    
    (a) What was god's excuse for Noah?
    ie Why save one family and not any innocent babies unless you believed the babies were already genetically corrupt.
    
    CA006.1: Hitler based his views on Darwinism.
    
    (a) Hitler based his views on divine right. Hint (for the hard of thinking): divine = god = religion.
    
    (b) Hitler claimed to be doing the work of the Lord - and it was Christians who followed him.
    
    ===
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  05:50 PM
27. Nice job everyone! Here was the letter I sent to the editor. The editor asked for my address and phone number, hopefully they'll print it. BTW, this is a GREAT site. Well done..yes..well done indeed!
    
    I was dismayed but not surprised to read the guest
    > column by Marty Pomeroy ("Rescue science from
    > evolutionists" on 25 May 2005). An uninformed and
    > unimaginitive parroting of some of the great canards
    > of creationism. He makes beating a dead horse seem
    > positively fresh and exciting by comparison.
    >
    > Pomeroy's ignorance of things scientific was
    > breathtaking! Matched only by the arrogance of his
    > tone. I await his devastating analysis of quantum
    > mechanics and atomic theory.
    >
    > Sincerely,
    >
    > Frank Mathias
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  06:19 PM
28. It turns out I have two "beneficial" (or at least not actively harmful) mutations: I'm lactose intolerant and I've got the photic sneeze reflex that makes me sneeze when confronted by bright light.
    
    And yet I've never been offered a spot with the X-Men, despite my proven ability to sneeze forcefully enough to frighten my cats. Sigh.
    
    Seriously, what kind of "intelligent designer" says, "Hey, I know, I'll make it so that 25% of people sneeze when they go from a dark place to a bright one!" Was it one of those things that seemed like a really good idea after an all-nighter in the lab? Or was the true culprit Josh, the research intern, who thought it would be, like, so totally rad to sneak it into the code when God was at lunch?
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  06:28 PM
29. Back to the "no beneficial mutations" argument.
    
    As Jared Diamond has so extensively discussed, humans have adapted to their technology. Lactose tolerance is a wonderful example. Drinking milk is a niche to be exploited only where cattle are raised. It appears a mutation allowing adults to metabolise lactose spread among northern europeans within the last 10,000 years. For a lot of people this has been a very beneficial mutation.
    
    I guess that adaption to high calorie, high carbohydrate diets is lagging since diseases such as diabetes and obesity are still with us.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  06:28 PM
30. Point taken, Chris. 300 words is the point where our letters editor cuts 'em off.
    
    Shorter than 300 is better. Two 150 word letters are more effective (that is, more likely to be read) than one 300 word letter, all else being equal.
    
    It was free advice. Value it as you like.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  06:31 PM
31. And perfectly good advice too, Harry. Just oddly placed, IMO.
    
    I agree that two at 150 are better than one at 300.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  05/26  at  06:48 PM
32. I'm too lazy to run the proffered letters-to-the-editor through analytic software, but it's easy to eyeball that virtually all the pro-science writers are using bigger words and longer sentences than Pomeroy did.
    
    No appeals were made to the difference competent science education makes in employability or otherwise coping with the modern world.
    
    Nobody followed up on Pomeroy's revealing non sequitur about ID's inclusion in the baggage of the Republicans. C'mon now, that barrel is packed solid with fish with (maladaptive) bullseyes all over 'em.
    
    No comparisons with Atlantis, palm-reading, flat-earthism, or other publicly-agreed quackeries.
    
    In short, nobody seems to be seriously writing for J.Q. Public, particularly the reportedly underschooled readers of MetroWest Daily News.
    
    Everybody seems to be writing for the (relatively) overschooled readers of pharyngula.org. (That is, of those offering letters; the bumper-sticker subthread is moving along another stylistic path.)
    
    Compare the letters now on their way to the MetroWest desk to comments # 18 & 31.
    
    Harry Eagar's prose is short, clear, and friendly to readers at many levels. It's incontrovertibly incongruent with the aristophrenic abstrusities and transcendent (not transcendental) transmogrifications favored by familiar Pharyngulists, but maybe that's the point.
    
    Science advocates engaging with newspaper readers really could learn a thing or two by studying how it's done by the people who do it.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  07:20 PM
33. Marty Pomeroy did.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  07:25 PM
34. Science advocates engaging with newspaper readers really could learn a thing or two by studying how it's done by the people who do it.
    
    First off, I utterly agree that Harry's writing style is a great model to emulate. As often as I've disagreed with him here, I think he expresses himself very well.
    
    That said, the notion that you have to write at a fourth-grade level in order to reach newspaper readers, though it's received wisdom, is - how do I put this in a non-pedantic matter?
    
    A complete pile of steaming crap. Yeah, that's it.
    
    Harry's not the only newspaperman here. When I first started my column at the Contra Costa Times, I got huge amounts of email from readers 1) thanking me for not writing down to them - I actually introduced complex concepts in my 1200-word columns, used Latin binomials, and the like, and 2) providing very sophisticated feedback - questions or rebuttals or further observations - in turn.
    
    Yeah, there are people with less than stellar literacy out there, but you know what? They tend not to read the newspaper anymore.
    
    This isn't to say that jargon or unfamiliar terms should be thrown around freely. I might, f'rinstance, have suggested that PZ replace "alleles" with "genes" in his letter, especially seeing as that's the word Pomeroy used, and even though the concepts don't map exactly.
    
    But that's not the same as writing down, and there are tons of newspaper readers out there hungry for good science. I know: I have personal email from many hundreds of them just responding to my own little erstwhile columns.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  05/26  at  07:49 PM
35. Ah, that's another problem. I cringe at seeing "gene" used when "allele" is meant. They're different things! It's that overschooled business -- sometimes actually knowing things is a detriment.
    
    And I agree with Pierce: there are many more things that could be written about. Get cracking, people!
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  05/26  at  07:57 PM
36. If Pomeroy doesn't fully satisfy your anti-science fix then check out Mustafa Akyol's opinion piece at Tech Central Station.
    
    Akyol is one of the pro-ID people who testified at the Kansas kangaroo court earlier this month. He has links to some nutty Harun Yahya group in Turkey that has been accused of harassing and slandering professors who teach evolution (see this article).
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  08:01 PM
37. It is extremely difficult to constrain oneself to very few words, as a column requires, and make all the necessary points to satisfy a biology major. I’m actually interested in the science.
    
    I have been all over the talkorigins site (contrary to popular opinion here). These are my conclusions: There are a number of ideas that fit under the umbrella called evolution. Some are sound and well founded, some are conjectural. I’m more agnostic about this and would like to stick with science. That’s my point. Why there is a need to defend the interpretations of the data to the death is beyond me.
    
    It is partly my research in that site that has led me to my current opinions. There is data, and there is the interpretation of data. I think the data for Natural Selection is compelling. And I think that mutations happen. But the assertion that all this stuff happened on it’s own, and that it is a powerful enough process to produce all the biodiversity we see, is an assumption. It is not a necessary assumption. Hence I think the ID folks, if given a little breathing room, could help us recognize what is “an interesting connection of some dots”. They have a different connection of some dots. The assertion that it all happened on it’s own is, to me, only an interesting connection of some dots.
    
    Please note that I did not argue that Intelligent Design is correct as the means for the advancement of species. Only that it is just as much of a theory for advancement as the one you all seem to believe – that everything happened entirely on it’s own. I don’t need to have an easily believable alternative to recognize that the one you are presenting is weak and more philosophically based rather than compelling.
    
    So to deal with the points and links raised above:
    Your "good list of such mutations" are all in single celled organisms. The extension to higher species is speculative.
    Your "list of beneficial mutations in humans" is a list of variations. You assume they all came about on their own, then argue that this is proof. Some may have. I’m not arguing that they “did not” come about on their own, just that you cannot assert they did. Otherwise you are begging the question.
    Regarding “Darwinian natural selection…”, this is Natural Selection. I already believe that happens so no need to convince me.
    Regarding Rhagoletis pomonella the apple maggot fly, this is perhaps the most interesting point referenced: “There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.” I will find more detail on that.
    Your counterclaim/link regarding "there are no transitional fossils" claim states: “what a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.” So you define “transitional fossils” in a way that is convenient to the theory and the data available, then say it supports evolution. It’s circular. I have heard other evolutionists argue that “It’s hard to become a fossil” but they drop that when you answer, “So you admit the record of transitions is weak”. You can’t have it both ways.
    
    It’s my paragraph in the middle that requires the most explanation: “With all the biologists observing life on this earth, there is not, at present, even a single example of a variation in a species that is replacing its peers due to some genetic advantage.”
    Damn. That was way too concise and in retrospect should have been stated differently. With all the variations, obviously some are taking over. What I am looking for is a species which clearly does NOT have some trait anywhere, a new trait arises, and it has enough of an advantage to work it’s way through the entire population. That would be a scientific proof. Still looking. Not closed minded, as you have assumed.
    
    In closing, if you just want to flame someone, please find someone else. If you want to exchange information, I am more than happy to try. But it seems I am heavily outnumbered on this site and it may take time to respond to so many.
    Most fascinating to me is the assumption that I am dishonest and morally flawed. Is that what science has come to? Some of you guys sound like the Inquisition. Kate Lee at least is civil (thanks!), but I’m not suggesting ID should be taught as science, but as alternative philosophy to the one currently being taught regarding advancement (and please don’t lecture me about the use of “advancement” here). I understand the scientific method, and would like to see the teaching of biology return to that.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  09:22 PM
38. Sharks ... tank ... blood in water.
    
    *Shivers*
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  09:36 PM
39. I live in the MetroWest area, and saw this column on the day of publication- I wish I'd forwarded it! Regarding the responses offered and the comments on them: DON'T write down, but remember that if you use the Intelegensia-Pharangula-reading level of terminology, you're preaching to the choir. It's the people that don't believe that dinosaurs existed because they're not in the Bible (man, was I surprised to find that our baby sitter was one of them....) that need to read THIS side of the (to use their term) argument. Keep up the good work, but beware the pitfalls of big words (yes, I know that sometimes it's required, but if someone can draw a distinction between an allele and a gene, then they're probably not on the ID side...).
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  09:47 PM
40. Mr. Pomeroy, just what is it that you think separates you from a Holocaust denier?
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  09:48 PM
41. Kate Lee at least is civil (thanks!), but I’m not suggesting ID should be taught as science, but as alternative philosophy to the one currently being taught regarding advancement (and please don’t lecture me about the use of “advancement” here).
    
    I don't remember learning much philosophy in my high school biology classes. The teacher seemed to think it was his job to teach science, not philosophy, and didn't confuse them very often.
    
    Do you think there should be a unit in high school biology classes teaching the philosophy of science? Won't that take valuable instruction time away from, well, science? Insisting that they teach philosophy in science classes seems to me like insisting that all the word problems in your math class are derived from classic literature: an interesting window dressing, but not really germane to the subject.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  11:04 PM
42. Mr. Pomeroy:
    Nice try.
    And I think that mutations happen. But the assertion that all this stuff happened on it’s own, and that it is a powerful enough process to produce all the biodiversity we see, is an assumption.
    
    You have attempted to create an "I can't loose" argument. You do not deny what Biology describes, but because we cannot DISPROVE the invisible finger of god the designer, we cannot claim that this "stuff" happens on its own.
    
    Slick... Garbage, but slick.
    BTW... you are still wrong. Scientists can MEASURE forces that promote mutation. (Measure... not wonder, speculate, suppose or assume.)
    You claim there is a Pink Elephant standing behind me, but every time I turn around, it runs away before I can see it... and now you tell me that it is up to me to prove the Pink Elephant does NOT exist.
    Yea...right.
    #: Posted by  on  05/26  at  11:05 PM
43. ACHTUNG! This is going to violate my own advice against short letters, but I think you guys can handle it.
    
    My original posts were written under the influence of Barbara Forrest's introductory essay in Pennock's 'Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics.'
    
    When confronted with a Pomeroy, there are (at least) 3 responses.
    
    1. Fury, followed by a satisfying puff of vituperation.
    
    2. A letter to whom it may concern, trying to teach the western suburbs of Boston biology in 300 words or less.
    
    3. A statement to discredit Pomeroy as a person qualified to express opinions about biology.
    
    For those inspired to 1., I'd advise against writing the editor. There is no reason approaches 2. and 3. cannot both be taken, and they can even be combined in one brief letter.
    
    For example, Professor Myers's statement about alleles and genes could easily be fashioned into a letter that would both depict Pomeroy as an uninformed or sloppy writer, and also teach one factoid about genetics that is not part of popular consciousness.
    
    (NOT TOO FAR OFF TOPIC. One reason I visit Pharyngula is that Professor Myers is a good writer. Of course he writes long. He's a specialist. It amazes and chastens me that he publishes more good prose each day than I do, and I don't have to find time to teach classes on recondite aspects of genetics.)
    
    Pomery states here, not very persuasively, that he is not an IDer but merely a neutral quester after truth, hoping to return wayward science to its authentic revelations. (Gee, does that sound familiar? Substitute 'Bible' for
    'science' and see.)
    
    Nevertheless, his output is much of a muchness with DI propaganda. Recall that Forrest warns us that the Wedge explicitly denies any responsibility to offer a better biology (or even to know much about the current version); the first task is to elevate IDers to an equality of esteem in the public mind, so that they are perceived as ready to play in the major leagues.
    
    From my perspective, it is both easier and perhaps more effective to skip refuting Pomeroy's confusions and simply destroy his reputation. This can be readily done.
    
    It has already been done, more than once, right here.
    
    True, he offers a tempting, target-rich environment. I often think that evolutionists fall into a trap by trying to demolish every lame statement of their enemies, when it would be as effective just to kneecap them.
    
    Public opinion usually turns on single, small statements. George Romney's one statement about brainwashing defined him, despite any and everything else he ever said or did.
    
    Another point.
    
    Evolutionists, I think, underestimate the skill of IDers. It's true that the intellectual diet at their fresh water colleges is not very nutritious, but remember, they are professional evangelists.
    
    They analyze evangelism, they perfect techniques, they field-test them. Unlike Professor Myers, who has to teach and do research, some of them are paid to do nothing but evangelize.
    
    They are very good at it. We may have knowledge and virtue on our side, but they often have technique on theirs.
    
    Third point. I used to write with big words, too. I got my comeuppance a long time ago, in the toy shop (sports department.)
    
    The assistant editor had a lot of experience, and he knew more than I did. But he was never going to be more than an assistant editor, because he could not break himself from saying 'He come' when a more genteelly educated man would have said 'He came.' One day he threw a story back at me and said, 'Remember, you're writing for the 16-year-old who's not doing too good in school, too.'
    
    I hope I've never forgotten that.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  12:06 AM
44. Mr. Pomeroy:
    
    

    ...it is just as much of a theory for advancement as the one you all seem to believe – that everything happened entirely on it’s own. I don’t need to have an easily believable alternative to recognize that the one you are presenting is weak and more philosophically based rather than compelling.

    
    
    1. What is the theory of intelligent design (ID)?
    2. How does one go about to prove it, scientifically? Or put it another way, how would one disprove it? Oh, and:
    
    

    ...I did not argue that Intelligent Design is correct as the means for the advancement of species.

    
    
    Agreed, Superintelligent aliens may have put life here on earth, or it may have been sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure. Indeed, scientifically testable hypotheses! What is the ID crowd (or, for that matter, any kind of creationists - hey, why not everyone of us?) waiting for, there´s lots of scientific work to be done here.
    
    

    Your "list of beneficial mutations in humans" is a list of variations.

    
    
    As in mutations, yes. And beneficial, in the context of natural selection. See below.
    
    

    Regarding “Darwinian natural selection…”, this is Natural Selection. I already believe that happens so no need to convince me.
    Regarding Rhagoletis pomonella the apple maggot fly, this is perhaps the most interesting point referenced: “There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.” I will find more detail on that.

    
    
    I´m sorry, but I get confused here. You claim that you believe that natural selection exists, then you argue extensively through your op-ed that speciation does not. Which is it?
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  12:09 AM
45. ARRRRGGGHHH
    
    I see far too much of the sort of willful ignorance Mr. Pomeroy displays here now a days. Someone gives examples of transitional fossils, then challenge the definition of transitional but don’t give an alternative definition. Someone gives an example of a new allele replacing an old one like the Jamaican beetle then just ignore it.
    
    The most disturbing part though is the title, ‘Rescue science from evolutionists’, an attempt to define evolution as not part of science. This goes along with the Kansas school boards drive to redefine science so that ID becomes scientific. A very disturbing trend.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  01:07 AM
46. In regards to your slam piece of Pomeroy's article, I've read your links and find that they do not provide the vaunted support to your argument that you think they do.
    
    For example, regarding your link to the article about the Jamaican click beetle, which you provide to contest Pomeroy's contention that there are no species replacing its peers, there are two things to notice. (1) Pomeroy's challenge asserts that there are no species replacing their peers "due to some genetic advantage." And, (2) this quote from the aforementioned article: "By discounting the neutral hypothesis for luciferase, we can now justify repeated testing for ecological causation to forge the next links in the adaptive chain for bioluminescent color from phenotype to performance to fitness." This quote makes it clear that they have no idea what advantage this different coloration represents; in fact, that's precisely represents the very next stage of investigation. So this article does not refute Pomeroy's contention. (You can link to, but can you read the articles?)
    
    Other links are just as weak, if not more so. Pomeroy's article is well-written, well thought out and valid. For over 70 years Darwinists have refused to admit the giant chink in their armor. Instead they have chosen to sweep it under the rug. ID has simply succeeded in lifting up one of the edges of the carpet. Now Darwinism can no longer hide from its failure to adequately explain what the fossil record proclaims; namely, macroevolution
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  01:39 AM
47. The bottom line, as always, remains that no one has observed random mutation + natural selection creating a novel cell type, tissue type, organ, or body plan. It must be taken as a matter of faith that RM+NS is the mechanism behind such creative change.
    
    Faith is for religion and that's exactly what the Darwinian narrative has become.
    
    Thanks for playing. There's a consolation prize waiting as you exit stage left. It's a copy of Origin with the parts in chapter's 1 and 5 where Darwin professes his belief in the heritability of acquired characters highlighted for the reading impaired.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  02:25 AM
48. Blastfromthepast, there are those who would argue that if click beetles with the new colouration are replacing the ones without it, they have an advantage that is quite plain, viz. beetles that exist are significantly at an advantage over beetles that do not. This is true regardless what the advantage actually is.
    #: Posted by Dr Zen  on  05/27  at  02:43 AM
49. Now this is not to say that Intelligent Design is the New Science. Rather, just like what is already being taught, it is an interpretation which, when applied to available data, provides an interesting perspective.
    
    Yeah, I'll bet. About the only Intelligent Design "interpretation" you've given, Mr. Pomeroy, is that evolution is "not a necessary assumption." Wow, that's big thrill. Gee, I can hardly contain myself. (Yawn.)
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  02:46 AM

50. Please note that I did not argue that Intelligent Design is correct as the means for the advancement of species. Only that it is just as much of a theory for advancement as the one you all seem to believe – that everything happened entirely on it’s own.

    
    No, ID is not a scientific theory. Evolution is. Evolution also happens to be a set of facts - the data which the theory explains. Do try to learn the difference.
    
    I'm going to assume you are not intellectually capable of doing this on your own rather than you merely being dishonest (as some ID proponents are). So I'll walk you through it. A scientific theory has to fit all the existing facts (observations) and make useful testable predictions which are then found to be true. Before it succeeds in this, even a scientific idea is just an hypothesis. Hint: from the name you can tell that the Theory of Evolution has done this. It is science. Meanwhile, ID doesn't even begin to consider the slightest possibility of crossing the start line. That race course is too scary to the dishonest IDers because they already know where it leads. Most IDers aren't even contenders though but intellectually inept and sycophantic cheerers trying to will the start line to magically turn into a finish line - or force a redefinition by legislation.
    
    The testable predictions made by Evolution have included specific types of unknown life-form to be found in particular places - which later turned up in the fossil record in just where they were supposed to be. That's like a detective working out the identity of a criminal (and his family), his hiding place and the source of the materials which made the murder weapon all from first principles at the scene, long after all the participants and anyone who could have known them were dead - and then going to the right place and digging up the evidence. It's utterly brilliant. If a psychic had done it they'd give her her own TV show.
    
    Evolution also predicts that no life-form will have anything it couldn't have acquired through its lineage (or via infection - a type of acquisition of genetic material only discovered later but which most people prefer not to think of as being sex). Nothing has been found which breaks this lineage prediction.
    
    Interestingly, if IDers were ever competent, brave or honest enough to make ID-based predictions, ID says the reverse should be true. An intelligent designer, even if learning on the job, should have been able to retrofit identical improvements across life-forms without having to go through genetic lineages. As pointed out, this hasn't happened though. Bats don't have bird breathing systems. Humans don't have squid eyes. Even the breakages such as vit.C are different in different lineages. No sign of intelligent design/destruction at all.
    
    Another possible ID prediction which its proponents assiduously avoid making is about the nature of the designer. They really don't want to go there and yet that's exactly where scientists such as archaeologists and anthropologists go. IDers act in a suspiciously unscientific way (for obvious reasons).
    
    Looking at the biological evidence one would have to say that any "designing" was done by some incompetent, clueless, on-the-job committee of designers working in all sorts of random directions without any real understanding of what they were doing and often undoing each others work. Strangely enough this is exactly the characteristics which would be expected of a planet's worth of unintelligent self-replicating molecules... No wonder the IDers try not to look.
    
    I've gone over that arbitrary 300 word limit of course. So presumably that means the reporter types feel free to ignore everything I've said. It's hard to imagine them learning anything of merit, complete with multiple independent lines of supporting evidence, in less than 300 words though. That must be why they are only reporters and IDers. Their brains glaze over long before they can read/see enough evidence to spot the pattern.
    
    PS How about a set of science jigsaws. Each piece representing an independent line of evidence supporting that specific jigsaw theme. It should even be possible to print the evidence on one side with the big picture being assembled on the other.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  03:02 AM
51. BlastfromthePast claims that the authors of the article about the Jamaican click beetle <blockquote>have no idea what advantage this different coloration represents</quote>.
    This is a misreading. The advantage is always that of having more offspring. The question is always how some change e.g. in the genes leads to having more offspring. When examining some change that has led to more offspring, we can therefore say that the change is the advantage in thid particular case (and only in this case).
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  03:23 AM
52. The absurdity of armchair anti-evolutionists is amazing. The logical extension to the opinion of people like Pommeroy would be to call for the sacking of evolutionary biologists. After all, if those biologists are so deluded or stupid that they accept a biological theory easily debunked by a layman then they must be incompetent.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  03:42 AM

53. Your "list of beneficial mutations in humans" is a list of variations.

    
    
    What the hell is mutations other than variations? If someone has a new blood type, it doesn't eman that it's completely different from the existent bloodtypes, it just means that there are some variations over the general theme.
    
    Mutations that turn you into a x-men like mutant is hardly what one would expect outside the world of comics.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  03:44 AM
54. I can't believe Marty blew off the examples of beneficial mutations in higher organisms, like the ability to metabolize lactose and the CCR5delta32 mutation, which makes humans who have it very resistant to infection by HIV. I don't think he truly read any of the responses. Certainly he ignored that which he did not agree with.
    #: Posted by Orac  on  05/27  at  05:27 AM
55. I can't believe Marty blew off the examples of beneficial mutations in higher organisms, like the ability to metabolize lactose and the CCR5delta32 mutation, which makes humans who have it very resistant to infection by HIV. I don't think he truly read any of the responses. Certainly he ignored that which he did not agree with. He clearly doesn't understand what a mutation is! For example, the CCR5delta32 mutation, if I recall correctly, is a single base substitution that results in a stop codon and a truncated protein.
    #: Posted by Orac  on  05/27  at  05:29 AM
56. Sorry for the double post. It comes from hitting the "submit key" twice in impatience, I guess.
    
    As for the "Holocaust denier" remark, although one can make a case for ID being much like Holocaust denial, I rarely make that comparison because it is so inflammatory. Yes, ID advocates and Holocaust deniers use similar logical fallacies and misrepresentation of the data to support their pseudoscience or pseudohistory, as the case may be. However, I like to think that most ID advocates are not fascist apologists or anti-Semites, as Holocaust deniers are. Bringing up the Holocaust denial comparison, even when appropriate simply on their using similar methods of distorting and denying data, is, in essence, the same as calling someone a Nazi, which is why I only bring up such comparisons with great trepidation and then with a great deal of explanation.
    #: Posted by Orac  on  05/27  at  05:33 AM

57. Faith is for religion and that's exactly what the Darwinian narrative has become.
    
    Thanks for playing. There's a consolation prize waiting as you exit stage left. It's a copy of Origin with the parts in chapter's 1 and 5 where Darwin professes his belief in the heritability of acquired characters highlighted for the reading impaired.

    
    
    DaveScot, you're right about the Darwinian narrative becoming a faith. However, it's not scientists who treat Darwinism as a religion, but rather people such as yourself. Science, done right, does not rely on authority, but on theories that convincingly explain the facts, and such theories must be falsifiable. The theory of evolution does not succeed or fail because of what Darwin said.
    
    Religion, including ID, is not falsifiable. In place of theory they say goddidit or the iddidit. Sure, Darwin made some mistakes. He's not God. Science has moved on in the last 150 years.
    
    Actually, if you want to regard Darwin as a rival God, that's alright with me. But keep your religion out of science classes in public schools.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  06:45 AM
58. Mr Pomeroy:
    
    People question your ethics because you did something dishonest. In you article, you claimed that a number of things were absolutely not documented in the scientific literature. That was false. Now you claim that you have read through the talk.origins site; if that is the case, then the ignorance excuse is off the table and we're left with nothing but incomprehending stupidity, or willful dishonesty. Which is it?
    
    All your comment here is is an attempt to backpedal and weasel. This is an egregious example:
    

    It’s my paragraph in the middle that requires the most explanation: “With all the biologists observing life on this earth, there is not, at present, even a single example of a variation in a species that is replacing its peers due to some genetic advantage.”
    Damn. That was way too concise and in retrospect should have been stated differently. With all the variations, obviously some are taking over. What I am looking for is a species which clearly does NOT have some trait anywhere, a new trait arises, and it has enough of an advantage to work it’s way through the entire population. That would be a scientific proof. Still looking. Not closed minded, as you have assumed.

    
    
    The Jamaican beetle example I gave represents exactly that: evidence for the gradual replacement of one allele by another, caught in the act. And it is not unique; on the first page of a pubmed search I also found this and this and this and this. Moving the goalposts is a standard creationist tactic, though, so I'm not at all surprised to see you doing it.
    
    Oh, and here's a hint: people who talk about "scientific proof" don't understand the scientific method.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  05/27  at  07:13 AM
59. Well put, zilch. You bring up what I think is the real problem -- high school science classes ARE just lectures of "facts," many of which ARE false, and all of which are just stated. When support is given, it's often support that most high school students can't understand. With the massive amount of shitty textbooks and shitty teachers out there, I can understand why someone who's only experienced a high school biology class would doubt what they're told, and I respect that.
    
    What's bizarre is when the people who don't believe what they're told in biology class lose their healthy skepticism when confronted with ID, which makes far less sense and for which there is much less evidence. I guess connecting the development of the species to God adds it to the giant web of things that you Do Not Question.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  08:03 AM
60. Looking at the biological evidence one would have to say that any "designing" was done by some incompetent, clueless, on-the-job committee of designers working in all sorts of random directions without any real understanding of what they were doing and often undoing each others work. Strangely enough this is exactly the characteristics which would be expected of a planet's worth of unintelligent self-replicating molecules... No wonder the IDers try not to look.
    
    Of course it also fits perfectly with the concept of Unintelligent Design!
    #: Posted by Redshift  on  05/27  at  09:05 AM

61. Faith is for religion and that's exactly what the Darwinian narrative has become.
    
    Thanks for playing. There's a consolation prize waiting as you exit stage left. It's a copy of Origin with the parts in chapter's 1 and 5 where Darwin professes his belief in the heritability of acquired characters highlighted for the reading impaired.

    
    
    Thanks, DaveScot, for the fine example of how evolution is a scientific theory and not a matter of faith! If scientists were driven by a dogmatic faith in "Darwinism," as IDers claim, then they would still be professing that acquired characters are inherited (or at least have had a major schism over it), since that's what the prophet said. Instead, since further research didn't support that conclusion, it has been thrown out as Darwin's hypotheses have been refined into the modern scientific theory of evolution.
    #: Posted by Redshift  on  05/27  at  09:14 AM

62. I've gone over that arbitrary 300 word limit of course. So presumably that means the reporter types feel free to ignore everything I've said. It's hard to imagine them learning anything of merit, complete with multiple independent lines of supporting evidence, in less than 300 words though. That must be why they are only reporters and IDers. Their brains glaze over long before they can read/see enough evidence to spot the pattern.

    
    
    Just to clarify:
    
    (1) Marty Pomeroy does not appear to be a reporter or a journalist of any kind.
    
    (2) Reporters don't decide which letters appear in newspapers -- editors do.
    
    (3) It is a non sequitor to say that "reporter types" (whatever that is supposed to mean) will ignore anything longer than 300 words.
    
    (4) You have no grounds for conflating reporters and IDers.
    
    (5) Many journalists are well educated and read voluminously.
    
    (6) The reason for a 300-word limit on letters to the editor should be fairly obvious on a moment's reflection: newspapers receive sacks of letters that must compete for limited space.
    
    Now please return to your regularly scheduled feeding frenzy.
    #: Posted by  on  05/27  at  09:31 AM
63. "Your 'list of beneficial mutations in humans' is a list of variations."
    
    Ah, so when a beneficial trait appears it's merely a "variation", but when a negative trait appears it's a "mutation". That simply doesn't fly.
    
    This seems to make the implicit assumption that there is some allelic variation that has always been present (if hidden) in current species that did not arise in