PZ Myers. 2005 Sep 14. Timothy Birdnow. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/timothy_birdnow/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Timothy Birdnow

Echoed on the Panda's Thumb

Laugh, cry, curl up into a fetal ball and close my eyes…I'm not sure what I want to do. There is a site called The American Thinker which I read for the first time today, and all I can say is that if this is what they call American thinking, we have grounds for a class action suit for libel on behalf of every citizen in the US.

In particular, they've published an article, The case against Darwin, written by a property manager in St. Louis, Timothy Birdnow. It's clear that he's ideologically compatible with far right wing pseudoscience, but reading his essay was a hilarious exercise, rather like reading children's funny exam answers. The science is a mangled mish-mash, almost entirely wrong, delivered with an astoundingly confident tone that disregards its own obvious contradictions.

For instance, Birdnow is confident that DNA could never have come into existence.

What, you may ask, is the connection between Einstein`s proof of atoms [his explanation of Brownian motion] and Darwinism? Darwinism argues that all life evolved from a less complex state. Following the chain of life backwards, one eventually comes to the most basic unit of life-Deoxyribonucleaic Acid (the DNA molecule). The DNA molecule is composed of the even simpler RNA molecule, and is the fundamental building block of life. It is the largest, most complex molecule in nature. According to Einstein`s theory, the original DNA (and RNA) Molecules should not have formed and survived since there are being constantly buffetted by energized atoms. The establishment of life required energy, and that energy meant that the nascent DNA was exposed to more energetic particles which should, logically, have prevented the formation of such a large and complex molecule. That this molecule not only formed but spread suggests different mechanism at work then those proposed by the Darwinists.

Many defenders of evolution try to argue that entropy only applies to a closed system, and that the Earth is not a closed system. This is facetious; entropy increases when systems are mixed, and the first life forms could not have survived except under very particular conditions. They had to have a closed system, or at least a very sheltered system, initially to survive! Any way you look at it, a self-replicating entity had to gain in complexity at the molecular level despite increasing entropic pressures. There has to be a guiding principle involved. You just can`t make order out of chaos! Systems decay.

In fact, genes and chromosomes decay on a regular basis. One of the largest causes of mental retardation is called fragile X syndrome, and it is the result of chromosomal decay where one of the legs of the X has crumbled away. The Chromosome is no longer an X but isn`t a Y either, and this results in numerous problems. Mutations of genetic material happens regularly, and is rarely of any benefit to the unlucky inheritor. A benevolent mutation generally requires an increase in complexity, not a disintigration of the chromosome or gene. Disintigration generally means decay. Decay makes you sick, or dead; it does not make you grow. Evolution claims you can decay your way up!

Another paradox in Darwin`s theory is the lowly virus. A virus is basically a free floating strand of DNA (or RNA for the most ancient varieties like the Filoviruses which cause Ebola) which invades a cell and takes over the cell`s control functions. The virus suddenly comes to life, reproducing at a prodigious rate. After exhausting the cell, the virus returns to it`s quiet slumber.

Now, the virus must predate the cellular organisms, and yet there is no way a virus can reproduce without a host. We have no examples of self-replicating viruses, viruses which can exist on their own. What we see is reverse evolution; the virus is evolved to feed on the more complex organism.

It is possible that early viruses were able to exist without a host, and that the change in the Earth`s atmosphere killed them. Perhaps none of them could tolerate oxygen. One would still expect to find remnants of these ancient viral life forms in sheltered places. We don`t, and regular viruses require a host. The problem is that there doesn`t appear to be any way for these organisms to have flourished.

Next we come to the problems with the fossil record. Everyone has heard of the missing link; the transition creature between Man and the Apes. We`ve never really found him-in fact, we`ve never really found any link between one species and another. Scientists have found species with similarities, but the transitions are simply not there. It is inherent in Darwinism that species make a smooth, seamless transition from one form to another. The reality is that we see no such transitions in the fossil record, and evolutionists struggle to hide or explain away this embarrasing fact.

Furthermore, we don`t even see crossovers between the 5 Phylla (classes of animals) anywhere, at any time. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos? Where are the snakes which deliver live young? I haven`t seen too many feathered fish around lately! The species remain distinct, and they shouldn`t if Darwin is correct. Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called ``Great Dying``, 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5. If Darwin`s concept of Natural Selection is correct we should have seen numerous crossovers as species from all branches competed to fill in the newly vacated gaps in the ecology. That we can find no evidence of any crossover is damning of Darwin`s theory.

Another point to consider is the matter of the size of animal life on Earth. During the Jurassic, Dinosaurs grew to enormous sizes, fueled by plentiful food and a high atmospheric oxygen content. Yet we see mammals grow large during the Pleistocene, with Mastadons, giant beavers, Saber-Toothed Tigers all being larger than creatures today. This was an era of scarcity and lower oxygen, yet we witness the same response to the environment. Why? If Natural Selection is correct, the most successful creatures during the Ice Age would be the smaller ones. We see the same biological response to two radically different conditions.

Speaking of Dinosaurs, why are they all gone? Dinosaurs came in all sizes, some quite small and nimble. Birds are the last remnants of the beasts which once ruled the Earth. Why? Granted, the large ones were unfit to survive, but the small ones should have been able to adapt without having to develop flight. We should still see some of the smaller ones like Procompsognathus. They were every bit as nimble, as fit, to survive as their mammalian rivals. Yet they are gone. Why did they all turn into birds? Evolutionary theory suggests that the surviving dinosaurs should have scattered in all directions genetically after their extinction. They didn`t; they went in only one direction, while mammals evolved to fill their former niches.

Any way you look at the issue, Darwinism is on the ropes. The supporters of Darwin have resorted to frauds in the past to prove their theory-Piltdown Man was a combination of human and ape remains. Remember the famous Moth hoax where evolutionists claimed they had found moths in London which had changed from white to black because industrial soot had made being black safer? Turns out they faked their evidence. Now the evolutionists are trying to silence any competing theories through scholastic bans and mockery. They seem desperate.

I wonder why?

Evolutionists aren't desperate—we're exasperated. We have to deal with appalling levels of ignorance like Mr Birdnow's; I think it's only appropriate that we respond with mockery. I've tried to point out some of the more glaring errors of fact in his essay (there's much more—I've been slightly selective), and it should be clear that his work is embarrassingly uninformed, revealing a complete lack of any competency in biology, of a level comparable to what I might expect from a fifth grader…although no fifth grader I've ever met has the arrogance to think he is an authority in science. What he has written is garbage, and it's been published as if it were a serious piece of scholarship by a right-wing online rag, and I've had to waste 45 minutes picking apart a fraction of the egregious errors present in it.

The only appropriate response here is to point out that Birdnow is an idiot. He's a gumby. He's a particularly outrageous example of the creationist morons who want to dictate our schools' curricula from a position of utter ineptitude.

We "evolutionists" are not interested in "scholastic bans" of ideas. I do think it entirely fair that we have scholastic standards that reject rank stupidity of the kind Mr Birdnow offers.

I'm a right wicked bastard. Birdnow discussed revisiting this subject in another article, so I hit him with a challenge. Creationists typically dance from error to error, keeping the balls juggling so fast that you can't keep up, and definitely can never pin them down. So I picked one point in his article and told him to explain it. Here's my challenge:

By the way, if you do revisit this subject, please address this one point from your article.

Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called "Great Dying", 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5.

You should be aware that in those 3 sentences, you made 4 immense errors.

  1. There are many more than 5 phyla; about 30.
  2. Mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects are not separate phyla. The first four all belong to one phylum (Chordata) and the last belongs to another (Arthropoda).
  3. There were no mammals or birds in the Permian.
  4. There were no mammals or birds in the Triassic.

In other words, your entire point was wrong in multiple ways. Those are simple errors of fact that show you have no knowledge at all of the subject about which you were babbling.

Consider this a challenge. If you can't address those gross errors when you revisit the subject, I'm going to point out the fact with great amusement.

I wonder what will happen? Dodge, weasel, stonewall, or do some kind of spastic flibbertigibbet dance?

Posted by PZ Myers on 09/14 at 04:21 PM
Creationism • 3 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. How can you be sure that Mr. Birdbrain (apologies to the birds) is not a fifth grader? His writing is just too hilarious. I have been laughing my ass off for the last five minutes.
    #: Posted by Niket  on  09/14  at  04:38 PM
  2. Is it ignorance? Can he possibly believe what he has written?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  04:39 PM
  3. Is it bad that one of the things I enjoy most about pharyngula is the unusually high frequency with which the word canard occurs?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  04:49 PM
  4. Why? Are you a duck?
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/14  at  04:53 PM
  5. On behalf of St. Louis I do apologize for Mr. Bidnow.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  04:56 PM
  6. On the plus side, his post is so remarkably bad that only the willfully ignorant could find in it anything of substance. And they'd have to work pretty hard to do that. You do sound quite exasperated, PZ, but on behalf of those of us who, though rational and educated, cannot dissect such drivel with the same skill and attention to detail that you do, hang in there!
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  04:58 PM
  7. I think that's the worst thing I've ever read.

    Christ on a stick, he can't even keep his thinking straight from one end of a paragraph to the other. DNA is at once "the most basic unit of life" and "the largest, most complex molecule in nature". Huh? So ATP and threonine (my favorite amino acid!) and adrenaline and glucose are not basic to life? I'd sure be unhappy without 'em.

    And why do these asscakes never realize that if the 2nd law prohibits DNA formation 4.5MYA it also prevents it now? Same goes for Brownian motion. What, there isn't any Brownian motion any more?

    Where the hell is Penn when you need him?
    #: Posted by Johnny Vector  on  09/14  at  05:03 PM
  8. Maybe noahpoah's a Burt Rutan fan.

    As for Birdbrain, maybe he's actually Richard Lederer, humorist and collector (and apparently actual author) of those "student exam answers" that keep turning up. I do like the "the older it is, the more extinct it is" one though.
    #: Posted by QrazyQat  on  09/14  at  05:04 PM
  9. Phylla? Makes me think of phyllo, that baklava gets made from. There's one good thing about Birdnow's essay....
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:06 PM
  10. Afarensis, we won't hold your city accountable unless by some godawful freakish curse of contrariness, you elect Birdnow to the school board.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/14  at  05:07 PM
  11. I reads like a light-weight creationist manifesto arrising from a common thought process that has lead to many a crack-pot work. Now all we need is Dembski to come in here and tell us, once again, he's the Isaac Newton of Information Theory.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:14 PM
  12. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?


    Does anyone else think this is the greatest question ever? I mean...there's no topping that one.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:17 PM
  13. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?


    I can't be the only person who thinks that's the greatest question ever, right?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:18 PM
  14. I'm betting he meant "specious" when he said facetious -- but he's still wrong.

    "Evolution claims you can decay your way up!" sounds more like a description of GW Bush's work history (and that of his cronies, we're learning lately).

    Love the "no live bearing snakes" fun fact!
    #: Posted by QrazyQat  on  09/14  at  05:19 PM
  15. Geez. This guy sure has a high opinion of himself, calling himself the "American Thinker." Too bad his opinion is entirely unjustified.
    #: Posted by Orac  on  09/14  at  05:31 PM
  16. This guy can only be a evo troll. Nobody could really be this stupid and still be able to figure out how to post something on the internets.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:31 PM
  17. I hate to keep making this point, but I think it needs to be made.

    The only way anything as stupid as today's right-wing "thought" can possibly be advancing is if it's filling an absolute vacuum. Seriously. Look at http://www.worldnetdaily.com and ask yourself why *anyone* takes this seriously. Now consider the fact that many very intelligent people do, including a number of engineers I have worked with in the past.

    It is my opinion that modern liberal thought imploded in the 1970s. Some threads have disintegrated into postmodern mush or new-age babble, while others threads have become so divorced from the everyday reality faced by real people that they are simply no longer relevant to anyone's day to day existence.

    Case in point: Noam Chomsky. He's interesting, but really... has anything that he's written ever helped you to tackle any of the problems that you have ever been faced with? Does he offer meaningful, tangible, reality-oriented solutions to the problems faced by anyone out there in real life? For the most part, no. He merely drones on and on about the nature of power and how America is responsible for this or that, but he offers no tangible implementable solutions. Ditto for his pop culture double: Michael Moore. His moves are excellent in many ways, but they leave you feeling empty rather than motivated or empowered. They don't offer anything positive, constructive, or relevant to real life. So what if our culture is violent? What do we do about it? Where can we start?

    That's why the left has mostly lost the working class. The working class wants strategies for improving their lives, not historical blame-assessment or cryptic blather about the dialectical hermeneutics of post-neo-whatever. The working class has rejected liberalism for conservatism and religion because at least it makes them feel comforted and gives them a little basic moral guidance here and there.

    If we are to combat this sort of mush, we must have a new left. Not a revival of old left-wing thought, as that would merely take us back to where we were before, but new ideas. I think that it might be useful to begin by analyzing both the successes and failures of past liberal movements and the reasons for those successes and failures. Start with the success of integrating women into the workforce vs. the failure of the welfare system to alleviate poverty, for example. Burning all new-age books and truly accepting and integrating the failure of strict command economics would also be good starters.

    The only way to stop the advance of this kind of filth is to fill the void with something better.
    #: Posted by Adam Ierymenko  on  09/14  at  05:32 PM
  18. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?


    I dunno, PZ; maybe he's on to something--after all, how do you account for chicken breasts?

    Love the "no live bearing snakes" fun fact!


    One of my all-time favorite Panda's Thumb posts ever was where Timothy Sandefur took apart another creationist fun fact:

    He reveals a lot, however, when he cites a theologian’s “argument against evolution: ‘Suppose a fish evolves lungs. What happens then? Does it move up to the next evolutionary stage? Of course not. It drowns.’” Id. at 342 n. 51. This is the sort of “alternative view” that Hacker would suggest we teach children? Evolution, of course, does not suggest that any single fish ever suddenly “evolved” lungs, within a single instant or a single generation, whereupon it might drown. Rather, it posits gradual change though the inheritance of slightly altered genes: and, in fact, there are fish with lungs—called, get this, lungfish—that do not drown; rather, they can breathe above-surface air.


    When my husband and I are in the nursing home, we'll still be making each other fall on the floor laughing with "get this--lungfish!"
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/14  at  05:34 PM
  19. I reads like a light-weight creationist manifesto arrising from a common thought process that has lead to many a crack-pot work. Now all we need is Dembski to come in here and tell us, once again, he's the Isaac Newton of Information Theory.


    I call him the Uri Geller of information theory. His career reminds me a lot of Uri's, including his gradiose ego, the fact that he's fooled a few academics, and how he just seems to descend further and further into the loony bin over time.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:36 PM
  20. Scientists have found species with similarities, but the transitions are simply not there. It is inherent in Darwinism that species make a smooth, seamless transition from one form to another.


    Inherent in Darwinism? I've just finished reading the chapter in the Origin of Species in which Darwin argues at length (at great, great length) about the lack of seamless transitions in the fossil record. If Birdnow's going to equate "Darwinism" with evolution in general, he might at least read the textbook.
    #: Posted by beche-la-mer  on  09/14  at  05:37 PM
  21. Now all we need is Dembski to come in here and tell us, once again, he's the Isaac Newton of Information Theory.


    Once, while we were getting coffee during a class break, I asked my informatics professor if he'd ever heard of Dembski, and my prof said no.

    I explained what Dembski claimed, and the "Isaac Newton of information theory" label, and my prof laughed so hard he almost snorted coffee out his nose.
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/14  at  05:43 PM
  22. As I commented earlier (http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/birds/#comments post 40,000), overwhelming evidence is in favor of a common bird and reptilian lineage. Here we have another independent test demonstrating that indeed, birds did evolve from reptiles.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:51 PM
  23. Physics? Did god create physics?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  05:58 PM
  24. I was completely blown away by the "Where are the snakes which deliver live young?" question. I couldn't believe that someone could be ignorant about the existance of live young bearing snakes. Then I remembered what kind of idiots tend to disbelieve evolution.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:08 PM
  25. This guy can only be a evo troll. Nobody could really be this stupid and still be able to figure out how to post something on the internets.

    Nonsense. Plenty of people are this stupid.

    Actually, I disagree with the theory that he sounds like a fifth grader. He seems a bit too pompous for that. In MY opinion, he reads like a very old person who isn't well educated but who's read way too many books in his retirement.

    One hint is that 'property manager' business. Around here that's a common occupation for octegenarians.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:09 PM
  26. On his blog, Birdnow posts a letter and several links that describe the mechanism of Fragile-X.

    http://tbirdblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/fragile-x_112567542894051583.html

    Steve Strom's letter describes the DNA mechanism, including the statement:
    Mr. Birdnow suggested that the gene decays. That is not factual.
    Birdnow seems to believe the fragility of the chromosome in vitro applies in vivo:
    In short, one of the legs of the chromosome is crumbling away because of this mutation.

    My wife has fragile X in her family, as well as two M.D.`s (both of whom have Fragile X children) who have explained this to me. Steve Strom is correct, but so am I.
    He quotes several sources, including:
    According to USA Today`s Health Encyclopedia:

    Some people have chromosomes that when studied in a laboratory, have a tendency to "break" or "tear." The damage to these aberrant chromosomes typically occurs in particular regions, called fragile sites.
    [Dr. Jennifer Jewell at emedicine.com] This constriction and thin strand produces the appearance of a fragile portion of the X chromosome, leading to the term fragile X.
    So he concludes:
    In other words, the end of one arm of the X chromosome is collapsing, with a strand of molecules trailing off.

    That this collapse is caused by a genetic mutation does not invalidate my point. My point was that genes, and chromosomes, mutate in non-beneficial ways, and that the idea that random mutations evolve an organism for the better is dubious. Also, Mr. Strom states that Fragile X is caused by genetic mutation, then says it is not from genetic disintigration. What exactly IS genetic mutation other than a form of disintigration?
    The rest of his post is a mixture of personally affecting statements about the impact on his family and some more incorrect biology statements. Amazing.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:09 PM
  27. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?

    I can't be the only person who thinks that's the greatest question ever, right?

    No, you're not. But I keep wanting to add the phrase 'of yesteryear' to it.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:13 PM
  28. When i hear:
    Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos? Where are the snakes which deliver live young? I haven`t seen too many feathered fish around lately!


    I think of:

    Stan: Do you have anything besides just animals with four asses?

    Moreau: Oh, uh, I suppose so uh. Oh yes, over here. Here I have rats splice with ducks, and gorillas spliced with mosquito, and here I have rabbits spliced with fish to make little, bunny fish.

    Cartman: Heyyy, these bunny ears are tied on with little strings.

    Moreau: And over here, swiss cheese spliced with chalk, and a beard.


    p.s. what does "selfing" mean?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:24 PM
  29. "Selfing" is procreating with oneself, of course.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/14  at  06:30 PM
  30. that sounds dirty.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:34 PM
  31. PZ, This would be funny were it not for a simple process I like to call “the evolution of stupid.” Now that this piece is out there floating in cyber it will mutate and take on a life of its own. People will read it and cite it in defense of creationism and ID. It will take on unearned and undeserved importance because it is a “featured” article and it will add “weight” to the arguments because only the title will ever be mentioned again in any ID bibliography. Before long this mosquito of an idea will indeed grow phony 38Ds.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:35 PM
  32. Case in point: Noam Chomsky. He's interesting, but really... has anything that he's written ever helped you to tackle any of the problems that you have ever been faced with? Does he offer meaningful, tangible, reality-oriented solutions to the problems faced by anyone out there in real life?

    Well, considering that US-backed wars and government lies and genocide are actual, tangible problems that affect the lives of anyone not rich enough to insulate themselves from the rest of the world, and considering that one of Chomsky's main themes- which he repeats often - is to stress critical thinking, saying "don't just believe this because I tell you or the New York Times tells you, do some reading and think for yourself," I'm gonna say yes.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/14  at  06:36 PM
  33. I don't recommend The American Stinker.
    #: Posted by Les Lane  on  09/14  at  06:51 PM
  34. And why do these asscakes never realize that if the 2nd law prohibits DNA formation 4.5MYA it also prevents it now?


    Ah, but you see, Johnny: that's where the Jebons come in...
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:56 PM
  35. And then there is the charming escape hatch at the end: "Even if Darwin is correct, and a monkey turned into man, at some point it was the Creator who put that immortal soul into that ape."

    Clearly, the thrust of Evo has completely escaped him!
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  06:58 PM
  36. When I first saw Birdnow's tripe I thought it was particularly suited for PZ's scalpel. Huzzah!
    #: Posted by Jim Anderson  on  09/14  at  07:00 PM
  37. George, you nailed it:

    <cue Edith Piaf>
    Où sont les moustiques géants mammariés d'antan ?
    </piaf>
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/14  at  07:11 PM
  38. Next we come to the problems with the fossil record. Everyone has heard of the missing link; the transition creature between Man and the Apes.


    When he was going on his rant, I was wondering when he'd get to transitional fossils. Took him longer than I thought, but sure enough he got to them.

    Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos? Where are the snakes which deliver live young? I haven`t seen too many feathered fish around lately!


    I don't get what the hell he was talking about here. I think he just likes to rant. When I read the thing about snakes delivering live young, I laughed out loud! Some lay eggs, some bear live young. I think he got that confused with mammals.. The bearing of live young thing.

    I'm surprised he didn't being up the platapus, they are mammals who have fur and drink milk, but no live young. When he mentioned "feathered fish" my first thought was the flying fishes in the ocean. They don't truly 'fly' but they leap out of the water with their specially evolved fins. THAT is amazing.
    ~~
    Reallly though, the thing that bugs me the most is the arrogance of these guys. He's a property manager! If he is going to rant about 'darwinism', the least he could do to have a respectable arguement is know what he's talking about. Atleast get his facts right. GEEZ! Thats not asking very much, he is so eager to prove darwinism wrong.. It is scary. It really is.

    By the way, if I hear the term "Darwinist" or "Evolutionist" I am going to turn around and stab somebody (namely my roomate behind me) in the back because I HATE that phrase. I am a Biologist in training. I am a scientist. I don't idol dead scientists, though I do admire them for their work. I don't follow evolution as if its a new craze and I don't live by it. Its a valid scientific theory that I find accurate and my field of choice happens to use it, just like physicists use newton's laws and chemists use boyle's laws and stuff.

    When they use "Darwinist" I think they try to imply Social Darwinism. I always respond, "Evolution is a scientific biological theory, I don't live by it.. I just study it. I don't kill people for survival of the fittest. Thats like saying "I believe in Nova's and star formations, so I'm going to blow myself up because the stars do it!"

    I don't blow myself up, religious radicals do.

    Sorry for the rant smile I got carried away smile
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  07:14 PM
  39. I have a simple text test which tells me immediately whether a text (and author) is crap and whether it might be good. I measure the number of mispellings, both of ordinary and technical words. The spellchecker doesn't always catch these. And the kicker, the one that automatically puts up the CRAP marker for me, is the use of "it's" as the possessive. If I see a Dread Apostrophe (as I did early in the Birdnow text) then it's almost certainly not worth reading any more.
    #: Posted by Pyracantha  on  09/14  at  07:17 PM
  40. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?


    Florida? smile

    But seriously, taking apart this guy is like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean - you can't even make it past the "Editor's note" without knowing that a total crackpot rant is coming up. And reading three paragraphs into the article confirms it. Reading much farther is bad for the blood pressure.

    Oh, and how about some more student answers?

    http://www.rickandpatty.com/lab_humor.html
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  07:19 PM
  41. In 1905 a young Albert Einstein offered the world a direct proof of the existence of atoms .


    Arrgh!!!! That would be an indirect proof, albeit a rather convincing one, Timmy!

    Do I have to read this rest of this crap, dad?
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  07:29 PM
  42. Pyracantha,

    Your test isn't fair. There are a lot of people who are perfectly intelligent and educated and yet can't spell well. It's a shame that these people are demonized, but it's wrong to judge them because of a particular learning problem they have that doesn't affect their powers of reasoning. It's odd that most intelligent people on the web *do* seem to have good spelling. But I'm not really sure there's a correlation between bad spellers and total hacks. You'd be better off developing more reliable detection methods.
    #: Posted by pdf23ds  on  09/14  at  07:44 PM
  43. You'd be better off developing more reliable detection methods.


    Here's a good one. Any time an article starts off dismissing a large chunk of established science as "no more than a theory", you may as well not continue reading. Because as far as scientific explanations go, you won't ever have anything "more" than a theory.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:00 PM
  44. Thank you, PZ, for not holding us St. Louis folks responsible for local idiots. On the school board issue, though, I cannot promise anything. We've had our share of nutbag school board members. Okay, one in particular, but man, she was a doozy.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:01 PM
  45. Personally, I think we're all being a little too confident here. First it was "why are there PYGMIES + DWARVES", now "Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?" They're building an airtight case against us. We're doomed! Doomed I say!
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:10 PM
  46. As a couple of asides:

    * _Procompsognathus_ isn't even a dinosaur anymore, it's a psuedosuchid.

    * I've always thought it *likely* a few species of dinosaur, predominantly tiny ones, made it through the KT - but the mammals had the upperhand (as dinosaurs had the upper hand over the synapsids in the Triassic); and the standard rules of fossilisation (eg it's not likely in the first place) would explain why we don't see those few scant species of survivor.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:13 PM
  47. Evolutionary theory suggests that the surviving dinosaurs should have scattered in all directions genetically after their extinction.

    No doubt there were tons of of dinosaur DNA splattered radially outward from what we now call the Chicxulub impact crater, but only in a painfully literal sense could that be considered a "genetic" movement. However, in even a comfortably literal sense, the number of survivors after extinction is, according to evolutionary theory, zero (to seventeen decimal places).

    As for that mosquito with the giant mammaries - now that this meme has been revealed unto the blogosphere, it's only a matter of time (and Photoshop) before we behold the evil AntiFSM...
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:16 PM
  48. "As for that mosquito with the giant mammaries - now that this meme has been revealed unto the blogosphere, it's only a matter of time (and Photoshop) before we behold the evil AntiFSM..."

    I have to say, there was a computer game designed (whether it was completed or not, I don't know) which involved a subplot about a god of fear and belief - the locals believed this thing was a bloodsucking mosquito god of death, and so it came to be.

    So, anyway, the female villain of the piece was extremely endowed with "huge tracts of land", and was consumed by the mosquito god - and was reborn as a gruesome chimera of parts, including a bizarre lower jaw/proboscis, twisted legs/abdomen, and... big boobs.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  08:22 PM
  49. "Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?"

    Are those giant mosquitoes with A-cup mammaries or regular-sized mosquitoes with giant mammaries? This is something for the new .xxx domain....
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/14  at  08:29 PM
  50. One of my friends was a wildlife ranger (still is AFAIK, though we've drifted out of touch). Part of his work was helping fight bushfires, and during one such operation he came across a panicked copperhead (Australian, not the US species of that name) stranded on a rock.

    Ross being a herpetophile, he picked up the copperhead, rolled it up in his trouser cuff, and went on with the fire-fighting. About 48 hours and no sleep later he staggered home, threw his trousers over a chair, and went to bed, completely forgetting about the snake. When he woke up and checked the next morning, he was reminded that yes, some snakes do indeed deliver live young grin
    #: Posted by Geoffrey Brent  on  09/14  at  08:51 PM
  51. The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have been taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to.

    Quite frankly, I can't think of a more elegant description of a skeleton.
    #: Posted by fwiffo  on  09/14  at  08:55 PM
  52. Eeep!

    Many defenders of evolution try to argue that entropy only applies to a closed system, and that the Earth is not a closed system. This is facetious; ...

    Huh?

    entropy increases when systems are mixed, and the first life forms could not have survived except under very particular conditions. They had to have a closed system, or at least a very sheltered system, initially to survive!

    Gah?

    Any way you look at it, a self-replicating entity had to gain in complexity at the molecular level despite increasing entropic pressures. There has to be a guiding principle involved. You just can`t make order out of chaos! Systems decay.

    Somebody better tell Ilya Prigogine! (Though I like Feistel and Ebeling better, myself. Not to mention all of the stuff that's been written since then.)

    Seriously, someone needs to tell Timmy that it's not cool to talk about entropy anymore. That's so 80s! Nobody's listening. It's all about information and irreducibly complex systems now!
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  09:00 PM
  53. <blockquote>Quite frankly, I can't think of a more elegant description of a skeleton.</blockquote>

    First thing I thought of when I saw that was this:

    "They're Made of Meat"

    http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html

    You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  09:04 PM
  54. Furthermore, we don`t even see crossovers between the 5 Phylla


    "the 5 Phylla..." Sounds like a musical group made of dough.

    I wonder what will happen? Dodge, weasel, stonewall, or do some kind of spastic flibbertigibbet dance?


    Based on my own experience dealing with these morons, I vote for "all of the above."
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  09:10 PM
  55. George, you nailed it:

    <cue Edith Piaf>
    Où sont les moustiques géants mammariés d'antan ?
    </piaf>


    Or, if you prefer:
    "Where have you gone, giant mammaried mosquitos?
    The Creationists turn their lonely eyes to you."
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  09:22 PM
  56. This article by Timothy Birdnow fits into the highly overused method of "baffling with bullshit". Let's face it, if one knew nothing about DNA, "the 5 phylla" or Brownian motion, one would read this article and say yes, he's right, evolution is not a valid theory and creation is correct. The tone of delivery is another worthwhile issue to probe. When an atmosphere of self confidence is used, it is a highly effective tool to win over the hearts and minds of those who wouldn't question such information but accept it as true. Afterall, millions of people accept the contradictions, mistruths, racism, sexism, sadism, slavery, and incitement to violence and murder that pervades the bible, without question I might add. What is even more baffling, is calling the bible the moral code when the majority of it is based on the aforementioned topics? From a previous post, noting the publication world net daily in which various pieces of false information are distributed to the masses to read, there are many others of a similar nature. Try reading Lifesite, the Christian Post or Agape Press. All are really challenged from an intellectual point of view. What really amazes me the most is how these people rely on falsehoods to prove a point or theory? It is beyond my comprehension or perhaps is just that I cannot see the forest for the trees. Someone enlighten me on this please.
    #: Posted by BC Waterboy  on  09/14  at  09:45 PM
  57. So close, and yet so far . . .

    There this guy is in St. Louis -- home of Afarensis, and Peter Raven.

    And there he sits, in front of his computer, utterly and completely absent any clue.

    Flapping, air-squirting meat, indeed.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  09:53 PM
  58. There are many more than 5 phyla; about 30

    I think that's 31 phyla. You forgot about the one that Birdnow belongs to.
    #: Posted by  on  09/14  at  11:05 PM
  59. Hehe. "When systems are combined, entropy increases", so therefore, the entropy of any part of a non-closed system cannot decrease. I love it.
    #: Posted by Kadin  on  09/14  at  11:17 PM
  60. Mr. Birdnow should be given the "Bad Science Thinker Award of the Year".
    #: Posted by Lucia Malla  on  09/15  at  12:08 AM
  61. Everytime an anti-evolutionist brings up the second law of thermodynamics, they end up arguing that refrigerators are imposssible.
    #: Posted by Jim Harrison  on  09/15  at  01:11 AM
  62. "Case in point: Noam Chomsky. He's interesting, but really... has anything that he's written ever helped you to tackle any of the problems that you have ever been faced with? Does he offer meaningful, tangible, reality-oriented solutions to the problems faced by anyone out there in real life?"

    This is an appallingly stupid anti-intellectual complaint. Chomsky has contributed to my life far more than you have, and he has affected far more people; his early anti-VietNam war stance may have contributed to saving the lives of thousands and perhaps millions of people. And aside from providing me with information which has deeply affected the way I approach I number of issues, he has provided useful personal responses in email (he's the most accessible "famous" person I know of), and one occasion when I met him in person provided great encouragement when I was at a point of despair.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  01:21 AM
  63. PZ, your 'challenge' is based of some serious misconceptions. You are working from a Darwinist false premiss - Birdsknow is quite right to observe that the phillers were the same before and after the Great Dying, as a little thought will show you:

    Even Darwinists claim evolution is slow, right? Like, millions of years slow, right? You'd have to have incredibly fast evolution for the creatures after the great dying to be substantially different from those going before - after all, they were only on the Ark for some 150 days!

    Hah! Have I not shown you up for the misguided fool you are?

    Sniggle...
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  02:24 AM
  64. That's why the left has mostly lost the working class. The working class wants strategies for improving their lives, not historical blame-assessment or cryptic blather about the dialectical hermeneutics of post-neo-whatever. The working class has rejected liberalism for conservatism and religion because at least it makes them feel comforted and gives them a little basic moral guidance here and there.

    And yet, there's a very strong correlation in almost every Western country, including the United States, between wealth and voting for the more right-wing major party - though the extreme right in Europe is typically a working class movement.

    There is a site called The American Thinker which I read for the first time today, and all I can say is that if this is what they call American thinking, we have grounds for a class action suit for libel on behalf of every citizen in the US.

    Given the American rate of believing in unguided evolution (13%, if memory serves), the defendant can invoke truth as a defense.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  02:56 AM
  65. Well, considering that US-backed wars and government lies and genocide are actual, tangible problems that affect the lives of anyone not rich enough to insulate themselves from the rest of the world, and considering that one of Chomsky's main themes- which he repeats often - is to stress critical thinking, saying "don't just believe this because I tell you or the New York Times tells you, do some reading and think for yourself," I'm gonna say yes.
    If a serious study is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system. Such a study, however, has yet to be undertaken.

    I'm not aware that Chomsky has backed down from that statement; if he has, I'll be thrilled to read about it.

    The main problem with strong criticism of any authoritarian force other than Nazi Germany is that the people doing it always have an agenda. I'm not aware of any scholar studying the Ukrainian famine and its consequences who neither lets Stalin off the hook nor is a fascist apologist, and I'm not aware of any scholar studying CIA atrocities who neither brushes these atrocities off nor is a communist apologist - and yes, saying the Khmer Rouge had an overall positive effect on Cambodia counts as communist apologetics.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  03:19 AM
  66. This line is also a howler: "Evolutionary theory suggests that the surviving dinosaurs should have scattered in all directions genetically after their extinction."
    I get this mental image of little dinosaur skeletons running around trying to procreate. smile
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  03:49 AM
  67. In face of your challenge, my bet is that he brings up Bill Clinton's peccadillos (standard conservative response when unable to answer).
    #: Posted by Arun  on  09/15  at  04:44 AM
  68. Adam -

    I have to stick up for the left against your assertion that welfare failed to alleviate poverty - we certainly have made progress against poverty. I don't have a reference handy, but I have read that before the Great Society programs, the poverty rate was a little over 20%. Since then, it's been lowered to a little over 10%. During the Great Depression, to paraphrase FDR, one-third of the nation was ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-fed. The programs of the New Deal certainly helped to alleviate poverty then. I'm no cock-eyed utopian who thinks we can totally eliminate poverty, but there are many things government can do to alleviate poverty and ameliorate the effects of economic changes.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  07:47 AM
  69. Alon, finding strong condemnations by Chomsky of the activities of the Khmer Rouge is a trivial exercise. He was at first skeptical of the reports of atrocities, and for good reason: they were reported in a wholly unobjective press.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/15  at  08:03 AM
  70. They had to have a closed system, or at least a very sheltered system, initially to survive! (my emphasis)
    Sheltered? Like under a rock or something?

    Pure Hilarity!
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  08:06 AM
  71. In 1959, the USA's poverty rate was 22%; in 1973, it was down to 11%.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  08:09 AM
  72. I can not believe that flibbertigibbet is a word.

    -Schmitt.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  08:16 AM
  73. Alon, finding strong condemnations by Chomsky of the activities of the Khmer Rouge is a trivial exercise.

    By 1979, when Chomsky said that the Khmer Rouge had an overall positive effect on Cambodia, there was plenty of evidence that it had murdered at least hundreds of thousands - the Nation, hardly a hawkish magazine, published evidence in 1977, for example. Further, the main source Chomsky used in his statement was the book Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, whose main source for its assessment of Cambodia was the Khmer Rouge's statements, and which didn't interview any Cambodian refugee.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  08:22 AM
  74. A little hint: 1979 was 26 years ago. Chomsky has written a few things since then.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/15  at  08:47 AM
  75. And incidentally, saying that Chomsky's passage implies he felt the Khmer Rouge had an "overall positive effect" is a misreading of Horowitzian proportion.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/15  at  08:48 AM
  76. Cheap shot time: from Birdnow's own blog:


    In my recent article on Darwin I mentioned Fragile X, which results from the disintegration of the end of one arm of the X chromosome . Fragile X is the leading inherited cause of mental retardation, and a great scourge, since it usually ends a family line. Believe me, I know.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  08:51 AM
  77. 4. There were no mammals or birds in the Triassic.

    You sure PZ? I'm pretty sure there were 'true' mammals by the late Triassic.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  08:55 AM
  78. Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called "Great Dying", 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5.


    Aside from the gross factual errors, there's a rather serious error in reasoning here as well. He's implying that for some reason, during a mass extinction, we should expect one or more phyla to get completely wiped out and/or one or more to spontaneously appear out of nowhere after the extinction is over with. That's just silly. If there really were only 5 phyla, each one with many thousands of species, I'd expect at least a few representatives from each one to survive. And I certainly wouldn't expect something worth calling a new phylum to evolve out of nowhere during the mass extinction (ignoring for now the fact that "phyla" are artificial categories created by us for communication purposes.)
    #: Posted by Steve Reuland  on  09/15  at  09:01 AM
  79. Chris, I'm not saying Chomsky really thinks that. But this is a good example of shoddy research motivated by ideology; Chomsky lambasts things like this when done by overly pro-American media. Indeed, Manufacturing Consent identifies sourcing as one of the primary causes of media bias, and if I remember correctly attacks the media for, among other things, not interviewing ordinary locals when doing a story on a conflict in a country.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  09:07 AM
  80. Physics? Did god create physics?

    From Fafblog:


    Yknow we been hearin a lot lately about how Intelligent Design's not real science. Well that's just crazy talk! Ever since we got scientific evidence of the existence of God everybody down at the Faflab has been buildin off this cuttin edge field to come up with latest scientological developments.

    -Physics-
    By observing the mating of Galapagos finches with high-precision godometers, Designmatologists have discovered the existence of the Godtrino - the subatomic particle that God is made of! Theoretical Godmologists have believed that evolution was caused by the presence of Godtrinos for years but this is our first concrete proof. And think of the practical applications once we manage to harness the power of mass Godtrino production! Turnin water into wine, smiting, more smiting, Gomorrorah burning, Jesus resuscitation. The possibilities are endless!

    -Biology-
    Intelligent Design has lead to the discovery of several exciting new species like gene fairies, DNA demons, and evolution angels! Intelligent Designologicologists carefully tag and release these specimens to study their migratory patterns as they travel from earth to heaven to alter our genetic code according to God's precise instructions.

    We also keep em in our brand new family adventure park, Wild Angel Jungle Safari! Feed the cherubim in our heavenly petting zoo, watch the four o' clock angel-an-walrus watershow spectacular, an buy some seraphim jerky at the gift shop! In conjunction with Faflabs, Gibco is proud to introduce the Angel Gun. What better way to show your appreciation of these beautiful an fascinatin creatures than by shootin a cherub an stickin it in a pickle jar on your coffee table!

    -Space-
    Now we know God exists, it's time for deep space God exploration! Intelligent Designostronomers have located him in orbit around the moon and believe the first Godstonauts could make a manned God landing as early as 2012. God's surface is rich in deposits of wine and communion wafers which could support the beginnings of a God colony, where advanced mining techniques could extract the omnipotence America could use to supply its energy needs for the next coupla years! The sky's the limit! Til we hit God. Then God's the limit.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  10:08 AM
  81. "Flibertigibbet" was good enough for Rodgers and Hammerstien (sp?) in "Sound of Music." It is in the song "What do you do about someone like Maria?"

    Trivia: The director of the movie, Robert Wise, just passed away.

    Now back to the fisking.
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  10:49 AM
  82. Chris: Alon, finding strong condemnations by Chomsky of the activities of the Khmer Rouge is a trivial exercise. He was at first skeptical of the reports of atrocities, and for good reason: they were reported in a wholly unobjective press.

    Alon: Chris, I'm not saying Chomsky really thinks that. But this is a good example of shoddy research motivated by ideology; Chomsky lambasts things like this when done by overly pro-American media.


    Alon, I agree that it was a wrong thing to overlook the refugee reports at first, but I disagree with you that it was shoddy research, and only partially agree with you that it was motivated by ideology.

    It was a good research principle taken to an extreme degree. Chomsky was trying to eliminate sources of bias--as Chris points out, the media was wholly unobjective: Bias source 1. Also, refugees are a self-selected population, and thus the external validity of the sample for the general population is suspect: normally Bias Source 2. Think about Cuban politics in the US if you want to see an extreme example of that ideological skew among a self-selected population, and you will see that a random sample of local people in their normal environment (what Chomsky is referring to) is not the same as a self-selected population of refugees in a different environment explicitly because they disagreed with the government that the researcher is seeking information on. The first sample compensates for bias; the second amplifies it.

    So I disagree with you that it was shoddy research. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a good and effective technique to reduce sample bias. But these were not normal circumstances, and as sympathetic to Chomsky as I am, I nevertheless disagree with him on this issue--for two reasons--one structural, and one my own personal ethical one.

    The latter first, because it's less important in the overall scheme of things, plus it's less philosophically defensible if Mr. Spock over there on the Joe Carter thread gets wind that I am being something less than perfectly formally logically consistent smile.

    I think that it is better to validate people's experiences and incorporate them into the big picture at the cost of less certainty about the conclusions drawn than it is to have more certainty about the conclusions at the cost of excluding people's experiences because of the possibility of introducing bias. In the early 80's, I wrote a review of one of Michael Vickery's books, and criticized him on the very point of ignoring refugees' experiences in his information-gathering. I freely admit this opens a difficult can of epistemological worms, but that's my ethical value, for what it's worth (hint: that and $3 will get you a latte).

    The more important, big picture, structural information, is that the Khmer Rouge were such a big and horrible disaster for Cambodia that it leveled the playing field as far as who became a refugee, and thus, the population of refugees was much more representative than would have been expected. Everyone fleeing because they are in danger of being killed for no good reason is a much more representative sample than well-educated professionals voting with their feet because their opportunities are limited by a government they disagree with. You can see this demographic change in the waves of Vietnamese refugees who came here as well--the French-speaking professional class were overrepresented (only numerically speaking, not in terms of who's entitled to a chance at a new life) in the first group of refugees, while the later groups were much more representative of the entire population.

    Here's what a seismic shift the Khmer Rouge represented in regard to more usual refugee dynamics: the Chinese in Cambodia had traditionally been a merchant class and had money and political power, so the Khmer Rouge, once in pwer, went after them as an obstacle. Normally, killing hundreds of thousands of Chinese would count as genocide. But under international law, the KR did not commit genocide against the Chinese--because they killed so many other non-Chinese (for different reasons than they killed the Chinese for), there is technically not the proportional difference in the killing rate that would qualify as genocide.

    So that is one measure of the abnormality of the situation: usually, in this case, the Chinese with money and power and a reason to hate the government would have been overrepresented among the refugees, and that selection bias would have skewed the information gotten from them. In this case, however, the efficiency of the KR's depravity hit all groups so hard that it had the effect of making everyone who possibly could, get away. In other words, it leveled out the normally expected selection bias.

    So yes, it was a good research principle (avoid sources of bias) that Chomsky followed. However, it turned out to be wrong anyway, in light of later knowledge. Did his and Vickery's and others' ideologies filter that fact out longer than it would have if he held the same relative value of confidence interval vs. inclusiveness that I do (and am *not* asserting as a universal principle)? Perhaps, but it is impossible to ever know.
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/15  at  10:50 AM
  83. Now back to the fisking.


    Too bad that's not as dirty as it sounds. smile
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/15  at  10:51 AM
  84. for me, this one has to be the best coffee on monitor paragraph:

    The earliest life developed using chemosynthesis (that is, derived it`s energy from chemicals) and this meant it must have developed around volcanoes or sea vents. Such an unlikely place would be a closed system, and subject to entropic decay.


    I don't think I can add anything to this...
    #: Posted by  on  09/15  at  10:59 AM
  85. I would agree with your analysis but for three problems, Raven:

    1. There's a difference between accepting refugees' word as gospel and including them in one's assessment of the situation. For instance, in an analysis of the situation in Cuba in the 1960s, using refugees as one source of information among many is the prudent thing to do.

    2. The sources saying that there was genocide included leftists. The Nation, after all, wrote about the Cambodian mass murder in 1977, and while it's to the right of Zmag, it's not exactly a branch of the CIA.

    3. Chomsky said what he said in 1979, four years after the Khmer Rouge had started systematically destroying Cambodia. I presume enough time had passed by then for hard evidence to be fairly easily available.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  09/15  at  11:17 AM
  86. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos?

    "...and so, having been ignominiously deprived of my position as a smokejumper for the CIA, I found myself alone, broke, and sans papiers on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa. Thinking I might charm the natives with some simple sleight-of-hand magic tricks and thereby earn my food and drink, I walked into a small, filthy cantina.

    "A large sweaty man in what was once a white linen suit was sitting in the back. He noticed me. 'Gringo?,' he asked.

    "'Um ... sí,' I replied, uncertain what would happen next.

    "His face erupted in a broad grin. 'Relax! Sit down. Maria! Dos cervesas! The show, Señor, she is about to begin....'

    "The large Honduran gestured toward a small stage along the opposite wall. As the curtain opened I saw what I first took to be three women performing a fan dance. Instead, I was to witness a sight that would give me nightmares to this day...."
    #: Posted by HP  on  09/15  at  11:18 AM
  87. Alon, about point 1, you say "prudent"; I say "right", but the point is that getting from those after-the-fact values judgments of ours to externally-valid conclusions before- and during-the-fact is a non-trivial process. Incorporating those sources of information complicates the problem, and makes it more costly. Eliminating sources of bias is considered good research practice. Like I said, I think he took it too far in this case. But it was not "shoddy" in principle, and I don't see how you think he could have known that beforehand. If you're going to depart from good research practice, you need a very good justification, and that's always easier afterwards than during.

    About 2 and 3, I agree that the delay was disturbing. Yet that always seems to be the case--reports of the Nazi death camps were coming out in 1942 and 1943, yet in 1944, after the Soviet capture of Maidanek, the BBC refused to report on it, because it thought the descriptions were Soviet propaganda. Of course, the BBC should have known about it--and yet, they didn't.

    I'm not saying that to excuse Chomsky, just that such--to me, unbelievably-long--delay is not unheard of in history, and cannot automatically be written off to ideology and shoddy research. On what happened, we agree--after the fact, we know that he should have listened to the refugees sooner. On why he didn't, I can't share your certainty as to his motivations--I can't say it wasn't just an honest mistake grounded in good research principle, and based on the wrong assumption that this was a normal refugee situation. And it's not like he's a modern-day advocate of the Khmer Rouge--we're arguing about what may or may not have taken place in 1979, and I just don't think you can be so certain about why.
    #: Posted by Raven  on  09/15  at  12:05 PM
  88. Ah, Alon, I have thought of a practical example behind the principle I stated:

    You understand the principles behind RCTs (randomized controlled trials), right? Control groups, randomization, intent-to-treat, power and confidence interval, right?

    Normally, you run an experiment through to the end, and you do not deviate from the original methodology--it is considered bad practice to modify or refine your procedure based on your preliminary results within the same study.

    However, when the results are so dramatically strikingly one-sided--either good (AZT in HIV+ pregnant women) or bad (hormone replacement therapy [HRT] in menopausal women), sometime the ethics of the situation require you to change methodological horses in midstream, ignoring the implication