Being the incredibly lucky guy that I am, I somehow managed to attract the attention of John Davison. If you don’t know John, well.. you’re lucky.
He’s a rather infamous fellow. He’s got a rather peculiar hypothesis about evolution. Basically, he claims that evolution did occur, but it was front-loaded – the path that it took was dictated ahead of time by evolution encoded into the primitive genome.
To make matters worse, his approach to debate is, generally, to shout, call people names, make vague threats, and generally piss everyone off, regardless of whether or not they agree with him. He was the first person that I ever banned back at ScienceBlogs.
And to make it even worse, the guy doesn’t understand how blogs actually work. He started one blog, made one post, and then continued to post on the blog simply by adding comments to that post. Then he threw a tantrum, deleted it, started a new one, and did exactly the same thing. It appears that his current blog (which has the incredibly pompous name “The Proceedings of the Natural History Society of South Burlington Vermont”) actually has several posts on in – the most recent one being somewhat more than two and a half years old. But he’s still posting comments on it. Hundreds and hundreds of comments, nearly all by him. It appears that he progressed from thinking that a blog post was an entire blog (and thus adding new “posts” as comments on the only existing post on the blog), to thinking that a blog post is a category (and thus adding new posts on comments on the five different posts on his blog).
He’s showed up in the comments here. Naturally, being John, he’s commenting in the wrong place. And, of course, being John, he’s throwing tantrums about how nobody is paying attention to him.
The poor guy is clearly lonely and desperate for attention.
So. His comments are here, here, and here.
Please respond to them (if you must) in the comments on this post, so that it’s easy to keep track of. I warned John privately that I’m not going to tolerate him insulting other commenters; similarly, I’d ask that anyone who responds to him do so on the content of his posts, and refrain from just throwing insults at him.
Frankly, I doubt that he’s capable of actually engaging in a civil discussion. I’d put money on it taking less than an hour from the time this post goes up until he starts insulting people. But hey, why not give him the chance to try?
So, to repeat the warning: as always, my comment policy is:
- you’re welcome to insult me: after all, I insult people in my posts; it’s only fair that they be allowed to insult me back
- you are not allowed to insult other commenters. You can disagree as strongly as you want – but personal insults will not be tolerated.
If you break that simple rule, you get one warning, and then you get banned. That goes for John, and that goes for anyone else commenting.
I gather you do not have any rules about being flagrantly off-topic?
Your mother is a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!
John A Davison’s mother is a hamster and his father smelled of elderberries!
Oh crap, am I banned now? ;p
I say you’re banned, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder.
Let’s not give John any unnecessary ammo, all right? I’d like to see him try to actually present and defend his hypothesis.
>“The Proceedings of the Natural History Society of South Burlington Vermont”
I’d say that title shows wonderfully dry wit. Pompous is the person attached to it.
Mark you ignorant slut. Preachy twits was a brilliant post, keep them good posts coming and ignore the twitards…
As long as we’re indulging in OT subjects (which is not to suggest that the owner of a blog is or should be restricted in his own posting habits), I wonder if anyone could help me with a problem in spherical geometry that’s been a monkey on my back for a while now.
It’s an exercise from a 1931 text which asks write small incremental changes in the sides and angels of a spherical triangle in terms of the sides, angles and other incremental changes. I can obviously get more specific if need be, but that is the gist.
In any event, consider this a suggestion to put spherical geometry somewhere in the stack.
List of new species here.
As for the front-loading hypothesis, that’s easy to test. Get the genome of an old critter (call him O). Get the genome of a newer, descended critter (call him N). Identify the genetic differences. If front-loading is the reason N is different than O, then every active sequence in N will also be in O, though some of it may be inactive. If the sequences that distinguish N from O aren’t in O, then it can’t be front-loading.
No creationists have bothered to do the tests, though. Probably because they know what the outcome will be: the difference between nylon-eating flavobacterium and normal flavobacterium, for instance, involves a gene duplication, not a turning-on of some previously extant but unused sequence.
Oh, and in case that was too on-topic…
WHO’S scruffy-looking?
This whole dog and pony show is reminiscent of what happens every day at After The Bar Closes. It consists of a bunch of mostly anonymous blowhards playing “can you top this? ” with one another, all bluster and no substance.
I have no intention of defending my hypotheses here or any where else. Both my Semi-Meiotic Hypothesis (SMH) and my Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis (PEH ) are firmly secured in the peer reviewed literature where theycontinue to be ignored exactly as were the conclusions of my distinguished predecessors on whose work my own securely rests. Every one of us has rejected the Darwinian model as a dismal failure which can explain nothing beyond the elaboration of subspecies and varieties none of which are incipient species in any event.
My conclusion that evolution is finished has also been published in the peer reviewed literature and it is in that venue that it should be criticzed, not in some Mickey Mouse Darwinian house organ that “scientopia” is rapidly proving itself to be.
The simple truth is that there is absolutely nothing in the Darwinian paradigm that ever had anything to do with the ascending sequence that the fossil record so clearly reveals. Those who continue to believe that evolution has resulted from the selection of spontaneous variations (mutations) are living in fantasy worlds. If that were possible, it would have been demonstrated in the experimental laboratory long ago.
So I will decline to defend my science here or anywhere else. It is not the responsibility of the scientist to defend his convictions. It is the reponsibility of others to prove that he is wrong. That is the way it has always been and always will be. Incidentally, I have tried to prove that we critics of the Darwinian fantasy were wrong and I can’t do it and neither can anyone else as far as I can tell. Proving Darwinism is wrong is child’s play.
I have reviewed the hundred and fifty year history of Darwinism in my essay “What’s wrong with Darwinism?” You can find it under Essays at the top of my introductory page. There you will find why we several critics abandoned Charles Robert Darwin’s Victorian fantasy. The failure of the “Darwinista” to acknowledge their many critics is a scandal unprecedented in the history of science and I intend to do something about it. I am doing so right here!
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
Everyone is welcome to comment on my website. I only expect them to use their real names. I have lost all respect for anonymous commenters. They never contribute anything of substance. If they had something of significance to offer, they would be proud to use their real name.
Thanks for allowing me to hold forth here.
jadavison.wordpress.com
You haven’t provided anything but evidence free assertions, giving me (and the rest of the world) little reason to care. No amount of self-quoting will change that.
If you have no intention of defending your hypothesis, then what’s the point of talking to you? You claim to want to debate. But the first thing you do is start with a big verbose explanation of why you won’t actually discuss anything about your claims. That’s beyond ridiculous, it’s downright pathetic.
If you have no intention of defending your science here, then please go away.
Seriously. The only possible reason for attempting to engage in a reasonable discussion is to attempt to give you a chance to defend your hypothesis. If you’re not going to do that, then don’t waste our time.
Second: you don’t seem to understand how science actually works. Publication isn’t an end-point, but a beginning. Publication is where you present your ideas to your scientific colleagues in order to start a debate. And the primary job of a scientist is to attempt to disprove their own work. A scientific theory is a hypothesis that has withstood every attempt to disprove it.
The only extent to which you are correct is that it is not the job of a scientist to defend his convictions. It is the job of a scientist to defend his scientific work. Personal convictions are completely irrelevant. But if you propose a scientific idea, then the expectation is that you have done everything in your ability to test it against the evidence, and that you will continue to do so as you are presented with new critiques and new evidence.
If you don’t understand that, then you have no right to call yourself a scientist, or to claim that you’re doing science.
Incidentally, the title of my blog is modeled directly after the journal in which Gregor Mendel published his famous 1868 paper –
“The Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn (Austria).”
You see Mendel knew his work could not be published in the leading botanical journals of his day, so he wisely chose to publish his findings in a journal for which he was the Editor. That is why I named the journal for which I am the Editor –
“The Proceedings of the Natural History Society of South Burlington (Vermont).”
Mark,
There is no way I could insult anyone here. I don’t even know who they are. One cannot insult a person who refuses to reveal his identity nor can such a person insult anyone else. Such poor souls are just anxious to see their phony names in print for reasons only they understand but will never reveal. Anonymity is cowardice, the title of another of my essays available on my website.
so is this part of your ‘fuzzy logic’ series Mark, or is this a detour???
(…i.e. when will the fuzzy logic entries return?)
John writes, “It is not the responsibility of the scientist to defend his convictions. It is the reponsibility of others to prove that he is wrong. That is the way it has always been and always will be.”
That’s exactly backwards.
It is the responsibility of the scientist to support his convictions — dare I say, his theories — with data, calculations, and experiments.
John also writes, “One cannot insult a person who refuses to reveal his identity nor can such a person insult anyone else.” This is incomprehensible to me. I see people insulting each other on the Internet all the time, with identities both known and unknown. Perhaps John is using a remarkably specific definition of “insult”?
To Eric.
Number of human genes had been estimated to 100.000 some years ago. Nowadays there are some estimation that we have only 20.500 genes. As definition of gene itself thanks to epistatic and pleitropic effects has become more and more obscure we have to reconsider the whole concept of gene vs.- phenotype relation. Many primitive species have regulatory sequences alike us and scientists are wondering for what a purpose they may had once served.
In the light of these facts I recommend everyone to study John Davison’s work. Darwinists claim that uniformity of genes across species is a problem for evolution and “evolution of regulatory genes” is responsible for ascending phenotypical complexity. But another possibility is still open proposed by Richard Goldschmidt – repattering of existing genetic materials on chromosomal level. It is John Davison
who continues in this tradition and the whole concept is elucidated in his Evolutionary Manifesto.
By who? Where? How?
Seriously – this is an extremely strong claim, which I’ve never heard anywhere else, so it’s important to support it. How are your 100,000 and 20,500 estimates generated? When, exactly, is “some years ago”?
I was taught in undergrad biochemistry that the best estimate of the number of human genes was 100,000. This was in 1996. After the human genome project was complete, the number of potential coding regions could be counted directly, leading to the current estimate of 20,000-25 ,000 genes. These same numbers are reported in Wikipedia’s article on theHuman genome. So while I can’t report on the methods used for the initial estimate, I can vouch for the 100,000 number, and the 20,500 number is apparently a broken telephone version of 20,000-25,000.
Craig Venter quotes the 100,000 number in page 2 of this recent interview with Der Spiegel as “eleven years ago”.
Mark, why are you bothering? JAD is amusing in a sad, train-wreck sort of way, but what’s the point in setting up protocols for commenting about him? He’s totally around the bend, and as sad as it is, not worth more than ridicule. There isn’t anything to “debate.” He has no “hypothesis” that can be commented on. He’s clearly into senile dementia (yes, I mean that literally, not as snark).
I didn’t set up protocols for commenting about him. I just restated my standard comment policy. That policy holds on every post, and has from the day I started blogging. It just seemed worth reiterating, because John does his best to try to push every debate into content-free insults, so that he has an excuse to storm away.
Mark,
What happened to my most recent comment submitted just a few minutes ago. You wouldn’t be deleting me would you? That wold not do!
What reply would that be, John?
I’ve been blogging for close to five years, and I have never deleted a comment without replacing it with an explanation of why it was deleted.
I do have Akismet moderation turned on here to try to block spam, and I have auto-moderation for comments with links. Those don’t delete anything; they put it into a temporary queue until I have a chance to check it – but there is nothing from you in either the moderation queue or the Akismet spam bucket. And looking at the access logs, I don’t see anything on the comment URL from your IP before the 10am comment.
In short, John: either you screwed up an attempt to submit a comment, or you’re lying.
In short – I think you’re looking for an excuse to run away from an actual civil discussion.
Apparently that is exactly what you have done. Farewell!
And now John stomps off in a huff when a comment disappears, which he assumes is due to direct action by Mark, when his subsequent two comments appear just fine? Is it an insult to observe that John seems to be in need of professional help?
Pots and kettles, John?
I see Alan Fox has surfaced. He follows me around like a Fox follows a chicken. He has never contributed anything of value to any discussion. I regard Alan Fox’s comment as a personal insult but I will let it pass. I will leave it up to Mark to control this thread. It is my understanding that it will be insult free.
Mark,
I apologize for assuming my message had been deleted. When I did not see it appear immediately, I knee- jerk assumed the worst.
I am a scientist and I never said I wanted to debate. That is a fiction. Scientists do not debate: they discover and then they publish their findings, all of which I have always done.
Let me say to your credit that you have permitted me to confront my adversaries, something Pee Zee Myers never allowed me to do. My only message to Pharyngula was met with –
“Your stench has preceeded you”
The next thing I knew I was #4 of the 71 inmates in Pee Zee’s “Dungeon,” his “Hate File” where I still languish. Myers hates a lot of people and is a master rabble rouser with thousands of adoring fans. He would never allow me to say what I said here. Neither would Wes Elsberry or Richard Dawkins. I can assure you that I will not insult unless insulted. I hope all three stay away from scientopia.
You really should warn Alan Fox. Of course if you feel it is not an insult to question a man’s mental stability, you won’t. It is as simple as that.
I have entered every website only to be heard and only became difficult when thoroughly provoked. Then and only then have I responded in kind. I don’t intend to absorb any more insults. I have better things to do with my remaining time on this earth than to engage those who question my mental stability. It is with their own words that each person displays his character for all to see. Alan Fox just did exactly that.
All I have requested was a public confrontation with Dawkins, Meyers and Elsberry. I am confident it would be rout. Why else have they avoided it? You have given me an opportunity to confront my adversaries and I appreciate it.
John, you are a liar.
You didn’t try to post anything immediately before your 10am comment today where you claimed that I was deleting your comments. All of your comments are posted from 71.234.170.134. There are *no* accesses to the comments URL from that URL between last night, and that 10am comment that didn’t immediately show up.
It’s very simple: you lied about posting a comment that didn’t appear, and tried to use that as an excuse for throwing a tantrum without having to actual engage in any discussion.
You are a liar.
Oh, and that whole paragraph insulting Alan Fox? That’s strike one. Consider yourself warned.
Why would Dawkins, Myers, and Elsberry not agree to a public confrontation with you? Why on earth *would* they?
As I’ve said before: you have a vastly inflated notion of your own self-importance. Why on earth do you think that people like Dawkins should pay enough attention to even *notice* your demand for a public confrontation?
I’ve met PZ in person twice. And you know what would happen if *I* were to challenge PZ Myers to a public confrontation? Nothing. He’d ignore me. What would be the point of a confrontation?
The only thing that agreeing to a “confrontation” would accomplish is to feed your ego. It wouldn’t settle the non-existent scientific dispute. It wouldn’t stop you from run around the internet ranting about how there’s a conspiracy out to get you.
Has Davidson offered any evidence yet, or did I miss it?
Of course the genome information can all be front loaded. It uses the near-infinite compression techniques of Jules Gilbert.
Josh Slocum
So I don’t have an hypothesis eh? Just what do you think this is? –
“Semi-meiosis as an evolutionary mechanism.” That happens to be title of my 1984 paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
and how about this title? –
A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis published in 2005 in Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum.
I suppose that is not an hypothesis either.
Mark,
You have also allowed Josh Slocum to insult me without issuing any warning. You stated the rules of engagement when you introducd this thread. Do they mean nothing? Don’t expect me to get in the gutter here because it isn’t going to happen. “Scientopia” is on trial here not John A. Davison. This is not the first internet forum I have tested to find wanting and it probably won’t be the last. I recommend you follow your own rules.
Josh Slocum
Since you challenge my scholarship, what have you ever published concerning the great mystery of organic evolution, or am I not allowed to respond to my critics in kind. While I am at it, what has Alan Fox ever pubished in a peer reviewed journal on any scientific subject?
I predict two more posts changing the topic, crying and avoiding any actual discussion before he throws the tantrum.
Who is next to display his character for all to see. In addtion to being royally insulted by Slocum and Fox, I have twice been unjustly called a liar by the head of this forum and an important figure (he claims) in the whole Scientopia system. And what are his credentials as a biologist? Or is evolution no longer a biological science? I recomend that Mark reread the ground rules that he established for this thread. Carry on with your vitriol folks. It is music to my ancient ears. In the meantime I have no intention of abandoning this glorious demonstration of intolerance on a voluntary basis. I don’t know what Mark can use as an excuse to banish me, a reason not apparent to me or to any other rational observer of this bizarre episode. Words have meaning but only if they are kept.
Do what you have to do Mark , what you were “prescribed” to do, probably millions of years ago.
It doesn’t get any better than this.
John, I called you a liar because you were caught lying.
You made a very specific accusation against me, which was not true. Which was, in fact, probably not true. I’ve got the system logs, and so I can see exactly when each of your comments was submitted, and when they each appeared. They appeared immediately. There was no delay.
And yet, you claimed that some of your comments were blocked or deleted or delayed. But they weren’t.
You wanted to trump up an excuse to throw one of your usual tantrums and storm away without actually having to engage in any honest discussion. But you got caught.
What do you call a person who gets caught telling lies? A liar. That’s not even an insult: it’s an undeniable piece of truth. You got caught lying: therefore, you are a liar.
If you don’t like it, then try being honest.
Now, I agree with everything you write here except this:
Many things can be true, and still be an insult. I would argue that the epithet “liar” is frequently one of them.
But I’m just on the language. I don’t feel like participating in the debate about Dr. Davidson.
Mark claims I insulted Alan Fox. Just who is going to believe that? I described Alan Fox’s relationship to me perfectly. That was no insult. I should also add that Alan Fox is a great fan of Richard Dawkins and describes Dawkins as a “good read.” That too is a matter of record and hardly an insult. I have insulted no one. It is I who have been royally insulted, twice called a liar and described as mentally impaired by two members of this discussion.
Now before Mark shuts me down on a bunch of trumped up charges, none of which are valid, I want to thank VMartin for supporting my science. He has always been my most important ally and I value his friendhip greatly.
As is my habit I will let others speak for me, first –
“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”
Samuel Johnson
next
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Albert Einstein
next
“An hypothesis does not cease to be an hypothesis when a lot of people believe it.”
Boris Ephrussi
next
“Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
George Orwell, 1984
Next, some advice for all those thousands who still support the atheist inspired Darwinian model –
“No matter how beautiful the strategy, occasionally you must check the results.”
WinstonChurchill
Charles Robert Darwin’s Victorian fantasy is the most absurd proposal ever presented in the history of human communication. That also is not an insult, nothing but this scientist’s personal opinion.
“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for believing it to be true.”
Bertrand Russell
Thanks for allowing me this brief summary of my opinions here. Whatever happens next, like everything that has already transpired, will become a matter of permanent record. That is the only thing that really matters. If any of this disappears, I will be very disillusioned with this very revealing thread. The reputation of Scientopia is on the line.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Is this supposed to be a variation of the Galileo gambit? Meeting opposition to your ideas does not necessarily make you right.
I also note that none of the quotes pertain to your specific claims of genetic front loading.
At least you didn’t quote yourself this time around, so kudos for that.
Hank, whoever that is, apparently just one more anonymous coward.
My papers indicating front-loading are available on my website where I have presented both indirect and direct evidence for front-loading . Why should I present evidence here for what is already available elsewhere? Scientists are not required to defend everything they have ever published. You Darwinians don’t even defend natural selection any more because you know it is a disaster as an explanatory thesis. It doesn’t even qualify as an hypothesis. All you Darwinists do now is lash out at anyone who dares question your silly ideology.
I never claimed to be right either. All I am certain about is the miserable excuse for science that Darwinism continues to represent. There is not a word in Darwin’s 1859 masterpiece that has anything whatever to do with its title – not a word.
How is Hank anonymous? Because he didn’t bother to provide his last name in the comment form?
Whenever I comment on blogs, I do it as MarkCC. Am I being an anonymous coward because I don’t go around commenting as “Mark Craig Chu-Carroll”?
And when are you going to actually say anything with any substance, instead of just running around calling people cowards?
Incidentally, if I am to be banished, let me remind Mark that my history here has been copied and will be used to expose this blog if necessary. I recommend that he lets his users continue to insult me because it pleases me immensely.
I will not expose this blog as long as it allows me to opine here. The minute I can no longer speak here, I will do everything in my power to compare it to Pharyngula, After The Bar Closes, Panda’s Thumb, richarddawkins.net and Uncommon Descent, all of which have banished me from their pathetic, cowardly, intellectual ghettos.
It is all about power, something that has no place in science.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
jadavison.wordpress.com
John:
What makes you think that you can “expose” anything? You have this incredibly delusion that you are somehow an important and influential person whose opinion has actual influence and impact. You’re “exposure” would basically be posting comments on a two-year-old comment thread on a blog which no one reads! As usual, you’re just running around making pointless, empty threats.
Frankly, being compared to Pharyngula or Panda’s Thumb would be a *compliment*. They’re both widely known, widely respected blogs which get huge numbers of daily pageviews. Why on earth would you expect me to be upset about that comparison?
You get yourself banned from sites because you’re an asshole. You run around, throwing tantrums, flinging empty threats, and refusing to actual engage in anything resembling a scientific discussion. And then you throw more tantrums when people lose patience with your content-free ranting and ban you.
The more I read this thread, the more I like the simple “no meta-discussion” rule that can cover all moderating needs of a forum.
However, it would disallow insults even to/from you, Marc. Which, I have to say, would significantly reduce the amusement factor (“the lulz”) here.
The above quote is demonstrably false, I suggest you stop using it.
“Pots and kettles” is referring to the fact hat you freely indulge in deleting comments at your own “blogs” and have the chutzpah to complain when, after you, apparently randomly, discover a forum that hasn’t yet banned you and troll for attention, posting venomous off-topic and repetitive comments, you get called on your behaviour.
For the record, I don’t think you are mentally deranged, though you may be borderline for APD. Your one-man email campaign to University of Minnesota attempting to get PZ Myers sacked was pretty cheap, in my view.
In reply to the folks who keep asking why I waste time engaging with someone like John…
One thing that I’ve learned in my time blogging is that the most compelling refutations of crackpots generally come from the crackpots themselves. Give them a forum and let them talk, and they’ll demonstrate their intellectual bankruptcy far more effectively than anything I could possibly say.
What could I possibly say that’s more damning that John’s very first comment, in which he very effectively demolishes any claim to his being a serious scientist? What could be more damning to his claims that providing him with an open forum to defend them, and having his very first act being to explain that he had no intention of defending or even discussing them?
As an attempt to get the discussion at least a little bit on track… I’ve got two questions for John.
First: how can we tell that evolution has stopped? According to your hypothesis, evolution occurred in the past, but it has stopped occurring now. How do we know this? Evolution, as it occurred in the past, is an extremely slow process. It takes thousands of generations to accumulate change to the point where it makes a significant observable difference. Every argument that you use against evolution happening in the present is based on the lack of observable short term change. But that argument appears to hold equally well historically: had we been present to observe them, large evolutionary changes in the historical period would not have been observable, because they occurred over such a large period of time. So how do we know that those gradual changes in the past were actual parts of large evolutionary changes, but the gradual changes observable now are not?
Second: we can observe small but significant evolutionary changes in laboratories today, by using species with rapid reproductive cycles. For example, we can start with a single bacteria which is *not* antibiotic resistant, and subject it to an environment with gradually increasing quantities of antibiotics. What we see when we observe that is that the bacteria starts to develop ways of defending itself against antibiotics. When we sequence the bacterial genomes, we find that they’re *different* before and after the experiment: the mechanisms by which they produce antibiotic resistance were not part of the genome before the experiment, but *are* after. So it’s real evolutionary change, and it’s *not* frontloaded.
So – if we can observe non-frontloaded change, than what prevents that from accumulating into the kind of large scale change that you claim is impossible? It seems like your argument is that lots of small but measurable changes can’t add up to a large change. Why not?
Once again Alan Fox is attempting to get Mark to banish me. I have let the most virulent attacks from Woot and PZPolice stand and Fox knows it. I have not allowed subsequent messages to appear once I have informed certain users that I will no longer accept their nasty messages. That is not deletion. That is blockage. Also, everyone knows I loathe anonymity and I have made it very plain that those who must hide their identity are not welcome on my blog . That is not deletion either. The ground rules at my blog include registration, civility and full disclosure of identity. I have had registration bypassed many times and let the initial comments invariably stand. I also on occasion have informed certain nasty( invariably anonymous) users that I would let their comments stand for a time and then delete them and I have acted on that condition.
That is the way I run my blog and that is my business alone. One of the reasons I typically only have 25 visits a day is because I have standards of civility far higher than most blogs and certainly superior to what I see here at Scientopia where it is not unusual to see even blog heads using f…k, f…king and far worse. ad hominems abound here as they do at Pharyngula, After The Bar Closes, Panda’s Thumb, richarddawkins.net and most internet blogs that promote and accept anonymity. If users had to reveal their identity the quality of every weblog would, in my opinion, be vastly improved. One of my essays is “The Cowardice of Anonymity.” Anonymity is the bane of rational discourse and it will not be tolerated on my website.
Look at the names that I have been called right here, “liar,” “you are a liar”, “borderline,” “mentally deranged,” “venomous,” “asshole,” “pretty cheap,” “into senile dementia,” “around the bend,” “in need of professional help,” etc, etc, a very incomplete list, one insult after another.
And what have I said that could possibly warrant banishment? I correctly described Alan Fox. He has been following me around for years with one goal only – to discredit me and to get me banished. I repeat that he has, to my knowledge, never contributed a significant comment anywhere I have seen him hold forth. He seems to be a one man goon squad for Wesley Elsberry who banished me long ago from his personal “inner sanctum,” After The Bar Closes as well as from Panda’s Thumb.
If Mark is looking for an excuse to banish me, he better find something better than what I have said here.
Futhermore, I am prepared to defend my signature –
(“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable”)
here or anywhere where it can be arranged to be free of rancor and knee jerk rejection. Why not make it a thread?
Why not make it a thread? Because, John, that’s *exactly* what this thread is for.
If I wanted to banish you, I wouldn’t *need* an excuse.
I just asked you some very civil, reasonable questions about your hypothesis. And, as usual, you’re just running around ranting.
And I’ll repeat: calling you a liar isn’t an insult: it’s a fact. You were caught, red-handed, lying. That makes you a liar. That’s pretty simple.
For the others… Is “venemous” an insult? I’d have to say it’s borderline, depending on context. When you look at the way you behave – it sure as hell seems accurate to me. Seriously, just look at your behavior here. You’ve ignored direct questions about your science. you’ve claimed that you’re not going to defend or discuss it. You’ve lied about being censored. You’ve repeatedly spouted all sorts of crap about PZ Myers, even though he has absolutely nothing to do with this blog, or with Scientopia as a whole. You’ve done nothing except spout your usual hateful, petty, self-aggrandizing rhetoric while avoiding any substantive discussion. Is that venemous behavior? Pretty much.
Are you going to actually answer any of the questions you were asked, or are you just going to continue to throw these pointless and content-free tantrums?
And just what the heck is it with your obsession with PZ anyway? I mean, really, who the fuck *is* PZ really? He’s a biology professor at a satellite campus of the University of Minnesotta. That’s not exactly the center of the scientific world. He’s just a random biology professor who happens to write a popular blog. He’s not an important person, or a scientifically influential person. He’s certainly not a person who’s any kind of scientific leader. So why the huge obsession?
(Except, perhaps, because he’s someone who’s done a good job of showing just how utterly unsupportable your “science” is? Or because he didn’t give you a platform for satisfying your pathetic need for attention?)
Mark,
You can’t fight fire (John’s rhetoric) with fire (your own rhetoric or banning him). You have to fight it with water (ignoring him).
I realize that I changed my mind about defending my thesis. I did it to test Scientopia’s willingness to allow a challenge to the Darwinian model. The ball is now in the Scientopia court. Im betting it will never happen!
How many times do you need to be told the same thing before it gets through your thick head?
First and most importantly: Scientopia isn’t a single blog. You aren’t “testing” scientopia. Every blog on Scientopia is completely independent. Every blog owner has complete and unquestioned editorial control over their own blogs. Even if every other member of Scientopia disagreed with how you were being treated here, it wouldn’t matter. We designed this place with editorial freedom as one of the fundamental rules.
Some other Scientopia members might be less harsh with you than I am. Some other scientopia members would treat you in a way that makes me look downright kind and gentle.
It’s not a single blog, with a single policy. It’s a collective of 30 different blogs, each with their own policy, under the control of their owners.
Second: you aren’t testing anyone. You have this ridiculously inflated notion of your own importance. You have no authority *anywhere*, no influence, no respect, no credibility. How can you possibly believe that you’re some kind of grandiose scientific godfather who gets to decree what forums are legitimate?
What do you mean by this statement? Are you demanding a blog of your own on scientopia? Or are you merely stating an intention of discussing your failed hypothesis of prescribed evolution (see my previous link to the experiment of Lenski and friends)?
As for me being an anonymous coward, is the concept of pseudonymity familiar to you? I go by this moniker on many blogs and forums, including Pharyngula.
Oh snap, yes I went there.
Mark
It is not my importance that is involved. It is the signicance of the many anti-Darwinian scientists that the ruling Darwinian establishment has always suppressed. My calling, my Providence if you please, is to resurrect these men from their intellectual graves and to expose the Darwinian hoax for what it has always been, nothing but the necessary posture for the congenital atheist.
” No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in gtreat men.”
Thomas Carlyle
“A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.”
Robert Burton
I am that dwarf and never claimed to be anything else.
I am also a damn fine scientist who has always pursued the truth wherever it took him. I fear no man and no institution. Got that? Write that down and stop trying to make me look foolish. It is not going to work. I recommend you stop wasting your time being pompous and start to take me seriously. That choice is yours alone.
Frankly at this point I don’t care what you do. Whatever you do, it will reflect on you, not on me. You are in a position to elevate yourself. If you decide not to, you will have only yourself to blame.
You recommending that *I* stop being pompous? Dear lord, the irony is unbelievable.
So when are you going to get around to actually answering the respectful scientific questions that I asked? Here, I’ll repeat them, to make it easy for you.
First: how can we tell that evolution has stopped? According to your hypothesis, evolution occurred in the past, but it has stopped occurring now. How do we know this? Evolution, as it occurred in the past, is an extremely slow process. It takes thousands of generations to accumulate change to the point where it makes a significant observable difference. Every argument that you use against evolution happening in the present is based on the lack of observable short term change. But that argument appears to hold equally well historically: had we been present to observe them, large evolutionary changes in the historical period would not have been observable, because they occurred over such a large period of time. So how do we know that those gradual changes in the past were actual parts of large evolutionary changes, but the gradual changes observable now are not?
Second: we can observe small but significant evolutionary changes in laboratories today, by using species with rapid reproductive cycles. For example, we can start with a single bacteria which is *not* antibiotic resistant, and subject it to an environment with gradually increasing quantities of antibiotics. What we see when we observe that is that the bacteria starts to develop ways of defending itself against antibiotics. When we sequence the bacterial genomes, we find that they’re *different* before and after the experiment: the mechanisms by which they produce antibiotic resistance were not part of the genome before the experiment, but *are* after. So it’s real evolutionary change, and it’s *not* frontloaded.
So – if we can observe non-frontloaded change, than what prevents that from accumulating into the kind of large scale change that you claim is impossible? It seems like your argument is that lots of small but measurable changes can’t add up to a large change. Why not?
I just had to quote this, I couldn’t resist.
John, there’s only one person around here who’s making you look foolish, and that’s you. No one could do a better job of it than you’re already doing.
Once again, you have this vastly inflated sense of your own self-importance.
Do you know how much it would hurt me to have you do everything in your power to wreck my reputation? Not at all. Not one damn bit.
You may believe that you’re a great scientist. But you are the only one who believes that. To most of the world, you are a total nobody. To the people who know about you, you are a pathetic crank. And you have no one to blame for that but yourself. This whole discussion is absolutely typical of you. You start by demanding a platform. The instant you get it, the *very first thing* that you do is announce how you have no intention of actually talking about science. And then you just start finding excuses to get involved in petty squabbles, instead of actually engaging in an actual scientific discussion. You make false accusations, get caught lying, and still pretend that you’re some kind of saint standing on the intellectual high ground.
You are a coward, a fraud, and a liar.
Go ahead: prove me wrong. Actually *talk about your science*. You claim to be a great scientist: prove it. Answer one of the questions you’ve been asked about your work. Stop playing games, and actually act like a scientist.
Or continue to do what you always do, and just prove, once again, that you’re a coward, a fraud, and a liar.
If I may correct, you, I’m pretty sure VMartin also thinks JAD is a great scientist. Not that this helps JAD’s credibility.
John A. Davison wrote
Emphasis mine.
Mark does not have to do anything to make you look more foolish than you already do yourself. Obscurity is tough, we get it, but is infamy as an internet troll really the way forward?
As epic as a battle between people with names like “Alan Fox” and “John A. Davison” sounds, I’d think it best if Mark just stopped indulging in this kind of debate.
The thing is, people with highly non-mainstream views never change. John A. Davison is not going to change. You know that. You call them crackpots, but regardless of whether or not they deserve such a name, you know they are people they are incorrigible.
What about the topology articles? Fuzzy logic? Get back on topic to *mathematics*. Please.
You know, one of the things that I hate most about blogging is the many self-righteous people who believe that it’s their job to tell me how to write my blog.
No one is forcing you to read the comments on this post. If it doesn’t interest you, don’t read it.
I’ll get back to the fuzzy logic and topology when I’m ready to get back to them.
I’m sorry. I guess that comment did turn out to be very self-righteous. Besides, this dialog seems to have turned out rather well.
I didn’t interpret it as self-righteous. It’s a reasonable reaction to watch anyone attempt to actually have an intelligent discusion with John. That’s why I responded. As an attempt to actually discuss a scientific theory, it’s a train wreck. But as a chance to let a crackpot demonstrate exactly why no one should take him seriously, it’s a ringing success :-).
Well my comment ended with a command which was definitely bad etiquette. Anyway, what I was thinking when I wrote that was that it seems debating science with crackpots is generally not as rewarding an endeavor as debating mathematics with them. I followed some of the cantor crackpots and I noticed that although they never budged, one could decide things for themselves just by looking at the proofs and discussions. The truth would then be self-evident. Even the nitpicking was helpful because it revealed some of the more subtle aspects of the concepts in question. But when it comes to a debate over something like evolution, everything is fuzzier because we have to consider actual real-world data (that most of us probably aren’t even qualified to analyze). I think that that ends up working to the advantage of the crackpot, and the disadvantage of the audience.
I don’t care how YOU write your blog. You invite anonymous blowhards to speak here. I don’t invite anonymous blowhards at my website like you do. I won’t tolerate the cowardly trash. You would lose most of your cientele if they had to identify themselves.
There is no room for discussion in science . There is nothing to discuss. There is only the Truth, finding and disclosing it and then publishing it. That is all that I have ever done and all I ever will do. What Truth have you disclosed and where did you publish it?
You say all these blogs are independent. Which ones support a designed universe? Steer me to them. Scientopia is exactly what it was before it existed here, nothing but a house organ for atheist Darwinian mysticism. I am sorry I wasted my time with you and your shabby clientele, the same sorts one finds at Pharyngula, After The Bar Closes and Panda’s Thumb, all crawling with the same cowardly wannabe and mightabeen losers that could never make it in the real world of science where one signs his name to his work and assumes full responsibity for it.
You Darwinians have made me their mortal enemy when you refused to engage me in a real confrontation. That is not going to change for only one reason. You are all terrified of me and especially of my sources, real scientists all. That’s the way it is Mark. Get used to it as I have. That is the way it was determined to be, probably millions of years ago.
“EVERYTHING is determined… by forces over which we have no control.”
Albert Einstein, my emphasis.
Keep dumping on me because it obviously means the world to you. Like Paul Zachary Myers you too find fulfillment in venting your spleen on those who do not share your particular mindset. This weblog is no different than the ones run by the Myers/Elsberry/Dawkins consortium of atheist worshippers of the Great God Chance. Scientopia is just more of the same. It’s the same anonymous names spouting what they have always been spouting – there is no God and there never was one. Well I know better and have published my convictions. Were may I find the publications of any member of this weblog that have anything whatsoever to do with the great mystery of organic evolution. I don’t believe such papers exist.
I’m getting bored with this foolishness. You may not have to banish me. I may just walk off in disgust.
If there is no room for discussion in science then why do you want a debate (I’m assuming that’s what you mean with “confrontation”) with drs Dawkins, Myers and Elsberry?
What is the desired outcome of these interactions of yours with us anonymous, darwinist scum? You offer nothing to discuss but tales of perceived slights at the hands of the likes of PZ Myers. There is nothing of substance in what you write, nothing on which to base a discussion of the merits (or lack thereof) of your hypotheses.
When faced with opposition you just storm off in a huff.
For example, you haven’t touched upon what the Lenski experiment says about your claim that present evolution is undemonstrable. Are you claiming that e. coli was front-loaded with the ability to use citrate? On what evidence do you base that claim?
Once again, you prove that you neither understand how blogs work, or how science works.
Science isn’t really about truth – because when it comes to scientific matters, we can never be sure that we know the truth. Science is about a process of discovery that brings us, gradually, closer and closer to the truth.
Science is all about discussion. Each scientist works to uncover more evidence, and use that evidence to draw preliminary conclusions. Then they share those preliminary conclusions with other scientists by publishing them. The publication isn’t an end-point, it’s just the first step in the process of engaging with the scientific community. For real scientists, the work is to constantly learn more – both by studying the evidence themselves, and by looking at the evidence and the hypotheses that have been proposed by other scientists, and by working with those other scientists to try to put together all of the pieces of evidence into a coherent whole.
If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand anything about how to do science.
Which, once again, brings me back to the two questions I asked you, and which you’ve been so carefully and strenuously ignoring:
First: how can we tell that evolution has stopped? According to your hypothesis, evolution occurred in the past, but it has stopped occurring now. How do we know this? Evolution, as it occurred in the past, is an extremely slow process. It takes thousands of generations to accumulate change to the point where it makes a significant observable difference. Every argument that you use against evolution happening in the present is based on the lack of observable short term change. But that argument appears to hold equally well historically: had we been present to observe them, large evolutionary changes in the historical period would not have been observable, because they occurred over such a large period of time. So how do we know that those gradual changes in the past were actual parts of large evolutionary changes, but the gradual changes observable now are not?
Second: we can observe small but significant evolutionary changes in laboratories today, by using species with rapid reproductive cycles. For example, we can start with a single bacteria which is *not* antibiotic resistant, and subject it to an environment with gradually increasing quantities of antibiotics. What we see when we observe that is that the bacteria starts to develop ways of defending itself against antibiotics. When we sequence the bacterial genomes, we find that they’re *different* before and after the experiment: the mechanisms by which they produce antibiotic resistance were not part of the genome before the experiment, but *are* after. So it’s real evolutionary change, and it’s *not* frontloaded.
So – if we can observe non-frontloaded change, than what prevents that from accumulating into the kind of large scale change that you claim is impossible? It seems like your argument is that lots of small but measurable changes can’t add up to a large change. Why not?
I’d like to defend John (a bit, after a fashion) if I may. First, I don’t think he was lying about the comment. Most likely he tried to comment and failed, perhaps by posting to one of his own blogs by mistake. (Remember that we are speaking here of the legendarily poly-blogged John A. “Massive Internet Fail” Davison.) All Mark’s logs show is the degree of the posting failure (= massive). So I think we can let that one go.
Secondly, I don’t think he’s trying to “run away” (= declare persecution and go away in a huff, as some people do). I think he really feels persecuted and ignored, and wants to stay here as long as possible, to complain about it in public. That’s one reason why I don’t think he lied about the comment (that is, as part of a plan to justify “running away”).
Thirdly, he has a point about the insults people have been dealing him. (Some of them anyway.) Be nice everybody, if you can. Don’t scare him off.
Fourthly, his statement that he wasn’t going to give his evidence here is, as he has explained, because he thinks he’s already given it, in a summary paper on his website. He could make it easier for us by summarizing it here (or at least linking directly … wait, what am I saying??), but okay. And of course much of what he does say is not at all helpful (= quotations about how one should pay attention to the things/people to which one should indeed pay attention, and not to other things/people).
However, not answering Mark’s direct, specific questions about his views is indeed bad form. He could at least indicate the sections in his summary paper which (presumably) address them. So there’s that.
Also, he has not yet (in this thread) indicated whether, or to what degree, he loves it. (Veteran JAD watchers know what I’m talking about.)j C’mon John, you know you want to!
Since this thread seems to be about the infamous JAD, I would like to post here what JAD deleted at his blog, declaring it an unsolicited lecture:.
(to JAD)
I have an issue of concern: in your ‘Why Banishment’ posts #179 #230 #291 #307 #312 you say “Myers is TRASH, cowardly, atheist nasty mouthed, snotty TRASH–Got that Pee Zee you degenerate worm? You’re TRASH…cowardly, sociopathic, congenital, “prescribed” TRASH. You make me sick Myers…beer-swigging blowhard. What a jerk! Give the whole rotten lot of them my personal, freshly steaming, feculent regards.”
Aren’t you being “nasty mouthed” yourself, a pottymouth? And must you descend into the guttermuck? Will you charge the windmills next, Sir Davison? Will vmartin assist you in slaying sheep? So it is your words bring to mind Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho. It makes no sense to talk that way.
Post @223 ‘Why Banishment’
For my part what would I do if I didn’t have Paul Zachary “godless liberal” Myers, Christopher “hickup” Hitchens and Richard “blind mountaineering watchmaker” Dawkins to loathe with all my waning energies? I am certain I would have given up the ghost long ago if it were not for those tempting targets, those challenges which simply MUST be met. They represent living proof of what Arnold Toynbee called “the virtues of adversity.”
Sir, this saddens me tremendously. Your will to live, your raison d’etre is based on hate. This glimpse into the dark hole of your life disturbs me greatly. Hopefully, this consumption of your waning energy leaves you too weak and preoccupied to travel to Minnesota to ambush PZ or, just as bad, remove yourself from the planet by your own deliberate actions. Maybe when I’m 82 (should I live that long –unlikely as 78 years is avg lifespan for males in my family) perhaps my point of view would be different.
In the blogs you have invaded (see your post #314 I have managed to invade Aardvarchaeology as evidence where you openly admit to such offensive action; indeed, you seem unable to politely join a discussion rather you blast in “tearing up the peapatch”), I notice a common but disturbing pattern: announce that your PEH is true, claim Dawkins and Myers are scum of the earth, denigrate all responses, claim everyone is uncivil trash while you yourself are the one being uncivil, then, after you’ve completely derailed a discussion forcing everyone to drop what they were saying to try and understand what you are so fiercely going on about, you dare people to ban you which they should and often do because you are disruptive, hostile, name-calling, insulting, and aggressive going so far as to brag about the places where you have been banned like it is some sort of perverse medal of honor. The word for someone like that is Troll.
Sir, do you consider this behavior becoming of a highly educated, 82 year old man with a doctorate degree? It is behavior unbecoming of a scientist like yourself.
I completely respect your scholarship but your presentation of “Read it and weep foul Darwinists!” doesn’t appear to be working. Isn’t there some kind of protocol of review and discussion when it comes to scientific papers you have proposed? Did you go through that process? Was there a review? Only other biologists could affirm your hypothesis. Various people on the internet I don’t think really can. My review and opinion on your work would be worthless (except where you mention gods).
I think, Dr. Davison, you might consider retiring from the internet. It is causing a great root of bitterness to grow in your soul as evidenced by the wicked bile and filth blasted from your lips like that little girl in The Exorcist. You may even need an exorcism yourself. The internet is depressing you. It is raising your blood pressure. I am concerned it is stoking a fire of hate in your heart that will result in your harm or you harming others.
This is disgusting. I am dealing with cowardly nincompoops. If you want to question my science or that of my sources you better do in the peer reviewed literature. If you click on my blog you will find everything I have ever published and in the process of publshing. I have a book of essays coming out. They are mostly all available on my website.
I have been through this same cowardly sequence before at Panda’s Thumb and After The Bar Closes and I have no desire in allowing myself to go through it again. If Mark or anyone else wants to set a formal confrontation with me on the question of the mechanism of organic evolution, I will be happy to present my case. I already have in peer reviewed papers and a huge amount of subsequent as yet unpublished material all of which is available on my weblog . My adversaries better be prepared to prove that they have read those papers if they expect me to pay any attention to them.
Furthermore, I will not respond to any question that comes from an anonymous source. If those conditions can be met I am all for it. Otherwise I’m out of here thoroughly disgusted at the way I have been received. This blog is After The Bar Closes and Panda’s Thumb all over again and I will not subject myself to that kind of abuse ever again. Got that? Write that down.
If you want anything more from me you will have to whistle for it! Let me know if you have the stomach for it. I don’t believe you do. I think you clowns are scared fecesless of me and my sources. So are Dawkins, Elsberry and Myers. They always have been.
jadavison.wordpress.com
And, once again, you refuse to answer reasonable, polite, on-point questions, in favor of yet another pointless self-aggrandizing rant.
Once again, two simple, specific, polite questions which you have been consistently avoiding:
First: how can we tell that evolution has stopped? According to your hypothesis, evolution occurred in the past, but it has stopped occurring now. How do we know this? Evolution, as it occurred in the past, is an extremely slow process. It takes thousands of generations to accumulate change to the point where it makes a significant observable difference. Every argument that you use against evolution happening in the present is based on the lack of observable short term change. But that argument appears to hold equally well historically: had we been present to observe them, large evolutionary changes in the historical period would not have been observable, because they occurred over such a large period of time. So how do we know that those gradual changes in the past were actual parts of large evolutionary changes, but the gradual changes observable now are not?
Second: we can observe small but significant evolutionary changes in laboratories today, by using species with rapid reproductive cycles. For example, we can start with a single bacteria which is *not* antibiotic resistant, and subject it to an environment with gradually increasing quantities of antibiotics. What we see when we observe that is that the bacteria starts to develop ways of defending itself against antibiotics. When we sequence the bacterial genomes, we find that they’re *different* before and after the experiment: the mechanisms by which they produce antibiotic resistance were not part of the genome before the experiment, but *are* after. So it’s real evolutionary change, and it’s *not* frontloaded.
So – if we can observe non-frontloaded change, than what prevents that from accumulating into the kind of large scale change that you claim is impossible? It seems like your argument is that lots of small but measurable changes can’t add up to a large change. Why not?
Furthermore, I will not respond to any question that comes from an anonymous source.
John, for Pete’s sake. Mark is not anonymous, and he’s asked you two direct questions. Why don’t you answer them?
Has anyone ever established whether VMartin is a real person or just a sockpuppet?
Well, he’s coming from a very different IP address. Given that John doesn’t even understand how to post to his own blog, I very much doubt he’d be capable of setting up a different IP address.
Mark,
That is easy. Evolution is not a slow process. That is one more Darwinian errror. Every evolutionary event was an instaneous event, inviolving at every step a rearrangement of existing genetic information. Gradualism is a myth without a shred of evidence . Just as ontogeny proceeds by instantaneous transformations so has evolution done the same. There were no missing links or progressive slow transformations just as there are none now. Schindewolf had this right more than 60 years ago –
“We might as well stop looking for the missing links as they never existed….The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg.”
As quoted by Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 395.
You see there is absolutely NOTHING in the Darwinian model that is correct. The whole thing is a shambles and a figment of the imagination. It can never be patched up and it should have been scrapped the moment it appeared.
Now I am confident that this will be rejected out of hand beacuse it doesn’t fit the politically correct atheist mindset with which Darwinism is associated.
As for why evolution has stopped, I don’t know why but that it has is indisputable.
I have to go now but, if you start showing me some respect, I will return to finish my answer tomorrow.
““We might as well stop looking for the missing links as they never existed….The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg.”
As quoted by Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 395.”
That’s nice. What did it mate with?
This is where “semi-meiosis” comes in. John proposes this hypothetical mechanism by which, once a saltational individual appears, it produces offspring parthenogenetically, such offspring being homozygous clones of the parent, thus the new genotype can spread rapidly through the population.
Or not! I am sure John will correct any misrepresentation.
Alan Fox has it all wrong as usual. You have to understand his motives to understand him. Alan is Wes Elsberry’s one man goon squad. He follows me around the internet doing his level best to discredit me wherever he finds me. He is a self confessed admirer of Richard Dawkins so you can hardly expect him to be my supporter.
Yes Alan, I will correct any misrepresentation. But first I want those interested in this discussion to read my essay “What’s wrong with Darwinism?” because it will set the stage for my response which will appear later today. I have a bunch of trivia that I have to take care of first. You will find that essay at the top of my introductory page along with other essays, including my “An Evolutonary Manifesto: A New Hypothesis for Evolutionary Change” which are intended to appear as a collection in the near future. The Manifesto appears under EVOLUTIONARY WORKS along with all my peer reviewed publications. The ESSAYS button and the EVOLUTIONARY WORKS button contain most, but not all, of my evolutionary writings. There would be no need whatsoever for me to explain anything if those papers were read, but I am willing to answer any questions nevertheless. I will answer Richard T. Hughes’ question as part of my response. May I assume that is his real name? I know him mostly from After The Bar Closes where I am not allowed to speak.
I should be back before noon.
I have no intention of responding to unknown interrogators or to any abuse. I’m not going to do that anymore. I hope that is acceptable.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Hi John. Yes, that’s my real name – I look forward to your answer and the evidence that supports it. I’ll log in around noon.
beancan 5000, another cowardly alias.
You decided to lecture me at my blog too. How far did it get you? I stand by everything I have said about Myers, Dawkins, Elsberry or any other person who has prevented me from speaking on the great mystery of organic evolution. The thing that so far distinguishes this blog from the others is that I am allowed to speak here which is all one expects from any civilized forum. If I am banished here, this blog will just join the others. It is as simple as that. Now I really have to go but will come back later this smorning.
You’ve twice been asked a direct question by a commenter going by his real name. Your anti-pseudonymity stance is therefore not applicable. How about dealing with Mark’s questions?
Your claim that evolution has stopped does look a tad shaky unless you find a way to deal with contemporary instances of evolution in action, don’t you think?
I think it would be fair to answer questions (from non anonymous posters) in the order received so will be absolutely fine waiting for John to Answer Mark’s questions before he gets to mine.
Thanks.
I doubt if richardthughes is his real name, especially since he is a regular at After the Bar Closes where hardly anyone uses his real name. Considering the dialogue there, I can understand why.
To understand my Semi-meiotic hypothesis (SMH) you have to have a rudimentary knowledge of meiosis. Rather than try to explain all that that here, I refer you to either my 1984 paper or the Manifesto for a full expanation with a diagram. The important point is this. Any hypothesis for evolution has to maintain reproductive continuity which the SMH can dO.
Here is how I propose it works. A chromosome change such as an inversion occurs in a chromosome in a cell in the lineage destined to give rise to the egg. This could occur in a single female Homo neanderthalensis (I am using our own origin as an example). When that event takes place, such a female will, following the first meiotic division, have two kinds of oocytes in equal frequency, half like herself and half bearing the inversion chromosomes as a pair. This follows from the universal property of meiosis that the sister (identical) strands always remain together during the first meiotic division. If those semi-reduced oocytes (they are diploid) proceed to develop, half will give rise to a new female species, distinguished from herself by having a karytype different from her own which is a fundamental property of species differences. It has already been established with frogs that one can produce gynogenetic offspring by this means. The experimental method involves activating the egg with sperm that have been irradiated so the sperm contributes no genetic information and then preventing the second meiotic division from taking place. The spontaneous inhibition of the second meiotic division often takes place in frogs leading, as one would expect, to triploid progeny. I have reviewed the literature supporting this means of producing gynogenetic offspring in my Manifesto so there is no question that it operates both spontaneously and experimentally in frogs. There is no reason why it should not operate in all animals because all animals and plants use the same universal mechanism of a two stage chromosome reduction in meiosis. The sequence is 2n-4n-2n-1n (gametes). By preventing the last step from occurring, normal 2n females can be produced and have been produced in frogs by others and myself.
Now where does the new species find its mate? I propose it finds its mate with the males of the species that produced it. Such a union will produce offspring heterozygous for the new karyotype. These interbreeding with one another or with their female ancestor establish the new species, in this case Homo sapiens, by ordinary Mendelian, sexual means. The reason this reconstruction is reasonable is because there is now no question that Homo neanderthalensis hybridized with Homo sapiens in Europe, thereby satisfying the criterion for reproductive continuity. I propose that this is the way all new species arose. It is also one of the reasons I believe that evolution is finished as I see no evidence that this process is still occurring in nature although it may occasionally take place without being observed.
If one examines the karyotypes of Homo sapiens and our closest relative, the chimpanzee, one finds that we differ at about a dozen different chromosome loci in with inversions, translocations, fusions or some other chromosome reconfiguration have taken place. I believe this is compatible with there having been about twelve intermediates, now all extinct, that have existed since we had a common ancestor.
Now I realize this may be difficult for the non biologist to understand, but I had no trouble getting undergraduate Biology majors to understand it. It requires only a rudimentary knowledge of meiosis. The full explanation with diagrams is available in either the Manifesto or in my 1984 paper in The Journal of Theoretical Biology where it was first proposed. This is all available on my website and elsewhere, in particular “brainstorms” forum where it has been thoroughly discussed.
Now as to why this method is no longer in play. It is considered bad form for the scientist to ask the question -why? Nevertheless, I believe that evolution has run its full course with man (Homo sapiens) as the planned ultimate product. The reason I believe that is because I see no new species arising to replace the many that have become extinct, especially in recent historical times when we have so ravaged the environment. All I see is species extinction.
I am confident that sooner or later the SMH will be tested exerimentally with mammalian material. When that occurs, I am confident that it will be vindicated as an important and perhaps the only mechanism for speciation that can satisfy the requirement of reproductive continuity with change. The Darwinian model cannot satisfy that criterion. Why it persists at all is a mystery. I believe it persists only because it satisfies the atheist mindset that not only is there now no God or Gods, but that there never were any, a philosophy I cannot embrace.
For someone who takes such offense at being called a liar after getting caught lying, you sure are ready to throw about the accusations.
So… you propose this semi-meiosis theory. What kind of evidence supports it? Has semi-meiosis every been observed? Has it ever been provoked in a laboratory?
That may seem to be a nitpicking question, but it’s crucial. Because we have observed mutational change in the laboratory and in nature. Within the limits of observable timescale, we have seen some pretty significant evolutionary changes that were caused by mutation and selection.
According to your hypothesis, those shouldn’t actually be possible.
An example that’s very close to home for me: my father died as a result of an antibiotic resistant infection. With bacteria, we can start with a single, identifiable bacteria with a fully sequenced genome. Then by allowing it to reproduce, adding a trace of penicillin, allowing it to reproduce, adding slightly more penicillin, and so on, we can produce several distinct varieties of penicillin resistant bacteria. When we sequence their genome, they have new genes that are completely unlike anything that was in the genes of the original sequence.
Those changes appear to be completely novel. They aren’t front-loaded, because they contain information that wasn’t present before the experiment. And the changes that they undergo are quite significant, and they aren’t predictable. When you do this experiment, you’ll sometimes get a bacteria that produces a substance like penicillinase which neutralizes the antibiotic. You’ll sometimes get a bacteria that uses different processes to build its cell walls, which prevent penicillin from interfering. And you’ll sometimes get a bacteria that has an entirely different chemical structure in its cell walls.
These aren’t minor changes. They’re huge, dramatic changes to the bacteria. By any reasonable definition, the bacteria that are the result of this process are not the same species as the bacteria that you started with.
Similarly, there’ve been experiments done with evolving bacteria to metabolize a food source that would be completely un-digestable by the original bacteria.
Those are just bacterial studies, but those are the easiest, because they have the fastest reproductive rate. By the process hypothesized by the conventional evolutionary theory, it does take many generations. We’ve been able to produce similar changes in other species – with the magnitude of the change being inversely proportional to the length of the generational cycle: with fruit flies, large changes, but not the magnitude of the cell-wall changes in bacteria; with zebrafish, changes, but not as large as the fruit flies; etc.
The point is, we can observe the evolutionary mutation+selection process behaving exactly as the theory would predict.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing remotely like your semi-meiosis has ever been observed under any conditions.
Further, you’re asserting the “micro/macro” evolution distinction as a crucial piece of your theory. That is, you don’t deny the existence of observed evolutionary change on a small scale. But you claim that those small changes can’t add up to large changes. Why not?
Hi John – you don’t have to talk past me, I’m here.
Richardthughes is of course a nom de plume, my real name is l33tsexigrll23 but I chose Richardthughes because it’s exotic and happening.
Couple of thoughts
1) That’s a conjecture, not a hypothesis.
2) There seems to be ZERO supporting evidence
I eagerly await your clarification.
Rich
Why Scientopia?
Mark,
The changes you are talking about have nothing to do with speciation which is the subject of my thesis. Darwinians think every change they observe is evolution. Mostly they are reversible adaptations. Evolution was never reversible. It was always ascending, irreversible, planned and now, as far as I can tell, finished. That is my conviction and nothing you have said will change it.
Of course it has been observed in the laboratory. If you would read my references, my papers, you would know that. If this is all I am going to get here I say the hell with it. I went out of my way to present my thesis and all you can do is deprecate it.
Small changes go nowhere and never did. My position is transparent. There is absolutely nothing in the “natural selection” Darwinian model that ever had anything to do with evolution beyond the level of establishing varieties and subspecies. and they are all dead ends. That is why they all will become extinct just as they always have in the past.
Furthermore, you haven’t had time to read a fraction of the literature on which my work is based. Yet, in characteristic knee jerk fashion you dump on me. Well I am dumping back. If you have any more questions to ask, just ask them. If you’re lucky, I might bother to answer them.
You call me a liar one more time you miserable bastard and you will never hear from me here again. But you will elsewhere! You love being insulted and I am just the person to satisfy you. You have earned the reputation you already have.
Now if anyone can ask a question in a civil fashion. I will be happy to answer it. You don’t know how.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John, it’s real simple. If you didn’t want to be called a liar, you shouldn’t have gotten caught lying.
And you’re still evading questions. What prevents small changes from adding up into large changes? We can and have shown repeatedly in the laboratory that novel changes can occur, without front-loading, as a result of mutation and selection. You’re asserting that those are meaningless – but they are, undeniably, significant changes. You’re asserting that those are dead-ends. Why? What prevents those small changes from accumulating to the point that they’re meaningless.
If your semi-meiosis has actually been observed in the lab, then tell us when, where, and how. Who observed it? Under what conditions? What specific species was it observed it? What kinds of changes were produced by this novel reproductive process?
Finally, I’ve said repeatedly… You keep making threats about all the horrible things you’re going to do to my reputation. You couldn’t damage my reputation if your life depended on it. You’ve got a ridiculously grandiose self-image – but the real fact of the matter is, you’re a guy who no one takes seriously, who has no influence, no credibility, no power, nothing. What you’re actually threatening me with is posting yet another comment on your blog… a blog which you’ve never even figured out how to use properly. a blog which virtually no one reads. Why should I care?
RichardTHughes
Richard T. Hughes is a real person who happens to be a Christian. If he finds out you are using his name, I hope he sues the feces out of you which he could very well do. You are pathetic and that is not an insult. Now if all I am going to get here is more bulldung, let me know right now. I am tired of the sameold sameold garbage coming from the sameold sameold creeps that hang out at After The Bar Closes, Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula.
Christ, I must have been out of my mind to think I could deal with this blog.
It is hard to believe isn’t it? Like hell it is!
jadavison.wordpress.com
Yes, what are the odds that in 6.6 billion people two or more will have the same name?
http://howmanyofme.com/search/
Would you be so kind as to adress my comments/questions, John? Thanks.
Yeah, John. There is, in the entire world, only one person named Richard T. Hughes. Therefore once you’ve met one person with that name, anyone else who claims to be named Richard Hughes must be lying.
According to my handy-dandy Manhattan telephone book, there are over 20 people claiming to be named Richard T. Hughes living in Manhattan. But I suppose that they’re all just liars, right?
You got caught lying, and yet you throw a tantrum any time I point that out to you. For someone so sensitive about the subject, you’re awfully free with the accusation that others are lying. (edited to correct a minor typo in the first sentence; I wrote “point that you” instead of “point that out to you”)
And, once again, you’re evading questions. So I’ll just repeat them for you.
What prevents small changes from adding up into large changes? We can and have shown repeatedly in the laboratory that novel changes can occur, without front-loading, as a result of mutation and selection. You’re asserting that those are meaningless – but they are, undeniably, significant changes. You’re asserting that those are dead-ends. Why? What prevents those small changes from accumulating to the point that they’re meaningless.
If your semi-meiosis has actually been observed in the lab, then tell us when, where, and how. Who observed it? Under what conditions? What specific species was it observed it? What kinds of changes were produced by this novel reproductive process?
If you want some more real science from a real scientist, just ask for it. I’ve got plenty more with which to embarrass you clowns.
I love it so!
It doesn’t get any better than this.
John A. Davison said
Funny you should mention “real science” since up to this point you have not brought forth any supporting evidence for any of your claims.
Are you claiming recent speciation events are not actually speciation events? What else are we to call two populations of drosophila that when hybridized produce sterile male offspring?
Indeed it seems that way.
Hank, whoever that is and I’m sure we will never know.
If you read my my 2005 paper, you will discover that I presented both indirect and direct evidence for the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis under exactly those headings. I have no intention of presenting evidence here or anywhere else when that evidence already exists in the peer reviewed literature. Furthermore, that evidence is freely avauilable to you or anyone else, a touch of your mouse away. Got that? Write that down!
It is hard to believe isn’t it?
Not any more it isn’t.
As for Mark
I didn’t get caught lying. I do not lie. You got caught calling me a liar and if you do it again I’m history. That is probably exactly what you will do just to be rid of me. I have your number Mark. You gave it to me.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Yes, John, you did get caught lying. You are a liar. And you’re using your fake indignation at being called on your dishonesty as yet another dishonest excuse for evading the legitimate, reasonable questions that you’ve been asked. And, allow me to point out: you constantly shout about how everyone else is a coward: you are continually running away from answering these questions. Remember: if you run away here, everyone who’s been reading this will know that you’re a coward who can’t stand to answer a perfectly reasonable scientific question.
You still haven’t managed to answer the two questions I originally asked you. You gave a partial hand-waving answer to one, and completed ignored the other. So, once again, I’ll repeat the second question, and the followup from your incomplete answer to the first:
What prevents small changes from adding up into large changes? We can and have shown repeatedly in the laboratory that novel changes can occur, without front-loading, as a result of mutation and selection. You’re asserting that those are meaningless – but they are, undeniably, significant changes. You’re asserting that those are dead-ends. Why? What prevents those small changes from accumulating to the point that they’re meaningless.
If your semi-meiosis has actually been observed in the lab, then tell us when, where, and how. Who observed it? Under what conditions? What specific species was it observed it? What kinds of changes were produced by this novel reproductive process?
Mark, this has to stop now! Please go back to work 🙂
P.S. “I learned long ago, never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw
I’m sorry, but I don’t really care if my pseudonymity is a problem for you. You can either engage in the conversation or not. My arguments don’t hinge on my identity, I don’t claim to have any form of authority based on who or what I am.
You often quote yourself saying
If present evolution is indeed undemonstrable, how come we have documented cases not only of populations aquiring novel (and useful) changes, but also recent speciation?
However you slice it, that’s evolution. And it’s documented in the literature. And it’s happening now. What do you say to that? Are you yet again going to move the goalposts? Don’t think I didn’t notice it last time.
Weird how he threatens that if [such-and-such imagined transgression] then he’s “history”. Does the title of this post not indicate how little of a “threat” that is???
Indirect: Convergent evolution
Direct: “The simplest explanation is that the information was present in a latent state and simply revealed or derepressed when the chromosome segments were placed in a new configuration ” bad abductive reasoning. Very, very weak conjecture, John.
I know of not a single instance in which a new species has been identified to produce sterile progeny when crossed with its known extant immediate ancestor. That is the formal criterion establishing a speciation event. Just because someone claims a creature is a new species means nothing, absolutely nothing. Dobzhansky’s criterion has not been met within the contemporary historical period and those that claim it has have yet to producea a convincing example. I have given them plenty of opportuniity and no one has yet come up with a solid example. Until they do my challenge stands unmet.
Actually, the evidence is now in the opposite direction, Many creatures long thought to be separate species are now recognized to be mere varieties. Darwin’s finches are but one of several examples. The marine and terrestrial Galapagos iguanas were even placed in separate genera, yet we now know they have hybridized! The goddamn taxonomists are not to be trusted, another of my pet peeves.
I repeat, at the level of speciation within the time restraints of the contemporary flora and fauna – “A present evolution is undemonstrable.”
That is that folks. Like it or lump it. If I am wrong I want to see the proof in a peer reviewed paper, not in some Mickey Mouse weblog where the users are all anonymous cowards. Try publishing a journal paper without signing your real name to it. What a bunch losers you blowhards really are. It’s Pharyngula and After the Bar Closes all over again. All cowardly anonymous bluster and no substance.
So once again ladies –
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
jadavison.wordpress.com
P.S. I have a whole thread called “Evolution is finished.” Present your examples there when you can’t get them published in a refereed journal. I’m right and you are all dead wrong. I don’t tolerate comments from cowardly anonymous blowhards any more. I let them stand for a declared period of time and then, with great glee and much ceremony, I delete them!
Sorry ladies but I win, you lose!
I love it so!
So, you’re idea of answering evidence that you disagree with is simple to deny that it exists, insult the person who told you about it, and declare victory?
John, You’re a lying piece of shit. You repeatedly ignore every bit of evidence that disproves your pathetic excuse for a theory, run away from every legitimate critique, ignore real questions, and just bluster around calling people names.
Once again, the questions you’ve been ignoring – because you can’t answer them:
What prevents small changes from adding up into large changes? We can and have shown repeatedly in the laboratory that novel changes can occur, without front-loading, as a result of mutation and selection. You’re asserting that those are meaningless – but they are, undeniably, significant changes. You’re asserting that those are dead-ends. Why? What prevents those small changes from accumulating to the point that they’re meaningless.
If your semi-meiosis has actually been observed in the lab, then tell us when, where, and how. Who observed it? Under what conditions? What specific species was it observed it? What kinds of changes were produced by this novel reproductive process?
I just noticed the gigantic weasel-words in your rant.
The critical word in this is immediate.
What this phrasing means is that only John’s instantaneous, single-generation magical evolution counts.
There’ve been numerous examples of speciation. But in each case, the “end-point” can breed with its immediate ancestor. And that ancestor can breed with its immediate ancestor. And so on.
In other words, if we observe gradual evolution – the thing that John claims never happens! – then it doesn’t count as evolution. So he’s got a beautifully circular line of shit: evolution has never been observed in the lab. It can never be observed in the lab. Because if it is observed in the lab, by John’s definition, it’s not evolution! It doesn’t matter that it’s observed genetic change without front-loading. It doesn’t matter that it results in a species that is different in significant ways from its ancestors. By his definition, if it occurred gradually, it doesn’t count.
So, John, that’s what it comes down to? Your entire argument is really nothing but word-games?! That’s what you’ve been throw temper tantrums over? That’s worth being caught lying to defend? Nothing but a ridiculous, pathetic word-game?
You’re even more pathetic than I thought.
Yes John. You are the winner. Thanks for stopping by.
Mark – did the suggestion I left on you your “Abour MarkCC” tab have any interest?
Some thoughts on a certain Journal:
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/02/revisiting_rivista.php
Wow, 90+ posts later and as far as I can tell here is John’s reasoning: the mainstream definition of evolution is wrong. The mainstream definitions of species and speciation are wrong. But if we use the right (i.e., John’s) definition, evolution as a theory is in trouble, evolution as a process has stopped, and no speciation events have occurred.
You know what, I really can’t argue with such logic. But then, who would want to?
eric, whoever that is has summarized the evidence perfectly. Evolution, like the development of the individual has followed predetermined instructions and like the death of individual, it can now look forward only to extinction. How does that grab you? It sounds good to me. Thank you eric.
So… You then admit than your entire critique of evolution is based on nothing but a stupid linguistic trick?
Your entire critique is, ultimately, based on the fact that you’ve taken the word “evolution”, changed it’s definition so that it doesn’t match the evidence, and then said “See, the evidence doesn’t fit my definition”?
So… I can say that you’re not a scientist… because I can just redefine the word scientist to mean “someone who has published in computer science journals”, and then, since you never published in a CS journal, you’re not a scientist?
Or is it only you who gets to redefine words retroactively?
Richard T. Hughes
I don’t respond to anonymous cowards. I thought everyone knew that. My reaction to eric, whoever that is, was simply to thank him for his support!
Anyone who would use the name of an honorable man as an alias is a monumental ass. I hope he sues you.
Who is next to expose himself? I expect real persons if you want reponses.
It doesn’t get any better than this.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John;
Cut the shit. I’m getting sick of your name-calling and lying.
If you don’t have some kind of evidence that Richard Hughes isn’t really Richard Hughes, then shut the fuck up about it.
If you think my post supports your position, you may want to re-read it and think a bit more deeply about what I said.
But in case that’s too cryptic, here’s the same comment rephrased: nobody cares whether your definition of evolution occurs. They care about whether the standard definition(s) of evolution occurs. Like, change in allele frequency in a population. By redefining the term to mean something different, you have rendered your argument irrelevant to biology.
Mark
You ought to thank me for keeping this dog and pony show alive for you. This is probably the hottest blog in SCIENTOPIA. When are the other Darwinian mystics going to notice and chime in? I can’t wait myself. Let’s set a record like I did at richarddawkins.net in October 2006 when my thread racked up 60,000 views over a twelve day period, a record that I believe stands to this day. What is the view count here Mark or are you ashamed to say? I’ll bet it is in the thousands by now.
It doesn’t get any better than this. It can’t!
jadavison.wordpress.com
I haven’t had this much fun in years.
Let the record show that Mark Chu-Carroll claims that I am not a scientist. Thank you Mark. You are a Prince among men.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John, you stupid fucking dumbass: You, sir, are a pathetic liar. And with this pathetically stupid deliberate misrepresentation of my words, I think I’m going to call it a day. You know perfectly well that that is *not* what I said. But rather than actually address the substance of my criticisms, or actually answer any of the questions I’ve asked, you’d rather play stupid childish games. That’s your perogative: you’re free to choose to act like a pathetic, lying, asshole instead of a scientist. But as you continually threaten about everyone else’s reputation: you’re making yourself look like a petty old jackass.
You’re welcome to continue your comments – but I’m not going to respond any more.
Just in case you’ve forgotten: here are the reasonable, legitimate questions that you’ve ignored in favor of playing bullshit games:
Once again, the questions you’ve been ignoring – because you can’t answer them:
What prevents small changes from adding up into large changes? We can and have shown repeatedly in the laboratory that novel changes can occur, without front-loading, as a result of mutation and selection. You’re asserting that those are meaningless – but they are, undeniably, significant changes. You’re asserting that those are dead-ends. Why? What prevents those small changes from accumulating to the point that they’re meaningless.
If your semi-meiosis has actually been observed in the lab, then tell us when, where, and how. Who observed it? Under what conditions? What specific species was it observed it? What kinds of changes were produced by this novel reproductive process?
One last warning: I’m sick to death of the way you run around lying, insulting people, and generally acting like an ass. If you falsely accuse anyone else of lying, or insult any other commenters, then you’re gone. I’ve given you about a dozen more chances than you rightly deserved. No more. You’ve been warned; insult anyone but me, and you’re gone.
Mark, you foul mouthed degenerate excuse for a human being. You aren’t in any position to warn me. It was I who warned you that if you called me a liar one more time I will be out of here. Consider it done. You are far worse than Myers and that is almost inconceivable. You are the bottom of the barrel. Consider me your mortal enemy.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Well, that went well.
On the whole? Yeah, actually I think it did 🙂
As I’ve said before: one of the games I like to play with cranks is giving them some rope, and letting them hang themselves.
And look what happened! Seriously – look at what he said, look at what he admitted in this thread! It’s amazing… I would never have dreamed that he’d come out and agree with someone saying that his entire shtick is basically an elaborate word-game. Simply amazing.
If he weren’t such an asshole, I’d pity him.
Even if we accepted scientist JAD’s homemade definition of evolution, he is wrong.
Polyploidy can lead to speciation in a single step, where the polyploid offspring cannot produce fertile offspring with the parent species.
Source:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/268/1465/341.full.pdf
http://jadavison.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/why-banishment/#comment-2998
#797-799
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
Let’s call it a tie.
We can say that John’s ancestors stopped evolving long ago, and he will be pleased, and that ours continued evolving and being selected.
This way, everybody’s happy 🙂
Edward Fringe, if that’s his real name, which I have an inclination to doubt.
Let’s call it a rout!
jadavison.wordpress.com
Why do you attack me? Have I attacked you?
(if John is your real name, which I doubt)
You are the one who said evolution stopped, alleged John, so it is only natural to thing you believe your ancestors are no evolving lately (which is evident).
In with you in this, supporting your claims. I would not like you to become my mortal enemy, as you have with Mark.
What’s your problem, “John”?
As far as I can tell you haven’t actually engaged a single argument brought forth in this thread, instead choosing to claim victory and retreat to the fortress of solitude you call your blog.
That’s pretty pathetic by any measure.
Emphasis mine. Is it any wonder noone cares about your so called blog?
John–
My full name is rather uncommon. But there are at least two of us in the United States. Am I the impostor, because she’s older than I am? Or is she the impostor, because I’ve had the name longer? (She took our common surname when she got married; I was born with it.)
There is no universal name registry that parents have to check for uniqueness before naming a baby. (There isn’t even a rule that someone cannot give two of his children the exact same name, though most people are sensible enough not to.) This is just as well, or most of us would have very long names, and not use them: my friend Mary Smith [yes, that’s her legal name] would have to be something like Mary Willami Xyzzy Ftang! Smith to distinguish her from all the other Mary Smiths
I am also reminded: I used to hang out on Usenet. On rec.arts.sf.fandom, people would periodically show up, get into arguments, and accuse one of the regulars of not using their real names. Almost always, the accusation was of one of two people, both of whom have unusual names, and both of whom were posting under their full legal names.
Edward Fringe, who still hasn’t identified himself.
My problem is seeing myself and several of the finest biologists of the post Darwin era ignored and worse, treated with contempt by the kind of intellectual trash one finds at Pharyngula, After The Bar Closes, Panda’s Thumb and Good Math/Bad Math, by far the worst of the lot .
There is not a shred of tangible evidence that any extant higher animal or plant will ever become different than what it is right now. That is my published thesis and that is what I brought to this forum. The way it was received is now history.
Homo sapiens is not only not evolving, he is devolving rapidly as natural selection is no longer acting to preserve the status quo. That is ALL that natural selection ever could or ever did do exactly as Leo Berg claimed in 1922 –
“The struggle for existence and natural selection are not progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard.”
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 406.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
P.S. Anyone who has to stoop to the level that Mark has demonstrated here deserves all the contempt that every decent human being can muster. I think he should close down his blog and find some other way to satisfy his sociopathic personality. He makes Pee Zee Myers look like a choir boy and so do some of his clients.
Thanks for acting like a human being.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John A Davison wrote
You just can’t leave those goal posts alone, can you? Your claim is that evolution cannot happen. When confronted with evidence of evolution you redefine the term. When called on that you simply move the goal posts once more.
Utterly pathetic.
I am quite willing to continue here as long as Mark keeps his filthy mouth shut.
As for Vicki, I have no intention of responding to her because there are millions of Vickis in this world and this one is terrified that she might be identified.That goes for Hank, eric, PeterO, DaveM and RichardTHughes, especially RichardTHughes of After The Bar Closes fame. Anyone else who must hide his identity need not interrogate me either because I will not respond or, if I do, I will first call attention to that person’s cowardly need to hide his identity.
I am not on trial here. Good Math/Bad Math is.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John, you are banned. You were warned plenty of times to stop with the insults. You’re apparently incapable of that, so you’re out of here.
And for the gazillionth time… no one is on trial here. This is a blog for gods sake, not a courtroom, a classroom, or a debate hall. In fact, this is a math blog.
Oh damn, I was going to ask him who VMartin is.
“I am willing to keep commenting on this blog as long as the blog owners doesn’t say anything.” HI-larious!
“My problem is seeing myself and several of the finest biologists of the post Darwin era ignored and worse, treated with contempt by the kind of intellectual trash one finds at Pharyngula, After The Bar Closes, Panda’s Thumb and Good Math/Bad Math, by far the worst of the lot .”
— A guy who calls himself “John”
After all, natural selection may indeed be acting quiet finely on humans, and, fortunately, in science.
Your ideas have undergone natural selection. They have fought with other ideas, and lost. Very few people have been interested, so they confront extiction. You know it as well as us: soon nobody will remember them.
That the thing about natural selection and evolution and ideas and science: you can like it or not. You can cry for not being recognized. It doesn’t matter. You evolve or you are eaten by better entities.
Reminds me a bit of playing with my 5 year old nephew. The rules of the game don’t allow for a victory that is not his (unless he’s feeling particularly magnanimous that day). The rules are fluid and can always be changed to take account of various inconvenient facts that may arise during the game. The playing field is adjusted as we go so the end result is always the same.
Of course he’ll find out one day that he doesn’t get to make all the rules or bend them as he wishes to support his own opinions/desires (or just to dismiss the opinions of others) – happened to me a long time ago (to us all I guess).
JAD seems to have innoculated himself against this inconvenient little realisation. Impressive for the sheer spectacle that results. How you have a reasoned debate with someone like that I really can’t imagine – a traditional format doesn’t really allow the redefining of the subject matter at the end of every sentence.
On the plus side he did really seem to say that it was a problem of definitions, that he defines evolution to be something quite distinct from the more accepted definition of the word/concept. Of course if you accept that first absurd premise then the others must flow quite naturally.
Most amusing – pity he couldn’t keep a semblance of civility long enough to highlight even more absurdities in his arguments…
Regardless of the content I actually like his system of using blog posts as categories. Of course that would not with any amount of posters, and is inferior to using real tags or something.
Mark,
The first paragraph of your article insulted John and then continued in that vein. Then you accused him of not being able to engage in a civil discussion. My hypocrisy meter just broke.
Oh, goody. A two-bit toady shows up to defend the honor of John.
Give me a break. Just look at how Davison behaves. This all started because he emailed me to demand that I give him a forum. Not to ask a question; not to request a discussion; but to demand, under threat of retribution, that he be given a forum to defend his stupid little theory.
And when I did, what’s the very first thing he did? Announce that he had no intention of defending or discussing it, and start right in on more of the usual shouting, name-calling, and general bullshit that he’s known for.
And he’s continued to spam me on a daily basis, sending me random carbon copies of email that he sent to PZ Myers or Richard Dawkins, along with a variety of personal insults.