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And if you click on the article about evolution that is being claimed as "dismissive", it does not seem dismissive. It posed a challenge from the 80's that appa

by kuhhk 8y ago

And if you click on the article about evolution that is being claimed as "dismissive", it does not seem dismissive. It posed a challenge from the 80's that apparently was popular at the time. This seems like a hit piece that people are upvoting because of the title.

stcredzero 8y ago
I agree. I think the point of this headline is the headline. They know that most people will see Peter Thiel and something about dismissing evolution, and most people won't read the article. (At least one other commenter has confessed to falling into this pattern.) I don't agree, but if contrarianism is done civilly and in good faith, it should be allowed. What we don't want is a general regime of squashing all discourse. Here is a link to part 1 of the article. I skimmed it. This guy could be an anti-evolution bigot if you dig deeply enough, but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. (Maybe I should thank him for bringing issues to my attention that are new to me.) He also has a good enough grasp of science, I can't dismiss him outright, other than that I'm convinced evolution by natural selection is correct. https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-crisis-revisited-part-one https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-c...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument, which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd, to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument Yes, that's in there, actually. which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd I only skimmed the article, so mea culpa. (There's value for the side of truth if the best effort of the opposition so easily, functionally falls into a usual debunked trope.) However, I don't think people like that are all dishonest. I think a lot of them have some kind of mental block. I'm reminded of when I've taught coding and when I've taught music. Some people can't distinguish fine degrees of pitch difference, and those are the same people who can't distinguish little differences in rhythmic placement. (Some scientists have actually studied these "amusical" people.) Some people simply can't grasp the values of variables changing over iterations. Others may have an axe to grind. to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it. That sounds interesting.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
No, it’s just a long-winded rehashing of the tired “micro vs macro evolution” argument. And the author quite explicitly stand by their 30-year old thesis. Quote: orthodox evolutionary theory is unable to explain the origins of various taxa-defining innovations. This was my position in Evolution. It remains my position today
dragonwriter 8y ago
> And if you click on the article about evolution that is being claimed as "dismissive", it does not seem dismissive. It posed a challenge from the 80's that apparently was popular at the time. The absence of transitional fossils argument it makes is a standard—and long rebutted—anti-evolution argument that's older than the 1980s (it was actually noted as a problem by Darwin, and dishonest anti-evolution folks like to pretend there has been no progress; honest creationists are a different story [0].) [0] https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/01/honest-creation.html https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/01/honest-creation.htm...
- DougN7 8y ago
  You sound like you know more about this than I do. Are there any theories (not even with evidence) about how sex evolved? I can’t find a way two unrelated species (that did not have a “mother and father” of some sort) came together to produce the first ever offspring with two progenitors. In otherwords some creature was conceived (using the term lossely) and born in a way vastly different from it’s parent. All the “plumbing” (organs) needed for that first combination, which would have been an evolutionary anchor up to that point, is something I can’t see my way around.
  - gomijacogeo 8y ago
    https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.324_1254 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.324_1254 In short, sexual reproduction is very old (> 1 billion years ago) and first appeared in an ancestor of all eukaryotic cells and long predates multicellular life. So, all of multicellular life evolved with the haploid/diploid molecular machinery already available and different branches of life have built vastly different strategies to use it. You'd be better served IMHO to start at DNA replication and build up rather than starting at sex organs and working backward.

by kuhhk 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

I agree. I think the point of this headline is the headline. They know that most people will see Peter Thiel and something about dismissing evolution, and most people won't read the article. (At least one other commenter has confessed to falling into this pattern.) I don't agree, but if contrarianism is done civilly and in good faith, it should be allowed. What we don't want is a general regime of squashing all discourse. Here is a link to part 1 of the article. I skimmed it. This guy could be an anti-evolution bigot if you dig deeply enough, but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. (Maybe I should thank him for bringing issues to my attention that are new to me.) He also has a good enough grasp of science, I can't dismiss him outright, other than that I'm convinced evolution by natural selection is correct. https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-crisis-revisited-part-one https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-c...

dragonwriter 8y ago
> but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument, which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd, to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument Yes, that's in there, actually. which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd I only skimmed the article, so mea culpa. (There's value for the side of truth if the best effort of the opposition so easily, functionally falls into a usual debunked trope.) However, I don't think people like that are all dishonest. I think a lot of them have some kind of mental block. I'm reminded of when I've taught coding and when I've taught music. Some people can't distinguish fine degrees of pitch difference, and those are the same people who can't distinguish little differences in rhythmic placement. (Some scientists have actually studied these "amusical" people.) Some people simply can't grasp the values of variables changing over iterations. Others may have an axe to grind. to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it. That sounds interesting.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago

No, it’s just a long-winded rehashing of the tired “micro vs macro evolution” argument. And the author quite explicitly stand by their 30-year old thesis. Quote: orthodox evolutionary theory is unable to explain the origins of various taxa-defining innovations. This was my position in Evolution. It remains my position today

dragonwriter 8y ago

> And if you click on the article about evolution that is being claimed as "dismissive", it does not seem dismissive. It posed a challenge from the 80's that apparently was popular at the time. The absence of transitional fossils argument it makes is a standard—and long rebutted—anti-evolution argument that's older than the 1980s (it was actually noted as a problem by Darwin, and dishonest anti-evolution folks like to pretend there has been no progress; honest creationists are a different story [0].) [0] https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/01/honest-creation.html https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/01/honest-creation.htm...

DougN7 8y ago
You sound like you know more about this than I do. Are there any theories (not even with evidence) about how sex evolved? I can’t find a way two unrelated species (that did not have a “mother and father” of some sort) came together to produce the first ever offspring with two progenitors. In otherwords some creature was conceived (using the term lossely) and born in a way vastly different from it’s parent. All the “plumbing” (organs) needed for that first combination, which would have been an evolutionary anchor up to that point, is something I can’t see my way around.
- gomijacogeo 8y ago
  https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.324_1254 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.324_1254 In short, sexual reproduction is very old (> 1 billion years ago) and first appeared in an ancestor of all eukaryotic cells and long predates multicellular life. So, all of multicellular life evolved with the haploid/diploid molecular machinery already available and different branches of life have built vastly different strategies to use it. You'd be better served IMHO to start at DNA replication and build up rather than starting at sex organs and working backward.