Remedial education for colewd

In the thread FMM throws Jesus under the bus, I had the following exchange with colewd:

colewd:

Until you have an eye there is nothing to select for. You have 300k of nucleotides drifting toward a meaningless group of sequences. Until you find a group of sequences that can provide reproductive advantage (sight) it is drift drift drift.

keiths:

This is just a version of the “what good is half an eye” PRATT.

Seriously, Bill, how can you possibly have missed everything that’s been written on this subject, from Darwin onward?

colewd:

No, I have read Dawkin’s ” just so” stories in the blind watchmaker and other books such as half a wing is better then none. I am surprised a man as sophisticated as you would fall for this bullshit. We do lack a hair bit of evidence that a one winged bird would even survive in the wild. If you want to argue that half an eye or a single wing or part of a wing aids in reproductive advantage, knock yourself out.

I am also surprised that a true skeptic as yourself would not have looked into this more carefully.

keiths:

Guffaw. Ever heard of bilateral symmetry, Bill? Do you really think birds needed to evolve one wing first, and then the other?

Man oh man are you clueless about biology.

Having dispensed with the one-winged bird objection, let’s see if we can get Bill beyond the “What good is half a wing?” canard.

To get the discussion started, I’ve linked to a relevant video from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute above.

180 thoughts on “Remedial education for colewd

  1. The worldly colewd is just amazed at how gullible scientists can be:

    I am just surprised at the bullshit stories people believe that fail the sniff test when any detail is examined.

    I should be humble because I once believed all this before the devil in the detail showed its ugly head

  2. Mung:

    Speaking of birds, of what use is a single ovary?

    A single ovary is much more useful than a troll.

  3. Rotsa ruck getting colewd to understand some actual evolutionary theory. You’d have a better chance teaching a potted plant.

  4. Adapa:

    Rotsa ruck getting colewd to understand some actual evolutionary theory. You’d have a better chance teaching a potted plant.

    I’m hoping the animations will hold his attention for at least a few seconds.

  5. Another useless thread by keiths. Why isn’t he explaining why the work of Andreas Wagner is death to ID? Why not cut to the chase?

  6. Mung,

    Another useless thread by keiths. Why isn’t he explaining why the work of Andreas Wagner is death to ID? Why not cut to the chase?

    We could have that discussion right now if you were brave enough to provide your summary.

    You’re not, so we’re going to try to educate colewd instead.

    Go on. Skedaddle.

  7. Flight has evolved many times. Why does keiths think a youtube video about birds suffices to answer all questions about the evolution of flight?

  8. Mung,

    Why does keiths think a youtube video about birds suffices to answer all questions about the evolution of flight?

    Why does Trolling Troll think that keiths has made any such claim?

  9. Take note of the flapping done by the girl called TrigglyPuff in this video.

    Her fat arms will not confer enough lift to help her run up a tree to escape predators. There has to be some amount of construction toward aerodynamic lift relative to weight lifted.

    There has to be some minimal threshold before a partially formed wing provides benefit. I can’t imagine TrigglyPuff could evolve flight, not to mention, in sexually reproducing species, the features of a proto wing have to be attractive, and the case of most human males, TrigglyPuff’s half-wings and the obesity that generated her flappers won’t attract as many mates as say Tomi Lahren.

  10. According to the video, the therapod ancestors of birds had feathers, just like birds!

    But they could not fly!

    Apparently, feathers are not required for flight. And yes, we know this to be a fact.

    Perhaps the feathers evolved for some other reason. Cuteness, maybe.

  11. I have an idea. Let’s study animals that can fly. Perhaps studying how they learn to fly will reveal how they came to be able to fly in the first place.

    Like how humans evolved the ability to play chess. If we can just learn how humans learn how to play chess, then it will be revealed to us how humans evolved the ability to play chess.

    Natural selection. Obviously.

  12. St. George Jackson Mivart PhD M.D. FRS (30 November 1827 – 1 April 1900) was an English biologist. He is famous for starting as an ardent believer in natural selection who later became one of its fiercest critics. Mivart attempted to reconcile Darwin’s theory of evolution with the beliefs of the Catholic Church, and finished by being condemned by both parties.

    His objections to Darwin’s theory were obviously religiously motivated, and therefore false.

  13. Actually the video was very interesting. Wings evolving as a climbing aid makes a lot more sense than what you might be inclined to imagine as a proto-bird running along the ground trying to achieve lift.

  14. Rumraket:

    Let’s not mock poor Bill, he claims to have a degree from UC Berkeley.

    In what? Golf management?

  15. Rumraket:
    Actually the video was very interesting.

    Indeed. Just shows what lateral thinking, observation and simple experiment can achieve.

    Wings evolving as a climbing aid makes a lot more sense than what you might be inclined to imagine as a proto-bird running along the ground trying to achieve lift.

    John Harshman might like to comment on what the environment was like when feathered theropods were around. In forest environments, one tends to think of gliding as advantagous but running and flapping not so useful where there is no open ground. But wing-assisted climbing looks so useful in a forest environment – flap-climb up, glide down.

  16. Mung: His objections to Darwin’s theory were obviously religiously motivated, and therefore false.

    Too bad for you he was born too early to post to TSZ

  17. Mung: Like how humans evolved the ability to play chess. If we can just learn how humans learn how to play chess, then it will be revealed to us how humans evolved the ability to play chess.

    The ability to stragetically think was probably pretty useful for early humans , it fact it still is

  18. Actually the video was very interesting

    Agreed, but a flapping limb to provide lift needs some amount of sophistication to provide benefit. Look at TrigglyPuff flapping. That confers no benefit to climb a tree to safety.

  19. stcordova: Agreed, but a flapping limb to provide lift needs some amount of sophistication to provide benefit. Look at TrigglyPuff flapping. That confers no benefit to climb a tree to safety.

    I’m sure we’ll have a hard time finding pictures of obese and loud conservatives. Oh wait…

  20. “The emu and ostrich can’t fly because their ancestors became fat and lazy when the dinosaurs died”

    But a new study suggests they could fly and gradually stopped making the effort.”

    Well…lets put them on Atkins diet and under selective pressure, motivate them, whatever…and make them fly again…

    After all, according to world-renowned population geneticist Joe Felsestein, emu and ostrich are evolving and transitioning into other species anyways, along with 10 billion other species on earth.

    All evolutionists need to do is make them fly again…and falsify both evolution and ID at the same time…

    Isn’t experimental science great in comparison to evolutionary speculations?

    One experiment and it is all over! All speculations end, IDiests look for other jobs or hobbies…a new world of materialism rules… 😉

    Anybody needs a grant for it? I could possibly help 😉

  21. Mung:
    Another useless thread by keiths.

    If it’s useless then there’s no reason for you to post your usual two dozen trolling bullshit replies now is there? Yet here you are.

  22. stcordova: Agreed, but a flapping limb to provide lift needs some amount of sophistication to provide benefit.Look at TrigglyPuff flapping.That confers no benefit to climb a tree to safety.

    Flapping limbs in the water helped land walking mammal evolve fins and eventually turned into a whale…penguins got unlucky though…;-)

    Story like that has gotta be true…lol

  23. keiths,

    I’m hoping the animations will hold his attention for at least a few seconds.

    When are you going to post a video on the single winged birds capability? Or, the man with half an eye?

    I love these evolutionist canards. You demonstrate how a birds wings can help it climb a pole so therefor a single wing bird has a selective advantage. Keith’s I do admire your willingness to try to argue any silly position.

  24. keiths,

    You’re not, so we’re going to try to educate colewd instead.

    The word is not educate it’s indoctrinate in Darwinian dogma.

  25. colewd: When are you going to post a video on the single winged birds capability? Or, the man with half an eye?

    Half-brained man video is no longer needed though…

    The quantum leap from no brain to half brain is still an evolutionary mystery… lol

  26. Has keiths failed us again? As near as I can tell Mivart never asked what good is half a wing. Can anyone cite a source please?

  27. Mung:
    Half a wing could be useful for beating off competitors for food or mates.

    Sexual selection? “Look at the size of that wing!”

    Or maybe for looking at things that are far away when you want to shield your eyes from the sun?

    Or saluting?

    Wiping the sweat from your brow?

    Could be multipurpose.

  28. Mung,

    I think the biggest challenge for Lucky Accidents is to come up with some feature that you COULDN’T make up some just so story about.

    That is next to impossible.

  29. Flight both in birds and insects appears more easily lost than acquired.

    Secondly, regarding Rumraket’s diagrams in response to the problem of TrigglyPuff flying — African Americans used to be mostly Republicans around the time of Martin Luther King. After the civil rights act in the 1960’s (which was promoted by Republicans and resisted by the Democrats, the party that orginated Ku Klux Klan), African Americans eventually became 80-90% left wing. That change was also correlated with increase in obesity. So the most transformed right to left-wing demographic group is now the most obese!

    FOUR out of five black women are seriously overweight. One out of four middle-aged black women has diabetes. With $174 billion a year spent on diabetes-related illness in America and obesity quickly overtaking smoking as a cause of cancer deaths, it is past time to try something new.
    ….
    And it’s not only aesthetics that make black fat different. It’s politics too. To get a quick introduction to the politics of black fat, I recommend Andrea Elizabeth Shaw’s provocative book “The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies.” Ms. Shaw argues that the fat black woman’s body “functions as a site of resistance to both gendered and racialized oppression.” By contextualizing fatness within the African diaspora, she invites us to notice that the fat black woman can be a rounded opposite of the fit black slave, that the fatness of black women has often functioned as both explicit political statement and active political resistance.

    WE have to change. Black women especially. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks have 51 percent higher obesity rates than whites do. We’ve got to do better. I’ve weighed more than 200 pounds. Now I weigh less. It will always be a battle.

    My goal is to be the last fat black woman in my family. For me that has meant swirling exercise into my family culture, of my own free will and volition. I have my own personal program: walk eight miles a week, sleep eight hours a night and drink eight glasses of water a day.

    I call on every black woman for whom it is appropriate to commit to getting under 200 pounds or to losing the 10 percent of our body weight that often results in a 50 percent reduction in diabetes risk. Sleeping better may be key, as recent research suggests that lack of sleep is a little-acknowledged culprit in obesity. But it is not just sleep, exercise and healthy foods we need to solve this problem — we also need wisdom.

    Further the transformation of the African Amercian demographic from Republican to Democrat is well correlated with the substantial increase in single mother hood and need for public assistance.

    Let left-wingery do for America what it did for African Americans when they changed their party affiliation. Sheesh!

  30. phoodoo: I think the biggest challenge for Lucky Accidents is to come up with some feature that you COULDN’T make up some just so story about.

    That’s how evolutionary thinking works. Make up story. Make up a second bizarre story. Then declare your first story to be more plausible.

  31. Mung,

    That’s how evolutionary thinking works. Make up story. Make up a second bizarre story. Then declare your first story to be more plausible.

    Or, make up a story, devise an experiment that vaguely resembles your story, declare your story tested 🙂

  32. colewd:
    Mung,

    Or, make up a story, devise an experiment that vaguely resembles your story, declare your story tested

    What a waste of time when the alternative is to just declare your story as the default position.

  33. newton: What a waste of time when the alternative is to just declare your story as the default position.

    As usual, they can’t think of hurling a worse accusation than what is their only means of “explanation”–making shit up.

    Glen Davidson

  34. phoodoo: I think the biggest challenge for Lucky Accidents is to come up with some feature that you COULDN’T make up some just so story about.

    That is next to impossible.

    As opposed to magic man, there’s many things magic man can’t explain. Oh wait…

  35. stcordova: Secondly, regarding Rumraket’s diagrams in response to the problem of TrigglyPuff flying

    I have to wonder about your obesity and race obsession at this stage tbh. It doesn’t have anything to do with the thread topic, so can you make another thread and go to that and masturbate?

  36. colewd: When are you going to post a video on the single winged birds capability? Or, the man with half an eye?

    Those videos will be posted when phoodoo, Mung and you stop posting stupid commentary.

    We get it, you have nothing meaningful to say other than to signal your disapproval and denial. There are no coherent or valid arguments. It’s all just rhetoric, trolling and brainless assertions.

    Bla bla indoctrination bla bla lucky accidents bla bla it just happened, s’all.
    As usual this is your primary output. Stupidity and trolling.

    I love these evolutionist canards. You demonstrate how a birds wings can help it climb a pole so therefor a single wing bird has a selective advantage.

    Nobody has claimed single-wing birds evolved for fucks sake. LOL

  37. Adapa: If it’s useless then there’s no reason for you to post your usual two dozen trolling bullshit replies now is there?Yet here you are.

    They don’t have anything to say. The contents of the video makes them nervous so they have to act out in some way. It’s like watching little children in the supermarket being told they can’t have all the toys. That is basically what we’re seeing in this thread from our resident ID-proponents. Grown men lying down on the floor, screaming and flailing. It’s honestly pathetic.

    J-mac, Bill, Phoodoo, Mung and Sal <- Kids, these people are your brain on supernaturalist religion and ID-creationism. Not much needs to be said. Just watch them post.

  38. stcordova: African Americans used to be mostly Republicans around the time of Martin Luther King.

    False ,from at least 1936 on the Republican Party never had a majority of black voters, from 1948 till today the Democratic Party has been the majority party In every election since 1936 black voters have supported the Democratic candidate for President.

    After the civil rights act in the 1960’s (which was promoted by Republicans and resisted by the Democrats,

    Since there was a Democratic President I wonder which Democrats those were?
    The House
    Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
    Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
    Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
    Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)
    The Senate version:

    Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
    Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) (John Tower of Texas)
    Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
    Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)

    It seems more southern democrats supported the bill than southern republicans. I wonder which party ran on a strategy in 1968 to turn those dissenting Southern Democrats into Republicans? And has purged itself of those Northern Republicans?

    the party that orginated Ku Klux Klan)

    The members of the party

    African Americans eventually became 80-90% left wing.

    Actually In 2012 only 28% considered blacks themselves as liberals.

    That change was also correlated with increase in obesity. So the most transformed right to left-wing demographic group is now the most obese!

    Since obesity is higher among the older age groups and that is who support the Republicans it seems being right wing is results in the most obesity , if one wanted to make a stupid correlation argument.

  39. The entire “what use is half a wing” argument is a straw-man. That’s why we’re mocking it.

    Evidence that Mivart ever wrote such a thing? keiths? Anyone?

  40. Mung: The entire “what good is half a wing argument” is a straw-man. That’s why we’re mocking it.

    You mock every argument

  41. Rumraket,

    We get it, you have nothing meaningful to say other than to signal your disapproval and denial. There are no coherent or valid arguments. It’s all just rhetoric, trolling and brainless assertions.

    I thought logical fallacy was the protocol on a post by Keith’s. 🙂

  42. Rumraket,

    J-mac, Bill, Phoodoo, Mung and Sal <- Kids, these people are your brain on supernaturalist religion and ID-creationism. Not much needs to be said. Just watch them post.

    You appear to be following LF Keith’s protocol 🙂

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