July 9, 2017

Crunch Time for See Noevo on Evolution

See Noevo is a ubiquitous commenter here. Some of you will be so very frustrated that I have not banned him or curtailed his nonsense. You will probably know that I am not one for often doing that. As offensive as some positions might be, I do believe in the freedom of expressing them for the benefit of others, because they either hoist themselves by their own petard, or force myself and other commenters to adapt and change our positions accordingly. We shouldn't deny ugly views on account of them being distasteful, but on account of the arguments or evidence not showing those arguments to be warranted in being held. For someone like See Noevo, it is always the former.

Let us see the typical response and demand of See Noevo:

I’ll show you how flatly dumb you are. Show me your very favorite scientific paper on ear evolution (or any other particular body part/system). ONE paper on ONE specific topic. Please provide the url so everyone else can read along. Make it your very best shot, because you’ll only get one, dummy.

Anri responded and correctly and stated that you cannot pick a single brick in a scientific discipline that is a result of hundreds of years of cumulative data and research. In other words, See's question is just wrong.

Why only one? Science is not developed by single papers written by single science teams, but by years-long, painstaking testing and re0testing and re-testing of theories by multiple research teams. People who think that by finding fault with a single scientific paper they somehow invalidate the entire discipline of study are deeply confused as to how science works. I'm assuming that's what you're planning on doing, yes? Finding fault with the SINGLE THE ONLY CHANCE THE SINGLE THREADS BY WHICH EVOLUTION HANGS PAPER and thus somehow demonstrate the whole field is incorrect? That's silly. And I suspect you know that. (checks something) Hah, that's why this conversation sounded familiar. I just poked through my previous comments because I knew I had called out another theist on this same thing, and asked them to provide their best fisking of a scientific paper. I was half-right. I had done it before. But not with anothertheist. With you. So I'll ask you the same thing I asked you then, when you claimed to have asked some armor-piercing questions the scientists were just helpless to answer: Please explain to me why DNA-based paternity testing doesn't work, then. I'll find some citations explaining that they do, if you'd like. The last time, you scurried out of the thread without being able to demonstrate scientists' ignorance of DNA testing. Very much like the way you scurried out of an earlier thread when presented with the bacterial resistance-increasing experiments. I am predicting that the result will be the same here - that you will bluster a bit, and then evaporate from yet another thread with your tail lodged firmly between your hind legs. Prove me wrong. If you can.

And the irony of all of this is that See has been banned from a number of other similar sites (on Patheos, too?) for his trollish behaviour. I have put up with him in the interests of freedom of expression, but will not put up with repeated behaviour that shows no reaction to previous experiences or any signs of learning from prior mistakes. The above exchange is an example of this. But the irony, as hinted, is that See has decried being banned before, and yet he bans anyone from speaking to him who corners him. The cognitive dissonance in him is so strong that he cannot deal with people who show he might be wrong, so he buries his head in the sand, or wears his "no fly list" headphones - "La la la, I'm not listening!" It is quite amusing to watch, but when he gets "pwned" in an argument, he devolves to the following, which he soon did here with Anri:

Fine. Then find your very favorite scientific paper on ear evolution (or any other particular body part/system) THAT RESULTED FROM years-long, painstaking testing and re0testing and re-testing of theories by multiple research teams. Provide the current capper of the consensus. (By definition, there is only ONE capper.) Hit me with it. …………………. “So I'll ask you the same thing I asked you then, when you claimed to have asked some armor-piercing questions the scientists were just helpless to answer: Please explain to me why DNA-based paternity testing doesn't work, then.” You mean why they’re not 100% conclusive? Maybe because scientists don’t understand DNA as well as they’d like to.

More on this response later. Anri responded:

(By definition, there is only ONE capper.) Here we go with this again. A brick wall isn't made up of one brick. I listed a topic you'd have to utterly dismantle to get anywhere close to falsifying evolutionary theory: tracking familial relationships through DNA. To disprove this, you'd have to either wipe out a very large number of scientific papers, all done at different times, by different labs and different scientists, or show that the fundamental concept is flawed. If you can show why the tracking of familial relationships through DNA is flawed, get on with it. If you can't, admit it. Oh, and you never did get around to answering the basic question: what did you ask when you did this before? You claimed to have dismantled scientific papers before, and when pressed, suddenly couldn't remember what the paper was, or what you asked, or anything about the incident at all. Which makes you sound like not only a liar, but an incompetent one. You mean why they’re not 100% conclusive? If you can't show me where someone claims they should be, or should be expected to be 100% conclusive, then you know this is a straw man. Which means bringing it up it just dishonest. More Lying for Jesus. Please stop doing that. In fact, the fact that they are not 100% conclusive is an important part of their understanding of the process, and the results - which is why the folks giving the results can not only tell you that they are not 100% conclusive, but how conclusive they are, and why.

And, again from Anri:

The problem was that when I went to the evolution wall and investigated any one brick, brick after brick, I found they weren’t solid things at all. Sorry, I just don't believe you. I think you're lying. Again. I simply don't believe you can't produce a single example of all of these super-duper ways you've wiped the floor with the work of these various career scientists. If you had managed something - anything - vaguely like that, you'd just simply show us. You can't show us anything of the sort, so I have to assume you're just still Lying for Jesus. Just like you did when you quote-mined me. Just like you did when you straw-manned relational DNA testing. It's a pattern with you, and it's not hard to follow. But, ok, you want an article to debunk, here's one example: https://www.nature.com/natu... Give it a shot. Should be easy for you.

And the irony meter explodes in See's "banning" of Anri:

Holy shi - ite, what a one trick pony you are! The Lenski crap! AGAIN!? Well, you’re not going to try it again with me. You tried to shoot that ONE silver bullet before, months ago. (As I recall, you may have even tried it twice.) And it was a dud. You’re done. Or at least WE are done.

Why do I bother writing this post? Well, to once and for all clear up four things, because he will no doubt repeat this errant behaviour as he has done time and time again:

There is no single brick that proves evolution: it is a cumulative case. If one aspect is found problematic, it does not invalidate the masses of other evidence, and usually needs merely tweaking as we better understand our world.
Don't ban people when they have the upper hand, and seemingly because they have the upper hand. That is weak and disingenuous and shows intellectual cowardice.
Go on, do your best on Lenski's experiments as a starter. But, before you trot out the usual crap, do not invoke micro- vs macro-evolution, and the idea that Lenski's experiments do show evolution, but only on a small time scale, but that this cannot explain larger transitions from species to species.
Let me try his approach:I’ll show you how flatly dumb you are. Show me your very favorite Goddy paper on God's existence. ONE paper on ONE specific topic. Please provide the url so everyone else can read along. Make it your very best shot, because you’ll only get one, dummy.

On the final point, he seems blissfully unaware of his rather precarious approach as it can just as easily be used against him On the third point there, it is worth reminding you and him of this image:

And also some of the other posts I have done that were written partly in response to his lack of understanding about evolution:

Just for starters.