Please remember that I took these notes as the video was playing. I’ve copied them here unedited – spolling mistooks, abysmal punctuation and grammar unaltered.

First few minutes, Behe and Meyer! This should be awful

Overly dramatic music

Are we dealing with Evolution or Abiogenesis?

Bill Dempskey too!!!

Up to 10 mins, OK, not too bad. Standard documentary fayre – narrator with deep gravelly voice, a bunch of names all with impressive sounding titles Dr, Prof etc.

10:00 Aaargh! Darwinism! You lose. It’s called Evolution numbnuts.

And almost straight into micro-eveolution being ok, but macro not being possible.

11:20 Funny how basically every other evolutionary biologist does the same thing but comes up with a very different answer.

12:00 again with Darwinism. Also, seems to think that Evolution hasn’t progressed as a theory in the 150years since publication of Origin.

12:15 OK, onto Behe and his discredited idea of irreducible complexity it seems.

12:30 Nope, you weren’t taught Darwinian biology, you were taught evolution that was started by the ideas of Darwin. There is a difference.

14:00 And none of that knowledge has dented Evolutionary theory at all, in fact it’s completely supported it.

16:00 Hahahaha Bacterial Flagellum. FAIL!

18:00 Not sure when this film was made, but this apparent failure to explain the flagellum is out of date. It has been explained quite successfully.

19:00 The Mouse trap analogy. FAIL. Every single one of those parts works as something by themselves. Just because they don’t necessarily work as a mouse trap individually means nothing.

20:20 Not quite. You need to explain what function they do do individually or in smaller groups. Or at least show they aren’t detremental to the organism.

20:45 Please tell me they aren’t going to mis-quote Darwin about the eye. Please!

22:00 OK, no eye, thankfully.

23:00 A tail that didn’t function as a flagellum would be selected against? What if that tail did do something useful that wasn’t a flagellum? What then?

23:50 And Behe was an idiot.

24:10 And is was religiously motivated.

25:40 Assembly instructions? What, bacteria shop at IKEA too?

28:20 It’s no use, it’s Turtles all the way down. Pity, I was almost starting to … nah.

29:30 Game over man! Game over.

29:35 Oh, wait…

30:50 So, because Darwin couldn’t explain how life began, that means that his theory – which works on the assumption that life has already begun by some other mechanism – is wrong? Fail.

31:50 So, Darwin speculated, nothing more. He never proposed a theory for the origin of life.

32:30 Let’s be clear, using evolutionary principles, is not saying that evolution had any hand in it.

34:30 OK, on to proteins, this is all way beyond my pay grade so I’ll probably mostly shut up for a while now.

37:00 Oh hang on, I see where this is going.

37:51 He said it, he said Computer Code! As a programmer he’s now encroaching on my territory.

40:39 Again, not sure how old this film is, but recent studies have shown that certain proteins can indeed spontaneously assemble.

41:30 And we’re back to saying that DNA is computer code.

42:50 Oooh, name dropper. You worked at NASA huh.

44:20 Chemical evolution theory – proved or disproved has not bearing on the veracity of biological evolution.

44:50 You’re not serious are you? If you have thousands of people doing it constantly for billions of years … well, what do you think will happen?

45:40 Wow, wasn’t expecting that. So, you just basically said that biological evolution was irrelevant for causing the start of life. So why have you just spent so much time going on about how we can’t explain the start of life? I’m a bit lost here.

46:20 Oh please, please, don’t lets have an apparently respected scientist just say ‘GODDIDIT’.

46:30 Bugger, he did. Oh well, you just lost all your science privileges. Hand in your lab coat at the door on your way out.

48:00 All very pretty for sure, but I’m hoping that you’re going to actually give a SCIENTIFIC explanation for it all that isn’t GODDIDIT. Or are you hoping we won’t actually notice that lack?

48:50 I love how this bit is suddenly accompanied by uplifting music. YAY, go GOGDIDIT, I love you now because this video has made me feel so much happier.

51:10 Sure, it’s ‘possible’, but it’s not likely. It doesn’t explain anything, it just poses more – and usually unanswerable – questions.

51:20 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is PRECISELY what most of the ’scientists’ presented in this film have done. FAIL

52:10 Because science is about explaining the universe around us, and it must be repeatable and testable. A guiding intelligence doesn’t fit, not when it could change it’s mind and make everything work in a different way when ever it felt like it.

52:29 Nope, because we KNOW how they were made.

54:10 And humans are INCREDIBLY bad at judging how probably an event actually is.

55:15 Peridolia, so, your God really does have nothing better to do that make shapes in grilled cheese sandwhiches huh?

55:55 Nope, because we frequently observe PEOPLE DRAWING IN THE SAND. If we had never observed that we mmight come to all sorts of conclusions. Most of which would be wildly wrong. It’s interesting that you’re not claiming the very regular almost symmetrical ripples left in the sand by waves – which do look at least as ‘designed’ as the writing were created by an intelligence. Is it because you also know how they were formed?

57:00 Huh? SETI? WTF?

57:30 And just to be clear before they carry on, even if we never detect such a signal it does not disprove intelligent life beyond earth. Also, irrespective of the type of signals received, it says precicely ZERO about non intelligent life.

58:50 Oh WOW. In one breath you say we haven’t found any other life, then in the next you say that the life here on Earth is the BEST! Statistically irrelevant sample anyone?

1:00:00 GOD OF THE GAPS! So, presumably when scientists DO find the answer you’ll STFU?

1:01:21 There is no comprehensive case. They’ve still COMPREHENSIVELY failed to provide the actual evidence that both proves intelligence and disproves evolution.

1:02:00 And so far the evidence has pointed comprehensively away from intelligence.

1:02:30 Again with the uplifting music to add gravity to what these idiots are saying.

1:03:09 GOD OF THE GAPS again. Proves nothing.

1:03:45 If there was a supreme intelligence that wanted the world to be understood, then why did he apparently make it so difficult. If I want my young daughter to understand something I explain it in nice simple terms for her. I don’t give her a book on electronic theory and circuit design so she can understand how to use her MP3 player.

1:04:10 Pity we also find irrationality, pain, and suffering. All things that we would expect to find if the universe wasn’t guided by an intelligent agent.

1:05:21 And what do you think will happen in the 22nd century when all that is explained by naturalistic methods just as you are dismissing what happened in the 19th century?

1:06:54 OK, (C) 2002, so that explains why some of the claims are so out of date then.

Well, yes, that was almost completely awful. Very little actual substance to the arguments. I can sum  the whole thing up with … “We don’t yet understand how it happened so we’ll just go with GODDIDIT.” But my hopes weren’t high to be honest.

As usual, I’ll just take a minute to remind everyone I don’t claim to be a scientist of any kind. I’m just an interested bystander. I welcome reasoned and informed discussion. If I have made an egregious error then I am happy to be corrected – especially if you can provide evidence to back up your position that will allow me to learn my mistake.

In many ways AGCC is a very contentious issue, and in many ways it isn’t. There is a substantial, an often vocal, group of denialists who see a conspiracy at every turn, and try to use any perceived crack as a way to shatter the whole thing. There is also an equally vocal group of AGCC evangelists who are trying to get the word out to the world, and convince us to mend our ways. Both sides have a right to an opinion, although not everyone’s opinion is backed up by evidence nor does everyone’s opinion necessarily have a right to be heard on a public platform.

Then there is me. Up until about 9 months ago I was what most people would probably consider to be a denialist. Not that that is how I saw myself of course, but of the two extremes that is the camp that I probably closer fitted in with. I was openly sceptical of the climate change ‘promoters’, and their motives. I knew that the long term records (various proxies – tree rings, ice cores etc) showed that CO2 and temperatures had been both much higher and much lower than they are today so it seemed reasonable that whatever was the cause then could equally be the cause today. There was no need to invoke a human cause, and try to stir up the demons that changing our ways would invoke. I didn’t so much think that the scientists were part of a conspiracy, or that they were wrong per se, but that their models were too simplistic, and that there was some hidden ‘something’ that was being ignored or overlooked.

Then I decided to take a step back, and examine some of my core beliefs a little closer. My musings reaffirmed my atheistic beliefs, but in doing so I realised that my reasoning for being sceptical about AGCC were almost identical to that of Creationists/Intelligent Designers and their attitude towards Evolution. Given that I accept evolution because it works, it’s supported by the science, and is the prevailing opinion of the experts in the field it seemed slightly unacceptable to deny AGCC for exactly the same reasons.

That’s not to say that I’ve done a complete about turn. I haven’t. As I said above, I never thought of myself as a denialist to begin with. I accepted that the data showed that we have experienced a 0.7C increase in temperature since the start of the industrial revolution. I knew that CO2 had at least the potential to influence the temperature. I was just unsure that human activity was the sole cause of it all.

My current view is quite a bit more complex. I accept the prevailing scientific view that human activities seem to be the primary driver behind increased CO2 levels (and other atmospheric greenhouse gasses like methane), and that these increases seem to be the primary driver behind the observed temperature increase. I am still sceptical about certain aspects however. I’m not convinced that human activities are the sole cause of climate change. I have concerns that many of the pieces of remedial action that governments and ‘green’ groups are trying to push on us are nothing more than just fund raisers, or an attempt to gain attention. Whilst stumbling around the web I frequently come across websites promoting ‘green’ goods or initiatives. Almost without fail such goods only have a thin veneer of green, and if you dig even slightly below the surface they quickly lose their credentials and they just become another persons attempt to make money on the back of a global problem. I still believe that our understanding of the intricacies of our climate are still woefully inadequate. We still do not understand whether certain aspects are positive or negative feedback systems. We’re constantly gaining insights into how the whole system hangs together, and how best to integrate such information into the models that we use to predict what will happen.

One thing that strikes me as odd however is that there are certain aspects of the whole Climate Change/Green arena that are surely beyond argument, but are rarely mentioned. We are highly dependant on oil, and oil is a very finite resource. Once it runs out, it’s gone. At this point it’s unclear exactly how much is left (estimates change all the time, I remember in the mid 1980s there being talk of only 15-20 years left) but it will run out. We need to work hard to find alternatives to oil (and coal) that are at least as cost effective financially. At worst such alternatives are a win, at best they’re a win-win. As a minimum they will allow our society to continue to function approximately as it does today. If the currently accepted position of too much CO2 being a bad thing continues to be held as true then anything that reduces that additional load must be a good thing.

As always I must point out I am not a scientist. I do not work in any field even remotely related to any form of climate science. I am just an interested bystander, and aspiring sceptic. I am willing to be proved wrong, and if I have my facts wrong I only too happy to be shown sources that help me to understand where I have gone wrong.

GAH!

Come on people, what the hell are you thinking? No matter how you dress it up neither Creationism nor Intelligent Design is science. It poses no testable theory. It is not falsifiable. There has never been a paper written about it that has been subjected to peer review in any repultable science journal.

It’s NOT SCIENCE.

You can’t teach it in a SCIENCE classroom.

Just like you can’t teach Woodworking in an English classroom. Or Cooking in a Physical Education class.

Please, for the sake of our children, keep the science curriculum strictly scientific. Don’t let educational standards fall any further.

If you absolutely have to teach Creationism then there is already a classroom to do it. It’s the Relgious Studies class (which, by the way, I’m still pissed that no-one told me I could opt out of when I was at school, it could have saved me from a huge amount of tedium).

The two of the most common ones used against evolution are the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the Conservation of Angular Momentum.

Lets quickly have a poke and laugh at these shall we?

Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT)

At it’s most basic, the SLoT says that everything tends to go from order to disorder (that’s the layman’s way of saying entropy increases). The idea behind the argument being that because evolution seems to make things more complex that it must be working to decrease entropy.

OK, lets do a quick science experiment.

Grab a brand new pack of cards. Take them out the box, remove the cellophane wrapper, and take a quick peak at the deck. Chances are you’ll find it neatly stacked, all the same way up, and the cards sorted in order. Now, throw the cards on the floor, and swoosh them around a bit. Chances are that the cards are now strewn all over the place, some upside down, and definitely not in any form of suit or rank order. They are definitely disordered – i.e. the level of entropy has increased. Great!

Now, pick them all up, and put them into a pile. Now square the pile off. Hmm, what’s this, looks a lot more ordered now. Now sort that pile into two piles, one of face up and one of face down. Turn one pile over and put the two piles together. Oh dear, it’s getting more ordered. Now sort the deck back into suits arranged Ace through King…. Fek! Seems to me like you just broke the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

OK, maybe we’ll have a little bit more luck with…

Conservation of Angular Momentum (CoAM)

This law states deals with spinning things, and in layman’s terms means that the total amount of spin within a system must remain constant. The idea behind this argument is that when we look at the various heavenly bodies we find that some of them are spinning in different directions.

Quick note, yes, I know this has nothing to do with evolution, but Creotards and IDiots tend to think that things like the Big Bang are part of evolution, and it’s them I’m trying to debunk.

Now, back to the argument. CoAM says that as the gas cloud that formed our solar system coalesced it began to spin as it contracted. The amount of spin that cloud had must still be here today. As our Sun and the planets formed they took on a proportion of that spin relative to their sizes and distance to the centre of the system.

The problem (according to Creotards and IDiots) is that Neptune doesn’t spin the same way as all the other planets. How can than be?

Now, let’s do our quick science experiment. This one is easy. Stand up. Start turning around clockwise for a couple turns (try not to get dizzy and fall down, I’m not responsible for anything you do). Now, start turning in the other direction. Darn it, you just broke science again!

OK, an explanation might be in order.

Both SLoT and CoAM deal with closed systems. The problem is that most people forget what a closed system is. The room you did the two little experiments in isn’t a closed system. Neither is the building. Nor your country. Planet Earth? Nope. OK, our solar system maybe? Fat chance. Come on, the Milky Way Galaxy? Not even close. It’s the entire Universe of Space and Time. That is as close to a completely closed system as we know about.

Nothing in the SLoT says what happens to entropy locally. In one place entropy can quite happily decrease as long as somewhere else entropy increases by an equal or greater amount. Just within the confines of our solar system our sun in losing heat and thus increasing in entropy at a prodigious rate. We receive some of that heat energy her on Earth and use it do do work that leads to a localised decrease in entropy. However, overall everything balances out just as the science says it will.

CoAM works in a similar way. If some action occurs that causes one thing to spin faster, then something else must end up spinning slower (or the other way round), all in proportion to their relative masses, velocities, and distances. Interesting factoid… even though our Sun makes up the huge vast majority of the mass of our solar system (well over 95% IIRC), it doesn’t contain most of the Angular Momentum. That belongs to Jupiter by virtue of the fact it’s so big and far out. The reason Neptune is spinning wrong is (probably) because something pretty big hit it pretty hard and stole a huge amount of its angular momentum, and whatever hit it gained a huge amount of angular momentum.

In the little experiment, when you started spinning in one direction you ever so slightly changed the angular momentum of the planet – the amount being in proportion to your relative masses. When you span the other way you reversed that exchange. If you were to place a mass equal to that of the planet Earth on one of its poles, and start it rotating in the opposite direction at the same speed then the Earth would in fact stop spinning as viewed by someone sitting on the Sun for example because all of its angular momentum will have been transferred to this spinning mass.

Hopefully that’s cleared things up a bit.

As ever, my usual caveat when I talk all science. I’m not a scientist, just an interested layman. I know that I have heavily simplified the two principles I’ve discussed, but I still believe that the basic principles remain sound. If I have made any blunderingly stupid mistakes then I welcome criticism from suitably informed readers. It helps is you can explain where I went wrong in layman terms if at all possible. Thankyou.

The series is presented by Mark Evans (who I last saw building kit cars, planes, and helicopters) who is a trained vet. It also features biologist Richard Dawkins explaining some of the evolutionary background.

If you are in any way interested in animal anatomy, evolution, and some amazing creatures then I’d definitely recommend you look this series up. All 4 episodes are still available on 4OD to UK residents. I’m sure that they can also be found on all popular video sharing websites.

One word of warning though, if you are squeamish and can’t stand the sight of blood, then it may not be for you.

1.      Which evolved first, male or female?

Neither obviously. They evolved at the same time.

2.     How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?

Stupid question, see 1.

3.     List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.

Err, what? Radioactive dating, and all other methods used to date old and very old stuff are very accurate – if they’re used properly by someone trained in their use. It’s when that simple guideline isn’t followed that the bizarre results Creationists like to crow on about occur.

4.     Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?

Because evolution doesn’t work like that. If this sort of thing occurred it would actually disprove evolution.

5.     Which came first:
…the eye,
…the eyelid,
…the eyebrow,
…the eye sockets,
…the eye muscles,
…the eye lashes,
…the tear ducts,
…the brain’s interpretation of light?

Which eye? There are many different forms of eye on different creatures. The mammalian eye is very different from the cephalopod eye, which is very different from the eyes of insects.

It also doesn’t take long to realise that there are many perfectly functioning eyes on creatures that don’t have all those parts. How many insects have eyelids, eyebrows, eye lashes or tear ducts?

Lastly, it doesn’t take a lot of research to find a proposed route for evolving a mammalian type eye. Go read a biology website. Or even Wikipedia.

6.     How many millions of years between each in question 5?

Well, given that some creatures have eyes that don’t have all those parts, and eyes have existed in one form or another for hundreds of millions of years, then I’d have to say, at least hundreds of millions of years.

7.     If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?

That’s one of the definitions of a species boundary, the inability to interbreed.

8.     List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!

Easy, a quick google for the evolution of the elephants trunk leads to this article. Yet again it’s amazing what 5 minutes research and Google can do.

As for the millions of dollars in rewards, give some proof that that exists, and that you will judge it fairly, and I’ll be right over with a big empty suitcase.

9.     Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?

Erm, no, they aren’t. Transitional fossils abound. Is it really asking too much that you take just 5 minutes to Google these things before asking such an inane question?

10.     Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)

Because a coin cannot be created by a process of mutation and natural selection. Human life was.

11.     Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?

Who says it isn’t? The fact that a tree dies tomorrow and doesn’t turn into coal by next week shows nothing. These things took millions of years. OK, if you think the earth is roughly 6,000-10,000 years old it’s a problem, but it’s just a tad older than that.

12.     List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.

Why 50? Why do you think there are any? What would that prove if there was, or wasn’t?

13.     Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?

Because the reward is almost certainly bogus. Plus, what does that have to do with proving evolution?

14.     If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?

Who says it is? There are many who would claim that there is one species in particular that is vastly over populated (have a guess which one that is?).

15.     Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?

Why would it? Evolution throws up creatures that are suited to the environment they find themselves in. Given that each continent has a different environment, the evolutionary pressures are also different and so will generate differing solutions.

There, that wasn’t so hard was it?

Link to US News

Yet another study demonstrating evidence for evolutionary changes in time-scales observable in human lifetimes.

However I do have to slightly question the idea that it’s a surprise that evolution can occur in a time span as low as 10 years. Evolution happens with each and every generation. The effects might not be noticable for several generations (30 in this case), but each generation is slightly different from the last. Then, when you have a lineage, you can look back and show a smooth transition from the original form, to the current one.

Anyhow, some may hope that this will finally shut up all those creationists who claim evolution hasn’t been observed. However just reading the comments shows that they just try and define this as not being evolution – even to the extent of admitting it is adaptation and natural selection – but still not evolution!

Sometimes I despair at the mental capabilities of some of my fellow humans.

What a surprise, the ‘Discovery Institute’ being dishonest, who would have thought it?

But I also don’t think it is quite that simple.

An oft quoted point of the theistic is that

Atheism is a religion, the Supreme Court said so.

There are of course a couple of problems with that:

1. Not all of us are Americans (I know, it’s a surprise to a certain section of the population of this planet), and so the dictates of your judicial system are of little relevance to us.
2. You committing the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority.
3. If you are a theistic American, do you hold all court decisions to the same level of authority? Do you now accept that Intelligent Design is indeed religious in nature?

To me, the answer to the question isn’t a simple yes or no. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Exactly what is the question being asked? What point is trying to be made? What information are you actually after?

Lets look at the definition of Religion. The Oxford English Dictionary (the authoritative source for British English) defines Religion thus:

1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship. 3 a pursuit or interest followed with devotion.

So, using definitions 1 or 2, defining Atheism as religion can be likened to defining bald as a hair colour, and not collecting stamps as a hobby. I.e. it isn’t. However, I can concede that using the third definition an argument could be made that would classify Atheism as at least maybe religious in nature. It’s not an argument that I would agree with, but I can accept the argument can be made.

There is also another way of looking at Religion that I would argue Atheism does fall into, and in fact is often useful. If you define Religion as:

Any worldview that deals with a God or Gods

Atheism is, by definition, dealing with a worldview about Gods. As such, it falls within this definition. I also think that’s it’s definition that the US Supreme Court decisions are pointing at (but I am neither American, nor a lawyer, so what do I know?). It’s the definition that, again for our American cousins, allows Atheists to be Atheist with the same freedom under the First Amendment as Christians to be Christian etc.

So, ask me if I’m religious, and I’ll tell you “No, I’m not”.

Ask me what religion I am, and I’ll tell you “I’m Atheist”.

First of, I’d just like to say that to evolutionary biologists there is no difference between the two. Evolution is evolution, the amount of it is irrelevant, it’s the fact of it that counts.

Secondly, I’m not about to come up with some magical evolutionary trick that shows that micro changes will lead to macro changes in an animal. I’m not a biologist, I wouldn’t really know where to begin. But what I can do is show how many small changes can easily make a big difference, even though each change is almost irrelevant.

Imagine you’re utterly destitute, you have not a penny to your name. You are without doubt poor. Now, one day along comes a stranger and gives you a dollar. Now, by any western standards, you’re still undoubtedly poor. Next day, the stranger comes by again, and gives you another dollar. You now have $2, you’re definitely better off than you were two days ago, but poor is still what you are. This stranger keeps coming by, day after day, dollar after dollar. After nearly 3 years, he’s given you around $1000! If we stretch this out a bit, and ignore normal human life-spans after nearly 2800 years you have $1,000,000! By most peoples standards you could be considered a rich man. But when did that happen exactly? If you’re rich at $1,000,000, aren’t you to all intents and purposes rich at $999,999?

The point I’m trying to get across is that each change made little difference to your wealth. Each day you weren’t really any better off than you were the day before. It’s only in the context of thousands of years that you could considered to have become wealthy.

Wired Science News

It’s always great to see such fundamentalism isn’t it? When a deeply religious person does such a wonderful job of promoting the peace and love of their religion it gives me such a warm feeling inside.

Has this IDiot never heard of such phrases as ‘Love thy neighbour’, ‘Do unto other as you would have others do unto you’, and – maybe most important of all – ‘Thou shalt not commit murder’. I must have missed the memo that reads ‘unless you’re a little upset, and you think some big nasty person is picking on you’.

Sheesh!