And now Bechly’s vewy, vewy angwy.
What slightly puzzles me is that I am named as one of the horrible people who “dominate[ ]” this forum, despite my having said absolutely nothing about Bechly’s strange challenge.
Congratulations to @Roy on Bechly attributing his remarks on this topic to the Dunning-Kruger effect. I can hardly think of a higher compliment than having that sort of insult so inappropriately lobbed at one by a person of this character.
While declining to join the discussion here, Bechly has written up a response: Silverswords Fail the Species Pair Challenge | Evolution News
Surprised to see my name first among the “hard core anti-ID activists” who “dominate” PS and “who are notorious for their vitriolic attacks against intelligent design proponents at other Darwinist forums like Panda’s Thumb”. Especially as I am hardly the most frequent commenter here.
This is pretty typical of how “debates” go with creationists of the ID variety. They will issue a “challenge” whose very premises betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues pertinent to the denial of evolution. And, in addition to this, the challenge itself is usually trivially easy to meet on its own terms.
That does not mean that the creationists will not resort to picayune complaints and disagreements over matters of terminology. And the discussion then gets bogged down in these while the more fundamental and basic misunderstanding is obscured.
This tactic is, of course, much easier to employ when the creationist is writing in a controlled forum with no opportunity for others to provide responses or corrections. And if the creationist can issue ad hominem broadsides against his interlocutors in the bargain, so much the better.
So Peaceful Science has become the place even angels fear to thread 
I see the goalposts have moved. What new proteins, tissues, or organs were involved in the transition from Pakicetus to Basilosaurus? (Excuse the sloppy language; of course this is not an ancestor-descendent sequence.) I predict that the goalposts will always be past any point you care to name.
I’m honestly not aware of any vitriolic attacks from you @Joe_Felsenstein.
But the issue, as I see it, is that commonly in these exchanges anti-ID arguments often get very personal and do not focus on the substantive. That doesn’t serve the science well. I’m not saying you specifically are guilty of this, but it is all too common. There is good science that shows personal attacks are unpersuasive, and it is empirical reality that it encourages the same. I wish that science advocates were better at following the science here, and took more seriously the real damage that the personal attacks and vitriol does.
True. But in this case, but that’s why we need to do better too.
Is anyone still in any doubt regarding the real reason Bechly won’t join the discussion here?
I found more interesting the claim that there were no new proteins in the plant radiation. That seems likely to be false, and perhaps @Art has some information to add.
Which only further demonstrates that Bechly is just making excuses to avoid a serious discussion that will show his argument to be worthless.
From Bechly’s reply:
You just have to skim through the comments in some of the threads to realize that there is not the slightest interest in a mutually respectful, fair, and unbiased discussion of arguments and evidence.
I’m trying to think of a significant ID or creationist site that allows any sort of discussion of arguments and evidence at all.
Sorry not to be sorry that I have zero tolerance for such behavior and will never waste my time in a forum that exhibits such a low level of intellectual integrity.
Solid plan. Much better to speak from a siloed site where Bechly gets the first, final, and only word, and enjoys the adulation of obsequious groupies.
What science? Where is Bechly’s science that anyone could be better at following? We have the nebulous concept of “body plan” and a fossil record that’s incomplete in multiple dimensions, of space, time, and preservational quality. And his criteria are mainly toward things that aren’t preserved in any case. Where is the “countercurrent exchange system” in Basilosaurus?
Yeah, the “new proteins” schtick was curious. I will post a response in a few days, after i clear my desk of a manuscript and grades. Coming attractions (maybe) - at least a cursory mention of ghastly sexual appendages in mammals…
@art, let me suggest you respond as an article at PS, not the forum, with a brief intro catching people up who are just now learning about the exchange. I think that’s the format Gunter prefers, and (bonus) it isn’t possible for that to be derailed by other commenters.
But, really, they don’t; especially not here. And the people whom Bechly targets in his remark are people who have taken pains to keep these discussions substantive. Felsenstein, Harshman, Hunt and Rumraket “vitriolic”? Who does he think he’s kidding?
As for myself, I am aware that some people find some of the things I say a bit provocative (though I think that “vitriolic” is a frankly silly term to apply to me), but for crying out loud: my reviews, which are the only thing I do which actually upsets these DI people, are often the only serious efforts to be found at Amazon at doing a FAIR and reasoned response to DI books. I’m not one of those people who just criticizes a book he hasn’t read, or criticizes something other than the argument the book actually makes, or criticizes these people on ideological grounds alone. And what does the DI do? It responds to these reviews, now and then, with outright dishonesty.
And yet I keep reading their damned books and I keep assessing each blasted one of them on its own merits, as though a great raging course of pseudoscientific garbage had not already scoured away every last bit of the DI’s credibility. The DI cannot stand somebody doing a decently objective job of critiquing its work. But the reason they can’t stand that has everything to do with the fact that the DI’s work is a horrifying imitation of science, designed to carry on a culture war, and nothing to do with any actual “vitriol” in the thing.
A great idea, and I look forward to the article if Arthur has the time to write it.
But you don’t seriously expect this to elicit an honest response from Bechly, do you?
I see no good reason to prejudge and pile upon a hypothetical response or non-response, nor do I see value in judging motives for hypothetical events.
Let’s see how it plays out and respond accordingly 
.
A more important point is the fact that the differences among the species of Hawaiian Silverswords are all related to different growth forms and allometric shifts of already existing structures. Even though the differences appear superficially striking, they do not involve any novel body plans (i.e., no new proteins, new tissues, or new organs)
Bechly has organ, protein, and tissue samples from Pakicetus and Basilosaurus he has compared? Looks like the goalposts achieved escape-velocity and left orbit!
Right, and if there is new proteins then it proves they couldn’t evolve and had to be intelligently designed because they also have some axiom that says new proteins can’t evolve(arguments from Douglas Axe, Brian Miller, etc.)
Remember their position on de novo genes? Evidence against evolution. If the plants don’t have new proteins then the plants aren’t different enough to meet the challenge, and if the plants do have new proteins then either the plants can’t have evolved and must be intelligently designed, or the proteins must be intelligently designed.
They have some bs excuse for why anything you come up with doesn’t count, and they’re often contradictory.
I think the point is strongest when it’s clear the objections are non-overlapping and cover all possible cases.
This case doesn’t count because there are no new proteins (but is that really true?)
This case wouldn’t count if there were new proteins, as new proteins de facto demonstrates that it was not by natural evolution.
For each and every case we might propose, then, either 1 or 2 must be a valid way of rejecting the example. All cases either involve (1) new proteins or (2) no new proteins. There really are no cases that do not meet one of these two criteria. Which then begs the question for me. It seems that this sort of back and forth very quickly becomes divorced from actual data. In the end, I wonder if it is just irrelevant if this is the reasoning we are facing.
It is intrinsically interesting to see what new proteins are part of this case, but I don’t know really how much that impacts the ID debate in question here.