I found the latest Gutsick Gibbon video, dealing with various considerations and basis approaches when comparing genetic similarities, to be quite interesting and moves along nicely. Much of it may be elementary to many participants in this forum, but Luskin would learn a lot.
Okay How Similar are Humans and Chimps Genetically Now That We Have Full Genomes?
How likely is it that this has never been explained to Luskin in his many years of arguing with evolutionists?
I predict that he will not learn a lot from that video. He’s had to actively not learn 10x more stuff to create his write-up.
Do we know that he ever argues with anyone in a public forum? We see his regular polemics against evolution, but never (that I know) in a space that allows anyone to argue.
You hit on an important point of which the regulars at Peaceful Science I’m sure are aware. All of the forums associated with the Discovery Institute are closed to outside comments. That is a huge tell. What is perhaps most annoying, IMHO, about Luskin and crew, is not the hubris on display, but the childish grandstanding that accompanies it…
But then Luskin must knowingly misrepresent the scientific evidence, and deliberately insinuate data is deliberately hidden when placed in a paper’s data section. How, how could he have such a utter lack of integrity? Next, the suggestion will be that he cynically timed his letter to capitalize on Trump’s executive order directed to the Smithsonian to exert political pressure to downplay evolution. Can, can someone really be that mendacious just in an attempt to become relevant again?
Also relevant is another of her videos: https://youtu.be/Cc-T6iZLpnU?si=RQaY94uqvps123JX
In that, she describes how the analyses of differences are playing out among some of the more honest Scientific Creationists. It’s basically conceding the point about the patterns of similarity and switching to ‘it doesn’t really matter’ reframing. It’s a pretty significant thing, finally admitting that the identification of Biblical “Kinds” is not something that can be resolved by sequence comparisons. This is mostly because humans and great apes will always cluster together tighter than species that they think belong to the same kind. That humans could be the derived from any other kind simply breaks the zeroth law of Creationism and therefore cannot be considered.
That is pretty much David Klinghoffer’s daily job at the DI.
Data hidden in plain sight. Pretty nefarious if you ask me….LOL
I’m pretty sure the childish grandstanding is the whole point - it’s all they’ve got.
I thought I useful follow up to my original post would be show what the new numbers for sequence divergence would be using Luskins faulty method. The most telling number would be the comparison between any 2 random humans. Right now that number is ~0.1% so consulted a paper from 2015 A Global Reference for Human Genetic Variation and using Luskins method got 0.8%. The thing is these sequences are not complete so I actually wrote to Evan Eichler to get an idea of the more current numbers but he hasn’t written back. The above comparison probably exluded the regions richest in non-functional SNPs and indels. My intuition is that the actually number would be as high at 2% which puts Luskins 14% claim in perspective
Oh the irony.
@dsterncardinale has posted a response video to Luskin, revealing his deliberate edits of figures in the original paper, to conceal intraspecies comparisons which essentially invalidate his argument.
I’m not a video kind of guy but I watched this one because I was skeptical that Luskin would literally edit a figure.
He edited a figure. Not just cropped: edited.
I’m surprised. I really am. Nothing more to add.
I’m not. He’s edited quotes: this is just the pictorial equivalent.
Let’s be even more clear what his edit consisted of: he DELETED inconvenient parts of the figure.
Deleted. Erased. Removed. He DELETED the data from view so his viewers couldn’t see it on the figure. He hid it.
To be precise Luskin removed some items from the figure - leaving no indication that he had done so. The parts he left are unedited and correct.
However, the bits he removed completely torpedo his argument - and can easily be seen to do so.
It’s basically a form of quote mining - removing context that contradicts the message that Luskin wants to send and hiding the fact that material has been removed.
They don’t call it the Dishonesty Institute for no good reason.
I propose we inaugurate a new scientific unit of ‘misinformation’, the ‘Luskin’, which is proportional to the number of bits (or facts) deleted to erase inconvenient or contradictory data.
To be honest, the unit could also be named the ‘Klinghoffer’ or the ‘Cordova’, but I think we should give it to the person with a Ph.D., i.e. someone with the training and certification to know better but chose to ignore all that.
Excellent idea. However, I wonder—in view of the very large numbers to be expressed—if the Luskin Scale should be logarithmic.
Hi Faizal
I don’t think the % DNA is a strong argument for or against common ancestry. It is an easy trigger to try and convince those who don’t understand the issues. The spin here is owned by both creationists and evolutionists who use it for their argument for or against primate common ancestry.
An odd thing to say, since you have never understood the issues and in fact have frequently used percent similarity as a guide to what you’re willing to acept as common descent. As I recall, you were willing to agree that all crocodiles were related because you were under the mistaken impression that they were all less than 1% different, and when corrected on this point you rejected common descent for them.