Developing College-Level ID/Creation Courses

[Faizal_Ali]

Your mentor’s “Genetic Entropy” nonsense was pretty comprehensively debunked here:

STAN 4

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@stcordova

Dr. Sanford and I have tried to publish. The editors and reviewers confided that our conclusions were right, but gave other reasons for non-publication.

For the record, this could have happened. I know others doubt it, but Sanford has been published in secular journals before. In these papers, he makes focused and well supported claims.

@stcordova would you be willing to share the paper you are referring to here? What was the draft that was accepted? It would be great to see it. To the extent I think it is correct, I will make clear that I agree.

@stcordova

That doesn’t give ID or YEC a pass though, does it?

Agreed, and I didn’t know you left BioLogos.

Yes. They are struggling to work through both the GAE and the mistakes that Buggs uncovered too.

@stcordova

It’s responsible to teach the problems with YEC, and I intend to do that. There are serious problems with the theory from an evidential and theoretical standpoint.

It would be productive for you to list out the problems with YEC. This is something that might be a place to build common ground. In particular, I think @jammycakes’s critiques really deserves an answer. https://howoldistheearth.wordpress.com.

[Timothy_Horton]

@stcordova

Dr. Sanford laid out mainstream claims in here.

Sanford’s “genetic entropy” was based on his YEC beliefs that all creatures were created with “perfect” genomes 6000 years ago and which have been degrading ever since “the Fall”. It’s about as unscientific an idea as you can find and has already been completely rejected by science.

Why are you still arguing it here Sal?

[Faizal_Ali]

@stcordova

As far as Sykes:

Sounds like has a pretty strong record of being wrong about stuff, going by that Wikipedia link you provided. I see he is also an Abominable Snowman scholar.

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@stcordova

Other ID proponents do, but I don’t because I think that’s a mistake, and I’ve said ID proponents and creationists should stop quoting Axe’s 1997 work to generalize to all proteins.

ID proponents probably wouldn’t know what you are talking about. I bet Axe hisself wouldn’t.

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

@swamidass

@stcordova would you be willing to share the paper you are referring to here? What was the draft that was accepted? It would be great to see it. To the extent I think it is correct, I will make clear that I agree.

Yes, I’ll share it since it is on a public pre-print archive. FWIW, we got rejected from the BioRxiv preprint server.

Here you go, let me know if there are problems. The Supplemental tables were loaded in haste, but I have good copies of them.

Thank you sincerely for your interest:

Testing the Hypothesis That the Nylonase NylB Protein Arose De Novo via a...

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

I’m moving this part of the conversation to another thread.

[Timothy_Horton]

@stcordova

Here you go, let me know if there are problems. The Supplemental tables were loaded in haste, but I have good copies of them.

You implied above it was rejected due to your and Sanford’s YEC beliefs. Where is that in the paper?

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@stcordova

How many nonhomologous families of topoisomerases exist?

Depends what you mean by homologous. If you mean that share a common ancestor, that’s an open question since some papers propose independent origins of topoisomerases.

@stcordova I think the question is - how many totally unrelated sequence families can catalyze the topoisomerase reaction? Your slide show and arguments here seem to be insisting that the answer is one. If there are more than that, then your arguments about protein evolution here are invalid. Which would mean yet more corrections are needed.

I will ask again - how many totally unrelated sequences can catalyze the topoisomerase reaction?

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@stcordova

A major prediction of YEC theory, which on some level I wish were wrong, is the deterioration of the Human genome. My mentor, John C. Sanford articulated this in his book Genetic Entropy, and it is a testable prediction.

Yeah, according to Sanford, there cannot not possibly be any Hela cells left anywhere on earth.

@stcordova, when a mathematical model (like Sanford’s) does not agree with reality, the prudent thing to do would be to modify or toss out the model. Maybe you can give us some insight into modifications that have been (or are being) considered.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@stcordova

One major element of YEC theory is the fossil record was mostly the result of a flood cataclysm.

That hypothesis (not a theory) makes clear predictions.

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@stcordova

Yes, I’ll share it since it is on a public pre-print archive. FWIW, we got rejected from the BioRxiv preprint server.

Here you go, let me know if there are problems. The Supplemental tables were loaded in haste, but I have good copies of them.

Thank you sincerely for your interest:

Referring to Table 1, why only 1 psi-BLAST iteration? Why not just use BLASTP? How did you choose an e-value cutoff (or Expect threshold) of 10? (IMO, with this value, you are going to get many, many false positives.)

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@stcordova

Yes, I’ll share it since it is on a public pre-print archive. FWIW, we got rejected from the BioRxiv preprint server.

I don’t know the BioRxiv standards, but the preprint you shared, @stcordova, reads like a hit piece on Ohno. It is pretty rude and unprofessional. That is enough to reject it from most journals and other scientific venues.

[T.j_Runyon]

@John_Harshman

o is this “Brian Sykes

He’s a bit off.

[Faizal_Ali]

@swamidass

For the record, this could have happened. I know others doubt it, but Sanford has been published in secular journals before.

Oh, I know that, and I am also aware that he is capable of doing science competently when he does not feel it conflicts with his religious beliefs. However, I do not believe Sal’s insinuation (and I don’t think there is any reasonable doubt that he was making one) that the paper was rejected because it would have threatened the theory of evolution. Papers routinely have conclusions that are consistent with the data, but are still rejected because they area not considered significant or interesting enough to warrant publication. Just being able to perform an experiment without botching it does not guarantee publication, and this does not imply some pro-evolution conspiracy.

But most here know this, I’m sure.

[John_Harshman]

@stcordova

Now we’re talking.

No we aren’t. You have to respond in some way to the actual content of the post. Then we’d be talking.

@stcordova

But first, I did mention above about Sanford’s Genetic Entropy. That is a testable hypothesis.

Tested already in this very thread. Next.

[T_aquaticus]

@stcordova

On the other hand, we can demonstrate repeatedly Virchow’s principle “cells come only from pre-existing cells” repeatedly. That is experimental science.

You are saying that cells come from a supernatural deity. Where has that been observed?

[T_aquaticus]

@stcordova

I’m not looking at secular universities right now. There are churches, home schools, Christian academies, Christian colleges, and cyberspace.

In other words, you are looking for institutions that won’t look at your claims with a critical eye. That’s not a very good sign for your proposals.

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

Look what secular universities approve of now and what students pay tens of thousands for:

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/examples-of-pathological-idiocy-in-universities-especially-in-social-sciences-and-related-disciplines/

And yet, something like ID can’t be discussed fairly in a RELIGION and Philosophy department?