Did Douglas Axe Disprove Evolution? Spoiler: No

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

You KNOW that’s not true, and another violation of the Ninth Commandment. You are grossly uninformed, so you have zero basis for judging anyone else as well-informed.

Your ONLY criterion is whether you want what someone else says to be true. You can’t even get yourself to look at the qualifications of those who don’t. Total hypocrisy.

Ah, so it’s reasonable to believe people who are trustworthy and well-informed?

What part of

@Mercer

You are grossly uninformed, so you have zero basis for judging anyone else as well-informed.

do you not understand?

@lee_merrill

You were saying recently that that is just “hear-say”.

No, I don’t use a hyphen. And I expect what people say to be backed up by evidence. You don’t use that criterion. Ever, at least here.

So, total hypocrisy.

@lee_merrill

And how do you know my exact motives?

I infer them from the incoherent things you write and your fear of evidence.

@lee_merrill

Like an atheist saying “I know there are no gods!”

Have any atheists here said that? If not, you are employing a straw man fallacy.

@lee_merrill

You know this, exactly, how? You have looked everywhere God might be, if he existed, everywhere, and all at once, and haven’t found him? That’s a claim of virtual omniscience, and omnipresence. You really should be worshipped, you supernatural being, you.

So now you’re literally accusing ME of saying that! That’s simply lying.

How did you become certain that anyone who disagrees with The Omniscient Lee Merrill must be an atheist? Walk us through that logic.

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

How is this in any way a refutation of my challenge?

I’m challenging you to stop being hypocritical.

But that’s not a refutation, either. It’s what’s known as an ad hominem.

No, it is not. As @John_Harshman pointed out, you’ve got it exactly backwards:

@John_Harshman

“We don’t believe you because you’re nuts” is ad hominem. “We think you’re nuts because you say absurd things” is not. See the difference?

If you can’t, just say so.

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

For starters, [Fred Hoyle’s] analogy reveals how little he knew, because I’m a geneticist and biochemist.

Do you mean his 747 analogy with the tornado? That wasn’t what I quoted, it was a quote about physics, and then a mention of chemistry and biology. There was no analogy there.

I didn’t say there was. You really have trouble with reading comprehension. I said that his analogy revealed how little he understood about biology.

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

And I don’t only do hearsay, I do try and investigate when I can,

You don’t go to the evidence. Your only “investigation” is regurgitating things you wish were true, regardless of source.

Ad hominem alert!

Nope. It’s what you do.

@lee_merrill

Also another claim of supernatural knowledge of my motives.

No, that was a description of your writing here.

@lee_merrill

as in when people here say “This paper shows thus and so!”

@lee_merrill

All right, here’s one:

“Which is just plain silly. Here’s an example of real OOL research:

Isoprenoids enhance the stability of fatty acid membranes at the emergence of life potentially leading to an early lipid divide - PMC ” (John Mercer)

And where, exactly, did I make any claims about what the paper showed, Lee? I simply pointed out that it’s real OOL research.

@lee_merrill

The discussion continued, and I said further: “One basic problem is that complex molecules go to pieces in the kind of temperatures found in hydrothermal vents.”

Then you have to explain how organisms with very complex molecules live there TODAY:

https://www.science.org/content/article/entire-ecosystem-lives-beneath-scorching-hydrothermal-vents

We all know you won’t.

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

Chesterton says the materialist explanation explains everything, yet it also in a real sense, leaves out everything. Like the madman’s explanation of reality! “The thing has shrunk”, as someone put it.

No evidence there, just more hearsay

Well, I also gave a quote from Dawkins,

More hearsay.

@lee_merrill

to illustrate Chesterton’s point,

More hearsay.

@lee_merrill

Dawkins says there is just “blind, pitiless indifference”, that is all.

More hearsay.

@lee_merrill

But strange to say, he starts out his argument by painting a picture of terrible animal suffering

More hearsay.

Do you not see there’s not a speck of evidence cited in anything you write?

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

Why do you completely disregard the diplomas (and more importantly, the expertise) of everyone with whom you disagree? Isn’t that just reiterating the same hypocrisy?

I don’t disregard them…

You most certainly do, utterly. I challenge you to support your claim that Axe deserves a 9/10 in my field. I challenge you to regard my qualifications and compare/contrast them with Axe’s.

All right, have you worked at Cambridge, or at a comparable institution?

Sorry, first we need to evaluate your initial claim that Axe is a 9/10, your burden of proof for that. But are you saying having merely “worked at” a prestigious place makes one a 9/10?

@lee_merrill

Have you published a paper that has had such scrutiny and held up for 20 years?

My last paper from my PhD thesis is still being cited 39 years later.

Axe’s paper hasn’t held up.

Ball’s in your court. You’re claiming that Axe is a 9/10 in my field, the effects of mutations on protein activity. Were you deliberately violating the Ninth Commandment when you wrote that? If not, show (with evidence) that he’s in the 90th percentile relative to everyone else in the field (we have metrics for that) and then we’ll talk about me. It’ll be fun, for me at least!

@lee_merrill

Actually, I do listen when people tell me an ion pump isn’t an ion channel. Or that Basilosaurus didn’t have a melon organ.

But you don’t listen when people tell you you’re wrong about complex molecules holding together in organisms that live in hydrothermal vents. If you’re right, they literally cannot exist today.

But you don’t listen when people tell you you’re wrong about what ATP does in living things.

And a host of other claims you’ve made.