Evidence for the integrity of the Discovery Institute

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

@Mercer

It’s not written by the experts who do the work.

Are you saying the writer of that article didn’t know what he was talking about?

It doesn’t appear that he knows much about the field from the text I quoted. But you’ve made progress–you now know that there was only one author!

@Eddie

If so, why did Nature print it?

It’s in the News section, touting a peer-reviewed article that apparently you couldn’t be bothered to read.

@Eddie

Doesn’t it exercise editorial control to make sure bad science doesn’t appear on its pages?

It’s news, not science. The science is in the article cited. You really should read the poo more carefully before you fling it.

I can see why you are so easily confused given how easily and how often you have been conned by IDcreationists. Don’t you get tired of them playing you?

@Eddie

Anyhow, given that origin of life isn’t your field of either training or publication, why should I trust your judgement about the article?

Nice straw man! I never said you should. I merely said that it was not written by the people who did the work.

The idea that I would attempt to advise someone who claims to know that Denton, who doesn’t even know that evolution produces trees, not ladders (the howler from his first book) has read much more about evolutionary biology than Francis Collins, but doesn’t even know that ribozymes are made of ribonucleic acid, is laughable.

You’re beyond hope.

@Eddie

But I don’t need the Nature News article. I can cite a major reference work: Encyclopedia of Evolution (ed. Pagel), Vol. 2, page 847 (under article “Origin of Life”, section “Origin of Replicators”). The article uses the term “RNA world” exactly as I use it, not as you use it.

The “you” in this context is plural and includes RNA biologists @Art Hunt and Tom Cech. The latter won a Nobel for another important piece of evidence that Meyer was far less than forthcoming about. It’s entertaining watching you digging a deeper hole.

@Eddie

You’re manipulating the phrase, altering its original meaning for your polemical purposes.

Tell that to Tom Cech:

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1989

The title is “Exploring the New RNA World.” It’s about how we still live in one, revealed by the very evidence you and Meyer lied about and omit. Just think of the embarrassment you would have saved yourself had you read this part:

Then, in 2000, the atomic-level picture of the ribosome emerged, showing the complex fold of the RNA molecules buttressed and supported by numerous proteins. One structure showed the site where amino acids are strung together into proteins (the peptidyltransferase center); it is in fact composed of RNA, with no proteins in the vicinity (1). This provides the most direct evidence yet that the ribosome is indeed a ribozyme, an RNA catalyst.

You:

@Eddie

I was not referring to the ribosome as a totality, but to peptidyl transferase, which you went on and on about. It’s an enzyme (an aminoacyltransferase enzyme to be exact), and enzymes are proteins, and proteins are biomolecules or macromolecules. My terminology was correct. It’s bad enough that you are a pedant who tries to catch people out on tiny “errors”, but a least you could be an accurate pedant.

Pretty stark, no?

@Eddie

I’m using it apolitically,

The idea that you do anything apolitically here is absurd.

@Eddie

I don’t intend to change my usage to match that of second or third tier biochemist whose field is not even origin of life.

So Nobel Laureate Tom Cech is third-tier? And your pretense of claiming walls between fields/expertise is laughable too, particularly for a pseudonymous armchair critic.

Or if you’re trying to assign a tier to me with no evidence, let’s compare and contrast my publication record with that of your hero, Behe.