Tour & Sanford

This just happened. :open_mouth:

@Rumraket gets credit for calling it ahead of time.

Cage match?

Not sure what I am supposed to have ā€œcalledā€ here. It doesnā€™t appear to have been released yet in full, so it will be interesting to see whether Tour expresses any sort of opinion of his own on the matter or merely provides a platform to Sanford, or perhaps even plays a small game of occasional devilā€™s advocate.

That last point is rather moot of course since Tour have no qualifications to speak of to make him able to provide any sort of substantive rebuttal to Sanford.

Iā€™d be extremely surprised if Tour is going to be remotely combative with Sanford. Iā€™m sure heā€™ll toss him some questions that he might imagine some biologist make, but I doubt heā€™s going to press Sanford much on a field so outside of Tourā€™s own expertise as population genetics is.

You implied you think Tour doubts the evolutionary model

Iā€™m assuming he thinks Sanfordā€™s model has some merit, to risk getting flack for having him on his show. And based on being willing to say what he said in the last two seconds.

Yes definitely, but Tour is also very good at saying stuff that make people like @Swamidass incapable of understanding that, so I expect that trend to continue even as Tour provides a platform for Sanford to spread his misinformation.

We could imagine Tour say something like ā€œI take Genetic Entropy to be fundamentally undermining of the whole evolutionary biology projectā€, which might serve to convince Swamidass that Tour really is opposed to the whole thing and thinks itā€™s bs, but since heā€™s obviously not going to actually say that it just leaves people like you and me with the capacity to read between the lines to see what Tour is doing.

Notice Sanford says no one has disputed the model. Itā€™s not misinformation. Itā€™s a theory. Until someone disproves it, itā€™s science.

Is that true, though, Valerie?

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Is that really how it works?

Iā€™m sure if someone can, theyā€™ll start coming forward.

Idk, you tell me. Iā€™m just new at learning this game.

I have no further questions your honor.

His model, his H1N1 paper, his lifespan decay, have been plenty disputed here at PS as well as else where. As far as journal publications go, he is ignored not because he is irrefutable, but because he is insignificant and not worth the time and attention.

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Iā€™ve disputed it. @glipsnort has. Several scientists here have disputed it.

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In a technical paper, proving that the model doesnā€™t work?

If you publish a paper that says 2+2=5, do I really need to publish a response-paper that says itā€™s 4?

Are true and valid things found only in scientific papers and their citations?

If weā€™re all kindergartners and figuring out the world together, sure.

No. Sanfordā€™s claim is not a theory. Itā€™s a hypothesis which has already been refuted by the available scientific evidence. Until Sanford can supply an explanation for all that refuting data itā€™s a failed hypothesis.

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Yes. Itā€™s a hypothesis. Then someone should take the data and refute it in a paper. Isnā€™t that how science works?

Was that a yest or a no?

Sanford didnā€™t propose Genetic Entropy in a paper. He offered the idea in a popular press book. Until Sanford publishes his evidence in a peer reviewed scientific journal heā€™s just urinating into the wind with his Creation ā€œscienceā€.

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